Coffee Cup Dreams (A Redpoint One Romance) (3 page)

It was Tish's turn to go into shock. She felt
her jaw go slack before she caught herself. "The alien space
station? Out in the middle of nowhere?"

"It's not in the middle of nowhere. It's an
important hyperspace rest point between the core worlds and the
Drax Outlier Worlds," Neil said quickly. "A very busy place, I
hear."

"And still out in the middle of nowhere," Tish
said.

"I know it isn't a planet, but it isn't a
small spaceship either," Neil continued. "It has several habitable
rings. Plenty of room to move around. And there are
jobs."

Tish's hands clutched at the coffee cup, her
mind dredging up everything she'd ever heard about it. Including a
popular movie only a few months ago. "And it's alien. You know,
those ones that are extinct. Remember the movie? Oh, and did I
mention it's in the middle of nowhere?"

"You want a place to live? This is it. They
are a part of the Free Trade Association, which means greater
tolerance for those with gifts. You would not be required to take
the drugs. With the ships going in and out every day, if you don't
like it you would be able to leave at any time." He glanced up at
her. "So, live free and in a different place, or planetary and hope
you can get off this rock before someone comes looking for you.
What will it be?"

Tish licked her suddenly dry lips. "No
drugs?"

"No drugs. And if you take a job with the
Station itself, you can move in immediately."

"With Arthur?" Maria asked with a small laugh.
"The girl won't last a week. Hardly anyone does."

"She needs a job, it's a job with the station
itself, and she could be on a transport within the week," Neil
said, casting a glare in her direction. "Arthur only asks for hard
workers. Tish is a hard worker."

"She is not a mechanic!"

"I'm not a mechanic," Tish echoed, taking a
quick sip of coffee. The flavor filled her mouth, slipping down her
throat. With it the clouds in the coffee swirled in her mind,
mocking her confused state of mind. From a heart operation, to no
boyfriend, to no house, to no planet?

Neil put the small computer down and leaned on
the table on folded forearms, pinning her with all his attention,
"Listen closely. This is an alien space station, as you said. As
such, normal mechanics and maintenance professionals have a
difficult time adapting. Arthur needs people with the inclination,
but not the training, so he can train them for this specific
station. No certification or degrees, but once you are up and
running you get the same pay-scales."

Tish sucked in her breath. She still had a
school-friend she kept in contact with who crewed on a larger
trader vessel in the maintenance department. The pay dictated by
the Free Trade Association had taken her breath away. A few years
of that and she could set herself up comfortably on just about any
planet.

She'd wanted a job of more excitement than the
data processing of the last job, but to leave the planet? It felt
extreme. Too far. And yet, it gave her a shiver of
excitement.

"No previous training?" Tish asked again, not
believing she could be considering the possibility. Surely someone
like her couldn't qualify for something so high-paying.

Neil smiled, leaning back in his chair. "No
training. Just a willingness to learn and work hard. You've helped
me around the house before. You learn quick. Programming the
robotics, troubleshooting the heating system. None of it stumped
you."

Tish smiled weakly, "Just weeding the flower
bed manually."

"And if you had known exactly what a marigold
looked like compared to a weed, I'm sure you would have done well
with it, as well." He tapped a finger on his pocket computer.
"There are three job openings in his department and Arthur will
take a recommendation from me as if from an employer. Now, do you
want in, or not?"

She glanced at the white bag sitting on the
table next to her coffee cup. The multi-colored containers of pills
were barely visible through the thin plastic.

She'd never felt so threatened by things so
small. A new heart valve in her chest that should last the rest of
her life, and yet she wasn't free to live it. On the pills, and the
side-effects would start, leaving her unfit for most jobs. Off the
pills, and the government would come looking, perhaps even force
her to take them or incarcerate her where she could be 'safely
observed.'

The walls started closing in, making it hard
to breath. All because of what the doctors said happened in the
operating room. Because of the government fear of those with mental
powers.

"I'm not a psi," she whispered.

Neil frowned. "That's not an
answer."

She straightened her shoulders and took a deep
breath, thinking of the clouds in her coffee. Ephemeral as dreams.
Well, maybe it was time to make a dream or two solidify, to finally
come true. Time for an adventure. To stop reading about them and
start living them.

Time to restart life, even if it meant moving
away from the only planet she'd ever known.

She pushed the pills even further away, saying
firmly, "I'll go for the job."

Once she made the decision it all happened
rather fast. A response came from Redpoint One by the end of the
day telling her that her application had been accepted. The message
included the full job offer details.

Seeing the pay-scale and perks eased her mind.
She quickly accepted the offer and added a quick note that she
would like to start as soon as she could get there. The next
communication sent her the finalized job contract as well as
information on transportation to the station.

She didn't own much. All her belongings fit in
the small attic room she'd rented for the past couple years and the
furniture belonged to the Getty's. Sorting and packing took no time
at all.

All the while the Gettys stayed close. She
played her last game of soccer with the boys in the back yard.
Maria cooked up one last grand meal. Neil insisted she accompany
him on anything he worked on at the house.

