Morning all. I hope you had a fabulous weekend. Mine was quiet. Which was nice. And kind of what I needed. Grass pollen is high and while the sinus meds let me function it sort of knocks me out a bit so flopping about was not a bad thing. However it is Monday and the flopping stops. So timers at the ready and off we go into the first prompt of the week.
This could be fun to play with. I kind of like the concept of damned if you do damned if you don’t decisions.
Monday, August 19th: Her water supply was running low.
Her water supply was running low. She knew she would have to stop and restock the ship soon. There was only so long she could put it off. Soon she would have to dock and make some hard decisions. Her thoughts slipped to her passenger. Her unexpected passenger.
He came as a plus one. The man servant to one of her paying passengers. He was expected as a plus one but it didn’t take long to realize it was a ruse. The servant was no servant and she was going to have to figure out what to do about it.
It didn’t take her too long to put the pieces together, even though she didn’t think anyone else had. She was running with a skeleton crew at the moment due to a bout of Garonthain Fever that took out a number of crewmen at the port of Ryathan. She couldn’t ship put with the contaminated and had to make do. While she still had some good hands, they weren’t familiar with the ship and had to pay more attention than an experienced crew.
As a result few of them had any time to spare for the passengers. A couple of the paying ones, used to more fawning treatment by the staff grumbled about the lack of expedient service. As she warned them of the staff shortage before shipping out and that they would mostly be left on their own, the grumbles were annoyances she hoped would not amount to much. As she also told them she would refund their passage if they wanted to go with the more opulent cruisers who could cater to their specific needs more easily and none accepted, she thought it was a storm she would weather. Considering most who booked with her were paying more for privacy than amenities, there hadn’t been much of a shift in the passenger list. The grumbling was more for form and she suspected that several of the passengers kept things quiet fearing if they grumbled too loudly they wouldn’t be allowed to book passage with her again.
They might not have said as much but she knew several were flying under the radar and trying to stay off of the more official looking vessels as they went about their business. With led her back to the not a manservant aboard her ship.
She was observant enough to know that many of her passengers dabbled in gray areas. She made certain that they were bending the law or skirting around restrictions she was comfortable skirting but avoided those engaged in the outright illegal.
Her sneaky passenger wasn’t just a bending of the law. He was being hunted in no less than three galaxies. Nearly every port where she docked featured wanted posters. Captains were warned not to grant passage. The consequences were dire.
The problem she faced was that she would have to deal with those consequences if she reported his passage, even if she hadn’t known when he boarded. She was past the midway point in the journey when she noticed and couldn’t have turned around if she wanted to. That wouldn’t matter much and she could still be held liable. He would either need to sneak off when they docked and not return to the ship, or hide out and stay out of sight until they reached their final destination. ‘Which means I’ll have to admit I know who he is.’ That too could bring unintended consequences.
Ten til Midnight 