Star Trader Update .038

038.01

At first, I didn’t know what woke me. I was just jolted awake by some unfamiliar noise. But then the sound rattled the hull of Ma-rye-a again. There was no mistaking it. It was Kay-o bellowing at the top of his lungs. His booming howl vibrated my chest as if I had the bass tuned up way too high on Ma-rye-a’s sound system.

“What the…” I started to swear.

I tumbled out of bed and headed out of my room and down the hall toward the guest room where Jake, Arr and Kay-o chose to spend the night rather than pod back over to their ship. We had a few too many drinks. They considered that room theirs anyway, so had tucked in for the night.

The fact that I had one too many before retiring, was not helping my navigation down the hall. Jake came crashing out of the guest room. We collided head on.

“What the…” Jake said.

Star Trader Update .037

037.01

“I’ll be fine,” I assured Marstead. “I think I need space. I need my mind to work on something other than who might be waiting to grab me next time I go into the city. For that matter, who might break into my ship and wreak more havoc.”

“I can’t keep you safe out there,” Marstead waved his hand in the general direction of everything. I was glad he was on the comlink rather than here beside me or he might have managed to convince me to stay. I really didn’t know why I was going. I just had a gut feeling I needed to go to my parent’s dig. Or, maybe that gut feeling was the breakfast Moby made for me that wasn’t settling very well.

“You don’t need to keep me safe, Marstead.” I tried to give him a reassuring smile. “I am a big girl and I can take care of myself.” Yeah, right. Some of my friends could tell stories about that. “I’ll keep in contact. I’ll send messages daily if that will make you feel better. It’s not that far away. I can be there in no time.”

Star Trader Update .036

036.01

“Calm down,” Daniel soothed. “I can fix this.”

I thumbed tears from my eyes. I know I looked pitiful. I am not one of those pretty criers. My face gets all blotchy and my eyes turn red.

“How?” I asked in disbelief.

Even though I had total confidence in Daniel I thought it was hopeless. I actually called him because I knew I could not function in my profession without an AI to handle the loading and unloading of cargo. I figured I would have Daniel program me another as soon as possible.

Star Trader Update .035

035.01

“Tilt your head a little further toward me,” the dentist instructed.

I obliged and felt the jaw mike snap into place over my back molar.

“That should do it,” she announced. “Give it a try.”

I ordered the mike over a year ago, but hadn’t been anywhere with the facilities to install it. This layman’s variety of a jaw mike, unlike the Galactic Forces model, was not actually installed in the jaw surgically. Theirs was far more sophisticated. For this model, the wearer had one of their back molar’s ground down like you were prepping for a crown, but instead the mike was fit over the tooth.

I leaned up and took my “Ear” out of my pocket and stuck it in.