So that was a whirlwind couple days. First I was interview hopping, trying to keep my suit clean and my hair straight as I shrugged off and on rented spacesuits, crammed myself into dirty space cabs, and rushed in to talk to someone that wasn’t going to ever call me back.

Damn rocket science degree. Just isn’t as useful anymore now that the ‘bots do all the designing and building. Course, that didn’t happen until I was a few months into grad school. Why quit then?

So some way or another, I ended up on a bender. Each major city, even the managed ones, has a section of town where the booze doesn’t require a permit, where the bartenders won’t look at you twice as you drink your life away. Me, I was just trying to kill the brain cells that spawned ambition.

Funny, that’s the part of town with the highest concentration of Air Fleet Recruiting Stations. So I guess I stumbled in there thinking it would be a way ahead.

Two days of training later, I was swabbing the deck with this lazy jerk.