Lost in Benkitera’s Rings

Wednesday has come around again and I’m happy to present this week’s flash fiction.

Yumi thought sitting lost amongst the rings around Benkitera, a backwater planet somewhere in the Lore 9CO system, would have bought her peace. Ion trails, she wasn’t sure where the system was. Her bike had dumped her out of orbit and spat those names out of the comp.

Right before throwing an error when she’d requested more details.

She would’ve thought that, but she’d have been wrong. As she puttered with her Infinity bike pondering how long she dared dawdle before her oxygen tank ran beyond the scrubber’s ability to reclaim when the Echo cruiser pulled up.

After the prerequisite time for the cruiser’s cyclers to such oxygen from the cabin, the tinted window wound down. Judsor Helaela stared unblinkingly through his mostly translucent helmet.

“Yumi.” His voice reverberated through her helmet’s speakers. Instead of responding she waggled her screwdriver vaguely. He could take that however he wanted. Which appeared to be ignoring it. “You have the units?”

“I dumped the units.” Swinging her foot back, she kicked the rockets into ignition and tore out trailing Benkitera ring dust in her wake. Pulling up the navigation system she inputted a random system.

As stars streaked about her, Yumi hoped he’d gotten she wasn’t holding his species’ hope hostage. It wasn’t her fault they’d shipped the queen’s tonic through Globkoo space. The queen or both their lives? What other choice could she have made?

The bike dumped her out into Globkoo space with a crate hanging tantalizingly before she. Yumi swore.

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