28MAR3025

They say space is infinite, but I swear the universe is just a small room filled with the same idiots playing musical chairs. Case in point—Vess "Two-Fingers" Barlo. Last time I saw that slimy little void-rat, he was running a con selling “refurbished” engine coils that were really just scrap metal dipped in a thick coat of wishful thinking. I told him, “Vess, if I ever see you again, I’m gonna see what part of you can hold atmosphere the least.” Yet, here I am, staring at his ugly mug on my viewscreen, and he’s offering me a job.

Not a good job, mind you. Apparently, some merchant freighter out of Seraph’s Reach lost a cargo pod, and Vess has the “exclusive contract” to retrieve it. Which is to say, he has no contract at all and just happened to hear about it from his equally shady friends. The job’s simple—find the pod, crack it open, and sell whatever’s inside before the actual owners figure out where it drifted off to.

Now, past me—the idiot—would have signed up in a heartbeat. Free cargo, fast creds, what’s the worst that could happen? But I’m a changed man now. So I said, “Vess, pal, I’m trying to stay out of trouble.”

He laughed so hard he choked on whatever awful excuse for liquor he was drinking. Said I was the funniest man in the sector.

Thing is, I was going to say no. I really was. But then he made me an offer I couldn’t ignore—new engine stabilizers for the Rust Rat. Mine are about as stable as a one-legged man in a gravity storm. And I don’t mean “gently falling apart.” I mean, one jump away from turning into a very localized star kind of unstable.

So yeah, maybe I said yes. And maybe that was a bad idea.

Because now I’m floating in a dead part of space, staring at the cargo pod we were supposed to recover. Only, it ain’t just a cargo pod. It’s got no markings, no transponder, and the surface is covered in something that looks suspiciously organic. It also just moved.

And Vess is conveniently not answering his comms.

This is why I don’t take jobs from idiots.

If I don’t make it out of this, someone tell the ship dealer on Artemis Station I still owe him for that heat shield. Actually… don’t tell him anything. Let him wonder.

- Scootch

"A free meal in deep space is usually poison or a trap. Sometimes both."