miner miracle
E X P L O D I N G H O R I Z O N S
Large, dark eyes followed the form of Enaldn Baig as he moved around the small galley of his freighter. A pleasant smell emanated from the griddle where Baig had eggs and sausages frying. Andromeda had offered to cook; she knew how, and it was the least she could do to help for the services Baig was rendering, but he had insisted that it was all included in her fare. Andy suspected that he didn't like the idea of a stranger prowling around his galley. Baig rounded the corner out of the kitchen area with a steaming plate, which he placed down in front of her. "'Reet, lass," Baig said, hooking his thumbs in his suspenders. "We'll be arrivin' to your jeedee friends in aboot an hour, so make ready your kit after breakfas', eh?"The man spoke in a dialect that Andy had never heard, but she had learned quickly. "Yes, Captain. Thank you for breakfast." He regarded her curiously, then nodded and turned to head for the cockpit. He didn't eat with her; for the whole week of their journey, he never had. Perhaps he was afraid of her power, too, like the people on Irvulix. He needn't have worried. Andy had not been able to replicate the feat that had occurred in that collapsing mineshaft. If she hadn't felt it herself, that massive surge of something within her. An official at the secret space pad called it the curse; a worker refueling the ship had called it dark magic; the mine chief who had smuggled her out of the mine in a bodybag had called it the Force. If it was truly the curse, the dark magic, then it meant Andromeda was somehow a part of the destructive force that had so polluted and destroyed Irvulix, or rather that it was part of her.
If she wans't so hungry, she thought she might be sick. Andy's gaze followed Baig until his shadow disappeared, and she sighed quietly before picking up her fork and began to eat. The food onboard was better than anything she had tasted back home. She thought anything would be better than the mush of oats and grains and the occasional berries that made up the food supply of their village, bartered with scraps from the mine. She had never tasted eggs before, though on feast days and special occasions there had been chicken and sometimes meat, but it wasn't half as flavorsome or rich as the sausage. If it weren't so good, it might make her feel guilty to be eating something so good, even as her community dug itself out of a mining disaster and sate the mushy slop that sustained them.
At least the caff tasted the same: like dirt.
Andy pushed the painful thoughts of home and of curses aside. She had to remember that Irvulix was over now. She was never permitted to return, and her family and the village would never know what had truly become of her. The mine chief said he would tell them all that she had died in the mine collapse, body too mangled to be displayed for funeral. Her heart gave a painful squeeze at that, and the young woman pushed it down again. It was the past, now. She had the future to contend with. Andy hurried through her breakfast, shoveling eggs and sausage into her mouth and then draining the caff now that it had been cool enough to drink. She gathered her dishes and washed them in the galley before returning to her quarters to pack the few things that she had to her name. A few changes of clothes, an ancient commlink, a small pouch containing some coins that the mine chief had called credits. The rest of the galaxy, he had explained, mostly didn't barter the way those on Irvulix did. They sold things for these credits, and then used the credits to buy other things.
She shook some of the coins out onto her palm, studied them curiously. They didn't look valuable. They weren't even particularly shiny. Andy put them back into the pouch, tied it tightly, and then slipped it into her pocket and continued her inventory. A journal and a pen, within which was contained a photograph taken at her eighteenth birthday -- a special gift for a special occasion -- showing her, surrounded by her mother and father and her two surviving brothers. Her eldest brother had died in a mining mishap. No hope that he had survived and was cast out like Andy was; his body was in tact enough to be shown at the funeral. A small toolkit, but she held that back. She had some unfinished business to attend to.
The remains of a pit droid sat on the low bunk. Baig had said she could have it, since it was broken. She had managed to reactivate its processor, photoreceptor, and vocalizer, and reconnected its motivator to its legs. The arm connectors worked, after repairing some scoring there, but the arms were missing and would have to be replaced. Andy had worked with droids back home, enough to know her way around a spanner and a driver. She reached over and touched the control under the droid's flat-cap head. It shuddered awake and its head swiveled to her. "Oh! Welcome back, Guest."
"Hello," Andy said quietly as she picked the droid up. "I re-set your left leg socket. Want to give it a try?" She set the droid on the deckplate by the bunk, taking its place on the bed.