But she felt every moment. Waiting for someone
to show up at the door demanding to know why she wasn't taking the
pills. Maybe to force her or take her away. With each passing hour
the urge to get off-planet as soon as possible built. To get out of
Earth's sphere of influence.

And by the end of the week she was.

A tear-filled goodbye with her surrogate
family and she was on The Golden Oriander on its way to the Drax
Outlier Worlds to deliver cargo with a stop-over at Redpoint One.
Redpoint One arranged for her to travel in one of their four
passenger rooms. It was smaller than her room at the Gettys, but
more than she'd hoped for after reading up on standard economical
accommodations aboard freighter ships.

Her few belongings, packed securely in sealed
boxes, sat in a neat pile in one corner of the room at the end of
the bed. She packed two suitcases to live out of until her arrival
at Redpoint One.

The first week Tish loved it. The other two
passengers kept to themselves so she had nothing to do but lay
around, rest, read, and wander the few corridors open to her. Relax
from the stress of trying to leave Earth in such a hurry, tensing
every time someone came to the door of the house.

The second week she cleaned her room, helped
in the ship kitchen, finished reading the new book series she'd
brought with her, and read the entire documentation sent by
Redpoint One.

By the third week the walls were closing
in.

Her reading expanded to include every
instruction manual and checklist she could find on the ship, the
ramifications of her new job description weighing heavy on her
shoulders the closer they grew to Redpoint One.

The doubts piled on. A Maintenance Engineer?
She wasn't an 'engineer' by any stretch of the imagination. Was she
mad?

Tish put down the emergency main power-down
checklist. It would be more fun if she understood half the items
listed. She slouched down in the extra chair at the rear of the
cockpit that she'd been allowed to sit in since the beginning of
the second week.

"Ready to crew?" Captain Jarvid asked,
swinging his chair around to glance at her.

She crossed her arms over her chest as she
slouched down a little more. "Not unless you want your ship blown
up for the insurance money."

He let out a hearty bellow of a laugh, the
sound of it filling the cockpit.

The pilot looked back with a grin. "Not this
close to port. We're ready to drop out of hyperspace."

With the news her fears exploded, sure that
she would not be able to do the job and they would ship her right
back to Earth. She so desperately needed to make it work, and she
had no idea what she might be walking into.

"Give us plenty of room, Mr. Samson," Captain
Jarvid said, swinging back towards the front.

"Yes sir."

An alarm echoed through the ship as Mr. Samson
announced the hyperspace exit. Tish sat back up, her arms gripping
the chair arms tightly, waiting for the bouncing and gravity
fluctuations that had accompanied the hyperspace
entrance.

A soft fast vibration went through the ship.
The vibrating floor tickled the bottom of her feet. A deep hum
filled the air for a few seconds before the swirling clouds of
hyperspace disappeared with a flash, replaced by a beautiful
starfield.

At least it was beautiful to her after so long
without being able to see anything out of the portals other than
murky moving colors of dark hyperspace. Her first off-planet
adventure and she'd seen very little in the way of
starscapes.

"Good exit," Captain Jarvid said as the
starfield shifted to the right.

"Thank you, sir. We have clearance for
approach. Third in line for decontamination."

"Good. We'll be docked before
lunch."

Docked? Docked where?

Tish leaned forward to get a better view out a
wide portal next to the console on her left side. All she could see
were stars and more stars, then the long wisps of color from a
distant nebula. No planets, no other ships, no space stations.
Maybe they were making some sort of way-stop?

The space station appeared, filling the entire
window. Then filled the other windows on the starboard side of the
freighter. The thing wasn't just big. It was massive.

Through her amazed staring, Captain Jarvid
said, "Welcome to Redpoint One, Ms. Douglas."

CHAPTER THREE

TISH WAS VAGUELY aware both the captain and the pilot were
grinning at her. She didn't care. She couldn't take her eyes off
the space station.

For one thing, the thing was massive. Maybe it
appeared so large because they came out of hyperspace so close to
it? She could see a tiny speck heading away from one end. Probably
a ship, but was it very big?

Then there were the rings. Five rings in a
row, all off a base tube, the entire gray and blue structure slowly
spinning in space. It looked delicate and massive all at the same
time.

The more she looked, the more detail she
noted. Openings in the central tubes leading into the center of the
structure. Appendages and blocks on the spokes holding the rings to
the central station. A slight flaring of the tube at each
end.

Her first impression had been correct. The
thing was huge.

"Well, what do you think?" Captain Jarvid
asked.

"It's not red," Tish said.

Captain Jarvid's booming laugh made her flinch
and forced her attention away from the space station. She could
feel her face turning red.

He rested his folded hands on his belly as he
brought his laughter under control. "Good one. The word 'red' in
the name doesn't refer to a physical color. It refers to the
hyperspace point."

Tish shook her head. "I don't
understand."

"It all has to do with hyperspace radiation,"
Mr. Samson said. "It builds up in a ship the longer she's in a
jump. At a certain point it becomes deadly. That point is called a
'redpoint.'"