T'aafhal Legacy 1: Ghosts of Orion by Doug L Hoffman

for themselves during the voyage. The crew would remain locked in the forward section until planet fall, baring any emergencies.
    Two days out from Farside, the colonists were still settling into their spartan accommodations. Shadi and Dorri were in a room with six other girls, where they would be confined during most of the journey. The sisters would have preferred to be in the shared lounge for their deck, with its large viewing screens, but the lounge was filled with men—women, particularly young single women, were not allowed. They could only venture forth, fully swathed in their hijabs, to cook for the men and then carry their own food back to their rooms. 
    Fortunately, their single room prison had its own bathroom and each bunk possessed a viewing screen. Most of the girls showed no interest in the screen units, having no idea how to operate them. Shadi and Dorri, however, knew about things like computers and the internet. Shadi was quickly able to bring up a floor plan for the ship and information about the voyage.
    “We are going to be stuck on this ship for almost a month,” she said to her sister in Farsi.
    “Why does it take so long? Even a plane trip halfway around the world only used to take a day.”
    “Evidently we have already traveled a distance many times that of going around the world and are lining up to go some place called 'alter-space'. It will take 22 days in alter-space to get to our new star, and several days in normal space after that before we can land on the planet.”
    “Another month of this?” said a girl from the facing bunks. “Why do I feel so heavy? I felt light as a feather before we got on the ship.” 
    “That's because the ship is at standard Earth gravity,” replied Shadi. “The Moon's gravity is only one sixth that of home.”
    “Well I don't like it,” the other said petulantly.
    “Get use to it, it is only going to get worse. The planet we are going to has a gravity that is a third stronger than this. During the trip the ship's gravity will slowly increase to get us use to our new home.”
    “How do you know all this? Are you just making this up?”
    Shadi considered telling the girl that all that information and more was available through the access screen in her bunk, but then hesitated. If it got back to the Imam he might forbid the use of the devices, so instead she said, “I heard some of the men talking when we were boarding.”
    Her sister looked at her and raised an eyebrow. In English she said, “smart not to tell the others about the data screens—they probably couldn't use them anyway.”
    “Yes, don't tell anyone else. If you find things you want to read you better do it now. I doubt there will be any such devices when we get to our destination.”
     
    Peggy Sue, Emergence Gliese 667A
    Sam Shepard, Tommy Chen and Jimmy Tosh were unpacking a stellar surveillance satellite from its shipping crate under the watchful eye of Chief Zackly. Deck gravity in the cargo hold was reduced to a tenth of Earth normal to make the 500kg space craft easier to handle.
    “Move it slowly, yous deck apes! It may not weigh much but it still has mass.”
    “Aye, aye, Chief,” said Tommy, not really understanding the Chief's point.
    “That means, if you get it moving fast, it'll be just as hard to stop as on Earth,” Sam added, “so take it easy, mates.” 
     “Yous guys turn this space widget into a broke-dick we'll have to get the bilge rats to fix it before it can be launched,” added the Chief. “And if we cause a delay we'll all be on the Captain's shit list.” 
    “What is dis ting for, mon?” asked the Jamaican cook, who had been pressed into service to help ready the probe for launch.
    “Dr. Ogawa wants us to put this in orbit around the first star we come to,” the old Chief said. “As fer what it does it's PFM.”
    The crewmen carefully landed the metallic dodecahedron on a hover sled and strapped it down. The satellite needed to be taken to an