Wilson Port, Tewanta - 3307-02-15 12:41
Danielle White brought her Diamond Back Scout to a stop about two kilometers from Wilson Port on the opposite side of the station from its entrance. She had eight cannisters of Onionhead on board and was planning her approach. Patience was a virtue while smuggling. She'd spent the past few weeks doing boring courier runs and that had gotten the local authorities comfortable with her comings and goings. She always took a similar route. The traffic controllers were so familiar with the flight path she took that they joked with her that the station didn't actually have a rear entrance. She laughed, but she was an experienced enough smuggler to stay cautious: they'd noticed enough to remark on it. On the other hand, they were comfortable with it. She hadn't detected any detailed scans since her reputation with the Buurian Protectorate had reached the Friendly level.
In addition to developing a good reputation and earning the trust of the local authorities, her time doing routine hauling jobs allowed her to get a feel for the potential profits for a smuggler. She'd made contact with some people in the station's black market a week ago and there was definitely a demand for her services. The Pilot's Federation classified Tewanta as a High security system and, despite its frequent periods of Civil Liberty, it was well earned. Security forces were, for the most part, very attentive to their job. In addition to the normal security forces and ATR, there were elite viper patrols, called the Wyvern Wings, that dealt harshly with pirates in the system. And then there were the bounty hunters from The Buur Pit, independent pilots that called this system their home, who scoured the system clean, if ever pirate activity started to stretch the local security forces. So, a high risk and high reward system for a good smuggler: getting a bounty here would spell trouble, but prices would be good. This place had some demand for weapons and explosives, not much need for slaves, strangely, but a huge demand for drugs. So drugs were what she was hauling.
Danielle adjusted the thermal controls on her remlok. It was cold in her ship as she had turned off most systems. A reduced heat signature made locking on for a detailed scan much more difficult. Everything that could be turned off, was, including the ship's primary life support system. She was relying on her remlok for oxygen. She had a good suit and had twenty one minutes left. She brought her ship in close the station and prepared to make her the critical last leg of the journey. There were three things she needed to do. Firstly, she needed to time her docking run so that the system security viper patrol was on the opposite side of the station when she maneuvered around to the front of the station. Then she would request docking, fly around the front of the station with thermal exhaust ports closed, the so called "silent running" mode, pass through the main entrance without hitting anyone, and land. It was tricky, required timing and pilot skill, but was something she had done dozens of times before.
The system security pilots orbit of the station entrance brought them around to pass in front of her, 5 km away. It was time to start her run. She requested docking clearance and it was granted. She engaged the silent running mode, set her main thrusters to full throttle. The system security fighters had just dropped out of sight.
An object appeared on sensors, in front of her and to the left. She slowed her ship and targeted it for a scan. It was an escape pod and it was drifting away from the station. A dark green Adder arose up from the front of the station on an intercept path with the pod. Danielle maneuvered her ship around out of the sight line of the Adder, and closer to the hull of the station. The Adder didn't appear to have noticed her. It lowered its cargo hatch and scooped up the pod, barely slowing to 40m/s while doing so. As soon as its cargo hatch was closed, it boosted to the back of the station, and started spooling up its frameshift drive at the first opportunity. Thirty seconds later, it jumped out of the system. Interesting, she thought. There may be as big a market for smuggling stuff out of this station as there is for smuggling stuff in.
A thermal alarm reminded her of her own current situation. She'd been in silent running for a few minutes and heat was building up. She'd risk system damage if she kept it up much longer. No smoke rising from the console yet, thankfully. In addition, flight control were urgently asking her to report in: they had become worried after they lost contact with her. She still had four minutes left on her docking clearance, so no need to panic just yet, but things would be tight. She waited until the system security had passed again before launching a heatsink and starting her docking run. She flipped the ship around when it cleared the rim of the station and did a hard burn of the vertical thrusters to bring her level with the station entrance. Some deft thruster firings brought her through at 99m/s. She found her landing pad and two minutes later had landed. She entered the security codes to inform the black market dealers that she had arrived. Autoloaders took her eight containers into the bowels of Wilson Port's underworld.
Danielle folded back her remlok helmet and stretched. She needed a drink. She also needed to hear more about the outbound smuggling opportunities on this intriguing station. Independent stations definitely have more interesting opportunities than Alliance ones, she thought to herself.