Capt. Zora Mbeki
Co-founder · Master, Heart of Amber
Eighteen years, zero scrubbed landings, and an unshakeable belief that the coffee budget is a safety expense.
Since 2131 · Gate 42, Nebula Nine Station
We started with one hull and one rule.
The hull was a decommissioned survey cutter with a cracked viewport. The rule was: never fly a route the crew wouldn't pay to fly themselves. Eighteen years later we've replaced the hull twice. The rule hasn't moved.
How this started
A rented bay, a cracked viewport, and a very good navigator
Yuki Sorensen had flown surveys for eleven years and had a private list of places she kept going back to on her own leave. Zora Mbeki had a master's ticket, a small inheritance, and a bay rental she could not really afford.
They bought a decommissioned cutter, argued for four months about the viewport, and sold nine berths to friends of friends. Everybody came back. Six of them came back again.
That list of Yuki's is still the whole business plan. We've added exactly two destinations to it since 2131, and removed one, because the light stopped being worth the trip.
See the current nineShip's log
Eighteen years, abbreviated
The parts of the log worth reading over someone's shoulder.
- 2131
Nine berths, nine friends
First commercial run to the Saturn rings aboard the refitted cutter. The viewport held. Everyone cried a bit and pretended it was the gravity.
- 2134
Gate 42 opens
We took over a disused freight arm on Nebula Nine Station and turned it into a passenger gate. The number was assigned to us at random, which we have never stopped finding funny.
- 2139
The SV Reynolds joins
A working mid-bulk transport, bought at auction, refitted for eighteen. Ugly on arrival, ugly today, and the single most reliable hull we own.
- 2144
First under-ice descent at Europa
Three years of permits, two years of drilling, and eleven minutes of the quietest water in the solar system.
- 2147
MS Heart of Amber launches
Our first purpose-built hull, and the only one with a full-length glass spine. She has never once run to schedule and nobody has ever complained.
- 2149
CSP Geeks comes aboard
Same crew, same rule, better flight-planning software. Booking now takes four minutes instead of forty.
What we actually hold to
Four things we won't trade away for a fuller manifest
The crew can always say no
Any crew member, at any rank, can scrub a departure without giving a reason and without a conversation about it afterwards. It has happened eleven times. We have never once regretted it.
Small ships, or none
Twenty-four berths is our ceiling and always will be. Past that you stop being a crew with passengers and start being a hotel with an engine.
One price, printed once
The number on the fare board is the number the airlock charges. No surcharges, no dynamic pricing, no fare that changes because you looked at it twice.
The log is open
Every maintenance record, incident report and scrub decision is in the cabin binder and on the public feed. If we did something badly, you can read exactly how badly.
Gate 42 roster
The people who will actually be on your ship
No rotating contractor pool. Twenty-two permanent crew, most of them here longer than the hulls they fly.
Yuki Sorensen
Co-founder · Chief Navigator
Wrote the list the whole company is built on. Still plots every Long Way 'Round route by hand before letting the software check her.
Elias “Doc” Trahan
Flight Surgeon
Runs every screening personally. Has talked more people through their first low-gravity hour than anyone alive, and will do it again for you, patiently.
Rafael Okonkwo
Chief Engineer
Keeps the Reynolds flying out of spite and spare parts. Will show you the engine room if you ask, and would honestly rather you asked.
Nadia Petrov
Excursion Lead
Certified for ice, vacuum and Titan flight. Responsible for the wingsuit programme and for the phrase “absolutely not, get back inside.”
Bea Kowalczyk
Quartermaster & Galley Chief
Runs provisioning, hydroponics and the mass budget. The reason the food aboard a 24-berth ship is better than most station restaurants.
Published quarterly, audited annually
The safety record, unedited
Certified by the Outer System Transit Authority. The full incident log — including the boring near-misses — is on the public feed.
18Years of operation
1,204Completed voyages
11Departures scrubbed by crew
0Serious injuries, all causes
OSTA Class A certified
Full passenger-carrying certification, renewed annually with unannounced inspections at Gate 42.
Two-fault tolerant hulls
Every life-support and propulsion system aboard survives two independent failures without loss of function.
Surgeon on every departure
No ship leaves Gate 42 without a qualified flight surgeon aboard. Not a medic — a surgeon.
Home port
Nebula Nine Station, Gate 42
You are welcome on the station whether or not you're flying with us. The Promenade is public, the observation lounge is free, and the coffee is worth the transit on its own.
Getting to Gate 42
Any scheduled lifter to Nebula Nine Station, then the blue line to the freight arm. Twenty minutes from the main concourse. Signage is genuinely good — we paid for it ourselves.
Talk to a human
The Gate 42 desk is staffed by flying crew every day of the cycle. Walk up, sit down, ask anything. Nobody there is on commission.
Come and see
The list is nine places long. You have time for at least one.
Departure windows for the next cycle open on the first. Berths on the Long Way 'Round have never lasted a full day.