The Assistant looked on the young boy with disdain.
He looked to be no more than seventeen or eighteen,
on the cusp of manhood.

"You? You have summoned me over PDA?"

"The quartermaster says I'm good with crates.
Someday I'm gonna be a real cargo tech. Maybe even
quartermaster!"

"And what would your QM know of crates, boy?"

"She's a proper robust! She's a big money maker at
the stocks machine at the cargo foyer."

"Ah. Another dabbler in the scamming arts. I'm
certain she is barely mediocre."

"You shut up! I sent the message on PDA. I get to
tell you what to do."

The Assistant was silent. Compulsion bound his
voice.

"I want to know how to make a unlimited credits. I
need it for her independece claim."


The Assistant's answer was more silence.

"You have to tell me. It's in the rules."

Freed from the previous compulsion, the Assistant
answered, "First, you need a green slime core. I
happen to have one, and would gladly give it you
for so noble a cause."

"Really? Why do I need it?"

With a hidden smile, the assistant handed over the
green core.

"It is not enough alone. Making credits requires
thought, intent, will and greytide. The core starts
the money making. The more there are, the more
credits will be made."

"So how much is this one green core?"

"Oh, that one is empty. You'll have to fill it. But
it needs a special ingredient. Do you know what?"

"No," the young man said sullenly.

"Let me show you. You inject radium into it like
this."


The bright flash of the chemical reaction in his
hands blinded and surrounded the boy. The young
man's eyes went wide.

"I didn't feel anything," he complained.

"How about now?" the Assistant asked, disarming the
cargo technician and injecting the cores content  
into the youth's chest with a syringe. His heart
beat only once before he fell down shaking
horribly.

Quickly the Assistant cuffed the technician just as
the youth turned. His screams over common went to
deaf ears as the Assistant stripped him of his
headset. Only green slimecores can change the race
of men and xenos.

"Your QM obviously never told you never to accept a
freely given gift from an Assistant," he said to
the cuffed and struggling lizard. "You see, it is a
deathwish, the summoned assistant would most likely
rob you or scam you. Now, let's go find your
Quartermaster. After all, I have another green
slimecore and the captain pays handsomely for
lizard tail wine.




A horror story about a gulliple cargo technician summoning an assistant with a PDA