Erix nearly sighed in relief as the Captain day herself down across from him.  The fact she was even mentioning asylum was a good start. Now to open up more.<br/>“I was contracted to transport a sealed box, it was supposed to contain highly sensitive artifacts.  While on route to the drop off I was stopped by Alliance soldiers, they wanted what was in the box.  I couldn’t just give it to them, my reputation of reliability might never recover, so I knocked them out and continued on.”<br/>Erix pauses slightly, his eyes tinged with regret.  “But soon after the Alliance dropped a large bounty on my head, far to high for ‘transportation of illegal relics’.  So when I got to the buyer, I forced him to tell me what was in the box.”<br/>Now, his eyes flashed with anger.  “It was a slave. They’d cryogenically frozen someone and stuck them in the box, try and get it past the Alliance.  Apparently a mole let it slip, told them I had it, but forgot to mention I was being duped.  I told the buyer to let the man go, he refused.  Things got violent.”<br/>Erix let out an exhausted sigh, pinching the bridge of his nose.  “Afterwards I took the ex-slave home.  The survivors put a bounty on my head.  The Alliance raised theirs to be higher, and it escalated from there.  Life ruined, I boarded the first ship I found headed out of Alliance space.  The whole crew pulled guns on me three days out.”  Erix dropped his arm to the table, the stress of the past month seeming to come back all at once.<br/>Looking up at the Captain, he made sweeping motion with his hand as if to say ta-da.  “I offer my skills as an expert bounty hunter to your ship.  I am at your service.”