Backstory - jailbreak
31 Mar 2018Andrew Linton
12Jan3304, The Penitent - detention megaship.“Crabbe. Visitor.”
The guard waited, stone-faced, as John Crabbe rolled off his bunk. The cells in the solitary confinement wing of the The Penitent were small and cramped. A bunk, a bucket, and a chair were all that was provided. It was not expected that prisoners would remain here long, and dead men walking deserved no luxuries.
Leaders tend to be either tall and strong, like Archon Delaine, using their physical prowess to dominate, or quite short and slight like Aisling Duval, who uses her charm to inspire her followers. John Crabbe, pirate lord, was of the taller tendency. He was as cruel as he looked; thin lips, close-set, cold, grey eyes, a scarred and pock-marked face that bore witness to countless fights. On the Fry scale of criminal hardness he was more abrasive than carborundum. A diamond geezer he was not.
He swaggered from the cell and made his way to the visiting room.
Her hair was crushed, muted raspberry in fluffy curls; her eyes were chocolate brown; her smooth, sun-blocked skin and her full, unglossed lips were pale strawberry mousse. Jenna Crumlin looked edible, but anyone who tried to take a bite was in for a shock. Her body looked fit because it was fit and her martial skills rivalled the best.
Crabbe’s eyes swallowed her whole.
“I didn’t think my last meal would be exactly what I wanted,” he leered. “Listen, I can bribe a guard to take us to the conjugal wing; what do you say?”
“I say that my wife wouldn’t like that,” she said calmly. “Sit down, Mr Crabbe, I have a proposal for you. You’re guilty of a crime punishable by death, I believe.”
“Loitering in the access corridor,” he replied.
“I heard that’s what your ex accused you of in the divorce proceedings, except the access corridor you were loitering in belonged to some night-woman in Hell.”
“You got me there,” Crabbe said, grinning, “What can I say? I eat when I’m hungry. So, what’s this proposal?”
Crumlin lowered her voice. “Do you want to get out of here? My employer has a job for you.”
Crabbe leaned forwards, interested, and caught her fragrance.
“I’m certainly more interested in gainful employment than being thrown from an airlock, which is how they execute you on this ship.”
Crumlin stood up.
“In that case, come with me.”
“What? Now? But…”
“Come on if you’re coming, we don’t have much time.”
She started walking towards the exit and Crabbe followed her. The door was guarded by two prison officers. She nodded to one of them who took his stun gun from its holster and applied it to the chest of the other. Crumlin and Crabbe stepped over the body and the guard fell in behind them as they made their way to the docking bays.
*
Crabbe reclined in a luxury cabin on Jenna Crumlin’s Beluga. Showered and changed he was nibbling on rare delicacies and sipping his favourite whisky.
“You want to tell me about this job? What is it, a heist, an assassination, or what?”
Crumlin gave a knowing smile; what she was about to offer was way beyond anything Crabbe could imagine.
“My employer…”
“You keep saying that,” Crabbe interrupted. “Who is this mystery employer?”
“My employer,” Crumlin persisted, “prefers to remain anonymous. Believe me, when you hear the offer you won’t care who’s making it. We want to make you the richest pirate who ever lived. The story of your wealth will be told for millennia to come. We’re talking about one followed by as many zeroes as you like.”
Crabbe’s eyes widened and he sat up straight.
“Careful, your avarice is showing,” Crumlin joked.
“Tell me the plan; you had me at ‘richest pirate’.”
Crumlin sat next to Crabbe with a tablet on her lap.
“We want you to put together a gang, possibly upto twenty people, more if you need them. If you can give me a list of names I can start bringing the team together. It doesn’t matter if some of them are in detention, we can get them out same as we did with you. Think of it as a Fantasy Wing game where everything is possible.”
Without hesitation Crabbe rattled off a list of brigands who had featured in the top ten bounty lists of systems from the California Nebula to Colonia.
“I want Jade Merz as my second in command; she’s the best and the men like her. Then I want the bruiser cousins, Billy Ruben and Billy Verden.”
“All right, the Billies,” Crumlin said, making notes. “Who else?”
“Greybeard, Bluebeard, and Blackbeard.”
“The beards; got that. Who else?”
“Jean Bontemps, Shira Kenki, Wang Zhu, Cornelius Jol…”
“No can do with Cornelius. He was killed in a combat zone over a month ago.”
“Really? Oh well, way it goes, I guess. How about John Nutt?”
“Yes, we can do Nutt; he’s in Hodack but that won’t be a problem.”
“Then I’d like Augustus Blanco, best wing support in a Ferdie I’ve ever seen; Anne Bonny, Lewis Ferdinando, Mary Read…”
“That’s another negative on Mary, I’m afraid; died of a fever in prison only last week. She was due to be executed anyway. Anyone else?”
“If you can get me Josiah Burgess, that should be enough for now.”
“Excellent! I’ll get started straightaway and report back to my employer that the plan is going ahead. Shouldn’t take more than a few days. Next, equipment. We can set you up with any ships you like with top-rated, level 5 engineered modules and weapons…”
“I think it’s best if each gang member configures their own ship; we all have different preferences.”
“Makes sense, we’ll leave that for now. The other thing is we’ll be providing a fleet carrier to move you all around, that’s where you’ll be based.”
Crabbe was dazzled by the availability of all this hardware which normally took months of crafting to acquire, but he wasn’t so naive as to think there wouldn’t be a price to pay.
“Isn’t it time you told me what we’re about? What’s this big scheme you’ve got in mind, and what are the risks?”
Like any leader, even a pirate lord had to look after his gang, to keep them together as an effective fighting unit: Cyning sceal on healle beagas daelan - A king in hall must deal out rings.
“I appreciate what you’re saying, but I ask you, for now, to be patient. The plan will unfold in its own time. What I can say is that your first tasks will be to execute two simultaneous extractions and take down a Thargoid Cyclops. Please start thinking about who best in your team to assign to these quite different missions.”