Frank walked slowly along the long domed corridor, low voltage fluorescent lighting buzzed pointlessly above his head while the strong white light of the sun seared through the windows at either side. Frank weaved his way through the groups of people standing the corridor, after a fifty feet or so Frank emerged into a huge domed room, the roof stood at least seventy feet high, with several open level’s, this was a giant trading post, it was also notorious, you could get any-thing you wanted from the latest weapons, to cheap, strange Alien drugs, it was a good idea to be armed if you were planning to shop here, all round the base of the dome were corridors, like the one frank had just emerged from, and in the centre of the ground floor stood a large electronic Information point, this was to allow new people to the station a place to find out where every thing was (And also to let the thief’s and muggers find out who was new, and an easy target) Frank walked over the far side of the dome, pushing his way past the bustling crowd, to get to a transport lift, Frank removed his personal security card and slid it into the card slot. Frank stood for a minute or so, his expression changed to an irritated expression,
“Damn lift!” He said as he kicked the control panel, as he lowered his food the door slid open revealing a filthy, graffiti covered lift with a flickering light. Frank entered the lift and the door slid closed behind him,
“Please state level!” An abrupt, and rude, computerised voice shouted,
“Level five, sub section eight.” Frank said loudly, he knew he had to shout as the speech recognition was really very basic,
The computer made a few bleeping noises, and after a brief pause the lift started moving.

The lift door opened and Frank looked out at the long dark corridor, “You stupid piece of crap!” Frank yelled,
“Please restate command!” The computer replied,
“You piece of Crap, I said Level five, Sub section eight!” Frank yelled at the top of his voice, which echoed down the third floor corridor. The lift door closed and started to zip down, then across, then down again, before the door slid open, revealing a slightly better lit corridor, Frank dropped his cigar in the lift and stepped on it, before he stepped out the life,
“Thank you for using this lift!” The computer voice said as it slammed the door (Almost hitting Frank, who turned round and gave the door a damn good kick) he turned back towards the corridor, the lights above Franks head flickered as he started walking down the corridor, he was in the habitat section of the station, which was sub terainian. Frank got to the end of the corridor and turned left, after walking a few feet he reached a plain metal door with a security pad on the wall beside it, Frank placed his card into the slot and punched in his security code, the door slip open and frank entered his home.

Franks home was surprisingly tidy considering his outward appearance, he had owned this flat for the last two years after winning it of a Ryosam freight captain called Altare in a game of cards, it wasn’t a huge flat, but it was home, the walls were painted an uninspiring white in the middle of the room (about ten feet from the front door their was a large sofa facing the opposite wall, where a large vertical screen was inlayed three feet of the ground of a six food wide wall the ran from floor to ceiling, there was a short corridor at either side of the wall, the left hand corridor ran to Franks bedroom, the right hand corridor led to the kitchen and directly behind the wall (and between the corridors) lay a small but practical toilet and shower. As Frank entered the light automatically came on and the screen at the end of the room turned on,
“You have three messages!” A soft female voice said,
Frank sighed as he removed his coat and hung it on the wall, “Display messages” Frank said calmly,
On the screen three lines of text appeared,
The first one read, ‘Mr Frank Hall, you could be the winner of the magnificent 1,000,000c prise draw, open this message immediately!’
Frank sighed, “Delete message one!”
The computer bleeped and the message disappeared, the second message read ‘Congratulations you have been selected to be given a special introductory rate for life insurance, open this message now to take advantage of this special offer!”
Frank laughed as he slumped back in his sofa, “Delete message two!”
The final message said, ‘Hey Frank look out a Surt’s after you.’
Frank sat up curiously, “Play message three.”
After a couple of seconds the screen turned blue and text started to appear on the screen,
‘Message to – Frank Hall, Message from - Anna Jeffery, Time of message – 35:64 pm…..’
