4 - Spreadsheets and contracts

"There we go, ready for takeoff?"

Tossing a bound and unconscious pirate leader into the cargo hold, Mike turned to Molly who was for once not wearing her tight-fitting dress, but a scruffy vacuum suit instead.

"You want to come with me?"

Looking mildly intrigued at the idea of Mike wanting to come with her for a brief stint off station. Although on the inside she harboured far different feelings on the matter.

"Not really no, but I don't want to be cheated out of any of my profits. But there's no way you would do that, would you?"

Remaining as brutally honest as always, a thin smile formed beneath Mike's tinted helmet as he saw Molly's usually perfect mask crack just a tiny bit.

"Of course I wouldn't do that kiddo, not with the massive amount of credits you've earned us all."

Earning a slight snicker from Molly's loyal flight crew busy with the preflight preparations, she quickly reworked her current plans.

(... Shit, why can't he just do as he's told.)

While Mike had been an unexpected boon to her organisation, Molly couldn't help but be annoyed with him when he stuck his nose where it didn't belong all the time.

"Feel free to come along, we might find a really great way to pass the time~"

The ship Molly and her closest goons were used to deliver the pirate leader was a small transport, reaching into his knowledge of ship types present in Interstellar online, Mike classified it somewhere between a class-A piece of shit and junk not worth the price in explosives it would take to blow up or the fuel it would take to make it crash into a star.

(These class 96's were known as 'flying coffins' in-game, but people apparently use them here… That's great, so fucking great.)

Boarding the class 96 Mike strapped the pirate leader into one of the rows of seats and sat down on the other side of the cramped passenger bay as Molly's men took the cockpit and soon the ship entered supercruise.

"So, where are we going?"

"A few systems over, I'll be in the cockpit if you need me." Molly looked particularly annoyed as she shut the door after her, not wanting to keep up her act. Within a few more minutes Mike felt the jank of the magnetic landing gear disengaging before the manoeuvring thrusters started taxing the ship for takeoff.

(Right then, time to broaden my options a little.)

The job really did stink from far, far away, Mike was aware of that from the second he accepted it.

There was absolutely no fucking way a corp would pay 500K, or even more than that as Mike suspected, for something like a pirate leader of some local blackwater group. There was something else going on, and that something could make Mike either very dead or rich. All Mike needed to do was to increase his chances of getting rich, first on the long line of things he needed to do to achieve that was talking with this so-called pirate leader.

(Now I'm pretty sure I hit her with a light dose but she might need a booster…-)

"Urg…"

(- Or not.)

"Hey, you up?"

Speaking through a heavy voice modulator, Mike flicked the pirate leader's ear a few times and she quickly woke up because of the discomfort.

"How does a pretty girl like you end up a pirate leader?"

The pirate leader was a girl around 19 years old, she had long black hair that was braided in a complicated and asymmetrical pattern, fair white skin and dark green eyes were currently staring daggers into Mike.

(Still, she woke up already despite that knockout drug and without a booster… That's abnormal.)

"Fuck you."

It was immediately obvious that the pirate lord remembered that she had been captured, thus she held her current captor in a quite low regard.

"Yeah, yeah I wasn't the one that stole from a corp was I? I just wanted to know if they do the same thing to pirates as where I'm from."

Leaning back in his seat as he was still being glared at, Mike started thinking about the knowledge he had been picking up playing Interstellar online while mixing things he had heard in movies.

"From what I remember the corps would hire these 'information extractors' that would hang their victims upside down and waterboard them for days on end, pump them full of all sorts of illegal substances to break your mind and soul so badly that you'll turn on your mother without flinching. Or just mow the lawn on some planet-side villa, they are freaks like that. I once saw them doing this incredible thing where they would skin a person alive and then-..."

Although the pirate lord did her best to remain calm, Mike quickly noticed her mask was quickly cracking.

"But we all know you're just not a pirate lord, so what's up with you girly? Did you steal something really important to this corp? Or did you just happen to strike some rich asshole's fancy?"

