ICE - WIP

It seemed that no matter where you went, how far you flew, or what planet you were on, everyone had something in common. Many would say that Crime and Religion were the two most notable examples, but Martin Barsona had to disagree. No, by far the biggest similarity was what he was currently suffering through: Elevator music was universally bad.

I really hope the job is worth the music...

Rona shook his head and leaned against the opulently padded wall. The music might sound like dirt, but Braxis Corp. did not skimp on anything else. Even the express elevator was richly appointed. The carpet came up to the freelancer's ankles, and doubled as inertial dampening. The floor they were going to was about a mile and a half from the ground floor lobby, the elevator itself traveled dizzyingly fast to cover the distance. Everything was in tones of red and gold, gaudy as all hell. Rona was pretty sure the little alcove on the right was actually a drink dispenser, but he decided not to test.

Five minutes later, and the elevator came to a stop, almost before he'd realized it had slowed down. The doors opened, and the contrast between this lobby and the elevator was almost enough for the freelancer to pause as he stepped onto white marble floor. Where the elevator had been padded luxury, the lobby was surprisingly plain. There were three doors, one directly across from the elevator, one to the right labeled as a bathroom, and one behind the lobby desk labeled as a security office. The two... Well, Rona wasn't familiar enough with this particular reptiloid race to determine the gender of the guards, glanced up as he moved towards the desk.

"Martin Barsona?" The one on the right spoke. The voice sounded feminine, but Rona wasn't quite sure, so he simply nodded. "Please have a seat; Mr. Braxis is currently in a meeting. He'll be with you as soon as he's through." It gestured to a marble bench against the opposite wall, and undoubtedly flashed a message to the next room.

Not a hint of an accent. Very impressive. She... It, could probably speak several dozen languages just as well.

"Thank you."

The bench was much more comfortable than it appeared, but not anything Rona would particular want to sleep on if he had the choice. As he leaned back against the wall, he tucked is hands into his brown leather jacket. Another thing that everywhere had in common: Lobbies could double as refrigerators. There was no art on the walls in here, but as he let his eyes wander, he came to the decision that they didn't need any. The walls themselves were black and white marble, the swirls creating patterns and designs that painted a more intricate picture than anything Rona had seen in a museum. It dawned on him a moment later that it was probably intentional.

He wasn't left to play art critic for very long, and a few moments after his realization, the receptionist asked him to go through the door at the end of the lobby.

While the office itself was fairly standard, if much larger than Rona was used to seeing, the view was truly remarkable.

Braxis headquarters were located on a planet almost entirely covered by warm, shallow seas, and sandy islands. The two mile tall monstrosity of a building was built on the largest landmass on the planet, really the only landmass that could support it, and [MR BRAXIS]'s office was three quarters of the way up, with a wall of windows facing towards the west. The system's twin stars were sinking beneath the long curve of the planet, setting the sea ablaze with a glory that was enough to make the seasoned pilot watch in awe.

A quiet chuckle sounded to Rona's right, shocking him out of his trance. "I see you enjoy the view as much as I do, Mr. Barsona."

Rona reluctantly tore his eyes from the vista, turning from the window he couldn't remember moving to, and gave a formal, albeit sheepish, bow to one of the universe's most powerful beings. As he straightened, the friendly-faced man waved him to a comfortable looking chair, sinking into his own opposite a desk that could have doubled as a grav-ball court.

He nodded. "It's an amazing view, sir."

Braxis looked much like the pictures and holos Rona had seen. Tall, at least a head over Rona's own five-foot-eight, with skin that showed the man spent plenty of time enjoying the beaches. Close cropped graying hair, with a well-trimmed beard that hadn't yet begun to show his fifty-nine years. His eyes held an intensity that no number of pictures or videos could have prepared someone for.

Note to self: Don't play cards with this guy...

As the freelancer took the offered seat, a servant arrived, bearing a tray of small cups that smelled of strong coffee. Rona accepted his cup and sipped it carefully.

