Tevun Krus #127 - Best of 2024

Longshot - A Story by @wdhenning

Longshot

by wdhenning

Prompt: I knew the price for the interstellar cargo was too good to be true. But when I found out why, I was already in the pickle (prompted by jinnis).

Opportunities like this don't come around often, if ever, but that annoying little contrarian voice in my head said it was too good to be true. But with the profit potential so great, I stifled the voice.

Bad move.

And thus, me and my humble star-hauler landed smack dab in the middle of an interstellarconspiracy. Woo-hoo...

A mysterious hooded woman named Amber offered four pods of medical supplies at cents on the credit, claiming a distressing personal issue she would not divulge. And as it was, I already had amotivated buyer in mind. The remote Eleutheria colony urgently needed the cargo, so I could be a hero and turn a tidy profit at the same time. In my business, those two things don't often go together.

And I really needed the money to pay off a debt to some shady people with rather harsh loan default policies, and also to make needed repairs. My cargo ship, aptly named the Longshot, which I bought from a scrapyard and fixed up myself, was held together with baling wire, duct tape, and prayers — well, not the first one, some of the second, and lots of the last.

I was careful, inspecting the manifest and spot-checking the cargo pods before agreeing. But the woman left out one rather significant detail. Hidden among diagnostic equipment was a stasis tube containing a hibernating young woman — no ordinary woman, mind you, but Aquila Savoire, the missing daughter of the deposed Athenian Emperor.

Returning to the bridge, I slumped down in the thread-worn pilot's seat, propped my feet up on the cracked control panel, and then placed a long-range com to a friend on the Meridian Space Station from which I came.

A grainy holographic image of a man with a scruffy black beard and a grimy old-fashioned ballcap appeared before me. "Hey, Micah. Waz' up?" the image said.

Holding my hands up for effect, I said, "Goob, you won't believe what I just found in my cargo."

Goob put a hand to his chin, pretending to be thoughtful, which he usually wasn't. "Let me guess... An Empress Heir?"

I abruptly sat up and my eyes went full open. "How did you know?"

"It's all over the station," he replied. "You know that woman you bought the cargo from?" I nodded. "Someone capped her. Rumor has it she was the Athenian Agent that smuggled out the Heir."

And then tricked me into smuggling her onto my ship. I face palmed. "Great..."

"Guild spooks are crawling all over the station, and they ain't makin' any secret about what they're after, which is the Heir and you too, my friend." A smirk rose on Goob's mouth. "The reward is enough to turn me upper class."

I stared. He was joking, right? We were like brothers, him and me, he wouldn't... "You didn't tell them I was heading to Eleutheria, did you?"

"Didn't have to. You filed a flight plan, and that is public record."

Oh, yeah, I did. "Well, crap..."

"Although, I did tell them you planned to stop over at the Aegis Station first to check on a salvage job along the way. That got me free drinks."

My grin returned. Goob knew I sometimes did salvage to supplement my income, but also knew I had already completed that particular job. "Thanks." He probably bought me some time.