"I… I-I don't-"

"What exactly are you doing?"

Right before the pirate lord was about to crack and tell Mike everything, Molly intruded on the two of them.

"Just making some small talk with the girly here to kill some time. More importantly, why don't you tell me what this job is really about? I did wipe out the pirates for you."

Putting on a lax attitude, Mike closely observed the pirate girl's reaction. Apparently, she didn't mind that Mike had wiped out her fellow pirates. Molly's reaction was far easier to read as she was ticked off by something and Mike's nonchalant attitude wasn't helping improve it.

"I don't need you fucking with us when the corp is doing the same…"

Muttering those words beneath her breath, Molly hoped Mike wouldn't hear any of it.

But he did.

(For fucks sake Molly, it seems you're way out of your depths.)

"Just keep quiet back here, we're nearly at the meetup point."

With those curt words Molly returned to the cockpit, and Mike didn't even need to tap into the ship's systems to realise how hard her negotiations were falling.

(No, this is way worse… She fucking figured she could make the big leagues and is now horribly out of her depth. That woman is going to get me killed.)

"So, what's your name girly, my name is Mike. You're the pirate who saved my life right?"

"... The name is River, I had hoped to never see you again Mike."

"Well, you're just shit out of luck."

Sharing a mutual grin, Mike turned slightly more serious.

"Time to take command of the situation, I'll be right back."

Standing up from his seat, Mike headed to the cockpit as his eyes beneath his tinted helmet turned cold.

"What the hell are you doing in here!?"

"You've fucked up, I'm not in the mood to die together with you."

With nothing more to say, Mike took control of the ship's systems remotely and depressurized the cockpit as he drew his pistol. Grabbing Molly by the neck, Mike lifted her slightly as he pressed his pistol to her chest before squeezing the trigger a total of two times, shooting Molly's loyal goons through her upper body. After wasting his former business partners, Mike looted their corpses by connecting to their vacsuits and skimming any connected accounts for credits while downloading everything else before wiping their systems. While the goons didn't have much, it turned out Molly was holding about a mill in a personal account, more than enough for Mike to get himself a great craft.

Turning to leave the cockpit Mike's hand stopped as he realised it would be a bad idea to open the door right away.

(Ah, I depressurized the cockpit out of habit… Guess old PVE habits die hard.)

Now stuck waiting for the cockpit to pressurise so he didn't blow out River's ears with a sudden pressure change, Mike tossed Molly's copse aside without a hint of emotion. Sure, he had known her and worked together with her for a few weeks and she had been a somewhat interesting NPC, but the second she became a liability to Mike her days were already numbered. Mike pushed the copse at the pilot seat aside and zeroed the throttle with nothing else to do for the moment, making the ship drop out of supercruise and return to normal space.

"Well then, where was I?"

Returning to the passenger cabin it took far too long for Mike to realise what was wrong, it only occurred to him that River was no longer there when he was kicked in the face.

"Fu-"

Falling over onto his back Tom didn't notice when his gun left his hand, but when he found himself staring down its barrel a second later he put everything together.

"Woah Woah, relax woman!"

"Why did you kill them, weren't they your allies!?"

Finding himself the unwilling subject of an impromptu gunpoint interrogation, Mike figured a good and honest attitude would give the best chances of survival.

Not that he was in any real danger, but as long as he acted the part, River would think she had the upper hand.

"The term 'ally' is a little strong given they were about to get me killed, I prefer business partners or associates."

"... Okay, so were you going to pop a cap in my head too?"

"Why would I do that? You're not currently a threat, and if I would want to sell you, killing you would defeat the purpose, but as I got a hold of my former companions coin that also isn't necessary for me to buy a ship and get back to a stable and sizable income after losing my original ship."

"You think I'm stupid?"

"No, I think you're very intelligent, in fact, I would love to have you as a partner."

With a quickfire round of back-and-forths, River ended up more confused than she had started.

