Post by EmperorMyric on Mar 22, 2021 16:35:03 GMT
Once upon a time on the East End of Malcharia V there lived a young man. He was like many of the other young men who lived on that world. He came from a poor family, in a poor neighborhood, in a poor city, on a poor planet. Going by those standards, his life was average. For twenty years he'd toiled away at a minimum wage job, sweating in the hot sun, freezing in the frigid winters, and always feeling like he was being exploited. But that was the way of things on Malcharia V. The rich took what they liked, and the poor had to make do.
The poor rode into work on barely functional electric scooters while the rich zoomed past them on souped up motorcycles with sneers and jeers.
But the rich had to stop at the same red light. And then the poor bludgeoned him half to death with a U-Lock, stole his bike, and had it chopped for a month's wages.
Vasquez's puffed on a cigar while he thought about his origins. Wondering how in just five short years he'd gone from beating on a rich prick in the spur of the moment, to running a criminal syndicate renowned (at least he figured they were renowned) for violence. He took another long puff of the cigar letting the smoke slowly seep out of his mouth rather than exhaling it all at once, savoring the burning taste of good tobacco.
It was very nearly the perfect moment, lording over his underlings from the command chair of a Claymore-Class Battleship and dreaming of the day the entire Black Sail Organization (even the arrogant bitch Lethalon Fairwind) would answer to Gabriel Vasquez. He had a cigar in one hand, a shot of tequila in the other...
But the moment couldn't be perfect. Not with some Auraxii wailing over the long range comms about radiation levels, clean water and debris continuing to rain down from orbit on what few of them had survived the war and an earlier raid.
"Come on ese," He said, downing the shot and pinching the bridge of his nose. "Does the puta have the money or doesn't she?"
"She's got Auraxii currency," His comms operator answered.
"Which is...?"
"Worthless," He said with a shrug. "No resources to speak of down there. Planet's already been glassed, shipyard's only good for scrap, and everything salvageable has been towed off already. Sorry patron, but it looks like someone got here first,"
"Mierde," Vasquez muttered. It wasn't a good start. A recently collapsed empire had seemed like a good score. Undefended resources, chaos, confusions... all the makings of a good raid. He'd sold the Sons of Ragnar on it, promised them blood and loot, and now the Ragnar was staring him down from across the bridge, arms folded, with an expression that made clear he was displeased to have neither.
"There's nothing? Nothing at all?" Vasquez pressed.
"Nada," The operator answered. "Light's are out and the party's over here. Scrap might be worth something. Charge a finder's fee to the Syndicate and they'll bring in their own boys to take what's worth taking. Might even be able to get a Freeport up and sell off the survivors down there to slavers."
Vasquez sighed again. It wasn't much, it was certainly less than he'd hoped for... but it was easy money. No one was shooting at them, none of his men were likely to die...
"Make the call," He said finally. "We'll hold the system until the Syndicate decides what they want to do here, take our money and move on. You hear that hermano!" He shouted to the Ragnar. "You'll have your blood and your loot,"
"I'd better," The Ragnar growled, whirling on his foot and stalking off without another word. Vasquez watched him go and then took another long puff on his cigar, holding out his glass for more tequila.
"Would someone shut this bitch on the radio up?" He shouted.
****************************
Devo was exhausted. It felt like an eternity she'd spent on Lost Star, calling in every favor she could, tapping every aging contact, blackmailing and bribing all to try and make sure her team on Dehcta-whatever-the-fuck didn't wind up dead... but she couldn't help them anymore. They'd started a planet wide revolutions (their idea) and with the whole system locked down by Triarch, and a handful of smaller PMCs until the 'crisis' on-world was resolved she couldn't even get her helpful (she'd hoped they were helpful anyway) info packets onto their communicators, much less find out how things were going and if sending nudes to Gun Rack had actually ended up being worth it.
She was stuck in a 'wait and see' holding pattern and it was driving her crazy. Every ANC broadcast she was hoping for news on her team, only to be disappointed when there was none and it was infuriating. She was smoking more weed than she should have been, drinking too much, eating to little, and pacing a hole in her shitty apartment's carpet.
On Quinn's advice she'd finally marked herself as 'available' on the intra-net for contract brokerage and had been immediately bombarded with indie captains looking for hook ups or jobs. Apparently she wasn't the only one going stir crazy.
