New Talos Station – Argetha System
This wasn’t the first time the Traveler had been to Argetha. But honestly, we kept under the radar for the most part. After all, there were people in this system who hated my father with a passion, and for many, perfectly justified reasons. Starting with the reason why this is the ‘New’ Talos station, instead of the original one. It didn’t pay to borrow trouble, and telling people your daddy is a mass murderer is likely to start some trouble if you say it in front of relatives of the victims.
But I didn’t have a choice, really. We’d towed a disabled Aprico Corp corvette into the station, to be sold as salvage. That, and the fact that our little battle was picked up by scanners in the system, so everyone knew we’d blown two more out of the water. So it wasn’t any surprise when I saw the Station Administrator at our docking port with four security guards. Still, it would be interesting to see how he played this. “Eri, Kyle, escort our ‘guests’ to Synefar and see what you can get for them. Stephen, take Destiny, and see what you can get for the wreck. Then work on repairs. You see any upgrades, let me know before you spend our entire budget.” While they went to see about that, I stepped up to the administrator with Nariko, Isami, and Lilyana at my back, to keep his attention on me. “Administrator Tarun, what a surprise. I didn’t expect to meet you here.”
The Administrator did not appear pleased to see me smiling. “Care to explain why you are hauling an Aprico Corporation vessel into my station, Captain Mollen?”
“Oh, that’s easy. I intend to sell the ship for salvage, and the remaining crew as workers to go clean up the surface, or whatever else their new ‘employers’ might want them to do.”
“And what gives you the right to do that in Brekthal space?”
“Well, they attacked me first.”
“I’m sorry, but I cannot allow you to steal Aprico Corp property on my watch, nor allow an obvious slave trade under my nose.”
I sighed. That was how it was going to be, hmm? “You could do that, sure. But I’m sure you’ve run my ship’s registry by now, and you’ve found that we’re registered out of Sanctuary. You know who runs Sanctuary, right? Well let me tell you something else. Aprico Corp attacked a Sanctuary ship, carrying Sanctuary citizens, some of whom are close personal relations to that Man. Now, you can either go on with what you were about to do, in which case I’ll have to tell that Man that not only were we attacked by Aprico Corp in a bid to steal our weapons tech, but that the very same Brekthal who got to watch him at work before was working against us, possibly even in league with Aprico.”
I paused, to let that sink in, and was pleased to see the man’s ears flatten in that way Brekthals get when they’re frightened. “Or, you can let us do what we came to do, and when I send in my report, I’ll be sure to mention that this looks to be Aprico working alone. Now, can we go, or do I need to call my Father to come see you again? He might not be as nice as when he came here twenty years ago, you know.”
I’m fairly certain the Administrator was about to piss himself. If the looks on the guards and Nariko’s faces were any indication, he was giving off a heavy fear scent, but not enough for my human nose to pick up on it. “You- you’re the Butcher’s child?” Actually giving a name clued in the guards, who I didn’t credit with an overabundance of intelligence, into who we were, and they started looking edgy.
“One of them. As are the three behind me. Dad likes his women, you see, so I’ve got about twenty siblings that I know about. Nice happy family. And someone who attacks a member of the Family attacks the WHOLE family. So, why don’t we take steps to quiet this down before it gets out of hand? And the rest of the station doesn’t need to know who we are, either. That will just make people jumpy.”
The administrator considered his options. After a while, he came to the (quite correct) choice that the best option would be to turn a blind eye. “Very well, I will approve your salvage claim. I do hope it is a very long time before I have to see you again.” And with that, he turned and did his very best not to run away. I didn’t laugh. We got this reaction a lot in Rithenal space. Dad burned fear of him into their souls during the war. Elsewhere, this wouldn’t have gone anywhere near as easily.
Looking to the others, I said, “Well, let’s go find us some cargo, guys.”
(Later)
Qale’s Bar is something of a legend in spacer circles. It was the first business to set up shop on the old Talos station way back in the day, and continued running on the surface once the station went down. When New Talos Station was put in place, it was the first business to open its doors again. For something like three hundred years, Qale’s has been the primary watering hole of spacers in this system. Which makes it a prime spot for small-time freighters like ourselves.
The big companies and criminal syndicates have their own dedicated freighters. But smaller companies and independent merchants (on either side of the law) can’t afford that, so they hire out independent contractors like the Traveler. And Qale’s is one of the best places in Argetha to make that happen.
Walking into the bar, I took a moment to check the ‘Job Board’ near the entrance. Like the name suggests, it was a simple holoboard with two parts, a list of ships on station, their next intended destinations, and how much room they had in their holds, and a list of jobs looking for people to take them on, and how much they paid. It was dirt simple, but it worked. The Traveler was headed further into Rithenal space, eventually making stops at both Braktha and Rithena Prime, so I looked for gigs heading that way.
