For those unfamiliar with Mossfoot's adventures.... http://www.noahchinnbooks.com/articles/fan-fiction-fun/
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Sidewinder. For some reason it always came back to the Sidewinder.
It was like the galaxy wanted to ground Moss for good, but always held back just enough that he could convince some poor shmuck to loan him enough to get started again. A borrowed Sidewinder, a thousand credits, and a promise to return both with interest in a reasonable amount of time.
But first, the casino!
With a bit of luck, Moss knew he could turn that thousand credits into ten, upgrade some key components so he could take on a more high risk mission, which would get him enough money to buy a better ship, and before you knew it he'd be back in the deep black, trying to track down his goddamn ship.
He was right about one thing. He managed to turn a thousand credits into ten.
Moss sighed and tilted the paper replica of an old earth Navy cap on his head. "Welcome to McCouriers, can I take your order?"
McCouriers was a messaging service in the LHS 3447 system that he'd loaned himself out to, which carried all the charm and discount prices of a fast food restaurant. What it lacked in pay it made up for in humiliation, as the happy face button on his lapel and name tag that read "Ask Us About Our Zoom Zoom Rates!" would quickly point out.
The guy at the counter looked unsure if he was in the right place, but soon nodded. "Yeah, I, uh, gotta get some information out of the system. Can't trust comms, you know?"
"Do you want files with that?" That was McCouriers way of asking if there was hard copy to be delivered, or just encrypted files. There was no possible way he could hate this job more.
The guy shifted uncomfortably, looking over his shoulder once. "Just the data. So, do I give it to you here?"
Moss shrugged. "Yeah, whatever."
His coward sense should have been tingling. This guy clearly wasn't on the up and up, and that usually lead to trouble. But right now Moss would have been willing to pay him if it meant an interdiction and some excitement. Then he remembered he was flying a loaned Sidewinder and reconsidered. "Um, is there any risk involved? We have a danger pay menu you'll need to look at if there is. You're charged double if you don't disclose and there's any trouble."
"Trouble? Naw, man. Not for you. Just me. My bookie... never mind. Not your problem. This stuff is just harvest reports and crap that I was supposed to take myself, but no way I'm leaving this system until... well, never mind. So, you gonna take it?"
Moss looked at him with dead eyes. "Do you honestly think anyone who works here can afford to say no?"
"Only the Fuel Rats don't show up. Some opportunistic so-and-so hacked their frequency and thought he could help himself to a free ship. Only the ship is a chimera, cobbled together from a few other ships. Spaceworthy, but barely worth its weight in scrap on the market. Still, he figures a couple of slaves will make up his time.
"Now, you might be asking, why didn't you fight back? Didn't you have a gun? Sure I did. Damn good one too. But this guy had a bigger one. Why does that matter, you might ask, if you hit him first?Dead is dead, right? Sure it is. Only this guy is a bit of a dim bulb. He didn't have a ship-friendly gun. He had one that could blow a hole in the hull, potentially killing all of us. I mean, sure, we had flight suits on, but our ship has no fuel and... you know what? Never mind. Point is, surrender seemed like the better option.
"Hel wasn't keen on that, mind you. She'd been a slave before and wasn't about to go back to that life. But she knew I wasn't going to let it go that far. And I didn't. You been around as long as I have, you pick up a few tricks that you can use at all times, like having your flight suit customized so that it can demagnetize magnacuffs. Like I said, this guy was a bit of a dim bulb. He didn't think to strip us down.
"So, we had ourselves a bit of a mutiny on the way back. Just outside the station we were approaching. That got the cops' attention and the next thing you know we're free. Only problem is, while Hel's record is spotless, mine... well, let's just say I was flagged as a person of interest on a number of matters. I thought I had my records scrubbed, but it seems someone had a personal interest in seeing me. Not that I waited to find out.
"Fortunately, I still had credits to my name, barely enough to bribe my guard to let me escape. I could tell he had no love for the people he was turning me over to, and I gave him a better offer. He also let it slip that it was someone from Utopian space who wanted me. Figures. They've had it in for me for a while. Well, some of them, anyway. They're not all peace and love types there, you know.
