Document ID: FRE-MER-999. You stop asking questions when the credits clear. Official fleets have rules. Out in the deep black, some captains just have a price. We run guns. We smuggle. We do the jobs the core worlds pretend don't exist.
You can't run a blockade with a factory hull. We strip the outer plating and weld thermal dampeners directly to the exhaust cowlings. It tricks the orbital scanners into seeing a floating debris field.
"They are painting us with active scans."
"Kill the main drive. Dump a trash pod."
"We are dropping too fast."
"Just dump it."
We coasted through the patrol perimeter on pure inertia. It took two days of freezing in the dark to reach the drop point. The payout covered a month of shore leave.
Legitimate military hardware is dangerous. Stolen munitions are worse. We pack cracked torpedoes in shock foam.
The detonators degrade fast. If you run the inertial dampeners too low during a combat burn, the resulting vibration will set off a chain reaction in the magazine. You never walk heavy in the cargo bay. You check your magnetic boots twice before stepping near the racks.
Sometimes the cargo breathes. Sometimes the client wants a hostile airlock blown wide open.
We don't ask why the target needs extracting. We breach the hull, grab the package, and burn hard for the nearest jump point. If you start caring about the politics, you hesitate. Hesitation gets your crew vented into the void.
WARNING: Never accept a contract from an anonymous proxy paying entirely in advance. If they don't care about holding the credits, they don't expect you to survive the pickup.