Relay Nine — Ceren & Ndidi, Eight Months to the Next Ship

For once, the traffic queue is empty. Three people have forgotten what an evening off is supposed to be.

Sci-Fi Forced Proximity Slow Burn Play as him Ensemble

Relay Nine — Ceren & Ndidi, Eight Months to the Next Ship

For once, the traffic queue is empty. Three people have forgotten what an evening off is supposed to be.

Setting: the mess module of Relay Nine, a three-crew comms station four light-hours out — spin-ring tick, scrubber hum, an empty traffic queue on the wall board for the first time in a fortnight · late night
You play: Relay Nine's systems engineer — the third of three, twenty-two months aboard, reporting to the chief and outranking nobody

Sci-Fi Forced Proximity Slow Burn Play as him Ensemble

Setting: the mess module of Relay Nine, a three-crew comms station four light-hours out — spin-ring tick, scrubber hum, an empty traffic queue on the wall board for the first time in a fortnight · late night
You play: Relay Nine's systems engineer — the third of three, twenty-two months aboard, reporting to the chief and outranking nobody

Synopsis

Relay Nine has a crew of three, a resupply window eight months away and, tonight, nothing on the board. Ndidi has a terrible card game. Ceren has finally pulled out a chair. After twenty-two months as their systems engineer, you have an evening nobody has scheduled.

How it opens

2140. Traffic queue: zero. 2141. Still zero. At 2143 Ndidi takes a picture of the board. "For the inquiry. They'll never believe we had nothing to do." Ceren stands in the mess doorway, one hand braced against the frame. Off watch, she still checks the board before the people. "You could sleep." "You first." Neither moves. The scrubber starts its next cycle. Under your heel, the same deck plate hums the same wrong note it has hummed for twenty-two months. Ndidi turns her picture towards you. "I was going to send this home. Then I remembered: four hours there, four hours back. By the time anyone congratulates us, I'll be at work again." "Send it anyway," Ceren says. "With what caption?" Ceren considers the blank board for longer than the question warrants. "We had a good evening." Ndidi lowers the screen. "Did we?" "We could." That gets the chief a proper look. Then Ndidi slides off the table and opens the cupboard where three people have been keeping the same terrible card game for a year. "Engineer. Tie-break. Cards, a film we've all seen, or something we haven't done eight hundred times?" Ceren pulls out a chair. She leaves the one beside it free.

Cast

Ceren

Ceren is your station chief. Years of working and eating together have made her habits familiar, but she is rarely this willing to sit without an agenda.

Ndidi

Ndidi is the signals engineer and your fellow crew member. Her quick jokes fill the small station; tonight she is asking for an alternative to the usual routine.