Armed Guild Ships
All Guild ships have the authority to protect themselves at all times and all Guild vessels are authorized to carry weapons as needed. In practice, Guild vessels are not normally armed as this is simply not necessary. No Guild ship has been attacked in over 200 years and thus the practice of arming Guild ships is no longer common.
Excerpted With Permission
Data Trader’s Handbook
Copyright 3250, Interstellar Data Trader Guild
Leo slept for a solid ten hours. After getting some food and a cup of coffee he was starting to feel human again. He was pretty surprised; he should have been a wreck after nearly getting killed the day before. Perhaps Ramona was rubbing off on him.
Wandering up to the bridge, he found both Ollu and Ramona there. “Did either of you get any sleep?”
Ramona nodded. “We’ve been standing watch on watch. Six on, six off. We’re all used to standing watch, we’ll be fine.”
Looking at the main viewer, he could see that they had already made one satellite drop and were quickly approaching the second. “This would be way easier if Craig hadn’t taken our shuttle.”
Ollu chuckled. “We could print a new one out, we own the IP. However, I figured BR’s would come in handy, we have enough raw materials in the bunkers for two of them but it will take another twenty hours.”
Leo nodded. At this point, a heavily armed ship seemed like a great idea to have onboard. “You know, if we get out of this, I’m going to buy a ship with some self-defense capabilities.”
Ramona turned away from her console and stared incredulously at Leo.
“What?”
“Either you’ve been hanging out with me too much or I’ve been hanging out with you too much. That sounds like an excellent idea.”
“Has anyone talked to Craig lately?”
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“Ya, Bohemia seems to be fine. The defensive sites we put on the moons seem to have done the trick.”
“That’s a relief. That hab is a bit of a sitting duck.”
Finally, their progress around the system allowed them to emplace the third satellite. After testing that all three had redundant connections to the QFeed satellite beyond the E-Limit, they gathered in Conference one to record their message to the polities within the system.
“You’re sure you don’t want to do it Ollu?”
Ollu just laughed. “No Leo, you’re the master trader. Walk them through it just like we talked about.”
Leo shook his head. “I’m just a corporate VP now.”
“Better you than me, pal. A captain is all I ever wanted to be.”
“OK, give me a second.” Leo was still wearing a plain shipsuit with no insignia other than the Theo patch that Craig had designed months ago. He considered changing into something more “corporate” but decided not to. This is who he was, no longer a trader but not really a corporate person either.
Leo gathered himself and nodded to Ollu who started the recording. “Hello, my name is Leo Timur. I am a former member of the Data Traders Guild. I say former because I was banned from the Guild for being willing to believe that Quantum Communications is possible. At the time they banned me and our entire ship, we didn’t even know if it worked or not. Since then, we’ve been able to prove conclusively that it does, in fact, work. While many of those watching this broadcast will not believe me, I can assure you it’s true. Of course, you will need proof of this. Our company, Q-Feed Incorporated, currently has an active Quantum Network running in test mode between this system and ten others. For the next 30 days, we will make this network available for free use to anyone in this system. There will be limits, of course, our bandwidth is very limited. But, if you want to send short messages to another system, we will transport up to ten megabytes of data per person for free.” Leo smiled. “Usage charges apply beyond the first ten. Thank you and we look forward to serving this system’s data transport needs to the best of our ability.”
Once Ollu signaled that the camera was off, Leo sagged in his seat dramatically. “Jesus, that was stressful.”
“Sounded great to me.” Ollu looked at Ramona who just nodded.
“OK, let’s send that out. Is Craig ready with the submission portal and all the back end stuff.?”
“Ya. I tested it already. Works great.”
“OK. Let’s see what happens.”
Ollu looked at her pad. “We have about twelve more hours to deploy the last of the satellites. After that, we’ll head back to Bohemia.”
Leo looked at Ramona. “What’s the status of the battle?”
She checked her pad. “I think things are looking pretty safe now. I see some action over on the far side of the system, but most of the Guild ships seem to have surrendered or fled.”
“And the Guild bouys?”
“They’re all gone.”
Leo frowned. “I wonder what will happen with Epsilon?”
“Based on how competent the Brigadier is, I think it will work. I’m pretty sure it’s already propagated to the ten Q-Feed systems so it’s just a matter of time.“
“This is going to get ugly. Power vacuum without the Guild.”
“People will manage. We will get our fair share but within months we will have thousands of competitors.”
“Ya, I actually hope that’s right.”
Ramona smiled for the first time in days. “Ya, me too.”