"Is it not to your liking, Mr. Barsona?"

Yeah, not much gets past him. "It's uh... A little stronger than I'm used to. And please, call me Rona."

The executive nodded. "Alright Mr. Rona." He paused, taking a sip of his own cup. "Undoubtedly, you wonder why I called you here for this meeting rather than contract you through the usual intermediaries and resources one might otherwise expect. Rather than offer a full explanation, I will say simply that I am offering you a job. Seven hundred and fifty thousand credits, with a substantial bonus for early delivery. The cargo is highly sensitive, and will be labeled innocuously to avoid suspicion.

You will not be the only pilot who believes that they will be the one's carrying said cargo, and in fact, you're one of the last pilots I wanted to speak to over this proposition."

Rona blinked and leaned back in his chair, sipping his coffee to stall a response as he absorbed the information. The multiple pilots was a fairly common ploy used by corps and governments alike to improve the odds of some important figure, piece of technology, or information making it to the intended destination. There would probably be an armed convoy or three; some fast ships too, all going in different directions to spread out the targets. That price tag, however, was anything but common or ordinary.

Seven hundred and fifty thousand... That's more than I make in eighteen months. He grimaced internally. Eighteen good months. The last several had been unfortunately slow.

"How dangerous would you say this job is going to be?"

Mr. Braxis chuckled. "Honestly? That depends."

"On?"

"How much anyone outside of my company knows about what you may be transporting, the path you choose to arrive at your destination, how much attention you draw to yourself..."

"So from not at all up to catastrophically."

The executive gave a tight grin. "We may have a leak."

"Catastrophic then." Rona nodded to himself. Well, dangerous jobs generally paid the best, and he and his ship had a very good track record over the past fifteen years so far as survival and delivery. Still, she was getting old...

"If it's any consolation, as an additional point of interest, we'll be repairing any damage you or your ship sustain. Assuming you arrive with my cargo."

"And the monetary bonus?"

"If you arrive at your rendezvous with your cargo, within five days of leaving, you'll receive an even million for your troubles. The bonus will be reduced to an extra fifty thousand if you arrive within six days. The deadline is eight. Should you not arrive in eight days, you will be labeled as rogue, and a bounty will be placed on your head." The friendly face had gone cold as steel. "Nothing personal, of course." The warmth came back almost at once, but Rona was still left chilled.

"I of course doubt it will come to that, however. You, after all, have an excellent track record, Mr. Rona. It's a shame you haven't been able to get as much work these past seven months. You really should be more careful what you say to a woman such as Tessya, she is quite powerful you know."

Rona's surprise must have shown on his face, for the old man chuckled before finishing his cup and setting it lightly onto the saucer. "I make it a point to know who I work with, Mr. Rona."

"I can see that."

"So will you take the job?"

Rona gazed into his mug, thinking about his options. Low on fuel, lower on cash, ship needing maintenance, and very few other contacts in this section of space. On the other hand, he very much doubted he'd survive long enough for Braxis Corp to punish him for doing a poor job. He suppressed a shiver. Not a good line of thinking.

"When do I pick up the payload?"

The bearded man on the other side of the desk smiled.

"Sign here, Mr. Barsona. I'll have it in your hold by midnight."

Rona leaned back in his seat, propping his booted feat onto the control console of his ship. The Apparent had been his pride and joy for four years now, and while it may not be as flashy as a lot of the newer models, it was a hell of a lot more solid. Four years, and she hadn't once let him down. At least, not when he kept her fueled and repaired... With a practiced ankle roll, he flicked a switch on the board with his heel, and the starscape on the screens before him was suddenly partially obscured by a flashing blue window.

"Course set, Auto-pilot engaged." The automated voice was soft, feminine, and Rona made a mental note for the fourth or fifth time the week to change it. Its robotic speech patter reminded him eerily of his last girlfriend...

