“That is IT! This is the last time that I get thrown around like a threebits dice in a can! For God’s sake, woman, when you have passengers you don’t—”

  “I saved your life!”

  “You are a smoking crash hole, that’s what you are, Lidas. You are absolutely irresponsible and—”

  “That was Draith Rejadda! If any pirate is to be taken seriously, it’s him! Most of them I would have laughed at, but that bastard—”

  “You will NOT cut me off!”

  The crew, and Jet, hid in the Lounge like a bunch of kids listening to their parents argue. They glanced at each other warily, their silent winces agreeing that Robert Salmela’s anger was real, though irrational. He was a spoiled man, used to comforts, and didn’t want to hear about reality. He just wanted things his way.

  If he had to make them his way by force, he would.

  “This is not the first time you’ve endangered passengers, cargo… there’s other contractors out there, you’re not our only choice!” A pause as he stared her down, and evidently didn’t get the reaction he was after. “That’s IT! Consider this your last contract with Makardian!”

  Shortly afterward, Sal stormed out of the bridge and went back to his room. He locked the door and pretty much didn’t come out for the rest of the trip.

  When he was gone and it was quiet, Jet looked at the young crew, the expressions of regret on their faces. They tried to hide it; went about their work, went back to their business like nothing had happened. But they all sensed that this was the end of their acquaintance. He’d never see them again.

  “Jet,” Rion called to him, “might want to go upstairs. We rigged a Still harness for you in the upper cargo.”

  “A Still harness?” Jet felt immediately uncomfortable.

  “We’re about to make a Crossing. We’ve reached the edge of the system, and the Captain wants to get out of here before that pirate comes back.”

  Kory, another one of the kids who didn’t talk much, saw his expression and took pity on him. “It’s alright. This is just a normal Still. Not an emergency one. It’s going to be a lot smoother. Well… I mean it will be… um… there won’t be a pirate this time.” His attempts to comfort him were sadly unconvincing.

  Jet went back up to the upper cargo hold and saw that they’d rigged some of the cargo boxes into a large seat, with cargo padding for upholstery, and cargo straps for a harness. There were a couple of new garbage bags tucked into some cargo netting nearby.

  “The Ancestors hate me,” Jet groaned when he saw the bags.

  ‘Don’t worry!’ Keeri appeared. She had been showing up of her own volition a lot more often lately; Jet was starting to wonder if she had a setting he could turn off to stop her from making so many spontaneous appearances.

  ‘This should be a normal Still. It’s not going to be as… well.’ She stopped herself. ‘It’s still going to be pretty bad,’ she admitted, gazing off into thin air as she accessed some kind of data. ‘But, worst of all, I’m going to lose Stelnet.’

  “What does that mean?” Jet went to the improvised chair dutifully and strapped himself in, giving the barf bags a resigned glance of suffering.

  ‘I won’t disappear don’t worry,’ she said chipperly. ‘I just won’t be able to access any information I don’t already have stored in your Account, and I won’t be able to continue sending tracking information to Makardian.”

  He winced. He’d forgotten she was doing that.

  “How long will we be out of communication?” Jet wasn’t too worried. Having constant access to the information network of the human Alliance was a new thing for him. He’d gone most of his life without it.

  ‘Just until we get close to another Alliance world, or a world like Matrodonosian which hosts a Stelnet relay. In fact, even a strong space lane will do; that’s how the Stelnet is broadcast, you know. Along the space lanes.’

  “Huh.” Jet wasn’t really listening. He was actively trying to ignore Keeri now, because she was dressed in something cute and curvy. Jet started to seriously think about turning her off and switching back to the floating logo. He thought he understood now why most people didn’t use ‘companion’ mode.

  “Keeri, has there been any reply to my letter?”

  When he and Sal had first arrived at Matrodonosian, Sal had sent the letter to Jet’s father and brother, as he had promised.

