Assassination Administration
31 May 2016TheDarkLord
Clapperton Enterprise, LTT 2601. Fer-de-Lance “TDL PhotonFlinger”.May 3302.
Back at Leopold Heckmann Ring, with the Fer-de-Lance cooling, and Anders once again screaming at his underlings to refuel and restock my ship, I reported in. My mission contact sent a curt response.
<You are required to provide news of the destruction of P Travis to Clapperton Enterprise in LTT 2601>
“Okayyy” I thought. I plotted a course to LTT 2601 and launched. “They really hate me there, this’ll be a fun dock”
Clapperton Enterprise is 150,000Ls from the jump exit. 13 minutes’ travel time. But the way that the gravity fields work in this system, you end up travelling the last 100,000Ls in the last 3 minutes of the trip. With nothing on the scanner, I went downstairs to the galley and grabbed an apple.
The supercruise was uneventful until the last 300Ls, during which an Anaconda from the local security service tried to interdict me. Although they hate me here, it’s just because they’re bad judges of character. I don’t hate them, I have no beef with the locals. They just harbour some bad people, whose presence in the locale has been cleaned up by yours truly. I’m not about to go killing the security services just because I’ve been doing their job for them. And besides, there’s no money in it.
I decided to evade the interdiction.
Ninety seconds later, I dropped out of supercruise 8.5km from the station. There was plenty of security in the vicinity. Because I was wanted in the system, if any of them scanned me, all hell would break loose and I’d be unable to dock. At 7.5km, I requested, and was granted, permission to dock. I turned away from the station, and retreated to 10km out.
“These security folk are pretty dim,” I thought. “Ship drops out of supercruise, requests docking then heads away from the station? Surely they must think that’s suspicious?”
Evidently not. I put power to engines, and lined up with the entrance. With a flare of boost, TDL PhotonFlinger accelerated to 385m/s. I boosted twice more, and at 4km out, I pressed one of the more rarely-used buttons on my control panel.
“Silent Running,” intoned the ship’s computer.
Then, “Shields Offline.”
34% heat. OK for more boost.
I went through the mailslot at 375m/s, almost four times the posted speed limit. As soon as I was inside the docking area, I fired all the reverse thrust that PhotonFlinger could muster. I cancelled Silent Running, and touched down on the landing pad.
It was not my intention to leave the ship. I had admin to complete. I was here to do that and nothing more. However, Clapperton authorities had other ideas. A message pinged up on my chat log
[DIRECT] Please disembark your vessel. Do not bring personal weapons, as we will view this as an act of aggression. You are wanted in this system, if you wish to avoid death or jail you will follow our instructions.
“Hmm.” An interesting turn of events.
[DIRECT] Please disembark immediately via your rear boarding ramp.
I shrugged off the life support and data transfer equipment from my flight suit, then placed TDL PhotonFlinger into lockdown. On my way off the bridge, I picked up a datapad and inserted a comms transceiver into my left ear. I headed aft, and walked down the rear boarding ramp. Five uniformed men stood just outside PhotonFlinger’s shadow. There was a leader, who had a datapad in one hand and a sidearm on his hip, plus four goons in riot gear with heavy rifles. Without moving my neck, I counted at least six more security staff watching what was going on. I daren’t look at the heavy dockside weaponry. I just knew it was pointing at me.
One of the goons grabbed my datapad, turned it over in his hands a couple of times, then handed it to the leader, who looked at the pad, looked at the goon, then handed the pad back to me. I’m sure I heard him breathing the word “idiot.”
“Come with me please,” he said. I nodded. Two of the goons took station in front, I walked to the left of, and half a step behind the boss, and the other two goons fell in behind. Our convoy felt highly unnatural as we walked at a fair clip through the docking and immigration sections, towards domestic security. Everyone around parted to give us uninterrupted passage through the busy hallways. We entered an interview room, with the hired guns remaining outside.
“Take a seat. Coffee?”
“Please.”
As the synthesiser fabricated our drinks, my erstwhile captor turned to face me and began talking.
“My name is Captain Sridhar, and I work for the LTT 2601 Patrons of Law. You’re not easy to track, but we’ve been watching you over the last couple of months. A lot of the locals are really pissed off with you.”
While I tried to formulate a workable response to this, the synthesiser finished, and Sridhar handed me a mug of something that smelt almost entirely unlike coffee.
“So far out from the star, we can’t waste cargo space on luxuries like fresh coffee beans,” Sridhar said. My poker face clearly needed work – I was used to being handed awful approximations of coffee in backwater stations, and thought I was getting better at hiding my disgust.
“You guys are Empire-aligned, are you not?” I queried, in response to his preamble. I hoped to establish common ground through our mutual alignment with the Empire. I was trying to get some sort of my-boss’s-boss-is-your-boss’s-boss chain-of-command thing going. I certainly wasn’t in a position to go apologising or backtracking.
“Yes, but we hold a fragile working arrangement amongst the factions here, and your activities are upsetting that. It doesn’t matter that your bosses are Empire and mine are also Empire. It doesn’t matter that we Patrons of Law don’t really care whether you’re in our space playing whack-a-crim. People upon who we depend for local peace don’t like the fact that you’re operating here, so they’re making it our problem as the ruling faction.”
“Ah,” I said, taking a sip of the acrid coffee. “I see.” I let the silence hang in the air. I could hear the hum of the ventilation system, and general hubbub around. Captain Sridhar didn’t say anything either. He seemed expectant that I would blurt out an apology or some additional information that could help him decide on a course of action. I thought I spotted an opportunity to steer the conversation.
“Do you mind if I use my datapad? I might be able to organise something.” He waved at it in a dismissive ‘on you go’ gesture.
