Ray Gun Revival magazine, Issue 53

***
“And that,” Jessica said with an air
of finality, “is the tall and the skinny
of it.”
Everyone around the table that
served as the primary gathering
place for meals aboard the Breaking
Dawn grunted and sat back to
mull over what she’d told them. After
several seconds of silence, one
crewmember stood up.
“I’ll not say that I’m entirely
pleased with all this,” Zen squawked,
her cream-colored feathers barely
bristling, “but as your people say, no
use crying over spilled muff.”
“Milk,” Boo corrected with a light
chuckle.
Zen’s pitch black eyes slid over to
the Kleeetan abruptly. “Pardon?”
“Milk,” Boo repeated. “No use
crying over spilled milk.”
Clicking her beak lips, Zen tossed
her head and shrugged. “Fine. Milk.
Thank you, Boo. But my sentiment
stands. We are committed, and we
have been paid, so I think we might
as well get the task done with as
quickly as possible.”
Jessica looked around the table.
None of her crew appeared happy
to be working for the Gorawnies,
even if only tangentially, but no one
stood up to say they refused either.
Nodding, she said, “Okay then. Get
to your stations. I’m going to be
pushing the engines fairly hard all
the way, and I don’t want any surprises.”
Everyone filed out of the room,
some going fore and some aft. Jessica
and Boo made immediately for
the bridge. The Kleeetan lowered
himself into the pilot’s seat while
his captain went to a command station
above and behind him. As he
strapped himself in and began preflight
checks, she put on a headset
and brought her communications
display online.
“Traffic control, this is Breaking
Dawn requesting immediate clearance
to depart.” Her words were
crisp, clear, and direct. A reply was
not long in coming.
“Breaking Dawn, you are not yet
cleared for debarkation. Stand down
while we secure an exit lane for you.
One moment please.”
Tapping the screen to her left, she
brought up the ship’s status display
and saw that all systems were reading
within nominal ranges. For a ship
as old as she was, Breaking Dawn
was fitter than most starcraft half
her age. All her crew saw to that.
Next she brought her navigation
displays to life and started charting
a route to Proxius. There were two
to choose from, but neither was
an easy trip, and ultimately it came
down to deciding which was the
lesser evil. One route consisted of
eight hops; seven of them through
standard Conduit nodes, and one
through a Coven gate, with the entire
trip taking an estimated six days.
The other route took only three days,
but there were four hops, and all of
them were through Coven gates, the
last two being within hours of each
other. She didn’t want to put any
of them through that sort of stress,
but the saved time was too great to
ignore. In the end, it really wasn’t a
choice at all.
“You’re now cleared to leave
Vimm’skka Station, Breaking Dawn,”
the traffic control operator said.
“Exit vectors have been uploaded to
you. Deviate from them and you will
be fined accordingly. Have a good
day.”
Jessica checked her screens
and saw the uploaded flight plan.
“Thanks, traffic control. Breaking
Dawn out.” She then added the
transmitted exit vectors to her Proxius
nav route and forwarded it to the
piloting station. A disgruntled snort
came seconds later.
“Four Coven gates?” Boo asked.
“Was it something I said?”
She laughed, but it was a sound
with little humor in it. The coming
journey promised to be a trying one,
and she silently cursed the bond
that had caused her to help her old
ISSUE 53
friend. Had it been anyone else in
the galaxy, she would have turned
them away without a second’s
thought. But Jack was different, and
the old man knew it.
Still, she thought, Zen’s right. We
took the job, and we took the payment.
No use grousing about it now.
Let’s just get it done and move on.
The sooner we get all these Coven
gates passed us, the better.
***
For the fourth time in nearly as
many days, space unraveled itself
around Jessica in terrible swirls
of light and dark as her ship flew
through yet another Coven gate. It
was a horrible feeling, like she was
dying in slow motion, and it never
got easier no matter how many
times she went through it.
“One...two...three...four...five...”
she whispered, her eyes closed
and her skin clammy. “Six...seven...
eight...nine...ten.”
By the time she was done counting,
the medicine Zen had given her
kicked in, easing her stomach and
frazzled nerves. Going through a Coven
gate was bad enough, but how
the Coven themselves could stand
to live inside them was something
she would never understand.
Checking her navigational
screens, she saw that her ship was
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