Motel Six KM Straight Down

Posted on Sun Mar 8th, 2026 @ 2:16am by Commanding Officer Mickey Serendipity & Pilot Daniela Pareja & Executive Officer Kenneth McTigue & Ships Engineer Delphi Jammer & Passenger Emma Yonkers & Comm Tech Wulf Edevane

2,574 words; about a 13 minute read

Mission: Loaded Deck
Location: Saturian Confederacy, moon of Tethys
Timeline: 2354, 3 months post Illus/New Earth colony disaster

“...following the United Nations-led diplomatic efforts, Royal Charter Energy has left the High Courts in Geneva today, facing crippling financial sanctions following the wake of the events on Illus. This has led economists to predict the shuttering of RCE holdings, with stock prices on all global and interplanetary trading hubs falling to decade lows-”

“-You wanted an opinion. Mars as a solar system super power, day dream of the past! They were so focused on colonising their rustball planet that they didn’t see more than half of their current generation fleeing the sinking Congressional ship for the Earth-like colonies beyond the ring! No, I will not be shouted down by so-called ‘alarmists’ that say that this is Mars discarding its wayward sons and daughters! It's the death knell for the entire planet-”

“-Never tasted so good. And now with four new protein brick flavours, the Samsung Nanjo Food Printer is ready to serve you the meal of a llifetime”

“The Outer Planet Alliance was officially welcomed into the Saturian Confederacy today, with Prime Administrator Argento opening the doors to the Senate Chamber on Titan as a symbolic gesture of goodwill. This marks the seventh outer planet UN-backed polity to officially recognise and formalise ties with what some pundits still refer to as a terrorist organisation. But with the OPA’s growing financial power with holdings inside the Ring Space with Medina Station, this trend is likely to continue.”

“Caldera Whisky. The firm taste of Martian progress, but the pedigree of a distillery that can mark its heritage back to the hills of Earthen Kentucky-”

The sudden shriek and rush of crashing bodies in water drowned out whatever the wall screens’s latest offering was going to be. Didn’t stop the bartender skipping through the channels with a restless energy, trying to find something apolitical to keep the tips rolling in. His search continued, whilst his patronage ignored him.

Out from under the bars awning a tiled area surrounded a modest-sized pool, which under the Saturian moon’s meagre gravity was more of a suggested resting place for fluids than an actual body of water. A trio of bodies floundering in the foaming fluid, cavorting and laughing under the sun lamps, which did interesting things to the swimwear, which was at best aspirational.

Mickey Serendipity looked up, squinting at the sky. Which, when viewed like that, revealed a lattice work of sun lamps and full-spectrum lights set into a high latticed ceiling. A ceiling which was buried under a kilometre of rock and ice of the surface of one of the more well-to-do moons of Saturn.

A holiday vacation in a Saturn pleasure dome. But not the nice, high-priced ones on Titan. No. This was definitely not high-priced, if the watered-down Marcon Red in his glass was anything to go by. Looking around the recreation area, he could see the weathered looks on the loungers, the slightest of tints to the plastic cladding around the pool and the artificiality of an overly made up ‘tropical’ look.

“Morning, I think.” Mickey said as he dropped his glass onto the table. By unspoken agreement the crew of the courier ship Albatross had met in the morning and evenings on this little jaunt lime they were on ship duty: morning status update, job allocation, and follow up planing for the next day replaced with drink orders, adventure plannings and voucher scans for whatever entertainment could be found.

“Who is ready to get back to work?” he asked the assembled.

"Wha bosmang, to finna swing milowda wa job wort-h putting ere pants fo?" Dani Pareja said, the drawl of her Belter Creole even more accentuated than normal. Tipping her over oversized sunglasses down from her eyes slightly, the Belter pilot barely eyed the Captain as she floated in the pool.

"we going fo go through da rings, maybe mi ge fo fly ere mo than wa straight line? du walowda real scrip xidawang tim?" Not that she wasn't enjoying herself. The pure decadence of floating in a pool of water had made her straight up cackle the first few times. But even for a near once in a lifetime moment as this... it didn't compare to flying. But then again nothing did, Dani would always be most at home in space, like a true belter.

Dropping into a lounge chair near Mickey, Yonkers sipped on a low budget knock off of a Martian whiskey, "Yeah we gonna rip through the gate on a run, or we gonna take up courier jobs between rings?" she sipped on her whiskey as she laid back to 'soak up the rays,' her bathing suit was barely an suggestion.

