A Question of Greatness
- Chapter 6 -[]
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Joining a Visit[]
Axe Ancestral Estate
Detroit, Rimward Periphery
17th March, 3012
A few days later Logan was having breakfast with Beatrice and twins when a member of the staff came in and delivered a message.
"Miss Logan, you asked to be informed when certain patients at the hospital would be allowed visitors. We just received a call that both mister Musef Qadir and mister Aldin York have been cleared for such."
"Aldin?" Beatrice said, her head perking up at the name with very obvious interest.
Logan hid a smile. Had she ever been that obvious at that age?
"Thank you, Frederick," Logan said to the man with a nod. "I think I will go see them today."
"Can I come?" Asked Beatrice almost as soon as the words had left Logan's mouth.
She eyed her little sister assessingly. "You'll have to make up your lessons. But I don't see why not."
Beatrice nodded enthusiastically, an eager smile on her lips. "Sure!"
"And don't jump onto his bed and try to give him a hug," Logan said, her tone dry and teasing. "He'll still be injured and recovering so do try to control yourself, alright?"
Beatrice stilled, face going red while at the same time giving Logan the stink eye. "That was one time!" she protested hotly.
"Yes, and I'm sure you'd never do something like that again," replied Logan, her tone implying the exact opposite. "Now finish your breakfast. Look like we're going to have an eventful day ahead of us."
Visiting a Friend[]
Hope Memorial Hospital - Dearborn City
Detroit, Rimward Periphery
17th March, 3012
Logan had always been largely friendless. Part of that was due to the status as a noble putting an innate distance between herself and ordinary people. A larger part, however, had been that for most of her life she had been largely uninterested.
That didn't mean that she didn't appreciate what few friendships she had managed to forge or that she never got lonely. Her few true friends did matter to her a great deal. So while it had not been the biggest shock she'd had to deal with since the pirate raid, Aldin being injured while fighting in the defense of their home had been another nasty surprise she'd had to endure.
So it was a relief for her to see him sitting up in his hospital bed from the open door to his room, chatting up a pretty nurse who was all smiles while listening to him with rapt attention.
"… It's like my body moved on it's own. Do you know what that's like, to be so passionate about someone that every cell in your body drives you to protect them? Thoughts of the mortal danger I was running towards didn't cross my mind for even a second."
Logan had to clench her jaw to keep the laughter inside, watching the poor nurse as she nodded enthusiastically at Aldin's bombastic speech, staring at Aldin with such a dreamy and thirsty expression that she'd probably be mortified if someone recorded it and showed it to her later.
Logan examined Aldin while he was distracted and she was pleased to see that he looked well, though from what Logan understood he had needed surgery for some broken ribs that had punctured one of his lungs after the Galleon tank he had been piloting had been rendered inoperable by SRM fire. On further examination of the man the new memories in Logan's head did the equivalent of a double take. It wasn't because Aldin was considered a dreamboat by most conventional 31st century standards, though he was. No, instead the double take was because while Aldin's chosen style of hair and beard were considered perfectly normal if a little on the daring side by today's Detroit standards, the memories of Earth-Logan were insisting that a mullet haircut paired with "friendly mutton chops" were eccentric choices at best.
Future of the eighties? What a strange idea to have about the world I live in.
Beatrice who Logan had brought along with her to the hospital finally pushed her way ahead and into the room. When she saw Aldin and the nurse practically melting in a puddle by simply talking to him, she frowned, pursed her lips, and then decided to announce herself in the most obnoxious way possible.
"Aldin!" she exclaimed just short of shouting, loud enough for both him and the nurse to jump and turn to look at Beatrice with surprised expressions. "I'm so glad you're okay!"
Then she proceeded to bounce up to Aldin and practically throw herself at him with a hug around his neck. By Aldin's sudden expression of shocked pain Logan could tell he wasn't quite all the way well yet and probably didn't need to deal with Beatrice's enthusiasm.
"Get off him, Bea." Logan said, her voice indulgent but carrying a hint of command. "What did I say earlier about enthusiastic hugs?"
Beatrice made a sound of complaint but obediently disentangled herself from Aldin. By his expression it was a relief though he did his best to hide any discomfort from Beatrice. The nurse for her part looked ready to reprimand Bea with a sharp word before she glanced at Logan. She froze, her eyes suddenly widening as she awkwardly bowed her head.
"Hello, Lady Axe." the woman said, suddenly sounding out of her element. "We were told you might be coming by today."
