09-03-2025, 12:37 AM
== Four Years Later ==
Robin's eyes were wide as the huge crate appeared on the tarmac. Thirty feet long and twenty wide, it was the largest object on the blacktop field. Her father, sitting next to her in the grav truck, looked less impressed but still relatively happy. His eyes were focused on a PADD that he tapped occasionally to off the cargo. The teenager knew what the box contained, of course... a soil renewer, a old piece of equipment that Karlos Mayfair had purchased second-hand from a terraforming company. Getting it was the highlight of his year, and he'd bored the family endlessly about how it would double the crop yields for the ranch and finally make the western quarter viable for cattle grazing. That didn't impress his daughter, of course. It was the beaming process, the almost magical materialization of a box the size of a small building, that awed her. More crates of various sizes appeared and the elder Mayfair checked off each one as they did.
Finally he took out a communicator, an old one that looked like it dated from the time of James Kirk, and flipped it open. "That's the last of it, Captain. Verifying receipt."
The response came in a rich Spanish accent, a voice that sounded of old-world Spain. "Very good, Mr. Mayfair. My first officer will be down once we've finished beaming down the other cargo. It's been a pleasure doing business with you."
"Ask him if I could get a tour of the ship, Father!" Robin was pleading with her father, as she'd done for weeks now. For the last year she'd begged and begged to go to an off world school, any school. Her parents had flatly refused until they had finally had to forbid her from asking again. The teenaged Augment had settled for at least asking if she could go see the cargo ship. Any excuse to get into space, even briefly. She was obsessed with it.
There was an amused laugh from the communicator, but Karlos Mayfair simply said "Thank you, Captain Cardon" and closed the device.
"FATHER!" There was outrage in the girl's voice, which her father silenced with a look. Robin looked sheepish but clearly didn't want to let the mater drop.
"Captain Cardon has better things to do. Besides, you said you'd go through the manuals for me and install the software update. Tonight."
She pouted. "That won't take long. The Triple Seven won't leave orbit for another three days. They have a lot of cargo to pick up."
"Enough child. It's not a cruise ship or a Starfleet vessel. They're busy. I've made my decision."
Robin knew better than to really argue with her father. They were both stubborn, but she knew the pecking order.
That evening she finished flipping through the manual for the renewer as she sat in bed. An actual old-fashioned paper book, her eyes flicked over the pages absorbing each one in a few seconds. She'd already installed the update, more to get it over with than anything else. The vehicle, looking remarkably like a grav tractor with a flat wide circular platform behind it, sat on the front lawn. Her father's pride an joy, she thought, as she turned the last page and tossed the book on her nightstand.
And I'm daddy's next ranch foreman.
The thought filled her with a sudden dread. High school graduation was next month and her parents had been busy making plans. Parties? With what friends? Prom? No one had asked her, and she didn't blame them. She was fifteen, for God's sake. And she could have graduated at fourteen if she'd wanted to. But they were so proud. Valedictorian. So what?
My brains came out of a bottle.
She climbed out of bed and padded downstairs, slipping quietly outside onto the front lawn of the sprawling ranch house. The teenager didn't care that she was only wearing a nightshirt, though the cool night air did make her shiver a bit. Her parents were in bed and there was no one to see. The girl stared up at the crystal-clear sky. Her enhanced eyes easily picked out details in the Helix Nebula. It was so beautiful it almost made her weep. How could they all just ignore it? A shooting star crossed the sky. The nebula felt so close that she could reach out and grab it, though it was light years away.
She closed her eyes and recalled her view of it as a little girl. So massive, so colorful, she could see it almost as if she was back in orbit of Gennethe 4. Her enhanced memory showed her every swirl, every trail of gas.
This is as close as I'll ever get again.
Robin saw the path laid out for her, the path that her parents and the colony demanded. Going to Iota Tau's miserable college, probably to study business and agricultural engineering. A job on the ranch, and finally ownership when her parents retired. Maybe a marriage, if she could find someone her parents approved of who wouldn't view her as an Augment freak. No small feat, that. Would there even be love there?
The dread magnified, focused like a laser. And shattered. Clarity hit the young girl.
She couldn't. This couldn't be her life. She had no choice.
She slipped back into the house, went back to her room, took down a suitcase, and began to pack. She'd have one chance.
