Voidhop - Chapter 1 - Branxulto'Mespik (Patreon)

“The void is a cruel mistress,” Branxulto’Mespik said through a cloud of smoke. The noxious smokestick glowed between his thick grey fingers as he looked out. Overhead, the night sky was visible through the transparent visiplate. A mere handful of stars defied the light pollution to shine. He still found himself inspired as he stared at them, his thoughts rolling on with a steady inertia as he took a drag on his smokestick.

“She cares the same for the hapless traveller, the rigid noble, or the warriors that would march through her wake… Which is to say she cares not. An equality of disregard that people envy. And for all her callous nature, we can’t help but love her. Truly, the void is a cruel mistress.”

The form laying behind him on the bunk stirred, then loosened a sigh, “Poetry Branx? Really?” A female Feinfolk sat up and yawned. “Listen, the sex was alright, but if you keep doing weird things like this, I’m gonna have to charge more.”

‘Branx’ chuffed around his smokestick and puffed out another lungful, watching as the smoke was sucked into the cycler to be cleansed. All it left in its wake was a faint fruity scent that he enjoyed. “Yeah, yeah, can’t fault a guy for trying his hand at poetry, can you?” He turned his eyes onto her form, enjoying the way she looked.

The woman slid out of the bed, uncaring of her nudity or the cold metaplate floors. She pushed clothes into a pile, ignoring Branx’s gaze as she did. “Actually, I can. Also, weren’t you shipping out at nightfall?”

She eyed the see-through wall that acted as a one-sided window. She then rolled her eyes when she noticed his stare and sauntered into the shower in another room, her hips rolling teasingly. She noticeably didn’t activate the privacy feature and smirked as Branx continued to eye her.

Branx loved her for showing off as she did. Only a little though, he wasn’t that big a fool to fall for a working girl. That only caused trouble for everyone. Still, there was something about the bright pink colouration of Feinfolk that he just loved seeing.

“They’ll wait for me Trix. They always do.” Branx sniffed and shifted in his chair, savouring the smokestick.

He amused himself with the illusion of being some old money credited up snob with his mistress in a manor, instead of being in a run down apartment that Trix owned and ran half her business out of. Yeah, and I’d even have a lizard steak on the side, with fine boonta instead of swill beer. He snorted at his imagination, drawing Trix’s attention.

“What? You got something to say?” she said with a defensive tone, her arms covering her breasts. Her sudden demureness was oddly more enjoyable than when she bared herself to Branx.

Branx let his eyes roam over her, “Nope, can I buy anot—”

“Get the void out of here Branx! I got stuff to do today! Just cause Shirel can’t fly off without taking on all of the debt don’t mean she ain’t gonna find some other way to try and screw you!”

Branx shuddered, “Urlk! Phrasing Trix! That’s enough to give a guy nightmares!” He lifted his bulk off the chair and stomped towards the door, tossing his jacket over his shoulder. He paused in the hallway to eye his reflection on a shiny bit of wall. He rubbed his bald head, winking at himself before turning towards the door.

“Don’t forget to pay!” was shouted at his back.

Branx rolled his eyes and waved his wrist over a cracked screen at the door. It wasn’t like he could actually get out of the room without paying. Then he smirked. Actually, that was a lie, there was that one time. He chuckled to himself only to grimace. He ran his tongue over his teeth and breathed into his palm to check his breath. Wincing at what he found, he tapped the screen again. A flap opened and something tumbled out. He swiped it before giving the still-showering woman a sly look.

“Your dispenser’s out of breath mints!” he hollered, waiting in the doorway.

The sound of the sonic shower cut off, and the woman’s cursing took over as she snapped on some underwear before storming up and keying open another unobtrusive flap. Branx grunted as she handed him another mint before waving at the door. He popped both mints into his mouth, smirking even as she rolled her eyes.

He stepped out far enough for her to shut the door but not so far that he’d step into any passing grav-cars. He rolled his shoulders and brought up his wrist to tap in a command into his wrist-mounted console. He ignored the pulsing lights that were determined to draw the eye and demand that you buy some deranged product that you didn’t need.

It took five whole minutes for a taxi to show up, leaving him barely enough time to craft his excuses. More than enough time to pick up his personal datapad and go over his final datasets. He smirked; they were still good. He had a good feeling about this next run. That didn’t mean he didn’t run a hand over the pistol in his belt or his safety shield. All the insurance he wanted, and hoped he never needed.

He arrived at the ship and bustled out of the cab.

