“So what’s your story,” Jesse asked, once they had finished unloading onto an unnamed dock in a nondescript station in the middle of literal nowhere in space. There was no intrigue or drama on any of the shipments they had carried over the past month or so. Jesse found herself wanting, for once in her life, to know about the people who surrounded her. Hunter was easy. She volunteered her history without any filters, but Sheldon, Spook that is, wasn’t very forthcoming on anything. Even though he explained everything about the ship’s history. A history that was extremely bloody, before the attack that had almost killed Hunter, lost the second shuttle, and nearly gotten the ship scrapped. He described everything as if he had been there, and witnessed it all firsthand, but then, he would have had to have been one of the pirates. That was something she couldn’t imagine. But maybe an accusation like that could… “You weren’t one of the pirates when the ship was called the Low Key, were you?” “Oh no,” Spook smiled bitterly, “They were real evil. Killed everyone they encountered. Destroyed everything in their wake.” His smile took on a satisfied appearance, “and to a man they were executed.” “Spaced?” Jesse asked, and almost wished she hadn’t. He shuddered a moment. Was Hunter right? That seemed to shake him a bit. “No,” he said after a moment, “but that would have been fitting. They had spaced so many.” “So how do you know all this,” she asked, “and all the details…if you weren’t there.” “I think I know what you’re trying to get at,” he said, “I don’t talk about the past much like Jaimey or Hunter.” Then he smiled again,”but it’s kind of hard to trust someone you don’t know. I don’t even go by my real name. That’s got to be more than a little suspicious. The man that was Sheldon Dark is long dead. He died near a place called Dante. Named after an old book about Hell.” Spook sat down and took in a long breath, and started explaining to Jesse why he no longer called himself by that name and why, given the choice, he’d be happy to never be outside a spaceship again, even when that spaceship was safely parked on some planet somewhere.
