The Cost of Protecting my Investment.
04 May 2022Willow Thorn
So filling orders for rich commanders looking to upgrade their gear is paying well and its work I enjoy undertaking. Its like, I get paid twice for one job. I drop into the bar on privately owned carriers and chat with the staff to find out what the owner is paying over the odds for. Its like a cosmic way to see the bubble and meet people I’d never have reason to talk with any other time you know?So I got this woman that’s after like, as many Production Reports I can deliver and she’s paying 4 time market value, so I’m like on that without asking questions. Having done this for like a week now, I know those Reports are offered up by lots of agents on the boards as payment for something they need retreaving, so guess I got my supply covered already.
A quick check tells me the nearest industrial system in expansion is only a few jumps away and sure enough on the board, there’s a simple in-system retrieval job offering like 5 Production Reports and a handful of duckets for bringing back the hardwear from a crashed satellite. So I’m like chica-cha! and on my way before the Wisps’ engines have cooled.
For a change, I turn up at this moon and find the worksite is currently facing the star. Normally its like “Oh is Willow coming to do some manual labour? Ok quick, rotate so she’s working in the cold and dark lol!” This time I had a different problem.
I cruise in and make a prefect glide down to the worksite. Like, as soon as I’m close enough to see the wreckage, plasma bolts report off the Wisps shield followed by the tinkling rain of laser bolts coming my way. So I’m out of there like yesterday.
I’m in supercruise thinking it’s a sower job and I’m going to have to take the hit on this one when I’m like Oh yeah, I got that combat suit and all those guns right? I don’t want to like kill guys, but I’m contracted to do this thing, and they are not. So that makes them scavengers that shot at me without so much as a “Hi! F U, now pew pew pew” So they are like, fair targets right?
I’m all like, they saw me FSD the FO, so they should be thinking I’m long gone. So I come back the long way around the moon and land on the other side of a mountain. The combat suit is like way heavier than my work gear, and I feel like, a little girl playing dress up in mommy’s clothes, but its right for the job, so what ever right? Like I’m good with pistols, but I feel like I’ll be out gunned if I take my usual side arm, laser or bullet variety so I check out the rifles.
Settling on an elegant laser, and hefty kinetic rifle for primary arms, and a plasma at my side I like ignore my trembling hands, mount up and drop the Scarab out of my ship. After driving around to face the worksite, I take a deep breath and step out to sneak up to an outcrop and spy on the scavengers. The dust cracks beneath my feet with every step and I’m like “Shit they are going to hear me” but there’s like 900 meters between us and not enough atmosphere to carry the sound of a power core detonation that far. But knowing that don’t stop my heart thumping hard and my breath steaming up my visor.
So I crouch there looking at them through the scope on the laser. They are still like combat ready, but It doesn’t look like they saw me land. I’m like so anxious my suit kicks in the auto-cooler I got that hot, but I have to see this through. I can’t keep running every time some fuck-nutz turn up to loot my work sites or I’ll be running for like, almost every job I take right?
So I check the terrain and pick my path, and I’m sure I can get the Scarab much closer before I’ll need to get out and creep up on the three amigos set on stealing my contract. On the slow drive there I was hoping I would chill out, but it doesn’t happen. I’ve shot people before, like who hasn’t in this universe right? But at the time, they were attacking me and my family, so I wasn’t alone. Going after three armed people to attack first, is like totally different.
By the time I get there, hop out and prowl up the ridge, one of them is starting to download the data from the satellite, and the others are keeping watch.
I’m like a spider crawling up this sandy slope with this bulky plasma pistol held out in front of me to where some dude is all casual, leaning on a rock when he just like, glances right at me. I was like “!” but my finger wasn’t. There was a short electric sounds and the guy fell with a bright burning hole in his chest.
I’m like a statue there, just looking at this dude that’s slowing falling. Not a muscle in my body want to move, not even to lower the gun. I’m watching stuff oose out the guys wound and like, react with the atmosphere and I’m entranced by it. Anything to occupy my mind so I don’t have to think about what I have just done I guess. It takes a laser hitting my shield to wake me up.
I dive behind the rock and hold the pistol up to my facemask like a holy symbol or something and start to panic. I can hear an angry voice muffled by the lack of atmosphere and the crunch crunch crunch of footsteps running close by. Glowing patches of rock beside my head tell me I how close I was to taking laser to the face and I feel hot tears roll down my cheek as I run away from the oncoming revenge.
I must have darted around that rock like twice before I saw the guy chasing me. We were like close enough to reach out and touch. So I closed my eyes an pumped the trigger expecting to feel the searing stab of laser cutting me down any second, but it didn’t come. When I opened my eyes, another dude was on the ground in front of me with thick oily vapers rising from plasma wounds.
This time, I’m like flying on nerves, pumped up by the threat of death and like twitchy as fuck. I got the empty pistol pointed at some guy that’s never going to move again looking around for the last scavenger. I see her briefly between the dusty dunes weaving and ducking, doing her best to keep cover between us.
I’m like thank you madam, I don’t want to shoot at anyone any more, keep running ok? I mean, I don’t think I could have hit my ship if I was standing on it now I was shaking so hard, but like there’s a job to do. I run back to my Scarab gratefully closing myself in and getting out of my helmet for a second and check little miss plasma is still moving away.
She is, so I like drive right up to the satellite and get to work thinking any second now, the scavengers ship is going to come down and blow me away for the murders I committed here. Still my salvage sense allowed me a tickle of happiness when I saw 3 instances of Manufacturing Instructions to download while I finished cutting open the panel the scavengers were working on.
With the satellites core in hand, I jump back in my Scarab and like nearly roll it 3 times racing back to the Wisp. I want off this moon and back to the safety of a station pad, like NOW. All the way back to the station, thats like a 10 minuet flight away, I’m watching the scope waiting to be interdicted by the dead guys friends, but it doesn’t happen and I land the Wisp without incident.
It’s the same old same old on the station. I deposit the Core in a drop box, then the credits and data is transferred to me immediately. I like, intend to go to the bar, but my legs give out when I pass the first available seat.
Now its over, the rush has left me like cold and empty. I know I was within the law but I killed two men so some big company could have some prospecting data, and I could have some more code to sell on to a rich bitch that can't be bothered to go get it herself. Two men had to die, so I could earn a low end pay day. Wait that needs correcting. I killed two men for a low end pay day.
So with that in my head, I sit there looking beyond the station into my future. Dad said flying solo would bring hard choices my way and making those decisions would change me forever. But its like, they were all small steps that felt like the right thing to do, until I’ve done something that can’t be undone.
Welcome to the reality of life Willow.