The droid's head gave a jerky swivel to look down at its legs, then lifted its leg, first at a right angle, then extending it fully straight. The droid's head jerked up to her again, its single photorecptor glowing faintly at Andy, and it monotoned: "It appears to be working. Excellent. What about arms?"
"I didn't find them," Andy said apologetically. "Maybe captain Baig can trade some of those coins for some."
"Buy them?" the droid asked, its flat-cap head jerking into a head tilt that Andy chose to see as endearingly curious.
Andromeda bit her bottom lip briefly, then nodded. "Buy them," she agreed. Buy, not trade coins for.
She brushed her teeth and hair and then packed up her toiletries, tucking the kit into her backpack, then picked it up and carried it to the exit ramp. The droid ticked along behind her, feet clanking gently along the metal deckplates, as they made their way toward the cockpit. Baig was lounging in the pilot's seat, his feet up on the navigator's chair, coffee in one hand, a datapad in the other. He looked up as Andy and the droid approached, straightening, putting his feet on the floor. Andy hardly noticed; she was drinking in the beautiful, terrible mottle of light beyond the viewport. Darkness and light, mixing and shifting. Stunning. Terrifying.
"Look'a'that," Baig said, gesturing with the datapad toward the droid. Finally breaking the spell and getting Andy's attention. "Good work, lass."
Andy smiled shyly. "It won't start asking about arms. You may be able to b-buy some."
"'S your droid, lass, you buy'im arms."
She hesitated. "I thought since he was working now you might want him back."
Baig made a whistling sound through his teeth. "Nah. We'ad a deal. Besides, I don't need'im anymore, and -- " He broke off when a trilling alarm went off on his control panel. "We'll be coming out of hyperspace soon. Have a seat there if you want to watch." He gestured to the spot where his feet had been resting, and she hauled herself into the swiveling seat. She leaned on the armrest, looking around the co-pilot's chair to watch. A moment later, the ship made a whining sound and then the mottle of hyperspace became lines of light, which became singular points of light.
Stars. Suns, each of them, she had learned over the last few weeks. Each a system which might have a world that could sustain life and a civilization.
But ahead of them was a large... shape. Like a giant pyramid stacked on top of another giant pyramid's mirrored base. A section at the center glowed in the dimness of space. "What's that?" Andy whispered faintly, her dark eyes wide with apprehension. She had watched the departure from Irvulix, watched the world go from flat expanse to curve to ball in space to faint smudge in the distance. But it had been a world, and she was on a ship, and what was hanging in space ahead of them was something entirely foreign.
"That? It's a ship, where you'll be able to find some help," Baig said absent-mindedly. He touched a control and began to speak. Andy thought for a moment he was asking her for clearance to land, but that was nonsensical. He carried-on this conversation for a few moments as his ship drew closer to the pyramid-thing, and soon it filled the viewport.
"By the Light," she murmured breathlessly, leaning forward to see ifs he could find the edges. She could not. There were noises and shudders and then finally the engines powered down.
"'Reet, lass, here we go." Baig stood and Andy followed suit, letting Baig lead her down the hallway. The droid followed behind her. Andy said nothing, but she felt herself gulping for air, anxiety clutching at her chest. Baig glanced at her sidelong, then offered a hesitant pat on her shoulder. "You're alreet, lass. These are good, decent folk, so I've heard. They're not out'a hurt ya." Andy closed her eyes against welling tears, only nodded stiffly in response. She swallowed a few times, the lump in her throat eventually lowering to the point that she felt she could speak again.
"Would you -- come with me?" Andy asked quietly. She glanced at him abashedly out of the corner of her eye.
"'Course I will," said Baig. "Not to worry, lass."
He reached over and touched a control panel, and the ramp unsealed with a hiss and lowered. Andy picked up her bag, slinging it over her shoulders and, after a deep breath, started down the ramp with Baig at her side. Andy kept her head lowered, careful on the ramp and her feet until they got to flat flooring. Only then did she raise her eyes and look around. A myriad of ships were organized around the space, with people in the distance moving around, doing things Andy couldn't quite make out. "What is this place?" she breathed, lifting her gaze to the ceiling of the hangar. It seemed impossibly high, like the sky on Irvulix. She had been comforted by the low ceilings of Baig's ship; it reminded her of the mines, of the cramped quarters of her family home in the village. This -- well, this was something else entirely.
