A dreaming bee

[Pavel]

Dominik Autenburg quickly passed the "road" on level C and entered his cabin, as drilled in asteroid's stone living rooms were called. They indeed were more similar to cabins on a starship than normal rooms; small and with limited amenities, they were one of the reasons Domink sometimes hated the fact of living pirate life. Toilet, shower and fridge were in the other, special cabin, common for the entire "parcel" consisted of dozen of living cabins, each inhabited by at least two persons. Life on Vogtland station surely was nowhere close to the levels of luxury found on Orbital liners and resorts.



Dominik smiled though, after reminding himself life on New Berlin isn't a lot different - his grandparents originated from that planet, and young hessian still remembered their stories about entire underground cities, built below the surface to escape harsh snowstorms and arctic cold of the planet. Hamburg wasn't much better climate-wise, with that difference its inhabitants weren't tunnel rats living in holes... On the other hand, the three remaining Rheinland planets had quite good, in comparison, climate. Holstein was corporate controlled water world with colder version of temperate climate, with only few small island chains and network of sea platforms, Stuttgart, even although altered by a SynthFoods terraforming operations, was warm green planet, and Baden-Baden... Well, that planet was a paradise, one of which Dominik heard, but couldn't reach. Photos of tropical islands with palms, golden sand beaches and resorts full of smiled, happy people, which he saw once in the NeuralNet, were remembered for long after that night at Kreuzberg, where he stopped for refuel and got interested in what group of Junkers and Unioners is talking about, in the corner nearby TV.



"If I could live that life at least for one weekend a year..." - Dominik thought. It was twenty-fifth day of his name, and his entire life was just full of bolts, screwdrivers and wrenches. He was born and raised at Vogtland. Childhood period was short for children in all larger pirate movements, sometimes it never really occured. Dominik helped in the workshop since he was fourteen. After three years he moved from fixing broken vacuum and water filters, found in countless numbers inside giant asteroid-base, to "civilian" vessel workshop. Although there is little to nothing civilian about the Red Hessians, that's what was his employment for nearly a decade - learning ship mechanics and helping with repairs. After four years he became normal mechanic, and occasional smuggler.



Smaller hessian "shipping" crafts were often piloted by mechanics importing spare parts and fuel from other friendly and neutral bases. Such solution had few advantages, first of all mechanics could always check quality of needed parts and equipment. Another perk was a constant exchange of experience between technical personnel of the movement, and finally constant flow of goods between hessian bases. Tired after the entire day of trying to figure out what exactly is broken in his freighter's engine, mixed with few good repeated times of unmounting it from the ship, exhausted Dominik closed the metal door and fell on the bed in dirty from grease boilersuit....