Cardioid Sector, HR-14 System, Crimson Heart’s Base of Operations
The hiss of pyrotechnics and a searing white light punctuated the detonation of the flashbang. On the other side of their shield wall, the pirates waiting in ambush cried out in surprise.
Anchoring the center of the shield wall, Johnston pushed in, the others falling into place to protect the flank as they traversed the chokepoint of the door. Writhing on the floor, prying at their blinded eyes, the six pirates on the other side offered little resistance. A few sightlessly tried to claw for their weapons, but Frenchie darted forth and quickly dispatched them. Valentina kicked the emergency lamp the pirates had used to illuminate the corridor in dim light and shattered the bulb, plunging Task Force Alpha back into darkness.
The team held up their shield wall for another moment, waiting for another adversary to take aim, but silence filled the corridor. Combat came in fits and starts, even on a mission like this. Minutes of boredom and anxiety were punctuated by seconds of violence.
Frenchie took a long look past the shields, searching for enemies, then announced, “Clear.”
Captain Adams breathed out a sigh of relief and moved to tie her shield up against the wall where it wouldn’t drift free in the corridor. Her arms ached from bracing it against the impacts. The gently curved front of the shield had a few bullet marks. She could feel them with her fingertips, but it was still structurally sound and would be taken and reused for another mission. Separated from the fleet, they were in no position to throw away usable equipment because it had a few dents.
By force of habit, Captain Adams kept herself anchored to the floor of the corridor. The Marine unit with her simply took up positions wherever they had stopped. For Frenchie, that meant perpendicular to her on the wall. Adams was envious of how quickly they adjusted and how little they seemed to care for their orientation. It annoyed her that her subconscious insisted she stay grounded in zero-G. In the cockpit, she had no issue turning this way or that, let alone flying opposite her home ship’s orientation. Out among the stars, orientation was only perspective, but something about being here in the flesh, removed from her flight controls made it harder to adjust. Perhaps it was just the wrongness of seeing a corridor that clearly had a floor and a ceiling lined with lights without gravity. Or perhaps it was the strangeness trying to convince herself that she could walk along that ceiling without struggle as if gravity never meant anything at all. She wasn’t used to it. Ordinarily, when she walked such corridors aboard ship or on station, gravity was a constant.
A droplet of wetness hit Adams’ cheek as the airlock behind her began to cycle, bringing in more of their team. She wiped it away without a second thought, only pausing when the smell of it hit her: coppery, the scent of untreated metal left out in the elements, and a hint of salt. It congealed under the friction of her fingertips. In such a small quantity, it had already normalized to the temperature of her skin, and couldn’t be seen through her infrared goggles. More droplets drifted around her, a fine spray that hovered without gravity. She closed her mouth, unwilling to tolerate the familiar taste.
The mist in the air might be hard to see, but the globule of blood oozing and quivering beside the pirate’s head still glowed yellow in her infrared goggles. It was strange to find something that should have been gruesome so cheerfully colored. Adams turned from it before she could contemplate it more. She wasn’t used to seeing the remains of her enemies so clearly laid out. From her cockpit, usually all she saw was the final detonation of the fuel or munitions stores. Seeing them like this was different, and she did not envy the Marines of it, but at least in this scenario they were facing down pirates. Pirates – the scum of the transport routes who stole life from their unlucky victims and livelihood from all the rest. It also didn’t hurt that the pirates had shot first, and that the outcome of this mission dictated the survival of every soul in the refugee fleet. Adams and the rest of the crew were acutely aware of that.
Behind her, Valentina pulled the chemical marker off her belt and shook it. The pea inside clinked off the walls of the can as it stirred the mixture inside. The bitter scent of aerosol wafted into the air as she sprayed a large ‘X’ onto the wall, glowing an unmistakably bright neon pink.
The airlock clunked and hissed, and the doors began to part for another group to pass through: more Marines and a handful more pilots. They gave Adams’ group a nod, but there was nothing to be said as they formed up and chose a direction.
“Ready up,” Lieutenant Colonel Pflum’s accented voice said, taking up a position to move the opposite way down the hall.
The team didn’t need any more direction than that. Johnston took point, swinging his weapon in to place. The long, tri-barreled turret had a bandolier that came up over his shoulder and into a large metal box on his back, packed with more ammunition. Given the firing rate of the turret, that was probably enough for a minute of continuous firing at the most, but there wasn’t much that could stand up to that kind of weapon for a second, let alone a minute. In all, the turret and its ammunition weighed several hundred pounds under gravity, though its sheer mass would have made it unwieldy even in zero-G.
