The start of something

Something I banged out in a couple of minutes. Goes with an idea I'd had a couple of months ago. I just wanted to get it on "paper" while it was fresh. Whether or not this is how the story actually begins or not remains to be seen.

The Seventh Dallas was an aging beauty. A pot-marked and scarred cargo hauler, her heavy hull and and over-sized crew quarters made for an imposing figure when she was docked. But to Elias Kope she was anything but imposing. “My gentle beast,” her first captain had called her.

Seeing her tethered to the deck of the Crimeon like this, all polished and shining, pulled the captain, if just for a moment, from the funk he’d been in since receiving his notice three months ago. For a moment he was back on this same deck but forty years earlier, the Seventh Dallas shining behind him. He was being pinned a captain and presented with a certificate, signed by officers outranking him, that gave him control of his own ship.

He approached her from the front and let his fingers run along the length of her hull. He smiled and leaned in close enough o feel the coolness of the metal on his cheek. “The are putting you to pasture far too early, girl. Both of us. Far too early.”