*** Sorry this chapter took so long. There's a lot more already written, so the next one won't take as long to update. There's also still time to vote for what you'd like to see next. That's part of the reason it took so long for me to update. ***
He had been watching the station for hours, helmet and battle armor illuminated only by the console lights and screen. Snake free floated, harnessed to his pilot's chair as he quietly waited. There had been no activity in the surrounding space to suggest anyone was left around. He was acting only on a rumor and hunch he had picked up at a bar. The source sounded credible though. The guy hadn't been sloppy drunk, just inebriated enough to loosen his good sense and tongue. Snake had even bought him a round just for his helpfulness.
If this giant iron asteroid he was facing was the right one it was loaded, and so he had gone to find out if it was true. Back at the bar The Next One Over, on Alma 6 that furniture delivery guy just volunteered he had unloaded some expensive couches in an asteroid belt in the Bimmiel system. The guy bragged about getting a week's worth of pay as a tip. Snake remembered thinking it had to be someone rich who was either hiding, eccentric, or both.
Apparently, the curiosity had gotten the best of him. The ship's sensors had picked up another ship earlier that seemed to dissapper when he approached this part of the asteroid belt. At first he had stayed away thinking it might be a trap, but eventually concluded it was a coincidence. He had glanced at his ships console already knowing it was supposed to be cloaked. It never hurt to double check, but he hadn't detected any recent jumps to hyperspace. The only explaination was that the ship had simply disappeared into one of the asteroids at approximately this distance away.
The large iron one was the only one that could fit a starship inside, so he had slowly approached, and now his ship's computer was busy at work trying to convince the blast door he had found on the asteroid to open up. Numbers on the console ticked by at an imperceptible rate. This little code breaking gadget had come in handy at other stations he hadn't been invited to issuing a series of possible codes until a blast door would open. These doors were taking a suprising amount of time to break though. It was almost like it was military grade defense, and Snake began to get paranoid that he had been too close for too long.
Just as his hand reached forward to cancel it a chime rang confirming the code had finally been broken. He glanced up and sure enough the large doors sluggishly began to move. "I'm in. radio in to me if you don't hear back in 30 minutes." He sent a quick message over his helmet's comm.
A few moments later he began to dock. There was another ship in the bay, but no one was detected nearby. Quickly, he landed, and walked down his ship's ramp. Snake's olive drab armored suit was humanoid in shape, and he stood around 6'2" with a slim build. Blaster in hand, he made his way to the only opening to the hanger. There were a few parts and mechanical devices nearby not in use.
An display inside his helmet gave some idea of what the nearby hallways looked like from an overhead perspective. A sonar like device inside his ship had pinged the area with sound at a decibel that humans were unable to hear, and translated that image into a map inside his helmet.
Once, that little trick had come back to haunt him on a planet with the wrong species of alien on it. The sonar had acted as a sort of door bell announcing his presence, and things had quickly went downhill from there. That job was chalked up as a loss, but he had gotten out alive, and that's all that mattered.
He was lucky to be alive. Perhaps the force had some mission for him. Either that, or he had accidentally lived too long, and now it was only a matter of time before his luck ran out. This time the sonar could only give a partial display due to all of the iron inside the asteroid acting as interference. It was better than nothing, but he began to ignore it as he poked around. He usually only glanced up every once and a while to check his location.
The helmet visor now flickered as it adjusted to thermal view. A few heat signatures had caught his attention, but they were only heaters in the docking bay, and what must have been a public living area down the hallway to his left. It seemed that the amount of metal and structure material would also make it difficult to see very far with the thermal setting so he turned it off to conserve his suit's power supply.
His question had been answered though with a great deal of accuracy. There were no warm bodied individuals in the immediate area. "Spetlana, raise the ramp and take a break." He spoke into his helmet mic and the ship powered down to rest. "Tell me if you detect any activity."
The ship chimed back an affirmative jingle.
He turned down the hallway to the right, even though it seemed the less travelled path, just wanting to plunder a little, first. This section of the habitat seemed like a mixture of living quarters and office space, but there was nothing immediate that was important. A cold chill ran up his spine. Something was creepy about this place, and he suddenly had the desire to flee. For a place this size there didn't seem to be anybody living here though. Weird. It had all the appearances of being some large operation, but there had only been the one ship in the bay.
*Ding!* an electronic bell rang from down the hall behind him. He spun around raising his blaster in one fluid motion. It was just a turbo lift announcing that one would arrive at this floor soon. "One humanoid presence detected 30 meters away." Spetlana purred softly in his helmet. His gloved hand pressed a button on his suit, and the hallway light began to flow over him as if washing his image away.
Seconds later Jason Solo stepped off of the turbo lift and headed towards the hanger bay. It was so silent in the habitat with no one around. Very creepy. There were just the sounds of the heaters warming the bay and his footsteps echoing down the hall to keep him company.
The figure that had emerged from the turbo lift had surprised Snake. It was a young red haired human male wearing robes, with a lightsaber on his belt, and he didn't seem very happy. The male glanced up the hallway straight at him as he walked. Snake perspired inside his armored suit.
"Oh crap!" He thought. "I crashed the party on some sith lair!" "Maybe he's a jedi," Snake thought. "But probably not with my luck." He held his breath, and the young man continued on without a second thought. Even though Snake's suit was invisible through cloaking technology it was a nervous habit whenever someone looked directly at him. He would wonder if somehow they'd spotted him. The young man just turned the corner and headed inside the hangar area.
Although immersed in thought the other ship now inside the bay haddn't escape Jason's attention. "I don't remember that." He said to himself out loud, stopping momentarily.
As he reached his ship he glanced around cautiously, but credited it to his having been experiencing so much at the time that they had arrived, that he had somehow overlooked the small ship. It was an inconspicuous olive drab color, after all. He soon payed it no attention and headed up the ramp of the ship that he and the others had came on. Jason had been busy trying to think of how to address Luke when he checked in, not wanting to give too much away, but still sound too busy to stay in close contact in case Luke pried. If he somehow found out Jason, Ben, and Nelani were hanging out with some stranger named Brisha it would be over, and he'd never find the answer to the questions Brisha could give him. But there was more. He felt something for her, a closeness he couldn't yet explain, and wanted to find out what it meant. There was some connection, an almost lure Brishah had for him.