The Delkar Job Part II
07 Feb 2017Jellicoe
Taking control of a system is a complex and multifaceted operation, you must build up your corporation's economic and financial position to be able to challenge the system's rulers, so urgent deliveries to priority customers must be made, raw materials and other supplies must be sourced and acquired for industry and business critical data must be couriered around the region. There is also a darker side to the business, as well as boosting ones own patrons so the ruling faction must be weakened, its economic interests attacked and the confidence of citizens in its ability to protect them and maintain order degraded so attacks on its industrial facilities are made, its merchant ships destroyed and its senior figures targeted for assassination. It is a dirty business but we were helped by an advanced unit of the Federal Reclamation Co having acquired control of Caillie Landing, a small ground base giving our pilots involved in the more illegal aspects of the operation a place to lie low safe from the system authorities as well as allowing the Federation to funnel all of its trade with this system through the small port.I had just about managed to keep my hands clean so far, but was still surprised to receive an invitation from Delkar Ltd to a 'Gala Reception' at the Astoria Hotel on De Kamp Orbital, an invitation apparently shared with every other independent pilot with a clean record with sysauth.
On arriving it was easy to see why the Astoria had been chosen, its massive ballroom was probably the only venue large enough for such a gathering, though whether the exclusive establishment had ever played host to an event quite like this was to be doubted. On the stage at the far end of the room a variety of strippers cavorted, performing various acts on each other as they disrobed while around the hall serving staff of both sexes, naked save for very skimpy loin cloths bore trays of complimentary food, drink and a range of drugs most of which were actually illegal in Delkar. Around the edge of the room were more men and women, these completely naked but for a blindfold, on their knees, hands behind their baks and tethered to the wall by a collar and chain. The event was clearly tailored to the baser desires of most spacers - drink, drugs and sex. In the bar area, which was currently the scene of a drunken, drug fuelled orgy were huge holo-screens offering very generous contracts for any pilots willing to switch allegiance and begin working for Delkar Ltd. I had just taken all of this in when a tall, slender man approached me.
"Mr Jellicoe delighted you could come, My name is Nedim Rickard executive of Delkar Ltd." I saw an exceptionally handsome man with mid length brown hair, soft features and incredibly piercing eyes. He was young for an executive, barely thirty but possessed of immense natural authority that he appeared to wear comfortably. "Please enjoy our hospitality and feel free to make use of the serving staff in any way you wish." He obscenely fondled a waitress at that moment to show exactly what he meant and the womans' face momentarily registered terror and disgust before she hastily covered it with an unconvincing expression of pleasured arousal. I made no effort to hide my distaste.
"You've clearly gone to a lot of expense." I tried to change the subject. "This many escorts alone must have cost a fortune, especially the specialist ones." I glanced back to the kneeling, blindfolded figures at the edge of the room.
He continued to grope the woman. "Oh we're not paying them." He said as though he were stating the utterly obvious.
"Then you must have every sex maniac in the system here." I tried to force a joke.
He smiled and his eyes grew frighteningly intense. "Where is the enjoyment in domination a subject who takes pleasure in submission? Or who does so for payment? True dominance and the pleasure it brings comes from taking an unwilling subject and bending them to your will. Accept that and you free yourself to enter a whole new world of delights."
"I call that rape."
"Come now Commander, are you telling me you have never used your wealth or position to coerce people into doing your will? Have you never assured a young lady you would call her in the morning with no intention of doing so? Have you never taken advantage of the glamour of being a pilot to get a girl into your bed? Here, this one's yours for the night." He pushed the serving woman towards me. "She'll do anything you demand." A door in the wall opened on a garishly decked out bedroom, I looked involuntarily, and when I looked back Rickard had vanished into the throng. I looked to the woman who was clearly terrified but had already stepped inside the room, I followed her and pressed the button in the wall to close the door, she had put her tray down and was standing by the bed with her head bowed and her breath coming in frightened gasps. I took off my jacket and held it out to her.
