Missed Korolev Station… but reconnected with an annoying old friend.

Remember… I was talking in a previous log about the gamble you take with astrogation? Destination was supposed to be Xin Caodi in the Kalidasa System, but I was having a fine time just leaving the Red Sun vicinity. Heinlein System orbits elliptically around Red Sun… Silverhold behaves itself around Heinlein… I was aiming to increase the velocity on my soon to be vector for Xin Caodi… however...

Yeah… well musta been my sixth sense, or Gypsy Trader was whispering to me; the Nav-Sys had developed a deviation… so my attempted "sling-shot" using Silverhold's gravity-well held all the earmarks of total disaster… Into the center of a Brown Dwarf kind of disaster!

Using more of the fuel than I originally intended to save by sling-shotting, I diverted toward Paquin… not one of my favorite places truth be told. Took a chance, once in system…sending a wave or two and found an ASNAV techie…located on a small hardscrabble-moon called Shinbone of all places. 

The Port Authority such as it is on Shinbone consists of a single part-timer who rarely answers a wave unless someone blasts them with an "URGENT". 
When the so call Port Officer picked up my wave, the garbled voice was strangely familiar, then the visual-image cleared I was struck with the sight of Kendra-Tsu Bell glaring back at me. Kendra-Tzu is a sly old Independent and, an acquaintance leaning to the friendship side of the scale. And Kendra has always been an Independent in many more ways than that she wore the Browncoat.

At first I thought I was in luck, to run into an old friend, on a tiny moon the size of a grapefruit.

However... Kendra-Tsu started gettin' all officious sounding like she was in charge of Eavesdown Docks with her giving me a load of 粪  about "Customs inspections, and Quarentine, and Transient Dock Fees… before I had even gotten clearance to land!

Maybe the look on my face did it, Kendra could hold back no longer, she burst out laughing long and loud and merry... like I had not heard her do in way too long. The Port Officer was playfully yanking at my last frayed nerve.

Speaking of transient… the timing could not have been better: That ASNAV Tech, was less than 48 hours from leaving Shinbone. He took less than 40 minutes to recalibrate the Nav-sys deviation. This gave Kendra and me a chance to catch up on old times, and hopes, and losses… so maybe the "Compass" wheeled in the right direction after all.

…but that woman's way of arguing a point always wound up giving me a headache… no wait, it is her choice of potable that does that.

Guessin' Kendra-Tzu Bell be-a-doin' well ...where she's settled… We're gonna keep in touch… can't have too many friends in the Verse… even annoying ones.

* * *

Damn or Hally-loo-ya... looks like Gypsy will arrive at Xin Caodi on, or the day before, Unification Day… maybe there is a way to turn that tid-bit to an advantage… fingers crossed.