Johnston was the only Marine Adams had ever seen use such a weapon. A fortification turret, it wasn’t meant to be picked up and carried. Only a heavy-grav worlder could even consider doing so, but given Johnston’s strength, normal rifles probably felt like plastic toys. Everyone on the ship knew that Johnston could bring that turret to bear faster than most Marines could ready their rifles. He did all his physical trainings with it, just as other Marines would their rifles.
Valentina shadowed Johnston’s bulk, her lithe movements even more cat-like as she kicked off the walls. Lieutenant Colonel Pflum followed them, reporting in their movement back to the ship. Adams followed him, trying not to feel too out of place. Second to the Marines, the Singularity’s pilots had the most combat training and experience, but they didn’t often move in cohesive units. Their training was given in case they had to eject over hostile territory, and it expected them to be alone.
Frenchie took up the rear of their group, belts of various explosives tied around his body. Adams had always taken him to be a slight bit unhinged, and the little bit everyone knew of his backstory only confirmed that assumption. Sane people rarely spent much time on the Marine bomb disposal squads. Or, if they were sane when they started, they usually weren’t when their tour ended. Still, he was reliable. Unhinged or not, he could tear down or assemble almost any type of explosive in seconds.
The corridors in this part of the base were square, comprised of the prefabricated modules they’d seen flying in. They were plain. Bulk manufactured lights ran along the ceiling, dark without power. The walls were plain, perhaps painted, but it was impossible to tell through the infrared goggles. The floor had an impact-resistant coating on it. Adams could tell by the slightly muffled sound it made when she bounced off it when compared to the walls. The air tasted different than what she was used to, not as flavorless as her flight suit’s, but not as metallic as the Singularity’s. It carried an almost papery scent, the sign of cheap air filters.
Among those characterless corridors, Adams tensely waited for things to go wrong. And in her defense, things did eventually go downhill on this artificially flat terrain, just not as quickly as she would have expected.
Her team moved through the base for the better part of an hour, laying down markers and calling in what they saw. Johnston brought them to a halt twice, allowing Frenchie and Valentina to disarm traps. They bumped into one more pirate who was stumbling loudly through the dark, stranded without an emergency lamp. Pflum had ordered him knocked out, tied up and thrown in a supply closet to be picked up later. Compared to staggering around blindly for a few hours, Adams considered that unconsciousness a mercy.
Truly, it was going rather smoothly until they reached a door that was twice as wide as any other that they had so far passed through. It had the same shielding and locking mechanisms as any airlock. Those were standard on any space structure, meant to section off areas in case of a pressure loss, but this door was comparatively quite large.
“This looks to be built from a different type of module,” Valentina found her way to the corner of the hallway, and studied the seal between the module that comprised the hallway and the one that lay ahead. “Same manufacturer perhaps.” The seal was tight and there was no sign that contact between the two materials were negatively impacting one another.
Pflum glanced to his compass. He wasn’t sure why he bothered. It wouldn’t tell him anything. They hadn’t been able to study the orientation or layout of the base in any detail before boarding. Pocketing the compass, he turned his attention to the large doors. “No way to be subtle about this one, eh?” Anyone waiting on the other side would see this door opening well in advance.
“I’d expect not, suh,” Johnston said, readjusting his grip on the turret he carried.
Valentina took the chemical marker and sprayed an ‘X’ on the wall, signaling that a team had been here.
Pflum radioed back to the ship, “Base, Alpha-One. Our path has ended at a large door. We will proceed through.”
“Roger, Alpha-One.” Keifer Robinson’s voice answered with a calm clarity. “Sensors indicate that you are approaching the largest continuous volume in Crimson Heart’s base. Other teams may already be inside. Use caution.”
“10-4, Base. Alpha-One out,” Pflum answered, then flicked his helmet radio back to receive-only. He didn’t need it to speak to his team. “You all hear that?”
“Aye,” drawled Johnston. “There’s pirate gold beyond that door.”
Gold wasn’t likely, but Pflum didn’t bother correcting him. What they were after probably lay beyond that door, gold or not. Large continuous volumes were usually avoided in space, but there were exceptions, hangars for one, and storehouses for another. Storage spaces could be broken into smaller volumes, but for busy sites where items were moved frequently in bulk, larger spaces were preferred. Preserved goods that were shipped through space usually had vacuum-safe packaging. Exposure to the void wouldn’t damage them, so an atmosphere breach was of little concern.
