Eavesdroppers: Tomoe

[The_Godslayer]

Bethlehem Station, Hangar 4

"You got devils in the distance watchin' you sleep, and they're runnin' around with the friends you keep."

---

It wasn't the first time Max had played errand boy for the denizens of Freeport 10. It's not like he was an administrator, or really a leader of any kind. Those people were mistaking his disconnected and distant attitude for strength. Well, at least the paperwork gave him something to do, and it was easier than just waiting around to die.

This case was a little bit of something interesting, though. The refugees from Omicron Alpha had petitioned him specifically, setting aside some Ablative Armor Plating and giving up their own weaponry to put together a full crate of Daumann Side Arms. They had told him it was "to get some safety to family in Bethlehem", and given what had happened in Pennsylvania, he was inclined to believe.

Setting his Starblazer down in Hangar 4, he motioned over one of the quartermaster's aides. Max was a rat of a man. An oily-haired Hispanian, with body armor draped in torn cloth and some kind of hefty animal pelt, probably a warcrime against Gaians. A veritable hand-cannon hung from his hip. Hand carved jade talismans dangled from various parts of his armor, fashioned after different animals, mostly snakes and birds with the occasional dragon. He somehow looked less trustworthy than a Junker. He almost looked out of place.

Almost.

"Shipment addressed to Christoph Redburn?" The man put his data pad away and motioned to a group, who rapidly offloaded his cargo. The aide didn't note it in the datapad. Didn't ask him for a signature. Didn't even confirm that Cristoph Redburn was there. "You'll make sure these get to Mr. Redburn, right?"

The man stared blankly at him for about half a second, before putting on his customer service smile and responding "Yeah, yeah we'll get these to Christoph."

The hesitation was just a confirmation. He'd seen the looks of killers and rebels before. There were plenty of mirrors on Freeport 10. There probably wasn't even a Christoph Redburn. "Hey!", he called after them. That same aide turned around to look at him. "You guys organized?" The question stopped him and the few near him in their tracks, and customer service smiles turned to glares of warning. "Relax. Just give your boss a message. From... uh... "The Paper Pusher of Freeport 10." I'll owe you one, alright?" They didn't use their newly acquired weaponry on him, so he figured he was free enough to speak.

He flipped a coin to the aide. It was hand-carved from jade, with the relief of an eagle on one side, and a two-headed snake on the other. The man caught it, looking at it quizzically. It was clearly a calling card of some kind.

"You tell your boss that plenty of people make deals with the devil." Max pulls out a single alien artifact. It quietly screamed and groaned with tortured voices barely audible to Max and even less so to the men only a few meters away from him. Here on Bethlehem, voices of anger and unrest joined in the chorus, promising vengeance and damnation. "But when you make a deal with the devil, you're going to end up paying the devil's price, yeah? Lotta families on this station. Remember what you're fighting for."

Putting his artifact away, he walks back to his ship, leaving the group who'd been left behind after their comrades had hauled off the delivery. The men eventually walked off, watching Max carefully as they went. And they were right to be suspicious of his relaxed pose. Tucked in his hand, hidden from their sight, he had a laser pointer aimed at a security camera. He flashed a pattern into the camera. -. .. -.-. . / .--- --- -... / .-.. --- .-..

Then he got back into his ship, and prepared for takeoff. This ain't his circus, and those weren't his monkeys.

He would be giving his monkeys an earful when he got back to Freeport 10, though.

---

I'll do something about my superiority complex when I cease to be superior.

"Whatever happened to catchin' a good old-fashioned passionate ass-whoopin and gettin' your shoes, coat, and your hat tooken?"