His eyes roamed the hunk of crap that he called his ship. It was a glorified box that was void-sealed with the bare minimum of effort. Branx knew the damn thing was cheap. But cheap only in the thought of the rich. Still, it’d do. He sauntered up to the door, ignoring the rain as it ran down his scalp, cooling his poor overworked brain and dousing his smokestick. He spat the stick to the side before slapping his hand against a terminal. It slid open with a chirp announcing his arrival.

“BRANX!” came the shrill greeting from his second-in-command.

Branx started weaving his excuses immediately. “Shirel! You will not believe the traffic tha—”

“Stow it asshole! You’re making us late! I told you I had this next job lined up and you’re an hour late!? I should have just left without you!”

“You wouldn’t do that Shirel stop joking!” Branx called back as he sauntered past the entryway, ignoring the white gas that tepidly blew over him.

The green light barely flickered as Branx strode through the gaping hole where a door should have been. He glanced back at the entryway before side-eyeing one of the crew. The ‘woman’— and Branx used the term loosely —used her tentacle-like limbs to scramble up into the roof while leaving a thin film of gunk behind.

“Eh, not like the decon unit ever had a chance,” he said to himself before hurrying further into the ship. He paused at the bridge of the ship and huffed. “Hey Shirel, you’re in my seat.”

“Fuck off Branx!” growled the woman. Branx stomped up to the woman and glowered at her.

“No Shirel, you fuck off, I’m captaining this round. You got your panti—” He paused as he realised where that line of thought led, so he rolled the conversation verbally in another direction “—nose! Your nose out of joint cause I was late? I wouldn’t need to throw myself into so many bars and the tender embrace of a woman if you didn’t lead us into the void-damned worst missions I’ve been on!”

“You signed on with me!” she hissed through her maligned teeth, tentacles lashed about her in fury.

Branx stared at her, “Don’t try that with me. I signed the lease for the ship with you Shirel. You might have the others running around with your bluster, but don’t forget our agreement. We trade off missions.” Shirel glared at him. “Or do I need to renegotiate with the Corporation?”

Shirel continued to glower. Branx raised an unimpressed eyebrow. Shirel sniffed, “I don’t have a lead on a mission anyway!”

Branx rolled his eyes before flopping down into the captain’s seat. “Bosun! Did we get any hire-ons while we were planetside?”

The Bosun, a Gib of unusual blandness merely flicked through his datapad in a slow, methodical manner. “No...sir. I estimate that we were not on planet long enough for people to learn of the chance to jump onto our ship.”

Branx huffed and flicked his eyes at Shirel who ignored his gaze. “Need to improve our rep eh?”

“Mostly our publicly listed incomes and wage projections… Sir.” The Bosun supplied.

“Bosun you really know how to flatten a soda don’t you?” Branx said before keying the intercom. “Gentlebeings! This is your captain speaking! You’ll be pleased to know that on this mission there is limited to low predicted risk.”

Shirel tentacle slapped into her beak. “Oh, not another—”

“I’ve got a lead on a ‘cast-away’ vessel! I have datasets on the estimated drift patterns and the movements of celestial bodies in that sector all calculated! Gentlebeings, we’re making afterburn like we’ve got debt collectors from the local police on our tail!”

“Which we do in some sectors…” grumbled Shirel.

He signalled to a nearby Avian crew member. “Helmsman! Set course for the Feasa system! Sixteenth planet’s asteroid belt! We got ourselves a payday to scrounge!” He turned to a slug-like alien that was manipulating a battery of terminals expertly. “Navigator! Plot us a course out of atmo and then into free-void!”

Shirel waited until Branx had toggled off the mike before re-approaching him. “Branx, we can’t keep chasing these chancers you love!”

“Even for the best payday we ever had?” he said absently as he shifted the settings of his chair to better accommodate his more sizeable girth. A small box next to his chair was opened, producing a towel to wipe off the oils Shirel had left from sitting in the chair.

Shirel glowered at him, choosing not to reply to his question. “The times we’ve come back empty-handed have also been entirely on you Branx! We’re getting close to red ledgers! I won’t take the risk!”

“And that’s your problem Shirel.”

Shirel slapped two tentacles together in the facsimile of a pray, her eyes knitting together. “Branx, see reason. We can jump over to Shanwuan to get some easy jobs.”

Branx pinched his brow. “Void Shirel! I didn’t sell my soul to the corporation for a chance to fly freight, then turn around back and forth with us being damned ‘captains’ that are only worth the damned dataset on a terminal! I want to live. That means sometimes going out on a limb but this time my lead is solid.”

