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Chapter 1: Radical Docking
Staring out the viewscreen at the slowly turning Marketplace, the trade center for the Sisters Trading Conglomerate with sixteen ships in dock and two large vessels nearby running shuttles to the space station, I filled with both intense pride to be part of such a powerful alliance reaching throughout the Greater Human Cooperative and intense trepidation. I didn’t want to be here. Normally, I would be all over a trading mission, especially at the home station, but this time the trade was me.
I had hit eighteen two years ago. Last time we made it to the Market, I was two weeks underage and we had a contract delivery to hit. Last year we missed all the Brother Trade days, being on the other end of our ship’s trade two-year circuit, which meant I had no reasonable arguments to beg an extension to stay onboard ship this time around.
“Bring us in pilot,” the captain ordered behind me.
My last act as a crewmember under her orders. I eased in without comment or question, well familiar with the pilot seat, having sat third on the rotation since I qualified as an apprentice at age fifteen (*Earther-years, the standard used by all ships of the Sisterhood).
I would be a valuable trade. Certified as full pilot with for a planetary landing sub-license, as a junior for navigator and as a corpsman, and ready to challenge for apprenticeships in environmental and sanitation fields. Two mechanics onboard our ship could use a husband with a new genetic mix for the good of the ship’s diversity, and I was the only currency available.
After locking in the rotation calculations, I touched and brushed the controls, not even scratching paint or pads coming into the docking arm, stopping the minor thrusters once the magnetic emission force fields captured us relative to the docking arm.
“Very good Peasbody.” Captain Blanche called her first officer over. “Freddie, you have the bridge. Only two people on liberty at a time, three hours each, until the Brother Trade is complete. I’ll be back as soon as I can. Check the boards with Supply and with Trade to see what is available for resupply and what might be good for trade on our next circuit. You have the bridge.”
“Aye Captain,” Freddie said in her high, sweet soprano voice. “I have the bridge. Trade well, Captain.”
“Peasbody, you are with me.”
I stood, and Ymette, the First Pilot who should have been in the seat for the prestigious and difficult connection to the spinning Marketplace, slid in behind me. I had watched her fingers twitch every maneuver on the way in, but they wanted me in the seat, recording my value with every millimeter of the docking. It wasn’t my first docking, so they had confidence despite my recent full ranking certified at Treehelm two months ago. I hoped this docking wouldn’t be my last.
Some crews just used males for reproduction, though the Sisterhood frowned on wasting fully developed brains. And if the brain wasn’t capable of full development, why was it chosen for reproduction with crewmembers? I don’t think the captain would trade me to a social outlier ship, but if no other trade was available…
I settled my mind going over the ships I caught sight of as we flew in. Ever Faithful was an agricultural specialist, a massive tanker growing crops to fill in missing nutrients for colonized planets still undergoing terraforming. Supply would be hitting them up for oranges and other tree fruits and my mouth watered at the thought of fresh foods in the mess tonight.
Then I remembered I wouldn’t be at the officer table ever again. I dragged fingers over the wall as I walked behind the captain, higher than the well-worn streaks made by children running messages up to the bridge from other departments on the ship.
Being even bigger than the space station, Faithful had parked on the sunlit side. The Prestigious Sisterhood of Athena Mercenaries warship hovered on the cold side of the Marketplace, the quicker to exit, the quicker to face any incursions coming from outside the dual-star, gas-giants-only system the Sisterhood had chosen for their home system. Collections and Emissions was even smaller than my birthship, Really Radical Stock, and unlike most Sisterhood ships, kept equal amount of men and women onboard as they did financial and high-end trading and many planets preferred males for financial trades. They always had plenty of males to trade; they didn’t even practice the standard gender suppression methods among their children for the standard three-to-one ratio.
