A colorful display

[Soban]

Livadia, The bar

---

“Good day.” he mumbled, eyeing the handkerchief in disbelief. A quick glance at his hands confirmed they were clean enough, no grease left over from the latest benchmark of the new engine prototype. For a heartbeat he wondered if it was meant as a slight; then, looking back at Khalid, it clicked. The captain was an oddity in many of his choices—this was likely just one more of his peculiar little gimmicks.

“Liberty, ye say?” He tried to recall his last visit to Phoenix’s recruitement center on Erie. “Must be a decade at least. I ken some o’ our convoys pass through their system tae haul deuterium for our foundries, but beyond that I tend tae steer clear. Like Bretonia, those Houses show little to no respect for us Zoners. Why d’ye ask?”