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Wed 1st Jun 2022 10:35

What's next

by Khadyr Sabah

There we are, together again, but on a strange ship and at the mercy of Carl. The ship needed repairs and Carl flew us to god knows where. In the meantime I was worried about how Jezebel was doing. She was all alone and didn't know when I would be back. Luckily I left her with enough food to last her about a week. Still a little bit week from the radiation poisoning and with sore muscles from all we had been through, I took a good look at the bridge from our ship. There were strange signs I couldn't read or understand. What kind of ship was this, where was it from and why was it abandoned?
 
Carl flew us to an asteroid belt and suddenly out of nowhere we saw a black space station. It looked ominous and not very welcoming. Why was it so hidden? If Carl hadn't brought us here, we never would have found it. Carl assured us that this was the place were we could get the ship repaired. We tried to scan the space station to see if we could get some more information, but with no success. We only found out that de space station was called Sesame.
 
We docked at an airlock outside of the station. We entered the space station to see and our first stop was the workshop. We talked to a man called Aziz. He agreed to take a look at our ship to see what was wrong and how much it would cost us to get it all repaired. He told us that it would take him several hours so we had some time to check out this space station. Azis called a boy, who could show us around. He took us to the lower level and in the meantime told us that this station was only visited by those who knew of its existence. The station was run by a woman called Ataman. Because we were all very hungry, we first looked for a place to eat. After a good meal we continued our tour through the station. We visited the living quarters, where it was dark, messy and not very clean. There were all kind of people there. It didn't look like a normal space station. The boy then told us that this indeed was not a normal space station but a pirate station, everything made sense. The way it was hidden in the asteroid belt, it's dark color. Until now we were treated very friendly so we didn't worry to much. Everyone probably thought we were pirates also.
 
Before going back to the workshop, Armand wanted to see if he could get some more information about the weapons he found on Morji. Het had some pictures with him, and showed them to an arms dealer. The man was very surprised when he saw a picture of the weapon. "Where did you get this weapon from" he asked. Armand gave some vague answer, because he didn't want to tell. This is a very special weapon. He offered to buy it from Armand for 15.000 Birr. That was quit a lot of money. Armand said he would think about it, and we went back to the workshop. There Aziz told us that he had a look at the ship and that she needed major repairs. He estimated the cost between 65.000 and 75.000 Birr. If we only did what was necessary to get the ship at least flying properly, it would cost us about 45.000 Birr. This was a great setback. we didn't expect. We had some money but not nearly enough to pay for the repairs. What could we do. Out of jail but now stuck on pirate station Sesame. One thing was clear to me, we had to get back to Surha soon to get Jezebel and all of our stuff from Shamus his scrap heap. So we needed this ship repaired. What were our options?
 
Because it was a long day and we were all very tiered, we decided to get some sleep and see if we could come up with a plan in the morning.