  ‘It’s only been three days, Jet,’ Keeri told him gently. ‘Give it time.’

  “Just wanted to check before we lost Stelnet.” He sighed. The reply to that letter was the only thing he would really miss. “How long are we going to be cut off?”

  ‘I have no idea,’ she said cheerfully, sitting on the edge of a cargo box and crossing her legs pertly. ‘Really, I have no idea where we are going, or what we will be doing there. Or what your actual job is, or why Makardian needed you stealthed. It’s pretty ominous, I’ll be honest.’

  You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

  Jet closed his eyes and leaned back into the chair, feeling stressed. Life had been so much simpler back at the Resort… he wouldn’t go back of course, not to that hell of toil and pain, but deep down something within him was missing the nightly song around the junkyard bonfire and the golden stars.

  Remembering the freedom of the vaulted atmosphere, the feeling of the warm sea wind on his wings, made him feel claustrophobic. Trapped in a tin can in the middle of an endless vast nothing. It made his wings ache.

  The cargo lift rose. Squeeze was the one it lifted into the middle of the hold with a grin. “Hey, Jet! They said to let you know we’re about to go. Do you want to be sedated? Seira said to ask that.”

  He seriously thought about it. “You know what, this first time I won’t. Mostly because I already lost my lunch. I want to see how bad it is.”

  “It’s easiest for me to be able to look out a window,” Squeeze admitted. “But there’s no windows up here and the Captain wants you strapped in securely.” He thought for a second. “You know what, you have Stelnet, right?”

  “Definitely, yes.” He couldn’t help sounding a touch exasperated.

  “That’s so fade. Most Bruskers don’t have stuff like that.” He sounded distinctly jealous.

  “Fade?”

  “Oh… um… really amazing. It’s slang.”

  “You don’t have an Account?” Jet was surprised. A kid raised in space? No Stelnet?

  “No. Bruskers believe that getting cybers takes away your soul, so they don’t get any. Not even a simple cornea implant. Akiir doesn’t want us to get one at all. But Lidas got one… but she says I’m too young. Me, Rion, and Sand aren’t allowed to get an implant until we’re eighteen.” He definitely sounded bitter about that. “Anyway; I can ask if your Account can interface with the ship’s maps, and it can make a window for you. If the Captain says it’s okay, of course.”

  Jet frowned, thinking about that, but he nodded.

  Squeeze went back down the lift to ask permission. He returned a few minutes later. “Captains says it’s fine! We’re not going anywhere top secret or anything. We’re just going to Sarrik.”

  “Where’s that? Is that a planet?”

  “No! That’s a claven!”

  “What’s a claven?”

  Squeeze just stared at the Bantan in disbelief. “Serious? You don’t know what a claven is?” He shook his head. “Well, I guess you’ll find out. We’re about to start. We’re going to be Stilling for a while; it’s going to be in stages. We’ll Still for a while, maybe fifteen minutes, then stop while Chade checks all the Nav maps and makes sure we’re on route. Then we’ll go again. It’ll take all day.”

  “All DAY!” Jet almost threw off the harnesses in a panic, thinking he’d run down to the bridge to somehow beg for mercy. But he stopped himself, and seriously reconsidered sedation.

  He was pretty sure that after enduring the pirate chase, Sal was getting sedated right now.

  The lights on the ship suddenly switched to a blue and white, the lights chasing one another.

  “That’s the signal! I gotta get down to my seat!” Squeeze said, and hit the ‘down’ button on the lift. He was gone before Jet could say anything.

  Too late now. He gripped the cargo straps anxiously and looked at Keeri with a pleading glance.

  ‘I’ll do my best to make it easy on you,’ she promised, still perched on her box with her wings making a cute little X behind her. With a gesture, a great window appeared in the middle of the room — clearly a Stelnet holo. It showed the stars all around them, silent and steady. Stars didn’t twinkle out in space. They just stared, like hard accusing eyes.

