Entry 112 - 11.19.3303
19 Nov 2017MBaldelli
Note: This is more than a week ago. I am still getting caught up.As I was leaving Farseer's base, it dawned on me that everything had been properly moved from Crook Port to Janes Horizons; as I had more than half a day to make it home, maybe I should take advantage of revisiting McQuinn's place and get some multicannons tinkered with.
Back I went and tranferred command from the Eiriksson to the Go Rin and then rocketted to Trophy Camp to see what McQuinn could do with my armament. A couple of jumps later and getting authorization to land, I noticed as I was doing the landing cycle on one of the inner pads that Trophy Camp didn't feel anything like a place to show off the spoils of battle... Instead it felt like I was looking at the front yard of a redneck home from the old movies I've watched during my Deep Space Surveys.
It certainly gave me a new light as to how to view McQuinn when I was face to face with him. And it certainly explained some off the personal eccentricities that he often exhibited.
McQuinn didn't greet me at the pad. Not surprising really given he knows I'm not a "hunter" like he was. I did get to see him in the workshop though as he was already working on the Multicannons that I had shipped with me on the Go Rin.
I didn't recognize all of the methods of tinkering he was doing on each of them. Hell, I could barely identify half of the equipment he was using let alone any of the components of the cannons; so I left him to his machinations and watched on with the vague impression I knew what he was doing.
About an hour later and a dry run of the cannons in his worskshop, I was satisfied with the work he did. Heading to one of the systems closer to Arexe that I knew had a lot of pirate activity decided to give them a test against a live target. They worked as expected and the target was successfully dispatched in good time.
I didn't want to head home in a fighter craft as I'm sure my family would be making a lot of noise if they thought their first born had become a bounty hunter and freelancer in his middle age. So back to Janes I went to transfer home in the Eiriksson.
It's been a long time since I've done atmospheric landings in a ship. The last couple of times I've climbed down a gravity well I did so by cargo or passenger transport so this was an old and almost unfamiliar feeling cutting through an atmosphere and following instructions on landing from a control tower.
It's because I got too used to being my own CnC out in the deep black.
After landing and getting the Eiriksson squared away with local authorities, I made my way to the hotel district to make arrangements for a place to stay for the duration of my stay here. I know that my family will offer to put me up for the duration I'm planetside, but I will need my distance from their pre-holiday drama.
I decided to stop by my family's home before I headed to the cemetery. Tell them I was in the neighborhood, which is always better than being kvetched at in long range that I didn't stop in when I had the chance.
When I stopped in, I had to turn down their offer to stay at the house while I was there. An offer I had to turn down multiple times. I explained to them I had other commitments to fulfill and this stop in was simply for the tradition of seeing Tomasz's grave.
They went silent as they always did and discretely changed the subject as quickly as possible.
I didn't stay long. Gave them the number and the name of the hotel I would be staying at while I was home and left to get back to sleep.
I got up early as I always did. I headed to the cemetery as the sun was just starting to rise. There was a wind and the smell of the coming autumn on it. It's not like the autumns on Sol, but just a bit cooler than normal: 28 - 29 c.
Tomasz's marker was cleaned. Looked like it was done recently. There were even a few potted flowers set up in the side urns. Starflowers too. His mother's favorites.
Looks as though his mother's still alive, I thought. Probably stopped here before I did, knowing I would be showing up as tradition dictates.
I stayed for me usual 4 hours. Thinking idly about the time we spent together along with some of the whims if he were still alive and able to travel with me.
"I'll be back next year Tom," I whispered and went back to the hotel to ruminate through my thoughts.