[Private Log – LC Rains]

[Private Log – LC Rains]
Timestamp: 115-1115 / Jokotre Highport / Dock 17 berth 04
Access Code: CAPT-LCR

We’ve secured the furniture—11 tons of artisanal woodwork with a profit margin strong enough to raise Tamm’s eyebrows. He made the bid himself. Fast. Efficient. Didn’t even ask. I’ll take it as initiative, not insubordination. Probably. Either way, it’s a win, and I’m not about to throw cold fusion on momentum.

Tharrok’s comment about the lubricants? Right on cue. The moment "non-petroleum" hit the manifest, I should’ve known he’d catch the double entendre. Not sure if he’s being playful or probing, but either way—note to self: don’t let that particular cargo mix with the crew rations.

Still working the angle on the lubes. Mora could be a good play, but I need Alice’s confirmation on resale rates. If we can do a split run—Fornice and Mora—without cutting our margins too thin, it may be worth gambling. But only if Ma signs off on storage and balance. I don’t want that hold becoming an interstellar soup kitchen for volatile compounds and luxury exports.

What I do like is how the crew’s starting to gel. Tamm’s acting like a stakeholder. Bronz is still reading the room, but his silence speaks more than some captains’ orders. Tharrok’s got instincts, and Alice and Ma? They’ve got the brains to keep this flying circus out of financial ruin.

We’re not just hauling crates anymore. We’re becoming a ship. That matters.

Still, I need to keep an eye on our new crewmembers. Nothing bad—yet—but trust is something you build with shared silence and shared near-misses, not a handshake in the galley. I’ll keep checking in. Quietly.

Final note: If this all pans out—furniture sold, lubricants loaded, margins tight but healthy—then maybe, just maybe, Miss Fortune might live up to her name in the best way.

Log End
-LC
P.S. – If this whole thing goes belly-up, remind me never to take business advice from a man wearing an exploding snack bar on his chest.
And if it works? Well... drinks are on Tamm. He bid first.

[Private Log – LC Rains]
Timestamp: 1115-112 / Jokotre Highport / Miss Fortune – Crew Quarters (Secure Line)
Access Code: CAPT-LCR

Bronz mentioned Lalique—or Palique, more likely. Either he’s playing coy or slipped a syllable, which is rare for someone as deliberate as him. Noticed the way he said it too… casual, like he was talking about weather, not trade routes. But there was a little too much weight behind the shrug for me to take it at face value.

That’s the second time he’s nudged toward the idea of drifting away from the usual ports. Quiet runs. Less traffic. Less attention. I’ve seen that kind of vector shift before—back when someone’s past had a little too much inertia, or when they knew something was coming and didn’t want to be caught still fueling up.

I’m not accusing, not yet. The man’s solid with a spanner and doesn’t make waves. But I’ve seen enough spacer logs to know that silence is sometimes louder than shouting.

So what’s he avoiding? Old crew? Legal trouble? Maybe a flag on his record that doesn’t show up on the usual scans? Or maybe he just wants to keep us out of the spotlight because he knows the dangers of too much Imperial notice.

Then again, I’d be a fool to call him out without acknowledging my own shadows...Fornice. Catuz. Fosey. Garrincski. Icetina. Jae Tellona. Worlds where the name "LC Rains" might still raise a brow—or a warrant. Customs officers with long memories, or worse, old colleagues.....who remember I wore the badge and the robes. It’s not just about being cautious with Bronz—it’s about making sure the ghosts trailing me don’t circle back to bite the crew.

We’re all running from something, in some fashion. The trick is making sure the ship’s course doesn’t run straight into someone else’s trouble. Or mine.

Still… a conversation is due. Quiet, private, and careful. I need to know what’s driving Bronz’s compass. Because if we’re charting new space, I want to be sure we’re doing it with our eyes open.

–End Log
—LC

PRIVATE LOG ENTRY – LC RAINS
Timestamp: 1115-113
Location: Miss Fortune, Miss Fortune – Crew Quarters (Secure Line)
Access Code: CAPT-LCR

Not the first time we’ve taken someone aboard with baggage—but few have come with a Viscount’s quiet warning wrapped in a whisper and a diplomatic burn notice.

Leilani did the right thing. She’s got a nose for trouble and the good sense to bring it to the bridge instead of the mess table. Between her intel and Kayla’s admission, the picture’s clear enough: a former diplomat with some friction in the wrong temple aisle, too valuable to throw to the wolves, but too inconvenient to keep around. Happens more often than folks care to admit.

We’ll watch her. Keep her out of sight if trouble brews. She's not trained, but she’s got presence—and presence counts for a lot in this business, if channeled right.

Still… Jokotre’s clergy don’t forget. If one of their robes gets a whiff of our transponder six months from now, it may complicate matters. We'll burn that jump when we get to it.

For now, she's crew. And on Miss Fortune, that means something.

-End Log
—LC

Private Log – LC Rains
Timestamp: 1115-114
Encrypted | Captain’s Access Only

It’s late — or early — depending on whose chrono you trust. Jump space always scrambles my sense of time, like the universe is holding its breath until the stars blink back in.

Had a good word from Decherrek. Finally. Been waiting for him to speak up ever since Nadrin and Dojodo hit the table, but he kept to the bulkheads like a monk in a monastery. Now, with Mora looming, he stirs. That tells me something.

He’s right. Mora isn’t just a waypoint. It’s the artery of the Marches — busy, structured, and corporate to the marrow. Al Mora Lines owns half the sky lanes, and every berth not under their boot heel probably answers to someone with a high-backed chair and a quarterly dividend sheet. Free Traders like us? We're flies on the feast table.