The picture changed to reveal Anna, who was a tall blond (not that you could tell this from the picture because all you could see was from her chest up) was dressed in a loose light blue turtle neck sweater and her hair was tied back completely, “Hi Frank!” She said smiling, “I’ve been recruited by a Surt by the name of Artok. He said he was going to try to recruit you as the pilot for a dangerous mission. I told him not to bother as you’re a washed up, lazy, drunk, bum!” She snarled, “If you agree to do this mission you better bring a damn sling for your ass! You’ll need it after I get through with you!” At that, the message ended. Anna and Frank had been some what of an item for a while, they used to work together during there time as Pats, after they both left, they used to fly missions together. Well this was till one mission about three years ago, when they were smuggling some real Scotch whiskey (Which understandably is quite rare) the pats had been tipped off and were about to raid the ship, Frank knew that their was no way to out manoeuvre the dozen ships that were closing in on them, so, despite orders from Anna to the contrary Frank made the decision to completely vaporise the cargo. This may have got them off with smuggling rap but ended up costing Anna her reputation (And a good 25,000c) ever since then she’s had a bit of a grudge against him,
Frank laughed as he stood up, “Oops!” He said jokingly to him self as he strolled into his bathroom.

It took him about thirty minutes to get washed, changed and packed, he had put on a pair of dark blue trousers and a dark green shirt which he had left unbuttoned, revealing a clean white t-shirt. But had somehow forgotten to shave (as Usual). Frank had only packed one small bag (after all it was going to be tight quarters for the next few months so their was no room for large cases) Frank removed a small cigar from his top pocket and put it in his mouth, after lighting it he lifted his bag and started to head for the door, as he reached the exit the computer started bleeping, Frank turned round and looked at the screen, ‘Incoming call’ was flashing on the screen,
“Typical!” Frank said in a frustrated voice as he sat his bag down and removed the small time piece that Artok had given him in the bar, the small device seemed to be a countdown timer that had been set to countdown from an hour and remind Frank of the time every ten minutes or so, which was really starting to get on his nerves, the time displayed was ’12 Minutes 23 Seconds’ so, Frank decided to take the call, “Answer” He said loudly,
The screen flickered into action and on the screen was a darkened figure, “Hey Franky boy how ya doin’?” The mysterious figure said in a friendly voice,
“I’m fine Altong!” Frank said calmly, “What can I do for you?”
“I got a job for you! It’s big paying!” Altong said, “6,000 Credits!” He said smugly as he sat back in his seat and put his four hands behind his head, “Not bad eh! Easy work!”
Frank laughed, “Sorry! Got a bigger contract, I’m leaving in about ten minutes!”
“Ah, Franky man! What about my reputation, I promised these people you!” Altong said angrily,
“Tough! I’ll be back in a few months, call me then! End call!”
“But…” Altong started to say as the Screen turned off
Frank lifted his bag and left his flat, ignoring the incoming call alert the computer was giving off.

Frank exited the lift and walked back into the trading post dome, it was amazing the difference forty five minutes had made, the previously bustling shop fronts had all but closed up, and all but the drunkest of people were left, small robots buzzed round the floor sweeping up the rubbish that had been discarded during the day while larger armed robots buzzed up and down in front of the walls removing the graffiti and advertising posters,
“Looking for some fun tonight darling?” An odd looking green alien with no hair and three breasts and a rather odd looking bulge in it’s trousers asked as Frank walked passed, he didn’t say anything though, he just shook his head and kept walking,
The passage way to the hangers lay on the other side of the dome, so it took him a few minutes to get over, a drunk guy lay singing incoherently at the entrance, but Frank decided it was easier to simply step over the guy and ignore him than ask him to move and risk a confrontation. The watch in his pocket had now started beeping every minute now, which annoyed Frank so much he took it from his pocket and chucked it on the ground beside the singing drunk guy! The corridor wasn’t long and before too long Frank emerged into a large square room, on each of the other walls were several corridors leading off to both large public docking bays and smaller private bays, there was also a small security station in the middle of the room, which always made Frank nervous, but he was reassured in the knowledge the staff were all easily bribed and besides you only have to check in if you don’t have a clearance card, which of course, Frank had. He removed the security card Artok had given him in the bar and checked the bay number,
“Bay fifteen!” Frank said quietly as he read the front of the card, Frank turned to face the left hand wall and checked the bay numbers that were printed on the doors started to stroll over to bay fifteen, The door was about half way up the wall, it was about as far away from the security office as you could get, but it was a small loading bay so it didn’t attract too much attention.

