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(EP) PRELUDES: Melara Richter


Craig ST

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The dark of space is often a lonely environment. Melara floated peacefully beside the chunk of space rock she’d most recently been working on. She appreciated those lonely moments now, being as she had so few of them since her encounter with the Torus. Melara whistled softly as she worked, monitoring the various AR windows she had open out of the corner of her eye; her vitals and the condition of her suit, the status of the ship “Star Dancer”, her music player dashboard and a number of other things.

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A soft sound chimed in her head, accompanied by the voice of her Muse; the personal computerized assistant that most everyone in the solar system used to help manage their daily lives. “Melara, you have a call,” The feminine voice said.

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“Out here? Take a message, I have my hands full at the moment,” She thought back while adjusting her spin and rotation to closer match the asteroid fragment in form of her.

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“It’s one of the signals you flagged as critical. Considering the difficulty of receiving a private mesh signal this far from a known habitat, I would gather that is something important. I suggest answering.” Melara sighed.

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“Alright fine!” she said out loud in annoyance but was surprised when an AR figure materialized into her view. It was male, tall and somewhat Nordic looking. Melara recognized him immediately. “Hell Sven,” she said to her Firewatch handler. She had no idea if Sven was his real name, but he had taken care of her when the shit hit the fan in her life and she knew she owed the organization. “You realize I am in the middle of the belt right now?”

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“Apologies Melara, I wouldn’t be contacting you if it wasn’t important,” He said quickly. “You are needed for a mission, and more than that, you are in danger.”

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Mel winced as the world tried to blur and shatter. Danger made the bag of crazy in her head uneasy, especially danger of the Firewall variety. She clenched down on it and managed to stop everything from splitting into a maze of probabilities. As bad as things might be, they weren't that bad. Not yet.

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"I'm EVA, Sven," she replied tightly. "You're going to have to be more specific. Is this 'dump your reaction-mass and get back to the ship' danger, or 'solemnly reflect on the evils of your life' danger, or 'finish up whatever you're doing, but change your medium-term plans' danger?"

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She started stowing her tools regardless. And cooking up an excuse for the expedition financier. Goddamnit, this wasn't going to do her rep any good in that quarter.

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  • 2 weeks later...

"The latter, for the most part," Sven said with some amusement in his voice. "You can finish up with that extractor but be ready for the captain to recall you. Don't worry, we've pulled a few strings and the captain is returning to Pallas for reasons not related to you."

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Sven paused for a moment before continuing. "I don't want to worry you too much Melara, but it wouldn't be right to keep this from you. We believe that whoever is looking for you has contracted the Hidden Concern to find you and collect you, or your cortical stack. So be careful when you get to Pallas. Once you are there you will be contacted by one of our agents. they will give you details on the mission. Any questions so far?"

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Mel felt a wobble in her stomach at that. Bad enough they were after her, but if they got her stack... There were limits to the tortures any morph could endure before winking out. But with the stack they could just fork her, torture her crazy, fork her again, and so on...and so on. As much as they liked.

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Worst of all, 'she' would never know it. She'd be resleeved from her secured backup and go on with her life, unaware what this version of her was going through.

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She cleared her throat, trying to keep it from croaking with sudden dryness when she spoke next.

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Take it easy...it's no different than before. It's the same thing. Bad, but manageable...'course, I can say goodbye to Ceres until this blows over now. If it ever does.

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"Any word on if they know what ship I'm on?" Mel asked as she carefully resumed her work. Weirdly, it helped steady her. "Pallas isn't theirs, but that's not going to stop them if they know where I'm headed."

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  • 3 weeks later...

"That is unclear at the moment. Assume the worst and stay on the down-low. Once you get to Pallas, check in at the Starfield Motel under the name Eva Goodwin, our man on Pallas will contact you once you do."

A file download was received by Melara's Muse and a quick examination revealed it to be a false identity electronic trail. it was nothing that would hold up under major scrutiny but it would let her rent a room in relative safety.

"Be careful Melara, and if all goes well, you will be hearing from me again soon."

With that, Sven disconnected and Melara was left to own thoughts before another call clicked over her mesh connection, this time from the ship's navigator. "Heya Mel, Graciella wants you back aboard ASAP," Heckle and Jekyl were the best pilot and navigator team in this sector of the belt and they both just happened to be uplifted crows. She had no idea what their real names were; she's only ever heard them referred to by their nicknames and they seemed to prefer it that way.

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Mel bit back the juvenile urge to croak 'Nevermore' in reply, and instead replied, "All right...it's mostly done anyway. I'm cutting loose and returning to ship. ETA ten minutes."

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She worked the controls of the EVA suit expertly, just nudging them so that the attitude control jets barely breathed to turn her. It wasn't a big deal...reaction mass was hardly in short supply. She just liked always trying to beat her last record. It gave her something to think about besides the ocean of empty around her, and the eyes in her brain that kept trying to dissect everything into superstrings and probability smears.

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Her muse plotted a suggested course back, and Mel made little tweaks to kick the efficiency up a notch. May made a polite complaint that the new course took her within the safety radius of a small object. Mel knew what it was though; a piece of debris kicked off the asteroid by the mining apparatus. Harmless.

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They arrived a little early and managed to sqeak in at two grams under her last reaction mass consumption.

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Celebrating her little victory, Mel managed to keep her mind off the spectacularly dangerous thing she was heading into. For all of about five minutes.

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It was going to be a long ride to Pallas.

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