Part 1

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The boots of Captain Liam Levesque screech on the pool of blood surrounding the broken body of Professor Havo Gueroun. The hurried sounds of his boots reflects far away in the hangar, the lenth of a college gym. 

What was the Professor doing, down here? All by himself? The hangar is restricted during flight through hyperspace, very much like the whole container ship except the canteen and the cabins. The Gallant is obviously hollowed yet filled with kilometers of corridors. Could be very easy to get lost, especially if not used to be around on a massive vessel such as the Gallant.

Annouk Michaels, the youngest and one of the three crew members is following the captain, tying her long brown hair in a ponytail. For a second, he thought she was coming along. Afterall, she did alarm him for Cy ... speaking of the devil...

The engineer Cy Phaorah, the oldest member of the trio, in his mid-50s, is waiting for them and watching the body of the one and only passenger aboard the Gallant spaceship.

«Here's Havo, Captain», announces the engineer without leaving the eyes of the body, the gray color of the professor's tuxedo suit has turned dark maroon with time.

He looks up. The narrow catwalk is the only option where the professor would have fallen. The sole container in the hangar, below the catwalk, is not high enough to die. But from 40 feet high...

Liam was on his first ever commercial flight with his very own spaceship as captain with a crew of two members – That's all he could have able to afford for the moment. Now, his maiden voyage has been ruined through blood and death. His stomach feels heavy. It begins well. He's surprised at his current condition. Being part of the NTA Fleet for fifteen years made him to keep his cool on dangerous and stressful situations, especially during boarding assaults. But bodies isn't never pleasant to look, like a disturbed moment. Nobody love to observe an inanimated corpse.

«Obviously, he had fallen from above, Cy», Liam said, pointing it with his chin. «Why was he here?», he finally asks.

Cy Phaorah turns his head upwards the catwalk, his short cut hair shows signs of baldness, the hair of his scalp has almost fallen since a few years ago.

«I don't know, Liam. But I'm more worried about his death. Why would he wanted to throw himself down, from up there? Was it a suicide or somethin'»

Why ...

The captain fixes the body for a long time and regrets not having had time to know him better. They had met at the local bar of the orbital warehouse station, the Astral View. Initially, he had easily spotted the professor Havo Gueroun in the crowd: five feet six inches, a well-cut hair and slim mustache, and dressed too clean to be in a low-quality bar filled with tired maintenance workers and bored engineers. Coming his sight, the professor had urged him to bring him and his equipment: a rectangular container, to a nearby solar system in Cvoro, very close to the northwestern frontier, because his original ship is docked for an indefinite time and he claimed he was expected on the planet Montezuma, where there is a campus of Sexsmith University , for an annual conference. Liam remembers asking him why he and the Gallant, rather than another.

«Because your ship is all that remains to me as an option,» he recalls. «I have a package of most importance finding and I am waiting for my research, Captain Levesque.»

«Like what?» Also remember asking him. «And the s in my last name is silent,» he also remember to have retorted him. You're a teacher, try to learn to speak like everyone else. Of course, he did not say that last part in front of him.

You've reached the end of published parts.

⏰ Last updated: Dec 23, 2018 ⏰

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