#nova swing

At Carver Field, even the tubbiest of the ships on sale tower a hundred feet high. They stand in rows. They're old. They're used. They leak. They exhibit the gentle patina of being too long on the ground. They have names like Radio Mary and Soft Error. They have always hauled their guts on behalf of others. They have muled and trafficked and smuggled and led a life. They have been the mainstay of commerce, the prey of outlaws. By day they emit radiation. By night cheap navigational code trickles through their corroded firewalls like a contract between Marburg fever and a trail of sparks. They began their career five hundred lights across the Halo as someone's dream and took fifty years to work their way here, where they will inevitably become someone else's; because even for these tubby little ships there is always someone to exclaim: 'I never saw a thing so beautiful!'