13 Degrees of Separation (23 page)

“Thanks,” Mairi said, smiling on her own this time.

“Sure thing,” he said. He ducked and put her clothes back
into the duffel in a wadded up mess. “Sorry,” he said.

“I'll deal with it,” Mairi said, taking the bag. He passed
her the pouch and other bags and then had each of them go through the walk
through scanner. Then he padded them down. Her mother squirmed, laughing and
complaining she was ticklish. Mairi just wished he'd get it over with.

He had them sign a bunch of forms on a tablet and then pay
the due. He had them read out loud the various rules and regs of the station
and then he signed off on that and provide thumb prints. She wasn't sure what
that was about but just shrugged it off. When she was done she moved to the
indicated door. Her mother lingered, chatting amiably.

“Any ideas on finding a rent?” Mairi asked over her
shoulder.

“Transient quarters. Blue 1179. But you'll get that after
you go through a checkup. Through here ladies,” he waved to the next door.
Mairi nodded and moved through the door with her mother still behind her. When
she noted her mother hadn't followed right away she turned and grabbed her
mother's hand and jerked her into motion.

“Bye,” her mother said, waving her fingers and smiling
again.

“You're impossible you know that mom?” Mairi sighed,
pulling her along.

“But he's cute!” Her mother wiggled and strutted.

“Yeah and my age mom. Give me a break. You're embarrassing
me,” she sighed gripping tighter.

“Owe!” her mother complained. She let go. “There is no harm
in flirting dear. It's a good way to break the ice and make contacts.”

“Right.”

“And you are lucky I've been taking supplements or you'd of
broken my wrist,” her mother hissed softly.

“Sorry,” Mairi replied slightly repentant. She hadn't meant
to squeeze that hard.

Nurse Ezri overheard the exchange. They made small talk,
Mairi and Olga took turns explaining some of their life and the events in
Senka. The nurse listened politely as she checked them over professionally. She
drew blood, Olga turned pale and looked away, gulping furiously and trying hard
not to barf. Mairi caught the nurse's concerned look and just rolled her eyes.
“Mom can't stand needles,” she explained.

The small nurse snorted and pulled the needle out and then
squirted a white foam over the pin prick. The foam rapidly hardened. After a
moment she wiped the excess off and the wound was gone. “There all better,” the
nurse said.

They talked about their health, giving Ezri a basic file to
go off of as the medical scans on their blood and urine were done by the
various machines in the room next door. Finally Mairi was given a clean bill of
health but Olga was dinged for STD's. She was given medication to take along
with the bone supplements they were both ordered to take. Mairi gave her mother
a baleful look as she dutifully took the printed directions and paid for it
all.

“You are hereby warned not to engage in any sexual activity
until you receive a clean bill of health by medical,” Ezri intoned, giving Olga
a serious no nonsense look.

“You can't...” Olga flushed, angry.

“We can and we will,” Ezri answered, eyes flashing. Ogla
sat back, eyes wide. “No sexual contact. No transmission of blood, saliva, or
other biological transfer until you are clean. That's an order Mrs. Jersey.”

“Consequences?” Mairi asked, eying her mother as the Nurse
had Olga sign and finger print that she understood the order.

“She'll be deported if she breaks the rules. We're serious
here about preventing any outbreaks so keep clean. At least until you are given
a clean bill of health. After that you are on your own.”

“Great. Well, mom not screwing every Tom, Dick, and Harry
for a while. How novel,” Mairi muttered just loud enough for the other two
women to hear. Ogla flushed and grabbed her daughters wrist and dragged her out
of the room as Ezri pretended not to notice.

...*...*...*...*...

Howie looked over to Shari and grunted. She snorted in
agreement. They were still working directly for the station, but hopefully not
for much longer...
IF
they could get the shipyard off and running. Big
If there. Right now it was getting dicey. It was disgusting what the paper
pushers on the station and corporations were doing. The so called executives
were cutting themselves bonuses even if they failed, giving themselves pay raises
and all kinds of perks, but the guys and gals doing the actual work, laying
their lives on the line were getting the shaft.

