Fine, I'll do This: Pilot's Log #3
08 Sep 2015Michael Wolfe
Commander’s LogM. Lehman
September 9, 3301
You know that old gripe about school never teaching you the things you actually need to know?
Yeah. That’s how my day was going.
There I was, in a Sidewinder that was almost out of gas, carrying some hot rebel transmissions, and my future as a pilot hinged on my ability to sell them.
Problem was, I had flown totally straight ever since flight school. I had never done anything illegal. Up to that point, my career had been the squeaky-clean life of a data courier. Everything I had needed to know, I had learned from the Pilot’s Fed Academy.
Pre and post-flight checklists? Memorized.
Basic ship maintenance? Done every stop.
How to dodge Authority and smuggle illegal goods? I must have been sick that day.
Step one was choosing which port in Eravate to try my luck at.
Cleve? Too… populated. It was the busiest terminal, and it was crawling with authority… which this time yesterday had made it an attractive destination. Funny how one bad day changes everything.
Russel Ring? Same story.
But Ackerman… Ackerman had possibilities. It was just as big, but traders didn’t go there unless they had to. It had a reputation as a rough stop. You could do business there no problem, but you didn’t rent a room unless absolutely necessary.
So, Ackerman it was.
I punched in the coordinates, and set course.
Ok, so I knew my destination.
Now, how the hell do I evade the cops? I had to think back to flight school, before they even let me near a hanger:
Ship detection runs on one basic principle: ships generate heat signature. Sensors pick up the heat, and the ID software does the rest once a lock is established. Lessen your ship’s heat, and sensors have a harder time picking you up. The rules apply to everyone, we were told. Even Authority.
Well hell.
Maybe flight school wasn’t so useless. Maybe the instructor was slipping in a subtle lesson about smuggling, after all.
I shut down everything that wasn’t needed- shields, my never-fired lasers, the cargo hatch, everything. If it made heat and wasn’t needed to steer the ship or keep me alive, it got turned off.
Ok.
I decelerated near the station, got my clearance to land, and scanned for authority.
There were three, but on the other side of the station.
Time to do this.
I didn’t have much time before the pigs (I had never called authority that, even mentally. Was I already thinking like a criminal?) would be close enough to scan me.
So, I did exactly what the instructors said never to do: I manually closed the heat vents, further minimizing my heat sig.
At this point, I could be within visual and still be a pain in the ass to scan. The downside? Even with everything powered down, Goddamn Hell-Bitch was starting to heat up something awful.
I had one chance.
I took a deep breath, and guided my ship towards the mail slot.
Just like in the sims. Just like you’ve done dozens of time for real.
Except this time, you’re out of gas, out of cash, and you’re frying your ship to make a buck.
The landing gear deployed the first time- thank you, Goddamn Hell-Bitch. I promise I’ll rename you if we pull this off.
Authority had rounded the station faster than I had thought. As I was approaching my landing pad, they were passing by the mail slot. I had to get in the damn hanger.
So, I came in like one of the old-time atmo planes, gliding in and chopping the throttle just as I was almost centered on the pad. My landing gear skidded a bit, but who cared?
I was down.
I let the tractor beams center my ship as I cut the power. No scan warnings, no uniformed men with guns waiting for me inside the hanger.
I had done it. I was in.
Now for the hard part. That is, the hard part after the hard part.
How the hell do you find a black market when you don’t know your cargo hatch from your heat vents?
It’s not like you just ask the station A.I.
Let’s get one thing straight: the way that a lot of commanders talk, you’d think that selling on the black market was as easy as pushing a button on the station interface.
It ain’t.
I spent three damn days camped out at every bar on Ackerman. I was running out of cash fast. Hanger rent and food ain’t free.
Finally, I overheard a conversation at a corner booth:
“Just all we need is a guy to get the stuff. The rebs are on a hot streak right now, but we get some intel, they’re done. The more, the better.”
And the part that really piqued my interest:
“I don’t care what you have to pay. Just get it pronto.”
Neither of the men looked like law enforcement, but I was past caring.
