The Consequences of Smuggling

When you manage to make enemies with the biggest crime boss in a determined sector, it is usually best to put a few thousand light years between you. Share the profits, shake hands with your crew, and move on, glad to have your pockets a bit heavier and your vital organs mostly intact. Which is what happened right after the Zenaro job.

But ill-gotten credits can only get you so far. And besides, a CMDR needs to have a job, right? So I hit up some former acquaintances, and ended up on a decaying spaceport outside the colonized bubble. Most of the toilets were in dire need of repairs, the oxygen filters emitted some kind of stale cheese aroma, the local miners dragged in soot and dirt all over the place, and the booze at the local watering holes was better for stripping off paint and degreasing ship modules than actual human consumption. According to CMDR TinyBigJacko, one of the guys running the place, it was “a bit of a fixer upper.” That would be the first of many understatements I would hear.

We’ve only just moved in here, he said. Taking over the previous administrators, tweaking with the commodity markets to create the right conditions for their little group to establish control first of the station, then the system. Seemed to me I had arrived just in time to help out with other ‘projects’ the Teamsters Logistics Corporation were working on.

My new boss was great with numbers. He would have tabs on every group and faction in a couple of hundred light year radius. He would know what a single ton of a particular commodity would affect a certain group’s influence, the repercussions on the political climate there, and how to use that to either empower or destabilize his preferred faction of the week. So he would send his Teamster crew to buy N tonnes of a commodity from X station and sell to Y station three systems over, even if the profits were abysmal, just to exert the right amount of pressure he needed for whatever he was machinating.

The problem comes when you need to smuggle things. It is not only about buying illicit commodities, avoiding getting your ship scanned, and dropping them off at your desired destination. If it were that simple, it would not be smuggling, it would be hauling, wouldn’t it? Otherwise you would be sitting in a starport dock with a cargo hold full of battle weapons or narcotics and not much to do about it. Not like you can just walk out and place an advertisment for them, can you?

Menry was the head Stevedore over at Holden station, a starport not far from our base of operations. He was extremely good at doing the least amount of work and get the most profit from it. The archetypical docks administrator almost every station seemed to have. I had been following him for about a week and a half, noticing how sometimes he would be overly generous when buying rounds of drinks at the local dockers tavern. Or how he would visit a more expensive kind of adult entertainment joint than he should be able to afford.

I also noticed he had a bit of a gambling problem. And that he had just lost nearly half a million credits on the latest Buckyball Race. I followed him to his usual hangout, a bar frequented primarily by dock workers and stevedores, where he sat on the far end of the bar, slouching. The rest of the patrons, those familiar with him, picked up on his dour disposition straight away, and rightly guessing there were no free rounds of drinks to be offered, resigned themselves to their drinks.

“Well you don’t look like a happy docker,” I said as I occupied the stool beside him and signalled for a drink. “How much did you lose? Wait, don’t tell me, I can guess, I have latent psychic powers, the result of a bad combination of onion head, lavian brandy, and some noodles gone bad. About half a mil? Something like that?”

The muscles in Menry’s face were having a hard time deciding on which emotion to express, with surprise making a strong case in its favour, but anger and outrage competing for some face time, particularly in and around the brow area. All in all, it was a close race. His pudgy face made it difficult to ascertain which expression had the upper hand, so I decided to proceed, cutting off the stammering that was beginning to bubble on his throat.

“Yeah, that’s some bad luck right there. And trade being so slow as of late, sounds like you’re in a bit of a pickle.” I followed up, silently thanking my boss. Slowing down the movement of goods was certainly making my job much easier. Meant I could do without the usual slow diplomacy and go straight to the point.

Menry mumbled, with fear entering the mix of emotions vying for some presence on his already confused visage. “Did Zinik send you? I’ll have her money, she knows I’m good for it!” He said, with barely-controlled-panic winning the race and establishing itself firmly on his face.

I waved him off, dismissing his asseveration in a casual way, trying to ease the poor man. “No no, nothing like that, Menry, I was not sent by Zinik.” He visibly relaxed at those words. “But I expect she will be looking for her money soon enough. I hear she is the kind of lady who expects a punctual return on her loans and investments. Commendable business sense, don’t you think?” His brief respite into calmness came crashing down on the mention of the loan shark’s reputation.

So far, I had kept Menry surprised and off balance. Adding a bit of fear into his thought process put him right where I wanted: worried, afraid, and utterly surprised, but not desperate, at least not yet. With Zinik well established as the imminent threat, all I had to do was present myself as the lesser of two evils. I was quite adept at this particular strategy. It had been applied to me, and gotten me to do many jobs against my will, after all. Experience is the best teacher, they rightly say.

“Menry, my friend,” I said, trying to get joviality to ooze out of my every pore. “don’t look so worried. I happen to know some business people that are just dying to get some goods into Holden Station. Get some great products for all the folks here, how about that?” Some people have a reassuring smile that spreads from ear to ear. Mine was more of a grimace, but it still did the trick. I looked harmless, if a bit strange. And Menry was the kind of man to ignore a stellar smile in favour of a good deal, especially after having just lost half a million credits and being in debt with a particularly ruthless loan shark

It was a simple thing, I assured him. All he had to do was make a few adjustments to the cargo manifest of a particular ship, something I was sure he and almost every head stevedore was familiar with. No need to worry about the actual cargo, it would be out of his docks in no time. There was a generous commission to him, and the possibility of future lucrative opportunities. Greed and desperation are great motivators. And the amount of effort he had to expend was minimal, just as he liked it.

I resisted the urge to clink drinks with him when he agreed on my proposal. It pays off to be discreet. I finished my beer in three big gulps, paid my tab, and walked out, leaving a more relieved Menry behind.

Soon enough, a whole shipment of narcotics and personal weapons was about to flood Holden Station, Menry would make enough credits to pay his debt, and the consequences on the station, well, that was for someone else to worry about. I was a smuggler after all, and a smuggler can’t make of something like consequences their concerns.

Even if, sooner or later, those consequences catch up with you.

Then again, that is the life of a smuggler. Even one rightfully employed by a group like the Teamsters Logistics Corporation.