Logs from the Sevantya / #007 - "Arai's Mine Blues"
11 Sep 2022Tosh Vraugen
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-------------- COMMAND BRIDGE TERMINAL - 11/09/3308 - 13:04 ---------------
Login: Tosh Vraugen
Password: ****************
Authorization Code: Bravo-5-Kilo-7
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Welcome commander, you have 0 unread message.
CARRIER STATUS: Nominal
LOCATION: Lemastshi - Orbiting the main star
>/ INITIATE_LOG_RECORDING
Log Title: "Arai's Mine Blues"
P r o c e s s i n g . . .
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Access Granted / Log recording enabled . . .
It's been 3 days since that damned job for that imperial woman, made it to Gateway with just a couple of minutes left for the Cryo Pods to expire... me and the Marauder almost became space debris... (sigh) luckily I managed to avoid the Allied Police vessels and I guess I'm even luckier that she kept her word and disarmed the explosives as soon as the delivery was confirmed. I made my way back to the Sevantya and had Esteban and his crew inspect the Marauder and remove the bloody bombs and look for any trackers that they might have installed on the ship. Esteban and his boys took quite a long time to finish the inspection and safely remove the explosives, restore the hacked navigation systems and remove the ship tracker, he also told me that whoever did this were professionals, an amateur crew could never be able to install such a complex bomb system and hack the ship system in so little time, but he ensured me that the Marauder was now "clean". The next days were just regular work for ARRC in Leesti, nothing out of the ordinary, perhaps my deal with that woman was finally over, but this morning I received a message from an old partner back from Frederick's Crew days... Duarte Bosco, aka "El Gordo", one of the top dogs from the Diamond Frogs:
"Toshy boy, que pasa eh?, I hope you are doing well old friend, listen, some punk pirate-lord wannabe from the Dingos of Duwali and his crew intercepted one of my T-9s and stole it's cargo, that big boy was loaded with weapons, but most importantly, it had several crates of Lazarus, Push and Hush, no doubt they took it to that refinery of theirs to "spice up" these drugs with whatever it is that salt they mine down there, if it were for me, I would just carpet bomb the place, but we have some mutual agreements with them going on at the moment and the other leaders don't want that messed up. So... this is where you come in, I need someone reliable and out of the gang to go down there, pop these fools, retrieve the crates and shut that whole place down, you get me? Tell you what Toshy, do this and I will pay you a shit ton of credits, and you get to keep whatever you find down there, I've heard a lot of mercs go there for the spiced drugs and to get materials used by those weapon engineers, so what you say huh? Wanna work for uncle Gordo one more time like in the old days? If the answer is yes, go to the Iah Bulu system, and look for a refinery called Arai's Mine, there is where my drugs will be and also this pirate lord and his crew, wipe them out, leave none of the punks alive! Once you get the crates, head to the Chinicollo system, and drop the goods with Buddy Diaz at Onufriyenko Mine, there should be 250 units of drugs in those crates, but he will pay you for whatever amount you retrieve, good luck amigo, and no te mueras ok?"
You see, El Gordo is a very impulsive man, he usually don't think twice before killing someone or just bombing the hell out of his enemies, but if something made him not do that yet, then perhaps this agreements between the Frogs and the Dingos may be serious, and another funny detail, he didn't mention retrieving the weapons, so clearly these drugs are part of his "off the books" business, I also remember Frederick mentioning that El Gordo had this little drug empire and the Diamond Frogs had no knowledge of it, so yeah, the guy was desperate to have these drugs retrieved and using someone from the gang could put his whole operation at risk. Despite being a violent, impulsive and sometimes extremely annoying fella, I couldn't say no to this job, back in the old days, El Gordo and his men saved our asses a couple of times and also provided reliable jobs for our crew, some say there is no honor among pirates and thieves, and that is usually correct most of the time, but some partnerships deserves to be honored, and this is one of them, I packed my gear and hopped into the Marauder, off to Arai's Mine we go!
Getting into the refinery was easy, I landed there as a buyer interested in some "spiced drugs", the Dingos thugs came to check in if things were legit, I showed the credits and they said they were processing the goods at the moment but in an hour or so they would have the product ready for me, I said I would wait at my ship and as soon as they left I began the operation, the first target would have to be the refinery Command Center, it is there that all the controls for the settlement security are located, If I wanted things to go smoothly, I would have to disable all that crap. Whoever was leading the op in this refinery was smart, the thugs patrolling outside had no clearance to go inside most of the buildings, even less the Command Center, so Profile Cloning was out of question, I had to use the good ole ARC Cutter from the Maverick Suit and force my way into the building.
