Wetwork
11 Feb 2017swaghat
I'm getting to a point where I'm starting to wonder how I'm going to live with myself; the stains won't wash and the sounds won't hush and out in the black they haunt me like a bitter lover.As I've said before, I've spent a lot of time on aimlessness, on short sighted goals or on nothing at all. I decided to spend some time throwing myself headlong into some work for the Empire. The ideals and the structure appeal to me and I grew up an Imperial, if only nominally, so with no other purpose I have found my allegiance drawn to them. While I don't spend as much time there as one might spend at what they call their "home," my standings with the factions in my home system have generally been good (at least with the more agreeable and, more importantly, influential ones). I've done plenty of odd jobs here and there for the organizations and turned in more than my fair share of bounties, exploration data, and outfitting costs as well. Anyway, in one of my stopovers between bounty runs, in the never ending effort to put bread on the table (or dashboard, given how many meals I eat in the cockpit) and hydrogen in the tank, I was approached by a representative of one of the organizations I had made myself friendly with. This had happened dozens of times before in all corners of the bubble, but this instance felt different than the others. I could feel it in my gut as the man spoke with me; he looked somehow out of place, not bearing the distinguished appearance of the other representatives I had become familiar with over the months, almost as if he didn't belong there at all, like he was just a nobody pulled off the street and given a script to read from. He told me that his employers had some "...work..." for me. That's how he said it, like he was uneasy even forming the words. To this day I don't know his name and his face was so forgettable I wouldn't be able to recognize him if he was standing right in front of me, but I will never forget his hands. They were calloused, with scrapes on the fingers and knuckles, and they shook as he handed me the data packet containing the burner encryption key that I was to use to read the mission details once I reached the system a jump away from there. There were stains under his fingernails and on his cuticles that betrayed an addiction to cheap liquor with some "less-than-legal" mixers, the kind of stains that would never wash out, even if he managed to get the skin clean. There was a tan line on his left ring finger, made all the more obvious by the grit that surrounded it; he probably sold the ring not even a day ago, though his wife had probably left more than three months ago. As soon as I took the data stick from his trembling fingers, he turned on his heel and strode away as quickly as he could, disappearing into the crowded street not two blocks from my humble and seldom-visited 1 room station cabin. Than man... may the Galactic Watcher protect his soul...
The local food, being so close to the Princess's capital, is delicious, and I gorged myself on genetically modified marine life with some indecipherable name from some water world 300 lightyears away; the good stuff. I could afford to since the payday I was staring down was one of the biggest I had seen since I ran that passenger mission halfway to Sag A* and back. It's probably good I ate so heartily, too, since what I was about to do would kill my appetite for at least 3 weeks. After I wiped the grease off my face and squeezed myself back into that flight suit that I swear not even a Saavedarian prince could get into after his monthly fast, I climbed into my Viper (I'm well to do for a pilot but not rich) and was off to the next system to take on the unknown task at hand. I dropped in next to the host star and waited for my orders. They came from an anonymous source, no name or face attached and, once I fed them through the encryption key I'd been given, I felt like a ton of cargo had been dropped on my chest.
"CMDR, we need a leg up on our opponents in this system and the best place to start is the pocketbook, so to speak. We need you to take out as many civilian vessels as possible over the next 12 hours. Pay no attention to the unaligned ships, focus on cruise ships and cargo ships from the opposing faction. You will be paid upon return to the station according to your success rate. Please do not fail our trust in your competency and subtlety and we will have a long and lucrative relationship ahead."
I stared at the holo-panel for what seemed like days. What have I gotten myself into? Who am I dealing with. I think I got through the initial shock with the rationalization that, "this faction knows what they're doing, they know what's best for the organization and for the Empire and I wouldn't entrust myself to them if I thought otherwise." I know that's a load of biowaste, but it was all I felt I could do. So I positioned myself between the star and the Resource extraction site at the nearest gas giant, right in the middle of the shipping lane, scanned ships, and waited.
The first few ships were the most gut wrenching. For the initial prey I pulled down a Beluga on its way to show off the local ring system to its passengers.
"This is a peaceful civilian ship, CMDR, hold your fire," she appealed. I deployed my hardpoints, taking a few moments to consider what I was about to do. After a deep breath I unleashed my beams right at the shields protecting the cruise liner's powerplant. She tried to fight, foolishly turning towards her attacker and letting loose a burst of pulse lasers and kinetic rounds, but the Viper was too quick for her. Shields down and naked belly, my cannons made short work of the powerplant and, as I throttled down to observe my "victory," the reactor containment in the cruise ship ruptured spectacularly and left behind a drifting field of debris where tourists; women, children, and innocent men; used to be. I didn't even have time to breathe before the system authorities showed up to sweep the area.
"A crime has been reported in this area. All ships must halt and submit to scanning." They had to do their job by the book, but they knew. I knew. I boosted away and searched for my next target. I got more confident as the body count grew; type-7's, heavy transports, Orcas, they were no match for their nimble interdicting foe. I used ramming tactics to take down their shields just for the hell of it, I shot out the life support and canopy just for the challenge. By the time I had taken down 23 civilian ships I couldn't feel anything at all, long ago jamming all attempts for these ships to communicate with me, to beg for mercy. I was a machine doing what I was told simply because I was told to. And after all that, it was over.
I made my way back to the station, a colossal bounty on my head and a cold singularity in my chest. Another stranger, another vagrant down on his luck, met with me as I turned in the data stick with my combat logs on them.
"Well done commander, you've proven yourself several times over," the stranger recited. I said nothing. I felt nothing. For the first time in months I laid in my bed in my small station abode. I stared at the ceiling, shades drawn, creating a twilight in my room, and began to cry. I wept, for hours I wept, over the souls slain at my hand, not criminals, but innocents. I saw the mangled hulls of the transporters and cruise ships, heard the cries, both real and imagined, of my victims. I wept until there was nothing left in me and then I fell asleep and stayed that way for days. After a week I emerged from my room, flight suit and remlock on, and climbed back into my cockpit, headed off to engineer my Viper's cannons; they could use some more armor piercing capabilities. I don't know what to do and I don't know what I am anymore. I can't escape what I've done, even after everyone forgets about the bounties placed on me. I don't even know if the Galactic Watcher can salvage what's left of me now. What I do know is that I have work to do since this food's not going to pay for itself.
o7