Hyperspace...
Suddenly, the piloting deck was filled with a shrill alarm, and before Sean could react, the entire ship shuddered violently. Now a whole array of warning lights flashed urgently on the control panels in front of him.
With a stomach churning lurch, and a bright flash of white light the vessel's automatic fail-safes kicked in, and the ship entered back into real-space, albeit prematurely.
The Hyperdrive had failed.
Sean checked his sensors and felt a huge sigh of relief, he'd been lucky, all it would've taken was a bit of bad luck and he could've ended up flying into a rogue asteroid or even worse, a planet...
He felt the sub-light engines fire up automatically, as he checked the navi-comp to get his bearings...
Just outside the Corporate Sector..
A frown appeared on his face as he realised how far Dagobah still was...
Checking the local area, he realised he only had one real option, and that was to limp to the nearest place with which to dock and repair...
The frown deepened as the reality of his predicament dawned upon him, without a functioning hyperdrive it could be years before he could even come close to another planet...and then he spotted something...
A space station, not far away, he waited for the navi-comp to calculate its journey time at sub-light speed, and groaned aloud...
Twenty two hours!
He slumped back into his chair a little, understanding he had little choice, and then programmed the new destination. As the navi-comp confirmed and the ship adjusted its course, he peered out of his cockpit window, and found he could just about make out the station in the darkness.
He looked around glumly, and then sighed, resigning himself to the journey...
* * *
Dry-dock repair bay of the Astral Astoria..
(Approximately twenty two and-a-half hours later)...
Sat on top of his new freighter, a TransGalMeg Xiytiar-Class transport he'd named 'Outlander' Kullum cursed as he dropped his wrench, causing it to clatter loudly on the colossal docking bay's metal floor. He had been trying to install a new, highly illegal laser cannon, he had just bought off some guy in a bar earlier...
...son of a-- His thoughts were cut short as the large air lock doors opened to reveal a very tired looking ship, being automatically towed into the dry-dock's repair berth, a steady stream of black smoke pouring from it's under belly...
Ouch!...
Kullum couldn't help but let loose a grin as his eyes scanned over the damage, assessing the probable cause, and cost of the repair...
Looks like someone's motivator got fried!...
He clambered down carefully from his own ship to get a better look...
Kullum was a drifter, a smuggler, and a...well, whatever the hell he needed to be to get by...dressed in a simple plain Tee-shirt and rather greasy looking overalls, he reached into his back pocket for a rag to clean his hands with.
As the hatch to the vessel opened , Kullum quickly stifled his grin and let his eyes settle on its exiting incumbent, before raising his voice over the general noise of the repair dock...
"You must be one lucky son of a gun!..." He shouted over to the new arrival...
"let me guess, Hyperdrive failure, right?"
He looked up expectantly...