Soothe was the ship's pseudo-intelligent computer. She wasn't really what you'd call an artificial intelligence, but she handled the majority of the Apparent's systems, from navigation to weapons, and Rona was more than happy to have her. Without, he'd probably have had to hire an actual crew, and Rona really preferred his solitude for the most part. She'd been an expensive extra when he'd bought the ship, but it was an extra he had never come to honestly regret. Even if she could be somewhat annoying. Still, it was thanks to her creative course plotting that would hopefully avoid the more dangerous parts of space, as well as any local governments, and still get them to Skavni Cluster and the drop-point in time for the full bonus. Things were looking pretty good so far.

"Hell, even my ship's in good repair."

The Apparent, officially designated the IND Apparent, was the result of collaboration between a former Terran military specialist, and an Issualden ship yard. The result was a large, vaguely predatory cargo-ship that looked infinitely more dangerous than it actually happened to be. At ten and a half meters top-to-bottom, fifty-seven nose to tail, and fifteen across, she wasn't what one would call a small ship. The twin intakes on either side of her nose fed the massive turbines that propelled her through most atmospheric conditions, and gave her the infinitely useful vertical-take off-or-landing capabilities. In spite of her size, she was a fairly agile ship. After four years of flying her, Rona could put her down in just about any space you asked him to, a skill that had been enormously useful when it came to hiding from pirates or authorities.

She also wasn't entirely defenseless either. She boasted a pair of Cloud Burst defense cannons, one dorsal, one ventral, each capable of throwing a wall of high-velocity debris into the path of anyone shooting at him. It made it something that was hard for pursers to avoid, and with the reactive bits of metal thrown in could create issues for anyone foolish or unlucky enough to fly through it. Luckily for Rona, it also doubled as an anti-missile defense. That fine spray of particles, combined with the Apparent's powerful thrusters had managed to keep the pair flying after four years of hard flying.

Rona dropped his feet to the floor and unbuckled himself from the flight seat. He'd made a good move when he'd bought her, and he'd be hard pressed to find a ship he'd take over the Apparent. He patted the console and stood, ducking through the open hatch in the rear of the cockpit and into the short hallway that connected it to the cargo bay. Unlike the majority of Terran ship-designs, the cockpit was located more or less in the center of the craft, rather than near the front. This removed a glaring weakness in Terran designs, even if it did make the rest of the layout a little bit strange. The cargo bay took up nearly half of the habitable space within the Apparent, and as Rona stepped onto the catwalk and looked down at the relatively small crate, he shook his head.

The crate was not the smallest load he'd ever had to carry, but it was close. A meter tall, a meter or so across, and maybe a meter and a half deep, with a polished steel surface that Rona had a hard time imagining held any blemishes or fingerprints. He also wasn't particularly interested in adding any himself, the bloody thing was probably wired to the nines with sensors and beacons...

And hopefully no explosives...

The crate was pretty heavily strapped down, and he was pretty sure it was also vacuum resistant as well. Whatever was in it (or wasn't), Braxis didn't appear to be taking any chances. Rona didn't really blame them. He shrugged and turned, kicking a small tool box over accidentally. He cursed under his breath and righted the offending box, making a note to do something about it later. Clean up completed, he turned down another hatch, moved down a short hall and tapped out a quick code on the keypad next to a door. A moment later and he was dragging off his jacket, tossing it towards a chair. "You've got the helm, Soothe. I'm crashing." Ignoring the computer's response, he dropped onto his cot and passed out.

He was awake almost instantly, the screaming alarm prompting him to action as he rolled off his bed and rushed into the tight corridor. On his way down the catwalk, he stubbed his unprotected toe on the toolbox he'd kicked earlier, letting out a yelp of pain. The yelp turned into a terrified shout as he realized the tools were making an arc for the crate. He dove back into the hallway, wincing at the loud crash of metal on metal. He lay on the deck plate for a moment, holding his breath before cursing colorfully and finishing his sprint for the cockpit.

At least it's not pressure trapped...

He scrambled into his chair, slapping off the alarm. "What time is it?" he asked as he searched the monitors and view screens in front of him for the source of his rude awakening.

