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Jack Denton is sitting at his temporary work station on Freeport 11, his wrist-computer is open and wires fall haphazardly out of it and on to the desk, the soldering iron in his right hand is glowing bright red. He carefully places a small spiked cylinder inside the computer before connecting several wires to various ports on the cylinder, he doesn't seem to slow down in the slightest to decipher the tangle of wires inside the tiny computer. He squints as if almost blind, yet there is a pair of glasses on the desk, within easy reach. His door opens and a man walks in, sees the wires and soldering iron and waits patiently for Jack to finish. In short order Jack finishes his modifications, closes the computer up and turns it on, lines of code scroll past the small screen. He turns to the man, "Any word on our new ship yet?".

"Yes sir, Yukawa station reports that construction is complete, it will be here within the next few hours."

"Excellent, have the engineers begin preparations for it's arrival."

"Yes sir."

The man turns to go but Jack calls him back, "Wait a moment, you should get a kick out of this".

Jack fumbles for the glasses to his right on the desk and puts them on. The glasses make no difference to his eyesight until his wrist-computer finishes booting up. The lens glow softly orange and Jack seems to be able to see much better. 


Jack starts to prod and slash random parts of the air in front of him, while he works he talks, "I had to find something to occupy me these last few days so I built a small-scale version of our directionalised gravitational manipulator to see if I could integrate it with my computer". He stabs the air one last time and pauses, "yes that should work", he looks around the room and spots a mug, "watch". He raises his left arm (the one with the wrist computer) and points it at the mug with an open hand, with his right hand he grasps and twists the HUD that only he can see. The mug shoots towards his hand in a blur and stops very suddenly just before hitting his palm.

"Its not that powerful and power drops off very quickly as distance increases, but it should come in handy at times"

The man in the doorway claps, "you will have to make me some of those glasses one day sir" he says with a smile. 

"You don't want them, trust me on that", Jack replied,"the screens destroy your eyesight, I can hardly see without the rotten thing and iv only been using it two years".

An awkward silence fills the room, and is promptly shattered by the sound of the mug falling and breaking into thousands of pieces.

"Bother, I must have done a shoddy job on one of the cables it's losing more power than it should", Jack takes off the glasses, sits back down and reaches for the soldering iron. "Go and alert the crew I will be there shortly". 

"Yes sir", he replied before turning and jogging out of the room.

An hour later Jack Denton is standing on the observation deck of Freeport 11. On the far wall is an airlock that connects to the mooring point the new ship is scheduled to moor at. His entire crew is scattered around the room as are several piles of equipment boxes and assorted components.

"Not long now sir", says Jack's head of engineering, a bulky man by the name of Joel.

Jack's eyes try to focus on Joel but he soon gives up and talks to the air above Joel's head, "yes, try not to get your hopes up though, this ships going to be a bit of a fixer-upper".

Joel moves to assure Jack that his team can handle it but Jack cuts him off, "wait until you have seen the ship before you make a judgement Joel, no one will blame you if you cannot get it operational in time for the meeting".

Joel grunts and returns to staring towards the distant Jump Hole. Minutes tick by and Jack pulls out a book written in Braille and begins to run his fingers across the page.

"If you don't mind me asking sir, why don't you just turn on your glasses and read a normal book?"

Jack replies without looking up or halting his reading, "I'm trying to adapt to life without sight, I figure I only have a year and a bit before I can't see anything at all. It also helps slow down the decay of my vision, when the glasses are on it's like... It's like staring at the sun through a sheet of paper".

Joel appears puzzled at this analogy, "I don't understand sir". 

Jack's mouth twitches in a half smile,'"You don't feel pain but if you keep staring long enough your still going to go blind".

"Why did you make them in the first place then sir?"

Jack opens his mouth to explain but someone shouts from across the room, "I see it!". 

Joel turns and moves toward the viewing glass, Jack is slower, he turns and his glasses pulse orange for a fraction of a second. In that second the world is lit in exquisite detail for him as the glasses' sensors feed him what his eyes cannot see. He memorizes the path in front of him and slowly maneuvers around the equipment on the ground to the viewing glass. When Jack reaches the viewing glass his glasses began to glow orange again and he begins to chuckle, "no wonder this ship was cheap".

Joel was not as amused, "Its a flying piece of junk sir! I don't see a sensor array, weapon mounts, shield generator and if I was a betting man I would say it doesn't have working cruise engines!"

"I told you it would be a fixer upper Joel, your team is just going to have to knuckle down for a while. Besides, it will make it easier to integrate our own equipment."

Joel sighs, nods, and turns around to face the rest o the room "okay everyone, time to stop gawking and get some work done! First priority is getting shields up and running so let's hop to it!"

