An unsettling meal

The next few days, or at least what passes for days in your journey, which is mostly marked by the meals at regular intervals, pass without much happening. You have no distractions from Viper or any of the other crew and don't even see them beyond the meals or passing them in the narrow corridors of the ship as you went to fetch the occasional spare part as you work through the locked containers, which you actually manage to crack the last of them, which was good at first, until the boredom began to set in.

"You sure there's nothing I can look at? Hell I'd even look into any chairs that have an annoying squeak at this point." You say over the most recent meal, as you begin to regret not packing a slate with a few novels or even some vids with some trash vid dramas or other mindless entertainment.

"Sorry Val, for once everything seems to be running smoothly." Viper says cheerily before halting mid movement as if hit with a stasis weapon, her eyes lock with Jacque a look of fear in her eyes. You'd travelled on enough ships to pick up on odd customs adopted by many superstitious sailors, and Viper had unwittingly broken one of the biggest, by mentioning how smoothly things were going was inviting the worst troubles a space faring crew could imagine. "Shit sorry Cap I wasn't thinking." Viper continues as she looks down to her meal, as Jacque stares down at his own food toying with it as staring comtemplativley as a long awkward pause hangs in the air.

"It's fine." Jacque says finally breaking the silence, and as you look over to Viper you see she is considering replying but as she opens her mouth no words follow, until she looks down again.

"So if you're really **** for things to look at Val I think think the cargo nets are due their maintenace check." Ant says trying desperately to try change the dour mood that had settled in thanks to Vipers slip of the tongue.

"Do whatever you want, I'm going to grab some shut eye before we reach the space station." Jacque says as he stands up rubbing a patch of scales on the back of his neck before taking out a small patch from a box and places on the top of his left hand.

"Wow I didn't think Jacque would take the superstitions so seriously." You say a good few minutes after he's left the table and well out of ear shot.

"Well that'll happen when you survive a vessel crash like Jacque did." Ant said as he looks over to Viper and smiles. "Don't worry about it Viper he'll calm down in his room and once were on the space station we'll be laughing about it at a nice bar." Ant continues.

"Thanks Ant, I should of known better though." Viper says with an unconvincing attempt at a smile before she stands up. "I think I'll go work out or something, we still due to arrive soon?" Viper continues as she stands up and stretches.

"Yeah, about 8 hours if we don't hit any nasty trails." Ant says as Viper nods and heads out of the room without looking at you.

"Well guess I'll got sit in the pilots chair for 8 hours, if I configure the systems right I can nap in the chair and the warning sirens wake me up before anything bad happens." Ant says with a grin before standing up and heading out of the room, leaving you on your own still probing the grim tasteless fare infront of you, before you decide to dump the rest of the meal where you're told it will be purged cleaned and recycled back into another meal.

You step out into the hallway the light humming and throbbing of the ships engines felt through the vibrations of the metal grating in the hallway. You wonder what you should do for the next 8 hours as the prospect of waiting around for 8 hours on your own didn't seem too appealing.