Magenta
Chronicles of Xanctu
Previously in Chronicles of Xanctu
She walked away from Access Control, leaving the DRAKLIKA-62XC floating in the illuminated space-dock behind her. Beneath her feet, subtle vibrations told her that the ship had disengaged from the orbital and was slipping silently into the past. In her mind’s eye it waved good-bye to her with its retracting umbilicals, but she didn't look back. Flinging her hair over her eyes to cover the shine, her mood matched the scratching sound of her boots on the sticky flooring of the Orbital’s low-G zone.
“Droosh't transfer. Fucking node-head decision," she muttered.
"I cannot process regret. You’re still breathing, aren’t you?" responded Chron, consistently insolent.
Although the navbot was now her only friend, she ignored it. The Drak had been home. It had contained her career and her social life, and it had just marooned her on Starbuoy, the coldest, darkest orbital of them all. She was dead-ended on a Merkan port serving the outer reaches that featured in jokes about unhappy transfers.
"Joke's on me this time", she muttered, not caring if she got heard.
"For sure!", replied Chron, tilting slightly to realign its trajectory in the low-G of the lobby.
She gave it no answer, intent on the Pterryxi trooper in the articulated armor at the access into the orbital’s main elevator hub.
"It's a freak parade!", offered Chron, programmed to be amusing, but failing.
"Tell it to get out of my fucking way...", she replied, coming to a stop in front of the armored suit that was crowding the access door. Coming up close, she shot her best glare through its clouded faceplate. It towered above her for a moment too long. Then, as if receiving some kind of signal, it backed up. She hesitated long enough to let the suit know she wasn’t going to be bullied, then bounced past it to the door’s access node and punched Y319. To her relief it irised immediately ; “Transportation elevator opened to Y319. Please board now.”
She stepped in and the door hissed closed, leaving the trooper behind. Chron attached itself to a nearby handhold and they hung on as it ascended up the orbital’s main hub. The platform was fast, rising three hundred levels quickly enough to make her gasp when it slowed down. The walkway they found themselves at was comparatively slow and crowded, and she had no other option other than to let more aggressive personnel push past. Chron hovered and followed, while she made her way along the red strip towards Fleethome.
The corridor eventually deposited them at a zero-G, eight-way, transit junction. The red strip pointed her upwards and sideways, towards Fleethome. But the unfamiliar air of the Orbital made her nauseous, or maybe it was the constantly changing gravity zones. It didn’t matter.
"How far still?"
“I’m sorry, Xelexnia. There’s null feed. I’m unable to access local services. It’s boring.”
“Then shut the fuck up while I figure it out”, she snapped back, attracting negative attention from a diminutive humanoid in a blue coverall, who marched off up the wall, its small legs working furiously in the zero-G of the curl.
“Access was right. It’s a freak parade!”
Some hundred paces behind her, Trooper Drexil Me'ch't scanned her rising body heat.
Continue reading 'Chronicles of Xanctu' here
#afrofuturism #afrofuturistic #ancient mysteries #future #fantasy #myth #science fiction #sci-fi #speculative fiction #SpaceOpera
© Return of The White Lady (1994) by Mike Kawitzky
© Xelexnia 2022 - Offworld Productions Pty Ltd
© Chronicles of Xanctu by Mike Kawitzky 2023
What an imagination you have lol. This was entertaining. I don't know much about space...go figure, one of my sons is an aeronautical engineer. You wrote well enough I could follow along and picture it in my mind's eye. Great job. Thx for sharing. You are my 230th bedtime story in this circle. :)