Burning Suns: Conflagration, Issue 1 - Flint and Tinder

JENNIFER

999 ATA - Hel's Market, Hel, Asgard System, Neutral Space

I hate this place.

The coffee's terrible.

And the smell's worse.

Jennifer Bronwen, freelance entrepreneur, sometime mercenary, occasional criminal, and skipper of the independent merchant freighter Bronwen's Fortune wrapped her hands around her stained polymould mug of alleged coffee and tried not to breathe too deeply as she watched the other patrons of the all-day diner going about their daily lives.

It wasn't one of Jen's usual haunts; in fact, it was a long way out of her usual sphere of social and commercial interaction. Most of the people who frequented the grubby little back-alley dive were employed in desperately low-wage jobs in the Market. Cargo handlers, refuse collectors, cleaning and maintenance techs and the like, all of whom were too used to the squalor to pay it much mind. Normally, Jen would not have been caught dead within a quarter-click of the place, making an exception only on the rare occasions when a specific business associate called.

He had called this morning (rousing her with some reluctance from the sinfully soft bed of her local squeeze) and issued a summons, naming the location then ringing off without waiting for her agreement. The choice was hers: if she showed up, there would be work on offer, if not, he would call her another time. With no current contracts, a rapidly diminishing credit account, and a ship in increasingly desperate need of a number of repairs, she'd decided that hearing what he had to offer would cost her nothing more than a little time and a bit of a sulk from the pretty boy she'd have to leave in bed. And so it was that she found herself sitting with her crap coffee in an establishment that was a dive even by the Outskirts' barrel-scraping standards, waiting for her contact to make an appearance. As per fucking usual, he was late.

She drained the mug, grimacing at the mouthful of grit at the bottom, but was nonetheless contemplating ordering a second—bad as it was, it was still parsecs better than anything on the food menu—when a shadow fell across the stained, grease-smeared surface of the table. She looked up, nodded a curt greeting. "Took your own sweet time, didn't you?"

"Worth waiting for, Captain Jennifer, worth waiting for." Orden Snake-Eyes smiled winningly as he slid into the cheap polymould seat opposite hers. "How've you been?"

"Earning an honest, if modest, profit," Jennifer shrugged, keeping her tone noncommittal. None of your damn business.

"Oh, I doubt it was all honest, was it?" Orden grinned. "As a regular retainer of your services, I'm well aware of the truly, ah, eclectic range of your commercial interests."

Jennifer glowered at him: he was entirely too chipper for this god-forsaken hour of the morning. "Whatever. Listen, Orden, you called me. It's too early to be out of bed, this coffee tastes like shit, and I'm pretty sure I'm gonna catch something terminal just from breathing the air in here." The scrubbers bordering the ceiling were crusted with garishly coloured scabs of mould that was growing into a network and colonizing the condensation-streaked walls, and she didn't think the tickle at the back of her throat was her imagination. "Your bizarre affection for this cesspit is as irritating as it is incomprehensible, so do me and my life expectancy a favour and get to the point. What do you want?"

"All in good time, my dear Captain Jennifer. You may be a woman of discerning tastes, but I'm a simple, down-to-earth fellow and I'm starving."

"You're going to eat here? Seriously?"

"Why wouldn't I?"

Jennifer wrinkled her nose. "Well, leaving aside the fact I've seen cleaner field latrines, you should never eat anywhere where they show you 3D holos of the food." She leaned back in her chair with an expansive grin. "Bronwen's first law of survival."