A doleful male voice flooded the pilot's intercomm.
"I'm not that bad. Am I?"
"No," replied the woman, "it's just that I get stuck with you for ever CAP mission."
"Probably because we're wingmates."
"You might be on to something there," smiled the pilot.
It was there inside joke; a nearly daily routine when the pilots entered the cockpits of their Shadowcasters and blasted off from Victory Base off Almas. It was rare to see anything threatening, anything unusual, anything unsafe. Sheer boredom perpeutated the hour long flights as they made their loops within the Cularin system.
"Six," stated the woman, "I have something on the Full-spectrum transcievers. It looks like a derelict freighter."
"I have it to. There has never been anything like this before. There's some Cronau radiation in its wake. It looks like it just reverted from hyperspace."
"But why is there no power; engines are out. No comm even."
"Smuggler's ploy?"
"That or we have an emergency situation here. My LST picks up one man."
"Same here."
"I'm calling the rescue shuttle."