So, some people say I was born under an unlucky star. I think that may be true of other people; but not necessarily true of me. You see; I think you'd have to be able to see the stars inorder to be born under them; and my planet just isn't that lucky.
I was born indentured. I know that's not exactly legal; but when your ma is indentured, and your pa is indentured, and you are born with a bad set of lungs... well, let's just say that the healthcare you get signed up for isn't exactly all the recruiting poster says it is.
Actually, come to think of it: seems most folks that grow up around these parts got somethin wrong with them. I guess that comes from living around the whole verses' trash. Course, it’s not all that bad; always had plenty of toys as a kid. Last year's hot item in the core means we got 10 to every man, woman, and child the year after out here. And if you don't watch the news feeds that close, you can pretend that its still shiny. Then again; they use to tell me that my dippers were made of vac-seal tape growing up, and that I could weld before I could read or write. I guess that comes from having to fix shiny toy from last year before ya can play it proper.
Fast forward to a couple of years ago- seems that it doesn’t matter how good you are at a thing; if you are indentured, then your pay is equal to zero no matter what. But: sometimes they don't mind too much if you pocket a shiney or two on the side. Not like it costs them anything.
So me and my buddy got signed up for this salvage gig. They dump us in the deep black with a pair of pliers and an O2 bottle: and have us dismantle dead ships for scrap. And if we found an extra relay coil on a forgotten shelf, or some pocket change under a loose sheet of deck plating; then that was as close as I ever got to being paid.
Turns out though, that those that weren't working for free had a different pay system. Apparently, if one of your crew members died, you got consolation pay; fly out to the most dangerous places, you got a hazard pay bonus for doing nothing, on account of how risky the work was.
So: enter our pilot and drop commander 'Grumpy,' real name Mike something, grouchy Alliance vet. Apparently he was not only of the lazy and properly paid sort: he also had himself a devious bent.
So yesterday: we get assigned to strip a real peach of a derelict, fresh into the wrecking yard: named 'Cantankerous' or some such.
We get dropped off, same as usual; and scuttle up the sides and make our way in. Once inside we find its dark as pitch, holding at maybe 20% atmo, and going to be among one of our less pleasant work environments. Some quick patch work later: the external and internal seals are patched, and me and mine are working our way along, looking for what I hope is a lightswitch.
And as if this wasn't enough to make our day grand: as we round a corner, we see walking lights, the kind you normally associate with illegal salvage operations.
So my compatriot who normally is just bad company for myself made himself useful for once, and started to draw attention to hisself by shooting at the offending light source, and the huen dahn holding it. Apparently that made the feller mad, because he started shooting back.
While they traded plesantries, I noticed some backup arriving: for them, not us. Ours was the lazy and devious sort if you recall.
So I did what I do best, and started punching and kicking to keep them occupied, and the fight fair. Course: not all folks fight fair, and this particular bloke took offence to me ringing his bell a time or two. He decided to fight fire with plasma, and attempted to riddle me with bullets of the lethal variety. I dodged out of the way, but not before I got caught up in a coughing fit, and made all sorts of upset by the escalating scale of unpleasantness that came before me.
After seeing my moves, I guess he got tired of even fighting dirty and took off running.
I of course took exception to this whole situation and caught up to him with a healthy serving of what for.
...
...
Sorry ‘bout that. Seems these lungs just don't want to work proper sometimes.
Anyways' where was I?
Oh yes. I caught up with who we can only guess was the captain of the pirate salvage crew, on account of how shiny his gun was. We were able to hash out our differences in a gentalmanly fashon, where I knocked the piss out of him before he could try to murder me some more.
So: deciding that unlike him I wasn't the murdering sort, I tossed out a room that was nearby and stripped the good captain of all his worldly possessions, which I decided he would mostly try to murder me with, and locked him in a nearby room. To mostly contemplate the meaning of life, enjoy his concussion and breathe the limited atmosphere in short shallow breaths.
I upgraded my gear with what the good captain had. On account of him with a bank account and being able to afford mag-boots and the like that make this work more bearable: as opposed to my stuff that was mostly as costly as my hourly wage. Which is to say, zero.
I went back to cussin' at my compatriot: who was done getting hisself shot up, and we decided to see what all the hub-bub was about. Seemed that this heap wasn't much better than the irradiated scrap they normally ship our way, and darker than some by a stretch.
