Nexus Spaceport, Garriga Sector
8,070,174,044,183,120 Universal Standard Time
2557 October 17 04:53 Earth Standard Time

“Samuel John Hawke, human, age 37, born 2520 according to the Terran Alliance calendar at Utopia Basin, Mars, master of vessel license code ending in X13047,” the android with multifaceted eyes says as it reads information off its workstation. “Is that correct?”

“Yeah,” you utter with a sigh. After waiting to renew your license for almost nine hours you vowed to never delay until the last minute again. You hadn’t planned on renewing it at the busiest spaceport in known space, of course, but a final inspection on your new ship turned up a faulty jump sequence initiator so here you are. The dealer is fixing the problem but it has put you a few days behind schedule.

The good news is you were able to use that time to hire a crew, save for your first mate. That’s your next order of business after this robot is done doing whatever the frak it’s doing. You’ll have to get through the list of candidates quickly. Your client is expecting you to start the job tomorrow and you don’t want to fall behind on your first job with an actual crew in a real ship, not just your old shuttle.

The android's iridescent digits glide over a holographic panel as it processes your renewal. “This will just take a few moments.”

You ignore the tin can and glance around the large waiting room for what must be the thousandth time today. There must be over two thousand beings here of every species you’ve ever seen before and a few you haven’t. And just what the hell is that thing in the front row doing? Nursing its young? Mating? Eating? All of the above? There were truly some disgusting creatures in the galaxy.

That’s why you worked alone for a while. That and you couldn’t afford a crew let alone a bigger ship that requires one. But now you do have a bigger ship and a crew and thankfully your little company is still well under the employee limit to have to deal with hiring quotas. So whatever that thing is is not getting aboard your ship and doing whatever it’s doing.

The android interrupts your thoughts. “You indicated on your renewal that you recently acquired a new spacecraft. Bureau records do not yet show the vessel’s information. Before I can finalize your request I must know the make and model of your ship and its identification sequence.”