== Three days later ==
The tarmac wasn't empty, and she wasn't sure why she'd expected it to be. Even late at night there were still colonists finishing their preparations. A huge shuttle sat surrounded by large crates. It was there for a few items that were too large to fit on the Triple Seven's cargo transporters. She'd done her homework. Her father's soil renewer had been as large as the ship could beam down.
The teenager slipped between the boxes, moving quietly, looking for one in particular. It was one with her family's logo on it, and a cargo of live horses bound for another colony. There it was. She moved up to it and took hold of the lock, quickly tapping the entry code, and then opened the side access hatch. Eight of the Mayfair's prize herd, a small fraction of the stock her family was famous for, at least on Iota Tau. She climbed in and hauled her large case in after her, before immediately seeing one horse in particular that almost made her turn back. Tinkerbell, the girl's favorite that she'd raised from a foal. Her tiny sister Wendy had been Robin's next horse, and the teen choked up a bit. It was likely she'd never see the adorable little horse again. She knew Tink was being sent off-world, and she hadn't been happy about it, but it hadn't been the first time. She loved Wendy with all her heart.
Tinkerbell gave her a snort of recognition, no doubt expecting a treat, and Robin obliged her with a carrot, one she'd brought for exactly this reason. The purple-haired girl quietly moved into the stall and sat down next to a bucket, careful to avoid a pile of dung that the horse had just deposited.
Only a few minutes until the mobile pen was loaded. She'd planned the whole thing out to a level of detail that only she could, at least until the ship was underway. After that she'd have to improvise. Twelve and a half minutes to orbit. The difficult part was going to be remaining hidden until she could slip out of the pen. If someone did a scan in that time she'd be discovered.
She wasn't worried. Rynah-class freighters were huge and their crews were small, usually no more than a dozen. Whole sections of the ship saw no activity between stops. The Augment could be as quiet as the proverbial mouse when she wanted to be. Countless places to hide. She was reasonably sure she could avoid the tiny crew. She'd have to sneak food and get water when she could (though she'd brought weeks worth of ration bars), use the facilities when no one was near, and otherwise make sure to not leave any sign there was a stowaway. The teenager was as confident as only a teenager could be.
The pen began moving onto the shuttle. It was time. There was no going back now.
== To be continued ==
Robin's eyes were wide as the huge crate appeared on the tarmac. Thirty feet long and twenty wide, it was the largest object on the blacktop field. Her father, sitting next to her in the grav truck, looked less impressed but still relatively happy. His eyes were focused on a PADD that he tapped occasionally to off the cargo. The teenager knew what the box contained, of course... a soil renewer, a old piece of equipment that Karlos Mayfair had purchased second-hand from a terraforming company. Getting it was the highlight of his year, and he'd bored the family endlessly about how it would double the crop yields for the ranch and finally make the western quarter viable for cattle grazing. That didn't impress his daughter, of course. It was the beaming process, the almost magical materialization of a box the size of a small building, that awed her. More crates of various sizes appeared and the elder Mayfair checked off each one as they did.
Finally he took out a communicator, an old one that looked like it dated from the time of James Kirk, and flipped it open. "That's the last of it, Captain. Verifying receipt."
The response came in a rich Spanish accent, a voice that sounded of old-world Spain. "Very good, Mr. Mayfair. My first officer will be down once we've finished beaming down the other cargo. It's been a pleasure doing business with you."
"Ask him if I could get a tour of the ship, Father!" Robin was pleading with her father, as she'd done for weeks now. For the last year she'd begged and begged to go to an off world school, any school. Her parents had flatly refused until they had finally had to forbid her from asking again. The teenaged Augment had settled for at least asking if she could go see the cargo ship. Any excuse to get into space, even briefly. She was obsessed with it.
There was an amused laugh from the communicator, but Karlos Mayfair simply said "Thank you, Captain Cardon" and closed the device.
"FATHER!" There was outrage in the girl's voice, which her father silenced with a look. Robin looked sheepish but clearly didn't want to let the mater drop.
"Captain Cardon has better things to do. Besides, you said you'd go through the manuals for me and install the software update. Tonight."
She pouted. "That won't take long. The Triple Seven won't leave orbit for another three days. They have a lot of cargo to pick up."
"Enough child. It's not a cruise ship or a Starfleet vessel. They're busy. I've made my decision."
Robin knew better than to really argue with her father. They were both stubborn, but she knew the pecking order.
