Letter From Angel
Nala,
Haven't had a lot of time to sit and gather my thoughts lately.... not really much to say about what's been going on until now. I don't like the situation that I found myself in. I took a piloting job a few weeks ago out of Bernadette -- seemed pretty straightforward. Two brothers owned a cargo ship, one brother wanted me to look out for the other -- ostensibly. Once I got on board, I could see why. The brother who was the captain was a complete drunk. Hardly saw him for most of the trip out toward Red Sun. The problems started when he took us off course. We dropped into a black space and just sat for a while, apparently waiting to make a meeting. I didn't like the feel of it, so I sent a comm back to Bernadette for further instructions. I think the brother back home knew the brother out here was up to something off the books -- I don't know now if he thought the captain brother was skimming off the top or what. Hell, maybe he just knew someone on the ship was thinking mutiny and he really did just hire me to look out for the captain. I'll never know now. Made myself an enemy with this one.
Me and some of the crew -- I hooked up with a few of them. Rina's an engineer. I like her, although she's got a serious thing about guys. I gotta wonder if she's had hands on her, if you know what I mean. She's real ... prickly. Like a cactus. Christian's an ex-Companion. Never much cared for Companions, they're too girly. Even the guys. But he's okay, I guess. We'll see. And Arden's a doctor. He was actually a passenger on board before all hell broke loose. Sorry... I digress. Anyway... Me and them sort of hooked up and realized something was REALLY hinky on this ship -- a lot of the regular crew was grumbling under their breath about losing time and losing money on every run and it was starting to sound ugly, so we contrived to basically drug up the crew and finish the run to Red Sun. The ship we were supposed to meet in the black turned out to be derelict, so we hauled ass without whatever was sitting there. But it turned out, there really was a mutiny afoot. The bosun was gonna attempt a coup... he got killed.
And don't even think of giving me that look. I know exactly what expression's on your face, Nala. I didn't do it, and I honestly believe the others when they say it was him or them. Rina may have it in her to kill, but I'm pretty sure Christian wouldn't cover for her. He seems somewhat on the straight and narrow. Anyway... we confined two other crew members and the third one locked himself in engineering, and then we reported to the captain about what was going on. And he spaced them right out of a cargo container! We didn't even know if they were involved (found out later they weren't!). That was pretty much when I decided I was in way over my pay grade and I was going to jump ship when we got back to Bernadette. Things aren't workin' out like I planned, though.
We got to Jiang Yin only to find the colonists we were supposed to be resupplying all wanted to up and leave cuz they were being bedeviled by bandits. Now, you know I'm not likin' the bandit thing much. But gorram it, I didn't want to get involved. Unfortunately, Christian did. So.... whatever. I backed him up because he was trying to make life better for the poor slobs. He tried negotiating, and it all went sideways again. We wound up in a gunfight with the bandits. Not to worry, though, we didn't even hardly take any injuries. We did, however, lose the captain. Which is far more problematic than it may seem. Learned a bunch of stuff up to and including that the bastards stole the ship I'm flying. Sent a message back to his brother about his death, and the brother thinks WE killed the captain. Not that we didn't sorta consider it (I'm KIDDING, Nala!!). The captain was killed by a grenade hidden inside a case of some of the trade goods that we were negotiating for. Didn't quite have time to warn him to get out of the way..... okay, no that's not quite true. I had time to warn him, but I chose to keep those bandits off my own ass instead. So we didn't kill him, but we did let him die in a booby trap that we set for the bandits. Yeah, I know... I'm probably goin' to Hell for that one. Won't be the first thing I've done that I'm goin' to Hell for, so I suppose that's not much of a surprise to you.
sigh Anyway.... after a return communique from the captain's brother -- who now has become our enemy because well... turns out he's NOT the right guy to be workin' for. He threatened us a bit, the rest of the crew bailed out, and well.... me, Rina, Arden, and Christian took on a cargo and went on our way, looking for the true owner of the ship. Took us down to Angel. Found out that our previous employer did, in fact, steal the ship, killed the original owner. On the up side, we're all now legal and on the up and up. The true owner of the ship (or the daughter, anyway) signed the papers over to us, we changed her registration and everything, and I'm now legally in business with these guys, running cargo on a ship called Summer's Gift. I figure I'll do it til I'm bored and sell my share in the ship.
Oh! Ran back into some of my comrades from the old days. Looks like they're all in business for themselves too, so I may even have a pretty lucrative built-in client to help our little band of cargo runners get started! I guess Christian is going to take on all the negotiating for cargo, I'm gonna fly, Rina's gonna keep us running, and Arden's gonna keep us all patched up. And by the way.... remind me if I ever do it again to NEVER TAKE BEES as a cargo. It sucked. We're *still* finding the little bastards in weird places.
Anyway... not sure where I'm going to be based out of, but when I know, I'll get you the info. Hope you're takin' care of yourself and Jonny. I'll write again when I can, sis. Love you.