  ‘According to what I can research, they say it’s like… well it’s like an old roller coaster.’

  “What’s that?”

  She rolled her eyes. ‘You really need to get educated, Jet. It’s an old entertainment that humans came up with. They’d build crazy rail courses with loops and corkscrews, and send people down them at insane speeds strapped inside a little cart.’

  “Humans did that? For fun!?” He exclaimed in dismay. “Sounds like the Matrodonosian taxi system…”

  ‘Hang on; it’s starting.’

  Jet grabbed all of the bags and clenched them in one fist, hanging onto the straps for dear life itself.

  It wasn’t as bad. But it was bad.

  The stars began to slide upwards. It felt like the ship was hanging from a great long chain, and swinging an unimaginable long distance in one great arc. Then at the top of the arc, it shifted; the ship swung sideways. Or the universe spun sideways. Or something. He couldn’t understand what was happening and looking at the stars doing pirouettes wasn’t helping much.

  Jet shut his eyes and just tried to endure it. The long, slow swings were easier than the battle-Still had been, but still disorienting and soon he was feeling queasy.

  “What kind of devil engine is this?!” Jet demanded loudly. “What great demon invented this hell!??”

  Keeri shrugged and sighed. She still sat on the box, unaffected by gravity. ‘We honestly don’t know. By ‘we’ I mean those who run the Stelnet, mostly humans. There’s a lot of theories on how a Stilldrive works…’

  “I didn’t ask for a history lesson, Keeri!”

  She looked down, defeated. ‘I’m sorry, Jet. I can’t really help you. They say you get used to it, eventually.’

  He endured. He sweated. He choked. He managed to not throw up for the first Still segment.

  When the ship finally stopped moving so that Navigation could check their bearing, Jet couldn’t stand it. He told Keeri to call Seira.

  The skinny, pale girl in the gray suit (was she even twenty years old?) rose into the room on the lift within a few minutes. She’d brought her medic kit, anticipating him. With a wan smile the first thing she said was, “feel like taking a nap?”

  “YES,” he exclaimed.

  She chuckled as she slid the medic duffel to the floor, opened it and dug around until she found the big syringe. She pointed it at him, and Keeri tensed a little, her gaze unfocusing as she did computer things. ‘Asking permission to access your medical data, including height and weight.’

  “Granted,” he said gruffly.

  A little light came on on the syringe, and Seira adjusted it to his mass. “I know it’s hard at first. It’ll get easier over time. I like to think of it like flying… flying through the stars. If you imagine that, swooping and gliding like a bird, it’s a lot easier to enjoy it.”

  “ENJOY it?” He was incredulous.

  “I’ve been Stilling for years, ever since we got our own engine. Eventually you do get used to it. Some of the old-timers even think its fun.” The girl approached, and touched the tip of the syringe to his arm. He felt a tingle and a feeling of intense cold, and the burning of the medicine for a moment.

  Stepping back, she smiled. “Give it a few minutes. You might want to strap yourself in to your cot.”

  “Thanks, Seira,” Jet said with real gratefulness.

  When she left he did exactly as she’d said; he was already starting to feel sleepy. With heavy limbs he climbed into the cot (it was too soft and he didn’t like sleeping in it, but there weren’t straps on the floor), and as he lay back and drifted slowly into unconsciousness his mind wandered to his father and brothers.

  Three of his brothers were enslaved. One was with dad, the middle son, Jan. The biggest of them. Jan had always been the one that would throw Jet around, and then beat up on the oldest, Kermar. Jan and Dad had fought well on the family’s last day. When the warriors had taken them, they’d kept Jan and his father Thudar to be guards.

  He and Kermar and Nareth had been sold to different places. He hadn’t heard from Kermar or Nareth since.

  ‘Someday,’ he thought as everything faded to black, ‘I am going to find my brothers, and father. And I am going to buy them out. Somehow.’