Beautiful Victoria Whitely sat quietly in a chair, awaiting her sentencing by the judge. Her long, golden blonde straight hair fell to her lower back, and her gorgeous face radiated light within the doom and gloom of the courtroom. She was wearing a tight grey jacket and pants combination that showed how lean and firm she was.
She had been visiting a China colony ship with her boyfriend, but when she was leaving, security found a controlled substance in her luggage. Since she was sober, it didn't take her long to figure out her boyfriend had used her, and after her arrest, he left her behind. He had told her he had gone sober but had hidden the truth from her.
Her lawyer advised her she was in serious trouble, as since she was caught onboard a China colony ship, she would be tried under China's laws. The only way for her to stay out of prison was to invoke an international treatise that would allow her to serve out her sentence as the spouse of a law-abiding citizen; luckily China was a signatory to this treaty and she was an Australian citizen, so the Chinese prosecutor happily took that option to avoid conflict.
At first, she was worried as since she was arrested in China, her selected spouse would have to be a citizen of China. Luckily, as China had more men than women, she had a lot of men to choose from and thus was able to make a decision quickly. She settled on a software architect who went by the English name of Edison Lau and therefore only spent a week in a more comfortable holding cell without the discomfort of cellmates.
"The court approves Miss Whitely's request to serve out her sentence as the spouse of Edison Lau, despite her plea of not guilty," stated the judge.
Victoria breathed a sigh of relief. She did not understand China's laws but had heard horror stories from her friends. She was thrilled that she was being given a new lease on life.
Her counsel and the court officer then escorted her out of the court and into the public area of the Chinese commercial and government spacecraft New Tiananmen Six, where her counsel handed over her business card.
"Keep in touch. I believe you. The toxicology tests proved you've never taken any illegal/controlled substances in your life," she said reassuringly.
Victoria smiled and pocketed the business card. She intended to prove her innocence, plus exact revenge on her ex-boyfriend.
The court officer then took her to the subway station, and they traveled to the public spaceport, which was a giant cylinder that extended out from the colony ship. After getting off the subway, they took another electric train that brought them to the very edge of the spaceport, which was set aside for private non-commercial spacecraft.
Victoria was then taken to an airlock at the very edge of the terminal. She looked briefly out the glass into the emptiness of space; all she could see were a few stars and the blinking lights of the human colony ships. She wondered which signal lights belonged to the Australia squadron when she was abruptly woken from her thoughts by the clanging sound of a docking shuttle.
The court officer shook hands with her.
"Good luck, Miss Whitely," she said politely.
Victoria then heard the buzzing noise indicating the airlock was properly sealed and filled with breathable air. She looked above the portal in front of her to see the light change to green. She looked over her shoulder, wondering why the court officer was not accompanying her; she just smiled at Victoria and waved her off.
The attendant entered a security code into a nearby wall panel and the airlock door opened. Victoria looked inside and standing across the airlock tunnel was Edison.
Edison Lau was short and well-built, with his black hair shaved to a military-style crew cut. He wasn't bulging with muscle, but he wasn't weak either. Through his white short-sleeved Louis Vuitton monogram shirt she could see a firm chest and the start of an eight-pack. However, the thick glasses he wore could not hide his insecurity. Edison was not an attractive man, but Victoria had given up on good-looking men like her ex-boyfriend. She was just glad he looked honest and caring, and had no tattoos, unlike her ex-boyfriend who was covered with them.
Victoria smiled and found herself dashing across the airlock to meet her new husband for the first time. Although she picked him in haste, at least the court put all men searching for a spouse by sentencing through a comprehensive background check, so the women would at least have a complete and honest profile of each of the male applicants. This time she knew what she was getting, and she knew she was getting something better than her treacherous ex.
"Hi!" shouted Victoria, as she threw her arms around her shorter husband and gave him a great big hug. Victoria had a positive and bubbly personality.
"Hi! Come in," replied Edison politely, as he led her onto the shuttle and closed the airlock door behind him.
"Arianna, seal the airlock and tell space traffic control we'll be departing in five minutes," Edison said loudly, obviously to a computer with speech recognition capabilities.
Edison then took Victoria to the front and had her sit in the co-pilot's seat. He helped her buckle up the safety belt, and when he finished, she looked him in the eyes and gave him a big bright smile. Edison just smiled back coyly; it seemed he had never seen a woman as beautiful as her before, though she wasn't sure if he had ever seen a woman before at all.
He then sat in the pilot's chair, put on his augmented reality glasses, and buckled up. Once safely strapped to his seat, he put on a headset.
"Space traffic control, this is Victor Romeo Charlie Lima Alpha Uniform, requesting permission to depart," Edison said.
Victoria looked behind her and saw only a few passenger seats, with a bathroom and a luggage room at the back. She had never ridden in a shuttle so small before.
"Thanks, space traffic control, departing now," Edison said.
Victoria felt a shudder as the shuttle detached from the airlock and floated gently away from the colony ship. She looked out the front windshield and saw how large New Tiananmen Six was for the first time. She shuddered as she watched a commercial jumbo passenger space shuttle fly overhead.
"Are you flying this ship?" asked Victoria.
"It's my ship," replied Edison, though he was more focused on pressing buttons and flipping through screens that she could not see without his augmented reality glasses.
Once the front window showed they were facing away from the New Tiananmen Six, Victoria was suddenly pressed against her seat by the inertia of their flight. She quickly reached over and grabbed onto his right leg for comfort.
"It's OK. Arianna is a fly-by-wire shuttle. She just downloaded three flight paths to home from Google Maps, and I picked one where we fly by a few colony ships so you can enjoy the view. Given the light traffic, we should be home in about fifteen minutes," reassured Edison.
Victoria looked out the window of the massive Chinese colony ship fleet floating by. The number and size of colony ships were significantly larger than the American fleet and vastly larger than the Fleet of Oz. Victoria smiled as she recited how Australians loved their abbreviations, with Oz being the phonetic spelling of Aus, which was their abbreviation for Australia.
She felt some weightlessness as they flew by the New Shanghai Two. She also noticed Edison's eyes peeking subtly to the right periodically, admiring her cleavage through her blouse and suit.
Soon they passed the New Hong Kong Five, and Edison took control of the shuttle, veering off a little further into space. Victoria became afraid they would get lost without sufficient fuel to return to the fleet.
"Where are we going?" asked Victoria.
"We're going into the suburbs. I got my own home ship," Edison replied proudly and pointed out the front windshield.
Victoria's eyes followed his finger to a squadron of smaller starships within the orbit of New Hong Kong Five. As they approached, she noticed that each had its own very unique shape, but all had a large dome on top. Some domes looked to be solid titanium, whereas others were glass, where she could see what appeared as houses with lush green yards within.
Victoria beamed at the sight. She knew she had picked the right guy when she saw that his candidate profile said he owned his home ship; she had just never seen one before with her own eyes. Unlike the giant colony ships, she would have the privacy of living in the suburbs with less bureaucracy to fight through to travel between colony ships; it would be much easier for her to sneak into the Oz fleet to exact revenge on her ex-boyfriend.
"We're home now," said Edison, pointing out at a particular ship.
Victoria looked and saw a painted white triangle with arrays of solar panels protruding from each side. On top was a glass rectangle that covered a large two-story house with clear white stone walls, columns in front, and dark grey marley roof tiles. The driveway looped around in front of the house, and within the loop was a beautiful fountain. The property was decorated with plenty of palm trees, and grass, plus a fruit orchard, vegetable garden, and grape vineyard.