2 C: Cinderella

"Ella Ella," the familiar voice and the familiar endearment that were beyond hearing now still echoed in Rafaela Donatella's ears as she jolted awake.

She quickly oriented herself. She had fallen asleep at the monitor station, something that would have gotten any employee sacked when they had been able to keep enough employees to run full shifts. From the com a voice just as familiar as the one in her dreams, but not the one she longed to hear again, called anxiously, "Move Bellamy!"

Vache Bellamy snapped a short rude reply, and added, "Just let her go Schmidt, I'm clear."

Tyr Schmidt grumbled, "Aye, NOW you are."

"Raffi, you there?" Bellamy asked.

"I'm here now, sorry," Rafaela replied quickly. Technically Vache Bellamy should have been calling her Donatella instead of Raffi, but that name still belonged to her father in all of their minds, and the older woman had been working the Cinder Sector for Corso Donatella since before Rafaela had been born.

"That was the last of C43D, this whole section has now been reduced to dry dust balls," Schmidt reported without criticism for her delinquency.

"Got it," Rafaela replied, her hands already entering the data into the elderly backup computer that was being forced to act as their primary system now.

The elderly AI compared her input with its own version of the data and flashed a green record symbol that meant that everything matched up and had been entered into their permanent records.

Rafaela checked the time and asked, "You're both headed back now, right?"

"Aye, unless…" Schmidt began.

"I have to go coax the autoserve into coughing up breakfast," Rafaela interrupted.

"Tsk, if those three spoiled brats haven't learned to live on Cinder Sector time instead of Eks Central by now, let them feed themselves," Bellamy groused.

Rafaela couldn't really argue the sentiment, but life with her stepmother and stepsisters was easier if she let them maintain the same pampered lifestyle that Lady Elektra Perrot Rian Donatella had demanded ever since she'd arrived.

Not that the lady or her daughters considered themselves to be pampered. Indeed, all three of them genuinely seemed to feel that they were bravely doing their best to endure the dreadful hardships of living on the isolated fringes of human society. Elektra didn't voice all of the complaints that her two daughters often did, but her pinched expression often revealed that she definitely shared them.

Rafaela often felt like Doris and Louise never shut up about the limited variety of food, limited entertainment, and the data transmissions that simply wouldn't move any faster than light speed, no matter how much a person cursed them.

Corso Donatella had asked his daughter, "Try to be kind to them Ella Ella?" He had stroked the bi-colored hair that Rafaela had inherited from her mother, with his own bright gold color on one side and one of her mother's colors on the other, and explained, "I know it will be difficult when they are crying over losing things that you've never known of, but I also know that you've inherited more of your mother's sweet patience than I've ever possessed. They'll adapt eventually, just like all the young miners who come out looking for stargold, and go home still measuring life by the gain instead of by the system clock."

Rafaela checked the autoserve's supply levels and then gave it the detailed instructions it required to produce any meal set that wasn't in its limited library. Not that it was actually defective in any way, it was merely a standard station autoserve that had never been designed to produce more than a five course meal. It could remember custom menus, but it couldn't create them, and its rationing warnings whenever it was low on a particular ingredient tended to infuriate Elektra.

She hadn't eaten anything with strawberry in it herself since they had received the news that the SkyWater freighter had gone missing and that the corporate accounts had been frozen, because strawberry jam was considered an absolute must for the breakfast table by all three of her new family members. The autoserve dutifully produced the trays with the tiny portions of a dozen different foods, that she had carefully selected for the bulk ingredients that they still had the most of, and she quickly reorganized them onto the fancy dishes that Elektra had ordered during her first week onboard the SkyWater Mining Station.

She carried what she still couldn't help thinking of as a party tray, even though it had been a daily routine for a long time now, out of the galley. The dining compartment that she entered like a waitress in a classical planetary 2D anim, like the dishes, was now elaborately decorated. The only thing that hadn't been changed was the wall of orchids inset as a series of individual compartments around the large display panel.

Doris must have been hungry, because she was already seated at the table, and as soon as she noticed Rafaela she drawled, "And Cinderella the sleepyhead finally appears!"

Rafaela swallowed a variety of retorts, and wondered if Doris had seen her sleeping at the console. Her stepsisters had combined her father's endearment with their scornful way of referring to anything they didn't like in the Cinder sector without understanding that they were basically calling her their regional darling. She suspected that Elektra understood though, because her step mother always referred to her as Rafaela, in her careful-but-cold way.

"Good morning," Rafaela replied to Doris as cordially as she could manage.

Elektra swept through the compartment door a moment later and raked both girls with her gaze before asking rather crossly, with no greeting to soften her demand, "Where is Louise?"

Doris shrugged and replied grouchily, "She's probably still arranging her hair? How should I know?"

Elektra's expression pinched for a moment, before smoothing into her usual cool and artificially pleasant facade. She turned to Rafaela and instructed, "Go and fetch my youngest daughter, and make sure that she is presentable."

"Very well," Rafaela replied dryly.

"Oh, and remind those smelly mice not to wander the public corridors before cleaning themselves up, AGAIN," Elektra added with emphasis.

"MICE are Mining Instrument Certified Employees, Tyr Schmidt and Vache Bellamy are Mining Operation Upkeep Service Employees," Rafaela corrected.

Elektra's expression pinched again, and she replied icily, "The correct plural of mouse is mice, and if you don't get them under control, they won't be employees of any kind for long! Now stop idling around and acting snipity, and go fetch my daughter!"

Rafaela couldn't reply without saying something she shouldn't, so she simply turned and left the compartment. When she reached the door to Louise's room, she took a deep breath before knocking politely. There was no response, so after a long moment, she knocked again with more force.

The door finally snapped open with Louise's whiny protest, "Mother!" She corrected herself a split second later in a disgusted tone, "Oh, it's just Cinderella. What do YOU want?"

Rafaela felt a quickly extinguished twinge of sympathy as she noted the contents of Louise's screen. Her youngest stepsister had obviously been cramming for the morning classes that her mother demanded of her. "Your mother wants you at the breakfast table looking presentable, whatever that means today," Rafaela relayed.

"Not looking like you!" Louise explained with a sneer. "You look like you haven't changed clothes in days! Ugh, this place is disgusting! Speaking of which, my room bot is broken again, so you'd better fix it properly this time!"

Rafaela sighed. Even if she told Louise to fix it herself, the girl simply didn't have the skill. For all the studying Elektra required from her two daughters, they had shockingly few practical skills. She found it difficult to understand why the two of them were being forced to fill up their memory libraries with things like performing arts and ancient languages that any good computer system could handle as well or better, while learning nothing that could be useful to them in daily life.

Doris had nearly reached her majority, but Rafaela suspected that it would be very difficult for her to support herself if she tried to escape her mother's clutches. Corso Donatella had once attempted to begin teaching his two stepdaughters a few useful things, but Elektra had snapped, "You can teach your own daughter whatever you like, but leave mine to me!"

On the bright side, thanks to that argument, Rafaela had never been required to join her stepsisters in their strangely useless education.