Mr.Smith

[HuggieSunrise]

A Whale class transport grinds to a halt at the ultimatum of a nondescript pirate... Mr.Smith commenced and recorded this encounter as best he could with the upgraded scanning equipment on board.



commenced his lecture....



"Five systems, eight disrupted trade lanes, and absolutely no luck getting the shipment of deuterium in time to make any runs for the week... Oh and now YOU are going to threaten to blow me up just because your sitting on that jump hole between me and home. ILL pay your little extortion fee but eventually you'll know how a circle relates to karma."



he made a note.. this was the third two bit pirate with an attitude problem to do this route when he was doing it. Zoner were deaf to protecting anything outside Gran canera.. Corsairs weren't the issue but the other ... rats were a problem. Pludark will be busy..



Two million credits transmitted to this same account.. must be the same group of pirates.



after the pirate left he noticed it was similar to the liberty clans, not star fliers but the larger... dumpsters with engine pods.



he set course to go through the jump hole... it was shakey... but the odd sensation came after... he always figured it was the fact that there is no possible way to take measurements or readings of any kind through jump holes.. or IN jump holes...



the rumors of those who go in and never come out.. maybe they figure something out. something besides life as we know it.. like some sort of galactic bar and grill.. thats free......



+Gran Canera docking control, please transmit transponder codes and course.+



"Landing on Canera Free Spaceport... for the day.." he said in a its quitting time just let me in, tone.



His docking course was "green lighted" and the Whale began to break atmosphere... air burning on the surface of shields and pretty much just a prayer as to not hitting any skyscrapers on the way down to the garage.



The trip from the garage to the small room.. or rather "efficency" hes lived in for the better part of a year was about a mile. The wealthier corsairs/zoners that lived in the wealthier spots paid a small fortune for the homes on the hills... Hopefully one day he'll have his own house on a hill, pleasure droid harem... maybe a real harem.. or maybe just a mansion full of cats...



Sitting in the 900 square foot room was the largest available and 10x overcharged.



Felt walls covering metal tac, a rug that was stolen from a casino... probably corsair booty from 50 years ago.



He sat down in a chair that was mostly form and imitation. Consumer goods like furniture were all too common on the planet, they came from everywhere, kusari kitchenettes, liberty bookshelves, bretonian kitchen appliances, rhinelander toiletrys and perhaps the one unique thing... Zoner holographic programming....



Reruns of "Frontiersman of Sirius" and " The Price is Right." Bob Barker-tron always looks the same except for the time his voice slot misspoke and said "Remember to spay and neuter your children.



The web had cheesy vector animations of the robot screaming kill all humans for months.



But that was after College... Liberty was a different place then.



Strange laws, the whole Nomad thing... martial law.. Threw a lot of things out the window... James... was only able to get part time teaching jobs on Manhattan which began to dry up... he was young back then and young teachers somehow don't get alot of credibility from other.... young.... students.



Regardless besides having a hard time the first job he was able to wrangle that was able to put him ahead was a small personal curiors job flying a TR-90 high atmospheric courier craft which was the equivalent to a motorbike with a size car with a canopy that leaked.



Alot of delivery's from and to labs that delt with learning anatomy and properties of alien organisms. An acquaintance of his ... was able to get him out of the parcel boy dirge to space fairing by loaning a small freighter to him... every try to fly a modern ship without a neural net? Its and adventure but doable.



The problem is ...Pludark didn't say the freighter wasn't his to give but being a sucker was James' lot for that period of his life.



The one chance he didn't blow was hauling scrap from the mess that surrounded the system of New York... Pirates don't usually bother scrap haulers and junkers realize that sheer metal in new York is like selling empty jars full of air to an agrarian they might like the jars but theres plenty of air.



When a liberty patrol found the freighter as unlicensed and stolen James was seen as a victim of circumstance and not the actually responsible for the theft of the ship.



James had sat down after the ordeal seeing that while he had worked on 4 hours of sleep for a week he had managed to make enough for a star flier and proper licensing and a neural net interface.



It started a new chapter from James aka Mr.Smith (as his students would call him) to a free trader.



It wasn't a year before he went from starflier to a GMG Ultra Wide Whale Freighter.



Perhaps he should have gotten a transport... something with a cot and a bathroom... The Whale had a control pod with a... ink flush sanitary "system"



thats right not a toilet a "sanitary system".



It was apparent though from his gains and expenditures... not to mention paying Pludark some 100,000,000 credits so he would have a new ship and an "lifetime account" with Smith as his own mercenary. making money.. making ends meet wasn't just the problem anymore..



With this much money he would have to decide.. house in the hills... expand the trading business? .... maybe.. "join" the Zoners as a free citizen.



Money was fun. But ultimately not fulfilling... What do you do but put your hands up give a little out to leeches of society who had not seen fit to make it for themselves...





there was a pirate not a month ago that shot him for on about an hour until Bretonian Police Patrol scared it off.





Hand outs and charity? Is that all there is to this?



Already tried running his own business.. failed..and left him with little of nothing and starvation was probably his best motivator and he also didn't want to "hire" any trader captains without the sense to go into business for themselves...





No.. there has to be a cause to fight for. He was on good terms with the Zoners but they just seemed to be fed up with house rules.. and ended up making their own leave us alone club in the middle of nowhere... sure freeports are great and need to be expanded and maintained for any hope that space can be a free place... but such platitudes if inconvenient to those in power will quickly disappear.



House trading corporations already has mass trade and economics licked.. and the Zoners have begun to start this already on the fringes of space.







maybe he will make a decision in the near future. It seems to be little of any choice... join an alien society and estrange and alienate friends and family at home in liberty or return to the bottle and make sure the cork is on tight and never know the wonder of space that is out there...





maybe time will tell.. maybe he will meet a friend or see something that will tell him more about himself then he already found out about himself thus far.



After this episode of Frontiersmen.