Road to salvage..tion
18 Jan 2022Creamy Goodness III
Continued from Unexpected kinetic AdjustmentBeing lent a decent ship solved everything. No amount of flying for someone else could come close to having ones' own ship. The overheads were more expensive, but the earning potential was limited only by the hours a pilot was willing to put in, and Creamy had put in a lot of hours.
The EOM-A 5 was kitted for long range support, so Creamy used the tools equipped to start on the path towards salvaging his Anaconda. He started by hopping from system to system, scanning the coms for stranded pilots. Helping them was quick, easy, and would earn him upkeep credits and a little more to invest in better opportunities.
In a galaxy where time sensitive tasks would make a pilot risk shallow scooping before the next jump, there was always someone out in the black in need of a good Samaritan. It was spiritually rewarding work, if not finically outstanding. Creamy liked people, and a person left drifting through the black on low power settings was always glad to hear a friendly voice and see the lumbering bulk of an Asp Ex arrive toting helpful limpets.
After a few days experience, Creamy found that mining sites tended to have a fair few customers for his support ships facilities. Raiders would hop into a hot spot and harass hard-working miners for a few tones of rock scratchings, and hurry the time pressed prospector along with a few shots; or an inexperienced Rock Hound would get a lil intimate with an asteroid they were working on. Either way, Creamy could hail them on coms and offer a repair limpet, or a shield top up service from the EOM-A 5s' Concordant, and Regelation Sequence lasers in exchange for something to put in his cargo bay.
Pilot assistance work took him all over the bubble and soon enough, thanks to the outstanding generosity of a few grateful miners in particular, Creamy had the credits to refit the Asp Ex with the tools he was best suited, and most experienced with using. Passenger cabins. Playing host to a few guests and filling all the roles expected on a passenger ship, filled Creamy with an honest satisfaction. Be it serving pre-prepared meals to the passengers, or doing the announcements over the ship coms, Creamy loved every aspect of delivering people to their desired destinations.
Before heading to Jamesons’ for the passenger refit, Creamy risked a trip to Citi Gateway. He still had people after him, and Citi was a stupid place to go when your head was worth Credits, but that was where he had left his Advanced Personal Asstant COVAS, Ninette. With the one he had salvaged from the stricken Anaconda, Creamy now had two instances of the PA COVAS, the original, and the fresh install he had been using since he lost his ship years ago. Ninette One, as he called the first install, had informed him that the two programs could be merged saving the data both Ninettes had accumulated, and that would make her even more effective. After many hours and countless attempts with Ninette One talking him through the procedure, Creamy hired a computer guy to do the merging process for him. It took the guy less than ten minutes, including the time it took for him to politely drink the tea Creamy had made.
It turned out an Asp Ex could only house two good cabins and a pair of small economy units after being refitted for liner duty, but with almost fifty-five light years range, and a captain that could fly as smooth as Creamy, he had no shortage of customers with low profile requirements. Many of the people he ferried were so impressed with the personal, and authority free service Creamy provided, they paid to retain Creamy and EOM-A 5 for their return journey too.
Thanks to Ninette keeping Creamy on track, managing his time and expenditures, it only took a few weeks to earn what Ninette had estimated Creamy would need to salvage his Anaconda. However, the bio-monitoring system Creamy installed so Ninette could keep a better eye on his wellbeing, highlighted something Creamy wanted to fix before going back to the stranded Anaconda.
Now the two Ninettes were one, the program had almost six years of data saved about Creamy. Add to that fact, Ninette was custom-made for the man by a programmer that knew Creamy better than he knew himself, pacifically to baby sit the Imperial playboy; when Ninette something was wrong, Creamy listened. It seemed his recent lifestyle had done a lot of damage to his fitness level, something Ninette understood to be very important to her charge.
She explained it in the simplest terms her programming would allow, so Creamy could understand. The silhouette of Creamy overlaid on an earlier scan, coupled with the red and greed 'areas of change' so Creamy got the point quickly, would have been something to be proud of if Ninette was capable of pride. The solution was simple; Ninette booked Creamy into a hotel near the gym that had trained him when he was at his physical peak. Years ago, Creamy had competed in the interstellar free style league under the name Ty Monroe. Using Tys’ good name, Ninette haired the best trainer available to get Creamy back to the fitness level he usually maintained. Something Creamy wanted in case he needed to fight for his life on board the Extramarital Affair once again.