Life as a Merchant of Death

[Switchback]

Thomas D. Smith yawned and got up Today is going to be a long day he thought. He got dressed, and headed down to his day job as a equipment dealer on barrier gate. He leads a boring life, selling countermeasures and cruise disruptors to whomever needed. Whenever a gun was shot, he always hid or ran for cover, trying to avoid them.

One day, a shady man walked into his equipment shop. A usual customer, Thomas was at ease, until 2 men wielding plasma rifles walked in and started firing. The customer, whos name would be released by Barrier Gate Security as Eric Mason was shot dead, after pulling a gun and trying to defend himself. Thomas was stunned and looked at a cartridge from the gun Eric Mason was trying to defend himself with. He went home after closing his shop and stared at it for a day. He now knew what he had to do. He had been running away from weapons and violence for his whole life, but now was sick of running. Living on barrier, getting his hand on a weapon was not hard. Purchasing a DX-9 Plasma Pistol for 200 credits, he sold it to a pirate by the name of Blain Spike for one thousand credits, 500% what he paid for it. Thomas figured if he was going to deal arms, he would deal big, sell to groups who needed guns, not just to small time freelance pirates.
His rules where simple:
1. The more credits I see, the less questions I ask.
2. If the money is good, so is the person.
3. Credits always prevail over morals.
4. Always be a equal opportunity gun runner.
5. Aliases. [He had a alias for each house]
6. Lowly paid customs officials wont open containers marked Radioactive Waste.
7. Don't get shot by your guns.
8. War is good for business.
9. Suspicion alone does not constitute a crime.
10. You cant put a price on loyalty.

After a while Thomas started making more and more from inner Barrier weapons deals, and was soon the go-to guy for weapons and less than legal purchases. He once got a hold of a Nuclear Warhead which he sold for 3 Million Credits to a bunch of terrorists that needed to make a point. With that money he purchased a Camara class freighter, renaming it the Emerald.Spirit, and began to run guns for the highest bidder. There was no limit to what he would sell and to who, he sold Rheinland made tanks to Bretonia and Liberty, Kusari made nukes to Junkers, and everyone in between.

---

Power does not corrupt. Fear corrupts... perhaps the fear of a loss of power.