“Get the door, Valentina,” Pflum ordered. “Everyone else, watch your fire. Friendlies in the region.” In some ways, that was a comfort, in others, it was a danger. Bullets didn’t stop simply because they’d been aimed at an ally.
The team pushed off and anchored themselves to various walls, well out of the way in case someone shot through the door as it opened. Valentina pried the control panel for the door out with her nimble fingers and rewired its power components to route through the battery she was carrying. Then, she pushed herself into the corner for cover and hit the button.
The little motors that powered the door whirred to life, pulling it open at a steady pace. When it reached its maximum dilation, it thunked to a stop, and Adams waited, and waited. Still, nothing stirred beyond. Behind her, she heard Frenchie sigh, not in relief, but in distinct disappointment.
Pflum looked to Valentina, but the slender woman only shrugged, then peeked her head around the corner as subtly as she could. “Looks clear,” she told the team softly. “And great stars almighty, I think we’ve hit the jackpot.”
It didn’t take Adams long to figure out what she meant by that. The moment she passed through the door, the view in front of her yawned into the largest continuous volume she had ever seen in space, second perhaps only to the Singularity’s landing bays. It was well over a thousand feet in length, but that wasn’t what made it so utterly massive. It was the depth. She had expected a single-story volume, perhaps with higher ceilings, maybe twelve feet, but no, this space was far, far taller than that. Crimson Heart had exponentially increased the storage space beneath this large habitat module by removing its floor and drilling directly into the asteroid below.
“Bloody ‘ell,” Pflum cursed. His magboots clanked against the metal surface of the freight elevator the door had opened to as he stepped forward. “This is it.” This was what they had come for. In the space beyond, rows and rows of shelving sat, each rising to an astounding height. Nestled in this volume, the shelves looked like a city skyscrapers. “There’s more ‘ere than we thought.” They were packed full of boxes. “This is enough to feed a city.”
“Or a fleet,” Valentina said, squinting off into the distance. “They must have raided hundreds of ships to get this much.” It went without saying that hundreds of ships probably equated to hundreds of casualties. “These are damned blood-supplies.” Stained by those who’d died for them to be gathered here.
“We’re not in a place to be picky,” Adams reminded. “It’ll go to a good cause.”
“Feeding a few thousand refugees for a few more miserable weeks, sure,” Valentina agreed. “But that’s only temporary.” Those refugees couldn’t live on those ships forever. Sooner or later, things would start breaking down.
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“Not our problem,” Johnston said, his baritone voice carrying further than he likely meant it to. “That’d be the Admiral’s domain.” Marines and pilots like them filled a tactical function. They could think on the spot, make instantaneous choices in the heat of the moment, but none of them were strategists. Tacticians considered the nature of the current battle, strategists focused on the flow of the war. The Admiral, while a gifted tactician, was also their resident strategist. He would determine the long-term movements of the Singularity, and likely the refugee fleet as well.
Pflum turned from looking over the edge of the elevator, realizing a member of his party had been far too quiet. Looking around the elevator platform, he caught a glimpse of Frenchie’s small form climbing over the railing. “What in the fuck are you doing, Cadet?” he hissed, trying desperately to keep his voice down as he saw Frenchie fix his spear to an explosive and shove it down the barrel of his grenade launcher.
Frenchie made no effort to pause what he was doing, now lifting the launcher to his shoulder. “Fishing, sir.”
Pflum wanted to object to that, but he wasn’t given the chance. Aiming down below the platform, Frenchie pulled the trigger. The crisp thud of a detonation echoed across the storehouse, the sound bouncing between the shelves, and an instant later the clang of metal on metal rang out directly below him.
Frenchie grinned madly below his mustache. “Caught a big one,” he announced happily.
“A big what?” Pflum demanded, realizing that not only had Frenchie hit whatever it was, but he was now attached to it. He hadn’t jerry-rigged a spear launcher, but a harpoon. A line spooled off the frame of Frenchie’s launcher, running down below the platform, no doubt attached to the spear he’d shoved into the barrel. Pflum didn’t look too close at what comprised that line. It could have been fuse, or the team’s safety rope. It was usually better not to ask how Frenchie did what he did.
