Being ship born and breed, Stores looked on Earth not as his home but as his species mother world.

Besides the obligation to look up the former CO of the Vigilance, Stores saw no reason to go planetside, and his agoraphobic nature didn’t make that a pleasant prospect anyway. He had all but begged LT. Commander Kleinhoffer to assign him to the refit crew for the duration and had even gone so fare as to contact his old supervisor at Tio to pull some strings and ask for him personally, but feared that she and the other department chiefs would conspire to force him to take leave.

The prospect of an extended port call with dockside shipwrights crawling threw the the bowls of the Dresden had kept him busy for weeks breaking down and securing his illicit hardware, as well as its accompanying software and removing system hacks. A review of Terran custom regulations had also lead to some of his personal effects (along with a substantial bribe) joining them in the pursers vault. It had simply taken to much time recovering from his stay with Starbase Security and the subsequent seazure of most of his kit. Luckily they hadn’t found all of his accounts.

Packing his quarters was easy, a hand full of items into the replicator for recycle, an extra EVA compresion suit, overalls and his case of Data rods. In a small sea bag was all that was left. Even his customized EVA frame was in secure storage.

Emerging from his “nest” Stores habitually ducked the bulge in the ceiling panels that consealed an EDN conduit and slid down the ships ladder from the landing in front of his Quarters. Coming out on deck 23 at Frame 97, slung his bag over his shoulder and started for main Enginering to find the Cheif engineer.

please let them have assigned me to the stay behind crew Stores thought as he stepped into the lift with other members of the Enginering crew.