"Where are we?" Selah hopped over to the edge of the cockpit and pressed her face against the window. The ground outside appeared to be flat, fuzzy, and purple. The stars spangled in the sky above were just as visible as they were before the Celestial Eclipse approached the moon and landed on it.
"This is the Vantares system." Skyler was scrolling through data reports on one of the cockpit touch screens. "One of the places that spacers go to hide. Nobody lives out here, and there's stuff floating about that interferes with most sensors."
"Where are we going next?"
"I'm not sure. Takashi said that our boss might have us shuffle around the plans for the next few days. Or the whole trip might be called off."
"What!? Why?" Selah turned back to look at him.
"Because we got attacked by pirates." Skylar looked up from his screen. "This assignment is probably going to be a lot more dangerous than was outlined in the contract. If the boss wants to keep us on board, he'll have to write us a new contract, pay us extra, and assign some security guys to our team. Takashi and I don't know if he's willing to put up with that."
Selah scrunched her face and tried to think, but all she could think about was her heart sinking. She turned back around and looked into the stars. Skylar felt like he should make a desparate attempt to reassure her.
"Things might work out. We'll see what happens pretty soon here."
"Okay." Selah kept on staring.
Skylar frowned and looked back at his screen. I wish I knew her better, he thought. I hope I didn't totally crush her dreams...
The cockpit's side door opened and Takashi came through. "Is that car unpacked?"
Skylar looked up. "Yes, everything's unpacked and put away. All systems on the Eclipse are functioning properly, the mana core is delivering optimum output, Kelphus is checking out the kitchen (and he loves it, by the way), and Mitsuko and Tiras are checking out the computer systems."
Takashi raised his eyebrows. "I didn't ask for a full report."
"Well, you got one." Skylar smiled and saluted.
Takashi chuckled. "Get everyone in here. Mr. Peters has arranged our next destination and he wants us there in an hour."
