Carte Blanche: Danger, Drugs, & Other Hijinks on the Fed/Imp Border
28 Sep 2018DrShradre
Very Slowly, Dr. Maxwell Shradre became aware of a persistant pinging that more and more now became a permanent and annoying part of his conscious world. He moaned as the obligatory headache, muscle ache, kidney/back aches all rolled over his body at once. The back aches were new. Well, they were not new to him. He had had them many times in his 92 years. A part of him was disgusted with himself for being unable to change his spots, so to speak. He had prolonged his life five times. Each time he booked an expensive and painful progenitor cell treatment that gave him, and more importantly, his kidney's and liver, a new lease on life. Each treatment, including the first, was brought on by his excessive and achingly fool hardy need to self medicate himself with anything and everything he could get his hands on. Granted, his perfered the Opiate Like Narcotica that was distributed from RRobert's Terminal, as well as the golden, single malt, barreled aged Smethells 119 A 3 Schotch, known throughout the sector as "Ringed Green"--A Reference to the planet the scotch was made on and had been for the last 600 years: A Ringed Earth LIke Planet. A planet type that was exceedingly rare inside the bubble. The planet had been Maxwell's Home for five years until the Federation had Rooted out the Organization he headed up on behalf of The Empire. Since that ugly day, the Reserve Imperial Logistics and Auxiliary fleet had fled to a near by starsystem, LFT 1834. And Maxwell simply hated it there. He Spent most of his time out in the black. Most days he ran errands for the Economy's of two large cities on LFT 1834 2, Mohri's Vision and Witt Works. The RILAF was his creation and hisl livelihood. Sometimes the RILAF would act as a Front for Imperial Naval Intelligence but it had been quite a while since Maxwell had been on a genuine mission for the Imperial Naval Intelligence Arm. The last three times he had been tasked it was by some corrupt Imperial Admiral that ordered the RILAF to obtain this or to smuggle that. Maxwell had always been rewarded and rewarded well. He was a Count and it wouldn't be long before he was a Duke in the Empire. Hw as -given- a Gutamaya Imperial Clipper (the ship he was waking up on presently) and he always managed to bring down the most lucrative contracts for the RILAF.
But Maxwell could not stand being part of some corrupt Admiral's corrupt sexual hang up. Well, not without a lot of booze and a lot of Hex. Tranadine, Exemet, Zencrom, Onionhead, you name it. Maxwell always put into his body more than what was wise considering his job. Maxwell wasn't afraid of overdosing. He was a Doctor. He knew his limits a long time ago. He had worked out these horoic doses a long time ago. He felt that he did what he had to do to continue. After all, more than five hundred thousand men, women,and children were fundamentally tied to the star of RILAF. More if he counted RILAF's ability to absolutely ruin the LFT 1834' system's economy if he so desired, which he did on some days. Other days there were not enough drugs in the world.
His bloodshot eyes blinked open. The room was dark except for a flashing purple light on the wall next to the shamefully comfortable and decadent bed. He threw the thin black Hast Spider Silk sheet off of his body and he slowly sat up and swung his legsover onto the floor. The moment his feet hit the floor he flood of sickening drug and alcohol induced nausea abated instantly. He was grateful that old tgrick worked for him. It would be a real shame to vomit all over the Patron's suite's lavish appointments. He ran a hand over his balding, short cropped scalp and the faint smell of Urine mixed with an assortment of chemicals that essentially masked the smell to most other people. But Maxwell knew the smell. Once upon a time he had been an honest doctor and Doctor's have the privledge of smelling things like urine far more than anyone that wasn't into giving or receiving 'golden showers' . As a matter of fact, when he was in medical school his instructors had advised sniffing for the smell ofurine as a way to come to a correct diagnostic. It could tell a Doctor a lot about his patient.
In this case, Maxwell's patient was himself. He sighed to himself, a stab of anger and embarresment traveling through him like lightening and doing much to bring the rest of his senses back to him. Since throwing off the sheet he had gotten chilly. he could feel the air on his shoulders. On the small of his back...on his neck. He was sweating urine again. Jaundice. from the smell Maxwell didn't have to look in the mirror to know that he yellowing skin still had a week or two of hard living to manifest. If he didn't get his treatments by then (something he was most decidedly NOT looking forward to), he would smell and look horrible. How fucking embarrassing. He thought to himself as the purple light and soft pinging continued. He sighed and after a moment of staring off into nothing ( a habbit that he indulged in more frequently these days-He called it meditating but it was really the first signs of nuerological impairment) he suddenly reached out and slapped the flashing strobe.
The entire wall blazed to life in a bright, zoomed in Video of a disheveled looking man with rumpled clothes,sitting at a desk. THe man's potmarked face was eyeballing a pad o and helooked up to somebody off feed, "Okay, It's approved. Go grab him. As far as his Son that is in system...." the man shrugged, "Bad luck for him, I guess. You get my drift? Boss Shingara is lucky that both sons are not in system, lets justput it that way. Now get the hell out of my office." His eyes swung to look directly into the vid feed, "Doc! There you are! When the numbers come in next month on why the RILAF spent 50,000 cr5eds on a vid feed, try to remember I tied up seven, SEVEN, Com Sats to have this little face face because YOU didn't answer me for forty five minutes. "
Maxwell was more than a little surprised (and annoyed) at seeing General Salazar on his Vid feed. HIs annoyance grew for a few reasons. This call would be more than 50,000 creds to pay off, Salazar had interrupted his beauty rest, On a personal level Maxwell just did not like Sal, even though he knew the RILAF was lucky to have him. The on the job experience of being a scumbag criminal gang leader translated very well in the role of supporting an Imperial Patron like RILAF. Finally, Maxwell was annoyed because Salazar was not hiding the fact that he was looking over Maxwell's shoulder at the nude, curvy form with long strawberry blonde hair that laid in bed next to Maxwell and still slumbered (On Maxwell's insistence, his Co-pilot had gotten just as loaded as he had. He was actually somewhat surprised to see Tess lying there in all her naked glory, considering how she had broke off the casual sexual aspect of their relationship as Employer and Employee a month ago. It made things....weird between the two of them ever since. He onhly remembered bit and Pices of the night before and sadly, he did not remember the sex. Just his rotten luck.
Annoyance showing on his face he slapped a button on nightstand that restricted the feed to audio only. "Why are you calling me, Sal?" Maxwell asked over his tactless partner's half hearted protestations. He knew Salazar. As soon as the feed was finished (if he wasn't doing it now) he would be rewinding the feed to pause the image so he could leer further at Tess's exposed and oh so lovely body. "Well, it's a bit early, I know..September ...full two months before we were ready....That's on me. Somehow or another the cell on Shatula got the go code and crashed a Keelback into the Control spire...The other cells and their assets, both hired and otherwise, acted as instructed. " Maxwell's Blood ran cold and his heart leept into his chest. A mixture of excitement, anger and fear filling his veins faster than any drug, "What?? Are we boned?" he asked standing up and rushing to get the liquid shower running. He needed to get to work. But first he had to wash the piss off of him. What if Tess could tell? A small voice questioned even as Maxwell listened to Sal giving a full report. All things consdider4ed...the attacks on Andrews Orbital, and Shatula Orbital were going well. Shatula might as well already be RILAFs. If this worked, LFT 1834 would belong fully to the RILAF....