LFT-625 Fox Enterprise - The Lull Before the Storm
08 Nov 2020Lakshmi Bai
I - Imperial CourtesanRekha could scarely believe her luck as the Commander handed her a set of ID cards. Few questions were asked and she'd expressed gratitude to her Commander and the local Port Authority clerks in customary dramatic fashion, purring compliments like a kitten who was just adopted from the shelter.
There were a few sets of electronic identifications and access passes issued to her, one that identified her as a crewmember of the Pilots' Federation, and the other a temporary visa for the galactic Federation proper.
The former was new to her, and granted her basic access to her assigned ships and interior spaces, with systems access strictly controlled by the pilot in command. The latter was similar to what had been granted to the denizens of Ay Indi, now so far away, but refreshingly up to date and not a half-century old relic of a past humanitarian deed.
A courtesan by trade, but with many hidden talents for the discerning upper crust client, few knew the amount of influence such a character would wield especially with the guise of a humanist motive. The current Marlinist situation, the Federation's popular motion to first feed and then grant temporary citizenship to so many billions of people, those were morally correct actions to please the hearts and minds of voters, but yet, has the Federation not considered the long term implications? The cost, and scale involved in building an entire sector's worth of infrastructure and government to support them?
Would these refugees be all cast aside and forgotten, doomed to exist as renegade factions on barren worlds once these golden deeds of goodwill had lost their luster?
Rekha looked around impatiently, surveying the dilapidated looking tenement facilities of the thousands strong workforce that were the bone and muscle behind Fox Enterprise's cargo handling facilities. She had, through some creative access manipulation of Lakshmi's ship information systems, managed to secure the identities and contact details of notable Port Authority personnel. If she could 'persuade' some of them to turn a blind eye to pallets of synthetic meat to be swapped with perhaps more useful shipments of materiel that allowed the Free Marlinists to have a say in their fate, it could do everyone in the galaxy a very big favour in the years to come, perhaps even reshape the balance of power in the sector.
Of course, she didn't disclose her intentions to the Commander, that would be silly. Lakshmi, she was so naive, a fresh graduate of the prestigious Pilots' Federation. She didn't even know her place in the Galaxy, nor understood the ebb and flow of power, just blindly flying from place to place fulfilling contractual requirements like a wage slave in a Federal office.
Lakshmi thought it would be a good deed to supply food for a dying colony, and with that accomplished, she had set out to plant the seeds of enterprise across the stars. Noble intentions, yes, but did she know the people she worked for? Who was Rekha to her? And the Rani of Soper Colony?
SIlly girl, she must be thinking Rekha the Companion was some sort of liberated former Imperial slave. It was typical of mainstream Federation upbringing to suppress awareness of the human condition, to think their ways was the perfect way to live. It was not populist ideals of liberty that matter, but what the individual chooses to achieve in life. Do you choose to be a leader of your people? Or do you choose to obey and be productive, understanding there is honour in servitude of the greater good?
[Own work - How Rekha would have been dressed in these character logs.]
Perhaps, one day the Commander would understand, the best way to change the universe, is to serve, quietly and diligently. Freedom in itself, is disorderly and unproductive. There can only be so many tigers on a mountain, as the old Earth saying went.
Almost on cue, a window on the seventh floor above her slid noisily open, and a light flashed from within, twice. Her cue to enter the building, her stilleto heels clicking ominously in time with the gentle sway of her hips and the rise and fall of her heavy chest as she moved, her outfit seemingly struggling to contain her assets within.
She smiled a disarming smile at the building's sleazy security guard, who was only all too kind to grant her access after all the usual leering and suggestive remarks. She just smiled quietly, and feigned innocence, neatly concealing all that hidden motives in her comely heart...
****
II - In Federal Service
The atmosphere was a chocolate brown gas, with fluffy clouds drizzed with caramel floating on top. Swirls and bands of dark brown and hazelnut like the bands of Jupiter, but sweeter. Lakshmi idly rotated the view of the planet she called Iced Mocha Grande before poking the small mountain of whipped cream about with the tip of a pink straw.
After weeks of subsisting on rations prepared by the crew and handmaiden of Ay Indi as she plied the seven systems around LFT 625, the refined decadence of Federal artisan beverages was a pleasant change, eliciting a little coo of delight as she tasted the pure sweetness of syrup-laced cream.
She was not yet used to Rekha's palette, all different combinations of spicy, sweet, and sour often associated with the wrong course of a meal, though she appreciated her effort to give her a taste of her culture and her long-ago ancestry. For better or for worse she had embraced that ancestry, shying away from the easy association she would have within the Federation's social norms, and instead reserving her time to researching the economics of the time.
She still could not remember anything beyond a certain date, the date of her enrolment into the Academy, and everything else before was just a fuzz. Not that she had any time to reminisce about memories that were no longer there. Caught between an unusual affiliation with a curious specimen of possibly Imperial origin and her commitments as a Federal Privateer in command of a Security Service vessel, she was plenty occupied enough keeping the F.S.S. Durgawati in running order through the preparatory phases of the great Federal Spacelift now ongoing.
Only an unfortunate landing dock incident had led to her being taken off the active roster for a time, but even so her schedule was occupied with rehabilitation, administrative tasks for the STC, and a mandatory series of Federal Navy courses including Basic Fighter Maneuvers and Conflict Zone Wing Operations, both quaint subjects for a cargo hauler like her.
There was a shuffle of boxes and a clatter of hard plastic. Lakshmi looked up to see a young man in his twenties, one of the cafe staff rummage in the stack of boxes opposite the table from her. The starport was loaded to the gills and storage space was at a premium. Unregistered and some even unmarked cargoes were strewn all over, and clearly, the Federal authorities could not do anything about the many pop-up enterprises who helped themselves to all the surplus as a free resource to offer services to the many Pilots and crews now aboard. This quaint little bar at the side of Hangar 12 was no exception, named after a particular Viper pilot of the Colonial Wars long ago, where large battleship-carriers dominated space warfare of the time, before the advent of compact frame-shift drives suitable for privateer and fighter sized hulls.
Lakshmi spared a glance over to the bar, constructed out of shipping pallets, and the food that was served, concocted out of what seemed to be a wide variety of military MREs and humanitarian aid supplies. If this was what the Marlinist refugees were going to have, it tasted plenty good judging how her fanciful coffee-based beverage must have been made out of dry instant powder, reconstituted milk and chocolate spread. Ah, the art of supplying an army on the move, refined over a thousand years of industrialization and advancement.
She downed the last of the mocha and stood, joining a cohort of fellow pilots mingling near the angular hull of a decommissioned Cobra Mark III, now standing watch over the hangar bay as a display piece depicting a crash landing on a frontier world. Its pockmarked, scorched and battle-scarred spaceframe bearing stories of a thousand sorties.
As the other pilots spotted her, distinctively dressed as always, and gave their usual rounds of mock praise for her exotic dress, Lakshmi wondered idly how it would be like to be part of a squadron aboard a carrier or battle cruiser, the elite of the elite, sallying forth upon the scramble call to face the enemies of the Federation head-on like the knights of ancient times.
Today she might experience just that, albeit in teleoperated fighter operations attached to "The Fatherhood" squadron on anti-pirate patrols in the Haijangai Sector. Just how would she teleoperate a fighter craft without enormous latency over 100 light years of space was anyone's guess, but apparently possible in the 34th Century.
Taken during a remote teleoperations training session with the Fatherhood squadron, Anacondas on anti-pirate patrol accelerate to lightspeed near the system's star.
Location: Antobri