aggienaut | Presenting: The Nimrod (Reply)

   Just a short scene today. I swear I'll cease daily Nimrodposting once I finish this pilot.

   The hovertuktuk hums low and steady as it glides up the slope beyond Agora City, its shadow skimming over scrub grass and sun-bleached stone. A low ridge rises ahead, its crest sharp against the hazy sky. The driver is gaunt and silent and for some reason an old oar is lashed to the side. Rafael leans out slightly, the wind warm on his face, Sancho pressed close against his side. Leila quietly watches the scenery go by.
   The city has fallen away behind them—white buildings spilling across the valley like scattered bone—and here the land opens out into rows of vineyards, neat lines of grapevines marching toward the hills. A few olive trees scatter the edges, gnarled and unbothered. The air smells of dust, sun, and something faintly herbal.
   As they round a hill and there is The USS Nimrod standing in the middle of a vineyard like a monument from another age—broad saucer hull perched on long, jointed landing struts, long warp nacelles hanging under the saucer almost but not quite touching the ground. The beige hull bears the scuffs of atmosphere and time: matte patches where the paint has worn, faint streaks from reentry burns long since cooled. But the lines are still sharp, clean—disciplined. There’s a symmetry to the thing, a quiet pride. It stands there with the faded dignity of a once-feared galleon or a temple that still casts shade in the late afternoon.
   A long ramp extends from the underbelly to the ground, like some insect’s proboscus. A flock of small birds lifts from the far nacelle as the wind shifts.
“Surely there was somewhere closer to the city to park it?” Rafael asks.
“There’s a whole Not In My Back Yard crowd” Leila explains “so this is SpaceFleet’s auxiliary parking spot.”
“It looks like a vineyard” Rafael observes.
“Yes, well, the vineyard is not authorized to be here, but the zoning enforcement officer is assigned to the USS Oversight and therefore not present.”
   The hovertuktuk hums past a rickety windmill slowly turning on the edge of the vineyard and skims across the tops of the vines.
“You think its sitting on good wine at least?” asks Rafael, peering out at the trellises whipping past underneath the vehicle.
“The canopy’s too thick.” Leila responds casually, “No airflow. That’s how you get mildew and shallow tannins.”
“Oh” muses Rafael, thinking gratefully that you don’t have to worry about tannins in avocados, or do you?
“Smells like Cinsault.” Leila continues "That varietal sulks if you crowd it.”
“Really?” Rafael hadn’t seen Leila talk so expansively about anything prior.
“Yes, a light-bodied red like this… It’s not a lion. Not even a gazelle. It’s more like an African glasswing butterfly. Looks delicate. Transparent. But try to catch it—it’s already gone.” They pass into the shadow of under the saucer, the ship looms around them.
“Is that good? For a wine” Rafael asks.
“Yes, chilled. With chapati and lentils. Maybe grilled tilapia, if you’re lucky.”
   The tukuk settles to the ground on a cleared area at the base of the ramp. Sancho hops out, Leila places one obol coin in the drivers palm, who just nods his thanks and begins to drive away. A quiet hum comes from the ship—not loud, but constant, like a generator hidden behind stone. Someone has run cables from the ship’s port nacelle to a nearby junction box, hastily labeled in four languages.
   ”Welcome to the Nimrod” Leila says as the narrow metal ramp clangs gently with each footstep, and disturbingly seems to sway a little as they pass its midpoint, “You’re a Nimby now!”
   Behind them, the vineyard rustles gently in the breeze.
   The air cools noticeably as they pass under the shadow of the hull. The ship looms above, vast and impassive.
   At the top of the ramp, Leila holds a keycard on a lanyard against a sensor beside the door, there’s the hiss of a pressure seal, and the bulkhead slides open with a tired sigh. Inside: a cargo bay, cavernous and quiet. The lighting is minimal, just the low blue strips along the floor and a few distant amber glows above the loading cranes. Containers sit like sleeping animals in the gloom, their serial codes blinking slowly in orange.
   Rafael pauses just past the threshold. “Why is it so dark?”
   Leila doesn’t break stride. “Ship time is 23:47,” she says over her shoulder. “Lights are on nighttime cycle.”
“But it’s afternoon.”
“Outside, yes. Inside, it’s late. We run on ship time. Makes scheduling easier.”
“Easier for whom?”
   She ignores that. “Now that you’re on board, you’ll need to get onboarded.”
“Now?”
“You’re in luck. They’re doing one at 00:00 in Room B-17 Forward Multimodal Orientation Suite.”
   She stops at an intersection of corridors, rests her hands briefly on her hips, and glances sideways at him. “Don’t be late. They’ll make you rewatch the entire harassment module if you miss the opening remarks.”
   Sancho sneezes softly, then begins licking his paw.
   Leila nods once, businesslike. “I’m off duty.”
   She turns crisply and strides away, boots tapping against the deck plating, her silhouette vanishing into the next corridor with the air of someone who has tea waiting and intends to drink it in solitude.
   Rafael is left standing there with Sancho in one arm, the blue floor lights humming softly beneath his feet, surrounded by the sleeping shadows of cargo that someone, somewhere, might have once needed in a hurry.
   He exhales. “Multimodal,” he says aloud, to no one. “Great.”
   Sancho emits a low grunt, the sound of a rodent resigned to bureaucracy.

Okay there should be one scene left of the pilot. If you're curious, this is the ship design style I'm picturing for the ship.