Spaceflights of Fancy Ch. 01

"We don't have the time or the money." She said gently, taking a firm hand on his shoulder and trying to steer him away. The big canine easily overpowered her and, without even checking the street for traffic, he crossed to the other side making a beeline for the store, earning a chorus of angry horns in the process. "Damien!" Mimi shouted desperately from the sidewalk, but he didn't even slow down.

"Fuck!" She yelped in frustration. At first she considered just walking off and waiting for him at the ship, but who knew what sort of trouble he'd get into if she left him alone. He'd almost got his ass beat, or worse, once today. With a deep sigh, she stepped off the sidewalk and rushed after him, earning an even louder and more insistent cacophony of beeps. She waved apologetically and made it to the other side, angrier than ever. By the time she reached Damien he was already at the pawn shop door and she was fuming.

"You know, you're really the most disobedient boyfriend I've ever had for a so-called submissive." She grumbled. "I'm starting to get serious about that whole leash thing. Maybe a shock collar."

"Maybe they have one here!" Damien said cheerfully.

"I wasn't joking."

"Aw, I love you too!" He said, kissing her on the cheek before opening the door for her.

Inside, the shop smelled musty, but not in a bad way. In fact, when you are on an adventure, 'musty' is the best scent. Often it meant that something was just waiting to get rediscovered somewhere nearby. With one eye on her boyfriend and the other on the shop's wares, Mimi started wandering the shop with interest. She had to give it to Damien, as annoying as the constant detours he took could be when they were trying to get something accomplished, he never did point out anything boring. The shop was so interesting the tigress forgot to keep an eye on her boyfriend! By the time she looked up from a set of shockingly nice tools for a surprisingly low price, she was too late to stop him from handing a large wad of bills towards the man working the front counter.

"What the fuck!" She snarled, throwing down the tools much rougher than she intended.

"Hey!" The shopkeep shouted in protest, he wasn't sure what had happened, but the crashing sound in his shop had put him at unease.

"Sorry!" She yelped before tearing through the still half open door after her boyfriend, who cheerfully left while ignoring his girlfriend's loud protest.

"Damien!" Mimi yelled after him, closing the distance in three large bounds.

The canine startled as his girlfriend called his name, and he turned around as if he had no idea she had been with him the entire time. He smiled as she approached, his tail wagging, happy to see her. Although, the grin quickly fell off his face when he finally realized she was angry with him. "What's up?" He asked innocently.

"You're ten grand in debt to a loan shark and then I see you buying... what the hell did you even buy?"

"Oh..." he looked rather sheepish and then reluctantly took something out of his jacket pocket. "I was hoping to keep it a surprise, but I got you something. It made me think of you!"

From his pocket, Damien pulled out a large jewelry box and opened it to show his girlfriend the trinket he had bought her. Mimi had to admit, it was a gorgeous necklace. It was made of gold, with a dainty looking but well constructed chain and a large and ornate sapphire pendant off the front.

"How much did you pay for this?" She demanded angrily.

"Ten-thousand credits." He responded, looking sheepish and nervous again. "Why?"

Mimi pinched the bridge of her nose and shook her head. "Because how are we going to pay for the ship's registration without that money?" There was no law preventing someone from flying through federation space without ship registration. Such a law would have been impossible to enforce thanks to the vastness of space but also unnecessary. Ships were simply barred from docking at any federal spaceport, preventing them from refueling, resupplying, or even making any money. After all, where could you bring your goods, cargo, or passengers without landing? "And if you were going to spend it on anything else, why on earth didn't you pay off the loan sharks that were chasing you down this morning?"

Damien paused, he didn't have a good answer for that. "I guess I wasn't thinking."

"No shit." Mimi scoffed. She didn't enjoy talking down to her boyfriend like this. She would have much preferred to just be his lover and not the parental figure he'd never had. Still, he never did think things through, and far too often she was the one who paid the price! That was their biggest problem as a couple and as business partners. With a deep sigh, she took the jewelry box from her boyfriend and turned around to head back to the store. "Let's hope he'll let us return it."

