We are what we pretend to be.
21 Apr 2016PoeTheWonderCat
It was 2 am galactic time. It's been over four months since I was planet side anywhere, so I had fully acclimated to the universal time of spaceports. This was not the case for my guests. Most of them were sedated which was a blessing, but not all the slavers were conscientious enough to put their merchandise on ice or to knock them out. I hadn't sprung for the hull upgrades, (I didn't plan on staying still long enough to get shot), so even the bulkheads were flimsy. That's why I heard her crying. I rolled over on my cot, too tired to get out of my flight suit or even bother getting under the covers. I looked at the clock. “It's too goddamn late to deal with this shit.” I muttered. I closed my eyes and made another attempt to sleep.
It was three simple jumps to the buyers station. The sale of 200t of Imp slaves was going straight to my Fer-De-Lance fund. I had almost zero capital on hand after picking up this type-7 and the initial investment, so after the third jump when I was unceremoniously yanked out of hyperspace and rammed by a 'conda I wasn't about to stick around to hear the pirates “offer”. I jammed my finger into the nav display, randomly picking a destination system and fired up the frame shift drive. It didn't look like he was going to follow but I wasn't going to take chances, so I jumped again just to be safe. I wound up 16lys off course in Fed space with enough illicit cargo to be charged with slaving myself. I needed to get to the black market but a man with some serious personal boundary issues was waiting for me. I had to lay low until he got sick of waiting.
She redoubled her effort and began sobbing in heaves.
I don't like moving slaves. I know it's legal in the Empire but as soon as they get to Fed black markets it stops being a matter of indentured servitude and starts being real honest to god slavery. The poor bastards never see it coming. They think it will be for a year or two or ten if they really fucked up, but you sell yourself to the wrong guy and it's goodbye Empire forever. The lucky ones (or the pretty ones) get sold as sex slaves. They get about 2 to 5 years before they are spent up and tossed. The not so lucky ones get sent to mines planet side or underground fight rings. They get 8 months tops. And the really unlucky ones, (although it really depends on your point of view), get sent to the abattoir. So yeah, I don't like moving slaves. They just happen to be the highest grossing commodity on the market, and 51 mil is hard to come by, not including load-out.
The goddamn walls were shaking with every gasping wail. I got up.
The cargo hold was pressurized and had oxygen, but nobody bothers to put in heaters back there. Seeing as Lakon isn't a Empire based company it's no wonder they don't think about transporting humans by the ton. In the dim recessed lighting of the hold I could tell that most of the containers were regulation 1tonne cylinders. Those would be the iced slaves. Lined up against the bulkhead that made up the wall to my quarters were the live ones. Four crates that were little more then latticed fiber-tube cages strong enough to stack and prevent an escape but nothing to keep the vacuum of space from doing its quick, messy work in the event of a hull breach. I knew where they were headed.
She knew where she was headed.
She had threaded her scrawny arms through the bars and clutched them in a hug that pressed her head against the corner of her box. Matted greasy hair stuck to her face where the tears and the snot had left trails. She shivered with the cold and possibly a sickness. Her skin bore the marks where she was grabbed, prodded, squeezed and beaten. In her ear was a large yellow tag with “Grade D” printed on it.
I stared at her for a long time.
I walked to the cockpit and sat down. I checked the invoice for the shipment. I amended it to 196t and flipped the cargo hatch toggle. I waited 2 minutes before I closed it back up.
I wouldn't be sleeping tonight.