One Small Favour

[Omi]

Ordinarily, Curacao would have been Komachi's kind of place. If you had credits to burn and any appreciation at all for a vice or two, the resort planet had always had a sector-wide reputation as the place to blow your money on anything from synth weed, to Nox, or a pretty lady to keep you company. However, when you were there on business. Komachi was rapidly finding it to be a lot more boring than entertaining.

The starport was one of the few places planetside where the authorities made any kind of effort to glitz up the seedy reality, at least. The walls and floors gleamed, polished round the clock by an efficient rota of service robots, and any number of attentive guides and other members of staff seemed to be hovering constantly over her shoulder, almost seeming too eager to offer her help and advice.

Then again, that might be because I kinda stick out like a sore thumb. Still dressed in only her buttercup-yellow flight jumpsuit, the short, black-haired Kusarian was a relatively uninspiring figure among the predominantly upper-class crowd. Hopefully, it wouldn't take long to find what she was looking for. The bar would be a good start, she supposed, although three whole crates might raise an eyebrow or two. Still, she didn't think it was likely to be much trouble.

Dodging out of the way of a busy-looking business type, his phone glued to his ear as he rushed through the crowd, Komachi picks her way across the bustling hallway towards the brightly lit, neon-decorated bar.

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"Can't I just pay you for them?" pleaded Komachi, an edge of disbelief in her tone. "I have the money right here - look!"

The man behind the counter wasn't interested, waving dismissively at her credit chit with an accompanying shake of the head.

"I already told you, you won't be getting that box open even if I do sell you them. Not without the access codes." At least he had the decency to look sheepish, she thought, although she was already finding it hard to believe anyone could be so stupid. Curacao Reserve was, apparently, a rather protected brand - so protected, in fact, that shipments from the breweries dotted across the surface were sent out in hermetically sealed, Ageira-certified locked boxes, which could only be opened with a passcode specific to each crate. And without the code...

"Isn't there any other way? They must have like - technicians or something who can override the locks, right?"

The man grimaced, looking more than a little pained.

"Yes, but they can't do it off-site. As in 'off the site where the boxes are manufactured. As in Pueblo Station, way up in Colorado."

Komachi's eyes narrowed, her face conveying her irritation and displeasure at this new development rather effectively. Already, Yanni's small request looked set to more than triple in distance, let alone time.

"Look," continued the man, an expression of mixed realisation and desperation crossing his face all at once. "I'll do you a deal, miss Kurosawa. You only want three crates, right? Well - I got a lot more of the stuff than that all locked up tight here. Thirty or so, by my reckoning. If you could take the whole bunch up to Pueblo for me and get their locking mechanism cracked open for me, then I'll throw in the three you want for free. No charge at all. And - hell, I'll even say I owe you a small favour or two afterwards."

Her mouth had opened as soon as he'd mentioned 'taking the whole bunch' anywhere, ready to deliver a resounding 'no' - but at the mention of getting Yanni's three pricey crates for nothing at all, she closed it again. That really was something worth considering. If she pocketed the money the dealer had given her to pay for them, it'd be worth it for her to haul the boxes to Omicron Alpha and back, let alone just to Pueblo. Opposite her, the bartender was already smirking, knowing from her hesitation that he'd already won her over.

"I- yeah, I guess that's- acceptable," replied the Chrysanthemum, trying to regain the initiative. "Pueblo's a bit out of my way, to be honest - but three crates of Reserve as payment sounds fair to me." She offered him her hand with that, sealing the deal with a quick handshake and a grin. "Can I get a bottle of vodka for the road with that?"

"One-hundred fifty." A green chit had already slid across the bar, though - soon followed by a litre bottle of clear liquid in the opposite direction. "I'll comm ahead and let them know you're coming. You're in bay 38T, right?"

"You got it, signore," she winked back, scooping up the bottle in one delicate hand and turning to leave. "I'll meet your boys there to get loaded up."

He nodded in affirmation, eyeing the young woman carefully as she strode across the floor and out of sight, a spring in her step and a bottle of drink clutched in her right hand. Somehow, she didn't exactly strike him as the reliable type. Still - he'd gotten a better price out of contracting her ad-hoc to jimmy his sealed shipment open for him than he would have gotten from a 'certified' delivery captain. In the current economic climate, that was a pretty big deal.

---

Lounging back in the cockpit while her Sabre was loaded up, Komachi stretches cat-like in the chair, too preoccupied with being lazy to worry about little things like pre-flight checks or starport safety regulations. It's practically a dream come true. Maybe I should get myself properly into the high-value cargo business, rather than just ferrying thousands of tons of Cardamine and scrap metal for like I used to. Curacao to Pueblo is a cinch. It won't even add that much time on, to be honest.

Yanni might have been happier to get his cargo as soon as possible, but it looked like he'd just have to wait a little longer than he'd expected. She probably wouldn't even bother radioing him once she hit vacuum again, just in case he wanted to inquire into the financial side of things. After all, it wouldn't be much more than a minor delay.

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