H - I have.... WAY too much Time.
G - "You've worked hard you've earned that pay."
H - I didn't do that much.
G - "You signed the agreement including how much we were going to pay you."
H - Are you certain about this?
G - "Of course, your work has been absolutely invaluable to us."
H - It still... feels like I'm cheating... ripping you off.
G - "I assure you, you're not." -- The New Guy
I honestly don't know what to do with it. I'm just an orbital collections agent. I fly my netship through the shipping lanes and cash in anything I catch for a little extra on top of earning my living. It's not much, but it's necessary. And it's not as if I had the skills to do much else.
I used to work all day just to live to work the next. And then I did something that got me fired and threatened with prison. I answered a distress call and towed an Alliance ship to an abandoned military facility.
I just about destroyed my netship engine doing it. Inertia's always been my copilot, but these folks were running on fumes and stale air. Every orbital collector I knew also knew we could recharge our air for free because the army never reclaimed their algae farms. Milking fresh air from them is casual crime that everyone ignores. Going on there to cake a few algae cakes is written off as an over-sensitive alarm system. Letting extra-nationals on there to just wander around and see where the gutting happened? That's a step too far.
I saved twenty thousand souls. Knowing I was going to pay for that with my life. So it was no small shock that the Alliance vessel departed with diplomatic immunity and one more passenger on their side.
What I didn't know at the time was that I was rich.
It took two hours to drag them all to the old station. It took another five to refresh the air, including the time it took to jury-rig the docking arms and some leftover fans so we could all do that. Seven hours in all, and being absent from my work roster while I was at it.
Twenty thousand times seven Hours is a LOT of Time to earn while committing a crime. The berth for my netship and quarters for the trip to the next port didn't even dent that.
I paid off my debts. I sent my cousins to college and got them out of that gravity well. I paid off my fellow orbital collectors' debts until they stopped me doing that.
I have too much Time. Even after I pay my taxes. I could buy a solar system and start a settlement if I wanted to. I could own a whole fleet of space yachts.
But I don't want that.
I think I'll send most of this to the CRC. They'll know what to do.
[Photo by Mohdammed Ali on Unsplash]
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