A series of hollow rings reverberated through the station, the associated shaking dropping a bottle of what passed as expensive port, to the floor. In a few brief moments the noise ceased, leaving a distraught Mick staring at the remnants of his finest beverage.
Three decks below him, an embarrassed Rogue hurriedly extracted herself from the ever-so-slightly chipped Greyhound in the bay. Parked didn't seem the correct term, so much as there. There was a docking port, the ship was in it and that was all there was to say on the matter. At least, to Sarah McFarlen, as she set about putting as much distance between the Mostly Harmless and herself without drawing attention. She really didn't need another docking related incident.
Barely twenty, at a guess, Sarah hardly matched the typical Rogue line-up. Were it not for her ship, she could have been any teen-aged Manhattanite prepared for a night-out. The dress wasn't normal fare for her, the long red fabric about as far from her usual flight suit as it was possible to be. Caught between the stark dress and shoulder-length brown hair, the girl's, almost unnaturally, blue eyes seemed like the final piece in a colour-mad jigsaw. It certainly didn't help that the dress had been 'liberated' from a passing convoy (at a reasonable price, of course) and been adjusted to fit. At least she hadn't been able to get hold of heels. The engineer reflected, observing the stairs to the Drunkard.
Ten minutes later, a slightly dishevelled figure emerged into the pub, still looking as out of place as a nomad at a garden party. What sort of person walked downstairs with a knife out anyway? The walking modernist exhibition that was Sarah McFarlen moved over to the nearest table, casually ignoring the accusing glare of the bartender, still bent over his bottle.
