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Apparently, orange doesn't fly off the shipyard shelves. They had an abundance of it. The paint was very old. The coverage varied in tone and hue. It covered the blue primer well. That's all that mattered.
Now that Babe is repaired and upgraded she needs a new name.
Captain Bleak wasn't enthusiastic about renaming her. She had been called Babe for 10 years.
Captain Bleak and his wife bought Babe together. He had the cash and she the business savvy. Babe was to be the first of many in their stable.
But times got tough faster than expected.
Eventually their poor financial situation forced them to spend more time apart. He continued moving freight. She took the shuttle and got them business. They were barely one step ahead of the bank. He missed her terribly.
In one of her regular waves she was excited about a new opportunity. Unfortunately, the wave connection was full of static. The worst he ever saw. She smiled and said it could wait until she returned home.
She never made it back home...
A heartless Bureaucrat, with a cold report in hand delivered the bad news. The shuttle had been destroyed. It had been fired upon by an unknown vessel. Only tiny fragments of the shuttle were found. Her body had been vaporized.
For a long time after that, the widower Bleak lived up to his name. He did all kinds of bad things.
But that's all in the past. Now he is out of debt, his ship is in prime condition and his crew is fat and sassy.
The only thing missing is his dearly departed wife. But he knows she isn't dead if he always remembers her. So it is only fitting that he renames the ship after her, "Saffron."