Chapter three

        "To the Tandurians, they may be money grubbing assholes but they sure stock the finest whisky in the galaxy!"

        After my customary toast was done I raised my glass of whisky and drained it in one go and the rest of my crew followed suit with their own drinks.

        I was currently in the ship's mess hall with my crew and we were celebrating the successful completion of our most daring raid yet. The Tandurian job had gone off without a hitch and the haul had been particularly good this time. I was very pleased with the luxury goods that we had managed to appropriate and when Blade discovered a case containing vintage premium whisky I decided that we should have a little party to celebrate.

       I sat at the large chair at the head of the table and looked around at my crew who were very happy and already a little tipsy. Thankfully Alfred , our ships AI, can handle a routine jump to Tortuga without any input from us so the crew was free get as drunk as they wanted. As I observed my friends crack inappropriate jokes , most of them at my expense, and dissolve into raucous laughter ,my eyes inevitably drifted towards my beautiful and mysterious first mate. 

        Her features were not extraordinary , by most standards she would be considered at most average. Her eyes were an unremarkable light brown, her nose was a little long and slightly crooked as if she had broken it at least once and it hadn't set right, her mouth was too wide to be considered attractive and when she laughed you could count each and every one of her small teeth that would be considered too small by most people. Her skin was pale and pasty because she didn't bother to use the automatic tanner in the ship and her ears were long and pointed. It was obvious that her light brown almost blond hair rarely saw a comb let alone any other styling equipment and I'm pretty sure that it had been in that same ponytail for the last three days. All this combined to make her unattractive to most guys, but not to me.

        To me her eyes were a beautiful shade of brown that turned into a brilliant amber of the finest light honey when the light of her screen hit them. Her nose being crooked only added character to her beautiful face and I found her wide mouth to be sexy and appealing. In my eyes her teeth were cute and her skin was like smooth cream that you would want to dip Strawberrys in. Her pointy ears made her look like an elf and her unkempt hair gave her that rumpled 'just out of bed' look that makes a girl look so hot in the morning.

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       I quickly looked away from her before she noticed that I was staring at her, I have had this infatuation with her from the first time I had laid eyes on her. In fact the only reason I hired her was to get into her pants, at least it was at first, but now she was not only an irreplaceable member of my crew but had also earned the position of first mate. I didn't know a damn thing about her past but she was a damn fine pilot and that was good enough for me. I had tried to ask her out on several occasions but have yet to be successful, I am very gifted with the ladies but when it came to Sandy I turn into a bumbling fool.

       I sighed in resignation as I stole another glance at Sandy, I guess we were just never meant to be.

       As I was sipping my drink and wallowing in self pity Scottish Alfred's voice blared out from the speakers,

       "Captain we are approaching Tortuga in ten minutes but that's not why I'm calling you. You have three people trying to establish communication with you on the horn. One is Bozzo, the other is Finkelstein and the last one is the Duchess. Who do you want to speak with or should I hang up on all of them?"

         Well this was interesting, the heads of the three biggest factions in Tortuga wanted to speak with me before I even made it out of zero space?

         Something big must be going on, good or bad only time will tell.

         "Use split screen to display all three on the mess hall screen, I doubt they are all calling me for different reasons so might as well save time and talk to all of them at the same time."

          "Aye aye, Captain."