The courtyard wasn't nearly as densely packed, and the going was easy as they quickly made their way to a pair of unoccupied benches. "You know, I thought I had seen a lot after taking leave on other worlds, but this is just beyond," Ayan said as she watched a family of four wrapped in black and green robes casually stroll into the transit centre.
"I know the feeling. It's just like the movies set in the core worlds after the Third Fall." commented Jenny as she watched a flock of pigeons peck at seed scattered by an old woman.
"Pandem was like this in some places. Always busy, just barely enough room to move," Victor said quietly.
"Ima gets busy around crop time, but not this busy. Didn't like it much there either, it gets hard to find a quiet place,"
"I think I know why the Carthans are giving privateer permits out to anyone with a ship registered to them," Ayan said as she watched a pair of men in business suits carrying long weapons cases emerging from the transit station.
"They're afraid of what a ship Captain can do if they're based here," Laura finished.
"What do you mean?" asked Victor.
Ayan held up the interactive advertisement sheet in her hand and pressed SHOP. Several smaller ads appeared around a query button. She pressed it and said; "List all postings for ship to ship weapons sold from a local slip."
"Local slip?" asked Jenny.
"It means from a ship mooring or landing area," Laura explained.
Everyone's eyes went wide as the list appeared; it contained over ten thousand results. Ayan set the system to list the cheapest first and wasn't surprised to see a mixture of electromagnetic and particle pulse weapons. "Okay, these look like rebuilt Vindyne weapons, so I'm thinking a lot of Captains have cargo hold operations where they strip and rebuild whatever weapons they manage to take from their captures. I'm pretty sure any of them would be arrested or at least fined if they tried selling this stuff in Greydock, but here it's pretty much open season as long as they are willing to make it look like they're making an effort to hide the fact that these guns come from a Regent Galactic or Order of Eden ship."
"Wait, you said Vindyne?" Laura asked quietly.
"These pulse weapons, their stats, they look Vindyne. Regent Galactic bought up a lot of Vindyne territory and whole fleets while they were collapsing. It was in my, um, predecessor’s journal."
"Oh, I didn't know Regent took their fleets."
Ayan began a new search for food and started browsing as everyone looked on.
A thought donned on Laura then and she smiled. "Wait, we know how to track Vindyne ships, or at least I do."
"You do?"
Randolph Lalonde
Spinward Fringe Broadcast 6: Fragments
"Jason was working with Freeground Intelligence while they were figuring it out. I got pulled in to consult a few times because of my experience with their shield tech. Most Vindyne ships keep their combat shielding up all the time because they like using flimsy materials for their ship interiors, sometimes for their hulls. As one of the experts who helped isolate unique characteristics of their shielding, I can recognize the energy barriers, including in raw data form."
"Like the kind of data you get when you run long range scans or analyze a faster than light ship's transit trail," Ayan grinned back.
"They're speaking a whole other language. Did you get any of that?" Victor asked Jenny.
Jenny shrugged; "We just have to make sure they don't get shot."
"It means we can find supply routes using the Clever Dream's wormhole generator and a bunch of micro wormholes. The hyper transmitter on the Triton could do a much better job, but if we have a place to start, the Clever Dream could do." Laura explained. “I know it’ll work for Vindyne ships, I might be able to adapt it to Regent Galactic ships if we can get close enough to one to get a detailed scan of their emitter systems.”
"So we can start privateering as soon as you explain all this to the Captain. Sounds fun," Jenny smiled.
"Aye. As soon as we solve the supply and landing problem." Ayan said as she selected a seller advertising a large quantity of varied foodstuffs. She started her search in a category for sellers who had permanent landing spaces. "Bloody hell, it looks like this one knocked over a caravan of convenience store suppliers," she chuckled as the sheet erupted in brand names.
There were twenty-one matches, all of them offering not only a massive variety of captured goods, but had landing slips to lease. Many of them claimed to have purchased the land before the Carthan Government took over, others offered space to land and security for an extra fee. None of them quoted prices for the landing space, or mentioned how much space they had available.
Ayan and Laura browsed for several minutes, sampling prices from different vendors, until they finally settled on one in particular. The prices were irresistibly low for food stuffs, and the explanation behind the acquisition of their goods simply said; SUCCESSFUL PRIVATEER. Under the land lease section of their profile it simply claimed; LONG TIME OWNER, WILL BARTER, SERIOUS INQUIRIES ONLY.
"Wow. I wonder if he has any real food," Laura chuckled. "Looks like mostly meal replacements, candy and inebriants. Best prices and they've got a lot of good feedback from past customers."
"I'm good with that kind of diet," Jenny grinned. "As long as he throws in a case of fitness supplements."
"Beggars can't be choosers. Looks like they're one of the best and they have land. Let's find a taxi stand and get to his slip before he sells out." Ayan said as she rolled the advertisement up and tucked it into her thigh pocket.
Chapter 22
The rattle and pound of Sgt Cumberland's pulse rifle had become so familiar it was like a second, frantic heart beat. The curving halls and inclines of Triton made it feel like the great corpse of some living creature as he and his Unit ran for their lives, trying to get behind cover only to find themselves under attack at every turn.
It was the issyrian. He hadn’t seen it, but it was definitely his men and women leading the charge in their thin, sealed suits. Their rifles showed signs of overuse, the charging chambers at the top of the weapons had burned wide open. When they fired, they were bathed with the mad strobe of white light from the loud, crackling power coursing through their rifles. It was as if that was all they were, a man or woman wearing a suit that barely protected them and a rifle. No matter how many Cumberland’s men injured or killed, they just kept coming, rushing, firing.
It was as though the issyrian was waiting for them to finish repairing the lift and move. Somehow he knew exactly which floor he’d come up on, and when they arrived, the nightmare began. They didn’t fire into the express car, they waited. His people had crawled into maintenance hatches, waited inside crew quarters, and around corners. When they were all out of the car and down the first stretch of hallway, the attack came. From behind, the sides, and from one of the hallways ahead; they were forced down a specific hall, where there was no visible resistance, and he’d lost four of his people in that initial attack.
Major Cumberland almost wished he was fighting the cloak suited horrors that caught the boarding parties in the quiet places, it would almost be better than the relentless assault and the constant effort it took to keep from being outflanked. It took every ounce of his skill and experience to manoeuvre his people through the long hallways and be wary of traps.