"Time is oh-two-two-eight, as set by Martin Barsona."

He glared at the view screen in front of him. As far as he could tell, every system was fine; there were no hull breaches or malfunctions. The only possible source for the alarm was the course change request that Rona had ignored when he got into the seat a moment ago. "Soothe?" he growled.

"Yes, Rona?"

"Did you sound that alarm?"

"Yes, Rona."

"Why?"

"Gravitational anomalies detected at listed coordinates. Requesting course change to avoid."

Rona sighed as he tapped the appropriate box on the monitor before him. Not twelve hours into this venture, and his ship had become bored. Sometimes the more advanced technology got, the needier it became... Soothe chimed happily as she got the desired answer and Rona leaned back into his seat, closing his eyes for a moment and feeling marginal shift as the ship changed headings. "Is there anything else you need me for, Soothe? Or can I go back to-"

"Unidentified vessels, approaching on intercept."

Rona had begun getting up, quickly halted that movement and slapped off his autopilot, strapping himself into the flight harness and disabling his gravity generator.

"Lead vessel hailing."

He brought up a view of the ships, but other than getting a good look at a trio of heavily armed corvette class ships, couldn't get anything else. They didn't have any identification either. He grimaced, but didn't run. They hadn't started shooting yet, so they probably weren't pirates. Who knows? They may even be friendly. "Alright, let's see what they've got to say."

He leaned back in his seat as a black, chitonous face filled his view screen. "IND Apparent, this is CFG Vessel Khiresja. We believe you have our property." The translated voice was backed by the hissing and popping language of the speaker. Rona glanced at his computer. All three were holding a few thousand meters back, and as Rona noticed earlier, were much too heavily armed for the Apparent to handle, even one on one. Especially since he was running low on ammunition after fending off pirates who hadn't understood that he didn't HAVE any cargo last week.

Wait. "Hold on a tick, CFG? As in 'Cyber Fist Galactic'? The hacker pirates who think they're terrorists?" The designation they were using had just dawned on the freelancer, and he couldn't decide whether to be pleased or not. The CFG were more or less as he'd just described them, a tight collection of pirates with a fetish for technology. They were fairly well connected, even had a decent spy network, which they used to find the latest technological advance, which they would then steal. They usually just made copies and sold everything to the highest bidder.

The head snapped its mandibles. I guess I struck a chord... "We are the CFG, and you have our cargo."

Rona shook his head, flipping off his side of the audio. "Soothe, find the closest planet, moon, dust cloud, anything where we can hide. Preferably that isn't on the other side of these guys, and set the course for me." He flipped the audio back. "I think you might be mistaken, friend!" He put on his best salesmen smile, flashing as many of his teeth as possible. "I've just got this tired old crate in my cargo bay, destined for one..." He grabbed a clipboard out of the air as it floated by his head, and flipped through it. "One... Aorsani Enterprises on Draysel. Nothin' you guys would be interested of course, think it's umbrellas or something. You can check my manife-"

The clacking of its mandibles was now accompanied by a high pitched, whining hiss. "I have manifest, right here. You have crate for Braxis, from Braxis. We will have-" Soothe interrupted the alien's tirade.

"Course set."

Rona didn't waste time replying. Instead, the Apparent rolled on its axis, engines flaring to life as it blasted in a new direction. Not fast enough to completely escape harm, however. Rona winced as several impact alarms sounded, which turned to hull breach alarms. His cockpit sealed itself while the ship closed off the damaged sections and rerouted his life support to ignore them.

"This is a big mistake! You will pay for this! WE WILL HAVE-" Rona flipped off the comm as the Apparent leaped into the black. The three corvettes were accelerating as well, but they'd take a long time to catch up. Even so, it took half an hour for Rona to stop taking fire from ships that were now at the bare edge of his sensor range. Before they'd been completely out of range, Rona had allowed Soothe to return fire, using more of his precious ammunition, but there was not much that the Apparent's defensive cannons could do against the corvettes.