“Let’s just hit the retros on the whole ‘Ring’ thing,” Mickey said as he put his drink down. The moment the glass touch the table, the surface flickered and began to play an add for…something either noodle based or for ‘exotic’ companionship. Which ever AI generated the ad had combined some flavour of Belta creole with…Tibetan mono linguistics? Or maybe finger paints.

“So far every story out of the Ring has been a hard luck thing, which I think we can agree we can do without,” he snapped his glass off the table and ad does a worthy death. “I’ve got feelers out for a job in the Saturn system. Ease us and the Tross back into shape after the big refurbishment. You want to go through The Ring with a ship that’s untested?”

Wulf locked down the third ongoing secure text chat on his terminal via a snappy voice command to Zee, or, to anyone not paying much close attention to his online endeavors, let loose a badly sung couple of lines from an old rock song. He'd filtered out the bartender's noisy activity some time ago, and was more than capable of ignoring the noise from the pool despite the large amount of his visual attention being focused in that direction. Mickey, however, was Important To Listen To, and Wulf's dark gaze tracked directly towards his CO as the other man spoke.

Mickey's first question received a wry smile and a raised eyebrow from the comtech, but he sat forward to simply listen and gaze towards the women as Dani and Yonkers chimed in. Wulf was ready, he was almost always working, whether Tross-related or personal online ventures, and he would follow Mickey pretty much anywhere. Even through the ring, if it ever came to that...

"Want me to fix the table?" Wulf asked, thumping his fist on the glitchy surface. Then he added, tone curious. "So what's the local job?"

Ken had been on a mission to try every cocktail the auto-bartender had available. And after several days, he had yet to make a dent in it. So he swaggered up to his crew, something blue and fizzy in hand. The machine had even dropped in a paper umbrella. "We're not doing the Ring job? Robbertson made a hell of an offer Mick. Day-rate plus expenses, plus a twenty percent bonus if we made it within the allotted timetable."

“…there has got to be a better way of phrasing that,” Mickey said as he waited for the table to catch up.

“Wulf, if you recall the fine security contractors on this moon have a charming electronic malfeasance clause in their charter. Right next to the words ‘death by vacuum’.” Mickey said, taking a sip of his drink. “So no.”

Having opened his mouth to counter Mickey's concerns for clauses, Wulf shifted swiftly to a broad grin as Ken ambled into sight. The engineer seemed to be on his third voyage through the rainbow colours of available alcoholic beverages and was, of course, showing few signs of any concern whatsoever. He wished, just for a second, that they were in one of the Titan domes so that he could avail them all of the really fancy drinks, but simply kept his mouth shut on all fronts and nodded in agreement to Mickey's no.

“As for the job ‘through’ the Ring…” Mickey wiggled his hand and looked at his XO. “Wait, when did I become the level headed voice of reason on these things?”

"Since I still don't have a Martian PA in the 'Tross's bay. No Voice of reason until i have my bipedal tank." She laughed lightly before spilling some of her cheap whiskey onto her skimpy swimsuit. "On a more legitimate point, we have half the system to shake out all the bugs and loose bolts. Plus I wanna see where all the Martians are going instead of finishing the Martian dream of terraforming our home."

Was it weird, Wulf wondered with an enigmatic smile, to be daydreaming more about Yonkers in the Power Armour than the deliciously revealing swimwear?

The lanky 7 foot tall belter engineer sitting at the back corner of the group stretched her long arms over her head, her long swept back blue mohawk spilling down her back as she reclined in a chair that looked like it was for a child compared to her exaggerated and tall frame.

"Bosmang, asilik much mi wanya go fo da slow zone fo medina seteshang, milowda ta ge test da kapawu engines. So much wowk done fo imalowda, might explode" she laughed her thickly accented voice that of a belter who spent much of her life far away from Tumang and Pomang, Earthers and Martians. Even after all the time she had been with the 'Tross, she spoke unapologetically thick Belter Creole.

She leaned forward, picking up her bowl of red kibble and spoon, taking a bite of the spiced food. "Could be fun to explode, if you into that thing" she laughed again.

"it wouldn't bi mi fosh choice." Dani giggled from where she had drifted; sunglasses back in place she glanced at the Engineer." Mi lik being ere da float as much as da kong métexeng, but na ketim im's cus milowda're leaking pellets."

"Na milowda gut, kopeng, mi engines natim gonna explode" Delphi laughed and held up the bowl of kibble for her fellow belter.

