Darius unbuckled himself from the pod in his Shuttle of Gallente design, the Pegasus, and made his way out of the small hatch. He never liked having to squeeze his frame through the hatch that was obviously designed with the skinny Gallente form in mind. Kind of short sighted considering tat they were available to all on the open market. Besides that, he realised that something else was not right. He was not sure what it was as he made his way to the gantry that led to his office area. As he got halfway down the stairs towards the hangar floor, he realised that no one had come to the ship. Not a soul in fact, as usually the hangar crew would be swarming around the hangar doing all kinds of odd jobs, and at least two crew members would have come to the ship to run the usual maintenance logs on the computer as well as virus checks, as computer glitches and viruses were often transferred between ships computers and stations causing frequent problems with undocking procedures, trapping many ships on one station. Though they had become less of a problem in recent times, there was always the threat. And besides that, the usual meeting he had with the ever efficient crew chief to sign the docking papers, (though more of an electronic tablet and a thumb print these days), had not come to pass yet.

Somewhat perplexed, Darius made his way to the crew rec-room, opened the door, only to find them all playing a game of ChipFlick, where they placed a small plastic chip board, (usually from dead computer systems) against the edge of the box they were using for a table, with a small portion of the chip over the edge. They then had to flick the chip up in the air towards the centre of the table where several rings were drawn with scores marked. As one of the crew took his turn, with his back to the door along with all the crew leaning over him, Darius slammed the metal hatch against the bulkhead. The poor crewman nearly jumped out of his seat as he flicked the chip clear to the other side of the room, and into the dirty water of the mop bucket resting against the wall. Every crewman turned around in shock, paused for a second realising that they had been caught slaking on the job, then made a dash for the hangar section, some frantically emptying the pot of credit chips that formed each mans stake in the game.

Darius grabbed the last man through the door by his arm.
"Why has my ship not been attended to yet?!" Barked Darius at the frightened Jr Mechanic.
"W w we weren't eexpecting you sso soon sir." Was all he could muster though the deep breaths and hard swallowing. Darius eased his grip on the young mans arm He was not really mad at them. He knew he was early so it didn't matter to him. He just liked to scare the grunts every now and then. It was one of the few pleasures he gained in life. Trying not to smirk at him and put a serious face on, he further asked;
"Where is the crew chief?" He paused for a second as he got a blank stare in response. "He was supposed to meet me with the usual paper work. Where is he?" He added, more sternly this time.
"Ohh, Ohh yeah." Muttered the crewman. "He went to see the administrator. He should be back soon. Don't know what for though…"
Satisfied he had had his fun, Darius let the man go and nodded towards the door as a signal to carry on. Once he was gone, Darius afforded himself a grin. Ok it was a little evil of him to torment these people, but it sure was fun too.

Darius made his way out of the rec-room and followed the dashing hoards toward the hangar bay at a slower pace. As he entered, he got the attention of who he knew was the chief's assistant and asked him to let the chief know he would sort out the docking papers himself. He then made his way to the door, glancing back at the beehive of activity that was the hanger. A couple of days ago the sight of that made him feel tired. Today it invigorated him somewhat, flooding his senses with activity. He felt sharp, that was for sure. His younger brother was due back tomorrow, no doubt hung over from his little weekend. He intended to make the best of what he liked to consider "normal pace" for the day so he could get back on track. After making his way to the port master's office and giving his print, (a formality non the less, though it needed doing for their station security register), he opened the office again and began checking messages, corp applications, wallet and all the usual stuff. He was pleased to see that some sell orders for old stocks of Rifter blueprint copies, and some ship components had sold over the weekend making another million for the corp. He then activated the inter-station com unit and talked to his usual agent.
"What do you have on your desk today?" He queried.
"Darius?" She asked. It was a dumb question as he had not been gone that long. "Ahh, great. Welcome back. I have a nice little supply run to get you warmed up again. Up for it?" Darius slumped in his chair and groaned. She rolled her eyes and nodded. "Ok mister smart guy, just trying to give you a slow start. How about some Mercs then? They just attacked a remote colony an hour ago."
"That's more like it. Where are they?" He asked
"I'm sending the bookmark of their last location. Now get to work!" She winked, then cut the channel. Darius smiled, then made his way to his flagship, the ANS Minotaur via the ammo lockup. Time to get back to work.