Get Me out of Here

[Cat]

Present day (as of the time of Kyle's message being received)
Monte Carlo Freeport, Provence System, the Kingdom of Gallia

With the breach of the mine fields by the Council revolutionary movement 7 years ago, Gallia was getting more and more visitors from the rest of Sirius, so foreign speech and foreign ships became something one could hear and see more and more of. Even despite that, Monte Carlo Freeport remained one of the few places in Gallia where people from the rest of the Sirius Sector weren't an unusual sight.

There was a good reason for that: the Freeport was located far from Gallic Core worlds and trade lane network, and one jump away from Sirius. It meant that corporate and police pilots rarely ventured there. It also meant that the likes of Gallic Brigands (who had to avoid trade lanes anyway) would visit the station more often for their shady deals.

In turn, Sirians would visit the station to trade their own goods for commodities from Gallia. Those who didn't want to go through getting legal permission to enter Gallic space and use the trade lane network had to resort to dealing with the likes of Brigands and Unione Corse to get the supplies from the newly-discovered Kingdom. So, Sirian ships were a familiar sight on Monte Carlo, but they still drew some attention. Especially if they were just left behind. That is what happened to one custom Sabre fighter with engines running on MOX that; the ship remained in hangar SB-6 for a few days at least.

If you were to ask around, you'd learn that the ship belonged to some Sirian who showed up on Monte Carlo a couple of weeks ago. He paid for a month's stay up front and kept flying off the station, disappearing for days before returning briefly to catch a drink and disappear again. But approximately a week ago he stopped flying off and started spending more time in the multiple bars the Freeport had to offer.

The Sirian was nothing outstanding: moderately tall, with medium build, short brown hair, hazel eyes, clean shave, black jacket, orange T-shirt, and black jeans. That's pretty much all that the residents of Monte Carlo would remember about him. That, and the Sirian once got so drunk that he started harassing a couple who were having a drink in the bar. The Sirian got what was coming for him though, when the middle-aged man who was being annoyed by his taunts hit him with a bottle. The pesky outsider survived, went to check on his ship, but he hasn't been seen on the station ever since.

What will happen to the ship if the man doesn't show up? He paid for a month up front, so for a couple of more weeks it's non-negotiable. Then the administration would probably wait for a week more, just out of respect, before selling the ship to the highest bidder, scrapping it, or claiming it as their own. Probably scrapping though, because the ship is locked, and can only be accessed and controlled by its owner. Getting Sirian specialists to unlock the ship (the likes of Lane Hackers) would probably be too expensive.

That's pretty much all anyone would learn about the fate of Kyle Cross, if they were to ask around on Monte Carlo. And only if they knew it was Kyle Cross they had been talking about, because the Sirian called himself Brian Scott while he was here, and that's the name he was known by to the locals.