Logbook Of An Old Pirate

[Zapp]

Log 9

If there is a God, he smiles upon me. Mr. Gompers arrived on the station shortly after I did, punctual as usual. The man is large and slow, but still sharp. His face is scrunched a little so he always looks like he's squinting, but his face brightened up when he saw me. We clasped arms in embrace. I could see he, at least, wasn't bitter about getting caught. When I expressed my surprise at this, he just said, "It happens. Can't win 'em all, Captain."

We went to the bar and found a nice corner to talk. And as he began his story, my jaw slowly unhinged.

He had gotten out of prison a couple of months before me. When he couldn't make contact with me, he decided to start looking for news of the other crew. He only found our helmsman, Terrance Powderly, who was flying a Mule for the Rogues, ferrying cargo between bases. Once in the life, it's hard to get out...

What he did next amazed me. I kicked myself for not thinking of it. He looked for news of the wreck of La Villa Strangiato. After months of scouring the Colorado system for any signs of it in a cheap CSV he bought from a Junker, he found the ship floating far off the beaten path.

This was the best news I had heard in a long, long time.

The bad news, though, is that there's a giant gaping hole in the hull where the LPI set off a bomb to destroy the ship. Apparently, they considered it crippled beyond repair... well, we'll see about that. We're going to set out tomorrow to investigate. If we're lucky, we'll be able to have it towed into a friendly port and get some repairs done. I might have to do some more smuggling to afford it all, though.

Things are really looking up.

---