"It ain't much, but it's honest work" aka "The freelancer's woes"

[Demonic]

Finnean MacRory
Deep Omicrons
10/04/830

---

Finn's eyes were glued to the sensor displays. His fingers were frantically requesting more and more sensor data through the touchscreen interface, while his stare fixated the two dots marking the unidentified contacts about to clicks from Ol’Reliable. They appeared in the cloud of strange matter Finn was currently flying through on his way from Omicrons to Liberty, his scanner repeatedly insisted those objects had nothing metallic in them and yet they easily kept pace with Finn’s ship. They stayed at their distance, never made any attempt to close in, but the short time it took Finn to reach the jump hole felt like eternity.

He had to take a break after the jump. His heart was racing like never before, his hands were shaking uncontrollably. Nomads. Had to be them. What else was out there, capable of spaceflight in non-metallic vessels? That thought gave him shivers. And to think he felt safe out thereHe thought the only danger in these parts were corsairs and since he struck a deal with them, he allowed himself to drop his guard. Well, reality came knocking and Finn was lucky it was just a gentle reminder and not a hard crash. It took him about an hour before he was able to continue. He entered new coordinates into the NavComputer, and watched on display how Ol’Reliable slowly changed vector towards the next jump hole. He still got the relics to deliver.