She'd headed out from Lost Star, which had been fortuitous since only a few days later the whole system had gone dark, concluded a couple relatively low profile arms deals, and then been more or less ordered by Wolfgang to head over to the newly established 'Freeport 43' to 'manage the ongoing... situation' as he'd put it.
Situation didn't begin to cover the... situation when she arrived. It was absolute fucking chaos. Vasquez had found a dead system, charged a finder's fee to the 81 Syndicate for the salvage rights, and Wolfgang had 'upon review' ordered the construction of a Freeport. That had brought warships (indie and Syndicate alike) looking for defense handouts and (worst of all) it had brought Ripper Doc's cabal of slavers.
When Devo arrived the slavers had been on the verge of all out war with the Syndicate's scavengers. The why was simple: Syndicate wanted to strip the system for parts (Connors' words) and move on while Doc's slavers wanted to head down planet side and start... 'collecting assets' (Creed's words). Connors argued that a major slaver operation running out a space station that definitely wasn't here a couple weeks ago would draw all the wrong kind of attention. Creed countered that the situation planetside meant that his would-be slaves were likely to be exceptionally compliant.
Then there'd been insults, name calling, gender based slurs, several unflattering metaphors for Creed's penis, guns had been pulled and finally Devo had slammed a hand down on the table (if a piece of ply wood nailed to two saw-horses could be called a table) with a resounding bang and loudly reminded everyone that she was in charge and if she wanted to frag the entire station with Creed and Connors on it she would damn well do it and neither of them could do shit to stop her.
She wanted to space both of them, but Council Bosses tended to get all frowny when their underlings were killed 'because they annoyed me'.
She'd found a compromise in the end. Connors had been sent away on a task important enough that she wouldn't argue with Devo about it, and Creed had been paid by Devo to extract the endlessly whining Auraxii from their deteriorating situation planetside.
"I want to be clear Julian," She had growled handing over the proof of transfer (and silently fuming over how quickly it had emptied her bank account... and her emergency bank account). "You're only picking up people who are willing to take the guns and armor I give them and hop on a ship for what is likely going to be a one way trip to Dehctamorrison. Anyone who doesn't agree can damn well stay in their fallout shelter and starve. I am not a humanitarian organization,"
"I'm sure the realities of their situation will make most of them see your... generosity," Creed had answered with a predatory grin that Devo hadn't liked.
The solution was temporary. But for the moment, Creed was occupied and Connors wasn't around to get all judgemental.
"Should of stayed on Lost Star," Devo muttered.
The poor rode into work on barely functional electric scooters while the rich zoomed past them on souped up motorcycles with sneers and jeers.
But the rich had to stop at the same red light. And then the poor bludgeoned him half to death with a U-Lock, stole his bike, and had it chopped for a month's wages.
Vasquez's puffed on a cigar while he thought about his origins. Wondering how in just five short years he'd gone from beating on a rich prick in the spur of the moment, to running a criminal syndicate renowned (at least he figured they were renowned) for violence. He took another long puff of the cigar letting the smoke slowly seep out of his mouth rather than exhaling it all at once, savoring the burning taste of good tobacco.
It was very nearly the perfect moment, lording over his underlings from the command chair of a Claymore-Class Battleship and dreaming of the day the entire Black Sail Organization (even the arrogant bitch Lethalon Fairwind) would answer to Gabriel Vasquez. He had a cigar in one hand, a shot of tequila in the other...
But the moment couldn't be perfect. Not with some Auraxii wailing over the long range comms about radiation levels, clean water and debris continuing to rain down from orbit on what few of them had survived the war and an earlier raid.
"Come on ese," He said, downing the shot and pinching the bridge of his nose. "Does the puta have the money or doesn't she?"
"She's got Auraxii currency," His comms operator answered.
"Which is...?"
"Worthless," He said with a shrug. "No resources to speak of down there. Planet's already been glassed, shipyard's only good for scrap, and everything salvageable has been towed off already. Sorry patron, but it looks like someone got here first,"
"Mierde," Vasquez muttered. It wasn't a good start. A recently collapsed empire had seemed like a good score. Undefended resources, chaos, confusions... all the makings of a good raid. He'd sold the Sons of Ragnar on it, promised them blood and loot, and now the Ragnar was staring him down from across the bridge, arms folded, with an expression that made clear he was displeased to have neither.
"There's nothing? Nothing at all?" Vasquez pressed.