Frenchie tilted his head, an indication of confusion, but he tilted it a hair too far, and it became a bit uncanny. “You were so busy looking down, you never looked down?”
The statement was nonsense, but it was the nonsense he expected from Frenchie. Pflum immediately looked down– not down towards the shelves in the storehouse – but straight down past the bulk of his magboots. The elevator plate was made of a near-solid metal with only small holes for tie-downs, but the platform around it that held the controls was made of a much finer mesh. He could see through it to now see what lingered below.
Dormant, it hovered where it had been powered down. Something like a crab, six appendages spiraled off its disc-shaped body. A loader-bot. Pflum hadn’t seen one in years, not since the last time he’d raided a corporate warehouse. This one was bigger than the last he’d seen, but judging by its blockiness, that was a facet of its age, not its strength.
The bot wasn’t easy to see through the mesh, especially not with the infrared goggles. The mesh appeared as a solid green print, and the loader-bot as a pencil-thin outline in the void spaces. Also at ambient temperature, it was even the same green color. “You saw that?”
Frenchie tilted his head a little further. “I heard it.”
“Like you hear the ship?” Valentina queried, clearly incredulous.
“Most machines don’t talk like she does,” Frenchie said, as if that were the most obvious thing in the worlds. “Dinner bounced off the wall.” The last one through the door, he’d heard it while the others had been distracted by their quarry. With a yank on his launcher, Frenchie pulled the loader-bot out from below the platform. It was powered down, its arms left in a neutral position. They banged against the railing as Frenchie hauled it in.
Pflum watched him, simultaneously concerned and confused by the small Marine’s actions. “I admire your catch, mate, but I can’t say I want to eat it for dinner.” And you’re being a bit loud.
Frenchie wiggled his spear free and detached it from the line, face painted with disappointment. “It’d have been more fun to fight for dinner.”
“Now’s really not the time, mate.” Frenchie’s tirades usually had a point to them, but Pflum would be damned if he could figure out what it was.
“He’s right, LC,” Valentina said, approaching the bot. “Dinner here should have been a fighter. This loader-drone shouldn’t be powered down.”
“The EMP knocked out all power,” Adams reminded.
“The EM surge was localized to the base’s power supply,” Valentina said. “We did it that way so Singularity would be unaffected. That’s why we used a missile. But look around you, this storehouse isn’t designed to function with gravity.” The shelves were too tall, the volume too deep. “These loader-bots function in zero-gravity. They fly on battery-power. It was in the air when we struck the base, insulated from the power surge.”
Frenchie nodded his agreement. “Dinner never got cooked.”
Pflum furrowed his brows. “Then why is this thing powered off?”
“Maybe the control system went down.” She plucked at the antenna mounted on the back of the loader-bot’s disc body, leaving it bouncing side-to-side. “Bots like this often receive orders wirelessly.” It was cheaper to build one big system to control multiple bots than it was to install one on every single bot. Popping open the control panel, Valentina began rooting through the wiring. “It looks like some new circuit cards have been installed. I don’t recognize the make.”
“Pull them out.”
Valentina lifted her head from the bot’s insides, surprised by the urgency in Johnston’s interjection. “It doesn’t look dangerous.”
“Pull them out,” Johnston ordered. “Actual warned us to be wary of unfamiliar tech.” This was exactly the situation that raised warning flags. “We’ve already seen evidence of a Hydrian presence. Base will want to investigate anything we can bring home.”
“Alright,” Valentina said, focusing her attention once more onto the bot’s controls. “Here goes.” Rerouting the wires, she tried to pull the unfamiliar circuit cards out, only for the entire bot to whir to life.
Lights and all, it powered on. Valentina cursed. “Naddlethworfing hell!” She jumped forward, shoving her arm further into the bot’s innards.
Pflum shielded his eyes from the brightness of the loader-bots lamps. Perhaps with usual vision they would have been comforting, but they were blinding under the filter of the infrared googles. “Valentina!” he cried.
From below came a shout. “More! Up there!”
And before anyone on the team could contemplate it, the sharp crack of gunfire rang out. Bullets began plinking off the mesh, skittering through the holes of the platform floor. Pflum let out a cry as one grazed up his arm before he could leap onto the elevator deck and let its solid floor shield him.
