<strong>Mariner's Gate Space Station ~ 4 months ago </strong><br/><em><span class="bbc_size" style="font-size: 8pt;">(Thalia, Santiago and Samson cross paths)</span></em><br/><br/><div class="floatleft">(http://imageshack.com/a/img820/9851/oy3u.jpg)</div>It was a long story, how Thalia had come to be out here. The last few years had seen her move from ship to ship and now she was working as a medic on Mariner's Gate station. Out in the black, halfway between the core world of Londinium and the border world of Persephone, the station played an important role in providing fuel, spare parts, supplies and medical assistance to those who needed it. There wasn't anything else around for a week in any direction, if you were travelling at a good speed. The station also doubled as a home to couriers, smugglers, traders, pirates and freelance pilots alike, who regularly sought entertainment on the giant, hulking, floating mass of metal.<br/><br/>The station had no quarantine procedure to speak of, as the man named Whitehall - the rich coreworlder who ran the station - put it,  who in the arse end of space would want that? The sick and injured kept Thalia and the other medics busy enough, working in the small clinic on the second level. After a week, Thalia was reconsidering taking the job, after a month, she was aching to ship out of there. "Oh my gawd, I hate this job so much." It was night time now, and she lay on her small bunk, staring at the ceiling, while her bunkmate snored across the room. "No amount of credits is worth this."<br/><br/>There was a poetic irony to the timing, because her decision to get out for some fresh(er) air, led her to the entertainment level. A row of pubs, danceclubs, restaurants and brothels sat in a tidy row across the width of the station, while a ridiculously garish fountain decorated the centre of the level. It wasn't so bad, once you adjusted to the sight. Travellers passing through would drop coins into the water, wishing for love or a brighter future, and the whole bottom of the fountain was covered with the glitter of coins.. and a layer of slime because no one had cleaned it out in years.<br/><br/>She'd need her money if she was going to leave, but Thalia glanced up from the fountain to see what seemed a familiar face in the crowd. She was sure it couldn't be, but she ventured closer.. because if she didn't, she'd wonder. "Santiago?" she asked, suddenly sure it was him. They'd worked on the same ship 6 months back, so it wasn't in the realm of impossibility that he'd be out here.<br/>