Ficlets

“This is some honeymoon suite,” Brenda said, daring to take one full stride into our tiny compartment.

“Freighter passengers can’t be choosey,” I said, glad I hadn’t tried to carry her over the threshold. The contortions to get us both through the narrow hatch at once might’ve hurt. “It doesn’t matter.”

“It’s perfect,” she said. And it was. Even with half our floor space taken up by our roughly stacked luggage, we were grinning at each other like a couple of schoolkids out on a first date.

We hadn’t expected a honeymoon. Captain Pritcher had generously offered us the room, instead of putting us in hybernation with the other colonists to Eris V. And now we were here, with the hatch closed and nothing to do…

A loud metallic clank on our hatch interrupted the preliminaries. Composing myself, I answered the door. “Yes?” And looked down.

A skinny waif in an old spacer’s jumpsuit stood slouching against the frame, a covered dish in one hand and a wrench in the other.

“Captain says you eat in there.”