Coffee Cup Dreams (A Redpoint One Romance) Read Free Page B

pay-scale and perks eased her mind.
She quickly accepted the offer and added a quick note that she
would like to start as soon as she could get there. The next
communication sent her the finalized job contract as well as
information on transportation to the station.
    She didn't own much. All her belongings fit in
the small attic room she'd rented for the past couple years and the
furniture belonged to the Getty's. Sorting and packing took no time
at all.
    All the while the Gettys stayed close. She
played her last game of soccer with the boys in the back yard.
Maria cooked up one last grand meal. Neil insisted she accompany
him on anything he worked on at the house.
    But she felt every moment. Waiting for someone
to show up at the door demanding to know why she wasn't taking the
pills. Maybe to force her or take her away. With each passing hour
the urge to get off-planet as soon as possible built. To get out of
Earth's sphere of influence.
    And by the end of the week she was.
    A tear-filled goodbye with her surrogate
family and she was on The Golden Oriander on its way to the Drax
Outlier Worlds to deliver cargo with a stop-over at Redpoint One.
Redpoint One arranged for her to travel in one of their four
passenger rooms. It was smaller than her room at the Gettys, but
more than she'd hoped for after reading up on standard economical
accommodations aboard freighter ships.
    Her few belongings, packed securely in sealed
boxes, sat in a neat pile in one corner of the room at the end of
the bed. She packed two suitcases to live out of until her arrival
at Redpoint One.
    The first week Tish loved it. The other two
passengers kept to themselves so she had nothing to do but lay
around, rest, read, and wander the few corridors open to her. Relax
from the stress of trying to leave Earth in such a hurry, tensing
every time someone came to the door of the house.
    The second week she cleaned her room, helped
in the ship kitchen, finished reading the new book series she'd
brought with her, and read the entire documentation sent by
Redpoint One.
    By the third week the walls were closing
in.
    Her reading expanded to include every
instruction manual and checklist she could find on the ship, the
ramifications of her new job description weighing heavy on her
shoulders the closer they grew to Redpoint One.
    The doubts piled on. A Maintenance Engineer?
She wasn't an 'engineer' by any stretch of the imagination. Was she
mad?
    Tish put down the emergency main power-down
checklist. It would be more fun if she understood half the items
listed. She slouched down in the extra chair at the rear of the
cockpit that she'd been allowed to sit in since the beginning of
the second week.
    "Ready to crew?" Captain Jarvid asked,
swinging his chair around to glance at her.
    She crossed her arms over her chest as she
slouched down a little more. "Not unless you want your ship blown
up for the insurance money."
    He let out a hearty bellow of a laugh, the
sound of it filling the cockpit.
    The pilot looked back with a grin. "Not this
close to port. We're ready to drop out of hyperspace."
    With the news her fears exploded, sure that
she would not be able to do the job and they would ship her right
back to Earth. She so desperately needed to make it work, and she
had no idea what she might be walking into.
    "Give us plenty of room, Mr. Samson," Captain
Jarvid said, swinging back towards the front.
    "Yes sir."
    An alarm echoed through the ship as Mr. Samson
announced the hyperspace exit. Tish sat back up, her arms gripping
the chair arms tightly, waiting for the bouncing and gravity
fluctuations that had accompanied the hyperspace
entrance.
    A soft fast vibration went through the ship.
The vibrating floor tickled the bottom of her feet. A deep hum
filled the air for a few seconds before the swirling clouds of
hyperspace disappeared with a flash, replaced by a beautiful
starfield.
    At least it was beautiful to her after so long
without being able to see anything out of