"Anyway, he drops me off in a remote outpost in LHS 3447 and takes off, leaving me stuck without any money. I should point out that this is what we call 'Par for the Course' in my world. But I was alive, and free. And since I've got a rep as a pilot, I was able to get work at a crappy little courier company, which is how I ended up here.
"So, that about sums things up. Any questions?"
The light blinked on the dashboard twice. "I'm sorry, but I am not programmed for this level of discourse. Did you want all that recorded in the ships log instead?"
Moss sighed. "Victor, as a replacement Violet, you really suck."
"I'm sorry, but I am only programmed to operate essential systems. Please feel free to upgrade my personality matrix at any starport."
Moss rolled his eyes and keyed in the launch sequence into his company Sidewinder. "Not a chance. With luck, I'll be rid of you in a week." He checked his manifest, about six different courier missions lined up. It was a start anyway.
He entered the first destination into his nav computer, and left the station.
In truth, it took less than a week. Had he played things on the straight and narrow, he'd have been shipping documents for a month solid before he'd get his own ship. McCouriers had hefty ship rental fees and overcharged like crazy on maintenance. It was a scam, meant to keep desperate pilots desperate.
But while Moss considered himself a decent human being (well, decent enough), he never claimed to be a completely honest one. He still had a contact or two in this part of space and those contacts knew people who needed a certain kind of help. Those courier jobs were all linked to systems where certain individuals had lost certain items, and needed them retrieved without anyone knowing. Cops, competition, what have you. And being reasonably close to his established destinations meant that the extra time it took to deliver his goods wouldn't get noticed by the managers.
The only good thing about flying a stock Sidewinder was that you usually slipped by unnoticed. You can't carry enough to be worth robbing, and you're not powerful enough to be any kind of threat. About the only people you needed to worry about were psychopaths who loved stomping on people who couldn't fight back. Unfortunately there were all too many of them out there, but Moss knew how to watch the signs for them and was able to give them a wide berth.
So, while the six courier jobs only got him about ten thousand credits in hard cash (after all the overpriced charges were taken into account) his side gig got him twenty times that.
Two more sorties like that, and he was in a Cobra MKIII.
Now he could look for Hel.
-----
Sidewinder. For some reason it always came back to the Sidewinder.
It was like the galaxy wanted to ground Moss for good, but always held back just enough that he could convince some poor shmuck to loan him enough to get started again. A borrowed Sidewinder, a thousand credits, and a promise to return both with interest in a reasonable amount of time.
But first, the casino!
With a bit of luck, Moss knew he could turn that thousand credits into ten, upgrade some key components so he could take on a more high risk mission, which would get him enough money to buy a better ship, and before you knew it he'd be back in the deep black, trying to track down his goddamn ship.
He was right about one thing. He managed to turn a thousand credits into ten.
Moss sighed and tilted the paper replica of an old earth Navy cap on his head. "Welcome to McCouriers, can I take your order?"
McCouriers was a messaging service in the LHS 3447 system that he'd loaned himself out to, which carried all the charm and discount prices of a fast food restaurant. What it lacked in pay it made up for in humiliation, as the happy face button on his lapel and name tag that read "Ask Us About Our Zoom Zoom Rates!" would quickly point out.
The guy at the counter looked unsure if he was in the right place, but soon nodded. "Yeah, I, uh, gotta get some information out of the system. Can't trust comms, you know?"
"Do you want files with that?" That was McCouriers way of asking if there was hard copy to be delivered, or just encrypted files. There was no possible way he could hate this job more.
The guy shifted uncomfortably, looking over his shoulder once. "Just the data. So, do I give it to you here?"
Moss shrugged. "Yeah, whatever."
His coward sense should have been tingling. This guy clearly wasn't on the up and up, and that usually lead to trouble. But right now Moss would have been willing to pay him if it meant an interdiction and some excitement. Then he remembered he was flying a loaned Sidewinder and reconsidered. "Um, is there any risk involved? We have a danger pay menu you'll need to look at if there is. You're charged double if you don't disclose and there's any trouble."
"Trouble? Naw, man. Not for you. Just me. My bookie... never mind. Not your problem. This stuff is just harvest reports and crap that I was supposed to take myself, but no way I'm leaving this system until... well, never mind. So, you gonna take it?"
Moss looked at him with dead eyes. "Do you honestly think anyone who works here can afford to say no?"
