Day 4 // 0915M

Great day! Scratch that. Fantastic day! Finally got the lead we were looking for. And this is the big one, too. Got a call on the secure line early this morning while I was prepping Fresno for our trip to Hylandia. Hylandia is an out of the way port just outside the Void. With the Dominion carpeting most of the major ports in the galaxy, Hylandia seemed like a good place to look for some leads with little to no Dominion interference. I told Fresno that if we can’t find work there, we might as well pack it in. “Sun is already going to kill me for being late and not answering her calls,” I told him, “Being broke on top of it would just make the situation worse.”

The call came through just as we had finished plotting our course into the NaviComputer. We didn’t recognize the call code. 11343-something. I decided to answer it, just in case it was a distressed ship sending an SOS transmission to random call codes. We get those from time to time. This time it wasn’t a distress call. The caller instead introduced himself as Pitt Crater. I recognized the name instantly. Pitt Crater, the largest supplier of stolen and rare goods in the galaxy. I couldn’t believe my ears.

I wasn't sure why Pitt was contacting us, though. Surely, he had contacts across the galaxy. I figured it was one of two things: 1) Either the shipping industry was in worse shape than I thought, and Pitt was desperate, or 2) this job was extremely dangerous and no one else was crazy enough to agree, regardless of the money being offered. It turned out to be a little of both.

Pitt told us that he had an extremely “fragile” shipment that needed to be delivered immediately. I’ve been in this business long enough to know what “fragile” means – highly illegal. Something people and aliens alike would be willing to kill for. Pitt said that we came highly recommended, but he wouldn’t say who recommended us. He was probably lying just to butter us up. He went on to clarify that the shipment was Crescent Rock – extremely rare and highly illegal. 1,200 Units. 1,200! Easily worth over 20 million credits. The pay would be a cool two million to split between Fresno and myself. I couldn’t believe it. In ten short minutes we had gone from barely scraping by, to one shipment away from early retirement. I didn't want to appear too desperate, so I told Pitt I needed a few minutes to discuss the offer with Fresno. Pitt told us he’d call back in five minutes. He then disconnected.

I turned to Fresno and asked him what he thought. Fresno was apprehensive at first. “There's something he's not telling us. When it sounds too good to be true, it usually is,” he said. A part of me agreed with that logic, but that part of me couldn’t overpower the devil on my shoulder that was looking for the big payday. Finally I convinced Fresno to at least hear Pitt out, and get the full details of the job before we made a decision. Fresno seemed okay with at least hearing what Pitt had to say. I, on the other hand, had already made up my mind. True to his word, Pitt called back five minutes later. He seemed impatient now. "Well, yes or no?" Pitt snapped. He had a shipment to move, and he wanted a decision asap. I knew if we didn’t say yes, or tried to delay, we’d lose the gig. “Yes, we’ll do it.” I said without thinking. Fresno shot me an angry look, and started to protest but I cut him off: “But before we do anything, though, we’ll need some more details.”

Pitt quickly ran down the specifics:

1. Meet Pitt in Illiasa Port tomorrow, in a bar called the Blue Nebula, to get the pick up location
2. Pick up shipment the following evening
3. Deliver shipment to contact on Alcira the day after

Fresno had almost passed out when Pitt said “Alcira.” I’m surprised he didn’t bail on the job right then and there. I’m glad he didn’t -- I don’t think I could do this run without him. On the surface, the job seems easy enough, except that Alcira is the seat of the Dominion Empire. (No wonder Pitt can’t find anyone else to accept the job.) Transporting outlawed goods is an offense that could easily land someone in prison for life. Getting caught shipping outlawed goods to the Dominion capital is a death sentence.

Once I hung up with Pitt, I spent about an hour trying to calm Fresno down and convince him that we could pull it off.

"Two million credits!" I said. "No more scrounging for jobs. We'd be set for life."

Fresno told me not to forget why the job is worth two million credits: "This isn't some checkpoint on some out-of-the-way planet. We're talking about Alcira, the Dominion capital," he said. “We'll be fine,” I replied. I was just trying to keep Fresno calm, stop him from having second thoughts. Truth is, the only way we'll be fine if we don't make any mistakes. Security around Alcira will make security at the local ports seem like a joke. But the money is just too good to pass up. Sun is going to be thrilled. I will finally have enough for us to live comfortably.

Going to lay down now. I have a headache. I can still hear Fresno in the cockpit mumbling to himself about how the Dominion is going to capture us and kill us. He’ll change his tune once he sees 1,000,000 credits in his account.

Just realized we don’t have enough in our account for fake identification tags. Damn. Hopefully Pitt can front us some of the money. Well, we’ll deal with that tomorrow.

- Colum

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