Scallywag
04 Jun 2023Ryuko Ntsikana
Scallywag
_____________________________
Ah, yes, the action and excitement. Between running about hauling passengers, or chasing light years after a deal that wasn’t there, where was the swashbuckling space ninja cyborg raider, to strike terror in the hearts of all the star-bound scallywags? Well, I can tell you where she is. She is making credits for her hard training clan members on the surfaces of the two moons below.
Feeling more elated than dejected by the failure of the Tritium sales, I took it as an omen to brush the dust off another neglected ship and get her hull caressed by the void beyond these bulkheads. Her presence was due to a fluke of luck while working on a contract at a pirate settlement. They had captured a pristine Orca class passenger ship, that was never designed to have any real effective use, for anything the pirate group could use to their benefit.
I paid them a fair wage to take it off their hands. They laughed, thinking they had swindled their mechanic. Little did they know the profit I could make with her, was beyond what they would get in ransom for the passengers it once carried. She was designed to transport passengers, and their belonging, over great distances, with a certain style and comfort.
Not more than an annual cycle I had built upon her innate capabilities, using them to fly out as far as the Flame Nebula, to fix a broken-down exploration ship, for one hundred million credits. From there we flew to the Rosetta and Seagull Nebula, where I worked on other ships before returning to the main region of human-inhabited space.
Since those times she has found little use—until now. Distress beacons are common, around the rim of human space. Even with the nasty AI surprise from the recent past, my policy remained to respond to those, within reason. Over the course of a few weeks, my crew managed to rescue 46 occupied pods. Aside from the usual precautionary checks, their occupants were provided with medical care and kept in a centralized location, until they could be repatriated. Their time was now.
A purchase order had been offered from a distant search and rescue entity, offering a healthy fee. While I might have the streak of a good Samaritan in me, I wouldn’t say no to getting paid for it. They were offering thirteen million, as compensation for my time spent rescuing them and providing them with both care and comfort. Who said being good didn’t pay well?