Jack turns and slowly walks towards the airlock, by the time he arrives the new ship has moored and the Kusari delivery crew is filing out. He hands the head of the delivery crew his identification and the Kusari man nods, writes down something on his datapad and motions his crew to follow him as he walks off the observation deck. Moments later Joel's team files past, each man and woman carrying equipment boxes of assorted shapes and sizes. Jack's glasses pulse orange and he follows them down the airlock into their new ship.

Jack Denton stands on the bridge of the newly delivered ship. Joel is beside him hunched over a console trying in vain to start the ships power core, his muttering is just beginning to sound murderous when Jack relents and turns to help. "Excuse me Joel", Jack motions for Joel to step aside, after he has done so Jack takes Joel's place at the console. His glasses glow orange and Jack mutters to himself as he looks at the screen, "hmm... this array here isn't aligning... if we... no, that might restore basic operation but it won't be good enough for our purposes."

Jack straightens and turns to Joel as his glasses stop glowing, "change of plans Joel, our new first priority is scrapping the power core"

"We can't scrap the core! We see Nomad patrols almost every day, if they attack the station the ship won't stand a chance without power!"

"Well we will have to work quickly then, I will go pickup a new core from the shipyards here today, you get your team organized and get to work."

Joel simply sighs and reaches for his communicator. "all teams, this is Joel, drop what your doing and meet me in the core room."

Jack turns and heads off to the Freeport 11 shipyard to requisition a power core.

By the end of the day the old core has been dismantled and moved to the cargo bay for use as spare parts, the new core has just arrived and Joel's team is swarming over it, flashes of light from welders light the room. "How long do you estimate Joel?"

"Basic operation in an hour, that includes maneuvering thrusters, impulse engines, and navigation. Shields, I would say three hours if we prioritize it. Weapons could take days, the ship doesn't have the infrastructure to supply energy to the guns, we will have to make that entire subsystem ourselves."

"What about ballistics? We don't need to supply energy to missiles."

"We can do that, its only a stopgap measure though."

"It will have to do for now, what about cruise engines?"

"As I suspected no, it will be days before we can get cruise engines operational."

"Okay then, first priority is the shield generator, we are moored on the outside of a station in Nomad patrolled space, I don't want to lose this ship just after buying it." Jack turns to leave but stops and calls back, "by the way, try and think of a good name for it, I can't just keep calling it "this ship"". 

After a short walk Jack arrives at the ship's laboratory, men and women walk about the room, taking things out of storage boxes and placing them in cabinets and drawers around the room, Jack heads towards the largest of the dark blurs that his damaged eyes can make out, he knows without a shadow of a doubt that the shape belongs to a portly man named George, Jack's head of science.

"George, good to see your settling in alright"

"ahh Jack good to see you, yes this lab is almost identical to the one on the Prometheus, it fits us like a glove."

"Did you compile the data I mentioned?"

"Yes I have it here somewhere", George looks around for a while before giving up and asking a passing lab assistant, "have you seen the datapad I was carrying earlier?"

The lab assistant silently points to a table on the far side of the room and keeps walking. 

George walks over to the table and hands the datapad to Jack, "JHC schematics and operating manual, it's all here"

"Good, I hope this deal with Ageria goes to plan, we are going to need a lot of money if we ever hope to get the new drive online"

George clears his throat and quotes, "the future doesn't exist, the past never happened, all that matters is the present. Don't worry about what the future may bring, don't dwell on past mistakes,  concentrate on today's problems."

Jack stares at the dark blur that is George for a long time before breaking into a smile and giving his friend a slap on the back, "you never cease to amaze me George".

Jack thanks George for his help and leaves the Lab, on his way back to his quarters he stops by at the core room to check on progress.

Joel hears Jack's approach and turns to meet him, "your just in time sir!"

"Is the shield operational?"

"No that's still half an hour off or so, we thought of a name though."

"Let's hear it then"

"The Graf Zeppelin, named after an airship from earth, centuries ago it flew several research missions into unexplored territory, it broke several records at the time and it was powered by an experimental fuel source. It fits pretty well I think."

Jack grins, "it's a perfect fit Joel". Jack's glasses glow orange and he taps and slashes his HUD for a couple of seconds, "ahh there it is". The speakers crackle to life all around the ship, "attention, this is your captain speaking, a superb name has been suggested for this fine vessel. So without further ado I christen this ship... Graf Zeppelin.

Jack Denton, Joel, George and a woman named Kate are all standing on the Graf Zeppelin's bridge. Joel is pacing up and down the room, his expression is murderous. George is holding his datapad, he taps the screen at a furious pace, trying to uncover if the Privas Probes have been compromised during the brief period that Aegirahad access. Kate is Jack's head of medicine, she simply stands still and stares at the occupants of the room. Jack's glasses are glowing orange, his right hand occasionally reaches out in front of him to touch his HUD. He is searching through the ships subsystems to determine if anything apart from the cruise engines was damaged by the Ageira ship.