I followed the man in charge of paying out of the bar. Where he was going, I didn’t know. Hell, I didn’t even know what I was doing. I didn’t know if he was a pirate, a merc, or a bounty hunter. Maybe he was even undercover authority, trying to reel in new-jack smugglers. All I knew is that he was really rough-looking. Black leather flight jacket, slicked-back hair, jack boots- like he stepped out of a bad holovid.
It didn’t matter. I needed to get paid.
I waited until he was alone in the hall way, and I caught up to him, trying to sound casual:
“I hear you need some intel on the rebs.”
He didn’t even look at me. I kept my pace beside him. He didn’t answer, so I tried again:
“Hey buddy, I heard-“
He put his arm across my chest and shoved me against a bulkhead. His other hand was suddenly holding the biggest knife I’d ever seen across my throat.
“You’re either the dumbest cop ever lived, or the greenest indy ain’t been dusted yet. Which is it, meat?”
Still eyeing the knife, I managed to reply that, yeah, I was green, but I for-real had the stuff.
He looked at me for what seemed like a week. It was hard to meet him in the eye.
“Maybe you got it, maybe you don’t. Where’s your ship?”
I told him the hanger number.
“Fine. Meet me there in an hour. I see anyone but you in there, you ain’t leaving this station.”
I managed to nod my head. He let go of me and kept walking like nothing had happened.
An hour later, I heard the sound of metal-on-metal banging on the hanger door. I opened it, and there was Leather Knife Man, sheathing his knife after using it to knock.
“So, where is it?”
I told him that it was in the cargo hold. He sneered.
“Well, let’s a have a look then, shall we? You go first. Nice and easy, new-jack.”
Inside the cramped cargo hold, he opened the canisters containing the transmissions, and scanned them with a hand tool I had never seen before.
Then, without a word, he flipped open his communicator.
“It’s me. I think we just got lucky. No, he’s got 4 of them.”
I heard a voice reply, but couldn’t make out what was being said.
“Emergency rate, huh? Well, it ain’t my money. Get some haulers up to 29. We’ve got our intel.”
He snapped the communicator shut, and turned to me.
“Well, pup, looks like today’s your lucky day. We would normally never pay this much for a bunch of transmissions, but our buyer wants them yesterday and is willing to go premium. I’ll take everything you have, 50 grand, right now.”
I tried to act like I was bored with that offer. Three agonizing seconds passed, and I said “Deal”.
Leather Knife Man ended up being as good as his word. A hover lift showed up, and we got all of the cargo loaded onto it. He paid in credit chips that transferred the money into my sad little account immediately.
As my new "friend" was exiting the hanger, he turned to me and said,
“You did real good today, kid. Don’t do nothing stupid, and we might be able to do business again sometime.”
And just like that, my life as a criminal had begun.
50,000 credits was more money than I had seen since my discharge from the navy. I had made more in a day as a bumbling smuggler than I had the entire time I had been lawfully running data.
It gave me something to think about.
That night (or whatever passes for “night” on a station), I got stinking drunk on another bottle of Old Sol, and woke up the next morning face-down and missing clothes on the deck of my pilot’s cabin. In my bunk was a naked, sleepy dock-knocker who I am proud to report still looked pretty good, even hung over. She woke up the same time I did, and smiled sweetly when I stumbled to my feet and tossed her a 100 credit chip. The sleepy-eyed beauty dressed swiftly and slipped out of Goddamn Hell-Bitch, and I collapsed onto my now-vacant bunk.
It had been quite the day for “firsts”. My first criminal act, my first shady connection, and now my first drunken romp with the kind of woman my parents had warned me about.
All in all, it wasn’t half bad.
I still had plenty of money in my account, so I blew some of it on a big breakfast and a for-real hot hydro shower. Then, I changed into some clean clothes, stepped into the station commons, and surveyed the endless rows of vendors just waiting to part me from my credits. I wasn’t interested in them. I had other things on my mind. Bigger things. Faster things.
It was time to visit the ship dealers.