"Sir, you have absolutely no experience piloting anything larger than a Starflier. Do you honestly expect us to entrust you with ships worth millions of credits?"
"With all due respect, sir, I do have experience. I've been conducting terrestrial trains on Houston since I was a kid!"
"Conducting a terrestrial train and pulling thousands of tons of cargo through empty space and pirates are two very, very different things."
"I promise you, I'll be the best transport pilot Republican has ever had the privilege of hiring!"
"I'm sorry, sir, but a promise simply isn't enough. Our pilots need to be experienced."
I grabbed my coat and left the office, walking down the streets of New Berlin's spaceport district. I had already been turned down by Spa and Cruise, Cryer, Interspace, and Universal for the same reason, and almost all of my savings from my job as a conductor back on Houston for the job search were gone.
Those companies... they hated me. All I ever wanted to do was live out my dream in peace- and now they were crushing any hope I had. Spa and Cruise had been my first choice- transporting people was my calling; I had already done it on land since I was a teenager. After OSC rejected my application, I went to Cryer; transporting medicine to save people's lives was certainly a noble profession as well. But they, too, turned me down. And so did the next company, and the next. To work independently would have sufficed, but the meager wages of a terrestrial train conductor were nowhere near enough to save up for a freighter or transport.
"Those scumbags are too greedy to care about the little guy," I told myself.
"Someday, I'll show them all how bad a mistake they made."
I stopped at one of the many train garages in the area, and gazed through a chain-link fence at an independently marked Advanced Train on the other side, gathering dust. It looks like it had been several weeks since its last use, although there was no apparent damage. I leaned against the fence, holding it to get a better view.
"Nice ship, isn't it?" someone said, standing behind me.
I spun around and found myself eye-to-chest with a large man in an orange jumpsuit.
"Uh... I guess so. I would kill to have one of those," I replied.
"Why's that, son?"
"It's always been my dream to be a space train pilot... it seems that it's not in my cards, though."
"It is now."
With that, the man gave me a keyring with two keys on it, nodded at the gate to the garage, and walked away without a word.
I stood, confused. I glanced at the lock on the gate. Could this really be it?
Cautiously, I approached the gate and inserted the key into the lock. It turned, and the lock opened with a click. This was probably a police sting operation or something. But who cares? I didn't have anything to lose.
I walked up to and around the Advanced Train itself, looking around it for any signs of damage. There were none to be found. Again, cautiously, I inserted the key into the cockpit door's lock and again, it clicked open. I walked into the cockpit, shutting the door behind me.
The controls were surprisingly few, and they were almost all labeled. The control panel lit up, indicating a ship that was in perfect condition, with plenty of fuel. This seemed too good to be true, but again, it's not like I had anything to lose; prison wasn't much worse than scratching a living on Houston.
Now that I had this ship, I needed something to transport but didn't have money to buy it. I thought to myself- why transport commodities when you can do what you always wanted to and transport people? If OSC can do it, so can I!
Determined, I left the ship and the garage, locking everything behind me. I picked a piece of cardboard off of the ground and grabbed a pen out of my pocket. On the cardboard, I wrote:
"The Midnight Express Special! New Berlin to New Tokyo for only 500 credits! Leaving at 12 AM tonight from Train Garage NB-6372!"
I walked up to one of the passenger terminals run by Orbital and used a piece of gum from the sidewalk to adhere the sign to a wall nearby. I repeated this process several times at different passenger dropoff and pickup points, and went back to my new train for a good night's sleep.
When I awoke the next morning, I looked outside and was astounded! People lining up outside the gates for as far as the eye could see! I had no idea what I had gotten myself into; as a matter of fact, I didn't even know the first thing about space travel outside of flight simulators, let alone how to get to New Tokyo.
I rubbed my eyes, opened the cockpit door, and proceeded to the gate, which I unlocked.
"Alright, passengers! This is the Midnight Express, offering service to New Tokyo for 500 credits! All aboard!"
As was customary, I expected payment on arrival and not beforehand, so the passengers streamed into the cargo pods of the train.
"Hey, man! There's no seats in here!" complained one passenger.
"That explains the discounted price, sir," I replied.
The man shrugged and sat in a corner of one of the pods.
When the pods were full, there were still people lined up around the block.
"Sorry folks, but today's flight is full. Maybe next time." I told them.
I walked into the garage and locked the gate behind me, closed the cargo pod doors, and got into the cockpit. I switched on the intercom.
"Alright, passengers, this is the Midnight Express. Prepare for takeoff. All aboard!"
With that, I engaged the engine and lifted up; the controls were exactly the same as in the simulator.
Within seconds, I was in space, admiring the scenery of New Berlin. I docked with the nearest tradelane, and proceeded. I was pretty sure that Kusari space was up North somewhere...
After a few system jumps, I found myself in Kusari space. From here, however, I was completely lost with regards to how to get to New Tokyo.
After a tradelane disruption, I found myself floating in Kusari space into an unknown direction. But train conductors can't get nervous! I forged ahead, and encountered some sort of anomaly. It sucked up the ship, and I soon found myself and my ship in some strange system. I forged ahead again, hit another hole, and lost track of how many times this happened. I finally looked around outside the ship; this system was green and there were planets nearby, the nearest of which had some sort of base in its orbit. I headed towards the planet. Perhaps this was New Tokyo!