He'd had his pay cut do to budget constraints once since
the admiral had left a few weeks ago. They were talking about doing it again,
'trimming fat and reducing the pay to appropriate levels' while at the same
time giving themselves a fat bonus for doing it!

No, he couldn't wait to get the yard going so he could give
them all the finger. He'd heard a few people mutter about starting a union, so
far it had been all talk. He wasn't sure how far they'd go with it, the last
two guys who'd talked about it had been fired for bullshit reasons. Now no one
talked about it on the job or anywhere a cyber could hear.

What he'd love to do is get the yard going and then offer
everyone a job. If everyone walked off the job and quit they'd be screwed! He
could just imagine a paper pusher trying to do
his
job! Let them try to
muscle metal plates together to weld! Work 16 hour shifts with no overtime allowed...
only to find out your rent had gone up or the cost of food had gone up...
bullshit! It frizzed his ass no end to find out that he and Shari hadn't been
included in that lease for life deal. Bullshit! The damn slikes! They had been
born
on this fracken station, their families before them, on and on. They deserved
it! But oh, no, they gave it to the people on the Kiev and the Lieandra only!
Bull! Bull
fracken
bull!

No, after the last rent increase Shari had talked with Savo
and Petunia and they'd racked up together. It was funny, when they'd announced
they were leaving the leasing agents had freaked. Apparently all these rent
increases weren't in their control, or so they said. Corporate. Bull. They'd
tried to dangle incentives but they'd stuck to their guns. Moving in hadn't
been easy but they were making it work.

He scratched an itch absently, chuffing at the idea of
group living. Shari eyed him and he stopped and shrugged under her gaze, not
meeting her brown eyes. She hated it when he scratched in public. All these
damn rules, social ones and work rules were getting on his nerves. He needed
time to blow off steam.

He still didn't know what the hell to do about the home
front. Shari had talked him and the others into a group marriage. They were all
still feeling it out. Being in a group was weird, cool with a couple of gals
but totally odd with another guy involved. He still wasn't sure about that.
Savo was a nice guy, and he was doing a good job representing them in the
meetings, but still... weird.

Shari wanted a kid, so did Petunia. But they wanted this
Yard Dogs thing to get off the ground first, get it up and running smoothly. He
wasn't at all sure about Petunia, Savo was right, she was a whole lot of woman
to love. Handling the idea of somehow getting her preggers since they were
technically different species... that was a bit beyond his gang education. Way
beyond, way, way beyond.

Savo, his thoughts turned to his 'husband'. He was a good
guy, he could handle his beer and he never wanted to tick him off. One session
on the mat staring up at the ceiling dazed had convinced him of that! Savo was
security so he had contacts... hopefully something would break soon. He turned
and grabbed a piece of sand paper and started scuffing up and cleaning the copper
pipe he was working on.

“Deep thoughts?” Shari asked, cleaning her pipe with a
bottle brush.

“Huh?” Howie asked. He looked at her. She was pregnant
which was cool. She had to watch herself in tight situations now though. She
couldn't quite get that belly in and out of tight quarters so easily.

Shari chuffed. Howie was off balance mentally, she could
tell. It was a lot to absorb for an uneducated chimp from the gangs. “I'm just
wondering since you've sanded that pipe twice now,” she said.

“Oh?” he replied, stopping. He stared at it and then over
to his box. She chuffed a laugh. He shook his head with a soft snort at his own
wool gathering and picked up the valve assembly he was supposed to attach.
“Okay, so I'm just a little off today. Go figure,” he muttered.

...*...*...*...*...

Savo sighed, shaking his head as the others murmured
amongst themselves. He was a chimp and yeah it was stereotypical but he
seriously wanted to swing from the rafters right now, all this chatter was
driving him stir crazy! Some of the people involved...

