Guild Security Council
The Guild Security Council is made up of an elected group of certified Guild Master Traders. The Guild Security Council shall be exclusively in charge of all Guild security matters. This includes but is not limited to armed conflict with local polities, treaty enforcement and ban enforcement.
Excerpted With Permission
Data Trader’s Handbook
Copyright 3250, Interstellar Data Trader Guild
By the time the Theo had done half the satellite deployments, one of the BR’s was done and was able to take on some of the load. By the time all the satellites were in place, both BR’s had finished printing and were assembled and tested. Leo definitely felt better having some sort of ability to defend the ship. It took him a minute to realize how strange that was. He had spent his entire life working on space aboard completely unarmed ships. Not once had he thought that he needed an armed ship to defend himself. Today, after being out of the guild for just a few months, he could not imagine ever going anywhere without the means to defend himself. Life was certainly strange.
As they approached Bohemia, they ping’d Craig to let him know they were coming. There was no response, but then again it was the middle of the night station time. After coming within a million klicks, they reached out to Bohemia to get a parking orbit assigned. Leo was chatting on the bridge with Ollu when the communications watch stander started laughing.
Ollu turned to the watch stander. “What’s so funny, Paul?”
Paul turned around, still chuckling. “Oh, the guy on duty sounds stoned or something. You know, ‘heeeeey duuude, don’t harsh my mellow.’ Just funny to hear a comms person talk like that but I guess that’s Bohemia for you.”
Ollu frowned but nodded. “Yeah, I guess so.”
As they walked down to the boat deck, Ollu continued to frown and occasionally shake her head. Finally, Leo couldn’t take it. “Ollu, what’s up with you?”
“I thought Craig fired all the stoners over there.”
“Well, I guess not all of them.”
They met up with Ramona who was just putting her gun belt on. She handed Leo his before looking over to Ollu. “Everything OK?”
Ollu shook her head again. “Not sure.” She went on to explain the radio call to Ramona. The more Ollu talked, the more Ramona’s face settled into the still expression that Leo recognized.
“Oh shit. I know that look.”
Ollu looked over at Leo. “What look?”
Leo pointed to Ramona. “That one. The one that means, ‘pack heat and follow her lead when the shit goes down.’”
“Oh shit.”
Ramona held up a finger, gesturing for them to wait. In two minutes, she was back with another handgun, a gunbelt and a plasma rife. She silently handed the gun and belt to Ollu.
Ollu looked at them with disgust. “It may be nothing.”
Leo smacked her on the shoulder. “Take it from me. When Ramona tells you to pack heat, you do it.”
Ollu stood there looking at Ramona for a full minute. Then she nodded. “Right. Pack head and follow your lead.”
Ramona gave a tight little smile with no humor in it. “Don’t shoot unless I do.”
“Right.”
With all three of them working, it only took a few minutes to get the BR prepped. They were only a couple hundred klicks to the station, so the flight was very short. A docking bay was flashing green for them and they were able to enter the station without incident.
Once they got inside, things still looked normal. No gunmen hiding in the docking bay. Nobody at all in the bay in fact. Not unusual, docking operations were normally completely automated. After a few minutes checking that the BR was secure, they prepared to enter the hab. Ramona unslung the rifle, checked the charge and armed it. It emitted an evil whine as it powered up.
Ollu was not excited about the rifle. “Those things are not safe to use on a station.”
Ramona patted her shoulder. “Not my first Rodeo Ollu. A handgun isn’t going to stop a fully armored trooper.”
“Do you think there are fully armored troopers on the station?”
“No, but if there aren’t I can just not use it. If there are, we will really want it.”
“OK, fair enough.”
They cautiously investigated the corridor leading out of the bay, nobody there. After walking a few dozen meters, they could hear what sounded like gunfire. “Well, that tears it.” Ramona gestured for Leo and Ollu to stay behind her and trotted off down the corridor TOWARDS the gun battle.
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.
Leo looked at Ollu who shrugged. “Well shit. OK, let’s go.” They both drew their weapons but were careful to keep them pointing up, just in case. As they came to a “T” junction, there was a full on battle going on in the corridor. They could only see a few heads and the occasional gun poking around a corner. Suddenly, a metal object went flying from left to right.
“GRENADE!!”
Ramona jumped back, Leo and Ollu doing the same but a split second later. There was a pause and then a loud BANG in the corridor. “Flash-bang. Not lethal.”
“Jesus. I’d hate to hear a real one.”
The firing rose in pitch and they could hear loud voices, shouting orders.
Ramona looked startled. “SHIT! It’s the Guard!”
“What?”
“That’s code.” She handed the rifle to Ollu and crept forward on her belly. Once she got close to the intersection, she yelled out: “ALFA FOXTROT ONE NINER NINER!!!”
There was a pause. Then “IDENT!!!”
“EDDINGTON, SPEC ONE, YANKEE ALPHA ZULU!!”
“CONFIRM. DELTA TWO MIKES.”
“AFFIRM!”
Ramona crawled back to where Ollu and Leo were huddling in a doorway. “They have another team working around behind these assholes. Two minutes and they go.”
“How the fuck do you know that?”
“Plan DELTA, pin enemy down and infiltrate his rear. Two MIKES means two minutes.”
“What do we do?”
“We wait. Remember what I said about combat? Ya, waiting is the hardest part.”