"Why me?" he muttered, watching his screens. "Why can't I have a milk run, just once?" He grimaced, greatly displeased. Accelerating like this is killing my fuel supply...

It took an hour and a half to reach the gravity well of the unnamed moon that Soothe had chosen, the last fifteen minutes of which Rona spent decelerating as hard as he could. Even so, he almost missed it, and he was forced to take a little more time than he'd really wanted to as he sank into the planetoid's minimal atmosphere. Soothe had already tracked down an ideal hiding place, and after a few minutes of flying in an uncomfortably tight canyon, the Apparent was settled on the floor of a small box canyon.

Rona scrambled into a vacuum suit as Soothe began blacking out the ship. Once he was secure, she shut down the life support, and then herself. By the time the Cyber's arrived, the Apparent would hopefully be just another lump on the moon. Rona pulled open the hatch, and stepped onto the catwalk outside. The sound the magnetic souls of his boots made on the plating seemed tinny through his suit. "Well, might as well get some work done while we're not dying."

It took a moment for the freelancer to fully register what he was seeing. Explosions in space looked a little different than their atmospheric cousins. They were generally short flashes of light as fire consumed whatever combustible gasses the ship contained before snuffing themselves into non-existence, when they occurred at all. Rona had spent more than enough time in space to recognize them, and if he got a good look, could even give a good guess as to the atmosphere the unfortunate occupants had breathed before it was so violently consumed.

The cause of the explosions was what gave him a moment's pause. He leaned back against the hull of the Apparent and zoomed in on the battle that was raging above him. With the help of his suit, he watched as a glowing orange ball of energy flowed through space, writhing as if alive, before flowering into potency on the hull of one of the CFG corvettes. Rona swallowed the sudden lump in his throat as he watched the section of plating the energy was currently caressing buckled and exploded with sudden decompression, leading to gout of flame as the ship's atmosphere vented past the super-heated material.

Plasma-based weapons were almost completely unheard of, but even with the stories and descriptions blown out of proportion, Rona recognized it. The way it flowed through space, the way it seemed to fight the forces that held it together, the way it burst on contact with anything massive enough to break the encapsulation. The stories had made it out to be one of the most terrifying weapons in space, and he had shuddered to hear of it. Seeing it now, in use not three kilometers above his head, and were it not for the vacuum suit's waste system, he would've wet himself. That he was outside his ship, patching the smaller holes in its hull when he'd noticed the eerie blossoms of light wasn't making matters any easier.

He dropped his last patch in his scramble to get off the Apparent's port wing. In his haste, he missed the guide rope, and ended up slowly falling face-first the four and a half meters to the ground below. He managed to right himself, thankful for the light gravity as he landed on all fours, before standing carefully and double timing it into the airlock. Even before he was through, he was dragging the heavy outer-door closed. It sealed and Rona slapped the cycle button, wishing he'd left Soothe active.

Three minutes later, and the freelancer was sprinting down the hallways of his ship, tearing off his helmet and dropping it on the way. The low gravity caused him to bounce, but the electro magnets in his boots and gloves allowed him to keep control as he hurried to the cockpit. Once in the cargo bay, he killed the magnets and used a crate of food as a launch pad, jumping up to catch one of the lower rungs of the catwalk nearest the cockpit. The magnets in his gloves came back on to make sure he stuck, and he quickly pulled himself over the safety rail.

He didn't sit down before he'd already slapped a button on the far right of his console. The sound of his ship's reactor warming up was quite possibly the best sound he'd heard in years. He rushed through the shakedown, muttering worriedly and waiting for Soothe to come on line. Shortly she did, and without Rona having to ask, she took over for him. While his thrusters were warming up, he pulled up a view of the battle that was going above.

From the looks of it, the CFG were fighting a losing battle against a pair of gun ships that seemed similar to those out of the Asani Empire. The corvettes that had given Rona chase were fairly nimble craft, but they couldn't quite avoid the blossoms of plasma that splashed across their hulls. Where ever the fiery material touched, metal boiled away like wax beneath a blow torch. Even as Rona watched, a burst of plasma struck a section of hull already weakened by a previous hit. The venting of the ship's atmosphere was visible as a gout of flame as it rushed past the super-heated hull and ignited.

