Expensive Compassion

[Tomtomrawr]

The shuttle was swallowed up by the Badlands, the pilot activating the shuttle headlights to aid him in the difficult task of avoiding the shard-shaped rocks. The Liberty Rogues picked a good spot to hide a station, Doctor Axel von Fischer remarked in his mind. Although it was a bit too obvious that something would be lurking in the cloud - you couldn't look out a window while traversing the New York system without seeing the dark matter cloud sucking in all of the light like a black hole.

Fischer rarely made house calls. He was after all not a doctor of medicine, but one of science; science which involved mass-murder. But he'd heard the call from Smeagle for help and had decided to take advantage of the poor man's desperation for his own means. Securing Smeagle's willingness to perform a favour for him in the near future may benefit him greatly one day. Say, if he needed a place to hide. Or a person killed.

He had chuckled at the man's message to the stars. Promising to change his ways? Fischer didn't want that at all - why would he want a favour from a goodie-goodie citizen repenting his sins away with futile prayer and pleads for forgiveness. What could he do for Fischer then - help him with his taxes?

'We are approaching the station,' the pilot informed him, not turning its eyes away from its task. Or should Fischer think of its eyes as sensors? The bodyguard had been with him for over a year, and in that time had proved itself invaluable. He need not fret about security when his bodyguard is with him.

'Gutt,' Fischer replied. 'Park the ship behind one of the rocks and send it the message. Get ready to engage cruise in case Smeagle doesn't have as much pull with the Rogues as he suggested in his message.'

'At once,' the bodyguard responded. It seemed to have been experimenting with different affirmative responses over the last few months. Fischer hoped it didn't mean the machine was developing any sense of free will. He felt the ship's nose bank sharply upward, the ship's artificial gravity making it feel as soft as an elevator coming to a stop. He heard the bodyguard pressing buttons from the cockpit, and imagined the message appearing on the computers in Buffalo's docking area.

'I am Doctor Fischer. My presence was requested by Smeagle. Requesting permission to dock.'

'Do you think it'll work Fischy?' The other "man" in the room with him asked.

'I'm not bothered either way.' He didn't like speculating on probabilities.