His boots kicked up splashes of fishy water puddled on the road in his haste to get to the docking bay for airships; the soaked ankles of his tan khakis were a dark brown. Craig grabbed onto the satchel slung across his shoulder with one hand, with the other holding a common assault rifle camouflaged in the notorious blue of the Kappa gang. Commoners in the marketplace gave way to him with fearful glances. Craig scanned the crowd for any gang member who might recognise he wasn’t one of their own, or the Muldje, who harboured an intense rivalry against the Kappa - a bitterness that would have been assuaged by the satchel of precious gems he now carried. 

He broke through the stench of the sea in the rowdy marketplace and into the open field where airships waited. The docking bay was mostly empty of exportation vessels on the weekend; he needed a small, fast ship to pilot off of the planet and there was just one - a runner and its crew that was replenishing supplies, looking ready to go.

The Captain - a young and pretty, hardened woman - was dealing with a potential passenger. “Gorram it,” Craig muttered when he walked close enough to have a better look at the man: McGarrety, a grounded, fellow Alliance soldier who had had a few beers with him on random occasions when his own patrol ship had landed to resupply. He could only hope the drunken nights had washed McGarrety clean of any memory of him.

Craig waited at a polite distance for the Captain; and when she was ready to meet him, he bowed, as the local etiquette demanded of a Kappa member, and said, “Konnichiwa, I am Ben Williamson, Ma’am. I’m looking to go to Persephone.”