Chapter One

Milo lit another cigarette. The flame briefly illuminated the cockpit of his freighter. It was strewn with wrappers from food-packs and the dregs of too many cups of coffee, testimony to the amount of time he had been waiting. Waiting was the worst part of the job in Milo’s opinion, nothing to do but stare out into space, the constant hum of the scanner in the background. The view wasn’t even that interesting, his ship was closely-orbiting a large rock in an asteroid field. It wouldn’t be as bad if he could sleep, but he couldn’t. Flying alone may have meant more credits for him, but it also meant the liberal use of medical stimulants to stay awake for days at a time. Milo was feeling it now, he was strung out and he knew it.

Sucking in a deep draught of his cigarette, Milo wondered where the hell his contact was.
Although his ship was running on minimum systems and the fact that the asteroid field was a good place to stay concealed, Navy patrols still operated in this sector and could chance upon him. The odds against Milo rose with each passing hour.

Bloody pirates, where the hell are they? he thought. He got up and stretched, the feeling of blood returning to his limbs only served to remind him he wasn’t quite as young as he liked to think he was. Stubbing out the cigarette, he reached over for another vial of stimulant and resigned himself to waiting.

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12 hours later he received a tight-beamed transmission. The contact was finally here. Milo logged the coordinates for the transfer and beamed back his confirmation and e.t.a. to arrival. Initialising the ships systems, he disengaged orbit and headed out into the asteroid field. The sound of his ship operating normally was a cacophony after the last four days in orbit. The ship wasn’t the only one who had been running on minimum he realized yet again, just as he did every time out. Milo lit a cigarette, double checked the nav-computer and punched the ship into cruise. The engines flared, the burn launching his ship forward into the field. Milo’s stomach lurched under the force exerted by the engines, then it slowly caught up with the rest of his body as the ship eased into cruising speed.

The journey to the meet was relatively short, the nav-computer handling the deceleration from cruise speed with ease despite the fact they were in the middle of an asteroid field. Milo allowed himself a tight smile. His ship despite its nondescript appearance was expensively equipped. His scanner showed two ships waiting for him, a freighter and an escort ship. Milo got straight to business and flipped the comm-channel on.
“Prepare to transfer the goods” he said.
A metallic reply came back. “Stand by”.
Milo watched as the freighter expelled its cargo from its bay. Locking on, he tractored it in to his hold.
“Transfer complete” he said. “The goods will be delivered in three days”.
“We will hold you to that Freelancer.” retorted the metallic voice.
I’ll bet you will you bastards, Milo told himself as he flipped the comm-channel off.

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Milo had been cruising for 2 days, nearing his destination, Manhattan. The constant burn from his engines had left him feeling even more stretched than normal. He was still on schedule despite some necessary detours to avoid Navy and police patrols. This was to be expected though in his line of work…., smuggling drugs wasn’t for everyone.

Manhattan; Milo had mixed views about the planet. On one hand he was looking forward to a good meal, too much to drink and real sleep, but on the other the planet was an overpopulated mass of grasping humanity, all too eager to embrace the cargo he delivered. Milo didn’t have any issues with delivering it, the pay was good, but he didn’t use it himself. The reality of life and space travel was tough enough and ignoring it didn’t help in his opinion.

Milo started to mentally run through his checklist for Manhattan. The cargo’s id signature had been designed to transmit as boron, but would need to be double-checked. He needed to keep an eye on the scanner for corporation trains. He would get clearance to land a lot quicker if he could time his arrival just ahead of a convoy of trains. He pulled his laser pistol out of its holster and ran a self diagnostic. He had dealt with the Manhattan contacts his shipment was bound for before, but you could never trust these bastards.
Satisfied he holstered the weapon and left it on a control panel. Milo reached for a cigarette and dialled up a coffee from his food-point. As he sat back and took a sip, the ship’s warning klaxon started to blare.
“Sol’s arse!” he exclaimed.

He was under attack.

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Very good. Excellent. Keep it up!

hmmmm... I dunno, ur making Drug-running sound too hard. its rather easy, in fact. And what kinda ship r we talking about?

What does it matter what kind of ship it is? The point is the story, not the technology. I say use whatever you want in your mind.

A bit short, but a promising start! Anymore coming?

drug running is fun, especially with 10,000 units of the stuff sitting in your cargo hold, i did the run in a leviathan ship from the latest rebalance mod, ship costs 53,000,000 but boy is it worth it