There was some thing curious though, as Frank approached the door, he had the distinct feeling that he was being watched, and one or two of the people around had been in the bar earlier, although this was unremarkable as their was only one bar on the station, Frank had developed a sixth sense for trouble over the years and could almost smell an ambush, but he was starting to put this feeling down to paranoia because of the cash involved. As Frank looked over to his right to have a look at a group of people, a loud male voice came booming at him from right in front of him,
“FRANK?” The voice yelled
Frank looked startled as his eyes darted back in front of him and his hand reached for his weapon at his hip, he didn’t recognise this person who pushed two large, poorly dressed men away, the men were dressed in dirty white rags, but Frank noticed that one of the men was wearing a new freshly polished pair of boots, which made him feel uneasy, after the man had pushed the men away he slowly started to trot over to Frank. Frank was beginning to feel a little nervous so he quickly unclipped his holster and discreetly removed his weapon (Which he hid under his coat) “Yeah.” He answered defensively, “Who are you?”
“Hey don’t panic man!” The guy said calmly as he slowed to a walk, the man was dressed in a loose, black one piece boiler suit, he was in his early twenty’s and appeared to be from the New Earth Asian conglomerate, his only distinguishing appearance was a small scar that ran up the left hand side of his neck and stop just short of his jaw line, “Hi I’m Yi.” He said calmly as he stopped in front of Frank and held out his hand,
“Oh, right, the engineer!” Frank said as he gave a quiet sigh of relief, he reached out his hand and shook Yi’s hand firmly, “You should be more careful! I could have blown your head off!” Frank smiled and made it obvious to Yi he was putting his gun away,
Yi looked suppressed, “Oh, Ah, sorry!” He said playfully as he held his hands up in a ‘stick up’ position while laughing,
“Don’t worry about it, why you out here. And who were those guys” Frank nodded discreetly in the direction of the two men who were quickly wandering away, while every now and then looking back at Frank and Yi, Frank took his hand back and pushed his way passed and resumed walking towards the hanger door,
“Oh, Ah, them?” Yi questioned nervously as he persuade Frank, “Their, ‘friends’ man! It’s crazy in there, every ones rushing around like their mad, you know how it is. So I decided to come out and get some Uronium smokes.” Yi laughed as he nudged Frank in the ribs, Uronium cigarettes were the drug of choice in the outer rings, it was cheap, artificial, and easily available, it was strong enough to give you a nice buzz but not so strong that it turned you into a slobbering zombie which made it the perfect for the pot head craving a fly smoke while on the job.
Frank reached the door and put his card in to the security panel, “Great, good for your!” Frank said sarcastically as he waited for the panel to process his card, the way Frank saw it three vices were more than enough for one man to live with, drink, cigars and gambling, drugs would just complicate things. The door bleeped and slid loudly open, “When are they planning to leave?” Frank asked as he removed his card and placed it back in his top pocket,
Yi followed Frank through into the small elevator that Frank had entered as he thought, “Am, as soon as the final system checks are complete I think.” Yi laughed,
“What’s so funny?” Frank asked, as he turned round to face Yi,
“The captain… Anna!” Yi chuckled hysterically, he had clearly smoked a couple of his cigarettes before Frank had arrived, “She’s not too happy about you taking this job, do you want to know some of the things she’s been saying?”
Frank sighed and turned around, “No I can imagine what she’s been saying!”.

