Up. 802’s Log Entries
Summarizes. Session 0 - Crates and Consequences
📓 [LOG ENTRY 802-Δ57]
Designate: Boz
Location: Ordo V, Cargo District 7
Status: Escaped Pursuit
Tag: Trust Protocols: Reassessment in Progress
We arrived at the designated cargo bay—a rust-slicked hangar dock tucked behind two collapsed hab-stacks—after a six-minute foot transit from the Scrap Dancer. The air stank of ozone and solvent runoff. Vex walked ahead, hands in his jacket, projecting what he calls “casual confidence.” I carried the crate. Approximately 48.2 kg. Labeled “custom machine parts.” Shielded more heavily than such parts require.
The expected contact—an underpaid customs man with a taste for bribes—was absent. In his place stood a stranger. Human male. Nervous. Sweating despite ambient chill. Vex didn’t like him. I didn’t either. He gave the man the bribe datafile anyway.
We waited.
Seconds passed like lag in a defrag cycle. Then—
“Hey. That’s them.”
Two Security Guild heavies, already winded just from turning toward us, broke into a lopsided jog. Batons out. Faces flushed. I noted the readied stun batons, but worse still—movement above. Through a grated mezzanine overhead, I saw four armored Guild officers leap into action, rifles low and visors flashing data.
“Boz—run.” Vex’s voice snapped like a wire.
I turned. Crate still in my arms. Feet clanged against ferrocrete. Boots behind us.
We cut left, into a narrow utility alley between stacked loader units. The Guild followed. Footfalls echoed, and curses bounced off the rusted walls. A market drone swooped low and startled one of them—he stumbled. We gained ground.
Rounding a turn, a holo-sign shorted out overhead, cascading sparks across our path. Vex ducked beneath it. I plowed through. Sparks left carbon trails across my right arm.
Crowds slowed us. Workers on break, vendors with hovercarts, a child chasing a weather balloon. I bobbed through, bouncing off shoulders. Vex shouted apologies, though I calculated none would be accepted.
We turned again. Another hallway. A narrow maintenance corridor, unlit except for flickering emergency strips. One of the overweight guards wheezed behind us.
But the Guild officers—they were gaining.
One pulled a stun pistol. A flash of light sizzled past me and scorched a wall vent.
”Ten more seconds!” Vex called out, breath ragged.
We burst into the docking bay. The Scrap Dancer gleamed like an oil-slicked insect in the dim glow of bay lights. Her boarding ramp was down, engine already cycling from standby.
I dropped the crate onto the ramp. Vex leapt past me and slapped the cockpit lock. I followed, turning just in time to see one Guild officer slide into view and aim again.
Doors closed. The stun blast hit metal.
Inside, the engines roared. Systems spiked. We punched the launch queue out of turn—violating Guild protocol—and the bay doors screamed open. We surged into vacuum. A fast tilt and burn. We were gone.
Crate still onboard.
Job incomplete.
Trust recalibrated.
I am beginning to believe Kethron Vask is either incompetent or malicious. Possibly both.
Further data required. End log.