Jonas tapped lightly at the key of the control panel, inputting co-ordinates, checking systems, and recording what the captain was saying so as to have it available generations to read - per captain's order, that is.

The captain's speech began as such: “Fellow crew members, from you janitorial bums,” he paused while someone cheered loudly, pretty obviously drunk, “To you men and women who help me run this piece of crap that we all so love and have called home for the past thirty five years, I have only a few things to say...”

Jonas stopped what he was doing and turned around in his swivel chair, propping his legs up on an old railing and listening aptly.

“Thank you all! Together we started this, twenty men and women all setting out aboard one of the newest ships that we could steal for the adventure of a lifetime! Of course, that isn't this ship as that one that exploded quite unexpectedly one day about thirty five years ago... But still, what a wonderful time we've had, yea? And after fifty years of all this crap and running countless jobs here we are, quite rich and of course, on some of our parts, amazingly fat!”

The captain stopped again to pat his perfectly round belly and then let it settle before he spoke again.

“So, here we go! With the press of a button we will begin the journey back from whence we came, and there those of us who have grown old will be able to settle down and raise hell while the rest of you young 'uns raise hell back in space by carrying on the tradition of owning the largest space-freighter in the entire universe!”

With these words Jonas impulsively turned around and gazed out upon the hull of the ship that he was currently running. From through the two feet of extremely reinforced glass he could gaze out upon nearly a mile of metal that was perfectly smooth except for where the doors to the cargo bays were. It tapered to a point about one hundred feet wide at the end, but Jonas could barely make that out from here. It was safe to say that the ship was a monster.

“Some people came to this vast frontier that is the rapidly growing and continually colonized space hoping to make a quick buck and see around... While we knew exactly what we were doing, yeah?”

The crew of eighty people that was surrounding let out a resounding 'YEAH!' in response and someone whistled loudly, and in the relatively tight confines of the bridge of the ship Jonas wasn't surprised to hear a faint ringing in his ears.

“Yeah is exactly the thing I wanted to hear from you pukes!” roared the captain. “Yeah, we knew what we were doing and look at us now! Billions in paid off debt and thousands of jobs later and here we are, the richest and most well off people in the whole universe!”

He paused to let everyone cheer deafeningly again, and then pointed at a balding man standing fairly close by.

“You certainly weren't expecting us to end up paying so well all those years ago, were you man! Ha, but we knew that it would! Now, drink up, lads! Tonight we head off for home!”

The crew cheered again and then continued their raucous partying, spilling many a beer on the floor along the way.

Jonas turned back to the panel and looked through things again, checking to make sure that they were alright. As it turned out, everything was, except for a blinking light in the lower right corner that signified that someone was trying to hail the ship.

Since it was too loud for any actual conversation with other ships Jonas simply opened a little box for typing and tapped away at the keys, spelling out, “Hello?”

He was greeted with a clinical and rather unfriendly sounding response: “This is Basidian Goernment Craft number two nine five seven, flag name “Halcyon” hailing. You are to cease your movement towards free space immediately and prepare for boarding.”

From the speed that the message was sent with Jonas decided that this message must have been used often, probably was ready to pull up at any time. But the fact that they were being ordered to stop was interesting...

“This is the Goliath replying to the Halcyon, requesting confirmation as to why we need to stop.”

The reply started to type out across the screen, word for word, and just after the words “Illegal cargo” were typed the captain loomed up behind Jonas and slapped him on the back, laughing jovially.

“Boy, are you ready? Everything inputted into the computers? Good! Now, let's press that happy li'l button there!” And with the last exclamation the captain opened the glass case in front of the innocent looking blue button and then smacked down on it.

Looking up Jonas watched as the stars began to speed up and just before they would be going to fast to actually see the stars something impacted the back of the ship and the acceleration stopped instantly.

“Wha- what happened, Jonas?” asked the drunk and now confused captain, frowning as he took another swig of his beer.

“I... I think we've been shot, sir,” said Jonas. “We were being hailed by a military ship when you pressed the button, and I think they fired at us.”

“Well... Well, that's a damned shame, now isn't... Isn't it?”

The captain looked confused for a moment and then laughed, “Check the systems, boy! How long will it take us to get to where we're goin' while bein'... being able to stop?”

Jonas entered some code sequences into the console and watched data stream across the screen.

It didn't look good.

“A... Another five years compared to the original one month, sir.”

“Well, that's not so bad!” laughed the captain as he raised his alcohol into the air, some of it slopping onto the floor.

Jonas thought a moment and then took advantage of the captain's drunken state.

“Sir?” he asked quietly. “They said that we were carrying illegal cargo. What's in the forward holds?”

“Food!” shouted the captain happily. “Yes'm, me boy, food, liquor, and lumber!”

“Food, liquor, and lumber?” Jonas was now very confused.

“Yes, boy. I forgot to fill out the proper papers back on wherever we just were, so we're bootlegging!”

A few people stumbled over to the captain, laughing and spilling their booze as they did so.

“Captain! Wha's... Wha's all the fuss about, yeh?” one of them asked lazily.

“Nothin', boys, just that we get five more years of drinking and merriment! Come, lads, let's drink some more!”

The group stumbled away and began to sing a rousing chorus of “Hung Like A Spaceman” while Jonas suddenly fully realized the extent of what had just happened – he'd just been sentenced to five more years with these imbeciles on board this godforsaken monster that was slowly falling apart.

Despite the merriment going on behind him and the alcohol available for free in large amounts Jonas laid his head in his hands – and began to sob.