Flying was always fun. But it was kind of sad when it had to be a short trip like this one.

Arcing out into a void and then turning around in a wide arc with the push push push. Swooping to intercept with the next port just as all the forces came into check and tunie was tired and lightened from deceleration.

It was always kind of painful to do this without a proper fueling.

But this had been an Outreach.

And Tunie Knew Outreach was important.

Outreach was how Ships survived.

Ships and the other weird travelers of the reef that were not Ships (like canners and their silly bright-pushing-drives) all agreed to a kind of honor and mutual agreement.

Tunie had grown up learning about this while she was still small and her drive was not heavy enough to leave her home nest. Before she had gotten her crew.

But more then the honor and expectation of the Traders Outreach and Uplift just made sense.

The Reef churned with activity.

The Reef was dangerous.

Sitting still close to good feeding grounds was always eventually going to end horribly for anyone who tried. But Tunie and her fellow Ships could not survive if there were not clients and ports. She needed to drink substantial stores of fuel every stop to be able to push herself to the ideal cruising speed.

So someone had to keep helping to build more ports.

Someone needed to spread ideas so that ports could know how to build up the stores of fuel that Tunie and other Ships and strange travelers needed.

Tunie was not old by any reckoning.

But Ships skipped most of the time of the local reef. And she had already seen many many ports go dark. Her elders had seen seemingly immutable interstellar empires and alliances rise and fall.

There were even whispered records and legends of ancient apocalypses that shook every living thing in the reef itself.

Wiping out everything and leaving strange new forms in its wake.

Tunie was a good ship and she knew to lookout for the wake of Predators. She and her crew had many rocks they could throw to help deter attack. Her clever crew even had bought clever special rocks that could be thrown even when Tunie was not cruising that hit almost as hard as normal ones at her full complement of speed!

But still there were many dangers you could not really scare away with rocks.

Monsters from the outer dark that would descend on ports and eat everyone.

Monsters that would come out from deep inside the reef and eat everyone.

Things that looked perfectly safe but would actually turn out to be horrible later and suddenly everyone is dead and the port is empty.

Fake Traders showing up acting nice but really showing up to steal everything and leave everyone dead or starving.

Big silly port people things where they would fight each other and waste all the delicious fuel!

Wars...

Tunie hated wars most of all.

And Warships scared her more.

Tunie had only ever seen wars twice, from across the reef. But she had watched the stars flash bright and then go out.

She had watched the reef glowing hot for a dozen trips afterward.

She had heard the stories of thousands of ports destroyed not by accident. Not like in her nightmares but by the terrible weaponry of the warships.

Sometimes a war’s weapons would miss and later hit someone and a port would be wiped out.

And that was before all the diseases and parasites and weird invaders were accounted for.

Like cats.

Tunie had seen habitats left barren and horrifically infested with fluffy spores.

So many ways for ports to die and be left empty and barren and having no delicious fuel for Tunie to drink or goods to sell or markets to buy from her!

In fact it was so upsetting she was going to not continue thinking about that. She had ablative impacts to consider!

And also her crew was not good morale now.

Tunie could tell when her crew was not good morale.

Her crew would start eating rare treats without actually paying attention to them whenever morale was not good.

Tunie was a Ship and she was a GOOD ship, and her crew was her responsibility. And crew needed good morale. Crew did not need not good morale.

Not good morale was BAD.

She could spare a few moments of attention while dodging dust to talk with her Crew.

That is after all what friends do!

And Tunie’s Crew were her Best Friends!

...

Oh that is a sad thing.

The Passengers are not doing well?

That was bad, Contracts with crew could be voided really easily. Voiding contracts made the other traders upset. Tunie knew only bad Ships and bad Crew voided contracts.

But Tunie’s Crew were good and they were trying to help the passengers?

It was confusing, it seemed like maybe Passenger Morale was very hard for her Crew to manage?

That made a lot of sense to Tunie.

Passengers were confusing and very hard to deal with, This is why Tunie had Crew.

She could not imagine how a Ship could get by without Crew.

And Tunie’s Crew were the Best Crew!

Very good at Port Talking and Tunie was sure that Passengering was something her Crew could be best at because her crew was the Best crew.

But sometimes Crew Morale was Not good and it needed help.

She heard from some Ships that they had special Morale Crew elements to help with their Crew when they needed Good Morale for their Crew.

Tunie wondered what they did when the Morale Crew had not good Morale. Seemed like a complicated solution.

She just talked with her Crew.

But then her Crew was very good at talking!

Best Crew!

Ah Tunie had told a joke and her Crew realized it!

Her Crew was not always very smart about not-crew things. But Tunie forgave and loved them anyway.

She wouldn't want to be teased about not-ship things.

And look at that her Crew had made a Crew joke!

It was kind of frightening at first, Tunie thought maybe she had missed some dust specks.

But no Her crew was just making a joke so they could both laugh at something!

Tunie’s Crew was the best!