[b]XEON III - MESS HALL[/b]

As she worked on her eventual masterpiece two of the other Mecha pilots joined her at the table, James Rockefeller and Rodrigo Rock Zedler, somewhat of a coincidence that two mecha pilots would both have 'rock' in their names.  As James was the first to talk to her she started to converse by responding to him.  [color=darkred]"A pleasure Mr. Rockefeller, your family is quite well known, I suspect your contribution to this mission is partly as a way to increase your family's reputation in the solar market?"[/color]  She was polite enough to at least make sure she split her attention from her increasingly vibrant nebula to the person she was talking too.  [color=darkred]"Please do not take me the wrong way, certainly a noble goal to increase your family's standing while helping humanity increase its knowledge of the galaxy.  Those who can find a constructive way of promoting themselves can be in short supply after all."[/color]

Marsha added a dab of purple to the canvas before half-turning her attention to [i]Rock[/i].  She somehow managed to squash the urge to shake her head at his attempt to start a conversation, the slightest curve to the corner of her mouth almost managed to sneak onto her features.  [color=darkred]"If we were having bad weather inside the ship I would be severely concerned for the safety of the crew since that would mean something was wrong with the ship's climate control"[/color]  Admittedly he was obviously talking about space outside but unless the ship somehow accidentally ended up in a meteor shower or a gaseous nebula, its would be almost impossible to have bad space weather, so she decided to make a joke out of it.  [color=darkred]"As for what I am painting, it is a nebula I saw on duty years back, I have no way to look at it again but the image has remained with me since then.  Looking out into space somewhat jogs my memory of that view.  Needless to say, I have a long way to go."[/color]  She had been working on it off an on but it was nowhere close to the beauty that she had remembered on that day, she just hoped to capture even a fraction of its glory through her work.

[b]XEON III - COMMAND CENTER[/b]

The Captain had one of those feelings that happen before an event is about to occur, usually a bad one.  He looked at the view screen with a furrowed brow at a few rather large asteroids in the vicinity.  "Why have we not gone around this area?  Certainly we could have avoided some space debris without putting too much extra time on the clock?"  He asked his navigator, expecting a quick answer.

"Well sir, they drifted into this sector, somewhat like the comet did I believe, just without the ice of course.  Frankly sir, they were small enough they just did not really catch anyone's attention."

"Certainly the comet is many times larger than the largest of these but why did you not alter our course!"  The captain said with a little more urgency in his voice.

"Sir, I did not deem it necessary as there is zero chance of them colliding with our vessel.  Still you are right sir, I should have followed standard procedure and altered our course."

"Hmm yes you should have...still you said these came from out of the solar system like the comet did?  Could be worth a look with a probe at least."  The captain turned to a crew member at one of the command consoles.  "Launch a surveilance probe to have a look, maybe if there is something of interest we can stop on our way back.  Also keep an eye out would you, I have premonition something is going to happen soon.  I've been out in space long enough that I know I should pay attention to my 'feelings'."

"Probe away."  A small spherical object shot out from the bow of the [i]XEON III[/i] and headed toward the nearest asteroids to make its rounds.