The Anomaly

[Rodent]

Chapter 11- The Alliance

A few weeks had passed, with no response from Jean. Ansel paced his quarters restlessly, the money-making machine, the Adeline, humming in his ears as it did yet another round of high-risk high-profit shipping.

Maybe I was wrong.... was the first thought. Hardly possible, I had computed it perfectly, it had all gone according to my thinking, the chances of it being a coincidence are...rather minimal. Maybe he's thinking about it, maybe he's not sure about my intentions, that is possible. We'll have to see.

He switched on the light and began to study a document he had bought recently. It explained in detail, ship drive systems. Sleep was not something he was worried about, it could be catched up on later.

Hmm, I will have to consult with Andie about this, but I think with some subtle re-formatting of the computer systems and engine retrofitting, I could get more performance out of the Adeline's engines. Jump drives...hmm, the components for those kind of things are very hard to come by, and they are unstable by nature, I'll see what I can do about it...

He was so deep in his musings that he didn't notice his datapad vibrate several times, then finally go still. Exhausted, he went to sleep, it was only after waking up that he checked his datapad.

There was a message, from an unknown source. He read it intently. It was as follows-



Mr Xavier.

I do not know why you accuse me , but I might be interested in your offer. I do have a plethora of skills that may be useful to you, for a generous fee of course. Please meet me on Re-union station, Orkney.

Yours
Jean-Paul Ribery



He smiled. He was not wrong after all, the man was clever enough to subtly word his message to the point of it being no more than trivia.

As soon as the Adeline was done with it's current path, he would go to Reunion. It was going well, and soon it would be time to put things to the test.