The two minutes crawled by, sporadic fire in the corridor seemed almost lazy compared to the earlier gunfight. Then there was another explosion. This one accompanied by smoke from the left of the T junction. Then more gunfire, much more intense than before. Suddenly there were five men and two women, all clad in black body armor running up the corridor from the right. More gunfire. Some shouting. Then quiet.
Two minutes later, a man and a woman in black body armor casually strolled back down the corridor and came over to where Ramona and the others were still huddled in a doorway. Ramona holstered her handgun and gestured for Ollu to put the Plasma rifle away. Ollu safed the rifle and handed it to Ramona. Leo holstered his handgun also.
The woman stopped in her tracks, a stunned look on her face. “Oh shit. EDDINGTON? It’s the fucking Hammer!” She turned around and yelled down the corridor. “SARGE! THE FUCKING HAMMER IS RIGHT HERE IN THIS FUCKING CORRIDOR!!!” She turned around to look at Ramona again. “HOLY SHIT. What are you doing in this shithole Specialist?”
Ramona smiled but Leo could tell she wasn’t amused. Before she could answer, a familiar face came around the corner with a group of similarly clad soldiers. “EDDINGTON! How the fuck are you!”
Now Ramona had a genuine smile on her face. “Howdy Ramirez. You harassing the locals again? I’m pretty sure that discharge of a weapon on a civilian station requires all kinds of paperwork.”
Ramirez let out a loud belly laugh. “You know I fucking hate paperwork.”
Belatedly, Leo realized that all eight people in front of him were wearing the same diamond tattoo that Ramona wore. This must be the SpecOps team that had originally been assigned to look for the Quantum Communications device.
Two more men in black body armor walked around the corner. Neither smiling. “RAMIREZ! REPORT!”
Ramona’s smile vanished as quickly as it had come. She muttered to Leo, “Oh fuck, it’s Ornasis.”
Ramirez flashed would could have been considered a salute. Leo wasn’t a military person but on the vids they didn’t look that sloppy about it. His expression held no respect at all when he answered. “Captain Ornasis, the enemy force in this sector has been neutralized. All perps down hard. No casualties in my squad.” There was a pregnant pause. “Sir.”
The captain looked like he was about to explode, then he realized there were others present. “What the fuck are you doing? Those civilians are armed! Disarm them, you fucking moron!”
Ramirez rolled his eyes. “If you wanna try to take the Hammer’s gun, go for it. Just let me get my body cam running first, I’m sure the guys on her old squad will want to watch.”
“Ramirez, I will have you up on charges.”
“Wouldn’t be the first time…. Sir.”
Leo couldn’t decide if he should be terrified or laugh his ass off. In the end, he decided he couldn’t wait for the little drama to play out. “Captain, you are currently on my station. We will not be surrendering our weapons or anything else. You are currently in violation of station policy. Can you please explain yourself?”
Ramirez looked like he could barely contain his laughter, but he managed and turned to look at the captain with a fake innocent look that almost made Leo laugh again.
The captain just looked confused. “Bohemia is a cooperative. Do you live on this station?”
“Your intel is out of date. It is owned by QFeed incorporated now.”
“And you are?”
“Leo Timur, QFeed Corporate Vice President, member of the board of directors. Which means you are running around firing guns on MY STATION. I will ask you one more time to explain yourself sir.”
Leo could almost see the gears turning in Ornasis’ head. He was obviously a bully but according to their prior conversation with Ramirez Leo knew he was a stickler for the rule book. Technically, they were trespassing on this station. Not unusual for SpecOps, Leo assumed, but here was the supposed station owner demanding an answer. Would the rulebook win out over the bully? He pulled out a small pad, obviously checking the local registry for station ownership.
The rulebook won.
“SIR, we were onboard the station investigating rumors of a Quantum Communications device when we heard gunfire. When we attempted to investigate, we were shot at. Local station personnel informed us that these gunmen were not local to the station and asked for our help. We have been attempting to get into contact with station management but have been unable to do so.” He glanced around, suddenly unsure of his position. Clearly, he didn’t want to look bad in front of his troops but also he was worried about getting in trouble with his superiors.
Leo could see why Ramona didn’t get along with him. “It’s not a rumor.”
“Sorry?”
“QFeed isn’t a rumor. It’s real and we have a live link to Raeburn.” Leo pulled out his pad and tossed a file to the Captain’s device. “There you go, use that file to create a QFeed account and you’ll be able to send message traffic to Raeburn on our network. Latency is about four hours but way better than sending it via ship.” Leo smiled. “Military discount, of course.”
Now Ornasis just looked confused.
Ramona was tired of waiting. “Ramirez, who the fuck are these guys? We don’t have any sort of troopers here normally.”
“Dunno Specialist. They came aboard yesterday, all quiet like. Set my trouble hairs straight off, ya know? We followed them a bit to see where they was stayin’ and posted guard. This morning they rolled out in body armor and started shootin’ up the joint. We gear’d up and we just now started to rock and roll. Nobody on this here Hab will talk to us.”
Ollu had been completely quiet up to this point. “Craig.”
“Shit. Ya, snatch and grab?”
“Or just shoot him.”
“Fuck. OK.” She gestured to Leo and they stared walking up the corridor.
Ramirez gave the captain a long hard look and then gathered up his troops with his eyes. They all trotted up the corridor after Ramona. “Pardon me, Specialist, let’s let Lisa here take point.”
Ramona looked back at the slim specialist. “You ready for this?”
Lisa laughed. “You mean I get to go kick some ass with the Hammer? Ya, I think I’m good.” She smiled again and trotted up the corridor.