They say you shouldn't work with family, and he wasn't
quite sure how true that was. His new family group formed part of the backbone
of the fledgling company. Howie and Shari were their welders... with nothing to
weld. His lovely Petunia was their only certified space worker... with nothing
except the truss extruder to work on right now.

The Taurens Gwen and Riff were only here in spirit, both
were currently working their day jobs in the station's engineering department.

Taylor and Rasha Warner were their heavy hitters, together
they had ten percent of the shares as well as the controlling key codes for
some of their equipment. They were serving as co-chair of the board as well as
CFO and CEO of the company. As Cybers they were also junior members of the
station council... and also reserve naval officers.

Anthony Spakitelli, Aka Sparks, and his wife Regina were
here, as was Spark's cohort Roger Freeze aka Mr. Freeze and his tiny wife Ezri.

Sparks and Freeze were part of the engineering crew, their
wives were the medics of the company. They served under another council member
and member of their board, Dr. Megan Trask. Dr. Trask didn't attend meetings
however, she was a busy lady and had handed her proxy to the Warners.

To his surprise and initial annoyance another member had
bought shares from the Warners, the dumb AI Clio. Clio wasn't quite so dumb
anymore, not so much of an air head since Sprite had repaired and rebuilt her.
Savo was curious how much of the admiral's AI had rubbed off on the muse. He
didn't have anything to judge her behavior off of though, he'd only met her
after her rebuild. He'd at first thought of her as a spy until she'd proven her
worth by taking over the brunt of the paperwork.

On the other end were Alice, her husband Ralph, they had no
skills in construction but had bought shares anyway.  Bert Bertoli had also
bought shares, he wasn't sure from whom. The restaurateur was too busy with his
growing business however to attend regular meetings. He did cater them however,
which was nice. Savo snorted, fingering the beer mug in front of him. Not that
they needed much being here in Ralphi's bar.

When John had suggested this project he'd been all for it,
but he hadn't known the sheer bullshit involved. If he had he'd of bailed long
ago. Stubborn orneriness and a will to not only prove the doubters wrong, but
also show everyone John was right kept him going. Kept him and many of the
others going, it sure wasn't for the pay! They were still running in the red.

It wasn't John's fault he'd underestimated the opposition.
He'd tucked away some really nice equipment for them too, which would be nice
to use if they could ever get most o fit out of the damn storage! The only
thing currently in use was the little truss factory sitting out in space
nearby. It was a fifty meter long silver tube with solar panels on one end. It
could spit out truss segments at an astonishing rate, all built and ready to be
connected to other segments, or pieces of modules, or other structural components.
But it lacked the materials.

They had a solar panel maker, wire extruder... just feed it
aluminum, or copper, or plastic, or a mix of other materials and it could make
wires of any type in any gauges you needed as long as you wanted.  It could
even make pipe, hoses, and duct work... but again no materials.

An electronic fabber, an assembly fabber, EPS conduit
extruder... The list of minor but important factories went on and on, filling a
good part of their 200 cubic meter warehouse.

There was a robot maker... something they had tried to put
to use with mixed results. The cost of running the blasted thing made it a
black hole, they couldn't keep up with the bills to run it so they'd shut it
down last week. It sucked, they had a mini factory that could churn out all
sorts of bots and it was sitting there collecting dust like all the others.

The pieces they flat out refused to acknowledge they had
were the micro fusion reactor and pair of molecular furnaces. Those were
critical components, ones that a lot of people badly wanted since no one could
make them. Well tough, it was theirs and they weren't giving it up. Nor were
they going to give up the five industrial replicators Irons had given them just
before leaving on Phoenix. Absolutely no one knew about them and they were
doing their best to keep it that way.

With the molecular furnaces, replicators, power, and raw
materials they could make just about anything not on the restricted list... and
a few components that were. Apparently when the admiral turned over the reins
of all this to the Warner's he'd also uploaded the key codes to allow them to
use some of the lesser restricted files... if they signed into the machines as
military officers.