"FWLS1" - читать интересную книгу автора (A Future We'd Like to See)

some colony... that one's legit, since the Captain don't lie.
Take a 'package' to a research lab. Could be anything from
expensive equipment to a deadly new virus. All you know is that
someone somewhere paid good money to have the HAAFF protect their
goods during shipping, and ship them FAST.

Go pick off some scraggler pirates left behind on a raid.
Nothing odd there.

Fly cover for some cargo ship as it runs food to a colony.
Strange that they'd want five ships guarding the sucker. There's
ambush bait if I ever saw some.

An emergency recovery of a downed pilot from an emergency
mission to recover a downed pilot from an emergency mission.
Must be a pretty hot location to sound a three alarm fire. I'm
surprised whoever hired us for that one didn't aim higher, say,
for Starfleet or even Space Patrol. Not that the Patrol is
higher than us; we're better armed and considerably better
trained, but they've got some real wildcards which drum up
publicity easily. For some reason, all the really warped space-
time-disaster missions end up in Patrol hands. I blame drama
myself. Never can trust drama.

Ah, here's an interesting one. Four missions in a row of
'package' to totally random places. I've seen this before, it
comes with the Extra Security Package for those who pay our
bills. Five of the six pilots sent out are carrying crap to
unimportant places, and the sixth is making the REAL run,
probably with something very hot and deadly. There's the fifth
pilot being assigned.

Damn. The sixth slot falls on me.

Standard stuff, take Box A to Space Station B and get back
real fast. Of course, it'd have to be standard stuff, or else
it'd looks suspicious. I can't stand playing postal carrier, but
when a carrier isn't guarding a planet or performing some special
duty, it gets all the menial, dangerous crap.

One out of six.

Well, odds were in my favor. Knowing my luck, I'd be
ambushed invariably, but I'm a decent dogfighter and can blow
away any shit they throw at me. Pirates? Bah. Undertrained
gimps in cheap ships. Traders looking for fast money? Those
could be a problem if they're armed, but normally they won't
stray from the Anarchy Zones outside Terran space. This run is
deeeeep inside the chunk of the galaxy belonging to the Terran
Confederation, so no probs there.