Stars Unending

[l3wt]

James Arland's private snubcraft decelerated to a comfortable drift as it emerged from the Manchester-New London jump gate. The ship was a Raven's Talon, a starkly utilitarian vessel, but one with good performance characteristics for being private sector. Absently tapping a few keys to lock into the nearest trade lane, James looked out into the void. A little blue-gray ball in the distance - Planet New London. A few  clusters of blinking lights moving off somewhere to his starboard side, a trader and its escorts. The bulk of a Crecy-class destroyer loomed within figurative spitting distance, an attending flight of Templars lurking in its wake.

James smiled. He could all too easily imagine the scowl on the Captain's face as the Crecy scanned him, James' meagre cargo manifest describing a slightly disconcerting if not strictly illegal combination of small arms, munitions, and alcohol. He wasn't entirely sure why he kept those aboard anymore, his mercenary days were long past. Maybe it was because it'd be too much trouble to keep them around in his fleet lodgings. Maybe he just liked having both guns and alcohol within easy reach. Maybe that was a terrible idea. 

Ultimately, it wasn't terribly important, to which the destroyer seemed to agree. It turned away to scrutinize some hapless civvie, probably with the Captain rolling his or her eyes. As the trade lane propelled James' ship further into the system, James voiced a request to JADE - an AI without which he would have been dead many times over. 

"JADE, mind pinging the Adventure Galley? It shouldn't be too far out now."

"Very well. Stand by," she advised. While he waited for JADE's query to propagate, James leaned back in his seat, thought of home. Strange really. From here, everything seemed so... normal. Like the situation wasn't desperate after all, that the front line wasn't just a simple measly jump one system over. At least they'd chalked up some wins recently, with recent operations being overall successful. Part of him had itched to participate, but his squadron had been kept in reserve - and with the last couple months spent in training and reorganization for that other thing,  he doubted he'd been allowed to go anyway.

JADE's voice broke him out of his thoughts. "I have detected the Adventure Galley," she said. "The ship computer sent a standard greeting packet - it also appears we've been added to their tracking service whitelist. Following was detailed location information. The ship is in high orbit over Planet Cambridge. I've taken the liberty to plot a course."

"Well, let's not waste time sitting here, then. Take us there."

One system jump later and a bit of time spent twiddling thumbs in a trade lane, James had a clean visual on the Serenity-class vessel. Slightly beat up, James noticed. Not combat damage - simply wear and tear after a long time spent travelling in space. He issued a standard docking protocol request, didn't bother to open a voice link. It'd just be awkward to sit out in space and talk before docking. The yellow PENDING... marker for the request quickly became a green ACCEPTED message, and JADE handled the rest of the steering to line up the ships' docking tubes.

James wriggled out of his seat, crept back into the dimly lit, cramped little cargo hold. Besides the guns and the alcohol, the place also contained basic engine access for emergency repairs, as well as a single airlock for boarding other ships that didn't have fully pressurized cargo bays. There wasn't enough space for him to even stand up straight in there. 

Funny thing about space travel, really. If you had either claustrophobia or agoraphobia, you were kind of screwed either way.

He grabbed a small duffelbag. It contained a paperback copy of a book, one "Stars Unending" which Leslie had requested he bring along, as well as a bottle of pretty good scotch that she hadn't, but James decided a small present was only appropriate for a social call anyway. And hey, if that one ran out, it was not as though there wasn't more where that came from. 

He ducked into the docking tube. The tube on this bird was roomier than the one on his old Eagle, but only by a hair.

He emerged blinking into the Galley, somewhat unsure of what to expect.

"Hello?"