The Red Frontier: Wrath of the Vanquished

One-Shot: Good Business

"Look, I'm an honest businessman. With boundless kindness and humility, I provide high-quality goods and services to my loyal customers, some of which are the most powerful people in both the Union and the Federation. This company was founded on the principalities, of mutual understanding and common goals, and when someone asks something of us, we always deliver. Always have, always will."

A reply to his monologue came very swiftly. "Then why exactly d'ya need me?"

Ryis Airra, a white-haired, veiny-skinned, gaunt-as-bone human, leant back, lounging back in the velvet-cushion swivel chair that the fuckwit over the desk had offered him. A portly man in a business suit gazed nervously at him from across the desk, his heel rapidly drumming on the floor.

"Forgive me, Mr Airra. I just wanted to ensure we knew where we stood in this... arrangement of ours..." he blubbered.

A response cam instantly. "Well, now we do. So are we gon' talk business already?" Ryis asked, resting his hands behind his head and gazing nonchalantly at the milk-coloured ceiling above him. "Or d'ya normally invite Voyagers like meself in so y'can blabber 'bout yer company to 'em?"

Adil Tripett, CEO of Glaiva Industries, glowered dangerously in his high-backed leather throne, his shiny dome of a forehead gleaming like a wet Nalyr scalp. "Look, spacefarer, the way I see it, you need me to pay you." He spoke firmly through quivering lips, trying to act tough.

Ryis lifted his bony arm and brandished a finger in the air. "An t'way I see it, gwarig, ya need me t'do whatever t'fuck you got planned that ya don't want t'cops knowin' about." The Voyager crooked his white eyebrows and smirked evilly. "So out wit'it. What ya sellin', and where it goin'?"

The businessman sighed and pressed his palm to his scalp, wiping it dry in a backwards motion. His fingernails were polished and well-clipped, while the skin of his hands was smooth as a baby's bottom. A sight that made Ryis' lip arc into a sneer of mocking contempt.

Bloody planet-dwellers never dared to get their hands dirty... so they hired people to do it for them.

"Weapons." Adil said at length. "E-72's, Eviscerators, 315's, the like. Twenty crates." He paused and gulped, shifty eyes watching the doors. "Ever since the gang violence started kicking up between humans and Sirthon on Evaltur, folks have started paying good money for weapons to protect themselves. But the Union gun control crackdown means I can't sell them openly."
Ryis' mouth went from ear to ear. "So ya need some'un to slip these guns past t'Union? Easy."

The businessman's eyes widened, his irises glinting with hope. "So you'll do it?"

Ryis smiled. "Sure I'll do it fer ya, Mist' Tripett!" The Voyager exclaimed as he leant forward in his seat. "But it'll cost ya. Five hundred k, all in advance."

Tripett's head lowered as the smuggler names his price. "How long will it take you to deliver it?"
'Bout twenty-five o'yer world's days, most like." Ryis shrugged and wiped a fallen lock of white hair from his space suit. "Aft'all, if yer askin' me to go to Evaltur, I'll have t'skirt past all the militar' patrols and t'like." He rolled his thin shoulders, feeling his gristle grind together and smelling the pungent release of his armpit's odour. "T'credits yer giftin' me'll provide fuel and supplies fer such a journey."

"Clearly none of it goes towards language lessons." Tripett muttered. He was a terrible whisperer.

"And clearly none o'yer money buys ya any manners." Ryis jibed in response, watching in amusement as the gwarig, the Voyager word for those born on planets, stiffened and went red in the face.

He had just offended his customer, and in his eyes, jeopardized a lucrative deal. Of course, Ryis wouldn't turn down this offer. The danger of dodging and outrunning Union naval patrols was his daily grind, and a job this well-paid was too good to pass up.

But he liked to have some fun with planeters. It was all they were good for, besides money. Desperate gwarigs threw away their money like a beat-up engine throws bolts.

With fumbling hands, Mr Tripett picked up an electronic tablet from a drawer in his desk and swiped at the electronic screen. At the same time, Ryis reached down to the belt of his space suit, his fingers hooking around the plastic construction of an old holophone – the Chambers 11-B model. Over a decade old, but still more reliable than the shit they brought out these days.

Opening the device, Ryis opened his financial page and eyed the screen intently. Tripett finished tapping at his tablet, and as soon as he did, Ryis' bank statement went up by half a million. Good thing too, as the young smuggler was nearly broke at this point.

"Pleasure doin' business wit' ya, Mr Tripett!" Ryis mused casually to his employer

The businessman rose to his feet and glared down at the Voyager. "Just get the job done." He snapped before walking out of the room, leaving the Voyager behind.

Ryis lounged back in the chair, tossing his holophone up and down in his hands as it if were a fat sack of jewels. He was tall and stick-thin, his crooked and bony shoulders hooking over the back of the chair that he sat in, and his legs reaching out under Mr Tripett's desk, which was over three feet away from him. A satisfied smirk broke out upon his veiny-skinned face, eyes glinting with ambition and cunning from beneath his snow-white fringe.

An old smuggler's saying was 'Good business is where you find it.' It just so happened that Ryis had perfected the art of looking.