The Inattentive Pilot, Pt. 2
09 Mar 2018Fenrah Iniat
"Scan Detected"Sometimes when you get into the job of being a freelancer, you don't always have the luxury of choosing the jobs you want. Sometimes you are dealt with nothing good to do, or rather, nothing legal to do... Which is why Fenrah's day went from embarrassingly awkward to potentially criminal.
Turns out along with said bounties to pickup with his Cobra, it also ended up that there was a need to pickup some "salvage" from a guarded "dump". Dump meaning a literal blank area of rock with nothing more than just abandoned cargo and some skimmers to protect said dump. The skimmers weren't the problem; they went down easily enough in SRV Scarab, it was what the cargo was: Landmines. He knew the employer was at war, and that generally wars in space happen in space, however the need for landmines is somewhat odd; he never questioned it. He did question it when he noticed upon exiting warp at Aulin Enterprise that his rep scanner said "Illict Cargo".
The illict cargo that is now being scanned by system authorities for a idiot of a pilot who nearly got blown up for not requesting docking.
"Shit shit shit shit", Fenrah muttered, thinking on what to do. This wasn't the first time he's smuggled goods, but it is the first time being scanned while carrying them. He knew there was a potential way out, but it'd look blatantly obvious that he was doing something shifty. Better shifty than caught, I guess... Fenrah thought, as he keyed the "special mode" he got from a bar one night.
"Slient Running, Shields Offline", Betty chirped, as the ships non-essential lights and shields died. Usually you do this *before* you go in, then again, he didn't expect he'd draw attention docking at a station he's operated out of for 2 months.
"Comandah, your signal's gone dock, please do a systems check" the operator said, clearly more irritated that now instead of a non-compliant pilot, now there's an invisible one.
Swifty Fenrah keyed in a docking request, knowing that the station will still process this automatically, just not notify anyone that it's happening. This shit better work...
"Docking Request Accepted", Betty announced, giving him a auto-assigned dock number and a timer for which his window to land was ticking. Moving swiftly he pushed his throttle to max to get in the mailslot.
Hah, this might actually work! Now to get in and dock befo-
"Warning: Illegal Cargo Scanned", Betty toned, indicated a much larger fine of 10,000 Cr.
A new voice went on the comms, with a clear German accent, "Commander, you're pretty new at this, aren't you?".
"Eh, comeon, you know I've been around... You also I contribute to keeping Aulin's Security Rating too, yeah?"
"I do, which is why I'm giving you... oh, I don't know, 1 minute starting the moment your gear hits the pad to uhh, 'get your story straight' about why you're bring explosives aboard a space station, dah?"
"Of course, I'm sure you'll find it's all a misunderstanding, after all, I'm having some technical problems, and on a Cobra, who knows what misinformation you might be getting from the scan, yeah?"
"Sure, 1 minute."
SHIT! Looks like I need to call in that favor...
He hit the pad with a grace that is rather uncommon in most small ship pilots; if there was one thing he wanted to get right, it's landing. Of course, landing is fine, but sorting out what happens out of the seat, well...