"Nada," The operator answered. "Light's are out and the party's over here. Scrap might be worth something. Charge a finder's fee to the Syndicate and they'll bring in their own boys to take what's worth taking. Might even be able to get a Freeport up and sell off the survivors down there to slavers."
Vasquez sighed again. It wasn't much, it was certainly less than he'd hoped for... but it was easy money. No one was shooting at them, none of his men were likely to die...
"Make the call," He said finally. "We'll hold the system until the Syndicate decides what they want to do here, take our money and move on. You hear that hermano!" He shouted to the Ragnar. "You'll have your blood and your loot,"
"I'd better," The Ragnar growled, whirling on his foot and stalking off without another word. Vasquez watched him go and then took another long puff on his cigar, holding out his glass for more tequila.
"Would someone shut this bitch on the radio up?" He shouted.
****************************
Devo was exhausted. It felt like an eternity she'd spent on Lost Star, calling in every favor she could, tapping every aging contact, blackmailing and bribing all to try and make sure her team on Dehcta-whatever-the-fuck didn't wind up dead... but she couldn't help them anymore. They'd started a planet wide revolutions (their idea) and with the whole system locked down by Triarch, and a handful of smaller PMCs until the 'crisis' on-world was resolved she couldn't even get her helpful (she'd hoped they were helpful anyway) info packets onto their communicators, much less find out how things were going and if sending nudes to Gun Rack had actually ended up being worth it.
She was stuck in a 'wait and see' holding pattern and it was driving her crazy. Every ANC broadcast she was hoping for news on her team, only to be disappointed when there was none and it was infuriating. She was smoking more weed than she should have been, drinking too much, eating to little, and pacing a hole in her shitty apartment's carpet.
On Quinn's advice she'd finally marked herself as 'available' on the intra-net for contract brokerage and had been immediately bombarded with indie captains looking for hook ups or jobs. Apparently she wasn't the only one going stir crazy.
She'd headed out from Lost Star, which had been fortuitous since only a few days later the whole system had gone dark, concluded a couple relatively low profile arms deals, and then been more or less ordered by Wolfgang to head over to the newly established 'Freeport 43' to 'manage the ongoing... situation' as he'd put it.
Situation didn't begin to cover the... situation when she arrived. It was absolute fucking chaos. Vasquez had found a dead system, charged a finder's fee to the 81 Syndicate for the salvage rights, and Wolfgang had 'upon review' ordered the construction of a Freeport. That had brought warships (indie and Syndicate alike) looking for defense handouts and (worst of all) it had brought Ripper Doc's cabal of slavers.
When Devo arrived the slavers had been on the verge of all out war with the Syndicate's scavengers. The why was simple: Syndicate wanted to strip the system for parts (Connors' words) and move on while Doc's slavers wanted to head down planet side and start... 'collecting assets' (Creed's words). Connors argued that a major slaver operation running out a space station that definitely wasn't here a couple weeks ago would draw all the wrong kind of attention. Creed countered that the situation planetside meant that his would-be slaves were likely to be exceptionally compliant.
Then there'd been insults, name calling, gender based slurs, several unflattering metaphors for Creed's penis, guns had been pulled and finally Devo had slammed a hand down on the table (if a piece of ply wood nailed to two saw-horses could be called a table) with a resounding bang and loudly reminded everyone that she was in charge and if she wanted to frag the entire station with Creed and Connors on it she would damn well do it and neither of them could do shit to stop her.
She wanted to space both of them, but Council Bosses tended to get all frowny when their underlings were killed 'because they annoyed me'.
She'd found a compromise in the end. Connors had been sent away on a task important enough that she wouldn't argue with Devo about it, and Creed had been paid by Devo to extract the endlessly whining Auraxii from their deteriorating situation planetside.
"I want to be clear Julian," She had growled handing over the proof of transfer (and silently fuming over how quickly it had emptied her bank account... and her emergency bank account). "You're only picking up people who are willing to take the guns and armor I give them and hop on a ship for what is likely going to be a one way trip to Dehctamorrison. Anyone who doesn't agree can damn well stay in their fallout shelter and starve. I am not a humanitarian organization,"
"I'm sure the realities of their situation will make most of them see your... generosity," Creed had answered with a predatory grin that Devo hadn't liked.
The solution was temporary. But for the moment, Creed was occupied and Connors wasn't around to get all judgemental.
"Should of stayed on Lost Star," Devo muttered.