Postman in Space - Ep.1

1.

"Lawson!"

The gruff voice of Superintendent Hewitt brought Kurt Lawson back to Earth. Not literally, of course.

Kurt Lawson brought his head up and, with a spin, faced his superior, secretly biting his tongue

"Lawson, you've been standing still in front of these crates for a couple of minutes" Hewitt asked "Is there something wrong? Did something catch your attention?"

Kurt Lawson, officially Sergeant Kurt Lawson of the Logistic Corps of the Sidereal Alliance Fleet, did not fall for the pitfall. Superintendent Hewitt was not a man of mercy, even if his last question could be seen as an attempt to reach out to a fellow co-worker, albeit subordinate

"No, Sir!" Kurt Lawson replied, in an attentive stance "I had a dip in my focus" he offered

"A dip in your focus?" Hewitt scoffed, swatting the air with the ledger he held in his hand. Consider this, in an era where mankind was able to travel to the edge of the galaxy and return there were still specimen as dumb as Superintendent Hewitt who were still stuck with paper an pencil, unable to find their way around with the standard tablet issued to all the workers

"Try not to dip your focus any more or... Jeez! A dip in your focus? Are you even serious, Lawson?" he added "You seem smart enough to come up with better excuses..."

Kurt Lawson was tempted to tell Hewitt to fuck off already. And to explain that a lull in the pace of working activities was perfectly normal after a twelve-hour shift. He had volunteered to be on overtime yet again in order to perform some tasks that were originally meant to be done the following day. But apparently, tomorrow there would have been something big planned at the Logistic Station Hub #339 and the schedule had been re-arranged accordingly. That wasn't really bothering him: more overtime meant a spike in his monthly wage and he needed those money. His family needed those money.

He decided to take no chances, though. Hewitt was the emblematic white-collar caught between a rock and a hard place and would turn deaf to any sound explanation. Better be quick and take the blame, if that meant getting back to work right away

"Yes, Sir" Kurt deferentially said "I'm sorry, Sir. It won't happen again, Sir!"

Hewitt made a grunt. He threw a lopsided grin at him and proceeded to walk away

"This better be the first and last time, Lawson!" he said from the distance "The first and last!"

"Fuckhead!" Kurt whispered, careful not to be heard. In the warehouse where he had been tagging barcodes on crates stacked onto indefinitely-long scaffoldings even murmurs could echo thunderously over the fain music diffused by the loudspeakers, some piece from the Twentieth Century that Kurt himself liked much. He was even sure he knew the artist, although he was sure it had a very long name.

'They don't play music like this any more' Kurt thought, as he helped himself getting back to his task 'Twenty-first Century people had it lucky in terms of music!'

The place was nearly empty, save for the few forklift operators that were running amok, switching misplaced parcels whenever the scanner he was handling sent an incongruent reading to the control office situated in a platform overlooking the hangar.

Kurt combed his taper-fade chestnut hair with his gloved hand, sweating in his working gear. The temperature in the environment was cool, but his skin was evidently protesting under the grey, armour-plated uniform bearing the blue and yellow crests of the Logistic and Communication Corps of the Fleet. He aimed again the barcode reader and proceeded to manually scan the remaining crates