***
"So the story so far is like this. I saved a lost colony ship from some pirates and was a goddamn hero. I was supposed to get my old Clipper back from the stupid techno-monk who "borrowed" it from me. On route I run out of fuel and have to call the Fuel Rats to come save my butt and my co-pilot Hel...
"Only the Fuel Rats don't show up. Some opportunistic so-and-so hacked their frequency and thought he could help himself to a free ship. Only the ship is a chimera, cobbled together from a few other ships. Spaceworthy, but barely worth its weight in scrap on the market. Still, he figures a couple of slaves will make up his time.
"Now, you might be asking, why didn't you fight back? Didn't you have a gun? Sure I did. Damn good one too. But this guy had a bigger one. Why does that matter, you might ask, if you hit him first?Dead is dead, right? Sure it is. Only this guy is a bit of a dim bulb. He didn't have a ship-friendly gun. He had one that could blow a hole in the hull, potentially killing all of us. I mean, sure, we had flight suits on, but our ship has no fuel and... you know what? Never mind. Point is, surrender seemed like the better option.
"Hel wasn't keen on that, mind you. She'd been a slave before and wasn't about to go back to that life. But she knew I wasn't going to let it go that far. And I didn't. You been around as long as I have, you pick up a few tricks that you can use at all times, like having your flight suit customized so that it can demagnetize magnacuffs. Like I said, this guy was a bit of a dim bulb. He didn't think to strip us down.
"So, we had ourselves a bit of a mutiny on the way back. Just outside the station we were approaching. That got the cops' attention and the next thing you know we're free. Only problem is, while Hel's record is spotless, mine... well, let's just say I was flagged as a person of interest on a number of matters. I thought I had my records scrubbed, but it seems someone had a personal interest in seeing me. Not that I waited to find out.
"Fortunately, I still had credits to my name, barely enough to bribe my guard to let me escape. I could tell he had no love for the people he was turning me over to, and I gave him a better offer. He also let it slip that it was someone from Utopian space who wanted me. Figures. They've had it in for me for a while. Well, some of them, anyway. They're not all peace and love types there, you know.
"Anyway, he drops me off in a remote outpost in LHS 3447 and takes off, leaving me stuck without any money. I should point out that this is what we call 'Par for the Course' in my world. But I was alive, and free. And since I've got a rep as a pilot, I was able to get work at a crappy little courier company, which is how I ended up here.
"So, that about sums things up. Any questions?"
The light blinked on the dashboard twice. "I'm sorry, but I am not programmed for this level of discourse. Did you want all that recorded in the ships log instead?"
Moss sighed. "Victor, as a replacement Violet, you really suck."
"I'm sorry, but I am only programmed to operate essential systems. Please feel free to upgrade my personality matrix at any starport."
Moss rolled his eyes and keyed in the launch sequence into his company Sidewinder. "Not a chance. With luck, I'll be rid of you in a week." He checked his manifest, about six different courier missions lined up. It was a start anyway.
He entered the first destination into his nav computer, and left the station.
***
In truth, it took less than a week. Had he played things on the straight and narrow, he'd have been shipping documents for a month solid before he'd get his own ship. McCouriers had hefty ship rental fees and overcharged like crazy on maintenance. It was a scam, meant to keep desperate pilots desperate.
But while Moss considered himself a decent human being (well, decent enough), he never claimed to be a completely honest one. He still had a contact or two in this part of space and those contacts knew people who needed a certain kind of help. Those courier jobs were all linked to systems where certain individuals had lost certain items, and needed them retrieved without anyone knowing. Cops, competition, what have you. And being reasonably close to his established destinations meant that the extra time it took to deliver his goods wouldn't get noticed by the managers.
The only good thing about flying a stock Sidewinder was that you usually slipped by unnoticed. You can't carry enough to be worth robbing, and you're not powerful enough to be any kind of threat. About the only people you needed to worry about were psychopaths who loved stomping on people who couldn't fight back. Unfortunately there were all too many of them out there, but Moss knew how to watch the signs for them and was able to give them a wide berth.
So, while the six courier jobs only got him about ten thousand credits in hard cash (after all the overpriced charges were taken into account) his side gig got him twenty times that.
Two more sorties like that, and he was in a Cobra MKIII.
Now he could look for Hel.
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