I also spotted a freighter scheduled to leave back towards Earth and on to Sanctuary, the Profit Margin, and contacted the Captain. Sure, I had codes for the repeater drones, but I didn’t want to break my cover entirely. Repeater drones were strictly for Government/Military use, after all. Comms in the modern age were pretty advanced, but no one had broken the FTL barrier on anything smaller than a super-dreadnaught. It was a power issue, mainly. Anyways, the repeater drones sat out at the jump points and waited until a message got to them, and then jumped to the other side, and sent the message, before jumping back. They were expensive as hell, but they allowed a message to get from one end of an empire to the other in days instead of months or years.
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Sure, you could get better time with a courier ship taking each system in hyperdrive and then jumping at the jump points. And you could get halfway across the galaxy in a couple days doing that. You’d also reduce the life of your ship from something measured in decades to a year, maybe less. That kind of wear would start to burn through systems faster than you could repair or replace them. Which is why that kind of thing was only reserved for wartime messages.
Anyways, I struck a deal with the Captain, and he agreed to take a pair of message chips back with him, and see they got to who I needed them to get to. The pay was decent, and when I told him it was a warning about Aprico targeting Human vessels for their weapons tech, he was all too keen to help get the word out. The next ship might not be as lucky (or good) as we were, after all, and the next ship might be his.
Once the Captain of the Profit Margin left, I opened my comm, and started sifting through reports. The salvage of the ruined corvette easily paid for our repairs, and then some. I approved an upgrade to our shields and engines with the rest of that money. Once installed, it would give us an extra 10% to our shield strength, and increase our sublight speed to a maximum of .3 c. That was starfighter fast. I saw that our prisoners had been safely dropped off with their new owners, and that we’d been paid quite well for them. That was why I sent Eri on that gig. Synefar Trehir, the slave trader we knew here, was many things, but most important for us at the moment was that he was a big pervert, and Eri always got his motor running. We didn’t call her ‘Sexkitten’ for nothing, though her mom always blushed when she heard the name.
As I was checking that the crate we’d been carrying for Argetha had been delivered to the guy who was taking it from the station to its final destination, a Brekthal man sat down next to me. The others were spread out around the bar, mostly networking and chatting up spacer friends. Me, I kept checking my reports. If the man wanted something, he’d speak up. Aaand he spoke up.
“Captain Mollen, if I might have a moment of your time?”
Turning to look the man over. Average height and weight for a Brakthal. His fur was a nice brown color, with white stripes. And the green eyes were also pretty. “I got a couple minutes. So, who might you be, and what can I do for you?” No sense being impolite to a guy potentially offering a gig. Or a free drink. I was just a hair over 19, but when your daddy has four wives and at least three mistresses that I know of, and none of them have tried to kill him because of that, then you’re bound to learn a few things.
Don’t get me wrong, Dad never tried sleeping with any of his kids. He’d personally killed a couple people who were into that shit. But he made sure we knew the facts of life early on, without the religious bull a lot of people still try and shove down people’s throats.
The man’s voice broke my train of thought (mercifully). “I am Sepraa Knops. You do not know me, but you may have heard of my associates?” He extended his claws momentarily to show that the claws on his right hand had been painted red.
Ooh, that was interesting. “And what does the Red Claw Syndicate want with me? I’m not aware of having crossed you lot before, so I assume this is a matter of transport?” Syndicates liked to throw their weight around, but the Red Claws liked to think of themselves as ‘businessmen’, and were one of the better syndicates to run cargo for, so long as you didn’t cross them. We’d hauled a few loads for them before, but never out of Agretha. They were expanding, it seemed, or we’d just been in the right place at the right time.
Knops smiled. “No, I assure you that this is simply a business meeting. I have a cargo of four crates, mass and size standard for this type, containing processed plant extracts to be delivered to Khalen Station in orbit of Braktha. Payment is 60K, half now, half on delivery.”
My eyes narrowed at that. Four crates of drugs, standard size and mass, meant over four thousand kilograms. That was a hefty street price, and sixty thousand Galactic Credits was roughly equivalent to what it would cost to buy a small freighter. Not one like the Traveler, but still a nice one. Which meant that there could be trouble. “Chance of other interested parties?” In other words, how likely are we to get ambushed by other syndicates or cops?
Knops nodded slightly. I probably passed a test of his, both by asking the question and by not immediately turning it down. “Supposed to be minimal, but this is an expanding market, and competitors are looking to break in.”
“Hazard pay of 40K plus paying for repairs if we meet with these competitors and get your cargo to the other side, payable on delivery.”
“Acceptable. I will include those instructions in the contract information. Have we an agreement?”
“We do. We’re docked at bay 47, and will be sticking around for a few hours to do some minor upgrades to the shields and engines. Should be headed out-system by 30 hours, station time.”
With that, we shook hands, and he brought up a contract pad, adding the bit we talked about, and gave it to me to look over. It was the standard criminal business doublespeak for what happens when things go bad, but it looked good, from my point of view. I added my digital signature, and we both got a copy of the contract.
Not long after Knops left, I got a call from the ship. It was one of the junior crewmen, a Kheldenan with an unpronounceable name, so we called him Dru. “What’s up?”
“Captain, we’ve caught three Brekthal females attempting to stow away on board. I believe they are slaves.”
“Hold them out of sight, I’m on my way there.” Well, well. I wonder what we caught in our net this time?