Read the Fine Print, Dummy!
27 Dec 2017Greybeard LXI
I sure thought it was a good deal. 28 tons of liquor to Alpha Centauri. Al-Din Prospect is only 7183 ls from the jump in point, and I’d run lots of beer and wine there in Saladin. The AspX has over three times the cargo space as the courier, so a bigger payout sounded reasonable. I should have been suspicious it was so big.When I signed for the cargo I saw it wasn’t to Al-Din, it was to Hutton Orbital. No problem, still only one jump. The trip computer kept giving me weird answers for trip duration, real long. Double checking the Universal Cartographics Port Guide I was shocked: 6,783,794 ls. Time to top up the tank.
I couldn’t cancel the contract; it was my mistake. Grayson still had lots of room so I went back to the shipping office.
The guys in the shipping office had a good-natured laugh at me when I sheepishly asked if they had anything else for Hutton. They were able to fix me up with 44 tons of beer and that about filled me up.
That was a long trip, sitting in the pilot seat the whole way. It would have been boring but I had a good book. It paid well, but oh my aching butt.