The Xenos Gift to Liberty

[Yngen]

Billy Tranton was used to being in the dark. For the 2 years now that he had flown the Botany Bay as its master he had done the best job he new how to help is best friend James Bannon. Billy remembered escaping from the Carlos grip on Beaumont. He remembered his life hanging on the whim of the two nefarious Outcasts, who controlled the booming Cardamine market in Liberty. Even then no one told him what was going on, he just did his job, sold his stuff and got payed. Last month's trip to Newcastle had been the same, only then Prospector had expected Billy to negotiate with these crazy Zoners...Temporary Autonomous Zoners...what sort of name was that? These Zoners had come to them saying they wanted to help...to repay Prospector for helping defeat the beast within the Dom Kovash ruin in Newcastle...but Billy's long experience in business made him suspicious of perfect deals such as this.

Ridiculous really. As captain of the Botany bay, Billy had seen a lot of weed in his day. He bought and sold it by the metric ton every week, carted it from the southern border systems all the way to Nome. But the quantities these Zoners were talking about staggered the mind. Liberty had not seen such a stash ever in its long history Billy suspected.

The thought of an entire star cluster getting 'high' was another matter to consider. Would synthetic marijuana temporarily end all conflict by virtue of everyone feeling good? Or would it clog up the chugging juggernaught that was the Liberty economy, take the capitalistic sex drive away from Libertarians and put Liberty back into the 20 century? Or would everyone simply get the munchies and deplete Liberty's supply of Cheet-os?

These thoughts wandered through the smugglers head as he set course for Kepler and the Ames Research station. He also distracted himself with thoughts of chasing loose women on the Zoners Luxury Liner Golden Greenleaf...

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[AU]Anton_Blix
-Signature by Doom