You can skip it! You don't need to talk to her after picking up the Steltek gun; you don't even need to dock at Rygannon. Although, if you don't dock there, you have to dock somewhere in the Palan system due to lack of fuel. So this doesn't seem to save on any docking or launching time.

But that whole second it takes to go to the bar, click on Taryn Cross, and press escape? Totally skippable. Yay.

It also turns out that even if you don't talk to Murphy and the doctor on Basra, Taryn cross is still waiting in the bar on Rygannon.

However, there's a slim possibility that I won't be able to dock on the Steltek base due to skipping the part where Dr Monkhouse programs the ship's computer with the Steltek language. But that's just fluff, right?

Edit (4 missions later). Yeah, it's fluff. I docked and stole the gun with no problems.

Do you have to land on Basra? Or can you just run to Rygannon? It seems likely you have to, but if it's somewhat like the last Masterson mission, perhaps you don't even have to.

Just tried it - that did not work. It looks like you have to take the doctor to Basra.

That's still some considerable time saves. Palan may be closer to Nav 1 than Rygannon is to Nav 1, so going straight back to Palan may save time even if you encounter the Drone when taking off. Changing up the splits will be a little annoying though. I suppose Murphy 3 can just end when we land, and Taryn 4 when we land, wherever that is.

I think I'd probably prefer to dock at Basra, because there is always a large number of very unfriendly hunters at Palan.

I didn't think about the splits. That is a bit annoying, but I suppose if it really is faster to dock in Palan, we'll all start doing it and splits will be comparable again.

I think Basra is further away from the target nav point than Rygannon, so it probably won't be quicker on average.