I was approaching Jumptown. The orientation to the landscape features was not easy. I was tense, with dry lips and a dry throat. In the last times, Jumptown has been blocked recently. Even a Hammerhead was spotted, attacking anyone who approached the drug lab. I started a scan to see if anyone was around. The area was lonely and abandoned.

I was about to land when I saw a point on the horizon that was getting bigger. I retracted the landing gear and regained altitude. I squinted, trying to see what was coming right towards me. It was a Cutlass. I had no idea what she was up to and kept my finger on the trigger. The other pilot was probably similar. Our two ships floated, eye to eye, weapons hot, the other exactly in view. Who first twitched? I tried to relax the situation and turned a role. The other Cutlass did the same. Relieved, I let out a breath and relaxed. We both landed and went to the labs airlock when suddenly a dark shadow came over us. I froze and looked up nervously. It was a Starfar Gemini, its massive guns aimed directly at us and our ships. Should this be the last thing I would see?

There were a few seconds of waiting, time seemed to stand still, nothing happened. Had the Starfarer wanted to shoot, she could have done so long ago. But maybe she waited until we had loaded our ships to get the loot. We took the risk. The drug labs storage was full and I was able to fully load the Cutlass.

When I started, the Starfar landed, she was just waiting, I was lucky.
With my load of drugs I flew to the rest stop, where I had made contacts on my return flight from Hurston. Although I got a good price, but I could only sell a portion of the cargo.

Now I was sitting on a cargo that was declared as medical supplies and hard to sell. I flew to the other rest stops, but could only sell a part there.

Finally, I flew to Lorville in the hope that the big city has a big need. But even here I could not sell everything that I still had.
I still flew some outposts on the moons until I sold everything. But that turned out to be a good coincidence. So I got a good picture of what was needed.

With empty cargo space, I approached Jumptown again. A constellation floated above the outpost. I scanned her and was relieved to find out it was my old buddy Sirch. We helped each other. One landed while the other remained in the air to guard.

This time, however, I did not fill up the cargo hold. I flew on to a farm to fill the hold with Distilled Spirits. With that I flew to the Rest Stop, where I could sell Distilled Spirits and some of the drugs. On the way back to GrimHex I flew to other outposts where I could sell the rest of the drugs and trade legal goods.

I had found my way and my place. It was not the footsteps of Kylo nor his place in the bar in Levski. My place was in the bar in GrimHex, my way, a seemingly legal business, garnished with illegal transactions. I still felt that the People’s Alliance where my people, my home and retreat was still Levski, but my base of operations was GrimHex.