Thanks to @thestarlightsymphony for the prompt list, and to my lovely roommate for, when I was blocked on what the heck to do with this prompt, suggesting the idea of writing something from Faye’s point of view around Session 4! I guess it makes sense, since I’d noticed that the prompts list was loosely organized by episode, which is really cool! In particular, this is set before and during the events of Session 4, “Gateway Shuffle.”
“Hi! Are you there? I just picked up your signal! I’m out of fuel at the moment, and I’d just love it if you could just take me to Ganymede, and I’d—”
Quick as a flash, the ship in front of Faye vanished.
She frowned, wrinkling her nose, both at the stranger’s rudeness—didn’t they know it was bad manners to take off in the middle of a conversation?—and at the situation in which she found herself. She hated having to hitchhike, to be dependent on others. It wasn’t like she was any stranger to manipulating people to get what she wanted, using her feminine wiles (however one defined them), but she at least liked having some choice in the matter, y’know? And that was a luxury she didn’t have right now—when she’d gambled away all the money she’d stolen from those two bounty hunters, Spike and Jet, and had nothing left.
But it wasn’t really so bad. Okay, so maybe her ship was completely out of fuel. Maybe it would take an interminable time of drifting through empty space for her to get to Ganymede, where she could refill it; maybe it was even farther from any Gate locations that would let her hightail it the hell out of here. But her ship had plenty of stores of food, water, and emergency supplies should it come to that. She could survive until she got help—which, would any luck, would hopefully be soon. In the meantime, she’d open up communications with every ship she came across, putting on her perkiest and most alluring voice, and she’d get help in no time.
She was strong. She’d survived worse.
She’d be fine.
~~~~~
“Hel-looo! I just picked up your signal! I, er, have a slight problem. I’m kind of out of fuel right now. So if you could just drop me off at Ganymede, I’d—”
The zoom of the ship flying off. The crackle of static that showed up on her end of the transmission. And then, silence.
Well, maybe she wouldn’t be so fine.
Her outlook on the situation was getting gradually more bleak. She’d been drifting for hours without any success or help. Ship flybys were few and far between in this desolate part of the solar system—pretty much a long, desolate stretch in the middle of bumfuck nowhere, a thought that wasn’t even dispelled by the sight of Jupiter looming grandly above her—and the few people who had flown her way had been too busy, or wary, or absorbed in their own problems, to pick up a poor hitchhiker on the space highway.
She was beginning to run out of rations; she’d eaten many of the freeze-dried, packaged meals she had in reserve. She could probably hold out a little longer with what remained, at least until she made it a good ways to Ganymede on just her ship’s inertia, but she wasn’t getting her hopes up. Her one bright spot, her little stash of chocolate, was long gone—maybe someone with more self-control would have saved it as a treat to eat little by little, but Faye thought that in the situation she was in, she pretty much deserved something sweet immediately. And lots of it.
She wished the spaceship had booze. And that she hadn’t used her last cigarette ages ago. Or that she’d bought more in the casino with the money she didn’t have.
Maybe she could ask someone for one. If anyone bothered. If they weren’t too goddamn selfish—too much so to even give her the time of day.
But annoying as everyone else was being, she’d keep trying. Her woman’s intuition hadn’t failed her yet.
~~~~~
“Hi! I’ve just picked up your signal! I’m having a bit of a problem here. I’m a little out of fuel. So if you could just maybe take me to Ganymede, I’d—”
“Sorry, lady,” came a nasal, querulous voice from the other end of the transmission. “I don’t pick up hitchhikers.”
Without further discussion, the ship zoomed off.
Well. Faye rolled her eyes and sat back in her chair with a sigh. At least that was a conversation.
It had been a while that she’d been drifting, and she was beginning to go stir-crazy. And who wouldn’t be, she reasoned, in her circumstance? Being trapped in a tiny, claustrophobic space surrounded by your own trash floating around you, your sole view the endless blackness of space punctuated only by Jupiter and its moons maddeningly out of reach, with no one to talk to except the occasional ship (and those conversations tended to be pretty one-sided)—well, that could really do a number on you.
