Chapter Text
“Excuse me? Are you even hearing what I’m saying?”
I look up from my game tablet, the space-corp pencil-neck is glaring at me with his arms crossed, and the rest of the newly assembled crew is staring at me too, fifty-fifty split between bemused and annoyed.
“Uh, I think I get the gist.”
Admittedly, I haven’t heard a single word he’s said. I mean it when I say I get the gist, though, as the gist is always the same for gigs like this. The ad-sheet that flipped through the Eris Station work bulletin boards gave all the details I needed; short trip, confidential, big payout. I signed up for this run for the same reason I’d signed up for the last ten I’d done, digi-wallet started getting light. Being the good shipboard repairman that I am my glowing references got me the gig. Something about my narrow frame and short stature that lets me crawl through the greasy ducts and maneuver in those hard to reach places in a starship engine room. It helps to have slept with a few of your references too, they usually provide a more enthusiastic recommendation.
So why would I listen to the corporate agent yapping away in this perfunctory briefing? It’s always the same old shtick; derelict starship blah blah blah, salvage sensitive corporate material yada yada, who gives a fuck. A loot run is just a loot run, whether its done for governments, corps, or independents. The white jump-suited pencil pusher is really making a show of his absolutely minuscule authority backed up by legalize that didn’t count for anything once we split for the Big-Nothing. No doubt he stands the most to gain, a promotion no doubt or some other way to leverage his way off Eris. All the corporate stooges want off the backwater station. Couldn’t be me. Eris suits me just fine. Regular work for someone that knows their trade, generous payouts from that work, and plenty of ways to burn it. I’d made a home for myself out here in the fringes of conquered space and if the morons that work for these space-corps had any self-awareness they’d realize the people they work for need people like me more than toadies like them. It’s out of stations like Eris that all the confederated planets and feudal corporations run their less-than-legal operations. That's what this probably is too whether the stooge knows it or not. Half the time you don’t even get told what it is you’re salvaging anyway. I’ve seen my fair share of cargo containers, suitcases, satchels, trunks, and other receptacles of various sizes and implications trade hands without the crew ever popping the lock. This weasel cares if I listen to him because he thinks being a “company man” makes him above me. I don’t listen because I know we’re both smack dab on the bottom of the totem pole even if he’s too dumb to see it.
“Then what did I just say?” the stooge asks. His head swivels as he does so, he really thinks he’s got me. I puff out my cheeks and shake my head as I blow that stored air out into the hanger.
“Something really, really smart and interesting. Sexy even!”
A few laughs break out from the other crew members, a couple of eye-rolling sighs. Poor limp-dicked corporate stooge, his face grows beat red, maybe anger, or a flush of embarrassed surprise, probably both.
“Wha- what? You space rat, I want you off this expedition, captain,’ he says turning to the tall, dark, greasy haired man leaning against the mid-sized cruiser parked in the hanger bay, the ship’s name Hellion painted above his disinterested head. The worked up stooge scrolls on his tablet, dozens of pages of his jargon laden speech whizzing by with every flick of his finger. Eventually he finds the personnel dossiers, landing on mine and that awful picture I took for my repair technician license, ‘I want this man… Rosco Gannon off the expedition.”
The captain just shakes his head, suppressing his own smile, “We’ve only got clearance to shove-off within the next hour, and we aren’t gonna get a better repair tech in that time. Rosco doesn’t need to know the ins and outs of your operation he’s just here to help me fix things.”
I cup my hands into a heart at the captain, who nods in my direction. We lock eyes for a second, something passes between us. I feel our minds ping information off each other like satellites in a coordinated array. Could just be comradery of the space rats, could be something else. I return my attention back to the game tablet and pocket that exchange for later investigation. The stooge, clearly pissed at my open disregard for him, continues his schpeal for what feels like an eternity. He checks in with the other three people who made it through the application process for this voyage; a nervous looking scribe decked in his monastic robes heavy with hard-drives sewn into its many pockets, a deadly looking merc with her hair tied back to reveal the ritual scarification on her stoic face, and a squat, funny looking droid that looked about as old as ancient Eris Station herself. After enduring a half-hour of insufferable droning, the captain clears his throat and reminds the stooge about their leave clearance expiring soon.
“Alright, we can continue the coda to the briefing onboard I suppose.”
Sighs of relief ripple through the rest of us sat in our semi-circle, I shoot my arms into the air with a sarcastic, “Yippee!”
Together we all rise, grab our bags, and load onto the Hellion.