All the smaller hangers were located below the ground this was too save space and allow more hangers than their probably should have been considering the size of the station, after only ten or fifteen seconds the lift door opened in front of frank revealing a small loading bay, the hanger was large but compared to the other hangers in the station this was considered a small hanger, Frank had never seen a hanger so empty, usually, even this close to departure, the place was filled with carrier robots loading the vessel as the supervisors checked and double checked the loads. There were only two small robots carrying a couple of what looked like supply crates at a time onto the ship from a small pile of about eight, Frank looked at the ship, and almost turned round and left right there and then, an old type three was bad enough but it looked like Artok had got this one straight from the ship scrap yard on the adjacent moon, the ship was a rusty brown and Frank could only just see the original dark green colour of the ship under the rust, it barely looked water tight, far less space worthy, but Frank had flown in some real piles of junk, besides he kept telling him self the money was good. It was a typical class three, it was easy to see, just by looking at the rusting pile of junk, why it was affectionately nicknamed bara di volo (Flying coffin!) The ship it’s self was a long, narrow rectangle with arched sides, it got fatter as it reached it’s back, the tail of the ship had two large fins and the bottom was indented to accommodate a large loading ramp, between the fins and the ramp was a serious of small engines that were used for sub light flight, the Slip engines were located on the side of the ship but were stored in large hidden bays and were automatically extended when they were activated, the front of the ship was curved upwards and was met a quarter of the way up by the top of the ship which curved downwards, on the left hand side of the downward slope the bridge jutted out, the ship was sitting on four small stands, it had defiantly been designed to be functional, not stylish. The main entrance to the ship was a large ramp at the front of the ship, where Frank could see Artok talking to an unknown person. Frank started to make his way over to the ship,
“HEY!” a loud female voice yelled from behind him,
Frank stopped and sighed, “Anna, hi, how are you?” He said in a friendly voice as he turned to face her,
“Don’t you give me that crap!” She snapped as she quickly, and menacingly, approached him,
“You’re not still mad about that whiskey thing from a few years ago are you?” Frank replied in a calm joking manner,
“Do you even check you messages any more?” Anna snapped as she stopped right in front of him, almost standing nose to nose, Anna may have been bad tempered but she was good captain, pilot and engineer, even though she knew how to hold a grudge and her people skills left some-thing to be desired, her attitude was, do it or else.
“I didn’t get the message till after I agreed to do the job.” Frank replied as a half smile crept across his face,
Anna snarled angrily and turned away and started to make her way towards the ship,
“Hey maybe this could be a good opportunity for us to make up! After all we’ve got two and a half Months to spend together!” Frank said as he tried to stop himself from laughing,
Anna gave no response other than showing him her middle finger from over her left shoulder, Frank laughed and followed her towards the ship.

As Frank approached the ship he dropped his cigar and stepped it out,
“Ah good you’re on time!” Artok said as he started to make his way over to Frank, closely followed by the man he was speaking to, “We’ll be ready to depart in the next twenty minutes, so why don’t you go on board and make your self at home.” Artok seemed far more relaxed and happy than he had been in the bar,
Frank looked right passed Artok at the strange man who was, by this point hiding behind Artok, “Who’s your friend?” Frank asked coyly as he leaned to his right so he could see past Artok,
Artok looked insulted that Frank was completely ignoring him, but he was on a schedule, so to save time arguing he stepped to one side, revealing a short, thin, and slightly balding man, his thick bushy eye brows and short fat nose were only over shadowed by his large beady eyes, he was wearing a long white coat, very similar to that of a lab technician, Frank wondered if he was even human, but didn’t want to say any-thing in case he insulted the man, Artok pushed the man forward forcefully, “This is professor Ecen, he’ll be accompanying us on the mission.” Artok nudged the professor in an attempt to get him to extend his hand to Frank, although Artok’s ‘soft’ nudge almost knocked the professor off his feet,
“It’s a pleasure.” Frank said as he took hold of the professors hand, which he quickly released due to the sticky sweat pouring off it,
“Y…Y…Yes in..deed!” The professor replied nervously, he spoke with a slight accent, that appeared to be of German origin, although this may have been due to the fact he was clearly a very nervous man who preferred to avoid human contact in favour of what ever it was he specialised in,
“So what are you a professor in?” Frank asked as he subtly wiped his hand off his trouser leg,
Artok pulled the Professor back and stood between them, “That is none of your concern, now please get on board and get settled in!” Artok turned and started to drag the professor towards the back of the ship,
Frank shook his head in frustration and wandered over to the open air lock on the front of the ship, a small four step ladder was extended so the crew could come and go as they pleased with out too much hassle, Frank threw his bag into the air lock, before getting in him self Frank leaned across the ship so he could see Artok and the professor, who were now arguing quite strongly, he couldn’t make out a lot of the conversation, all he made out was some-thing about the containment units not being strong enough if anything happened. This kind of unsettled Frank a bit, but it was too late now to back out,
“Artok!” Frank yelled at the top of his voice,
Artok turned round and his Frank could see his face was getting very pink, “What the hell do you want now!” He yelled angrily,
Frank chuckled quietly under his breath, “Just wondering how much you were paid to take this pile of crap off the scrap merchants hands?”
