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Been Quotes

We got to see a Corsair ship up close – all matt black, no markings, no lights – and practically invisible out here in the dark! What a sight to behold! Most people don’t get to see those bastards up close. That is, for very long! Anyways, the ship was just floating there, no sign of life. Our hails weren’t being answered, and so we assumed the ship was dead in space. Captain Mulligan, gods-rest-his-soul, told me to form a boarding party of security and medics from the sickbay and that we were going over there. We weren’t a military ship, and we’re not Star Marines, so we were lightly armed and quite nervous. I mean, this wasn’t just some of my security section being called out to break up a fight at one of the bars on the promenade, this was serious life-and-death shit! So I said ‘okay’, and told my assistant supervisor, Lisa Garfner, to get them all together. Seven of us shifted over to the other ship with the transmatter (you still use those things, I take it?) not knowing what to expect. It could’ve been anything… and it was. It was crazy.
Villainessa Tittel was a hired killer, an assassin by trade. She had enjoyed the best education and had been trained by assassins who had (until then at least) been considered the best in the business. She had turned to ‘cleaning’ as an occupation because she really enjoyed endings more than beginnings – and anyway, she didn’t need to know her mark’s entire pedigree or life’s story, or to have some kind of facetious moral justification just to collect her fee. Unsurprisingly, when she did read – on those rare occasions – her books were always dog-eared from the back.
When people cannot use you,
They will call you selfish and mean,
They don’t know your struggles,
They don’t know where you have been
Charmaine J Forde
For Commander Ripley Jones, it was becoming more and more troublesome. It had been said that nothing is infallible, Antares apparently being the proof. After hastily recalling all crew and leaving Spacedock 7 thirty hours ago, there had been nothing but problems. Breakdowns in the sensors and telemetry, system failures of a wide variety and finally – the Last Straw: a coupling seal in the stardrive engine failed. Fortunately the cut-out worked, or the whole of engineering would’ve disappeared in a flaming ball of anti-matter. Five crewmen were seriously injured as it was. Commander Smith, the Chief Entech, had the offending unit stripped down and under repair. They were currently on conversion drive - which could only propel them at sub-light speeds – and Ripley was currently in an elevator with a very pissed Captain Falconer.
He’s dying!’ Doctor Cove, one of the ship’s two medical officers told me, looking at his med-scanner as he kneeled at the broken body of the only living Corsair on the black ship. I remember the look on his face as he told me – which seemed more to be puzzlement than actual concern. The man was a Corsair after all, and had injuries I could see, but he was conscious, and none of them looked fatal. But then, I’m no doctor. I never was any good at healing anything – and my job was doing the opposite, and I admit I’m pretty good at it. Always have been.
Captain Harald Biscay rubbed his graying temples, staring deep in thought at the vast star field showing on the large navigation display on the bridge. It had been a pretty rough few days for him. Of all the things he’d seen in his travels through the universe, not many rated worthy of being remembered. Of the few examples of items Captain Biscay rated that highly, when he was a young man, his uncle would often play the bagpipes at strange hours of the night – shortly before being put in a ‘home’. That rated a mention.
Tracey hurriedly shut the door behind her to prevent the flames that had been licking hungrily at her caboose all the way down the corridor, from following her inside. Then, almost falling into one of the gravity couches, she hurriedly strapped herself into it before punching the emergency release. She hoped the escape system still worked. It did. The explosive dead-bolts fired, shaking the pod loose, dislodging it from the rapidly disintegrating wreck, just about shaking the crap out of her on its bone-jarring way into the great wide open.