It had to be a quiet job. I’d retired for a reason. Being the galaxy’s most well-known thief (despite the lack of substantial evidence to prove that I’d done anything) was a good way to get killed. Or even worse: hired.
I didn’t want anyone to know I was back in the business - hell, most people thought I was dead. So it had to be quiet.
But I had debts. Stupid debts, investment debts. I would have been fine if they were coming after me, but they weren’t. They were coming after my family.
One more job, stealing whatever the hell the “Comfort Device” was, paying off my debts and disappearing again. That was the idea anyway - to be a ghost, just like the old days.
I had just enough acid left to buy a couple of little gadgets and pay Fiasco for the information. She winked at me knowingly, damn her, and I took off in my pod. The controls felt familiar for a few minutes before the old instincts kicked back in. I docked quietly, feeling a bit like a leech, or a tick.
That’s when I realized - I forgot my keys.
My key cloner, to be exact. And I’d spent my last drop of acid on a god damned Slipstream, mostly because I’d always wanted to try one.
Well, it wasn’t like I’d never had a job go wrong at the start before. A couple of stealth shields and some sticky fingers would do the job - I could pickpocket my way through the whole damn ship.
I watched the guards on my radar briefly, before slipping in and grabbing a key right from some big lunk’s belt - he didn’t even notice. I popped open a storage locker with it and grabbed a silenced shotgun. It was a nice bit of kit, had the initials JS engraved on it. I wouldn’t be needing it, but it would certainly look nice in my trophy room.
Time to move on. I activated my stealth shield and was practically breathing on a guard’s neck when I heard that telltale pop and smelled burnt circuitry.
Apparently, there was a god damned Jammer on this ship. And my shield had just been jammed.
A much louder pop, darkness, then the vacuum. They had thrown me out. They had thrown me out.
And worse, they had seen my face.
I took a deep breath and started my pod’s autopilot, which retrieved me from the vacuum before my oxygen ran out. I headed back to base.
I needed bullets.
They used to call it “wet work,” the jobs that weren’t so quiet. Now they call them “clean ops” but it’s the same thing. Nobody left to tell the tale. It wasn’t my first option but I’d had more than enough practice.
72 shells, 66 crew - I had more than enough to finish the job. Luckily, infiltrating a ship is much easier when you aren’t being so quiet.
I almost forgot to take the Comfort Device with me when I was done dragging the last body to the airlock. I laughed hoarsely when I figured out what it was.
It was a god damned key cloner.
