A soft light began to blink.

  It was slow at first. After it had gone unheeded for some time it eventually grew impatient and started to buzz. When the buzzing didn't work, it started to beep. It changed color, strobed, and increased in both volume and brightness.

  The alien equivalent of klaxons began blaring, a voice shouting over the alien equivalent of a loudspeaker, from the alien equivalent of a captain's cabin, of a moving van equivalent of a spaceship.

  "DANGER! WARNING! ETCETERA!"

  The Captain shot straight out of his chair, putting the "head" in "bulkhead".

  "Oh fabulous, you're awake! I was worried that we'd have to expense a new captain!"

  The Captain was pretty sure that he couldn't be replaced on his own ship, but he did concede that of the two of them, he needed the Replicant Executive far more than the other way around.

  "Do us a favor and head to the briefing room, the brokers just sent a bulletin! A new planet is ripe for plunder!"

  The Captain rubbed his head and wondered if he could get a model that maybe wasn't so callous; but then, he supposed he'd rather it be callous than too sympathetic. The life of a raider is hard, dark work that required difficult decisions to be made. Waking him was hopefully one of them — he really couldn't afford to be late.

  "I am up, please do not open the airlock just yet." the Captain said, half-jokingly.

  The Replicant Executive (who we shall from this point on refer to as "Rex") responded appropriately with half a laugh.

  "The broker says we've got a little time on this one. There are quite a few secondary objectives that we can likely grab, but I've narrowed us down to a few choices on primaries."

  The Captain (while we're shortening things, let's call this one "Craig" moving forward) grabbed a "food bar" from the dispenser, donned his wreath and started staring off into the middle distance.

  "Human subspecies, leverages a combination of paper and electronic currency, space faring but incapable of interstellar. General tech level is roughly 10 in most areas, with an 11 in weapons and communication. This one is still in the dark, but they've been reaching out for longer than your entire existence. It's truly amazing they haven't been destroyed in some fashion yet, looks like they finally found something."

  Craig nodded for Rex to continue.

  "Source of threat is a nano swarm designated as 'The Shale'. Destruction is still a ways out yet, and it sounds like the inhabitants won't detect it for some time."

  Craig opened his eyes and quickly considered the information. He knew how difficult this was likely to be for him and his crew — of which he had none.

  Craig was a bit bulkier than most humans, which made it hard to fit in. The fact that the populace was not yet aware meant their society likely wouldn't be broken down yet, making infiltration that much harder.

  He took a bite of his bar, which reminded him of a positive. Humans tend to have an exceptionally developed sense of taste, so he's likely to find some goodies.

  Several dialogs flitted across Craig's eyes. A briefing of the planet itself was visible, as well as numerous menus and lists of potential missions. Rex helpfully sorted the missions, looking for the undoubtedly competitive jobs in the intersection of least dangerous and most lucrative.

  Craig and his aide went through the options. There were quite a few delicacies, a handful of tech acquisitions, some minor librarian jobs, a few collectors… and one or two "less-than-savory" jobs. He then mentally adjusted his filters to see the list of unrecommended or restricted missions, which for the most part paid exponentially more than normal jobs.

  The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  A quick glance through the briefing showed that recommended evacuation won't be for another 20 TUs or so — about a month Earth Standard Time — which meant plenty of time to get in and do his best to blend in. If he even could.

  Craig had been to another human world already and found that his vocal cords were just ill-adapted for most human languages. He'd be relegated to pretending to be a vagrant as he took on scavenger hunt jobs.

  He looked over to his tried-and-true disguise: a ragged cloak, both intentionally and unintentionally distressed, which would be more like a blanket than a coat to an average human. Craig's race was slightly larger than most humans, but he was getting good at not drawing attention.

  He was trapped in a loop. The jobs available to him wouldn't likely pay enough to contract an infiltrator or buy a better veil, and he couldn't do the more lucrative jobs without stronger infiltration or combat capabilities.

  Craig couldn't help but wonder.

  "How come humans are so good at getting themselves killed, and are yet so common?"

  Rex shrugged. "All of my knowledge about universal seeding is theoretical. The prevailing theory is that they excel in early tool development enough to prevent early extinction. It doesn't take long for them to become the pinnacle species of their respective planets, but their quick development also tends to be their downfall — they are rather quick to fall for evolutionary traps such as recreational food, and deep-frying fatty drugs. Or something like that."

  There were thousands of requests of course, and there was always a market for food, art, and literature from dead worlds. But both Craig and Rex knew they needed to try something a little bigger this time if they could. Money was getting very tight.

  "There are some low-level animal capture jobs here that you might be able to pull off. Many of these animals were very portable."

  Rex highlighted a few listings. The first few were for stealing prized pets. Apparently the humans of this world did a great deal of selective breeding on several species. Looking at some of the more valuable outputs of this process, Craig wasn't quite sure what the benefits were, but he was sure he didn't want to steal pets.

  Rex was under the impression that Craig suffered from a chronic heart condition — in that it was far too big for someone in this line of work. Such a condition could very well prove fatal if he couldn't manage to stop literally eating most of their profits.

  "I just do not like the idea of petnapping. They have it bad enough as it is."

  Rex and Craig had this talk before. Even though Rex knew exactly how to spin it to win the conversation, the best he'd ever get out of Craig was a non-committal "I will think about it."

  That still didn't stop him from trying.

  "I still think you're looking at it the wrong way. You would be doing these animals a favor — their world is doomed."

  "Who wouldn't want their pet to go on living?"

  Craig had already heard this before. "Why are these listings tagged under delicacy?"

  Rex responded quick as ever. "Everything has to eat."

  Craig sighed and added new filters to his search. "I will think about it."

  Craig continued scrolling, making disappointed sighs here and there, until Rex piped up.

  "Here's an easy one — looks like we've got a request for a tourist fare. I'll lock it in."

  Craig knew he should object to jobs being picked for him, but he was glad to have an easy one.

  "This one has marked a general area he needs to go, so it's probably best to search for jobs specifically around there to reduce travel. I've sent you an updated list of recommendations."

  Craig went through the updated list. The area in question was near a small city, at least by Earth standards.

  For many crews, being restricted to a small city could be a problem — bigger crews needed bigger wins. But Craig and Rex were at this point the only two members of this crew, and had been for some time. They managed by picking the lowest tier general collection jobs, and general goods such as food, widely used technology, and anything they themselves could use.

  "I want to try this one. It does not sound that hard."

  "Very well, I will begin preparations. In the meantime, our fare should be here shortly, and insists we get moving soon."

  Tourists don't usually pay well, but they tend to be a nice low-drama way to make a little extra money. Also, tourists were usually outgoing. Raiding is a lonely life — it's always good to have somebody else to talk to. Most of the time.

  It didn't take long for Craig and Rex to set some ground rules about what should and shouldn't be asked when it comes to "purpose of visit."

  Rex was excited about the fare for a different reason. Building new connections was practically a core part of their being. Any potential new source of information was something to be prized. Information outside of the current planetary focus can be expensive, hard to come by, or both — and it's not like Rex could go out and sit in a bar chatting it up with any passers-by.

  They would both soon find themselves disappointed.

  Their fare was one of the least fun types of mysterious — the kind that wished to remain so in any way they could. The person was slightly taller than Craig. As far as he could tell, the form was bulkier, but the appendages much thinner. It appeared to have chitinous skin and a long face, in that its flat chin jutted out of an extremely baggy cloak.

  Craig's attempts to identify only got a name: "Kurkuril."

  The most they could get were grunts, and visible anger when anybody tried to pry.

  Oh well. They set the ship rules, set out from the way station, and headed for the gate.

  here