Getting Past the Indefatigable
The Never Ending Quest - Episode 20915
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There are advantages to having a beat-up old rust-bucket like this one. Not many, I'll admit, but some. I was thanking whatever power controlled the universe that my screens weren't compatible with the Westonians' transmissions. I would have a hell of a time trying to explain the redhead warrior woman at my throat. "Um... negative. It was from a lifeboat drifting about 20 parsecs mark 20-17-87 from here. It was empty, as far as I could tell."
"That lifeboat came from the blockade runner Irex V out of the Calana Hegemony. It belongs to a highly dangerous terrorist organization hostile to the Space Authority. If there were any survivors, they must be turned in to us." Now, if she'd struck me as a real terrorist, I would've turned her in. But then again, if she was a real terrorist, she would've killed me long ago. And the Imperial Space Authority tends to consider anyone who disagrees with them as terrorists. She certainly seemed dangerous, though. One reason I was desperate to get her off my hands as soon as possible. But I wouldn't turn her in to those Imps! I'm not stupid enough to get involved in some resistance movement, but I've seen what the Imps do to their prisoners, and even Aresia doesn't deserve that. "Sorry to burst your bubble, pal, but I didn't see any survivors in there. It must've been a dummy pod. The real thing is probably parsecs away by now. If you hurry out of here maybe you can catch it." "Alright," growled the Imp commander. "You're free to go." I sighed in relief and closed the radio. Nothing much happened over the next few days. Aresia mostly stayed away from me, thank God. Now we get to the stage that used to make up most of my life: fighting a pitched battle with boredom. A lot of people who only know about smuggling from the holos think that it's constant excitement and freedom. Now don't get me wrong, there's a lot of freedom and excitement. But, just like any other job, it's mostly boredom. Once you get past the jealous rivals and space pirates and Imps and asteroid belts, you have to travel in empty space for hours. I had no holotapes (and even if I did, my player was too primitive for anything made in the last 50 years) and I had no one to converse with. I had been sitting down for hours but couldn't leave the cabin just in case something DID come up. Living through hours like this, not making the Lobo run or whatever, is the hardest part of being a smuggler. These days, though, I'm almost nostalgic for boredom.
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Knight Random (hal_9000_xpATyahooDOTcom)
10/29/2002 2:39:42 PM
Extending Enabled
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