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The Vandenberg Solar system's sun was dying, and as was typical of a dying star, it had first begun to expand before the inevitable collapse. There were thousands of years of life left in the nebula yet, but the expansion of gasses in the last few decades had brought on a noticable heatwave for the twin planets, Isis and Nephthys.
Nephthys, the dark planet always in the shadow of her sunny sister's rotation was cooler, more comfortable, but even so, those that inhabited the place were unhappy. When the ice caps melted, all of the coastal ports had flooded, forcing air traffic inward.
Rafe hated circling the landing strip, waiting for approval to land. It stripped something integral away from being a pirate with a cargo hold full of illegal and hard-to-get goods. Forced him to work harder, not smarter, just to earn a living.
It had taken him three solid years but he'd finally hunted down a set of pontoons for his aging craft. Installing them was a real bitch, but it meant that he could finally land in the port of Carnivalia again.
It was a dirty city; garbage lined streets lit with strings of low-glow bulb powered by generators that had a tendency to go out if the patronage or payout at the casino was particularly high at any given moment. The shipyard Rafe moored at was ancient, and the flooding hadn't helped the state of the place. Rusted out steel beams had been forced into the wet ground, providing an anchor, but they hadn't gone deep enough and the beams tilted, sometimes swayed, in the unstable ground beneath them.
Still, Rafe killed the engine and glided into place. His ship, The Sweet Charlotte bumped into the dock cobbled together from various plastics and synth materials before bobbing to a halt. After depressurizing the cabin, Rafe rummaged around in the hold, filling his satchel with the shipment for Mr. Wong.
Pure Ice, synthesized on Machina X, a planet known for experimental medical treatments in another system on the other side of the galaxy, was hard to get your hands on. Unless you had connections like Rafe did. Sure, Wong had the means to procure it himself, but it was more convenient to let someone else to the leg work. Worth the credits, too.
Rafe secured his blaster to his hip, donned his old-world leather jacket, then donned the satchel. The leather was natural bovine, vintage Earthwear. He'd taken it off one of the guys he'd been sent to kill, back when he was still taking assassin jobs in his youth. Running drugs was easier. Less stressful, more profitable, more reliable, and at his age, it was worth the drop in excitement.
Securing nhis ship after he moored took time. Finding someone reasonably trustworthy to guard it took even longer, but it was amazing what the promise of drugs could do, better still when his list of options was longer than his arm. Something for everyone, he always said.
A cold wind blew as Rafe navigated the streets of the red-light district, heading toward the green-district. To the casino. To Wong. Still, it wasn't the bitter chill of years past, and Rafe rather enjoyed the breeze, even though it was obvious he was a tourist here, rather than an occupant. Not just because of his jacket, either, but because he was lucid, not poverty-stricken, not slinking about the shadows in desperation.
"Say baby, how you liking this heatwave?" one of the brothel-girls slunk around the poorly lit porch, letting her clothes down to show off her three-breasted chest, the fuckhole in her navel. She fingered it obscenely. "If it ain't hot enough for ya, I can get you there..."
"Betcha can, sweetheart..." Rafe waved to the hybrid dismissively. "Maybe on the way back."
It wasn't an empty promise. He'd woken up with worse after nights on Ice, and Wong always insisted that Rafe try the goods before he bought them.
Space piracy. It wasn't usually a glamorous job, but it was always an exciting one.