Wow. These words are flying out of me like bulimia soup.
INTRODUCTION
In a fair world, Fred would be the one making the decisions in upper-management; mistakes would be treated loosely and forgiveness would be dealt out more commonly than pink slips. But in this world, Fred had a smoking habit that seemed to worsen with each passing day. Fixing commercial-class engines was hard work, especially with the added pressure of having expensive cargo transports depending on their running smoothly.
One day, Fred got a little careless and dropped a cigarette into a small pool of ship fuel. The fire scorched a sub-unit of a commercial-class engine, and rendered it useless and beyond repair. Without discussion, Fred’s employment was terminated.
“Just give me another chance, I’ll make it up to you I promise,” Fred pleaded. Craig, the dark-skinned overseer of the repair bay, considered nothing of the sort.
“You’ve had more chances than most get. I should’ve fired your ass for smoking on the job a year ago! I’ll give you until tomorrow afternoon to be packed and ready for transport.”
“Damn it, Craig! In case you haven’t heard, repairing commercial-class engines is a niche business. It’ll be years before I can get a gig like this again. Listen to me, I’m begging you, I’ve lived and worked with you on the Terra Platform for three years now—“
“—and now that your employment’s been terminated no more loyalty is required. Now, I won’t be hearing anymore of this shit, you hear? Especially not from someone who can’t be bothered to buy a goddamned nicotine patch, for god’s sake! Packed and ready to leave at 1200 hours tomorrow, Frederick, or it’ll be more than just your career on the line. Understood?” Fred was furious, but refrained from flipping Craig the finger when he had the power to have him shot out into deep space.
“I wish we could’ve ended this differently.”
“I wish I would’ve ended it sooner.”
The discussion didn’t go well. Fred had to put down half of his current funds just to retrieve a sturdy transport to take him down to the surface of Terra. It seemed odd leaving after such a long time away, maybe it was the connections he had made with some of the crew, or how he could maneuver around the ship blind-folded if he needed to, or maybe he knew that if he left now, he would be leaving behind a part of his life that he could never get back.
PART 1 – ACT 1
As if losing his job wasn’t enough, after the engagement was over all of the vendors aboard the Terra Platform were given strict instructions not to sell tobacco-based products to the low-and-behold Fred Kirby. He was stuck in the Staging Center, without a fix, until a civil transport made itself up from Terra to pick him up and take him to his new ‘life’.
The stage clerk gave him a pinch of chew to ease his anxiety after a few hours of watching him shaking on the bench. He said he bought it from a vendor, but from the way his teeth looked when he smiled, he knew the man was sharing.
“This might do you some good. Until you can quit, of course,” said the clerk.
“I’ll send you a Christmas card sometime…”
“The name’s Charlie, he replied.
“I assume you would’ve done the same for me had I been the one about to pass on from not having a ‘quick fix’.”
The transport arrived ten hours after it was expected, and the pilot looked none-too-pleased to be there.
“Which one of you bastards will be taking up my cargo bay this fine morning?” The pilot peered around the Staging Center, which was reminiscent to a space-travel DMV, and saw only Fred in queue.
“Ah, you, shaky fella’, hop aboard!” His accent was horrendously hard to understand. He sounded as though he was raised by a family of drunken trolls, but aside from his voice his appearance was quite friendly. He wore standard fleet attire, but had a four-leafed clover button pinned to his right suspender.
“Don’t happen to have any smokes on you ‘eh McCormac?”
“The name’s Patrick and you’ll be waiting ‘till we get down to the surface markets because I’m fresh out of favors for your sorry arse. Now get in my ship before I leave you for buzzards and comets!”
