Birth of Fortune

[Epholl]

A ship was stationed in a small fighter dock aboard Luxury Liner Greenleaf. Engines were darkening slowly. There was a text on the side panel: MG 537-1-11-66 Epholl. It was a colonial Viper Mk1. And the pilot, who just got out had to be noone else, but Thomas Idaho, callsigned Epholl. He looked around in the dock and realised he was alone there. He sat on a box somewhere near his ship and waited. After two or three minutes, a door opened on the other side of the dock and a group of five people entered the room. Thez came directly to Epholl. One of them, a tall, gracefull looking young man shaked Epholl`s arm and said: "I am Captain Ricky Ross, wellcome aboard." "Thomas Idaho." answered Epholl silently. His blue eyes were looking at Ricky with no interest, he seemd to be completely depressed. "This is gonna be a though one" thought Ricky. "Let`s start with a small ship tour." "Why not?" said Epholl for himself. "I hope I won`t be bored here, I had enough before." Meanwhile, Ricky was thinking what to do with the new passenger... While showing Epholl the ship, he made a plan.

Epholl woke up in his apartment. The clock was showing 10.06 AM ship time. He was in better mood, than the day before, but it was not enough for him to smile. He looked out of the window. The beauty of Saiun Cloud filled the view. Shikoku. He picked up his personal PDA from a table and tried to decide what to do. He didn`t know what do half of the things mean. "God, they really have everything!" He thought surprised. When he was browsing food menu, the device beeped and a message showed on. It was from the captain. "Thomas, I am sure you can`t decide where to start, so I suggest you to visit one of the bars first."

Epholl did as suggested. He entered bar "Chicago" near the ship`s nose. It was meant to look like on planet Earth hundreds of years ago. He was not sure if it really looked like that, but there was no way to make that sure. "The drinks are the same everywhere anyway..." He thought, but it wasn`t true. The amount of different drinks avaible was amazing and it was impossible to try them all. He tried not to drink much, but it wasn`t easy. After tasting most of them, he was in better mood, than during last eight weeks. He looked out of one of the windows and he saw a GC fighter being fetched around by an energy beam from one of Greenleaf`s turrets. One of the wings cracked and slowly drifted away from the ship. after two more turret salvos, the cocpit was scrapped to pieces. The depressurization caused the pilot was scrapped into pieces almost instantly. Hull panels of the defeated fighter were randomly bouncing from the Greenleaf`s shields. Epholl didn`t care about the pilot. If it was reversal, the GCs would do the same to him. He just wondered this had never happened to him and his unreliable Viper. "It must be weird...In one momment you yell in agony, and a second later you are no more. Just dissapeared. Noone knows, noone cares. Kill or be killed" He thought and he smiled. It was the last senseful thing his glazed brain could mind of.

Thomas opened his eyes. Light. He blinked. It was buzzing in his ears. He heard cruise engines fuel injectors somewhere in the distance. He could not remember anything from the last evening. His sight focused on the window. It was completely black out there. Then a grey thing flew around the ship. And another. "What could this be?" Thomas couldn`t understand. As an answer to his unasked question, a bright flash crossed the blackness outside the ship. It was a dense cloud of dark matter with asteroids rarely floating in the space. "Now I know why we are cruising. Galileo." Epholl told silently, "There`s less than nothing there."

He went to his luxury bathroom and had a pebble bath. After some time, he left his apartment and headed to one of the bars, which was known for offering extremely strong Kusari special drinks. Entering the room, he had a fast lookover around the room. "Ahh, good morning, friend." He told when he noticed Ricky. "Good morning." Ricky waved his head. Thomas took a seat and watched people around the room silently. They were talking, drinking, smoking, or jsut sitting and watching other people as Thomas did. There was a big flatscreen in the room showing news from Liberty. And older man was talking something Thomas couldn`t hear, but he saw a graph showing percentage of cardamine smugglers caught in the recent past. Then the man started talking about another news. A picture of a rogue gunboat was behind him. There was a red text under the ship: "Bloodthirsty Xenos attacked again." Thomas noticed Ricky was watching the news too. He asked: "I didn`t know Xenos use rogue ships." Ricky answered coldly: "They usually don`t. This "Prospector"(He said that word with anger in his eyes.) is their only gunboat as far as I know. He is terrorising and murdering unarmed and defenceless people of Liberty." He was quiet for a momment. "But now we are on Greenleaf, no place for sad thoughts here. Have you tried the casinos? You can win some real money in there." "No, I haven`t. Thanks for suggestion." Answered Thomas. He stood up and left the room. The hyperspace tunnel outside the windows meant they are entering Colorado system, Liberty space.

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