The Trouble with Snakes
16 Jun 2022Amethyst.
My contact at Euclid Station told me the job would be simple. Get in, plant the mutagenic sample in the settlement's production equipment, and get out. Nobody was even supposed to know I was there.Don't get me wrong I'd met plenty of these guys before, done business with them even. Untrustworthy corporate types, keen to stick the knife into the competition's back to get themselves further up the ladder at any cost. Morally questionable work, but a guy's gotta eat y'know ?
This guy was the cocky sort. Bragged about what he was gonna do with his new promotion, and insisted on showing me his brand new Imperial Courier parked in the hangar bay. To be fair it did look shiny, so I let slip that I used to service them back in my Imperial Navy days. This one was a new model; unmistakable too on account of its ID-Plate - L33T.
Like I said. Cocky.
I waited for him to leave, and sat down at a quiet table in the bar to plot-out my strategy. A direct assault of the base was futile, so I figured I'd go low profile. I'd had some trouble in this sector recently and my ship was pretty hot, so I booked a shuttle under an assumed name to drop me off at the settlement. My contact had scouted the area out ahead of time and knew that the base took regular deliveries of essentials, so another Adder landing wouldn't arouse any suspicion.
My pilot landed quietly and without drawing attention to us. I tipped her extra and she agreed to conceal the ship outside the base behind a rocky outcropping for a quick pick-up after the job was done. I watched from the passenger seat to check patrol routes before disembarking, and they matched-up with the info my contact had given me so all was well there. I dropped out the cargo bay and rolled behind a stack of barrels next to a grenade case before the pilot cleared the area and moved off. Who leaves grenades just lying out in the open like that ?! "Somebody's bound to have an accident one of these days" I thought to myself whilst pocketing a couple for good measure.
I waited for the nearby guards to stop talking about what they were going to order after their shifts for dinner, and headed for the safety of the shadows, near to an outdoor terminal.
The guard shift change was coming up, so I made sure the coast was clear and logged into the terminal. Flipping through the list of personnel at the base and filtering them for level 3 clearance I decided to patch a Brian Robins to my HUD, and worked my way around to the Command Centre where he was currently stationed.
I skulked around until I found a high window I could use to get a good view of the main room. Right on time, Brian Robins showed-up to start running a diagnostic on one of the station's subsystems, so I flipped my profile analyser to clone mode, and blagged his clearance in no time. I also had the foresight to scope out the Industrial building's entrances and exits just to be on the safe side - like my da always used to say, "hope for the best; plan for the worst".
A few more minutes wait and the guards went off to change shifts, so I slid into the Industrial building undetected, made like a staff member, and started checking random boxes at a very gentle walking pace, to look inconspicuous. It didn't take me but two minutes to find my target, and I readied the mutagenic compound my contact had given me, for insertion into the production equipment.
Just as the sample container ejected from its housing I heard a muffled beep, signalling an incoming communiqué. I checked Comms and it was the pilot, warning me of an increase in military activity at the base - two Viper Mk III's had just landed, and a bunch of surly-looking mercs had disembarked. Looked like somebody knew I was coming. "I wonder who that could be" I thought to myself.
Don't get me wrong, I wasn't surprised that my contact had tried to double-cross me. Probably worked a sweet deal with both parties, and figured little old me could be dispensed with as collateral damage. Mental. Note. Made. Buddy.
I was able to slip the mutagenic compound into the container and re-engage the locks seconds before a patrol entered the main doors of the Industrial building. I have a reputation to maintain after all, and not finishing a job isn't an option for me. Fortunately I already knew about the back exit, which I slipped out of undetected.
A lesson to be learned - a good tip is worth its weight in gold, as the pilot (presumably in the hopes she'd get a similar tip on returning me to Euclid Station) was still waiting where she said she'd be. We slunk off the dark side of the planet, and were back in hyperspace before anybody knew we were there, leaving poor old Brian Robins to take the fall when the logs showed it was him that had access to the machinery at the time the mutagenic compound was injected. Sorry Brian but you snooze ? You lose pal.
I asked the pilot to take me back to Euclid Station via the scenic route, as I wanted to organise a thank you gift for my double-crossing contact, and I knew just what would make my day.
After paying my respects to his still-parked Imp Courier I strolled back into the bar for our meeting, and he looked genuinely surprised to see me. He had no choice but to settle the contract as I'd fulfilled my end of the bargain, so I chose to take him for as many credits as I could.
I even waved him goodbye from the viewing deck of the station, and cracked a wry smile as I watched his ship explode shortly after exiting the hangar bay. "Waste not want not" I muttered to myself as I tipped my hat at the bartender, and walked back towards the hangar, to board my ship.
See, the trouble with cocky snakes is they're the type of people to think they're untouchable. A simple pre-flight check would have revealed the presence of the two grenades I stuffed next to the fuel tank, but this guy ? He thought he was all that 'n a bag of chips, and since a forensic analysis of the grenades would reveal they came from the base he was directly involved with, anybody investigating his death down the line would likely conclude that his double-dealing finally caught up with him, and this was a revenge killing by one or the other of his (former) employers.
L33T ? More like N00B.