She’d been making a perfunctory effort to avoid putting on her spacesuit up until now—somewhere in the back of her mind was the vague idea that it would use up valuable energy, and if a ship passed by while she was out on a spacewalk, she wouldn’t be able to communicate with them until it was too late. (Although she was pretty sure they’d notice someone outside a ship in a spacesuit, jumping up and down and waving their arms frantically). She’d resolved not to use it unless it was absolutely necessary.
Well, it was absolutely necessary now. Absolutely necessary to ensure she didn’t go insane in this teeny-tiny tin can!
As she suited up and performed the spacewalk—a quick one, she promised herself, in case she really did run the risk of missing out on communications and the possibility of being saved—she was amazed at how much better she felt already. Still constrained within her spacesuit, but so much more free. She wasn’t confined to the cockpit of her ship now; she was in…well, she was in the whole of space, really. The entire solar system. Vast and wide and open and…
And with endless miles of drifting along to go before she reached Ganymede. Or any form of civilization.
Dammit. Now this was just depressing.
When she climbed back into her empty cockpit, with no change from before—no new sights, no passing ships—it was almost a relief.
~~~~~
“Hi! I just picked up your signal and, well, I have a slight problem. I’m a little out of fuel at the moment. So if you could just take me to Ganymede, I’d really—”
Zoom!
Whoever thought space travel would bring humanity closer together was crazy.
She wasn’t sure anyone had said that, but someone must have, right? Not a lot of records existed from the time before space travel—she knew that firsthand. But there had to have been a reason people on Earth invented hyperspace gates and spaceships and all that crap. It probably wasn’t for the purpose of having people drift along aimlessly while surrounded their own trash, roughin’ it, hitchhiking.
She really was roughin’ it, wasn’t she? Her food and drink packets were almost all exhausted, her ship had been pathetically flashing its FUEL EMPTY light at her for forever, and she hadn’t washed her hair in days—she was in desperate need of a shower. Just being here, existing in the tiny cockpit of the Red Tail surrounded by empty food wrappers and trash, made her feel gross and grimy.
She didn’t know how much more of this crap she could take. She’d kick the dashboard in frustration if she had any room to in this goddamned prison cell. Which only made her more frustrated.
Dammit, she knew nothing good would ever come of trusting others.
Oh, well. All she could do now was keep going, right? Keep trying? However annoyed she was about it. A hitchhiker never got anywhere by just giving up.
~~~~~
“Hi! I just picked up your signal and, well, I have a slight problem. I’m kind of out of fuel at the moment. So if you could just take me to Ganymede, I’d really appreciate—it…”
Before Faye had even finished her sentence, the ship behind her that her ship had picked up was gone. She trailed off in dismay, then groaned in despair. “Dammit!” she exclaimed. “Why is everyone in such a hurry all the time? Don’t they know it’s unhealthy?”
Suddenly, she was alerted to another ship drifting through space near her—or, more accurately, the wreckage of another ship. It looked completely ruined, and she couldn’t immediately see evidence of anyone inside.
Maybe another space hitchhiker, like her. Someone who had met a more tragic end. Or maybe the victim of a criminal.
Her curiosity was overwhelming. She went to investigate.
After all, who could resist?
~~~~~
“Hi! I just picked up your signal and, well, I have a slight problem. I’m kind of out of fuel at the moment. If you could just take me to Ganymede, I’d be really appreciative…”
Silence. Not that this was any shock to Faye. But she was a little surprised at the fact that the ship she contacted wasn’t taking off—it was just sitting there, in empty space, listening. As if it was taunting her. She groaned and began to shake the monitor in a fit of anger. “Are you listening?!” she yelled. “I know you’re there! Say something!”
It was then that she fully registered the ship in front of her—and recognized it. In her shock, she straightened up, banging her head on the ceiling painfully. She let out a cry of pain, then a groan of exasperation.
It was the Bebop. The same ship that belonged to the bounty hunters—Spike and Jet—from whom she’d just escaped.
Oh well, she reasoned. A rescue was a rescue. And now she wasn’t completely out of assets—she had that strange case that the ISSP man in the wrecked ship had given her, the one she wasn’t supposed to open. And she had the mysterious, tantalizing gold thing inside.
