Synthesis

[Denelo]

Suzume stared at the wreckage of the Dunkirk. To the casual observer, it wasn't so different than it had been nearly two months before, really. Maybe a bit less trash-coated, but it was still mostly trash itself. But to Suzume, it was a beautiful thing.

Two months of hard, careful work. Two months of cleanup, just to get to where they were now. But finally, the whole area around the wreck was cleared of unrelated debris.

Suzume and Eric Dresmund - one of her employees - were floating there in their respective ships, observing the wreck.

Finally, Suzume broke the silence. "S- So I guess it's fin- nally cl- cleaned up...", she said tentatively. This would be the difficult part; keeping her employees to their contracts now that the primary source of income was exhausted.

"Yeah.", Eric said, barely nodding as he worked the arms of his ship, feeding the last bits of scattered debris into the frigate's cargo 'maw'.

"S- so... this is wh- where the hard part st- starts, I g- guess." she pressed, an almost inquiring tone coming into her nervous voice.

"Suppose so. Should be interesting, us hauling it out, eh?"

Suzume almost sighed in relief at the reply. Here was what she had been waiting for; evidence that her people wouldn't run out on her. Of course, Eric was one of the more reliable Scuttlers, so it was by no means a set thing. She caught herself before letting out the sigh, however, and instead replied cheerily; [color=#F7F7111]"It'll be someth- thing new! I've n- never heard of anyone haul- ling whole chunks of sh- ships out of a fi- ield before. Most peop- ple just break it ap- part and sell it as sc- scrap, like we d- did with all the trash aro- ound it."[/color]

Eric smirked at her comment, stretching his arms out as he disconnected from the frigate's systems momentarily. "Yeah,, well, first time for everything."

"That's r- right!", came the giddy reply.

"By the way, what'd you say earlier abou-" Eric tried to say, but he was cut off mid-sentence by Suzume

"About sh- showing Mel that J- Jump hole! R- right... sorry. B- bye, Eric!"

And with that, she was gone.

Eric watched his employer cruise off toward Trafalgar Base. A strange woman.

A strange woman indeed.