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Quess knows the layout of her and Mineva’s ship like a normal person might know their own house. It’s gotten to the point that she can navigate it with her eyes closed, and believe her, she’s done it. Tugged herself across from stern to stem, fingers lightly gracing the edges of the cramped corridors as she floats along and makes a game out of it. Something to keep her occupied in the long and lonely hours when Mineva had to sleep, and she was the one who stayed up to perform some maneuver or another to keep themselves on course to whatever their destination happened to be.
This time it’s the mining colony in Tau Ceti, their hard bargained ship bringing along a cargo bay full of industrial machinery for the miners. An expansion in the making, for whomever the corporate sponsor is (Quess doesn’t remember and never cared). And with that, they’d return to Earth with a belly full of ore from the stellar debris ridden system before picking a new star to drift to.
Not a glamorous job, to be sure. Not even a particularly well paid one, all things considered. But it still paid. It kept their little kitchen stocked, water filled, fuel topped off, debt at bay, and ship in good repair. Every job meant a new lease on their life here in space, one she’d never, ever take for granted.
Least of which because of her company.
“How’s it looking?” Quess asks as she arrives at the cockpit, eyes on her girlfriend. Mineva is tapping a pencil’s eraser to her lips, staring down at a notepad as Quess enters. She jumps a little when she hears Quess’ voice, ‘dropping’ the pencil and letting it spin up and away from her in the weightlessness of the cabin. Quess seizes it with a lazy reach out, letting it fall upwards into her hand. Never pays to act quickly around ship controls, even with most of them disengaged mid warp. “Scared you?”
“A little… Apologies. You’re up earlier than I thought you’d be.” Mineva tucks back a strand of her hair, a small smile growing on her face. She holds her hand out for the pencil, which Quess returns with only the most reasonable repayment of a short kiss, extended by microseconds as Mineva’s lips chase Quess’ as she pulls away to buckle herself into her copilot seat. “I missed you.”
“Missed you too.” Quess takes Mineva’s hand, squeezing it as tight as her suit can let her. Always important to suit up for a maneuver. Just in case. “Beds yours, when we’re back to accelerating.”
“I’d rather share. But… I know how this works.” Mineva sighs, tapping the eraser to her lips again as she nervously stares at the readouts. At least she’d graduated from chewing on them; just another anxious stim she’d grown from, sped along with every light year spent between her and the next Zabi. “Ready to start, then?”
With a nod, Quess lifts up her helmet from beneath her seat, sealing it in place over her head as Mineva does the same. The most dangerous part of space travel was coming up, after all.
“Exiting warp…” Mineva’s voice crackles over the short range radio as sucks in a breath, her hands flying across the console. Quess sticks to her job this shift; watching the dials, ready to call out if anything dips below what it should or rises above where it shouldn’t.
It all reads green, as the ship shudders back below light speed. Still relativistic, to be certain, which only adds to the danger. Outside of the safety of a warp bubble, micrometeorites could collide at any moment, and likely actively are even as they speak. They only had a certain amount of time before it added up to something dangerous.
Mineva, as always, navigates the danger like an angel dancing upon the tip of a needle, the ship shuddering only slightly as its main thrusters turn.
“Positive 47°, by negative 15°. Coreward reads 271°.” Quess recites, staring at the dials as they dance up and down as the ship rights itself. She shakes her head just slightly, making a mental note to check the thrusters when they arrive in Tau Ceti. It was drifting too far to the left and up; likely the second from the top right thruster misfiring. Again.
With a hum in acknowledgement, Mineva sets their new course, before her hand drifts back to the engagement switch for the still humming warp drive. “Ready to engage?”
“Absolutely.” Quess grins to herself, before settling back into her seat. With another hefty lurch, the ship’s warp bubble reengages, and the thrusters begin their long acceleration back to speed. They’d make it to Tau Ceti within the month, at this rate. Which meant around a week before they’d have to start retroburning and slow this thing down. That would be the real scary part, even in a warp corridor. When everything really could just… fall apart. “Bleh…”
“Worried about my flying?” Mineva teases, unbuckling herself from her pilot seat. With a practiced push off with her left foot, she glides over to Quess’ seat, wrapping her arms around her neck and settling into a lazy spin around her, a moon of her own, a resplendence to outshine the stars.
“Never.” Quess' hands slide over Mineva’s hips, before pulling her down into her lap. It wasn’t the most secure of places to be, during an acceleration, but they’d make an exception. Just this once. Again. “Just… waiting for the other shoe to drop on all this.” Quess groans a little as Mineva furrows her brow, giving her that look. “Don’t say it, I know it’s silly.”
“It is silly.” Mineva whispers, leaning her head forward for her helmet to ungraciously bonk against Quess’. “And I’m not saying it to shame you. Just to remind you that this is real.”
“I know.” Quess chuckles softly beneath her breath, before unbuckling herself. Shrugging off the harness to allow them both to float through the cabin together. They had time before the acceleration needed to be stopped, after all; it’s not like they were in the military. A few inefficiencies could be forgiven…
As the two dance in the small yet meaningful space they’ve made here, as they hurtle through space outside the purview of any sun’s gravity.