Rather than engage in any external action, I used the pad to gather information on my current situation. Captain Sridhar had been in post for 18 months, dispatched from Chana. His faction was well-expanded over local space, and was potentially unnerved by The 9th Legion’s explosive expansion out of Malaikudi. He was a registered pilot, with a Competent combat rank, authorised to fly Vipers but nothing bigger. Career policeman. He was right about one thing though: there was a lot of faction unrest in the system. So he was here, probably wanting to get back home, and thoroughly pissed off at the Fer-de-Lance driver coming in and upsetting the locals.
I had a pretty hefty bounty on my head in this system, but none of it with LTT 2601 Patrons of Law. My Empire reputation had been enhanced by my activities here, and I was shown as “Allied” with the Patrons.
This information went a long way to explaining his discomfort with the whole situation. I did not contact the 9th. I was management there, and was empowered to make my own decisions. I drafted out a memo about something completely unrelated, to make it look like I was engaged in discourse, then set a timer on the datapad, placed it into standby and put it back on my lap. I crossed my legs to angle the pad’s screen away from Sridhar so that he would not be able to read the screen when it next lit up with a notification.
“I have placed you in a difficult position Captain Sridhar. I apologise for that. I can see that you have been entrusted with management of a politically sensitive system, and I did not mean to upset your efforts here. I see that there is a general appeal for funds on all sides to contribute to the local war efforts. Perhaps if I paid my fines, and made an equivalent charitable donation to the Patrons of Law, this would offset the damage I’ve caused, without incurring further destabilisation?”
“Well…”
“And I will of course, write positively of our interaction and your discharge of duty in my reports.”
“That would…” he began to respond, when the timer ran out and my datapad began pinging. I unlocked, it and made several taps on-screen.
After several seconds of pretending to read, I said “Ah. Hmm…”
“What? What are your orders?” Captain Sridhar looked worried now. The solution I’d presented to him looked good: everyone got something, and he didn’t have to do anything. Now it appeared that that was going to be taken away.
“My leadership is expressing dismay that I would be challenged in this manner while discharging my duties in service of Emperor Lavigny-Duval. I am informed that Arissa herself is pleased at the rate at which The 9th Legion is making progress in cleaning up this area of space. They are not sure why I would be held in custody in a station belonging to another faction dedicated to her service, and receiving her support.”
Sridhar paled. The mention by name of the Emperor had ruffled him, as I was hoping it would. In this technological, connected age, it was virtually impossible to move through inhabited systems undetected, but as a Special Agent I was pretty good at getting in, conducting my business and getting out. I had almost single-handedly made the system very unsafe for those who were not allied with the Empire and who were engaged in criminal activity. Many two-bit criminals figured that as long as they stayed out of the control systems, they could operate in Empire space under the radar. This upset the Emperor, and she had empowered factions like The 9th Legion to make such criminal activity unappealing. She had also committed considerable funds to encourage pilots to take on missions in support of her cleansing policy.
It was no wonder that the locals were upset, and this poor Sridhar had been tasked with sorting everything out. He was a policeman, not a diplomat, and he was evidently deeply uncomfortable with his political responsibility. He probably even agreed with what I was doing, at least in principle. Now he looked as if a whole galaxy of trouble was headed his way. His mouth moved, but nothing meaningful came out. It was time to make all of this pain go away.
“I think we go with my plan,” I said, taking charge of the situation. “I can write off the fines against my expenses. The donations that the Patrons are requesting are less than the cost of my hull repairs. If we can smooth everything over locally with a couple hundred thousand credits, then let’s do that?”
“That’s a lot of money around these parts,” Sridhar countered. He seemed offended that I was not treating the sums involved more seriously. I wasn’t sure why he’d try to talk me out of a plan that sorted everything out without anyone doing any real work or having to get hurt.
“It’s not a huge amount in terms of my general operating budget,” I replied. I’d meant it to mean that my plan was not going to be unreachable, but he took it as arrogance on my part.
“I just want you out of here. I don’t want you docking here again. Your kind are just a pain in my ass. With your sleek ships and your rock star reputations. You come here and do whatever you want, then wave the Empire card whenever you get challenged. It’s no wonder everyone hates you.”
I was taken aback by his vitriol. But I had a course of action, and I was going to stick to it.
“So, we have a deal?”
“And you’ll be gone?”
“I will, as you say, be gone.”
“We have a deal.” He slumped back in his chair.
“Let’s go sort out the transfer then.” I said. “Sooner I get you paid, sooner I’m out of your hair.” Bad turn of phrase: aside from a few wisps over the top of his head, Sridhar was bald from the temple up. Although he did have a fine moustache.
He raised an eyebrow at me as he got up from his chair, and led me to the security office.
45 minutes later, I was back in TDL PhotonFlinger, two hundred and thirty-three thousand credits lighter. I was still Wanted in the system, but the threat of imminent violence had abated. Only two of the four gun-toting goons had escorted me back to my ship. As PhotonFlinger warmed for lift-off, I called up the Station Services menu. I retraced my steps to the Security Office electronically. I was just checking up on something.
Local System Bounties
Empire: 383,400
Federation: 268,101
LTT 2601 Patrons of Law: 101,762
Total: 753,563
[CLAIM]
I tapped the [CLAIM] button, then [EXIT] then [LAUNCH]. Sure, fines of over 200,000 credits were a bitter medicine to take, but the seven hundred and fifty thousand in bounty claims definitely represented the spoonful of sugar from that awful song of all those years ago.
Just to be safe, I engaged Silent Running on my way out of Clapperton Enterprise, restoring thermal signature at 10km. I set course for Malaikudi once more, feeling extraordinarily self-satisfied.