[Author's note: please rate & please leave comments! I like constructive criticism and need to hear blunt truths in order to improve as a writer. The Jin Dui itself is a creative project featuring an original ship and original crew; most of the crew members are characters owned by other participants in our collaborative project. All Jin Dui artwork and fics are posted to http://jin-dui.swartzer.com; more art and fics from other participants are in the works. This particular fic was co-written with Sully.]

March 18, 2514 / Departing Deadwood / Blue Sun Cluster

This had to be one of the stranger meals Sully had ever sat down to, he thought to himself as he took a slice of bread and passed the plate on to the stranger next to him. Less than an hour ago, he had ducked aboard this ship while dodging bullets and sticks of dynamite; shortly thereafter, he had found a gun pointed in his face and had been forced to kill a man or be killed himself. Now here he was, with a one-way ticket to Persephone, being told he was working a passage he had not signed up for and, oh yeah, just maybe life-support would last the long, long three weeks it would take for the battered ship to get where it was taking them. One hoped the life-support lasted. One dearly, sincerely hoped so.

Captain Cooper had settled in a seat at the head of the table; Hoss, the big mechanic, had sat down at the opposite end. “Don’t be shy,” Hoss told everyone cheerfully, putting down a second plate of sliced bread and taking several pieces for himself. “There’s lots more, enough for seconds and thirds for everybody.”

The two womenfolk had settled in chairs across from Sully; his fellow pilot, “Halo” Williams, sat to his right, and the systems man sat to his left. “This is good!” the systems man said -- Chang was the name, Marcus Chang. Chang was attacking his steaming bowl of soup with a healthy appetite. “Really good!” Chang said around his mouthful, making an effort to balance his