A dozen men and women in space suits were moving back and forth through the empty void between the DSF Volcano and the Vindictor, which had turned out to be indeed little more than an oversized shuttle. Zala had taken a short tour on their rescue ship to make sure everything was adequate for her crew. It was. The ship had compartments for ten passengers, just as its captain had said. But that meant ten beds as well as space for ten people to eat or spend time. Among the social area, mess hall and sleeping quarters, her sixteen crew would easily fit and have a somewhat comfortable stay for the two days or so. Four of them would stay behind and wait for the salvage vessels.


    Zala was reasonably happy with the situation as she overlooked the crew bringing over personal items, supplies and other necessities. As she had correctly predicted, it meant hauling them through space. A hundred meters or so of void stood between the two ships. A single trip took about two minutes. Plus another minute or so of airlock time on each end. Make if five minutes for a round-trip. It would take three or four round-trips each. Yes, one hour would be enough time.


    She turned back from the window to Captain Donnal. ?I’ve already talked to my superiors while we were waiting for you. Bring our people to Dephyr and you’ll get paid an ordinary passenger fee for each, plus a 20% rescue bonus.“


    Donnal nodded and seemed pleased. Zala continued: ?I’ve also made sure no overzealous bureaucrat will give you any shit about overloaded passenger capacity or whatever. My crew will keep to themselves and not be in your way.“


    Donnal raised his glass for a toast: ?Pleasure doing business with you.“


    They shook hands and walked out of the room together, Zala to the right towards the airlock and Donnal to the left towards his bridge. On her way, Zala gave nods or a few words to the members of her crew that were bringing over or stowing away supplies. There was a queue at the airlock, so she had plenty of time to put on her space suit.


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    Things went well, given the circumstances. Almost too well. Zala had been looking for problems, for something wrong. If she would give her crew into the hands of a shady pirate with a barely space-worthy junk vessel. But no, Donnal seemed a capable and cheerful trader and the Vindictor was not a new ship but well maintained. The crew, four in addition to Donnal, could have been on any ordinary civilian ship.


    She finished putting on her suit while pushing away these thoughts. ?Girl“, she said to herself, ?you’re letting things get to you.“


    Qyrl. She couldn’t get over it. For years she and her ship had been on patrol to take out their constant unmanned probes. She had not expected to ever meet actual alien warships. Sure, it was what the military trained for. But the Qyrl war happened when she was still a child and was just a piece of history. Until today.


    She entered the airlock with three others of her crew who went back again to bring more crates over. Loading was almost done, they said, probably their last journey. The inner door closed and sealed itself. They put on the helmets. The adaptive polymer shrunk to snugly fit her head, like a ski mask. Only the area around her eyes was transparent. The breathing channels over her mouth and nose opened up to allow unobstructed airflow. A small indicator light at the edge of the integrated heads-up-display turned green. Seconds later, the sucking sound of air being pumped out of the airlock. Then the outer airlock door opened. The blackness of space always impressed her. All those images of space with the colorful nebula don’t show that they represent such a tiny area that to the human eye, they are just faint dots in an otherwise perfect black. The real color of space was black. Real, total black. Not the shiny black of a car or the black of fabric that was more a very dark gray. The complete absence of light was incredible. Her ship was near invisible, because no nearby sun was shining on it, so there was no light to reflect. Only the lights around its airlock were visible, the body of the ship was as black as the surrounding space.


    She pushed herself off in the direction of the Volcano. The guidance system locked on to the beacon on her ship and fired the small thrusters in her suit, making sure that she would float perfectly into the small opening.


    She heard the men and women of her crew who were floating over with her cracking jokes. Most people became talkative in outer space. A way to deal with the utter emptiness.