<a class="link link--internal" href="https://bluemoonroleplaying.com/forums/showthread.php?tid=83335&amp;pid=2015179#pid2015179"><span class="fixed-color" style="color:#dda0dd">Iona Knutesdottir<br/>
</span></a>Kohlberg Station<br/>Midwatch<br/>Tagged: Thomyris<br/><br/>Unaware of the violence that portended calamity for her crew and ship that was taking place in another part of the<i>souk</i>, Iona kept half an eye on Thomyris as she led them through the it in search of cargo.  The rest of her attention was on the various small wares displayed, a slice of humanity she'd never seen in just this way before and never would again.  Each time Iona went planet side or station side, it was like dipping her hand in a flowing river; each time it was the same but each time she knew the water she felt was felt by her for the first time and would soon swirl downstream and she'd never feel the same water again.  The St. Anne was constant, almost exactly the same as her parent's ship, the one she'd grown up on, and if a bit of paint or line of welding differed it wasn't enough to mean that if Iona closed her eyes she couldn't get from one end of the ship to the other without bumping into anything.  The stations and planets though were just familiar enough each time to feel comfortable but different enough to keep her fascinated.<br/><br/>It even showed a little bit in her eyes and in her face as Iona paused to run a hand over a bolt of torofiber gengineered silk, the smoothness of it catching at the roughness of her skin in a wonderful sensation.  "Hold on," she told Thomyris and negotiated a quick deal for a quarter meter of it that was folded up into a square of paper and tucked into her thigh pocket opposite her shard pistol.  She had absolutely no need for it but that wasn't the point was it?  Want and need, like she'd told the doctor, weren't the same thing.  Iona may not ever do anything at all with the fabric other than occasionally touch it or look at it, but sometimes in a life where everything had a purpose and a place the odd bit of random beauty was important.<br/><br/>"Too bad about the power loader batteries," she said when Thomyris was done.  "Cubic that dense always fetches a good price because of the delta-v cost."  Not seeing the tension in Thomyris' body about the destination of that particular load, the Captain pondered the other offers.<br/><br/>"Now that we're not docked, our station keeping costs are nothing.  The only way we're spending creds as a ship is on salaries and chow.  But we're not making money either, so in a sense we are losing creds every minute we don't have a load.  Not a lot, but enough that after the forty-eight I gave the crew I want to be ready to shift mass and burn away from this gravity well."<br/><br/>Iona absently slapped away a hand from a passing man, one that intended to either cup her ass or see if she had anything worth stealing.  It wasn't escalated by either party and he moved on even as Iona dismissed it with no further action.  Now if he'd been better looking...<br/><br/>"I've had a call sheet up for a cargo for hire since we came in system.  That's a good idea you had about putting it up, and remember to think ahead of the power curve for the ship and the ship's account.  Knowing approximately how long it would take to dock, unload, and load meant I could put out our tonnage for hire as soon as we dropped into the system but so far nothing has been profitable.  And I mean break even profitable.  So we can forget that."<br/><br/>"Although I am tempted by the idea of being a space cowboy and running cattle," she said and then laughed, a hearty and rich sound from her tall body.  "Jesu, can you imagine Serena or Elain's faces when they found out?"  Iona laughed again, drawing a few looks but not caring.<br/><br/><hr class="bbc-hr bbc-hr--3"/><br/><br/>"Take the abomination," the man ordered after flicking through a series of pictures of each of the crew members, some of them so recent that they'd been uploaded even as he began perusing them.  A finger flick threw Mateo's picture from the datapad in his hands onto the wall where the man-machine was now projected at life size.  "He concerns me the most."  Unaware of the threat Donovan represented, of the violence he was even now carrying out, the man had picked Mateo as the most dangerous of the St. Anne's crew, and by singling him out he would both remove the threat and give Iona something she needed to bargain back.<br/><br/>A slip of a girl with no real skills beyond potentially turning tricks in a station side crib house versus the oiled mechanical capability of a man-machine that could fill any number of useful roles on a ship?<br/><br/>Iona would be a fool not to trade Thomyris for Mateo in a heartbeat, and likely realize she was better off without the liability of a debtor runaway.  And, the man thought, you didn't get to be both a captain of a ship and a fool.<br/><br/>Iona would make the swap, he was certain of it.<br/><br/>"Go," he said and fingers dabbled towards the exit, dismissing his people.<br/><br/>On the wall Mateo's visage stared out, unaware of what lay in store for him.