“Freeport One, this is the Saucy Seagull, requesting permission to dock,” Oscar coughed into his helmet’s integrated headset. Through the cloud of smoke and molten particles of metal that had taken to the habit of filling his ship’s cockpit, he could just barely make out the outlines of the station directly ahead. According to the scanners, it was a mere two clicks away, but judging by his eyesight it was less than one. And in the past few days he had learned to trust his senses more than what was left of the Seagull’s electronics.
For a few seconds, nothing but static filtered through his speakers. He wasn’t sure whether this was because no one felt like responding to his request or whether the radio antenna had finally decided to take a leap off of the ship’s hull. He would put his money on the latter. Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, but according to the Seagull’s clock was only about half a minute, an aged, raspy voice answered.
“Saucy Seagull, mind stating the reasons for your ship being about to combust?”
Oscar swallowed hard. He had already been rejected from docking at Douglas Station due to his ship being ‘too great a hazard to the well-being of the installation and the people within.’ He didn’t know what they had expected him to do – repair his ship in deep space with nothing more than an old toolbox stashed away in the (burned up) cargo bay before docking at a station where the necessary repairs could actually be made?
“Well, uh,” Oscar muttered as he tried to find a way to make his ship sounds less like a ticking time-bomb, “you see, I’ve been in the deep Omegas for the past few months, and, uh, well, I ran into some Corsairs a few times and –”
The voice from the Freeport rudely interrupted him, “Well, I’m afraid we cannot acknowledge your request. Your ship is too dangerous to the station in its current state.”
Oscar swore silently.
“Come on now, this place is a Freeport, you can’t just let me float around out here in a badly damaged ship!” Oscar coughed loudly into the microphone, trying to convey just how bad a time he was having. There was no reply. No static, either, this time. The channel had been cut.
Several expletives escaped his mouth as he angrily bashed his fist against what used to be a screen displaying the energy remaining in the ship’s reactor.
