“Now what?!” the operative yelled at his recently acquired firefly.

This was not a vessel he was familiar with. He was used to shuttles, ones customized for his particular needs at the time. But no shuttle for this chase, this one he had to improvise.

He looked down at the heads up display on the ships functions panel, opposite the pilots chair. “Well isn’t this shiny. I’ve lost port side thrusters.” And he stormed off to the engine room to address the problem. The boat had been less then cooperative with him since he had taken it. Relays’ on half the ship were being blown and he hadn’t the spare parts or the know how to fix the rapidly aging vessel.

The engine room was running hot a lot hotter then any ship he had ever flow on, and this he knew to be a bad thing. “Buddha, I’m going to need help.” As he spoke another relay behind him blew.

“The rutting ship is falling apart on me!”

As he was assessing what he thought he could do to the ship to keep him flying, an alarm rang out over the ships come system.

“A proximity alert?” He ran to the cockpit to see the potential trouble.

He got to the room at the head of the goose neck to find a startling picture awaiting before his eyes. A core planets cruise liner in pieces floating in the endless black. It was a mere skeleton of what it should be and just by looking at what was left it appeared that the ships reactor went critical and blew the ship inside out. He went and checked for a distress signal.

Moment later a ping hit the screen.” Hmm, escapes pod.” He sat and pondered retrieving the floating coffin of the still breathing occupant. “Might as well, looks like he’s been in there a day or so already. “ He stared at the display of the heat being radiated off from the pod.” They haven’t much air left” He grabbed the failing controls and positioned the ship so that the pod would float on in to the air lock and opened the outer door.

“Lets go see the catch of the day.”

He hit the controls to close the airlock and made his way to the