Once the jump drive was ready the Appalachia immediately jumped to the next system. Hendricks turned the record player, and ANDI returned the record to the place he had taken it from. Both Rodriguez and Captain Starforged returned to their seats in the cockpit.


    "Well, that was… interesting," Rebecca said not really sure how to react.


    "You get used to it.” Morgan crossed her arms and tried to forget the sight of her captain dancing like an idiot in front of an outsider.


    Captain Starforged brushed Rebecca and Morgan’s comments aside and turned in his seat toward Hendricks. "What''s our location?"


    Hendricks pressed a button on the control console, and a panel above the one that contained the record player automatically popped out. It had what looked like a light blue marble in the center which projected a star map of the Milky Way, and zoomed in on their current location.


    Hendricks swiped his finger across the virtual projection, causing a virtual dossier of the current star system to appear. "Slavic System. There are no habitable worlds or orbital space stations registered. The perfect place for pirates to attack don''t you think captain?"


    Captain Starforged had a maniacal grin on his face. "It is indeed helmsman.”


    Rebecca was unsure exactly what was going on, but she got the impression that they already knew that Tranquil Blue was sending pirates after them. It also seemed like that was exactly what the crew wanted. "Who are you people?"


    "We''re the Starforged Detective Agency." Captain Starforged shrugged his shoulders as if she should have known that already. "You seemed to already know a lot about us, so I figured you''d know that much already. Even if you didn''t, didn''t you see it on the side of the ship?"


    Before she could respond Morgan spoke up. "There''s no way she could have. You put it on the worst place. Nobody''s going to see that right below one of the engine vents. You should have put it near the cockpit where everyone looks."


    "Well, I don''t want to display it too prominently. We do a lot of shadier jobs, so I don''t want everyone knowing we’re PI’s."


    Morgan rolled her eyes. "Then why put it on the ship in the first place if you don''t want people seeing it."


    It was weird to listen to her argue because she never sounded angry, nor did she raise her voice. However, if you paid attention you could identify the subtle difference in her voice when she''s irritated. It sounds more like she was mocking you, then like she''s actually angry.


    "It''s a pride thing." Captain Starforged then sighed because he realized that he lost this battle. After a few moments of silence, he began to speak again. "Well enough of that. While we still have the time to decide we should discuss what to do with the girl."


    Hendricks was the first to speak up. "Space her.”


    Love this novel? Read it on Royal Road to ensure the author gets credit.


    This was followed by everyone else one after the other saying the exact same thing.


    Rebecca squirmed frantically hoping by some miracle the handcuffs would come loose. They had all just said they were going to toss her into the void of space, and it wasn’t hard for her to believe that these people would. However, all of a sudden the rest of the human crew members all started dying of laughter.


    "Man did you see the look on her face?" Captain Starforged removed his fedora while continuing to laugh hysterically.


    Even Morgan, who seemed pretty cold and emotionless all the time cracked a smile, and chuckled a bit.


    "I don''t get it. What''s so funny?" Rebecca had a sheepish look on her face. She was starting to thin” this crew got a kick out of threatening people.


    Rodriguez recollected himself and explained everything to Rebecca. "You''ll have to forgive our dark sense of humor kid. You need to be able to crack those kinds of jokes. A dark sense of humor goes a long way when you see as much crap as we do."


    Hendricks wiped the tears out of his eyes for laughing so hard. "Yeah you really can''t take things too seriously when you staving off death every day.”


    "Uh I regret this decision. Maybe I should have stayed in my shuttle." Rebecca was completely done with all the craziness she''s had to tolerate after only being onboard for a few minutes. She couldn’t believe that these people were just laughing at her distress. What kind of monsters were they?


    Morgan put her hand on Rebecca''s shoulder. She could see how distressed Rebecca was, but Morgan wasn’t going to rebuke her colleagues. Morgan had a military background and cruel jokes like this were the norm. “It’s another one of those things you just get used to kid."


    Rebecca just frowned at all of them. After the emotional roller coaster, she just went through she wasn''t able to think of any witty comebacks.


    Captain Starforged changed the expression on his face from humorous to one that was both soft and warm. "So anyways what''s your name kid?”


    It was strange for Rebecca to see such a sudden change. Just a moment ago she was a little terrified of him and everyone else on the ship, but right then when she saw the captain’s warm smile, she felt like she could let her guard down.


    Everyone else was giving off a similar warmth after they had calmed down, except for Morgan whose face just seemed stuck at neutral, or indifference.


    "Like I said before, my name’s Rebecca, Rebecca Powers. And I came here because I wanted to join your crew. My life back on Sortis was pretty boring, so I decided I wanted a little more adventure.” Rebecca became a lot more boisterous while she started naming off her skills. Some of the Appalachia’s crew, like the captain, might have been weird, but Rebecca got the impression that this crew might be fun to travel with. "I''m an extremely talented hacker; a certified genius in fact. And I have plenty of connections that you guys would be able to use if you let me join your crew. I promise you won''t regret it."


    Captain Starforged was impressed by her resume, if it was in fact true, but he was concerned that she might be more of a hindrance if they just had to protect her all the time. "What about your combat skill?"


    Rebecca awkwardly laughed a little since she didn''t have any combat ability that she knew about. Despite the fact that she was an infamous information broker she actually never met any of her contacts in person, and all the info she gathered was from computer systems. If she needed info that couldn''t be found using this method, she''d usually lean on one of her connections to do it for her. Essentially, Rebecca had never been placed in a position where she''d need to fight.


    "Actually, I''ve never even been in a fight before.” Rebecca wasn’t going to hide her incompetence as a fighter, because she wholeheartedly expected they''d put her through some kind of test to see her skills. Rebecca would just end up making a bigger fool of herself then she had already done.


    Captain Starforged’s reply was laced with sarcasm and a lack of enthusiasm. "Oh, great. ANDI, throw her out the airlock.”


    “Eek.” Rebecca squealed as ANDI picked her up.


    Captain Starforged shook his head. “ANDI, I was joking. Put her down.”