"Really? Why would you want me as a partner of all people?... Are you after my body?"

With quite a 'smile' on her face, River made it clear that Mike should think about his answer carefully if he wanted to live past the next few minutes.

"Well, your body is a perk to be sure, but I don't know anything about the local area as I lost my map data with my last ship."

"You're not the kind of person that threads lightly are you Mike?"

Although she very much wanted to shoot Mike, River realised that his offer was quite enticing. If River just up and shot Mike, she wouldn't have any prospects with her pirate crew dead and no credits. Unknown to River, Mike was in mostly the same kind of tricky situation as herself, although he had credits Mike lacked a critical amount of information on the surrounding area, sure credits could somewhat solve that, but it would require putting off buying a spaceship for quite a while, something Mike was hesitant to do after just having backstabbed a major criminal element.

"... If I even wanted to agree with that, how would we split profits?"

"50 / 50 of course, and don't take something as stupid as my word for it, I'm willing to enter a binding contract."

The binding contract Mike referred to was a system that existed in Interstellar online, although he wasn't sure it existed in this world he now found himself in, River's reaction seemed to indicate a system like it or identical existed.

"You sure are insane to offer an equal share when I'm pointing a loaded gun at your head."

"You're pointing a loaded gun at me, yeah, but the safety is still on."

A moment of silence passed between Mike and River as the latter's face tensed up, from there it was just a question of waiting for River's reaction. If River tried to kill Mike he wouldn't be able to trust her, but on the other hand, if she just backed off and surrendered that wouldn't make a great impression either.

"You honestly think I would need this gun to kill you? Judging by how slowly you're moving Mike I figure I can take you in a fight."

Showing quite a bloodthirsty and also a quite smug smile, River lowered Mike's pistol as she waited for his response.

"I'm sure you could, but I don't need to beat you in a straight-up fistfight. Fair fights are for losers, I just need to keep you from puncturing my vacuum suit for a few seconds while I violently depressurize this entire ship."

Finding themselves at a mutual stalemate, both Mike and River shared a mutual smile. Extending a hand, River helped Mike up and handed him his pistol as she asked.

"So, what is our first move?"

"Travel to a large station, dump this trash-heap of a ship and replace it with a small multi-class ship or light fighter to book it out of this area of space while making a shitton of credits."

Laying out his immediate plans, Mike made his wildly complicated plan filled with a shitton of strings sound way easier than it was.

"Sounds good, but we're getting a binding contract first."

"... A binding contract, sounds kind of lew-"

Not getting his final word out, Mike quickly found himself back on the floor, this time with significant chest pain as River had pelted him full force in the stomach with her knee.

"I'm already regretting ever saving your life…"

(She can beat me senseless with her bare hands… That's kind of hot.)

Glancing down at Mike with disgust visible on River's face, she suddenly felt a chill whose reason wouldn't become apparent before it was way too late for her to do anything about it.

-

"Sir about that package we were supposed to receive… Our team reports that it never showed up."

"Of course it didn't, that's why we don't normally thrust pirates with jobs more complex than smashing something."

Inside a massively luxurious corporate office planetside an executive rubbed his head while complaining about the mission he had been dubious about from the very beginning. The current lost item was worth trillions, possibly more than that, and the executive's underling had gone ahead and subcontracted pirates of all things to collect the said item.

That the collection had failed wasn't exactly a surprise, but he still needed to clean up after his subordinate, and that was no easy task.

"So they claim they lost contact with the delivery team and now presume it was lost?"

"That's the gist of it, yeah."

"..."

Going over multiple different options inside his head (including having his subordinate removed) the executive quickly settled on something far more logical.

"Task a grab team, if amateurs can't get the job done then we need professionals to do it instead."

"B-but sir, that'll be costly-"

"I don't care, have them investigate the pirates and get an id on the delivery vehicle, whatever it takes. From there we can track down our lost product and have the grab team repossess it, your career at this corp depends on it."