“Your leads are always solid Branx! You let your damn dreams rule you. Listen to your head, or better yet me! Or hell anyone else! Like our accountant!”

Branx glowered at her from his chair in the centre of the command well. Around them, the staff working at their dimly-lit terminals either pretended or, in some cases, openly stared at the two of them arguing. Branx rolled his tongue around his mouth.

“Shirel, I’m the captain for this run. I signed with you as co-leaser of the ship from the Corporation. The accountant we got assigned to us, don’t call the shots. They don’t care how we get our money, but I do. Numbers are all they care about, and that’s one of the reasons we don’t get many hire-ons to run jobs.”

Shirel grimaced before shifting her attack vector. “In a few years we can—”

“Shirel. I’m gonna die either from topping myself or from some debt collector hiking prices on us and us being unable to pay. This is your problem.” He pointed right at her, more than used to fending off her arguments. “You’re not willing to risk anything. You never lose but you never win big either.”

He held her stare. “I’m Captain Shirel.”

She held his stare before huffing. “For now, Branx.”

Branx pretended to ignore her as he lifted his datapad to look at their passage out of atmo. He watched through the side of his secondary set of eyes as the Bosun patted Shirel on the shoulder. He couldn’t hear what they said, he only had one set of ears, but he could see the way they looked at him.

He shifted in his chair as an itch formed between his shoulder blades. He never liked getting itchy there. It was just as bad as his hand getting twitchy, if for opposite reasons. He didn’t check his pistol, instead settling in and watching through a viewport terminal of the slowly vanishing grey planet. He toggled a few codes when prompted but otherwise switched the terminals to merely viewports into the void of space.

With a wistful tone he spoke over the low sounds of the crew working their terminals, “Damn shame this junker is so focussed on function. One of these days Shirel, I’d love a ship that lets me actually watch stars sail past.”

Shirel snorted. “And the CEO’s will donate to charity without optics on them. You’ve got more chance of sailing through a suck hole and out the other side.”

Branx made the gesture to ward off the bad thoughts. Shirel rolled his eyes. “Anyway, only idiots have their bridge actually on the outside of their ship.”

Branx ran a finger down the terminal as they passed the fourth planet in the system, his mind far away from the actual conversation. “Sounds like my kind of stupid…”

His eyes looked at the dataset shown to him before looking around the dim, grungy bridge. It was packed deep into their ship and stank. The only lights were those from terminals. He looked at the walls and suddenly wished they were visiplate. He raised a hand. “I find myself travelling—”

“Don’t, or I swear I’ll have Nemor drive us through a damn suck hole Branx. No poetry!”

Branx slumped as his muse was lost. She was such a flighty bitch. He glowered at Shirel, but she merely rolled her eyes, allowing her reverse eyes to come to the front. Branx held in the shudder, not wanting her to see how it still freaked him out that her species could do that.

Thankfully, his void angel came in the form of the helmsman. “We’re now out of the planet’s interdiction field. Passing a Ranger ship as well…”

Branx sat up, leaning forward just slightly. “Alright first things first standard salute!” The crew all made crude gestures to the Ranger Ship on screen, even Shirel. Branx stuck his tongue out and raised his middle fingers in a gesture he’d been taught growing up. The newest hire, and therefore The Rookie in Branx's mind glanced around in confusion but copied them. Branx made a mental note to take the kid under his wing, so to speak. The rookie knew enough to not question them, so that was a good sign.

Everyone nodded and a few good-natured, “Fuck those guys,” were shared around the command deck before Branx cleared his throat to reestablish a proper gravitas for their departure.

“Good eyes Helmsman Nemor. Now, you have our destination.” He pointed forwards. “Now, punch it.”

A second later, the ship blurred away into hyperspace.

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A.N.

Hello! Sorry to say, no more artwork for this month! Instead, I have posted what I hope people might enjoy reading which has been listed on the voting page called Voidhop, a space opera story about a rogue space captain and his adventures and misadventures.

This is entirely extra content and my own original content.

I am trialling something with this chapter and future chapters with more bite sized and therefore easily manageable for me story wise. Perhaps in future this might feature more heavily with the potential for faster updates. Not sure.

For now, and the foreseeable future, Hard Enough is and will remain the focus, but I still want to toy with ideas outside of that setting. Sometimes my plot bunnies drag me in different directions or to different stories.  

Please toss me any thoughts you might have!