Captain Adams also moved toward the elevator only for a bullet to catch her foot. The magboot stopped it, but its mechanisms seized up mid-step and released their grip on the platform. She flailed a bit, suddenly drifting upward. Panic nipped at her for an instant, and then Frenchie crashed into her from behind. “Gotcha, Cap!” he said, wrapping an arm around her as he tossed his mag-anchor down and dragged them both to the safety of the elevator deck.
Valentina curled herself up onto the top of the bot, letting its body shield her as she pulled through its controller. With a grunt, Johnston grabbed one of its arms and pulled it and her to the elevator.
They sat for an instant, catching their breath while bullets clanged against the bottom of the elevator. Then, the radio in all of their helmets crackled with an incoming transmission. “This is Alpha-Seven. We’ve been ambushed in the storehouse. Fought them off, but we’ve got wounded and they took Sanchez. I repeat, they took Sanchez!”
Pflum pulled his hand off the wound on his arm, reaching for the radio. “Alpha-Seven, this is Alpha-One. We’re in the storehouse, East side.”
“Roger, Alpha-One. We were on the lower level, East side when they jumped us. We cannot pursue.”
Alpha-Seven was the designate medic unit. The breathless voice on the radio had to be one of the Triple Witches, the Marines assigned to escort the nurses. Among those nurses would have been Sanchez, the most experienced combat medic the ship had. Alpha-Seven wasn’t supposed to be on the frontlines, but it seemed multiple paths through the pirates’ base funneled into the storehouse. Alpha-Seven had unintentionally caught up to the fighting. “We’ll handle it, Alpha-Seven,” Pflum said. The fact they were pinned up here at the moment was irrelevant. They would figure it out.
Releasing the broadcast button of his radio, Pflum turned to his unit. “Ideas?”
Valentina turned her attention from the loader-bot’s controls. “Captain, when was the last time you flew anything other than an Arcbird?”
Adams shrugged. “Been awhile, but all air and space craft share the same axes of motion.” Yaw, pitch, roll and thrust. It had been that way for centuries.
“Well, you won’t be much use on the ground with one boot.” That was an easy way to make a mistake and end up stranded in the air as an easy target. “So how ‘bout you fly a distraction for us?” Valentina asked, giving the loader-bot a pat. “These bots have manual controls.” It wasn’t uncommon for poorer companies to have low-wage workers operating them rather than an automated system.
The gunfire below had ceased as the pirates waited for the team to reveal themselves. The instant the Marines jumped off the elevator platform, they’d be easy targets unless they had a distraction to cover their movement, and the loader-bot had already shown that it could withstand bullets. “Show me,” Adams told Valentina.
“Stick your arms here and here,” Valentina explained. “These controls were precursors to the kinetic gloves now used on the Keeper-class battleships. Push in for thrust, lean for yaw, twist for roll, and up and down motions will control your pitch.” These kinds of controls were far easier to pick up on than the stick or yoke most pilots were accustomed to. “There are slots for your fingers. Pointer, middle and ring fingers on each side control the arms’ motion. Activate the grabbers by pinching to your thumb.”
“Easy enough,” Adams said, climbing aboard. Hugging the curve of the bot’s body, she locked her working magboot into place on its metal skin and stuck her hands down the indicated holes. The kinetic controls had a slick, silicone texture to the interior gloves. It was a little uncanny at room temperature, but Adams suppressed her shudder and prepared herself.
“You sure about this, Captain?” Pflum asked.
“I’m a better pilot than I am shot. I’ll give you a hell of a distraction.” Now, she felt like she had a reason for being on the team. “Just don’t miss your window.”
Valentina spent another few seconds digging around in the controls, their access panel right above Adams’ thigh. “I’ve got the anomalous circuit cards removed, switching to manual controls now.”
The gloves constricted a little as the system powered on. Adams resisted the urge to yank her hands free, and instead leaned to the left. The bot responded by starting to spin counter-clockwise, a spin that sped up the more she leaned. After two rounds, she righted herself, and the bot quickly halted. A little laugh escaped her, “Oh, this’ll be fun.”
Pflum watched her warily. “Remind me again how you got your callsign?”
Captain ‘Fireball’ Adams smiled. “Strict orders, sir.” Instinctively squeezing her arms together, the bot responded by thrusting straight upward.
With that, she jetted forward, out and over the edge of the elevator, then dove downward. The pirates reacted with some surprise, finding that the thing barreling toward them was no human, but a six-armed metal crab. Their surprise didn’t last, and they opened fire.
