Fly high. Fly low. Fly true. No such words could ever be accused as being false. Except, well, the truth was that Tranquility was more floating than flying, neither low nor high, stuck at a standstill in space. Katie had recalibrated the sensors, then she had recalibrated the sensors, then she had recalibrated the sensors. “Ship’s fine, Cap’n!” She announced over comm. “Then why ain’t she flyin’, Katie?” Cap’n announced over comm. “I, uh… Lemme recalibrate the sensors, Cap’n…” That tango went on for some time before Cap’n kicked his feet up in the cockpit and settled for sharing a cup with his pilot.
“Relax, Cap,” Waltz announced from the adjacent seat, topping his tin with a pour. “Katie knows this ship better than either of us! She knows it like...like...like the back of her foot!”
“Foot?” Mal blinked, twisting his lips at the sour diesel, or whatever in seven shenanigans this vodka/whiskey/whatsit was exactly. “Don’t you mean hand?”
“I…” Waltz blinked back. “...I don’t know, Captain…”
“Fair enough,” Mal shrugged. Here they were, two friends in a cockpit that wasn’t going anywhere anytime soon, when suddenly he remembered that they were on a mission. They had braved the Kessel Run and made it out in one piece, if with a few minor setbacks to engine control and otherwise, sensors notwithstanding.
So, in the space beyond Kessel and in between the space claimed by the Five Syndicates and the Free World Alliance, Tranquility floated, drifted, lingered. Its captain, Mallister Keynion, was to rendezvous with a figure of the former. Instead, it was all he could do to summon the thug to him via the comm. "Come to my position," he had channeled, clearing his throat after he realized he had recorded himself clearing his throat. "My ship's stranded." Should he have said that? Had he encrypted the message correctly? The booze made it hard to tell.
Oh well. The two had a deal to broker and neither bright star nor black hole was going to stop Mal from completing his end. That deal? An object ‘garnered’ from Kessel, far more valuable than spice or slaves. 5S was willing to pay top cred for it, or so he hoped. He had to show it to them first...
@Morse
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