Tracey hurriedly shut the door behind her to prevent the flames that had been licking hungrily at her caboose all the way down the corridor, from following her inside. Then, almost falling into one of the gravity couches, she hurriedly strapped herself into it before punching the emergency release. She hoped the escape system still worked. It did.. -- Prodigal Sun

Tracey hurriedly shut the door behind her to prevent the flames that had been licking hungrily at her caboose all the way down the corridor, from following her inside. Then, almost falling into one of the gravity couches, she hurriedly strapped herself into it before punching the emergency release. She hoped the escape system still worked. It did. The explosive dead-bolts fired, shaking the pod loose, dislodging it from the rapidly disintegrating wreck, just about shaking the crap out of her on its bone-jarring way into the great wide open.

Time did exist here, in small amounts (well some of the time) – and there were feint eddies and currents of time here, things that were barely tangible. Feint forces of the universe they were, nearly indiscernible from the nothingness like a warm breeze on a hot summer night. How long he had been here, he knew not – but he was slowly learning to master these barely tangible waves like a new surfer with one foot on the sandy beach and the other on a shiny new board of Hatred. Revenge splashed around his feet like the cold waves of the ocean of Time. Nearby, two other inmates collided with each other, bounced apart spread-eagled and spiraled off into the distance in infinite slowness. The Wetsuit of Insanity clung to his spiritual body, isolating him from the timelessness that seemed to exist here. A wind of Change blew at him from behind and he pushed off from the beach with iron determination and a mental clarity hereto before unknown to him. Something in the microcosm that didn’t even have a name went ‘bling’ and against all the laws of probability, Brad Xyl opened his eyes.

Now he sat alone; on a disabled starship about fifty years from anywhere on conversion drive – assuming he still had that. Insurance was a good thing – a very good thing - but it wasn’t going to help him much out here. The highlight of his afternoon was going to be staring at the blinking bridge instrumentation – which just happened to be running on the emergency batteries and actually blinking, like for real. Moreover, since his mutinous crew had made off with the Short Shit, the ships only shuttle, he was facing quite a problem

Who is the more courageous? The big, tough gay-basher, or the LGBTI person who faces their threats on a daily basis and carries on being honest about who they are regardless?

RSL has more star-liners than any other company, and covers every commercial route in known space. Demeter is one of the biggest, carrying up to 4500 passengers and crew at any single point on its never-ending, circular cruise around the Terran Empire. And me? Where do I fit in? My name is Sean Lange, and you will probably have never heard of me. It’s sad somehow, I always wanted to leave some kind of a legacy in this life, and perhaps to be remembered. Instead, circumstances have arranged it so that this is probably the last time I will ever use that name.