Writing: The Pilot
I enjoy listening to ambience ASMR videos on youtube, and while looking at the comments on one of them, I got inspired to make this. I had also just read a story that was entirely dialog, and wanted to see if I could create an atmosphere with no dialog at all.
Originally inspired by a comment left on this video:
Tags: Sci-fi, no dialog, pilot
The young pilot squinted as she drew close to the station. Its bright interior was a harsh departure from the blackness of the space outside, shapes of various ships and crew barely visible moving around inside. Her computer chirped happily as she was granted landing clearance, and she gently eased her ship in through the entrance. There was a buzz as the air shield passed over her ship, and the silence was replaced by the interior noise of the station.
She deftly navigated to her assigned bay, one designed for her smaller class of ship. The hull groaned as she grew near, but it was successfully grabbed and berthed next to the platform, a gangway sliding into place. It was not a good idea to fall down into the ship lanes here, as it was a very long way down.
She stepped into the passage that ran along the side of her ship, and punched the button next to the door. Satisfied that the other side had some kind of atmosphere, the door hissed open, allowing her access to the outside world. Walking over to the waiting blue-skinned attendant, she held her hand on their portable scanner, allowing it to verify that she was, in fact, not someone else, and deducting payment from her account automatically. Cost of fuel, labour and taxes, all pre-calculated and sent off. She gestured absently to her cargo doors, and the attendant scurried off. All the pallets on board knew where they needed to go, so she could just let the attendant do their job.
Glancing around, she saw an empty cargo container next to the docking area, and deftly climbed on top of it. She knew from experience that she had around an hour to kill while goods were exchanged, so it was time to lie back and enjoy some proper gravity for a while. She removed her jacket and placed it under her head to protect it from the harsh metal, before lying back and closing her eyes. It took a second to get comfortable, the ribs of the container pressing awkwardly into her back, but she found a spot that let her rest somewhat easily.
While she had gained herself respite from the light, the sound of the station swirled around her. There was a clunk and a gentle gurgling, as the attendant connected a fuel hose to her ship. The container vibrated slightly as another ship passed. It sounded a little larger than hers, the tired engines groaning and sputtering, but still remaining faithful to the pilot on board. A couple of higher pitched engine sounds passed, no doubt some kind of personal transport, taking tired crew to one of the various bars or shops.
A hammer started pounding on some kind of metal sheeting somewhere a good distance away, the cavernous interior of the station letting it reverberate and become indistinct, as though 10 hammers were all clattering at the same time. Even after the original source stopped, the echos continued for long after, before fading away.
Somewhere close by, there was the gentle hissing of a leaking gas line. Some loose joint somewhere was probably costing someone a lot of money in the long run, but it didn't seem worth it to get up and tell someone, as she had already made herself comfortable. No doubt some engineer would eventually notice it and give the nut a quick turn, sealing off the gas, but until then the pipe leaked, sounding like a snake trapped in a radiator.
A pair of heavy boots clomped past her. Probably some kind of security. They didn't want her, she wasn't obviously carrying illegal substances or causing a fuss, and that was all they seemed to care about anymore. Another lighter set passed, with a squeal of metal on metal. The attendant was probably now loading up her requested supplies. She hoped that she wouldn't have to do that job any time soon. The yellow uniform wouldn't suit her anyway. Not that it really suited her current attendant much better, the yellow clashing awkwardly with their blue skin. It did make them easy to pick out though. Yellow porters, blue security, red engineers. Everyone else was probably a pilot or crew. You wouldn't really see anyone else down here, management stayed to their own clean, quiet floors, high up and away from the riff-raff like her. She was glad she didn't have any kind of assigned uniform, she liked her faded brown leather jacket, black tank top and heavy duty cargo pants. Maybe not exactly the height of fashion, but it did the job.
She reached up and itched her shoulder, fingers briefly gliding over one of many tattoos on her arms and shoulders. They all meant something to her, had meaning. This one, a black half-heart that gently glittered in the lights, was a symbol of her solitude. She didn't see the point of becoming attached. This was space, people die all the time, she wouldn't only get hurt by it or end up hurting them.
An intercom crackled to life somewhere in the distance, the reverberations and echos rendering it completely garbled and indistinct, it's only discernible quality left being a feminine tone. Probably one of the management staff, telling the workers what a good job they were doing, or how long it had been since someone last had an accident. That number never got very high.
As her mind started to drift back into oblivion, a crash startled her awake again, her grey eyes snapping open. The station shook, and all the sounds of work momentarily stopped. An asteroid or other space junk had presumably hit part of the station. As no decompression alarms were going off, and nobody was screaming about being sucked out, it seemed to not have been a breaching event. Probably just a scrape, something to give the engineers something to do, replacing crushed pipes and torn wires. The station seemed to let out a shaky breath, and the sounds of work resumed. Time was money here, and nobody could afford to let time slip through their fingers.
A sharp rap on the side of the container roused her, and she looked over to see the porter walking away, their job finished. She pushed herself up, her elbow splashing in some kind of fluid left behind from somewhere, before hopping down. She pulled the jacket down after her, disturbing some flecks of dirt which spiralled down in the air currents, all the way through the levels of docking bays to the bottom of the ship lane. Striding back onto her ship, the door shut and latched behind her, the green light around the frame indicating successful sealing, and she made her way back to her cabin. The clunks of switches rang out as she made her ship ready for departure, sending off messages to request exit clearance and pulling out into the lane next to her. With the request granted, she navigated her way back through the shipyard to the exit, and passed through the air shield again. All at once, the sounds of the station stopped, replaced only by the hum of her own ship. She checked to make sure the way was clear, before spooling up her engines and letting her ship fly off into the vacuum.
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