Prologue

Initial meeting of the two protagonists, there will be edits and additions. Very rough draft.

The Smugglers

There were only three lights in the room. My cigarette, his cigarette, and the small lamp we were using to light up our table.

“This is all we have to work with,” the man said to me.

The man in question was my new associate. He was older than me, fifty edging on sixty; he’d seen his fair share of close shaves too. The large scar on his left cheek was evidence of that. He was of medium build, under six feet, and had close cropped, shaved, blonde hair.

“It’s enough, we’ll have a good payday with this. I just need fuel for the cruiser and food. I’m a simple man,” I replied.

We were talking about the package on the table. 99.99% pure, refined chronotanium. It was impressive, the container. It was some weird metal box. Uranium, I think, something to stop the properties of the chronotanium from effecting the surrounding area.

“You’re right about the payday in all of this, I’m just worried about getting there now. It’s not easy shaking customs on a planet like this. It’s large and populous, lots of smugglers been through here, are here, and will be here; they know this. What’s your plan?”

“Go out at night?”

“No night in space, smartass. And we need to be serious. The game plan?” He said, soberly.

“Well, our cargo emits a lot of signals, any damn scanner will pick it up. We’d need a wall of solid berkelium to get it out cleanly. Neither of us have one of those nor do we have the funds to get one. The cruisers they have aren’t too fast, but they’d tag us before we could get away and a bigger, less friendly, ship would get us,” I replied. I was still trying to work out the details of the whole scheme. Getting a hold of the substance was hard enough, now we have to get it to the customer.

“There is another, more insane, option,” my partner said between drags, “hijack a patrol vessel.”

“You’ve got to be joking man! That’s insane.”

“Not as much as you might think. It was twenty years ago, and I was that much younger, but me and an old friend did it. Take a patrol vessel, use it to ‘search’ your ship, set the patrol vessel to do an automatic route and board the smuggling ship. If done right, we’ll be home free, and, in all honesty, I don’t see an alternative,” he replied, snuffing out his cigarette,

I took a moment to think it over. Sure, it was crazy, but our options were very limited at the moment and we needed to leave quickly.

“How long would it take,” I sighed and said.

“Three days. I need to ask a few questions, get a few tools, and find the ship. This ain’t my first rodeo kid,” He said through a confident smirk, pointing at his scar. “There’s a reason your employer got Omar A. Crocker to work with you.”

“Aye, I suppose that’s true. The name of Louis Bartolomeu Stevenson isn’t nearly as well known,” I replied standing up and extinguishing my cigarette. He stood up, we shook hands, and then left, leaving me with the cargo and confusion.

Author's Note

Once again, very rough draft. Feel free to point out errors, it can only improve my writing