Artok’s face was turning so pink that Frank actually thought his head might explode, but the professor seemed to inject some sort of mild sedative in to Artok’s left arm, which calmed him right down, “I assure you the ship is quite space worthy, just get on board!”
From the other side of the hanger Yi was sitting smoking one of his cigarettes while laughing hysterically, Artok glared over towards him, which shut him up (For all of ten seconds, the moment Artok’s attention was back with the professor Yi started up again) Frank Jumped up into the airlock and picked up his bag.

It was only a small airlock, the entrance to the suit bay (Which was the only entrance to the ship other than the loading bay) Was up a seven foot ladder through, a usually pressurised locked hatch, the floor creaked under his feet, which was doing nothing for his confidence in the ships capabilities, Frank threw his bag up into the suit bay it his the ground with a loud thump which echoed around the ship, Frank climbed the ladder slowly, and peaked his head through the hatch, what he saw pleasantly surprised him, far from being the rusting, rotting crap pile the ship appeared from the out side, the room was plainly decorated, there was a line of five lockers on either side of the room, each containing an environmental space suit, in front of each row was a bench, the walls were covered in removable white panels, this was to provide quick access to the circuits behind the wall but provide a bit of comfort for the crew. Frank pulled him self into the room, giving off a loud painful groan,
“I see you completely ignored my advice and are still not exercising properly Frank!” A stern female voice said angrily from the other side of the room, Frank pulled him self up so he was sitting on the edge of the hatch with his legs dangling down into the airlock, “Hey Suzy!” Frank said as he lit one of his cigars, “Long time no see!”
“Still smoke those…” Susan paused and smiled, “Things!” She said in an insulted and condemning voice,
“Yeah!” Frank said undeterred as he took a puff, “You want one!” Frank held out the pack in Susan’s direction,
She stood looking insulted for a second, before a big grin came over her face and she wandered over and took the pack off Frank, “Yeah, go on then!”
Frank laughed, “Well, doc, you’re a shining example to your patients!” Frank passed over his lighter to her and dragged himself to his feet,
“How have you been Frank?” Susan asked as she lit her cigar and handed the pack back to Frank “It’s been a while!” she added,
“Usual really. Been quite quiet recently but been doing enough to make a living.” Frank replied, Susan was straight up, what you saw was what you got, she was only about five feet tall and didn’t look particular well built, but she was as strong as a Opolian Ox, and could drink just about anyone in the Galaxy under the table, she had deep penetrating brown eyes and long dark brown hair. The pair were old friends, and had played a lot of cards, although Frank always promised himself he wouldn’t play with her after each session, this was entirely to do with the fact that he always lost!
“Hope you brought lots of Credits with you!” She added as a huge grin leapt across her face,
Frank shook his head, “I’ll beat you this time!” He joked as the pair left the suit room.