I spent some quality time in the powerplant, and got the lights and atmospheric generators working again, pumping out breathable atmosphere, although I can’t vouch that it was particularly good for ya’- better a sight than what was outside, though.
I swear that most people they have totaling out these wrecks don't even try to fix them.
So, I digress. We get the lights turned on and my technical advisor walks in wearing what is at least 75% of a hot pink vac-suit. With space up top for woman bits, and ‘Juicy’ stamped on the butt plate. It looked like he cobbled it together from a bordello of space hookers.
But hey: whatever makes him happy, and keeps the attention off me: I wasn't going to say anything cross about it.
…
...
Sorry again. I wonder if I could ...
There. That's better.
My apologies; sometimes all this gum flapping gets to me.
...
...
Where was I?
Oh yes: my cross dressing compatriot and I got the lights working, and we ran a sensor sweep to see if we could find where our new friends had come from, as it is an awful long walk from the rotting scrap-pile and anything else even resembling lovable atmo and terra-firma.
We discovered two things. One: the people in question had arrived in a modified Wren, just slightly less ugly than the pile of feh feh pi goh we were currently standing on.
Two: our hereforto mentioned miserly and lazy coworker pilot, and ride back planetside was gone.
Apparently there had been some sort of emergency explosion where me and mine were killed; so he beet feet back home to collect hazard pay and warned everyone of the radiation spike that was in the area reachable by our hand-held com systems.
So... left for dead by our friends and employer, attempted to be killed by pirates, and left with a ship that was mostly dark; and glowing radiation where she wasn't.
...
Sorry. Coughing isn't going to pretty up the story none, but it was how I was feeling; then, and now.
Turns out our pirates had a treasure map of sorts- our irradiated tombstone had something of value after all. Some cargo of a medical nature, and their ‘map’ was a description and a note that a feller on Persephone would be willing to pay handsomely for it. Trouble was, and there always seems to be some, it was all locked up, but our pirate friends left us enough tools to cut it out proper. And a short space walk later we got the two ships bucked up ass to belly and unloaded the bits of shiny and anything worth taking onto our new tub.
We didn't have any paperwork to speak of, and we didn't feel like giving up our newfound freedom through death: so we just called the Wren “Tub of Lard" and crissened it with what was left of a bottle of irradiated scotch, which my compatriot had mostly drunk.
Yea... he's a good pilot and a decent brawler: but smarts? Not so much...
We decided to do our job proper, due to the non-rushed nature of our current situation: and stripped the best parts off of Cantankerous.
Then we decided to kick up our heels and leave the life of unpaid slavery behind.
We grabbed up Tub of Lard's former captain, and hauled his nekkid unconscious ass onto the Wren. My compatriot had the nerve to give me guff about the captain being stripped naked. I looked at him telling this to me as he was standing there in his woman-folk space suit, drunk off his keester and decided to let it slide. For now.
I tossed another room in the Wren and dumped the nekkid feller in it; and my drunk cross-dressing friend made like we were space trash in deteriorating orbit drifting down to tera-firma. As soon as we got down, I made good on my earlier irritations. The pilot didn’t complain about his teeth hurtin’- either he was still too sauced, or he just knew better.
Seeing as how I am the forgiving type, I decided to leave the captain in his skin, but not much else; seems downright charitable if you compare that he wasn't even going to leave me breathin’.
I got a taxi to drop him off at a seedy tattoo parlor: so he would have something to remember this day by, incase his memory of events was fuzzy for some reason.
Then we went to take care of business.
Our former fellow employee was busying himself spending our death and hazard pay bonuses as fast as he could. I explained to him that killing us was inappropriate and rude. I’m not much persuasive with words, so I explained it with my fists and feet. I would hate to have him misunderstand me.
Some barflies looked to join in, but I promised them whatever bits of shiny Cranky had on him once the fight was over. They sat themselves right back down, and waited to see how things turned out. My friend didn't help much; he felt a powerful need to sit down at the bar and order a gin. But I am apt at making my point in an argument, in the physical sense of the word; and after that was over, I calmly explained to my friend that it was rude to leave me hanging fighting Cranky. The long and short of it was I felt better, and everyone else got a little what for. And someone may have ended up with 'liar' tattooed on his no-good forehead.
Just thought that people should know who they is dealing with is all. I is a public servant practically.
...
So, we snuck into our old bunk before rumor of our death got all our stuff stolen, looted what we wanted, and packed up the Wren.
That's my story:
So now: here is where you come in...
