Fine, I'll do This: Pilot's Log# 5
10 Sep 2015Michael Wolfe
Commander’s Log # 5M. Lehman
September 10, 3301
Every once in awhile, something happens that restores your faith in humanity just a smidge.
First, the Eagle I had bought from Rolberto’s Gently Used Ships on Ackerman was just what I had hoped it would be. It was fast, clean, and everything worked. Rolberto had even left me a little surprise.
To be fair, it was mainly Rolberto’s wife who had been behind it. In my joy at flying the new Eagle, I hadn’t even noticed the little bundle by my feet until I was away from Ackerman. It was a canister, the disposable kind that keeps food warm. On it was a little hand-written note:
To my customer and new friend Matt:
Your business is always appreciated at Rolberto’s Gently Used Ships. Enjoy these hot tamales and salsa that my wife Consuela made this morning. We wish you well on your journeys, and look forward to seeing you again.
Your amigos,
Rolberto and Consuela
I had no idea what the hell a tamale was, but I cracked the canister open anyway. Immediately, one of the best smells I had ever experienced hit my nose. It was… beef… real beef, and some kind of fried doughy smell with it, too. For some reason, the doughy part looked like it was wrapped in- was that a corn husk? The salsa, I guess, came in two colors: a green kind and a red kind. I’m not really a genius, but I was guessing that the salsa was meant for dipping.
I set the auto-pilot, took out a tamale, and randomly chose the green salsa to dip it in. I took a bite, and-
Ho. Li. Shit.
I hadn’t met Consuela while dealing with Rolberto, but I decided then and there that I owed the woman a great big hug and kiss. The tamale was one of the best things I had ever tasted. Warm, flavorful, and spicy- but not overly so. And what the hell was that sauce? How it is that this food wasn’t everywhere? I hadn’t had an honest-to-God home-cooked meal since- when? Before Imperial boot camp? Any time I had visited my parents during leave, we mainly ate out at restaurants to celebrate the occasion. So… that made it… 7 damn years. I checked the canister to see how many tamales this angel of a woman had packed for me. There were a dozen more. Good God.
Well, if Rolberto wasn’t actually a good, honest man, he was doing a pretty good job of imitating one.
I ate two more tamales, sampling both kinds of salsas- spicy, but in different ways. The red had a bit more kick to it, but the green was more flavorful. Delicious either way. Then I packed away the treats for later- you don’t eat something like that all at once.
OK. Back to reality.
I had a nice, new (to me) ship, a belly full of amazing food, and I felt better than I had in months.
But for a freelancing commander, feeling good don’t put credits in your pocket. We work the other way around, you see: it's putting credits in our pocket that makes us feel good.
Even though I had a little breathing room from Goddamn Hell-Bitch’s trade in (I was now feeling a twinge of guilt for accepting any amount of money from Rolberto on such a piece of crap ship), I could stand to watch my account grow a little more. The problem was, the Eagle had a cargo hold so small and cute you just wanted to pinch it on the cheek. I was never going to make any money transporting. And now that I had tasted a morsel of the big-time, I sure as hell didn’t want to back to being a data courier.
So, what did that leave?
Well, the Eagle was built as a fighter, and had a long history of serving in both the Imperial and Federal navies, before they started the transition to those little death traps, the Imperial Fighter and the Condor. Ain’t a system in the 'verse that doesn’t have a crime problem of some sort, and there’s some serious money to be made as a gun-for-hire.
Problem was, I just didn’t think of myself as a killer, even if the person on the other end had it coming.
So that left cargo-hauling. In an Eagle, that was… questionable.
Smuggling? That definitely paid more, and I had some experience with it already. Ok, fine- one successful smuggle, done in a moment of drunken, stupid luck, that happened mainly because a much tougher man was merciful enough to give me a chance instead of slashing my throat.
It still counted.
But even smuggling wasn’t going to cut it- not with room for a measly two cargo containers.
Like it or not, I had bought a starfighter.
I hit the supercruise, and docked at Cleve- there was always something going on there. Here, there would be no stalking questionable types in bars- different interests were openly hiring on the station network. For some of them, it was totally automated. You just accepted the job and went on your way. Of course, negotiating the more expensive ones usually took place in a bar or office.
Still, in an un-upgraded Eagle I wasn’t ready for prime-time. Better to just take the most basic job possible. I scanned the list until I found a trader who was journeying out-of-system and was offering 15,000 for an escort. He was embarking on a 76 light-year-long journey, which was piddling for him, but a bit of a stretch for me. He was, however, willing to take the less-efficient route to accommodate the lesser jump range of his escort. The only thing he asked was that I provide my own fuel scoop. Fine.
Well, I hadn’t gotten paid to babysit since I was 12, but 15 grand is 15 grand. I accepted.
The first few legs of the trip were pretty uninteresting. Space in, shake-and-bake while my Eagle replenished her fuel, and hit the hyperdrive again. Easy-peasy, lemon-squeezy.
