"Spice!" Amir sat upright.
He was no stranger to that word. There were many types of spice, sourced from all sorts of places. It was a catch-all term—could come from plants, animal organs, even excrement—but none of that stopped it from being wildly popular in the galaxy's criminal underworld.
At its core, spice was a narcotic. It dulled the nerves, eased pain, and some varieties were even used in the construction of advanced equipment.
But people's first thought about it was never any of that.
Because beyond all that, spice was dangerously addictive. Countless beings, once they tasted the pleasure and vivid hallucinations it brought, could never let go. They'd drain their savings, abandon everything they had—just for another hit.
Wherever spice trade went, families were shattered, bodies wasted away, and minds burned out like flickering candles.
Seeing Amir deep in thought, Charles continued: "Exactly. Since you know what spice is, you should know how much it's worth! And this isn't just any kind—it's the best of the best. Rich idiots line up to get their hands on it!"
"I'm not interested in spice," Amir said plainly.
"No! Don't say that, kid. Nobody's really not interested in money. I know what it's like to be broke," Charles rubbed his stubbled chin, as if recalling something painful. "It's not good, Amir."
"And besides—we're selling this stuff to the rich, you know? Those bastards don't have a single clean credit in their palace coffers. Their homes, their mounts, every credit that passes through their hands comes from the blood of the poor."
Charles's voice was filled with bitter resentment, and Amir could tell some of it was genuine.
"So why not take some of it back, huh?" Charles tried to reel Amir in again.
"I don't care whether they're evil or not. And I don't care how you make your money. But I won't be part of it," Amir said, voice firm. "A gentleman earns his wealth through honest means." Spice trade, no matter who it was sold to, wasn't something Amir could accept. It was his principle. Anything that could bring harm was something he instinctively rejected.
Charles's rationale might be enough to fool some naive rookie, but not Amir.
He'd seen too many people in Coruscant reduced to husks by spice—living corpses wandering the shadows.
No amount of clever words would change his views.
Still, Amir was curious to extract more intel.
So he asked, "And what does any of this have to do with what you want from me?"
"It has everything to do with it!" Charles said, crossing his legs and swinging one foot in irritation.
"Originally, only a few smugglers knew about this place. We had a safe harvesting zone—every trip made us decent money. But this time, some moron led pirates straight to us. When they found the Lumnis Spice, they took over the entire site. That high-yield, low-risk location—they stole it all for themselves! Now they're trying to push us out completely!"
"As you can see, we work solo. They've got a whole fleet—at least a dozen guys. We can't fight them."
"This batch of spice was already harvested. Just needed to be processed. Everything was stored at the old camp—and now it's all gone."
"I've been forced to wander into unexplored territory to find a new site, and then you show up and blow everything up! My ship's trashed, and I nearly ended up as food for a wyrmslug!"
Charles was clearly exasperated.
"So… you want me to take on those pirates for you?" Amir looked at him, unimpressed.
"Hahaha! You're hilarious. The two of us? I'm not trying to die out here," Charles laughed nervously.
"Then what do you want?"
"I want to steal that batch of processed spice back. The pirates probably finished refining it by now. The whole stash should be no bigger than a single crate. I want you to sneak in and grab it while I wait in your ship to extract you..."
Amir stared at Charles like he was an idiot.
"Okay, fine... you sneak in, I cover you… we split the profits 30-70," Charles quickly backpedaled.
Amir sighed. Charles was no fool—he was actually pretty cunning. He had thrown out an obviously unacceptable plan first to raise Amir's threshold, and then offered the real deal, knowing Amir was more likely to accept. It also gave him room to argue for a bigger cut.
Amir didn't bother playing mind games or haggling for spoils. Still, he played along and bargained the cut down to a 50-50 split.
"Pleasure doing business, Amir! Once we have that crate, we're looking at 50,000 credits each!"
Amir knew spice could be insanely lucrative, but the number still made him pause.
He thought about poor Mando, who was willing to risk his life for just 1,000 credits. A true brother, that one.
Charles, meanwhile, never considered the possibility that Amir might leave him behind. In his world, profit was everything—no one would walk away from that kind of money.
All Charles thought about was how he'd fight Amir for the spoils once they had the goods.
"Let's fly, Amir! Follow my directions. The sooner the better!" Charles became restless the moment they struck the deal.
Amir had no leads on the ruin's entrance, and nothing else to do at the moment, so he went to the cockpit.
Charles followed closely and took the co-pilot seat.
"Nice ship you've got here," he said after scanning the Traveler's dashboard, gaining a general idea of its specs.
"Of course it is."
The Traveler lifted off and cruised along the crevice toward the distant location.
After a while, Charles pointed to a flat landing area and had Amir bring the ship down.
"The old camp's right beneath that crevice."
"What's it like being hundreds of meters underground?" Amir asked, curious. It had to be even colder down there—no sunlight, and who knew what kinds of creatures lurked below.
"It's relatively safe. Just basic setup: heating, lighting, extraction. No one lives there. We get a batch, we leave, wait for the next cycle," Charles said, now clearly a bit tense about the upcoming operation.
"If shooting starts, you'd better charge in and get me! It's pitch black down there—even with all their ships, escaping isn't hard!"
"Got it. I won't leave you behind."
"If all goes well, you wait until I signal. Then head into the rift toward my location. After that—it's payday!" Charles grinned at the thought.
"If they harvested a few more batches, we could be looking at triple the profits!"
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