The two smallest ships, We Land and Derby, worked mostly as mail runners and only kept one male on board to fill out the minimum required crew of six to needed to fly under the conglomerate flag. They might be interested in me to beef up their pilot ranks, but I’m not sure I would want to be on a ship which had to trade out all their children at age five because of lack of room and education facilities. Besides, mail-runners traded out their males for newer models every five years since they didn’t keep any of their children, and I am a bunk-body. I really hope to only be traded once.
Truth to tell, I had hoped never to be traded offship since I wasn’t closely related to about half the crew, but the captain was a stickler for tradition in most things.
The captain entered the code to open the airlock into the docking tube.
I hadn’t received the updated code since all my hardware had been reverted to stores other than the very expensively installed pilot implant package. Everything I carried on my person and in my head would be all that I could take with me to my next posting. I had left behind my tools, as my hands had outgrown them ages ago but no one could justify spending printing-mass on someone who would be traded soon. The tablet with all my music, books, videos, and lessons had been wiped and returned supplies. Whatever ship I ended up would not risk a mechanical virus transfer; the biological danger was enough.
“Don’t forget to slouch,” she said as the airlock repressurized to match the station’s docking arm.
“Yes, Captain.” I relaxed my shoulders and hunched my back. Trading me two years ago would have been better, before I added three more inches of height.
Mass takes food, oxygen, and space. The Sisterhood had chosen to go the matriarchy route to save money. Twenty original ships, 100% crewed by women and replenished with fertilized embryos flew the stars traderoutes, saving money, joined together under one company contract, now the largest merchant family-company in the GHC.
Over time, the Brother Trade tradition developed for genetic security. Females stayed with the ships, males traded between them upon maturity. Every transaction recorded to protect the company from inbreeding. Ninety-seven years after the initial contract, it would be my turn to be traded.
My trade came with a lot of special features. My mother had been distracted by a gravity-man and ended up with me nine months and dozens of systems later. I didn’t have the perfectly proven and traced genes to the original founders, but my DNA would add diversity to any ship, guaranteed. I was healthy, but I was also as large and strong as a gravity-man in charge of moving cargo in a non-variable gravity environment needs to be. Even with drugs to suppress my growth prescribed by Medical once they realized I was only starting to grow at fourteen, unlike most females who were winding down, I towered over all the adults onboard my home-ship at 1.8 meters. My mass is expensive. One of the reasons I got pushed, and pushed myself, in so many specialties was to make that mass worthwhile even though I would be traded offship.
Fortunately, I was born in a lull between generations so Education and Training had berths available to waste on training male brains. As Tamar put it, the berths used the same energy and maintenance sitting there empty, may as well put knowledge into the Testosterones.
Tamar was not allowed to have a husband to herself.
After we both yawned to adjust the inner ear, Captain Blanche ordered me to slouch more before moving forward down the docking tube,
I rolled my eyes and attempted to do so, as I whispered, “Yes, mom.” and slid down the tube after her. Like the micro gravity between Radical’s gravity plates and the Market’s spin could provide me something to stand straight or slouch against.
Once inside the airlock on the station’s side, we landed in the half gravity the station provided in the cargo unloading areas and faced each other. The captain lifted her hand to my cheek; I slouched so my face rested in it, closing my eyes to memorize this last touch of my family-crew.
“I will get a good trade,” Blanche promised firmly. I could feel her hand shake in the shipsuit glove, but it wouldn’t be visible on the security cameras. “But if they break contract, you know how to contact us.”
I trembled and let the tears flow just enough to let the emotions escape.
When her hand dropped, I bit my lip and opened my eyes. I used the back of my shipsuit’s glove to absorb the moisture. “I love you,” I whispered. This time she was close enough to hear my whisper.
She gave me one last look, brown eyes to matching brown eyes. Before turning to face the opening airlock.
(words 1,607; first published 5/24/2026)
Brother Trade series
Chapter 1: Radical Docking (3/9/2025)
Chapter 2: A Catalog Entry (3/16/2025)
Chapter 3: Ship Choice (3/23/2025)
Chapter 4: Trading Floor (3/30/2025)