Chapter 1: Work. The Drop...

Proverbs 23: 1-5

“When you sit down to eat with a ruler, consider carefully what is before you; and put a knife to your throat if you are a man given to appetite.  Do not desire his delicacies, for they are deceptive food.  Do not overwork to be rich; because of your own understanding, cease!  Will you set your eyes on that which is not?  For riches certainly make themselves wings; they fly away like an eagle toward heaven.”

CS01 drifts into the docking cradle of The First Last Stop with the grace of an old hymn.  The station looms quiet, its neon ring dimmed to a soft hum, its ports yawning like sleeping eyes.  Maglocks hiss.  The ship settles.

Inside, Moose moves with the calm precision of ritual — trench coat brushing his knees, red cap tilted low.  The airlock door opens with a sigh. He steps onto the loading dock, boots echoing through the hollow chamber.  No voices.  No footsteps.  Just the faint pulse of life-support somewhere deep in the walls, like the heartbeat of something too tired to wake.

He shoulders the pallet forward, stacked high with crates marked BIBLES – PRINTED EDITION, the corners worn, bindings wrapped in static mesh to keep them from floating.  He leaves them there — quietly, as though setting down an offering.  For a moment he stands still, eyes on the distant ring corridor flickering with cyan light.  Then, a slow exhale.  The silence holds.  Moose turns back toward the airlock, climbs aboard the CS01, and seals the door.

“Cargo delivered,” he murmurs.

The ship answers with a low hum, and the engines flare like candles catching.  CS01 drifts from the dock, slipping once more into the dark — one light among billions, carrying the Word between the stars.

1 Peter 2: 1-12

“Therefore, laying aside all malice, all deceit, hypocrisy, envy, and all evil speaking, as newborn babes, desire the pure milk of the Word, that you may grow thereby, if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is gracious.  Coming to Him as to a living stone, rejected indeed by men, but chosen by God and precious.  Coming to Him as to a living stone, rejected indeed by men, but chosen by God and precious, you also, as living stones, are being built up a spiritual house, a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.  Therefore it is also contained in the Scripture, ‘Behold, I lay in Zion A chief cornerstone, elect, precious, and he who believes on Him will by no means be put to shame.’  Therefore, to you who believe He is precious; but to those who are disobedient, ‘The stone which the builders rejected has become the chief cornerstone,’ and ‘ A stone of stumbling and a rock of offense.’  They stumble, being disobedient to the Word, to which they also were appointed.  But you are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, His own special people, that you may proclaim the praises of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light; who once were not a people but are now the people o fGod, who had not obtained mercy but now have obtained mercy.  Beloved, I beg you as sojourners and pilgrims, abstain from fleshly lusts which war against the soul, having your conduct honorable among the Gentiles, that when they speak against you as evildoers, they may, by your good works which they observe, glorify God in the day of visitation.”