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For fifteen standard years, you've been Elne Blavis, a power grid field technician on Barter, a nomadic trade station where anything and everything can be bought for the right price. But that life came to an end when a Dragonblood Noble, one Marchioness Shanaia of House Maevian arrived on Barter, seeking one of your previous lives - Maia Taris - hoping she held the key to saving her doomed House. Through a combination of Noble influence, emotional blackmail and her trump card in the form of an Annamurian Artifact, she connived a situation in which you couldn't refuse her offer: work for her or watch Barter be destroyed.
You proceeded to refuse Shanaia's offer, escape the chamber of technowizardry that was her hotel room, and hijack one of the many trade ships docked on Barter to put yourself beyond her immediate rage. Meaning that, just in a span of a couple of hours you have committed multiple crimes, burned your old life to the ground, and have effectively quit your job without notice. And it's that last one that likely hurts the most. Elne may have been an irreverent asshole, showing only the bare minimum of respect to her boss, but that was a privilege bought with supreme competence and an exemplary work ethic. Her sudden disappearance will doubtlessly leave all of Power Management in a lurch.
"Percheron<span class="mu-i">, you are now clearing Barter Station's parking sphere,"</span> Barter Traffic Control comes over the headset. <span class="mu-i">"EnhV Guidance disengaged. I am handing you over to Leros Orbital Traffic Control. Safe travels."</span>
"Thank you Traffic Control, <span class="mu-i">Percheron</span> out."
The half hour crawl among the voidcraft awaiting their turn to dock with Barter has been an anxious one - at any moment you expected a hail to stop, or to be approached by ExtSec shuttles. And yet, it seems no one has discovered the ship's former owner you left tied up in the bay. Nor that the Dragonblood was able to track you and get Barter's leadership to cooperate in seizing what she no doubt considers her rightful property.
The traffic controller for Leros - the planet Barter is currently orbiting - is a lot less pleasant, demanding your flight plan in heavily accented Galactic and impatiently hurrying you along. Which you chalk up to the trade station's presence and the massive increase in system traffic this has provoked. Your suspicion is confirmed when you give him your inoffensive departure vector - he immediately mellows out, approves it without hassle, and breaks connection immediately, moving on to something higher on his priority list.
Don't make unnecessary problems for people just doing their job - a simple maxim for living a simpler life.
(cont)