There was no luck there. The shopkeep insistently pointed at the NO RETURNS sign hanging about his head. Mimi did her best to negotiate, flirt, and finally threaten, but the man wouldn't budge. "Best I can do is offer to buy it back." He offered unhelpfully.

"How much?" Mimi asked with her tail swishing in annoyance.

"Two thousand credits."

"We just bought it for ten!" Mimi protested, started to mull over the idea of clawing the man's eyes out, but the man dismissively waved off her objections.

"I'm sorry, lady, but this is a business. Frankly, two is more than I want to offer you. I've been kicking that around the shop for three years now and I'm happy to be rid of it."

She briefly considered if it was worth accepting the offer to get any of their money back. But since they needed at least twice that to pay for the ship's registration, selling it for such a low price wouldn't get them back in the sky. She figured they might as well hold onto the necklace and see if someone would come any closer to the ten Damien had spent on it. Mimi would have argued more, but the SFPA office was closing soon and they had to get down there. Why Mimi wasn't sure, without the credit to pay it would be a waste of time. The Space Flight and Port Authority was thick with bureaucracy, even by governmental standards. There was no haggling for a lower bill or asking for even an extra day to pay it. Even if she managed to tug at the heart strings of the soulless robot sitting behind the counter, the almighty computer would make them powerless. With their registration expiring tomorrow at midnight, they would have to find a way to pay it in full or their careers as explorers would be over. Without money, they might as well have gone to the old church down the block and prayed for their registration to be renewed. Yet when they arrived, there was already a sign of their luck changing, there wasn't a soul in line.

"Can you remember the last time we didn't have to wait for at least two hours?" Damien whispered to her.

Mimi said nothing in response, still angry at him for wasting all their money and wondering how on earth they were going to survive without ship registration. She took a number from the ticket machine and their number was almost instantly called. Mimi nervously walked to the counter, dread mounting inside her with every step, until she finally reached the clerk and nervously handed her their carefully organized paperwork.

"Enjoying your time in Armstrong? Staying long?" The cheerful woman asked as she started reviewing their documents. She was speaking like they were on vacation, not the space DMV, but Mimi knew why that was. Space crews didn't get a lot of time off and would 'double dip' using time their ship was in dry dock to run 'station chores' that could only be done while in port. It was also one of the few times they had any downtime for some r and r. So, Mimi was certain that many of the people she saw were on vacation. Or at least the closest they ever got to one.

Mimi simply smiled and nodded, saying nothing. She preferred to let Damien handle stuff like small talk, it was another one of those things he was scarily good at. "We haven't been around long, although I wish we could stay around longer. I guess there's this cool little park in town. Washington Park?"

"Oh yeah, that's a really nice spot. My husband and I go there all the time on our days off, you can still tell you're in the city. But it's the only way to 'get away' from it all without driving for days."

The small talk drifted off then, she needed to concentrate on what she was doing, and Mimi was still too angry with her boyfriend to do much talking. So, they stood there in silence for a long time... actually, a really, really long time! Did it always take this long, or did it just feel drawn out because Mimi was so nervous? She checked her watch... it had been almost forty-five minutes and the line behind them was starting to grow long again even though it was only an hour until closing. She was starting to feel embarrassed, even though there was nothing she could do but just stand there. She glanced back at the woman behind the counter, who had a puzzled, almost concerned look on her face. Mimi was really starting to feel nervous about this now. "Kay, can you come look at this?" Great! Now she was tying up two people to try and solve their problem. The two government agents talked it out with each other in soft voices until Kay, apparently the manager, turned to them.

"Have you two made any payments already?"

"No?" Mimi asked uncertainly, her heart racing as she wondered what was going on.

"Well, our computer is showing you owe nothing. On a battle class ship with a hull weight of three hundred thousand pounds, you should at least owe seven thousand credits..." The two women shared a look before finally Kay shrugged. "I guess we can only charge you what the computer shows, go ahead and process 'em Claire."

Mimi couldn't believe it, but sure enough about a minute later Claire was having her sign their paperwork and handed them the five by five tags that affixed to the hull of their craft. "I guess it's your lucky day!"

"You don't know the half of it..." Mimi said in a shell shocked tone. She quickly thanked the women for their time and left the counter before they could realize their mistake and take the tags back.