Kate gives an exasperated sigh, "Joel! Can you please settle down? Your driving me insane."

Joel stops pacing and turns to face Kate, "how can you be so calm! They stole our research! Weeks of planning, research, prototyping and testing and they stole it all in a second!"

Jack finishes his inspection of the Graf Zeppelin's subsystems, his glasses stop glowing and he turns to Joel, "calm down Joel, I'm annoyed as well. We need to stay focused though, the Ageira rep threatened our lives, and I for one think he was deadly serious. We need to get cruise engines working again and then move as far away from here as we can."

"If we take him seriously then we can't go anywhere in Liberty", George says without looking up from his datapad.

"I already have a location in mind", replies Jack. "The Corona Battlegroup has offered us a mooring point on Ames research station, they are also willing to help get the Graf Zeppelin up to full operational capacity."

George replies yet again without looking up from his datapad, "sounds perfect to me".

Joel doesn't look convinced however, "the Corona Battlegroup is part of the Liberty Navy, you just said Liberty was a no go"

Jack interupts George's reply, "I trust them. Now let's move on to other things, how long until cruise engines are operational again?"

Joel cocks his head to the side and thinks, "twelve hours should do it."

"good, get your team on that straight away", Jack turns to George, "find anything George?"

"Yes... well actually no, buts what we were hoping for anyway. It would appear that Ageira was not able to access the Privas Probes before we changed the codes"

"good", Jack turns to Kate, "what about you Kate, how bad were the injuries?"

"Nothing too serious, mild burns caused by the short circuits were the extent of the injuries"

"Good, good", Jack turns to Joel, "get your teams to work, we need to move as soon as possible".

Joel nods and walks out of the room, already reaching for his communicator. Jack turns to Kate, "you had better get back to the hospital and get fully unpacked and organized. By the time this is over we may have more serious wounds than mild burns."

Kate nods and hurries out.

"George"

George looks up from his datapad, "yes?"

"I know I said I trust the Corona Battlegroup, and I do, but don't let anyone in to the labs when we are on Ames okay? No one can be trusted with the drive, not yet."

George nods and stands, "I understand... try and get some sleep Jack, you look knackered." George turns and walks out.

Jack stands alone on the bridge of the Graf Zeppelin, he mutters to himself, "no one can be trusted with the drive...not yet. In time perhaps but not yet."

Jack Denton stands on the Graf Zeppelin's bridge, men and women bustle about the room preparing for the Graf Zeppelin's first trans-sector flight. Jack's communicator crackles to life and Joel's voice, distorted by the communicator, is heard. "Cruise engines are online, the circuitry has been reinforced properly so we won't have any repeats of last time."

Jack grabs his communicator and holds it up to his mouth, "good, we disengage from the station in five minutes, if you have any loose ends to tie up do it now."

"We will be ready", the communicator clicks as Joel turns his off.

Jack's glasses begin to glow, the world is lit in exquisite detail and he wants nothing more than to stop for a while and soak in the details that he has been missing out on ever since the glasses started taking their toll on his eyes. He shakes his head and suppresses the thought, he raises both hands and starts working with his HUD. To the outward observer he might look like he is conducting an extremely fast band, his arms make graceful yet frantic arcs in the air in front of him. To Jack the world is a swirling maelstrom information, his HUD bombards him with data from almost every subsystem on the ship and he fights to respond to every single thing that is presented to him.

Eventually the rush of information stops and he becomes aware of the world around him again. People all around the bridge are staring at him, they had seen the pre-flight calibration scroll past on their consoles, a process which usually took at least an hour when preformed by several people, he had completed the process alone in three minutes.

His glasses stop glowing and he sighs in frustration, his vision is notably worse than it had been before the calibration. Where as before he had been able to make out people that he knew well by memorizing their shape and size, now everyone looked the same, a dark blur, "We needed to move quickly", Jack reminds to himself.

Jack's communicator crackles to life again, "navigation, impulse and cruise engines, ballistic weaponry, short range scanner, maneuvering thrusters and shields all check out", says Joel over the communicator. 

"Good, prepare for launch", Jack puts his communicator away and sits in the bridge's command chair. "Disengage the mooring clamps", a woman behind one of the consoles on the bridge nods and presses a few buttons on her console, there is a loud clunk sound heard in the distance and the Graf Zeppelin begins to float away from the station. 

"Set a course for Ames station, charge cruise engines keep shields at full power at all times". The Graf Zeppelin spins to the left and a short time later the soft thrum of cruise engines can be heard somewhere behind them as the ship speeds towards the swirling green Jump Hole.