It had been a rough week for Hortan. Rough, but also very interesting he thought, as he took his tray from the small round table in the mess hall, he had decided to make his own, and put the soiled wrappers from the AlmostMeat™ burger he had been eating, into the recycling bin.
He had not been able to sleep much for the first three nights, partly due to the fact that he was not used to sleeping on a station, and partly because of the nightly noises from his neighbour. Almost every night he would wake to thrashing sounds and low murmuring. Inevitably, when he opened the door to his cubicle, the sounds would stop, but he knew where they were coming from....Obsidian. He had considered asking Surbius for another cubicle where it was more quiet, but after the incident with the banking transactions he was a bit scared to ask him anything.
It had started off well enough. With the new guild bank, it was possible for Hortan to make rapid withdrawals and deposits, in order to use the credits most efficiently to make purchases on his trade route. So he had tested the limits of the system with large and small amounts for some hours. How was he to know that everything was logged?
When he received the summons to TGFT HQ he was practically running, as he assumed that it would be Mr. Estenk himself who wanted to greet the new recruit. When Surbius intercepted him with a loud HOOOOOOORTAAAAAN, he had no idea of the amount of hours he would have to use on the proper paperwork.
"To withdraw an amount up to 100 credits, you have to fill out form 46-5b-2. To withdraw from 101 up to 1000 credits, you have to use form 46-5c-2. Otherwise, how am I supposed to know what you wanted the money for? don't they tell you anything in recruit school?" Surbius was fuming.
"Sir, Yes Sir, ehm, no Sir Surbius Sir, I wasn't told anyway Sir"
"Here, come in here, sit down and I'll teach you how this is supposed to be done. And can the Sir, I work for a living. Keep that for the boss"
"Sir, ehm, sorry, thank you Sir, ah, sorry"
Surbius starred at Hortan from the other side of the desk, and slowly shook his head.
"They are taking anyone these days it seems" Surbius scowled, and punched up the forms on the wall display.
Finally after eight hours of paperwork, he could go, and he was very certain that he would do his utmost to avoid HQ in the near future.
Never mind that, the fourth night all was silent, and so he didn't have to ask for another cubicle. Just as he was getting used to the noises, they disappeared. At first he was happy that the noises had gone, but after two nights it became very lonely. Apparently John had gone off to fight the Hive, so he was never home.
Hortan was used to being lonely, but among the roids he always had his ship and his picture of His Queen. Her smiling face was now proudly displayed upon his synthwood desk, but he missed his ship badly. Fortunately today he was supposed to pick up the Ole Sloth Moth XC V that Moda had tinkered with.
As he entered Moda's shop he was greeted by the harsh blue-white light of a Xithricite Arc welder accompanied by large rhythmic clanging noises, which seemed to come from the hull of the Moth XC parked in the rear of the immense hangar. Easily recognised by the bright neon yellow colour (which some referred to as yellow belly yellow), Hortan was nonetheless a bit confused because of the two large silver tubes that were on each side of the hull.
"Hortan, good to see you. She is finished, faster than ever and with the same cargo space inside. I took the liberty of moving the still further towards the crew cabin so you can see inside when you are brewing" Moda shouted over the noise.
"What are the silver tubes?" Hortan shouted back.
"You'll see" he shouted back, "matter of fact, if you want to take her for a spin, can you drop off some industrial diamonds for me?"
"Sure, where to?"
"Nyrius K-7, they are for as experiment I have running out there. I took the liberty of having them loaded on the assumption that you said yes, and the route is preprogrammed into the navcomp", Moda winked at Hortan
With no hesitation, Hortan swung himself into the pilot seat and punched the launch sequence into the shipcomp. Just as he was ready to launch, a message beeped into his diplay
"Moda Modulus: did you remember form 298-AA 2H Request for launching? Thought not, so I did it for you and submitted it. Safe flight. End:"
As he launched, he immediately hit the OverDrive button and reached top speed of 160 m/s at a comfortable 20 seconds, Nothing unusual so far, and as he hit the minimum safe distance for jumping, he engaged the jumpdrive. Again, nothing special happened, and the wormhole to Nyrius 5000 meter distant was floating in his HUD superimposed upon the dark of space, just as he was used to. On the way to the wormhole he checked his usual switches, and found the new one. Labelled NOx, it had been placed next to the hail button.
As he reached the wormhole, he went through as per standard, and immediately pulled the sector list to check for pierats. Some of them were becoming bold, such as Quirc, TheBlackFlag and Sharingan, even hunting the UIT monitored sectors. Fortunately the VPR channel was quiet tonight. Only one pilot he had never heard of was in the sector, a Syriana. Relaxing slightly, he started to align the Ole Sloth Moth XC V for acceleration burn to K-7 when the speakers blared to life
"Syriana: Pay me 137624 credits or be gassified"
Instantly panicking, Hortan punched the hail button to spread the message of brotherly and sisterly love, but because it had been moved, he hit the NOx button instead. The Silver solid boosters on the sides of the Moth roared to life, and the acceleration took him to the maximum possible in less than 5 seconds. Making sure this time, he hailed the Centurion II that Syriana was piloting
"I wish you the best day ever. Happy thoughts and good trading to you Brother or Sister"
Although Hortan could fulfil that wish by either paying or getting exploded, he ran as fast as he could towards the station, only just getting clearance from the dockmaster and docking as hot plasma was scouring the side and top armour on the moth. Safe, he made it, thanks to Moda's NOx rockets.
A message ticked in on his HUD
"Unknown Player Node: I hate you now. You should have let my little sister boom you. Now it is personal"
Trembling with fear, Hortan knew he had to get some help from the fighters of the guild. That is, if he could make it home from here.
