Our method of transport from Puck’s ship to Kiasis’ did not fill me with a feeling of security. Even though I knew it was a standard practice for boarding between ships, it seemed to me that there should have been a more secure procedure.
Puck’s ship moved into docking position, with the circular boarding hatch lined up with the other ship’s. the other ship then deployed what they called a transition tunnel. In reality, it was a tiny length of plastic tubing. Not even hard plastic, either; when I heard Puck step out into it, there was a distinct crinkling noise. Once he was t hrough he turned to look at me expectantly. “You coming…?”
Instead of answering, I just stared down at the floor of the plastic death trap that awaited me. I wondered vaguely if I could possibly take a running jump and just dive through without putting my weight onto what appeared, at least to me, to have no more substance than a plastic baggie.
“Come on, kid, we can’t hold this position all day. We eventually have to keep moving.”
Taking a deep breath, I gingerly put one foot out into the tunnel. I felt it sag, and it was all I could do to force the other foot to follow. The surface dipped nauseatingly under my feet, and I looked down before I realized what an extraordinarily bad idea that would be.
I could see the infinity of space looming beneath me, just waiting to suck me out into the void at the slightest tear in the flimsy construct. I froze.
“Come on, princess.” Puck leaned over, stretching halfway into the tunnel to offer me his hand. “it’s only a few steps, you can make it. People do it all the time.”
I closed my eyes. Scared as I was, I ignored the offered hand. I wasn’t going to have someone hold my hand like a baby for an activity that other people completed regularly without batting an eye, the way Puck had. I took first one slow, hesitant step. Then another. The tunnel dipped and swayed beneath me, although in retrospect it probably seemed much worse in my mind because I was so sure the whole thing was going to collapse under my weight. Another blind step…and then another….and another….
…and then I was tripping over the edge and stumbling into something soft and smelling vaguely of some sort of scented soap.
“You can probably open your eyes now, princess.” Even without seeing his face, I could tell he was grinning, and I briefly considered kicking him in the shin when my stomach stopped churning. Feeling a little foolish, I opened my eyes and took my first look around the new ship.
It was narrower than Puck’s had been. Puck’s ship had evidently been built for long distance travel, equipped with two full sized, plush bunks, a food preparation area, and just about every other creature comfort one could think of. This ship, hwoever, was all but bare compared to Puck’s luxurious accommodations. Logically, the interior of the ship was narrower, proportionate to the outside. There was a very small food synthesizer, the cheap kind that made everything taste faintly of egg, built into one wall near a wall mounted bunk that was currently folded up into its storage position. On the other side of the cabin, there was what I supposed was a small meditation mat, although it looked less like a comfortable mat and more like a thick rug to me. Aside from that, there were various control panels lit up on the walls, but nothing else that could even remotely be called furnishings.
Puck must have noticed how underwhelmed I seemed. “Yeah. This is pretty much….it, I’m afraid.”
“This ship was engineered for speed and strength of offensive movements,” a terse voice came to the quick defense of the asceticism of her ship. It was possibly the most words I’d ever heard her string together at a time. “I fail to understand why humans are so frequently surprised by the practicality of its design.” She was taller than me, now that I saw her standing, possibly even a bit taller than Puck. That was about the extent of of what I could discern about her appearance, though, since that cowl that had hidden her face almost completely since I’d first seen her was attached to a cloak that did much the same for the rest of her body. It hung in thick folds around her frame, falling all the way to the floor to cover even her feet from view.
Puck grinned. “It’s nice to see you too. Kiasis, this is Holly. Princess—“
“I wish you’d stop calling me that!”
“—this is Kiasis. Ki, why don’t you take that cloak off? It’s starting to creep me out a little, not being able to see your face.”
With that cloak hiding pretty much all of her, I had half come to believe there must be some reason she was hiding herself behind it. A horrible disfigurement, perhaps, or at the very least a healthy dose of just plain ugly. Once the cloak was off, though, I had to consider the possibility that she wore it just to keep people from staring at her the way I was staring right now. She wasn’t so much pretty as she was striking, pale skin standing out against her black flightsuit. Deep brown hair fell in irregular layers around a face with features so sharp they could have cut glass, and dark, almond shaped eyes that seemed to see right through me simply because I most likely wasn’t good enough to be actually seen.
When her eyes focused on me, I felt myself shiver. Her voice was flat and slightly disdainful. “You look like your mother.” With that proclamation, she turned back towards the cockpit of the shuttle, retaking her seat and dismissing me from her notice completely.
Puck glanced down at me with a wry smirk. “She likes you, I can tell. C’mon, kid, let’s see if we can find you something else to wear besides that ugly uniform.” Grabbing me by the elbow, he tugged me towards the rear of the ship.