Suddenly, my comms unit opened up.
"This is Outcasts Red 7. You have permission to dock, slaver."
Outcasts? What were those? I faintly recalled some history lesson from my childhood; but I had forgotten it long ago.
Following the procedure from the flight sim, I docked with the planet and landed. The spaceport sign indicated that this place was called "Malta". After landing, I examined the gauges again to ensure that everything was still intact. It was.
When I disembarked, I noticed that my pods were empty, and the last few passengers were being herded off by the spaceport's staff into some warehouse. One of the staff walked towards me with a briefcase.
"Good haul there. Here's your payment," he said, handing me the briefcase.
I undid the latches and peeked inside.
Holy cow! It was filled with cash! I was speechless.
The man continued.
"We're loading up your ship now with your cardamine. Here's a map to get you to Rochester Station."
He handed me a sheet of paper. Cardamine... it rang a bell... some sort of medicine or something. If some people didn't get it, they would die... ah, those history lessons might have been useful after all. Oh well.
Within a few minutes, I had taken off again, cargo hold full.
This had been a good couple of days.
Well, as I undocked I noticed that the ground crew on the planet that I had just come from had already uploaded waypoints into my navigation system. It was, again, exactly as they had been in the simulator.
A bright purple diamond appeared on my Heads-Up Display, so I engaged cruise and headed towards it.
The navigation system labeled it as the "Tau-37 Jump Hole". I normally would have been nervous about heading into one of these at full speed, but those "Outcast" folks back on the planet were quite friendly, and I knew in my heart that they could be trusted.
I took a deep breath as my ship was swallowed into a tunnel of light. I realized that this was the same kind of tunnel that brought me there in the first place.
Going through tunnels back on Houston was probably the most interesting part of my job, since there was practically no scenery worth looking at. But these tunnels were a whole different story altogether!
Exhilirated, my ship emerged unscathed on the other side. I smiled, thankful that I had trusted those folks back on the planet. Maybe there were some decent people left in Sirius after all!
I looked around for the next purple diamond, and sure enough, one of them appeared as a tiny dot on my display. I engaged the cruise engine and headed there without a problem. It feels so good to be hauling life-saving medicine through Sirius!
The next tunnel felt the same as the last one did, and I was soon in a system that my nav system called "Kyushu".
Wasn't that a kind of food? Anyways, I continued following the purple diamonds and soon enough I found myself passing through trade lanes and by planets and bases!
The other pilots going by kept asking me what I was carrying and I proudly told them that it was a full load of Cardamine. Whenever I said this, they flew away quickly. I guess folks around Kyushu aren't the friendliest.
I had heard stories of space pirates before, but I was beginning to believe that even if some pilots weren't friendly, surely there weren't any folks bad enough to rip off an honest man's cargo!
Soon enough, I had my answer. As I was nearing the jump gate to New Tokyo, some guy identifying himself as "Shady" of the "Blood Dragons" (never heard of 'em, but they sound like a nasty posse) stopped me. He told me to hand him 3.5 million credits!
Now, surely no man, no matter how wicked, could be this greedy. I thought the man was joking, so I laughed. He apparently wasn't joking, and started to shoot at me. I told him that he would have his millions over my dead body!
While I do care about my life, I'm an good guy, and I wasn't about to give up my dignity to some gun-totin' pirate.
Well, gosh-durned it, I couldn't just sit there and take a whollopin' from this bandit. I fired right back at 'im!
The guns on the ship were way more powerful than I thought.
Within a couple of minutes, Shady's ship was no more. I tractored in his escape pod and dropped it off as I flew by New Tokyo.
I just hope the poor guy learned his lesson.
I continued following the purple diamonds through New Tokyo, Shikoku, Galileo, Colorado, and New York. Finally there were some places I'd heard about before. I landed on some base called "Rochester," where some scruffy-looking guys calling themselves "Junkers" unloaded my ship and handed me another suitcase full of cash.
There was a lot of money to be made, but I'd be doing it for free because it was for a good cause.
I asked the scruffy guys where to pick up passengers. They kinda chuckled and said they'd put it in my map. I guess Junkers find their job funny. They looked like nice guys, kinda like the Outcasts.
After swiggin' a cardi-cola at the bar, I headed out and went through New York to some base called Niverton, in the Pennsylvania system.
It had been a long day and the rush from the cardi-cola had worn off, so I accidentally fell asleep in the cockpit right after docking. By the time I woke up and checked out my ship, it had already been filled with more passengers! These guys at Niverton were so quick, a real class act.
I stepped into one of the cargo pods holding the passengers to check up on them. It seemed that there were a lot of poor folks riding the train on account of their ratty clothes, and they all looked kinda sad. I felt sorry for them, but at the same time wondered why they were all deciding to move to the same place at the same time. I mean, buying a space flight ticket ain't cheap.
On the other hand, after seeing how rich the folks on Malta were, I guess it makes sense that these poor folks on my ship would save up to buy a ticket there.
Since I grew up poor too, I told 'em that they wouldn't have to pay until they got there, but for some reason it just made them even sadder!
Some things I'll just never understand.
After walking around the base a bit and depositing my two suitcases full of cash at the station's bank (one suitcase seemed a bit lighter than I remembered, but I didn't make a fuss of it), I realized why these people wanted to move out. The place was too durned tiny for them!
I'd want to move out too if I lived in a place this small.
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