Harran sat a bit closer, at a workbench piled high with various gadgets of various quality and states of repair. At the moment it looked as if he'd opened up the guts of a shield emitter and was poking around inside, cursing to himself at whatever it was he was finding.
But as soon as the man caught sight of Aiden he immediately straightened, visibly brightening. “Thorne!” he called jovially, holding out his arms as if to embrace him as he hurried over. “How fares my favorite deep space, ahem, scavenger?”
Aiden shook the man's calloused, grease-stained hand. “Well I'm here talking to you, right? That usually means my luck's not completely shot.”
Harran chuckled. “Always so modest.” He clapped him on the back, ushering him towards the cramped little nook in one corner of the large space that he used as his office. “What have you got for me this time?”
Aiden withdrew a small pad with a complete list of everything he'd taken from the Deek cargo hauler, including specific details on each item and even 3D images. “Well as it happens, I've got a cargo hold full of some complete ship's systems, all in very good shape.”
The mechanic seemed to find that hilarious. “Good as new, some might say!” he roared. “I'm not sure how you manage to find all these shockingly intact wrecks floating out in space, Thorne!”
He smiled thinly, fighting the urge to glance around to see who might be listening in; Harran's shop was about as trustworthy and confidential as things got on Midpoint. If the man did try to screw him over, it would have to be for a pretty astronomically big reward.
Then again, the price on his head was bigger than the total worth of some colony worlds.
“My secret is to get to them before anyone else can take all the good stuff,” he replied.
Unsurprisingly, Harran seemed to find that hilarious as well. Aiden supposed the man had a reason to be in a good mood, when he was getting excellent condition ship's systems for anywhere from half to as little as a fifth of their actual value.
The cost of trying to sell stolen goods; Aiden and his crew risked their lives and his ship for this stuff, and faced the risk of being caught trying to sell it. Harran's only job was making the purchases look legitimate on his books and then finding a buyer to pass it on to, and he reaped most of the rewards.
Of course, selling the ship's systems was only a portion of the profits from their privateering. Even so, if they really wanted to make money they should just toss on some greasy coveralls and open a used parts store in a seedy smuggler's haven like this station. They were already experts at tearing that stuff out intact, and installing it again couldn't be that much harder.
Harran was a friendly enough guy, but that didn't change the fact that he was as ruthless as any pirate in his own way. Which he quickly showed as they began haggling, starting off at ten percent of the items' value.
Aiden didn't even need to respond, countering the absurd offer with his expression alone, and the mechanic shrugged. “You see ships lining up for repairs or maintenance? Pirate activity in this sector has become pestilential, trade's drying up, and the Deeks are sitting on their thumbs babysitting the rift hubs and allnet relays and letting everything else burn to the ground.”
“So what else is new?” Aiden growled. “This your first foray into becoming a pirate yourself? Because at ten percent you might as well drag out a cauterizer and put it to my head. Me and my people put our lives on the line for these parts.”
Harran snorted. “Right, you obviously fought a legendary battle to bring me this junk. Which is why your rust heap of a ship is sitting outside my shop right now, waiting to give me some much-needed repair business. Ten.”
“Are you saying if we're better at our jobs we should get paid less? In that case, you deserve to get paid top dollar for your negotiating skills. How about you go the other way and give me sixty.”
The mechanic scowled. “I begin with a reasonable offer and you return with an insult. No one in the universe would give you that.”
“You call ten reasonable? Anyone else would shoot you for offering such an outrageous price. But since I know you like to have a good laugh, since we're such good friends and all, I'll drop to fifty-five.”
“Listen, Thorne. I respect you, you know I do. Blowing up Deeks left and right like the war's still on? Void, I'm your biggest fan!” He scowled. “But that respect has to go both ways, you know? I can go up to fifteen, since we are friends, even though right now I don't think you fully respect how difficult and dangerous it is to move your stolen goods. ”
“Well, when your idea of danger is trying to stay ahead of the laser barrages chewing up your shields-”
Harran kept going as if he hadn't spoken. “I mean there's the port authorities, and then the Deeks, and the crime bosses, and they're all sniffing around, trying to figure out where I'm getting all these brand new ship parts with paperwork that can't hold up under intense scrutiny.
“And if I run into a problem I can't talk my way out of? You can fly off to some other part of the galaxy, or even head to a different one! Can I just cut and run like that without being ruined? No, no I can't. Imagine if your ship was dead in space, no engines, and all you