I began to grow a bit complacent. A few more of those tamales were sounding pretty damn good.
So, the pattern was established: exit hyperspace, fuel up by a star, eat while in hyperspace. Easiest (and most delicious) 15 grand ever made.
When we reached our destination system, I figured that we were in the home stretch, so I celebrated by cracking open the green salsa after I hit the supercruise. I was in the middle of peeling back the corn layer, when-
WHAM!
The tamale went flying out of my hand and smacked against the canopy glass in front of me. The Eagle was starting to shake violently, alarms were sounding, and warning lights were demanding my attention.
So this is what being interdicted is like. Shit.
I fought against the tether as best I could, trying to follow the escape vector that the ship’s nav had set up, but my less-agile partner just couldn’t escape. Our nav systems were linked, so when his ship emergency stopped, so did mine.
I hadn’t suffered an emergency drop since driving my old Sidewinder. The ship cartwheeled out of hyperspace, me fighting to regain control and deploying my weapons to face whoever the hell had done this. Sometimes, Authority is less than considerate when they find probable cause to “pull you over”, as the old saying goes. If that was the case, then it was a pain in our asses, but one that we could deal with.
It wasn’t Authority. It was some jackass in a Cobra who came over the comm and started demanding that my partner drop his cargo.
I radioed my partner, telling him to start warming up his drive as soon as it cooled down and reset. In the meantime, I was going to try to scare this asshole off.
Combat was… new to me. Every idiot knows the basics: point weapons at bad guy and pull trigger.
Actually doing it was something else entirely.
Yeah, I passed the combat sims. I knew to divert power to weapons. I knew to not play chicken with a more powerful ship. It didn’t make me feel better. Not about getting shot at, and not about opening fire on another person.
A quick scan showed that whoever was driving this Cobra was a dedicated pirate… no shield, lots of cargo space, and he was wanted in the system. Hopefully a few melted hull streaks would convince him to call it a day. He leaves. We leave. Everybodys’s alive and happy at the end of the day.
Then my foot slipped in something.
That thieving, low-life, rat bastard had caused my green salsa to spill when he interdicted us.
Now I’m pissed.
Now, he dies.
I throttled down to match speeds with him and stay on his 6. My lasers, though not very powerful, melted red-hot pieces off the Cobra’s hull every time I squeezed the trigger. And I was squeezing it a lot.
He couldn’t get away. He couldn’t out-maneuver me. First, his engine started to smoke and flame. Then, I shot out his canopy glass and watched the bastard clutch his throat. He immediately disengaged, and my partner congratulated me for being done with him.
Only I wasn’t done with him. Not by a damn sight.
It was no trouble for my Eagle to keep up with him, blasting bits of his engine off. The pirate opened a channel, desperation in his voice:
“Commander, stand down, please! I’ll give you anything!”
Oh, hell no. I kept firing. His hull was registering at 20% structural integrity. I keyed the comm.
“Anything?”
“Anything!”
15%.
“You’ll give me your cargo?”
“I’ve got some silver on board! It’s yours!”
10%.
“How about your ship?”
“Take it! For the love of God, just let me eject!”
5%.
“I can have anything?”
3%.
“ANYTHING!”
“I want my green salsa back, you son of a bitch.”
“Wha-?”
His comm signal was cut off by the explosion that tore his ship in two.
I didn’t even bother scooping up the silver he had jettisoned. This was an escort run, not a smuggle job.
With that, I rejoined formation with my partner. I unstrapped myself from the pilot’s seat to retrieve the busted tamale at the front of the ship’s dash. It was good. But not dipped-in-green-salsa good.
The rest of the job went smoothly. We landed on-planet, and the freighter pilot walked up to shake my hand and thank me.
Since the Cobra-driving pirate had been wanted in the system, I was entitled to collect the bounty. 12 grand. That almost doubled the mission’s paycheck.
I picked up a drink at the bar, and made my way back to the hanger. The pilot I had escorted was still there, watching the automated haulers unload his ship. He nodded at me.
“Thanks again for the shooting, friend.”
I sat next to him, watching the haulers stack the cargo containers.
“No problem. It was good flying with you.”
We clinked our beers together.
“Say, I noticed your ship doesn’t have a name. Did you just pick her up?”
“As a matter of fact, I did.”
“Thought about one? They say it’s bad luck to fly an unnamed ship.”
Truthfully, I hadn’t thought about a name. Between the thrills of flying a decent ship, the tamales, and making my first kill, it had totally skipped my mind.
Well, what to name her then?
My ship was painted green.
I was still pretty damn green.
And what had caused the day’s ups and downs? My salsa, which had also been green.
The choice was obvious. I turned to my partner.
“Say, could you point me to the Pilot’s Fed office? I need to register The Green Salsa Avenger.”
RL DISCLAIMER: Yes, I totally ripped off the "Inigo kills the Six-Fingered Count" scene from The Princess Bride. Credit to William Golding for being a better writer at his worst than I am at my best.