[center][img]https://fontmeme.com/permalink/190711/d85b94130afb7c4900935f5ab212fa77.png
 [/img]
[sub][url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_QJMrntZOVE]♫ Mood Music ♫[/url][/sub][/center]
[right][hr][color=white][b][b]Smith's Rest | Transit Station[/b][/b][/color]
January 16th, 2677[hr][/right]

[indent][indent][indent]
[i]You want to get yourself killed quick, walk into a job without any information.[/i] Those words stuck with Alan when the tram slowed to a crawl at the station. He stuck to the middle of the pack, letting the excited young pilots hop out and kiss all the ass they wanted. He had a reputation for being [i]pleasant[/i] but he was not a saluting, ass-kissing, step in line kind of person. He was used to those kinds of pilots trying to work their way up to some kind of corporate position. Going from indies to corporate wasn’t unheard of, but it wasn’t exactly common either. It had been somewhere in his fifth year piloting that he got a letter of recommendation from one of the job contacts in Denver, offering him an interview with the brass at one of the Northern Bases. 

Alan had declined. 

Now here he was in the middle of the frozen north, having already signed the preliminary documents, to do what exactly? Play soldier for, who? This man? He’d seen a picture of Graham-not a great quality one-but enough that he knew exactly who the man was, standing in his stoic pose as he greeted the new pilots. Alan was busy eyeing up the others coming in and where they fell in with him; there were the foreigner pilots: twins and the woman with the thick accent. 

He eyed some of those walking with the other man, Alvarez. Desk jockeys and people probably at a higher pay-grade than his; but one particular character piqued Alan’s interest. He’d seen the man’s face before; somewhere in some news article on the net. He turned to see another figure to join the pilots, and that gave him the biggest shock of all: an older woman, grandmotherly in her stature. The fact that he could eye her neural connector on her neck scared him. Was she some old codger who got tested? Or was she a vet? He didn’t know which idea messed with him more. 

[hr][hr] 
[color=red]"It’s a job down south, near Lonestar. Just a simple caravan job. But it’s in a town called Serath. Don’t know if you’ve heard of it before.”[/color] 

[color=gray]"It’s the retirement community for pilots, right?”[/color]

That’s what he’d thought. A place for old vets to settle down and relax in their twilight years. Folks had murmured about it before, but he’d never thought to travel there himself. Maybe he’d see what a possible future for him would be. 

When he got there, he saw what it really was. Men too feeble-minded to walk. The smell of piss permeating the rooms. It wasn’t a retirement home, it was more of a hospital for the insane. [i]Not everyone’s like this,[/i] he remembered someone, an aide or a nurse telling him, [i]but the effects of Polaris Shift still aren’t too understood. The fact that any of them live into their 40s is a miracle.[/i] The oldest guy there looked like he was an elder. But how old was he? 50? Being a pilot did not promise an easy life. No, being a pilot meant you threw your future away. 

[hr][hr] 
How would this old woman fare next to the others? How did she look so healthy? These were all questions haunting Alan as he did his best to keep his composure from the cold. Alan looked around the group of pilots, surprised at the number that had gathered. [color=gray]“Gee-zus,”[/color] he muttered to himself, visible air escaping his mouth, [color=gray]“are we startin’ a goddamn army?”[/color]  

[/indent][/indent][/indent]