Adams pressed herself against the bot, eyes barely peaking over the curvature of its main shell. She felt a lucky shot graze her helmet and shuddering her head, but she only sped up, diving faster toward the group of pirates. There must have been ten of them, two dragging a highly-resistive figure in black protective attire. Her helmet was missing, as were her goggles, but that only allowed Adams to recognize Sanchez’s thick, black hair.
Adams’ leveled out her dive about a foot above the heads of the pirates, sending them ducking and scattering. At the end of her pass, she grappled two pirates at the rear of the party. They screamed and thrashed, but before they could extricate themselves, she threw the bot into a spin and flung them into the nearest wall. They impacted with painful thuds before they bounced off and drifted away, motionless. Dead or knocked out, Adams didn’t care. A bullet caught her in the back, shoving the breath from her lungs. It was painful, but she could tell it hadn’t penetrated her armor, so she came back around for another pass, crab-claws at the ready.
The pirates flung themselves well clear this time, but she still caught one by his leg and flung him into the wall. He hit headfirst, but the sound was drowned out by the staccato clap of a fortification turret firing from above.
Johnston had jumped down and attached his boots to the frame of the storage shelves in the chaos. A two-handed weapon fired from the hip, the fire erupting from his turret sped up as the barrels spun up to speed. He mowed down the remaining pirates with such expert precision, they were holed through before the turret was firing at its highest rate. He only released the trigger when the last pirate, that standing closest to Sanchez, desperately threw up his hands. “I surrender!” he cried.
Sanchez didn’t waste the opportunity, promptly elbowing him in the face. “That’s for taking me prisoner,” she said, grabbing his weapons while he clutched at his bleeding nose.
“We thought you were a nurse,” the pirate cried. Nurses could always be peddled for their skills on the black market. They made valuable slaves.
“I’m a combat medic, fuckface.” Yes, aboard ship, she functioned as a nurse, but she was no stranger to fighting and could very well defend herself. She evidenced that by slinging the strap of the pirate’s rifle over her shoulder and readying it against him.
Valentina, Frenchie and Pflum drifted down beside her and activated their magboots to tie them to the floor. They gave Sanchez a nod, pleased to see her unharmed. “Hell of a distraction, Captain,” Pflum acknowledged. “Glad you’re on our side.”
Pflum began giving orders to round up the drifting pirates and ensure they wouldn’t wake up to cause issues if they weren’t already dead. He was interrupted by the emergence of a clattering noise from a nearby air vent. Spindly little legs clinked against the thin metal lining of the duct as a tiny drone clambered from the wall. “Hello, Sinners,” a velvety voice said. “That is what you call yourselves, isn’t it? The little nickname of the Singularity’s fighting force. Quite befitting of those who abide the Steel Prince’s reign, isn’t it?”
All the Marines instantly trained their weapons on the little drone, a tiny spiderlike build that none of them recognized.
“Now, now, hold your fire. I’ve seen how capable you are,” the velvety voice said, echoing from the droid’s speakers with surprising clarity. The lens of a little camera glinted on its head as it studied the carnage around it. There was little left of the group shot up by the turret, and the three flung into the wall weren’t much better off. Blood streamed into the air, dimly lit by a lantern one of the pirates had been carrying. “I’ve come to make an offer much like my little underling here.”
“An offer?” Pflum echoed. “You’re the Baron, I take it?” The leader of Crimson Heart?
“That’s right, and I’ve been watching your progress. I have little drones like this scattered throughout my base, and they weren’t affected by your nasty power surge. However, it’s clear my crews cannot stand up to your assault, and I don’t wish everything I’ve built here to be dismantled.”
“I’m certain you don’t,” Pflum agreed. “So, pull your forces back. We’ll take what we came for and leave.”
“That is my offer,” the Baron confirmed. “It seems you came for supplies. I’ll allow you to take them with no further fighting, but there’s a condition.”
“What is it?” Pflum asked. What could be worth all the supplies that Crimson Heart had gathered?
“There is a prisoner here. Held in isolation on the far East part of my Base. Pull your forces from that area. There are no supplies there and I want the prisoner left behind.”
Pflum contemplated it. “Why?” Why sacrifice all of Crimson Heart’s wealth? The value of the supplies stored here was enough to rebuild part of Crimson Heart’s fleet.
“That prisoner is the key to everything I have built here,” the Baron said. “That is worth more to me than any amount of stolen goods.”
“Fine,” Pflum said. “You can present your offer to the Admiral. He’ll decide.”