Cohost writing prompt: @make-up-a-starship-pilot — Starship pilot who forgot their keys
"Hey, are you guys okay?" Crystal says. She remembers the spacers from last night; loud, bright, hot, determinedly bar-crawling their way round the hab ring until the clubs opened.
The one leaning against the doorframe opens her eyes a little, cringing against the light. Her updo has messily collapsed, she looks exhausted and hungover, and without her leather pilot's jacket she looks less bulletproof butch and a little underfed. Her crewmate is slumped in turn against her, and doesn't move; asleep, with the jacket draped over her, slid down almost to the point of falling over with her head in the pilot's lap.
They're still covered in glitter.
"Dipshit here," says Upright, nodding a little toward Asleep, "left her phone and her keys somewhere."
"Oh dear," Crystal says. "So you're waiting for the bar to reopen to ask whether they were handed in?" Asleep on the doorstep, she doesn't add, it seems superfluously cruel.
Upright gives a long-suffering groan. "She had the keys to the ship," she says. "And the airlock two-factor on her phone. And she set the fallback security question about twelve years ago and can't remember the answer. And we're on the verge of getting security-locked out, and if that happens, we'll need the tub towed to drydock, the airlock reamed out of the hull, the computer vault plasma-cut open for physical access to do a fresh OS installation, account recovery for everything linked to the old install, and probably six months of shakedown to discover everything subtly incompatible with newer OS versions. Sharp end of probably twenty megacreds."
"Ooh, frak," Crystal says, wincing in sympathy. "Hope the keys turn up."
"Worst foster sister ever," Upright says, running her fingers through Asleep's hair with obvious gentle affection.
Crystal digs through her coat pockets, and comes up with a dog-eared fistful of stamp cards. "I'm opening up for the coffee counter round the corner," she says, picking out a couple of pre-fully-stamped ones. "If you want somewhere slightly more comfortable to sit, in about forty-five minutes...."
"God," Upright says, blinking at the outstretched rectangles of card. "You're the best. Are you married? Do you want to be?"
"Ask me again when I know if I'm marrying half of a twenty million credit towtruck bill," Crystal says sweetly, and the spacer grins and gives her a little ironic salute.
"Harsh but fair, Coffee Angel," she says.