"Okay, okay," Mickey held up his hands. "The 'Job through The Ring'. In short, Robbertson represents a consortium of low-tier mineral and geology concerns. You know the younger companies that pick up what the bigger Inner Planet corps leave behind. A lot of them banded together to set off the cost of surveying the new systems, which explains the generous terms. The job is simple, we guard the two science ships as they survey the system, which might mean we get mud on our boots for this one. So might mean some people spend some time in the autoDoc getting their gravity treatments redone."

"Deting na gonna bi fun, bosmang kapawu, walowda fo milowda natim been down fo wa planet. Sepíng im going fo suck" Delphi chimed in. And she had never been anywhere but ships and stations, one full G was rare and short term for her. Her whole life had been spent at 1/2 G or on the float and she had the frail long bones to go with it.

"To quote an old UN Marine saying, 'Embrace the suck'. Contract covers medical aid for gravity work, so the treatment package we'll get will be top shelf. Should make things a little easier," Mickey said to the two Belters. He then looked to Emma. "And whilst that covers medical exo prothetics for mobility, I can't stretch it to power armour. Still got feelers out for somethng that isn't classed as Militaria. Unless you're looking for some Gen2 power armour from the Luna uprising of 2098."

"If its all we can get, I'll take it, but maybe as we pass by Mars, I can see about some old contacts to see what I might scrap up too, i'll let you know." Yonkers giggled, before taking another drink of her glass.

TAG-Belters and Martain

Mickey began to put his drink down, then remembered the ad that played and thought better of it.

"Whilst I don't know which ring we'll be going through if we take the job, I know the name that's been thrown about by Robbertson. 'Bara Gaon'. Some sort of callback to a region in Earth's desert belt some of the mining corps hail from."

While tasking Zee to pick up and present any known info regarding this 'Bara Gaon' for his leisurely perusal, Wulf leant back in his chair and tried to look as capable, confident and relaxed as possible before asking his Important Question. "So," he said, tone casual and serious, "if we're taking the Robbertson Job, and if we're being guard dogs... does this mean I can have a gun?"

Ken stepped next to his buddy. "Wulf." Ken's big hand slapped down on his friend's shoulder. He gave it a warm squeeze, perhaps a bit too tightly due to Ken's drunken state. "I would trust you with the controls to UN's entire nuclear arsenal. I wouldn't blink if you ran the entire Electronic Warfare suite on a battleship in a high stress scenario."

He leaned in closer, next to Wulf's ear. "But you've shot me in the ass during training. So until I am deeply, profoundly certain that that wouldn't happen again, you're not getting a gun."

"How are we stocked on weapons Kenny ol' pal? we have any nade's or micro missiles?" Emma Yonkers asked sitting up and winking at Wulf.

Caught in a heady mix of jubilation from Ken's compliment and minor concern for his marginally bruised shoulder, Wulf opted for a bright smile. He knew it wasn't, but it kinda felt winning when his engineer-warrior buddy spoke highly of his skillset. There was so much Wulf didn't bring to this pseudo military outfit and yet some of his skills could absolutely come in handy out there in the void.

"Sorry bout the ass shot.... I can aim a lot better these days," Wulf stated with some confidence. He had, after all, been learning in practice with both military personnel. "But yeah, that's fair. I'll look after the ship stuff," he added, with a bright look from Ken to Emma and then to Mickey as he spoke up.

"Given the general positivity towards this contract, do I have your approval to message Robbertson to finalise our commitment? I got the feeling from the contract that we're a last-minute addition to the expedition, so I expect we'll be burning for Neptune sooner rather than later. It'll mean tying up any business you have here at Theyus or the Confederacy," Mickey finished his drink. "Which means we'll be closing out the tab on this 'luxury' spa."

"Good to go when you are, boss," Wulf chimed in response, though his gaze wandered swiftly from Mickey back to the swimsuit-clad Martian and lingered with a peaceful, happy smile on Emma's face. "Mostly." He wished, just for a moment and in the privacy of his own head, that he could take them all for a real luxury retreat back on Titan.

"Good. Settle your affairs, settle your tabs, and be back surface side at the docks by midday tomorrow." Mickey said, standing from the table and waving a hand to keep everyone seated. "I'll go message Robbertson about the job, and make the dock master aware we're clearing out. Looks like the Charon Courier Corporation is going interstellar on this one."

 

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