Pulling the Influence Levers
03 Jul 2020maehara_uk
CMDR Maehara woke to the view of a fairly nondescript, beige planet floating outside her window. At least it was a view - when she'd hit the sack last night after haggling with Juri over engineering upgrades, her cabin had been on the wrong side of the carrier to see anything other than stars. And the dark emptiness had a habit of calling to her a little too perniciously at times. So a new day with a new view was a good thing. Her carrier, Tweedledum, had jumped in overnight - a system outside SSF space, where one of the local factions was in need of a little support and had called in - well, paid handsomely - for some 'practical' assistance. And if it suited the Company aims and made a few credits along the way, who has Andrea to argue..?
After raising a silent glass to Yara and her flight-deck crew for another successful jump (Andrea tried to stay away from thinking too hard about capship jumps), she punched a button on the comms panel. "Lisette? You're up. Good. Yara's parked us with a HazRes less than 1 light-second away, we can use that to send a message or two. Corvette, 10 minutes." She closed the channel, without waiting for Lisette's response. Her SLF pilot knew what a bear she could be in the morning - and that if coffee couldn't lift her mood, a little killing probably could.
15 minutes later, the Federal Turncoat lifted off her pad for the short hop over to the nearby HazRez. The lack of System Authority in the area made it a magnet for ne'er-do-wells from the local Anarchists, and they would be easy pickings for a Corvette with fighter support. Almost too easy, to be honest. But the local miners really appreciated having a big ship cover their backs for a while, and would make sure that word quickly got out about which faction's boys looked after people - and that was the word-of-mouth they were being paid for.
Andrea bristled a little at the thought. The boys. Here she was with nearly 15,000 legit kills on her record (and the ship's computer didn't count the murders, for reasons of deniability), but the boys were what people assumed were flying these patrols. Little did they know. "Lisette? On-station in 5. Get ready to move." A short crackle of static, and then "Understood. Ready when you are, Andrea." Time for business. Sirius Business, as the adverts shouted. Andrea grimaced at the pun.
While Lisette launched, a quick assessment of the scanner. Two miners, Pooky and Bob. An Adder and a Diamondback. Woefully under-prepared for mining in a HazRes - and with them on the scanner, a wing of three ships heading towards them. "Three inbound - Sidey and two Eagles. I'll paint them up for you, but I reckon you can take it from there?" "Roger." Andrea sat back, watching the ballet of blips on the scanner, and noting the bounties tallying up on the ship's computer as each red blip in turn went pop and disappeared. "Scope's clear. Anything else?"
Pooky and Bob continued mining, almost as though they were unaware of what was going on around them. But something larger had appeared on the scanner - a Clipper. And the KWS was showing they weren't just wanted here. "Big fish tagged. Coming around." "Gotcha. Moving in." Andrea brought the Corvette around - quick to turn by the standards of a big ship, but still lumbering and causing her to grumble with impatience. Before she'd gotten properly sighted and within range, Lisette was already having a blast. Literally and metaphorically. The Corvette opened up, beams blazing across the gap between the two ships, and a hail of multicannon projectiles following behind. Another short battle, another entry in the list of bounties to claim. Next target...
An hour later, Andrea and Lisette could be found tucking into breakfast in the Tweedledum's dining room. Nothing like a fat-laden fryup to clear the mind after some early-morning mayhem.
"Think we sent enough of a message to keep the Corporates happy, get them what they wanted?", mused Lisette.
"It's a start. And we've got some trade goods down in the hold that we're told are in demand here, we can drop them off later for a decent profit and let our generous benefactors distribute them for best effect."
"But not for greatest need."
Andrea raised an eyebrow at Lisette for that one. Sometimes her... sidekick? Partner? Employee? ...forgot she was a pilot, and not an ethics coach. "Don't gripe too much. You get a 10% cut of the profits, and it's not like you're the one who'll be flying the cargo runs."
A grin. At least the rebuke had been taken the right way. Andrea quickly finished off her meal. "Right. I have a few other jobs to run, but you're off the hook until this evening. Don't waste 'em." Off to the hangar deck she strode, looking for the best tool in Tweedledum's Swiss army-knife-like array of ships to manipulate public opinion with next...