But that doesn’t mean we’re helpless.

Mora’s bureaucracy is thick, but not airtight. There are always needs — last-minute hauls, restricted cargos, misfit passengers, or trades too small for a megacorp to care about but too sensitive to trust to strangers. That’s where we fit.

If I can lean on Smugg Orney’s net — carefully — we might thread a few needles. Maybe a favor owed. Maybe someone who needs something moved quietly. We’re not pirates, but we’re not saints either. Grey cargo’s still cargo, and so long as the hold’s full and the crew gets paid, I’ll consider it honest work.

Still, I’ll need to grease the gears:

Let Said-Ma start pre-filing jump permit requests and the docking fee waivers.

Let Kayla make herself useful. Let’s see if her diplomatic finesse can help us avoid a full search or pull some info out of the Mora Port Authority chatter.

Might tap Bronz to scope out less savory hauling opportunities — his instincts are… sharp.

Also… I won’t forget what Decherrek said about leaving us once we hit Mora. That old drone’s got secrets, and I don’t think he was built to spectate. If something’s waiting for him on that world, I’ll back his play. Loyalty’s not earned lightly, and he’s stuck with us through jump and flame.

One more thing: I’ll need to make sure Kayla stays focused. If her ghosts from Jokotre have long arms, Mora’s not the place to get careless. One wrong shadow and we’ll have the wrong sort of attention.

Anyway… time to sleep while I can. Stars or not, I’ll need my wits when we hit that stack of steel and red tape they call a highport.

LC out.

PRIVATE LOG – LC Rains
Timestamp: 1115-115 – Jumpspace (en route to Mora)
Encrypted | Captain's Access Only

Tharrok brought up a name today—Phelan Markensen.

Didn’t press it, didn’t frame it like it mattered. But the way he said it… I’ve heard that tone before. Old stories wrapped in caution, like a half-lit beacon: still there, still pulsing, but no telling if it’s a lighthouse or a lure.

Phelan’s no green spacer. Tharrok described him as a pilot who could outfly a Vargr with instincts tuned like a Scout’s nav rig. That’s not nothing. You don’t get to fly those lanes—Glisten, Trin, District 268, Lunion—without being connected, slippery, or both. Especially if you’ve been doing it since Tharrok was younger and meaner.

And if that man's still flying? Still moving cargo through those sectors? That’s a potential asset. A guidepost for what lies beyond Palique. Trin isn’t just a world—it’s a crossroads. And Glisten? That’s the kind of system where one wrong name gets you locked in customs for two weeks or spaced by the time you hit the secondary orbit.

But here's the thing: people like Phelan don’t stay neutral. Either he’s working a route that benefits someone powerful—or he’s flying under the radar for a reason. Could be blacklisted, could be tangled up with corporate interests, could be part of something bigger.

If he replies to Tharrok’s message, we’ll have a decision to make: whether to partner, compete, or avoid. But if he doesn’t reply... that tells us something, too. Maybe he's burned. Maybe he's buried.

And as for Tharrok? I’ll say this: the way he held that memory, the way he brought it to me—measured, quiet, respectful—that’s trust. Or the beginning of it. And I don’t take that lightly. I’ve seen how tight Vargr can be with the past. If he’s offering a thread, I’ll pull it—but carefully.

For now, I’ll greenlight the message at Mora. If we get a reply… well, we’ll see what kind of storm we’re walking into.

—LC

PRIVATE LOG – LC Rains
Timestamp: 1115-05-13, 1615 Shipboard
Location: Miss Fortune, Entry Vector – Mora System
Encrypted | Captain’s Access Only

Smooth jump. Not a perfect re-entry point, but close enough that I won’t lose sleep—or navigation pride. We’re a little over the 100-diameter mark, but no hazard flags. The real issue came three seconds after we dropped into realspace.

Fusion matrix flagged a warning. Not a SCRAM, thank the stars, but close enough to make the drive pucker. We’re capped at 10% maneuver, which isn’t ideal in a system like Mora—where inbound lanes look more like highway interchanges than empty space. Bronz was on it before I finished blinking. Tamm, too. I didn’t even have to order it.

That’s something.

Everyone did what they needed to. Leilani sent the system notification like she was born in a comm booth. Tharrok adjusted trajectory without a grumble and didn’t ask why I knew the Gurrek Belt's exact coordinates. Kayla and Said-Ma are checking on the passengers. We're not improvising anymore. We're functioning.

Crew's becoming crew. I can feel it.

Now comes the real work. Mora isn’t a port—it’s a proving ground. The corporations operate in the system very effectively and there are big boys here. If you don't have a standing invitation to the upper tables, you're lucky to scavenge crumbs. But people like us? We’re good at crumbs. We turn them into meals.

We’ll need contacts. Leads. Favors. Quiet channels. I've told Kayla to dip her diplomatic toe into the water. Hopefully, she doesn’t stir the surface too hard—shallow ponds tend to be full of sharp stones.

Leilani—back on her home turf. I’m betting she’s got connections that run deeper than she admits. I trust her to pull the right strings, even if she’s tempted to tie a few knots along the way.

Tharrok’s reaching out to Phelan. That name lingers in the back of my thoughts like a half-forgotten codeword. If he replies, doors might open. If he doesn’t... we keep flying forward.

And me? I’ll whisper into the Orney channel soon. Quiet request for trade leads cloaked in blessings and modest donations. They tend to listen, even when they claim they don’t.

Eight hours to make orbit. That’s eight hours to turn a cautious entry into an opportunity.

We’ve made it this far. Now let’s see what Mora has to offer—and what it’s hiding.

—LC