It sat there gleaming greenish chrome, bobbing gently in the antigrav field, looking for all the world like an oversized hand-held hair-dryer. In the gloom of the hangar, it might have been sitting deep underwater, and not for the first time I cursed the Federation's decorative aesthetics. Gallente-designed stations never flatter the ships on display.I tugged the silken sheet closer around my shoulders. I'd only felt like curling up and waiting for the world to go away, but my brain wouldn't let me sleep. In the end, I'd opted for taking the sheet with me to sit on the floor of my suite's living-room in front of the massive floor-to-ceiling window that overlooked the hangar.
The view wasn't particularly thrilling. Normally, I could look out there and see the Switchblade or the Geiger adrift at dock and smile at the memories and the possibilities. But the Handbasket was the most uninspiring view I'd ever seen. It even beat the Dominix I'd owned for a few short days; and I'd thought that had been ugly.
Maybe it was because of what she stood for: hours spent bouncing from belt to belt in search of a Serpentis battleship to pop. The most mind-numbing, soul-destroying experience short of being almost entirely trapped in that one system full of reds when my last corp fell apart.
Maybe I ought to rename the ship, but being in hell with the Handbasket tweaked the poetic side of my brain.
After all the suggestions people had made as to how to improve my nullsec experience, I'd sent an order for new modules and ammo to a friend. I told myself I was waiting for the new gear, but I knew I was simply making excuses to not get back in the pod and lose more of my sanity in the emptiness of Syndicate space.
What made me truly reluctant was the knowledge that, once I raised my sec up, I would indeed have to do this regularly if I wanted to continue to roam lowsec in between alliance highsec operations. Was it worth it?
I let myself flop back onto the carpet, folding one arm under my head, and stared at the arched ceiling. Was it, indeed?