Rona shut off that view. "I think it's time we got out of here." Putting actions to word, Rona carefully lifted out of the small canyon they had sheltered in, and blasted across the surface of the scarred and tortured surface of the moon. As soon as the battle was out of sight, he pulled out of the planetoids gravity well and disappeared into the black.

After three hours and no sign of pursuit, Rona gave the helm back to Soothe, doing some quick calculations in his head. This little fiasco with the Cyber Fists had done more than waste fuel and put holes in his ship. It had put him minimum three or four hours off course, time Rona did not want to be losing.

"Soothe, what's our current travel time?"

"Five days, twenty minutes. We will need to stop and refuel at the next available opportunity."
He grimaced. No more than what he'd expected. "How are we for ammo?"
"The dorsal cannon has five rounds remaining. The ventral cannon is empty."
"Alright, find us the closest station, planet, dockyard… whatever, that's not going to slow us down too much, and get us there." He yawned, turning back to the crate. "And hopefully we won't have anymore surprises."

He stood and stretched, releasing the lower seal of his vacuum suit. "Night Soothe."

"Goodnight Martin."

It took the better part of two and half days for the Apparent to make it to a port. Rona spent most of his downtime watching the skies for trouble, but after his run in with the CFG, things seemed to be looking nice and clear for the freelancer. When he wasn't watching the skies for trouble, he spent a lot of time in his not-quite-empty cargo bay. While he wasn't currently carrying anymore paying cargo than the crate for Braxis, his hold still held several boxes of various sizes and shapes, mostly containing supplies he would use for himself. A few others were items he'd accepted as payment in lieu of credits, items he would likely be trading for fuel and ammunition as soon as he made port.

After looking over his hold he decided he should probably try organizing things a little better. When he'd worked on larger cargo vessels, part of his job had been to actually organize and find the most efficient method for arrangement of cargo with the available spaces. Of course, that had been several years ago, and since he never carried enough cargo to actually cause an issue with packing, he'd grown out of the habit.

Ah, well. It's not like anyone cared if he had a messy cargo hold. It was all tied down perfectly well, and it made his workouts a little more interesting. He might have lost his organizational skills, but he liked to think he was just as good a fighter as he'd ever been. Most of the time he spent in his hold was spent shadowboxing in various levels of gravity and in free fall. Back when he'd worked the larger ships, most of the crews he had worked with had held informal bouts in cargo bays. It was a good way to break the tedium of long-hauls, as well as earn a little extra spending money with the betting. As long as no one was too injured to work, the higher-ups had mostly over-looked it, occasionally even betting on the fights.

Rona's specialty had been fighting in free fall. He was a born spacer and had an innate sense of movement without gravity. Even so, he'd never been a match for most of the military personnel who had joined them. Most of them would offer advice and demonstrate different techniques after the fights, and Rona had gotten better with every bout. The freelancer sometimes missed those jobs, but the freedom he had in his current line of work more than made up for the lack of sparring partners.

And company? Whenever he needed that, all he had to do was stop in just about any port within three weeks travel of the Asani star system. Nah, he thought. This is the life for me.

He sighed and cracked an eye open to give the screen a cyclopean glare. Unimpressed, it continued its insistent chirping. He glared a moment longer before sitting up, taking his feet off the console. "What, Soothe?"

He'd really been enjoying that nap.

"Message received from Kitrii D'Azya."

"Ooh, D'Azya… Haven't heard from her in awhile." Hearing the name instantly roused him the rest of the way from his nap. Kitrii D'Azya was one of, if not his best, fixer. She'd brought Rona more jobs than he could really count. It also helped that she was one of the cutest Skitsari he'd ever met. "Let's see what she wants!"

