It was cool and smelled like cold smoke. The few guests sat at tables, each one for himself. No music, no conversations. The atmosphere was not inviting. The bar in GrimHex was no place for glittering parties. It was a place to drink alone and to secretly get a job. I was not standing at the bar for long when someone pushed a note with an order in my direction. 

To put it in a word, drug replenishment. Getting raw materials and bringing them to a drug lab. And then deliver the finished product. I wanted to make it look like a normal transport of goods. So first, I got some goods for the farm on the moon Daymar. The raw materials for the drugs were waiting there.

At the farm I made a normal and legal trade. I sold and bought. The extra package for the drug lab I secretly brought aboard my Cutlass and hid it between the cargo containers. That part was easy.

But now I was on my way to the drug lab on the moon Yela. I didn’t feel well at all, my ass was on fire. I had every reason to worry. It was Jumptown, of all places I had to deliver to Jumptown. The place where the drug war had raged the hardest. 

I remembered when a Hammerhead was hovering over Jumptown and was shooting at anything that came close. Sweat ran down my back. Breathing was difficult. I scanned the area. I seemed to be alone. But would it stay that way, or was someone hiding?

The most vulnerable moment had come. I landed in front of the building and left the pilot’s seat. When the tail ramp opened, I hid behind a cargo container. I peered out. Snowflakes blew into the cargo hold. No bullets came towards me. But that didn’t mean I was save.

I ran down the ramp and to the building with the delivery. The snow crunched under my boots, my breath echoed in my helmet. Panting, I arrived at the airlock. When the inner airlock opened and I was inside the building I felt a little safer. A deceptive security. Outside, my ship could still be destroyed.

In the storage room I found the package I had to take with me. A package with drugs that still had to be portioned, but not here. Shit, I had to take the package to another hidden place. Double risk. I could get caught by the security or some trigger-happy idiots at the outpost.

Back in the pilot’s seat, I pushed the throttle forward with force. The engines roared and I shot low over the snowfields of Yela. I had survived Jumptown. But there was no reason to relax. I wondered why I was doing this. I was too old for this shit. 

After I delivered the drug package to the hidden outpost, I was on my way to GrimHex. I had a small package of drugs in my pocket. I got the landing permit and one of the hangar doors opened. Relieved, I landed. Everything had gone well. After the engines were switched off I collapsed in the pilot’s seat.

But my mission was not over yet. I still had to deliver the package to its destination. The bar on GrimHex. Nothing was supposed to go wrong, was it? After I left the hangar I took the elevator down to the bar. 

I stood in front of the trash can where I was supposed to throw the package. My client was sitting nearby at a table and watched me. I held the parcel in my hand and looked at it for a while. It looked like the parcels I had often smuggled for Wallace. Did they know about each other? Were they competitors? It could not matter to me. I just shoudn’t get caught in the middle. I was just the transporter. I didn’t ask questions, didn’t interfere and didn’t take sides.