The box that moved

Some days start off ordinary. Wake up, grab coffee, eat something that looks like food but tastes like cardboard, check the work boards, try not to die. I wasn’t looking for trouble today— just a simple box run, one outpost to another, no questions asked. Easy pay, easy day.

Or so I thought.

The contract didn’t give me a nav marker, just coordinates and a block of text. Felt more like a smuggler’s note than a legit delivery. I read it out loud in the cockpit, half laughing to myself:

“Fly as close as possible to Sakura Sun Magnolia Workcenter. Then point your compass to heading to 344.4°. 

Stay at 2.00 kilometers altitude, cruise steady at 250 meters per second for 30 minutes and 8 seconds. 

Keep correcting for drift, keep your heading true. When the distance to Magnolia reads 447.83 kilometers, stop. 

The pickup will be right below you. Drop to the surface. If you did it right, Magnolia should sit 447.38 kilometers away at heading 165.0°.”

I followed it to the letter, and damned if it didn’t work.

Only it wasn’t an outpost waiting for me down there. It was the wreck of a Caterpillar, its name barely visible across the scorched hull: Ghost Herd. Smoke still curling off the wreck. And worse — it wasn’t empty.

A group of scavengers had moved in, set up like it was theirs, guarding it like they owned the place. From the hillside, I could tell it would be a problem. I retrieved my S71 from my ship, I picked them off one by one, sniper rounds cracking in the heat but suppressed enough to not draw attention. When the last body dropped, I rushed the hull.

The box was there, sitting in the cargo bay like it had been waiting for me.

A cube, maybe sixteen inches across. Looked like it was made from a piece of reinforced aluminum. Should’ve been light. It wasn’t. The damn thing was heavy. Too heavy. When I lifted it, it rattled and shook in my hands. I dropped it and drew my coda.  Something alive was inside, but it wasn't getting out

I pulled my multitool, tried to tractor it, but the beam sputtered and failed. No choice — I dragged it, inch by inch, back to my ship, The Good Time Haul, sweat fogging my visor. I dumped it in the hold, wiped my visor, sprinted to the cockpit, and burned hard.

Of course, that’s when a Cutlass Black dropped in. Reinforcements. They were too late. I put a missile right into one of their engines on my way out and didn’t stick around to see how it ended.

The mission marker updated: deliver to an outpost, and again, it provided strange directions. Fine. Easy.

“Fly as close as possible to Lorville. Then point your compass heading to 294.1°. 

Stay at 2.00 kilometers altitude, cruise at 250 meters per second for 1 minute and 20 seconds. 

Your compass heading will not be constant — pick a landmark on the horizon and fly straight. 

Stop when the distance to Lorville is 20.22 kilometers at 2.00 kilometers altitude. Your destination should be right below you. 

Drop to the surface. If you did it right, Lorville will read 20.19 kilometers away at heading 113.3°.” 

When I got there, it was a clearly abandoned location.  Nothing here but some dilapidated buildings, I found the only thing that looked like a shelf and put the box on it. No senors here,  mobiglass not updating, I tried everything. Shoved it. Stacked it. Nothing. Then my mobi dinged and the mission tracker blinked, updated again: Return to Port Olisar.

So back I went. Through Stanton, shooting across the stars and flying through the black from Hurston back to Ollisar. Through scavengers who were probably some kind of pirates, I'm going to make this delivery. What kind of pirates have reinforcements?  That box, still violently shaking and twitching in my cargo bay, like it wanted out. The job file didn't say I was hauling live cargo, but I swear something was breathing inside.

By the time I docked at Olisar, I was half-spooked and half-exhausted. What is in there?  But I learned you NEVER look inside the box.  It could just put are target on your back.  Hauled it through the airlock, stopped at a PIPS machine for a drink. The box wasn’t going anywhere, and I was thirsty. One of the security guards caught sight of it as I passed — he froze, staring with fear in his eyes, like he knew exactly what it was.

The drop-off was Covalex. Just a bin, a scanner, and an instruction: Insert and walk away.

What do you do with that?

I clicked drop off, the door slid up, slid it in, stepped back. Mission complete. Cha-ching. But the payout was wrong. Only 9k aUEC. The contract said 30k.

You can’t complain to Covalex. They don’t care about couriers. You can't even reach a living being if you do call them.  Whatever I’d just hauled, whatever was in that box, it was worth a hell of a lot more than 30k. And I got scraps.

Another day in Stanton. Another job that makes you wonder just who’s pulling the strings.