The screen he'd so recently been glaring at was suddenly filled with the tawny-furred face of D'Azya. Her horizontally-slit pupils were set into dazzlingly emerald green irises, and twinkled in amusement at some private joke that all of her race seemed to share. She flicked a four-fingered had across the screen in greeting.

"Hey there, Hrona!" She grinned. He'd never been able to tell if her mispronunciation of his name was intentional, or just an honest part of her accent with it came to speaking Basic. "I have a few jobs lining up if you are free. Two clients call for you specifically, can wait three days for you, but if you can't make it, I pass them to Verstaal. Let us know soon as you can, Hrona!" She paused, glancing at something off screen before meeting the camera again.

"And be careful, virasa." She looked off screen again, and Rona realized the strange look he had caught in her eyes was one he'd never seen on her, or any Skitsari he'd ever met: Fear. She'd also never used the Skitsari word for friend on him before. "Other people asking after Mahtin Bahsona, people not wanting job. Want to know when he be in port again, know what ship he fly. They scary, Hrona. You be careful, stay safe." She brightened a little as Rona grimaced at the screen. "Fly good, Hrona. Hope hear from you soon." She flashed her hand again, smiling, and the video froze, now complete.

He leaned back in his seat, eyes staring through the image of his friend. It took a lot to actually frighten a Skitsari, or even break through their seemingly perpetual amusement. For her to show concern for Rona to the extent that it showed on her face… He shivered. The faster this job was over, the better.

He docked at Garwousti Station a few hours later. It would take over an hour to refuel and replenish his ammunition supply, but for the first time in about seven months, Rona didn't haggle over the price too much. He even managed to get some of the bigger crates out of his hold in exchange for what he needed. He decided against getting repairs though. After he'd looked over the holes, he decided that it was all minor damage, just a step beyond cosmetic. He'd probably want to get it fixed before he made a high-speed entry to any planet or moon with a noticeable atmosphere, but if he was needing to make a high-speed entry, it would probably be because people were shooting at him, in which case he'd probably have a similar set of holes, and then…

He shook himself. Besides, with the paycheck he was getting for this job, he could live fat and easy for a good long while. Assuming he lived to get paid. Ah well, details, details, details…

Since he wasn't going anywhere for awhile, the pilot decided to wander the station's public areas. Garwousti wasn't exactly the kind of place you went for vacation, but it was a pretty well known stopover for cargo haulers and mercenaries in this section of space. It was a good place to pick up jobs, meet contacts, or just unwind in one of its many bars or small gaming rooms. It also had a couple curious shops, arms dealers, and really whatever people felt they could get someone to pay good credits for. Rona had never caught the bug of superstition the majority of his colleagues clung to, but he knew that many would pay just about any price for little baubles if you mentioned the word 'luck' around any of them.

He managed to make it back to his ship without too much more than he started out with, and spent the rest of his time sitting in the cockpit of the Apparent, sipping a hot caffeinated beverage that was most certainly not coffee, and ticking away the minutes for the re-supply to be completed. He grimaced into his mug a moment before taking another swallow. At least, not coffee like Mr. Braxis had served…

"Hey, Soothe?" Rona called.
"Yes, Martin?"
"What's our current arrival time, do you think?"
"Estimated time to arrive at rendezvous is one-hundred and ten hours."

Rona grimaced. So about five days… He took another sip of his drink, giving it another suspicious look. "How about not trying to save fuel? We're doing good with money now, right? We can always refuel when we arrive."

Soothe responded a moment later. "Ninety-eight hours, leaving time for extended deceleration, and saving enough fuel for possible emergencies."

"Sounds good." He drained his cup. "See if you can't plot a quicker course too." He grabbed his bag of purchases, getting up. "And we'll just hope no one else decides to shoot at as between here and there…"
"Hey D'Azya!" After Rona had cleared the station, and with Soothe's help decided that they weren't being followed, he had decided to send a response to Kitrii. After all, if she had folk waitin' on him, it would be bad business to keep their hopes up, seein' as how he wouldn't be able to make it to her side of space for… A week or two. Also, she had been really worried about him, so it would be comforting for her to know her top-pilot was still flying.

