The man who had adopted the surname ‘Fel’ sat heavily at the console behind the copilot’s seat. For the moment at least, he was alone, though he wouldn’t have put it past Jet, or hell, any of the folks aboard the UA, to pop into the cockpit to see how the conversation with Abilene went. He could’ve locked the door. But no. He’d never locked Wrench out of anywhere. Jet neither. Not even his cabin. He wasn’t about to start now. He breathed for a few moments, until the navacomp alert sounded. This was it. Stretching toward the main console, he cut in the sunlight engines, and right on schedule, Abilene sprang into reality, filling the viewport. The grey-green rock was barely the size of an average class-Zee lunar mass. He breathed deep, collecting himself. Keyed in the ident tag. A male voice, sounding very far away, badly static-laden. Fel boosted the signal, knowing there was little they could do, planetside. The atmo was thin, which did them favours when it came to broadcasting comms, but their tech level was so low, he knew this was as good as it was liable to get. The voice got stronger, closer. 

[i]“...dentified vessel, state your business, over.”[/i]

[color=F7941D]”It’s Fel. Unfair Advantage. I’d give you some hull registration number but we both know it’d be a bunch of numbers I pulled out of a hat. Need to talk to Abilene.”[/color] 

There was a long pause. Long enough for Fel to start thinking they had lost the call. The ever-present comms ionization and ever-present static, like waves crashing on a beach someplace warm, didn’t help. 

[i]”Wait.”[/i]

He acknowledged, but the line had already gone dead. Now the waiting was killing him, and he started to turn the words over and over in his mind, which was usually when he ended up eating them. But just when he believed they had switched off, her voice, aged and weighted with experience and tough as nails, pierced the cockpit. The image was poor, but he could make out her shock of white hair, braided. 

[i]”Galdaart Fel, you doleadote Scrabjack – didn’t think I’d see your ugly mug around these parts anytime soon. What in the seven suns are you doing in my yard, son?”[/i]

[color=F7941D]”Good to see you, too, Abilene. And don’t go handing my thrusters to me. If you’re half the Harpy I took you for, you’ve already heard that someone paid Lotho Minor a visit. [i]a pause for effect[/i] Figured I’d bring your druk back to you. Sure as a mudscuffer’s pant-leg ain’t worth nothin’ to nobody else. Now… you ain’t interested, I can just…”[/color] he mimes reaching to shut off the viewscreen. 

[i]”No! No.. we can deal. So that was you, handed the Buckets their daily dose of poodoo up the recharge port, huh?[/i] she cackled, devolving into fits of coughing, before coalescing into a wet chuckle. [i]”I would’ve paid good creds to see Kara’s face when you pulled the rug out from under him, and aboard his own rig, too. Seems I had you pegged wrong, kid. Never in the Typhoidic Nebula thought it’d be you bringing my world back to me.”[/i]

[color=F7941D]”You still got what we discussed, last time we was face to face?”[/color] 

He couldn’t make it out too well, what with the bad picture, but her voice told him she was smiling as she replied. [i]”See you in the world, kid.”[/i] She killed the transmission, letting him eat static. 

[color=F7941D]“Yeah. Yeah…”[/color] He killed the comms, and got up, transferring to his usual seat, and angled the UA toward the thick depression in the moon’s surface that was known locally as ‘Walden’s Scar’ and marked the closest visual landmark to the Abilene settlement. The thin atmosphere made travelling planetbound easy, and Fel spotted the settlement more than thirty seconds out at their current rate of descent. He cut thrust, and pulled in low, over the settlement, the cluster of small buildings battered by the UA’s repulsors, moving slow enough that it would be unmistakable to anyone there that the ship had arrived, and then banked South by a little over four miles, setting down atop a low rise, a steep canyon drop at their backs. It was a good spot. They’d see anyone coming, and their back was protected by an almost impossible climb.