Song of the Seeker

None of it looked man-made or any species of the Alliance. What she found strange, above the ethereal architecture, was the lack of vessels, noise, and people moving about. The Jumper agency was surprisingly still for a factory of spy craft and mysticism. Perhaps this was all a part of an illusion to keep outsiders out. So much had come to pass since getting permission to travel on leave. She had been worried. The Nighthawks were more than capable without her to help put wind in their sails. It wasn’t the physical she feared. The intangibles tended to occur whenever she was absent.

How strange it was to worry for an operator’s life when she, more than most, knew the heavy toll that came with the position. Still, logic was no easy replacement for love and care for her only friends in the galaxy. She had been made to wear a uniform while visiting the agency. Soft-soled shoes, black along with everything else, a low-cut silk shirt, comfortable pants, and a hooded blue cloak over one shoulder to let the agents know she was a guest inside their halls.

This was the first day after settling in for the night and sleeping like a stone. Her fellow Nighthawk and traveling companion, Sundown, whisked her away to breakfast inside a strange, small room with terminals mounted near the ceiling displaying feeds of activity on several space stations. The food had been a sort of pudding, bland, but it came with an assortment of powders for flavoring it to preference. It was a struggle for a spacer used to food processing units and rations in bar form, but she eventually figured it out and scarfed it down.