In less than 10 seconds I was inside, I could hear some chatter but I had no idea how many people were there, so I would have to go quietly to not trigger any alarms and have the whole settlement security on me, I have brought my silenced Karma C-44 Carbine especially for this operation and now was the time for her to shine. As soon as I turned the corner, I shot down two of the facility workers, they didn't even see it coming, a quick profile scan showed they had some considerable bounties on them, so yeah, they were not your regular hard working family fathers, and to my surprise, as soon as I was done scanning the bodies, the pirate lord that El Gordo mentioned was just coming down the stairs, we looked at each other briefly, both were surprised, as he reached for his gun a quick burst from the C-44 took him down, the leader was dead, and it was one less pirate to deal with.
A couple more kills inside the Command Center and I finally cleared the building, things were quiet outside, so the operation was going well, the pirates outside had no idea of what was about to happen. I quickly made my way to the Control Room and there it was... all the control panels for the settlement security measures and the CCTV, from the cameras I could see there were more people in the refinery than I expected, especially inside the many buildings, most of them workers, but all carrying guns and the Dingos emblem on their uniforms. I disabled the alarms, the authorization scanners, and every single automated defence system, now it was the time to hit the pirates outside.
Poor fellas had no idea what hit them, the C-44 was also equipped with Audio Masking, so their suits couldn't register the sound of the carbine firing, it was slower than clearing the Command Center, but in a few minutes the refinery grounds were cleared, I was moving like a ghost through the refinery and it's buildings and shooting down each one of the suckers that showed up in my way, when the refinery was cleared I saw a Skimmer hovering around, unaware that his owners were now dead... it was oddly satisfying... the operation was a success.
Took me a while to look for the crates and just loot whatever there was of value left in the refinery, in the end I managed to retrieve only 195 units of El Gordo drug canisters, I looked at the data pad of one of the dead workers in the Processing Facility and they had already sold 55 canisters of the spiced drugs, and for a pretty big amount of credits, I have no idea what this salt that they mine over here does but it seems to increase the value of these drugs exponentially. Dragging the crates to the Marauder was the hardest part, but once everything was loaded up, it was time to shut down the refinery power center and retrieve that sweet Power Regulator, these are pretty hard to come by, so that was another good bonus for this job.
The travel to Chinicollo was short, only 4 jumps from Iah Bulu... it has been years since I've been to Onufriyenko Mine, a tiny outpost orbiting a gas giant, whole place is run by Buddy Diaz, one of the top smugglers and black market owners working for the Diamond Frogs and who also happens to be the local bartender, gotta keep the appearance of a friendly trading outpost I suppose. As I approached the bar, we were both surprised in seeing each other again, last time I've been here, Frederick was still alive:
Buddy Diaz: Well look at that! Tosh Vraugen!
Tosh Vraugen: Buddy Diaz! How you've been?
Buddy Diaz: Same old my friend, damn it's been a while hum? Last time you were here Frederick was still alive.
Tosh Vraugen: Yeah... 5 years already... not gonna lie to you, I miss that old man.
Buddy Diaz: We all do brother, we all do... things have not been the same in this little corner of Fed space since you guys, well, left.
Tosh Vraugen: A lot has changed, new crew, new job opportunities and new partnerships, you know how it is...
Buddy Diaz: Yes of course... so, I figure you are here for the job El Gordo gave you?
Tosh Vraugen: Yep, the crates are on the Marauder, only 195 units were recovered however...
Buddy Diaz: Oh well, it could have been worse, I will send my men to retrieve the crates and check the goods, can I serve you a drink in the meantime?
Tosh Vraugen: Hell yeah, got some Lavian Brandy?
Buddy Diaz: Surely, only the best for you Tosh.
Tosh Vraugen: Cheers friend!
Buddy Diaz: Enjoy!
Buddy Diaz is a nice guy, despite all the shady business behind him... we talked and shared stories for about 15 minutes, then his men reported back, he then started to type into his data pad and he handled it to me:
Buddy Diaz: Alright Tosh, the crates were retrieved, the goods were intact, and El Gordo just approved your payment, check it out.
Tosh Vraugen: Holy sh... That is a lot more than I was expecting.
Buddy Diaz: El Gordo is very generous with his allies, you did right by helping him with this job, he send his thanks.
Tosh Vraugen: Yeah I couldn't say no, in the past you boys helped us a lot.
Buddy Diaz: That is what partnerships are for, don't forget you will always be considered a friend here Tosh.
Tosh Vraugen: I appreciate that Diaz, really. Thanks for the drink and the good talk, I hope to see you soon friend.
Buddy Diaz: You got it, farewell Tosh.
And that was it, another job successfully completed... me and the Marauder were ready to go back to the Sevantya, have a nice hot shower and a good rest, as soon as I boarded the Marauder, there was this blue light blinking in the Comms Panel, someone was making a direct call to my ship, it was probably El Gordo about to thank me, call me Toshy and say he would want me for another job, I accepted the call... and... it was her...
Imperial Woman: Greetings Mr. Vraugen, I hope you are available for a talk right now?
I was expecting our deal to be over, but clearly it wasn't, all I could do was listen to what she had to say and agree to be part of her scheme... Tosh Vraugen, signing out...
>/ END_LOG
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