Thread: Voyage of the Space Vagabond [Blueflame & Sensualist]

Gracefully Lexander drifted through the airlock's bulkhead door into the spindle corridor. One sure hand grabbed a support rung to steady him as he looked up and down the ship's impersonal and unwelcoming interior. A grimace was faintly visible on his handsome face beneath the faceplate of his EVA suit. Damn he hated these automated freight vehicles. It was just this kind of vessel that had made his life as an independent trader so hard. Of course the pirates had blown that life to cinders, right along with his ship, The Vagabond, and very nearly Lex himself. Just so they could snap up whatever cargo survived the destruction. Bastards. No he wasn't going to cry any tears that they had died sucking on vacuum, or that he was largely to blame for their deaths. Well maybe he regretted it a little bit, after all it would have been gratifying to shoot or punch one personally for his trouble but they had all expired before he could board. Now he was on this automated cargo ship with no time to think about what was lost his ship, his livelihood or those appealing chances at tangible vengeance, because if he didn't find what he needed here he'd soon be just as dead as those pirates. Glancing at the environmental readout on the wrist of his EVA suit he saw no radiation warning and that the freighter had breathable atmo. Best to save the suit's air supply he decided and with the push of a button the faceplate slide back with a hiss. His narrowed green eyes and a few curls of sweaty brown hair clinging above his brow were visible now as Lex's free hand stabbed at a dark console that refused to come to life. Computer, damage report. Automated vessel, damage report. No response. Lex let out a suffering groan. well why should life be that easy. Then the ship shuddered and the emergency lighting pulsed and he know that, like his luck, the freighter was running on fumes. Fan-freaking-tastic.He spat as he spun about toward the drive section and with a kick lunched his body down the long shaft. In a bit of practiced zero-g acrobatics he spun about stopped himself just in front of the door to the engineering module. With a grinding groan the door rolled open and the shrill cries of a ship in distress assaulted Lex's ears. The engineering section made the corridor look almost roomy and he wondered if the place was a tangle of wires, tubes and conduits before the salvos of weapons fire from the pirate ship had redecorated. Pushing aside a piece of conduit sagging in front of the door Lex decided it was time to get to work and the first order of business would be killing those alarms. Lex wasn't an engineer but it didn't take him long to realize that fixing the reactor and riding this freighter to its destination and safety just wasn't in the cards. So instead he put his efforts into completing a temporary patch. He had to buy himself the time to salvage something! It toke him a couple of hours but Lex now had the reactor chugging weakly along at 20 output, with everything put toward shipboard environmental, including doors and lights, and the computer system. He guessed it would run for several hours yet and he hoped that would be enough time. He couldn't get the ships AI to reinitialize every indication suggestion a power spike had corrupted the datacore. If he wasted a couple hours he could likely purge the core and reinstall but he figured he'd go without the AI. How much help could it really be when the freighter wasn't flying anywhere, and besides it would probably just insist on reminding him that he was an intruder in the property of some soulless shipping corp. Digging through the computer did bring up the cargo manifest but it was under some pretty heavy encrypted. He couldn't tell exactly what this bucket was hauling but the info suggested it was high value tech of some kind. Curiosity said a peek wouldn't be much of a delay, and heck it might turn up something helpful. The cargo pods were definitely high-end, including environmental seals to protect the contents from decompression. Only the most valuable tech would be transported like this but Lex didn't bother getting too excited yet, after all he needed to be alive, not to mention succeed in getting the cargo out of deep space to make a salvage claim. Maybe I'll get lucky and there will be a repair drone inside he thought wryly as he smacked the button to open the first cargo pod. The pod lights flickered to life, illuminating Lex standing at its mouth. He had doffed the helmet and gloves long ago to work and they now hung on the mag-belt that girded his waist, right alongside the tools he had so far gathered and a fancy sidearm lifted from a dead pirate. Pebble green eyes set in handsome chiseled face scanned the opening pod seeking a glimpse of the valuable contents as the venting air caused him to blink as it blew back those strands of tousled brown hair not stuck to his scalp with dry sweat.