"Here, put this on." I said as gently as I could, she hesitated fear in her wide eyes. "It's alright, nobody's going to touch you." She nervously took the jacket and put it on. "here drink this." I gave her my flask of brandy. "Sit down, you're safe, stay here with me for the rest of tonight and tomorrow we'll get you out of here." She began to cry then, softly at first but then in great, wracking sobs until finally the tears subsided and her story tumbled out. Her name was Adelaida, she was neither prostitute nor slave nor criminal forced into this as punishment. She had simply got into debt, and Delkar Ltd made sure that anyone who got into their debt never got out of it, they only became more and more desperate until the choice was between utter destitution or 'serving' at occasional functions for the corporation, dark rumours of the fate awaiting 'vagrants' was a further incentive to do the company's bidding. I had seen such things before of course, particularly in the Pegasai, but in the Pegasai the only law comes from fear, the strong prey on the weak and the weak do what they must to survive, it is bad but it is hard to judge people who know no different, here in the heart of so called civilised space, where men looked down on the 'barbarians' of the Pegasai it shocked me to the core.
Her story told Adelaida resumed sobbing and we sat that way for a long time, she quietly weeping and I with my arm round her seeking, awkwardly, to reassure and comfort her until there was a sharp, business like knock at the door.
"Commander Jellicoe?" A polite voice enquired.
"Yes?"
"The next presentation will begin shortly, Mr Rickard respectfully requests your presence."
"I'll be out in a moment." I replied then turned back to Adelaide. "As soon as you can get to docking bay 33, my men will let you in and we'll get you out of here for good."
"And what must I do in return?" She asked, without anger or resentment just resignation.
"Madam I am a Federal officer, I have a duty to protect those in need. My help comes without condition and one day we will destroy the people who have done this to you. I will be at the station till noon tomorrow." I left the room as the presentation was about to begin. The stage had been cleared and Rickard was standing on it about to speak.
"Commanders." He spoke in a voice laden with authority. "We have shown you the benefits of working with Delkar Ltd, now we show you the price of criminality in this system, these people have all been found guilty of piracy and murder." At a flourish of his hand a screen retracted to reveal four men and one woman, all naked, their bodies covered in bruises, open gashes and blistering welts, their faces were similarly disfigured, swollen and bleeding lips, broken noses and black, bruised eye sockets with hair hanging lank and matted with dried blood, despite the injuries I recognised one of the men as an FRC pilot I had flown with in Ra. For all the injuries though the most shocking aspect of the scene was the noose which each of the five had around their necks. A gasp went around the hall and several men stepped forwards to be checked by a line of corporate cops. I kept my eyes on Rickard the whole time, his face shining with delight at the fear and disgust he had created.
"Justice will now be done." Rickard declared and keyed his data-slate at which a trapdoor opened in the stage and the condemned men and woman dropped through, jerked once and were still. All save one whose neck was not broken by the drop and who hung twitching and gurgling as he slowly suffocated. Rickard appeared to be taking an almost sexual pleasure at the mans suffering and stood staring into his desperate, bulging, terrified eyes, taunting the dying man with the pistol he could easily have used to end the mans torment. I had seen enough.
I returned to the ship, briefed the senior personnel then went to bed, but sleep would not come, instead the sight of Adelaida's terrified face, five bodies hanging from a gibbet, one still twitching and Rickards' face with a look of serene joy on it kept replaying over and over in my mind. I gave up, dressed, poured myself a large brandy and had just sat down when the door buzzed and Mirra came in, still wearing her crew overalls.
"Figured you might be able to use some company."
"Thanks." I replied. "You're not wrong. There's brandy on the side, help yourself."
"I'm more of a bourbon girl." She said with a half smile and pulled a bottle of Old Sol from her leg pocket. "Hell of a night huh?"
"You could say that."
"Sounds like you did well to control yourself, I don't think I could've."
"I rather think that that's more to your credit than mine." I replied with a grimace.
"No." She said in a voice of absolute certainty. "Because I'd be dead right now, or worse. You're not, and that means we can help stop these people."
"I suppose." I said with a shrug. My conscience was torturing me over my passivity at the display of abuse, rape and murder I had witnessed.
"I'm gonna level with you Commander, I really didn't wanna do this job. Help the Feds crush another independent system? Not my style at all, but after what I heard tonight I'm right with you. We have to stop these people, and to do that we need you."