To Hell and Back (Hellworlder pirates)

Off World Ch1

Off World

The station bustled around her, species of almost every size and shape shoved past her. Though most bounced of her solid deathworlder muscles, all were to busy to even notice they just bumped into the galactic unions newest deathworld species. Alwen didn't mind, she marveled at the idea that her small frail frame was one that outclassed most of the behemoths around her. The gravity of galactic 'standard' felt more like a light shawl rather than the solid press of her home world Torwens' native gravity.

She stood in the middle of the stations great crossroads gawking at the sprawling mass of all the galaxies sapient species swarming across the delicately suspended bridges that spanned the yawning gap between the Femeri space stations massive arms. Elevators shuttled hundreds of 'people' up and down across the two standard miles of vertical space in cavernous chambers. Magnetically propelled trains rushed by silently in suspended glass tubs. Hundreds of stores, restaurants, offices, and Galactic union banks lined the sides of the crossroads super structure, dwarfing her own planets largest mall by a few orders of magnitude. Above and below her glass domes capped either end of the tube-shaped crossroads, beyond she saw as hundreds of starships moved in and out of their berths.

Massive ships in their own right, most nearly triple the size of her world's oil tankers, seemed almost miniscule compared to this vast space they maneuvered through. She saw large dingy galactic standard shipping containers offloaded from the varied star freighters and loaded onto train cars the size of dump trucks. Ready to be stored in the Femeri's warehouses or directly moved to other freighters.

A great and intricate dance of commerce and pleasure passed through this linchpin in the galactic economy, entire planetary economies depending on this one enormous station. A thousand 'standard' light years away from her home world, and the only station close enough to make runs from Torwens profitable. All none the wiser of the deathworlder in their midst.

Alwen wasn't really comfortable with that title. Arbitrarily applied to her home world by an uncaring equation. An equation that compared gravity, climate, background radiation, and the native fauna and spit out a rating of eleven point nine for a bountiful cradle like Torwen. Were as most of the galaxy reside comfortably on class five or six worlds. Before traveling off world she scoffed at the idea of 'deathworlder' being an apt descriptor for her and her people, compared to some of the deathworlder horror stories she'd heard. But now among the 'softer' species she couldn't help but marvel at the difference.

To her eyes many around her seemed gangly and uncoordinated, lumbering, or waddling around they seemed almost like toddlers. Not stupid, but seemingly inattentive, like they weren't fully aware of their surroundings like she was. For the first time since she left Torwen, Alwen was happy that she would be joining the crew of a deathworld cargo vessel as junior medical personnel. Though she was still fraught with concern over the particular nature of her new crewmates, one didn't hear stories about the ferocious Terrans without being worried for their own safety.

But safety was a secondary concern for Alwen; if she wanted to be safe she would have remained at home. For her and many other Torweni all the great galaxy was a frightful place, filled to the brim with the strange and unknown. There had been riots surrounding the building of her world's first wake distortion communication satellite, for fear of what might answer the call. But all fears seemed needless as envoys of the Great Galactic union answered her worlds calls just ten Torweni years ago.

Amicable the representatives explained that while there were a great many species in the galaxy, that compared to the size and scale of the distances in-between cradle worlds their was little to gain from conflict. Instead they explained their great interconnected trade lanes and the cooperation of all people to prosper as a galaxy. They explained the dangers that did however lie in the infinite void to prey upon trade and travel and how the union patrols hyperspace lanes to promote free commerce between worlds. They promised technological wonders and hoped that the Torweni would one day join and contribute to the union. Strength, peace, prosperity was the unions motto.