He kept the message brief, entirely omitting his experience with the Cyber-Fists and whoever had tangled with them above that unnamed moon. Instead, he showed off his latest acquisitions at Garwousti, and let her know that he was in the middle of a run, not mentioning the who or what-for's, much less the where-to's. After all, you couldn't be too careful, and if she ever found out… Well, she'd understand.

"Anyway, it's me!" Rona proclaimed, leaning back and grinning. "How often have you known me to get in over my hea-," He caught himself, and his grin turned sheepish. "Okay, on second thought? Don't answer that. Truly though, I should be fine. Promise! See you in a week or two, and you know ya will. I always make the drop, remember? And I always get paid." He waved. "Take care, D'Azya."

Besides, I've already had my pirate encounter of the trip, should be smooth sailing from here.

"Hull breach detected."

He sighed. Or not… "Why haven't you sounded any alarms? And where?"

In response to his first question, he received a recording of his own voice, yelling over an alarm of some-sort, "Damn it Soothe! Don't EVER interrupt me when I'm sending a message to D'Azya! I don't care what the issue is-"

"Alright, Alright!" He said, throwing his hands up in defeat. "Where?!"

"Aft section. A repair patch failed when I attempted to pressurize a damaged section."

He sighed. "So absolutely nothing of importance happened."

"A hull breach has been detect-, " Soothe started, but was quickly cut off by Rona.

"Nothing. Important." He firmly reiterated. She was a fairly advanced computer, and he often found he could pretend she was a person. A person who might sound uncannily like one of his ex-girlfriends, but a person all the same. Then again, her robotic tendencies would show through, and Rona would be forced to find a way to talk the computer into ignoring certain trivial happenings. Such as holes in the hull that led to sections of the ship he never used anyway. "Look, Soothe? Notify me if any hull breaches occur in places that matter. You know, places I live, or places that harm the space worthiness of the ship. In fact, go ahead and depressurize any section of the ship I don't use regularly, just shunt their atmosphere into other sections." He yawned. "No sense in pushing air into places I ain't gonna be breathing it."

After that, Rona had nothing more interesting than continual updates from Soothe over the state of his patch repairs. He mostly managed to ignore her, and retreated to his work-room. One of the best parts of having a decently large ship to yourself was the ability to use spare space for pretty much whatever you happened to be in the mood for. The workroom, near the bow of the ship, was the product of several years of hoarding credits and careful purchases. It had, in one form or another, survived two ships (one on which it had been built very much against regulation), four crew mates, and one very irate girlfriend. In its current state, he was pretty sure he had the tools to strip down a space station, were he so inclined.

He often was.

Rona enjoyed tinkering in his free time, sometimes going to port entirely to buy some new bit of technology he could dismantle to figure out how it worked. Some were relatively simple, basic datapads, for example, or clocks. There was even an ancient shotgun laying around somewhere, one of the few project's he'd actually been able to reassemble after taking it apart. He only had three shells left, those were much harder to put back together, and he had given up after the seventeenth failure.

Of course, the bigger, more complex the project, the more likely that it would be left in pieces, due to his flagging attention. As a result, his workshop was littered with broken, partially reconstructed, or simply the cast-off innards of hundreds of projects that he'd never gotten around to finishing. Weapons, cooling systems, ancient machines... Very little was safe from Rona and his tools.

His current project was one he was surely on the fast track to completing, however. Two empty halves of a severely weathered plastic shell were laying on a friction pad, the internal components all carefully protected from sudden bouts of Z-G by a very expensive stasis-field generator that Rona had picked up from a Zandurian trader about a year and a half back. Even with the discount the man had given Rona on account of savin' his life from pirates (More or less accidentally, but Rona wasn't about to let a perceived debt go un-paid), the generator had set him back nearly six-months pay at his last Crew gig, but he didn't regret spending a penny.