That evening she finished flipping through the manual for the renewer as she sat in bed. An actual old-fashioned paper book, her eyes flicked over the pages absorbing each one in a few seconds. She'd already installed the update, more to get it over with than anything else. The vehicle, looking remarkably like a grav tractor with a flat wide circular platform behind it, sat on the front lawn. Her father's pride an joy, she thought, as she turned the last page and tossed the book on her nightstand.
And I'm daddy's next ranch foreman.
The thought filled her with a sudden dread. High school graduation was next month and her parents had been busy making plans. Parties? With what friends? Prom? No one had asked her, and she didn't blame them. She was fifteen, for God's sake. And she could have graduated at fourteen if she'd wanted to. But they were so proud. Valedictorian. So what?
My brains came out of a bottle.
She climbed out of bed and padded downstairs, slipping quietly outside onto the front lawn of the sprawling ranch house. The teenager didn't care that she was only wearing a nightshirt, though the cool night air did make her shiver a bit. Her parents were in bed and there was no one to see. The girl stared up at the crystal-clear sky. Her enhanced eyes easily picked out details in the Helix Nebula. It was so beautiful it almost made her weep. How could they all just ignore it? A shooting star crossed the sky. The nebula felt so close that she could reach out and grab it, though it was light years away.
She closed her eyes and recalled her view of it as a little girl. So massive, so colorful, she could see it almost as if she was back in orbit of Gennethe 4. Her enhanced memory showed her every swirl, every trail of gas.
This is as close as I'll ever get again.
Robin saw the path laid out for her, the path that her parents and the colony demanded. Going to Iota Tau's miserable college, probably to study business and agricultural engineering. A job on the ranch, and finally ownership when her parents retired. Maybe a marriage, if she could find someone her parents approved of who wouldn't view her as an Augment freak. No small feat, that. Would there even be love there?
The dread magnified, focused like a laser. And shattered. Clarity hit the young girl.
She couldn't. This couldn't be her life. She had no choice.
She slipped back into the house, went back to her room, took down a suitcase, and began to pack. She'd have one chance.
== Three days later ==
The tarmac wasn't empty, and she wasn't sure why she'd expected it to be. Even late at night there were still colonists finishing their preparations. A huge shuttle sat surrounded by large crates. It was there for a few items that were too large to fit on the Triple Seven's cargo transporters. She'd done her homework. Her father's soil renewer had been as large as the ship could beam down.
The teenager slipped between the boxes, moving quietly, looking for one in particular. It was one with her family's logo on it, and a cargo of live horses bound for another colony. There it was. She moved up to it and took hold of the lock, quickly tapping the entry code, and then opened the side access hatch. Eight of the Mayfair's prize herd, a small fraction of the stock her family was famous for, at least on Iota Tau. She climbed in and hauled her large case in after her, before immediately seeing one horse in particular that almost made her turn back. Tinkerbell, the girl's favorite that she'd raised from a foal. Her tiny sister Wendy had been Robin's next horse, and the teen choked up a bit. It was likely she'd never see the adorable little horse again. She knew Tink was being sent off-world, and she hadn't been happy about it, but it hadn't been the first time. She loved Wendy with all her heart.
Tinkerbell gave her a snort of recognition, no doubt expecting a treat, and Robin obliged her with a carrot, one she'd brought for exactly this reason. The purple-haired girl quietly moved into the stall and sat down next to a bucket, careful to avoid a pile of dung that the horse had just deposited.
Only a few minutes until the mobile pen was loaded. She'd planned the whole thing out to a level of detail that only she could, at least until the ship was underway. After that she'd have to improvise. Twelve and a half minutes to orbit. The difficult part was going to be remaining hidden until she could slip out of the pen. If someone did a scan in that time she'd be discovered.
She wasn't worried. Rynah-class freighters were huge and their crews were small, usually no more than a dozen. Whole sections of the ship saw no activity between stops. The Augment could be as quiet as the proverbial mouse when she wanted to be. Countless places to hide. She was reasonably sure she could avoid the tiny crew. She'd have to sneak food and get water when she could (though she'd brought weeks worth of ration bars), use the facilities when no one was near, and otherwise make sure to not leave any sign there was a stowaway. The teenager was as confident as only a teenager could be.
The pen began moving onto the shuttle. It was time. There was no going back now.
== To be continued ==