"I'll have to ask around. Wouldn't trust any of my Exchange contacts directly."

"How can I help?"

"You any good at the motive-reading thing?"

"It's one of the few things I'm actually good at."

"You can help vet these guys then."

"Can do," she agrees.

Most of the people they talk to give her an extremely bad feeling. Andronikos tends to agree with that assessment. They sound out a couple independents who seem more trustworthy, but most are unwilling to risk angering the Exchange. One of them owes Andronikos a favor, and for that plus a significant sum of credits, would be willing to make the run.

...she does not actually have a significant sum of credits...

Andronikos was a pirate, remember? He's got buried treasure he can dig up. Where "buried" means "stored conveniently in a numbered account with the Banking Clan". Not like he really has plans to use it for anything anyway.

...is he like absolutely sure he wants to help her with that, that is a lot of money.

He was a very successful pirate.

Well. She will accept his offer, then, with many thanks.

Yeah, well. Don't get too worked up about it, huh.

The details get worked out. They can leave whenever Rafa's ready.

Rafa's pretty much ready whenever.

Then they can depart.

The smuggler's ship is more cramped than Occlus's. Also messier. He seems proud of it, though.

It's very homey.

Yes, isn't it.

This is not the first time he's smuggled a person. He's got a pre-forged cargo manifest and some convincing looking crates. One of them is equipped with sensor baffles. Rafa can hide in there. Once the boxes clear customs and get moved to the surface, this panel will light up and she can push the button to pop the crate and escape. Easy.

Will she be on her own?

Yeah.

Okay. So s—

—he scoots into the crate and waits.

It's a dark and bumpy six hours or so.

Eventually, the panel lights up.

He presses it.

The crate pops open.

Surprise! It's a warehouse full of lots of similar crates!

Right okay cool. Is there an obvious door outside?