TAMA

Space Detroit

Fee was watching the screens and instruments arranged in front of her. She pulled back the hair that had fallen loose into her face.

She muttered under her breath to no one in particular. "C'mon guys, don't you ever give up?"

Before her were images of spacecraft. Ships that were currently spewing fire and death at each other in an attempt to atomize their opponent. It was a free for all. There were no distinct side. Just an indiscriminate slaughter of whoever wandered into another's weapon sights.

She studied an overview of the space around her tiny capsule. There was a listing of objects surrounding the station she was tethered to. Major objects in the system, nearby vessels and objects were listed by name and distance. A color was assigned to the icon for each one. White indicated neutral items, like Space Detroit, the station which tractor field held her tiny craft or commercial and private spacecraft. Yellow was assigned to vessels piloted by suspected criminals. Icons in red showed the vessel had proven dangerous and was considered an immediate threat. Most of the time, Fee was reasonably safe, tethered as she was to the station. Still, she had to be careful. If she drifted too far from Space Detroit her and her ship were fair game.

Fioma "Fee" Keagan

It wasn't like this everywhere. In the systems controlled by New Edens security service Concorde, any hostile act triggered immediate and total annihilation for the perpetrator. Here in Tama, such was not the case. Tama had only a token Concorde presence to protect the multiple jump gates located here. The rest of the system could be considered a no mans land of blood thirsty cut throats and roving gangs intent on killing and robbing other pilots. Destroying a vessel and salvaging what ever had survived was their forte. Sometimes the crew got away. More often the corpses were left drifting in the cold void of space.

As Fee studied the instruments before her, her hand sub-consciously moved across the screen to the various icons. The jump gate she was assigned to watch, Nourvukainen, sat about 1400 klics from her current position. With few exceptions, the red and yellow icons were at about the same range. She narrowed the view on one screen to peer at the gate itself. Some of the colored markings were actually at other stations at the same distance. The balance were in the melee around Nourv'

She spoke to the screen. "Tama Spotter here, Nourv' gate is a negative. I repeat, Nourv' gate is a negative"

Thea "The" Caulder

A familiar face appeared on another screen. It was Thea Caulder. "Hey Fee...Thanks for the heads up. I'll sit here on the Nourv' side and wait if you don't mind" she laughed.
Fee laughed too, "Well The' You just do that. You've got nowhere to be anyway"
Thea laughed at the wise crack Fee had made. She was right. She had nothing to do until the spotter was sure the other side of the gate was clear. She would hove to near the company office in the Nourvukainen system. As captain of the transport YUKI ONNA. it was her responsibility to keep the vessel safe. A Miasmos class industrial, her hold was especially constructed to carry ice, thousands of cubic meters of it.

YUKI ONNA

Thea, her ship and crew worked out of the Oto system, one of Anest Iwata Corporation's most productive ice harvesting operations. YUKI ONNA regularly hauled the ice from there to the market in the Jita system. Each load brought in millions of ISK to the company coffers. It was a milk run for the most part. Tama was the only problem along the way. A huge problem, in fact. Until spotters like Fee had been deployed the company had suffered heavy losses in ships and crew. A market run could be almost suicidal, a death sentence. The gangs fighting in the system, particularly at the Nourvalkainen gate, were all too happy to reduce any vessel to fragments. "Ghouls" as some salvagers were called, then picked over the wreckage for equipment, the cargo, even the scrap metal from the wreck. Sometimes they even stole the ice, if it hadn't turned to a cloud of vapor in the explosion. Anest Iwata was barely hanging on, almost bankrupt any number of times. Then Fee and her ken came on board and things turned around. The company was now "in the black" as they say. Thea and her crew did alright with their share of the profit. Things were good.

Fee saw the screen was clear. No reds or yellows.in range of the gate. "Yuki Onna you are cleared to pass through Tama".

Thea didn't hestitate She snapped an order.The transport's warp engines spooled up and the made a run at the gate.Time was of the essence.The ship slowed up as she approached the jump gate, then Yuki Onna was catapaulted through a few light years of space.

Fee watched her displays. A yellow icon appeared, a frigate was approaching the gate. She held her breath as Yuki Onna appeared on her side of the gate. She waited anxiously as the warp drives spooled up. The frigate moved on the transport, firing a warp field disruptor at the slowly moving vessel. Fee crossed her fingers, it felt as if her heart had stopped. The moment seemed to last forever. Yuki Onna surged forward, multiple her warp stabilizers easily able to handle the frigates weapon. The transport warped away and Fee found she was able to breath again.

The screen showed another yellow, this one closing on Space Detroit. Deciding that discretion was the better part of valor, she requested clearance to dock. "HVLKI here, request permission to dock" Gratefully she heard "Docking request accepted, HVLKI". Her capsule was towed into the hanger.