Shaman's Fortune

[Chronicron]

- Athena’s Reach, you’re up next. Ontario Jump Hole is a go, but be careful around Los Angeles - I’m spotting some patrols around it.

Another day, another run. A small, dark room, filled with comm devices, monitors and cigarette smoke. Each time a new vessel would enter Liberty Space, he would switch to their comm link and guide them through systems. With a huge network of camera drones, spread around every single sector in Liberty, - Alaska being the only exclusion, - his guidance was of huge assistance to smugglers.

- Meredith, there’s a patrol near New York Jump Hole. You’re free to go via the Jump Gate, but don’t take any lanes - gun it straight to Rochester.

So far, he was pretty efficient at it. No run goes smoothly, but all of his ships reach their destinations. He switched to Colorado. A heavily armed convoy was approaching Attica Supermax. “Hmm. Another big catch.” He thought as he reached out for a mug of coffee, the only substance to keep him awake and operational every second of his life. His cameras were very well hidden. Some of them were inside of asteroids, some - mounted onto stations and trade lanes.

Both of the ships he curated have successfully reached their destinations. Athena’s Reach has left Liberty and Meredith was already unloading a fresh haul of Artifacts at Rochester. This called for the end of his shift.

Buffalo was busy, filled with crowds and refugees. Nobody paid attention to a rusty door with a “Staff only” sign carved on it. A black trench coat and a fedora were his everyday companions, as well as a pack of cigarettes. But he couldn’t leave just yet - someone else was waiting for him outside of his small cubby.

- Ah, Nick! My all-seeing eye!

Compared to Nick’s tall height, the person in front of him was relatively small for a man - about 5 feet tall. Nevertheless, his sheer mass was intimidating.

- Bleak Ben.

With a mischievous cackle, Ben shook Nick’s hand and handed him a white coffee-stained folder full of papers.

- How’s the cargo? All good?
- Yeah, all of them made it. You got anything new?
- Listen, friend. - He put his massive scarred hand on Nick’s back, inviting him to have a walk through Buffalo’s corridors. - Here’s the deal. I got a new order from our orange friends, they want a huge haul of slaves. Deadline is this weekend.
- What’s the reward?
- Oh, cash is good - one billion credits! They’re giving us twenty percent upfront. - He took out a credit chip out of his pocket and pressed it down into Nick’s chest. - Which means, you get ten today.

One hundred million credits. Out of five hundred. With all that, Nick could finally afford to move to Manhattan.

- Knock yourself out, pal! You have a hard day ahead of you!

Giving Nick a pat on a back, Bleak Ben has disappeared within the crowd as swiftly as he appeared. On his way to the hangar bay, Nick browsed through the manifest. It included all shipments made this week - twenty thousand units of artifacts, fifteen thousand loads of cardamine and twenty six thousand units of synthetic weed. A very, very fruitful week, yet he only gets twenty percent out of the entire profit. This time, it was different. The white folder had dossiers of six “Piligrim” liners and their captains, each meant to deliver the slaves to Malta. An interesting mission, for which he has to do a lot of planning.