My First Sting!
12 Dec 2015Kitsu Sean
I've done a lot of questionable things in service to my government. I've even done questionable things in service to the almighty credit. The one thing I can honestly say I've never done was haul living cargo also known as slaves. I check cryopods that I ship. I make sure the manifests are legal in the system I pick up in and the system I deliver to. I've refused cargo that I even suspected might not be on the up and up. I'm sorry. I know a lot of pilots out in the black that aren't this picky but I think I'd rather starve than carry slaves. Even when I worked for the Empire, I felt weird carrying even LEGAL Imperial Slaves. I mean these are people that have sold themselves into slavery to pay off or to avoid a debt. They volunteered and I still felt weird about it. In all my time as a cargo pilot, I've only transshipped ONE cargo that contained Imperial slaves and that was only because they BEGGED me to take them on so that they could make it to their new owners/employers on time. I still got majorly squiked out by it. Majorly. I know out here that we sometimes gotta take whatever we can get but I'll be honest, I've managed so far to never be THAT desperate or that greedy. I can make credits transporting other cargo than people. Until now.Before a bunch of you start saying "I told you so...", let me explain. I helped bust up an ILLEGAL slavery ring and I felt DAMN good doing it. I won't be losing any sleep over these assholes. I was approached a few weeks ago by some operatives/agents for the Federal Criminal Investigative Service. They had a lot of circumstantial evidence about a group of men and women that they were sure were running a slavery ring. We talked for hours and hours and I even made some calls to old contacts of mine from my Navy days just to make sure I wasn't being set up. Things seemed to line up so I said I'd help. It took a while and I met some people I'd really like to see floating past my canopy with a few plasma burns in their vac suits. It all came to a head today. I was "hired" by this ring to ship twenty tons of cryopods containing slaves. TWENTY TONS! We all know that the average cryo containment pod only weighs about five hundred pounds or so WITH a relatively healthy person inside so do the math, folks. I'm not gonna lie, I thought I was gonna blow my lunch all over their boots when I saw how many pods they were loading into my cargo racks. I seriously had a moment where I started planning exactly how to kill each and every one of those assholes but realistically while I trust my training, even I can't take out eight armed people by my lonesome. When I saw how much they were paying me to transport these slaves, I almost got sick for real. Over a million credits was going to be MY part of this operation. Just to fly slaves from one place to another. If I were a greedy man, I'd see how others could justify this but to me that's blood money. You're selling your soul and while I'm not really a religious man, there are some things I can't take money for. I'm sorry. No fucking way. As soon as the cargo was loaded aboard, and I was left alone with their "handler" (one of their slavers that rides along with you, apparently, to make sure you deliver, I'm told), I showed him to the kitchen on board and the beer cooler. As soon as his eyes flickered to it, I punched him in the throat with everything I had. A side-step and kick to his knee dropped him face first on the deck. Two stun charges into the back of his head made sure he wasn't gonna get back up anytime soon and when he did, he was gonna be nursing the mother of all drunken headaches for a week. I waited while the FCIS boys and girls rounded up the others and came to get this piece of slime off my ship and to release all those poor slaves. I probably should have killed that asshole. I could have gotten away with it. No cameras aboard my ship. He was visibly armed. I could have easily claimed he pulled his weapon on me so I had to shoot him. Hell, with the skills I've got and the cyberware still in my body, I could probably have taken him out with my bare hands and still made it look accidental. Frankly though, I've got enough blood on my hands as is.