Saving the Soul of a Ship

[Lionheart523]

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"Not any in the last couple of months," the bartender replied with a grin, "would've recognized their fancy uniforms with closed eyes as if they'd have a blinking and screaming navbeacon on their backside. But you'd might ask the chap with the bottle of vodka over there. Fits in here like a new and polished bulkhead of a Salvager," he laughed about his own joke, pointed to the far corner of the room and returned to polishing more glasses.

In the slightly darker corner the bartender has pointed to, sat a man with a familiar stature. The face was hidden in the shadows, too low illuminated to make out. However there seemed something not right about this guy. It wasn't the fact, that the bottle of average priced vodka in front of him was only drained to a third, or that he sat crosslegged at the table reading one of several pads in front of him.
It was what his clothes, which somehow fitted him and somehow not. He was wearing casual pants, a white T-Shirt and a heavy leather jacket. On the first glance, it seemed fitting for the bar on a Junker Base, but only if you looked not to close. At the second glance, or if one knows who the man was, it was just plain irritating. The leather jacket was too new and polished, the shirt spotless, and did the pants had creases? Everything shouted out that the guy didn't wear these clothes often. Only the shoes, black leather shoes, polished to a gleam, fitted to him, if not to the rest of the outfit. So it was no surprise, that for the barkeeper the man stood out and did not fit in the bar at all.

The guy was focused on his notes, speaking in an angry voice to himself: "Why did they had to use this stupid angle? Can't recognize anything." He took automatically the bottle, poored a shot into his glas. He tossed the pad onto the table, drained the shot and picked up another one, ignoring his surroundings.

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