Two quick shots and the lane was dropped. The Debilitator class pulse cannons of the ship overloaded the delicate circuits inside the trade lane ring
and forced the operating software to reboot, the connection with its two neighboring siblings now dysfunctional for some time. Any ship that came through would be knocked out of the lane right in front of him. The pilot stared at the lane for a second and then slowly swiveled his ship left and right, peeking down either side of the lane. It was pointless of course, visual confirmation of targets wouldn't be possible in this thick cloud of spacecraft-fueling gas and any ship coming his way would be in his face when he'd finally be able to see it.
Slowly his gaze wandered down to the left, a small screen showing the contacts his scanner was picking up, only a blank space greeting him.
While slightly more reliable than his eyes, those standard issue scanners had their trouble with the crow nebula as well, having a hard time getting
through that helium soup. For a few seconds he stared at the screen intently, as if somehow trying to make a contact appear through sheer willpower.
Then he got bored.
With a heavy sigh he leaned back into his pilot seat, strapped in tightly inside that small fighter cockpit. Raising his legs, he soon rested his feet
onto the ship's console in front of him, carefully avoiding the flight stick in the middle of it. His right hand moved up to the chest pocket of his
flight suit from where he clumsily tried to pull a little plastic box while keeping his eyes on the scanners. As he struggled with his pocket, he came to realize that the number of contacts on his scanners was roughly the same as the amount of money on his bank account. Namely zero. Nothing. Nani-frickin'-mo. He also realized that those two things were also strangely connected in another way. If no helium shipper was going to show up soon, the number of credits to his name would remain exactly what it was and his bosses would be very unhappy with him.
Finally he managed to coax that stubborn box out of its hiding spot and opened the lid on its top side, impatiently pulling out a single cigarette. Taking off his helmet, he let it rest on his lap.
Soon he released a relaxed sigh as he exhaled and a large cloud of smoke slowly floated upwards until it was stopped by the roof of his cockpit.
The feeling of bliss that was slowly spreading inside him was immediately and quite loudly interrupted.
A slight frown appeared on his face as an annoying beeping sound started to torture his ears and a flashing red warning on the console informed him
thoughtfully of the fact that his cockpit was, in fact, filling with smoke and that he really should consider ejecting as his ship was
probably on fire. With a quiet groan he shifted slightly in his seat and removed one of his feet from its comfortable resting place, shutting the
alarm up with a precise kick against one of the buttons on the console. "Piece of junk.." He muttered to himself, making a mental note to permanently disable
that 'feature' once he was back home.
Silence returned once more into his cockpit and he could put up his feet once again and relax as he took another drag from the cigarette.
His thoughts involuntarily wandered back about two weeks and he cursed his luck as he remembered what brought him into this less than pleasant situation.