becomes that bad connector. We knew it was there and stopped worrying about it. A half year later the connector was still bad, and we go to attach our kit and we couldn’t. Because there's a bad connector we'd known about forever. There's no excuse for that. We couldn't simply say we had ordered it because the follow-up is, when had we checked on it last, and we hadn't.
I plugged a quick text message into my comm unit and asked for Heart to come up with some ideas. The last thing I wanted was not being able to talk to him when I needed to. “I am already working on some options. However, I can monitor your biometrics, which should suffice until we come up with a permanent solution.” We were discussing possible ways to use this when Nikki came back to refill my cup and slide me a comm chip. I gave her a quick nod of thanks as I drained my cup before she topped me off.
On her next stop, I asked about rooms, and she pointed me to the kiosk in the hall. It was automated and actually let me rent by in almost any increment I wanted, from hour to month. I assumed that was in case someone wanted a quick shower or had an extended leave. I credited a couple of days and headed on up.
The parallels between here and White Caps were becoming more obvious. Like the hotels were cut from the same cloth, but just were tailored into different items as the years went on. The room I had been assigned was an almost exact match to the one I stayed in right before I shipped to basic. It was uncanny. More than likely the plans were simple and universal, and I could find the layout anywhere in the galaxy if I looked hard enough. I hadn't been in many hotels, so the novelty was amusing so I spent several minutes playing with drawers and buttons while talking to Heart about it .
I finally quit my yammering and got back to business. I pulled out the comm chip and accessed it. There were a few names, which Heart quickly accessed and displayed on the room's screen rather than my dampers. “They look like local vendors. I do not see any major criminal activity though it is hard to tell with the official databases.” I told him I was less worried about that, and more about establishing our cover. The idea of the job boards caught my attention, though.
“Mine as well. The boards appear to be a bulletin of sorts. Similar to the listings where I purchase parts for my projects. One can place listings of services for a price. I have narrowed the choices down to transport, excluding passengers and come up with several viable options.” A new list appeared on the screen. I asked what was worth our time monetarily. “Based on our cover, we would need to be at least one-third full for fuel consumption. Although I use fusion reactors, my vehicle registration class is a fuel burning type. That removes this portion of the list.” Almost half the list disappeared. “Further, our stated experience makes us ineligible for this section. Though we may be able to negotiate pricing.” Another section in red. “This leaves several unclassified entries, likely smuggling operations. I know we are not specifically opposed to them, but I am unsure what challenges those jobs may present.” A section in yellow.
The board had three entries in green, eight yellows, and six reds. I told Heart nice work, and to focus on selling what we already had. We'd break the list into parts. Some we'd sell to our customs buddy. We'd never know when we'd need a helping hand. The rest we'd split between the list Nikki gave us. As for the rest of the list, we'd start setting up meetings and see if we couldn't swing a job.
Chapter 12
We knew finding the correct job wasn't going to be easy. The job board was actually a bit of a godsend in some ways, however. Although none of the first lists panned out, they did net us a solid batch of contacts, and we ended up getting a couple of quick trial runs from Ganymede to some of Jupiter's other moons. Nothing spectacular but enough to
I plugged a quick text message into my comm unit and asked for Heart to come up with some ideas. The last thing I wanted was not being able to talk to him when I needed to. “I am already working on some options. However, I can monitor your biometrics, which should suffice until we come up with a permanent solution.” We were discussing possible ways to use this when Nikki came back to refill my cup and slide me a comm chip. I gave her a quick nod of thanks as I drained my cup before she topped me off.
On her next stop, I asked about rooms, and she pointed me to the kiosk in the hall. It was automated and actually let me rent by in almost any increment I wanted, from hour to month. I assumed that was in case someone wanted a quick shower or had an extended leave. I credited a couple of days and headed on up.
The parallels between here and White Caps were becoming more obvious. Like the hotels were cut from the same cloth, but just were tailored into different items as the years went on. The room I had been assigned was an almost exact match to the one I stayed in right before I shipped to basic. It was uncanny. More than likely the plans were simple and universal, and I could find the layout anywhere in the galaxy if I looked hard enough. I hadn't been in many hotels, so the novelty was amusing so I spent several minutes playing with drawers and buttons while talking to Heart about it .
I finally quit my yammering and got back to business. I pulled out the comm chip and accessed it. There were a few names, which Heart quickly accessed and displayed on the room's screen rather than my dampers. “They look like local vendors. I do not see any major criminal activity though it is hard to tell with the official databases.” I told him I was less worried about that, and more about establishing our cover. The idea of the job boards caught my attention, though.
“Mine as well. The boards appear to be a bulletin of sorts. Similar to the listings where I purchase parts for my projects. One can place listings of services for a price. I have narrowed the choices down to transport, excluding passengers and come up with several viable options.” A new list appeared on the screen. I asked what was worth our time monetarily. “Based on our cover, we would need to be at least one-third full for fuel consumption. Although I use fusion reactors, my vehicle registration class is a fuel burning type. That removes this portion of the list.” Almost half the list disappeared. “Further, our stated experience makes us ineligible for this section. Though we may be able to negotiate pricing.” Another section in red. “This leaves several unclassified entries, likely smuggling operations. I know we are not specifically opposed to them, but I am unsure what challenges those jobs may present.” A section in yellow.
The board had three entries in green, eight yellows, and six reds. I told Heart nice work, and to focus on selling what we already had. We'd break the list into parts. Some we'd sell to our customs buddy. We'd never know when we'd need a helping hand. The rest we'd split between the list Nikki gave us. As for the rest of the list, we'd start setting up meetings and see if we couldn't swing a job.
Chapter 12
We knew finding the correct job wasn't going to be easy. The job board was actually a bit of a godsend in some ways, however. Although none of the first lists panned out, they did net us a solid batch of contacts, and we ended up getting a couple of quick trial runs from Ganymede to some of Jupiter's other moons. Nothing spectacular but enough to
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