The Tailor of Jovan Station

[Brask]

A few weeks after Jovan Station's change of location...

Admar Brask stood in the hatchway taking in the arrivals hall at the base of one of Jovan Station's docking spires.

This is not how I remember it.

The hall had once been an impressive sight. Banks of seating, refreshment counters, huge information displays and a long row of booths each occupied by members of the station's immigration and customs team (with security backup in plain view) to check papers and bags. Several hundred beings could be processed (or wait to be processed) in comfort and with ease.

Now the hall was a mostly empty space. The deck plates were puckered by bolt holes where seating had once been secured. The bulkheads bore the marks of displays wrenched away, tendrils of torn wire hanging forlornly. The booths, too, were gone replaced by a handful of trestle tables at which sat a few bored looking Alliance and Cizerack personnel.

And everywhere posts with belts strung between them. These delineated the routing for queues of new arrivals, a long snaking gauntlet intended for a very large number of people to stand and shuffle forward. Right now there were only a dozen passengers, Brask included, and eleven of them were already chicaning their way through the gauntlet under the eyes of the station staff.

Brask sighed and followed them.