A new Friend
04 Feb 2022Utmouse08
Last I left the log, I had just bough my Crusader after coming in from The Black on the Norma Arm Expedition for the Stellar Cartographer's Guild.A quick trip to Shinrarta Dezha and Jameson, and I'm in my shiny new Crusader. She needed work and there's only one lady I trust for a job of this calibur, and that's Felicity Farseer.
I did my shakedown run of the Crusader, picking up a few bounty missions, geting a copilot for a few stops just to check out the fighters and their capabilities as well.
Made my way to Deciat to engineer with Felicity and just relax for a bit. Its always nice to get to stop and just be landlocked for a while. Stretch your legs. Feel your pulse. Get actual food and not some MRE or other freezedried crap that I keep on the DBX, or in this case the Crusader. (Damn, I still need to name her...)
Anyway,
After a few days, I was getting ansy, I needed a smoke and I wanted to check on the progress on the Crusader, so I do my regular "I'm an unassuming lost pilot" routine, find an unused bay, and hack my way into Felicity's CCTV.
Sidebar 1: I know she knows I do this, but sometimes you just gotta keep an eye on your babies, especially when they're Lakon babies)
Sidebar 2: It sucks not being able to be more hands on with the engineering. I know what you're thinking, I'm not a Lakon engineer or licensed to work on ships, and while you may be right, I still feel I should know my ship inside and out and should be able to make the tweaks and adjustments I want to make without having to go to a licensed Lakon or other rep or engineer...but I digress
So,
About the time I finished up the last few connections, I hear the manway door unseal...and knowing that discretion is the better part of valour, I crawled further into the shadows, just to check out who it might be...
when in walked this Walküre of a woman. Like, put her on a horse, give her some wings, and give her a spear and you'd think Odin himself was about to pull you into Valhalla.
I watched her pace back and forth looking for that same dopamine hit I had just been chasing (I wonder how she missed the smell of my cigarettes, there was still one smoldering on the floor below me too...) and I decided I might just have a little fun.
"Hey, you know this is a Non-Smoking Area" I said out loud and watched as she just about jumps 10m in the air and looked for something to throw or use as a weapon.
After she calmed down, she introduced herself as "Rory Bael", we shake hands and I can just feel the power in them, like hands that have worked hard. Since its not hard to look over my shoulder, she saw what I was looking at and said, "I won't tell if you won't" Damn, I was busted, but I played it smooth and just tossed her an un-open pack as a peace treaty.
We chat for a bit, found out she's a bit of an anti-authority figure. Can't find any fault with that, everyone has a right to fly and believe what they want to as well. She asks what I'm here for, we talk a bit about ships and exploring. We come to find out we're both in the SCG together, what are the odds. I gush about my DBX and Lakon, she talks about her new Krait and the new gear she has to rig it with. She wondered why I wasn't in my DBX, and I had to explain my love for Lakon and needing "Variety" in my life. But all in all it felt like I met a kindred spirit, and to be honest, it felt good because...
I made a new friend!
Like, someone I can actually talk to about things. Someone who loves exploring (maybe not in the same way I do, Rory is HUGE on the whole Exobiology path and tbh, more power to her, but damn if that doesn't sound like hella work to me.) Someone who clearly has some past traumas to work through, just like I do.
I checked the CCTV feed and just about threw it across the bay because the techs fucked up the FSD mounting brackets, which will take me hours to fix.
But, its nice knowing I've got friends in this 'verse. We made plans to hopefully see each other at the Squad Bar.
Anyway, I'm back out to Andel watching another load of cargo get put into the UTM-HCH, and my time is nearly up.
So, I hope to see you at The Bar.
Until then,
Fly Safe and Stay Sane
Mouse, the Engineer.