A Kusari Story

[Cat]

Chaper 8: Ghosts from the Past

Aiden McFarlane woke up in his new 'apartment' in one of the blocks built for Leeds refugees. The place wasn't fancy: apart from the restroom with the shower, there was only one room, which served as a bedroom, kitchen, and living room at the same time. But then again, for a person who lost almost everything, Aiden realized that he shouldn't be complaining. After all, things were going quite well for him.

His job was mostly escorting the transport ships that delivered supplies to planet Sprague. Aiden was supposed to scout the way and protect the transports from Corsairs, Gauls, and random pirates. However, he barely saw any pirates over the course of several weeks that he's worked for Ajax. To top it off, he was allowed to work as an escort on the side: apparently, Ajax Comine wanted to broaden their scope of operations, so Aiden was even encouraged to escort other ships, as long as he wired a certain percent of his earnings to Ajax Combine Inc.

Aiden got out of the bed and put on his brown jeans and a dark-blue T-shirt, as well as his boots. He then grabbed his bag and walked out of the apartment, locking the door behind him. It was late evening, the sun almost fully behind the horizon. Very few people walked the dusty streets of the settlement, and there were quite a few lights in the windows. Determined as ever, Aiden walked towards the spaceport. He didn't walk towards his new Falcon, but instead headed towards one of the larger pads, where a Serenity-class transport stood. It was called the Trailblazer.

He made sure to approach the ship from the side where the surveillance systems wouldn't notice him. Instead of trying to lower the rear ramp and alerting everyone, Aiden climbed up the side of the ship to the nearest access hatch. Using one of his tools from the bag, Aiden swiftly opened the hatch and crawled inside, closing the hatch behind him. He then got a flashlight out of the bag and went on to explore the ship.

Aiden went through all of the compartments of the Sernity transport. He looked through the lockers, checked the tables. With the flashlight being the only lighting source, the Trailblazer seemed even bigger than usual. Eventually Aiden made his way to the main cargo hold right by the rear ramp. He looked at the emblems on the crates, unsure if he should open any of them. He decided to go for it, and started looking through his bag for a suitble tool. That's when the dim lights of the cargo hold turned on, and a calm familiar male voice interrupted the intruder:

"You shouldn't have come here... Norman."