After spending four hours wandering aimlessly around the city, Owen had found himself standing outside the yard of a starship recovery and salvage company. Through the open gates he could see various supportcraft of all shapes and sizes on display. He strolled in and began looking at the first thing that took his interest, a civilian version of the new Type 11 Shuttle. It was one of the largest shuttles built to date and was operational only on the newest of the Starfleet vessels. As he walked around the outside of the shuttle he was aware of someone approaching him from behind.
As he turned round to look, a voice called out, "How ya doin', young fella?"
"Erm, fine thanks," Owen replied, somewhat surprised at the man.
Owen saw that he was about 5 feet 9 inches tall, fairly large built and wearing formal business-like clothing. His hair had a greasy, over-styled look about it and was swept to one side.
"I'm Ron Sanford, I'm the company executive here," he introduced himself and shook Owen's hand. "Are you looking for anything in particular?"
"Well I was just looking at..." Owen began, but was interrupted by Sanford.
"...the Omega Class, lovely bird," he burst out. "How much you looking to pay?"
"I dunno rea..." Owen began but was interrupted again.
"Well the Omega's top of the range in private shuttles, it'll set you back a good twenty thousand credits."
Owen took a moment to digest the number and then had to physically prevent his jaw from dropping open.
"It might be nice, but I think I'd prefer something smaller," he replied. "And cheaper."
Sanford laughed, "of course you would, come this way..."
Sanford led Owen through the yard to a row of smaller craft. He immediately noticed a civilian version of the Type 9 shuttle as used on the Intrepid class. Sanford walked straight to it, having noticed Owen's interested glance.
"This is the Centauri Class, as you probably knows it's made to the same spec as the Type 9 Starfleet shuttle," Sanford began. "Capable of sustained warp 5 travel, maximum rated to warp 6, single-crewed, 3 passengers and adequate storage space."
"How much?" Owen asked.
"Brand new I can do for ten thousand credits," Sanford said.
Owen still looked slightly put-off by the cost.
"This one," Sanford continued quickly. "Is secondhand, but it's only got 10 lightyears on the clock, and its bodyworks pristine, so I can bring it down to eight thousand."
Owen thought to himself for a moment and quickly looked at the two sides of the craft.
"Would you like to test it?" Sanford asked, trying to provoke an interested reaction.
"What about guarantee, servicing?" Owen asked.
"Full three year manufacturer's warranty, any repair facilities under the Federation Repairer's Union will fix it whatever's wrong," Sanford replied. "As for servicing, I can deal with that if you're on Serenity or nearby, but there's a servicing manual in it and to be honest a trained monkey could fix one."
Owen nodded, in an accepting manner, it seemed that Sanford had everything covered. Sanford noticed the response and pulled a small communicator-sized device from his pocket and tapped a button on the top. As he did the rear hatch of the shuttle began to open and the reactor began whirring to life.
"The engines can be powered up by remote on those cold mornings, it has a built in alarm and theft deterrent system, a forcefield basically," Sanford commented and led Owen inside the small craft.
The interior was a dark blue color, the four seats, the two side by side at the front, and two facing to the port and starboard immediately behind them were covered in a blue leather-look material. Sanford sat down in the co-pilot's seat, and gestured to Owen to sit in the pilot's. He did so and swiveled the seat around to look around the interior of the craft.
"The interior is custom-made, there are only three like it, the majority of these have standard brown or gray drab insides," Sanford began. "The computers aren't the average LCARS system either..."
Sanford tapped the black panel of the pilots console, bringing the panel to life. The various touch screen areas were colored pale blue and pale yellow and the warning sections red. The layout of the console was somewhat different to an LCARS design, but the principle was the same, just the touch areas were differently shaped -- more stylized than the functional design utilized by Starfleet.
"You've got all mod cons, links to the Federation database, 9 speaker surround sound holographic audio and visual entertainment system," Sanford continued. "There's a secure locker below your console for storage of valuables, or weapons if needs be."
Owen glanced down at the drawer below the console and then around at the small holo-emitters which were inside the rear of the cabin.
"All in all, it's a snatch at eight thousand," Sanford finished.
"Seven and a half and I'll take it," Owen said, turning to look Sanford straight in the eye.
Sanford seemed to immediately back down from his oppressive manner, obviously the stare did make a difference.
"Ok, I can do that, she's all yours, let's sort the paperwork out," he said and pulled a PADD from inside his jacket.
After a moment of tapping on the PADD he passed it to Owen and asked him to read a paragraph aloud and confirm his personal details and the transaction was complete.
"That's it then, the bird's yours. Spacedock can accommodate parking her up free of charge at the moment, unless you've somewhere out of the city," he said as he stood up and left the shuttle.
Within a matter of minutes Sanford had walked back to his office and Owen was airborne in the yet-to-be-named craft.
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