The Quasar Fantastic

[Acheli San Maronea]

When Rayfe awoke again, the cockpit clinked and thumped with the sounds of occupants in motion. Maron stowed her crash webbing and slinked out of her chair. She went through the uniquely Selonian ritual of a snout-to-tail stretch, finding the rear threshold of the cockpit to have just enough room to do so. The cockpit in front of her was filled with a landscape of adobe-colored arid hills, dotted with scraggly scrub brush, and set against a cloudless blue sky. They'd touched down somewhere with apparently no sign of civilization in sight. Hot, dry and empty.

"Ah, you're awake." Maron perked, rising back to two feet, mindful to stoop so that she didn't scrape the roof with her head.

"There's foodstuffs in the galley if you're hungry. It's galactic standard, don't know if you have any dietary requirements."

The Captain shuffled to a cubby locker, pulling out a few small effects, which she stuffed into the pockets of her flight suit.

"I'll be heading out now."

[Fredal Rabeak]

Just as Rayfe had nodded off, Freddie's new invention kicked to life, providing him with excellent proof of concept as the volatile fuel burned intensely, captured in pressurized cones of small force fields, acting like jet afterburners to deliver additional thrust to the Quasar Fantastic, with no detriment. For the next twenty minutes, he simply sat back and studied data, updating settings, and logging notes about how to improve the system, so that he could present further upgrade plans to Maron, when she had time to review them.

Beyond that, the trip was dull, yet Freddie remained awake for it, as he was technically working, and it wasn't wise to sleep on the job.

That said, after a while of watching hyperspace, it was becoming difficult to keep his eyes open, and it came as welcome relief as they dropped back into real-space. Glancing down to check their coordinates, Freddie crimped his brow as his monitors were deactivated. A sidelong glance was thrown at his captain, but he didn't protest. If Maron didn't want him to know where they were, there must be a reason. Clearly it wasn't to get rid of him, as he wasn't the type of person whom anyone would even notice went missing, so he simply went along with things, assisting with landing controls, and unfastening his harness once the engines powered down - one should never remove them beforehand, just in case there's enough residual charge to force some movement, as you could get tossed around.

As Maron headed to the door, Freddie piped up, "Any idea when we should expect you back?" She didn't owe him an answer, but he wanted to know so that he could decide what to work on next. A glance out the cockpit windows revealed a landscape not too unlike the one he'd escaped from, minus a trailer park, and he had little intention of going sightseeing. The unasked question remained, "What am I supposed to do with this guy?"

It wasn't so much that Freddie had a personal problem with Rayfe - they hadn't interacted enough for a proper opinion to have been formed - it was that he was still unsure who, or what Rayfe was. That unsurity, along with Freddie's often crippling social anxiety, did not make for a good combination when it came to trusting someone new. But he would try. If Captain Maron trusted Rayfe, Freddie would do his best to as well.