The crew of the Tiananmen had been a pack of wild dogs, but one crew member sat ahead of them all. The one and only Spaceman Spiff. He was the one that tickled the ships consoles and made her fly, when Jack remembered the way her throttle purred beneath his hands... If the Tiananmen had been a maiden, this Dogbeard was a crone. It's drift was reminiscent of driving a truck on ice, it's attitude and thrust controls handled like molasses in january and its old LasTek drive core was louder at rest then it was running. Not a good thing. But still as Jack set a new course for Hera, he had to admit he had taken a shine to her, ships computer was still military grade, even if most of it had been corrupted. And the engine was surprisingly nimble, if a bit slow to warm up. She was on old Alliance Patrol boat from the War, discarded and mothballed until The Captain had plucked her out of the trashbin. Shedeserved better; She had class; this ship. And she was all his... well... she belonged to the Captain, but he had the Pilots chair. Vance Dryden the ships engineer, and Spiff had studied together at the Academy on Londinium. They found themselves in a sticky situation or two and been kicked out for nearly killing another cadet; accidentally of course... So they were buds, and working together on this ship was a blast, Vance with his tech know-how and Spiff with his Spiffness; were bound to pull off some crazy shit. Spiffness was a word Jack used to describe is exceptional skills behind the wheel of a ship. He was the greatest pilot in the 'Verse; just ask him. And now he was bored... he tapped the comms "Bridge to Vance, come in Vance over?" "Why are you talking like that?" "I'm sorry Vance I didn't copy, over?" "I'm not doing it..." "Come ooooooon..." "Spiff come on just tell me what you want to talk about..." Spiff paused, petulantly "Well what bug crawled up your exhaust vent" "Oh nothing I'm just the only person fixing the ship, Spaceman!" "Well I was thinking, we've got all these cannon mounts, and I have systems to run weapons-" "The Captain said we need to get the ships engines done first, it takes priority." "Look all I'm saying is next time we land we go see if we can find some parts-" "Spiff-" "Yea yea yea... I know... priorities. It's just been like... months man since I hauled off on some space garbage dude, just a chunk of debris and two forty pounders BAM... ugggggghhh, I miss the Tiananmen" He slumped over the controls dramaticly. "Play with the gats" "Do you know how boring those gats are? if they get up past 20 rpms I'd be surprised." "Well I guess you'll just have to deal." Spiff slapped the comms off and leaned back in his seat he pondered briefly on his misery, of having no armaments for the ship, then -cursing under his breath- he punched up the point defense cannon controls. "stupid. boring" ""