Travelling out of a star system to a fold point, and into a star system from a fold point, takes a long time. Dave had grasped this concept months ago, but it didn’t really hit him like a brick wall until he was watching the end credits of the last episode on One Piece. As soon as they got within fast communications range of Haverlin station Cam went to work. Changing the identifications of Dave and the Murph, editing notices for capture of Dave and the Murph, and setting up convenient cancellations at docking berths so they could park the ship were all done.
“My name is what now?” Dave asked. “Dave Skipton.”. Cam replied. Dave was noticeably confused at the statement and Cam clarified further, “It was one of the pseudonyms used by Skippy the magnificent.”. Recognition dawned on Dave as he suddenly remembered one of the book series he had listened to on his many trucking trips across America. Shrugging his shoulders he stated “I thought we going to stick with famous Dave’s from earth.”. “We can go back to that if we need to change your idents again, but Skippy is my favorite human representation of AI so far.” Cam said. Dave laughed, “You want to be like him when you grow up?”
Cam did not respond to the question instead informing Dave of the changes she had made to the BOLOs that were currently circulating. “All images of “Dave Grohl” have been replaced by images of Dave Chapelle. All information on the Murph has been edited to show it as a personal transport that looks an awfully lot like the Oscar Meier Weinermobile, just without wheels and in grayscale.” Dave laughed at this as he imagined security personnel trying to make sense of seeing the vehicle on their warning notices. “I also did some creative reordering of the dockmasters files so that we have a long-term berth reserved for the ship. We can stay for quite awhile so long as you stay out of trouble.” Cam finished.
“Trust me, trouble is the last thing I am planning on.” Dave said. At this, Cam laughed, “No plan ever survives contact with the enemy”. Dave just shook his head and walked to the hatch at the rear leading to the pressurized cargo pod, “I’m going to go clean up after Bigs and sit with him for awhile. At least he doesn’t talk back.” He said with a grin. During the trip Dave had to enter the pod daily to ensure that Bigs waste products were collected and ejected. He made the decision to just directly eject the waste instead of using his own toilet to evacuate the Waste. Ejecting the waste products into space probably wasn’t the best way to dispose of things, but he was pretty sure that, in the vastness of space, nobody would notice a trail of Kryx droppings stretching out behind the ship.
Upon entering the fold pod Dave broke into what had become routine. He gathered up the droppings and bagged them, mopped the floor, placed the bag in the connector tunnel and closed the hatch. Cam would disconnect the tunnel momentarily allowing the bag of poop to be sucked out into the black and the tunnel would be reconnected. Bigs had considerably less space than before as Dave had taken up a good eighty percent of the space in the pod while packing up his mine hideout. But it wasn’t necessarily cramped.
After the cleanup he walked over to where Bigs was curled up and sat next to the kryx. He turned on his pad and searched the database for something to watch. “Spaceballs. I haven’t watched that in a while.” He said as he selected the movie from the list and began to watch. For the most part Bigs remained curled up but Dave did notice the animals eyes watching the screen. He still could not tell if the motion and colors and sounds were what was capturing Bigs attention, or if the animal was actually watching it.
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In a moment of hilarious timing, just as Dark Helmet is struck in the crotch by his reflected schwarz beam and stumbles backward into the Spaceball 1 self destruct button, the alarms on the Murph began to go off as well. Dave first thought it was Cam trying to be funny, but when she announced that the Murphs sensors had detected a Blurepcian ship, Dave reassessed his thoughts to impossibly bad timing. “What do you think, Cam?”. “They just folded into the system near the same spot that we did. I can not tell if they followed us here or are arriving from another star system in that direction. If our sensors have picked them up then theirs have spotted us. Good news is they are about a month behind us and we will be at Haverlin in about two days.” She said.
Dave pondered for a bit and decided to continue on to Haverlin. “Once we are berthed and moving about the station they may not find me.” He told Cam. “Unless the one Blurepcian who escaped your encounter on Uslaw unscathed is with them and can ID you.” She replied. Dave tilted his head to the side and said, “True, but wouldn’t that be like looking for a needle in a haystack?”. Cam chuckled dryly and came back with, “Oh sure. If your looking for a glowing neon green needle in a haystack. Remember Dave, you are the only human here. Nobody else looks like you which makes you stand out a little bit.”
Growling in frustration at his lack of remembering that fact Dave shut off the movie, reached over and gave Bigs a quick scritch behind the ear and headed back into the Murph. Making his way to the pilots chair he fell into it with a thud and put his hands on his face. “Well, we have about a month right?” He asked Cam. “It appears to be a small Blurepcian gunboat, definitely has a higher top speed than us. If they are really chasing us, or someone, they could conceivably cut their travel time to the station to twenty one days. I will monitor their progress.” She said. Dave nodded as he said, “Okay then, let’s say we have twenty one days at Haverlin to resupply and find out as much information as we can to get Bigs back to his planet. While we’re at it we need to come up with a plan to get me off of the Blurepcian radar. Maybe it is time for me to find a way back to Earth. I keep ending up in more trouble than I like out here.”
Cam was quiet for a few seconds, which was uncharacteristic of her during a conversation. When she finally replied it seemed a bit subdued, “I’m sure we can figure out a way to get you home if that’s what you really want.”. Dave, while usually clueless, noticed the pause and the subdued tone and realized that Cam wasn’t happy. “You would be coming with me back to Earth of course.”, he said. Then he discovered that this was not the right thing to say by way of Cam screaming, “And just what would I do on earth huh? Live in a ship that you would have to hide from everyone because it’s alien in origin? Even if we find a ship to get you home it has to be designed for reentry. We can’t just pull up to the ISS and hitchhike down to the planet on a Dragon or Soyuz.”.
She took a deep audible breath, a clear affectation considering she didn’t have lungs, and continued, “I’ve gone over all of Earths recorded history. It would not be a safe place for me. Anyone with any kind power or influence discovers me and they would stop at nothing to use me or study me. I will not be put in that position.”. Dave held his hands up defensively at the outburst and said quickly, “I understand. It may not be as bad as that Cam. But we don’t have to decide anything now. Let’s focus on getting Bigs home and we can revisit this.” Cam responded with, “Fine but I don’t see many options that don’t end up with us going our separate ways and me either being captured and restricted, or worse deleted.”