"Thank you," Logan said, a fake PR smile coming with practiced ease to her face. She looked at the nurse's name tag. "Jacqueline, yes? We just came to visit our good friend Aldin. Would you mind stepping out and giving us some privacy?"
The nurse looked at Logan with something akin to awe and unease, which made little sense to the tall blonde. "Of course Lady Axe. Just use the call button if you need anything. If you'll excuse me."
Then she left, leaving Logan alone with Aldin and Beatrice who was giving the former big cow eyes that had a number of similarities to the look the nurse had just been giving him.
"Aldin," Logan said, a sly and teasing smile coming to her face. "I remember someone boasting about being able to take down a 'Mech in a ditty little Galeon. Didn't they have to use an industrial fusion cutter to drag you out of that wreck?"
Yes, Logan could have said something nicer. How are you? How were your injuries? Are you recovering well? But that wasn't really the sort of relationship they had. And Aldin always got really awkward when people started asking after his welfare. He was awake, smiling and accidentally flirting with pretty nurses, and that was proof enough that all was as well as reasonably could be.
Aldin made an exaggerated frown at that. "Ah, it wasn't my fault, it was all my co-pilot. Nice guy, great hair, but not exactly MitCal Academy material, you know? If it'd been you with me in that tank then you could have at least dodged half decently while I shot apart the invading force all by myself," Then his expression changed to sympathetic. "I heard about you losing your Wasp, and about, well," he glanced at Beatrice who was listening with rapt attention and changed what he was going to say. "I'm just glad you made it out in one piece. What's been going on out there? I haven't heard much while being stuck in here."
"Well," Logan said, feeling rage and melancholy and elation as she thought about it. A heady mix with all that had been going on recently. "I'm sure you've heard by now, but eventually we did drive the raiders off…"
Logan pulled up a chair and proceeded to fill him in on what she could while being out in public and edited for the sake of the twelve-year-old ears soaking up everything. The recovery. The casualties. What could and couldn't be salvaged of all the equipment that was destroyed. Aldin's normally cheerful facade became serious and solemn the more he heard of what was going on.
When I finished, all he did was shake his head. "Damn pirates. That's horrible all around. And they managed to fly off in their DropShip? For shame. Man, what I wouldn't do for the chance at some payback. That they can just fly in, wreck and steal from good folk and then just leave like it's nothing, it's criminal."
"Well, the pirates came in with six 'Mechs and left with one fully functional and one severely damaged, and four trashed possibly beyond salvage, so I wouldn't say they got away Scott free," Logan said darkly. "But I agree with you on principal. Maybe we'll get lucky and we'll be able to get some payback soon, yeah?"
"Oh?" asked Aldin, raising a curious eyebrow. "You know something I don't know?"
"Lots." Logan replied with a smirk. "But if I were you, I'd pull out the blue textbooks again once they let you out of here. You're going to need those skills again soon."
Aldin's eyebrows shot up and his mouth opened in surprise, giving her an intensely questioning look. Beatrice for her part just look puzzled.
"What's in the blue textbooks?" she asked, looking back and forth.
"Nothing you need to worry about," replied Logan, voice light but with a hint of finality to it.
Beatrice huffed but didn't push it any further. Aldin for his part looked both thrilled and worried. And with good reason.
The blue colored textbooks had been for all of their BattleMech related courses when they had studied together at the Mitchell Calderon Private Military Academy.
Shortly after the Amaris Civil War and the dissolution of the Star League the world in the Rimward Periphery and the Hyades Rim in particular became increasingly lawless. Countless petty powers sprung up seemingly overnight. With this change came a sudden new demand and subsequently a new market to be exploited: a demand for high quality military training without obligation to serve in the military of any of the powers of the Periphery.
Thus in the Magistracy but even more so in the Taurean Concordat private military academies of all types and of varying quality began to spring up. At the very top of that list sat the now famous elite Mitchell Calderon Private Military Academy. First established in 2814 on the planet Taurus IV the MitCal Academy quickly gained a reputation for providing outstanding military training that was just as good, if not better, than any of the training that could be found anywhere in the Periphery or even in the Inner Sphere. Anyone was allowed to enroll and use the academy's state of the art facilities and instructors to become top notch at whatever military track they chose to enroll in. Assuming they could afford to pay the exorbitant tuition costs, of course.
For the Axe family, sending Logan to MitCal for MechWarrior and general officer training had been an investment that had taken an alarming percentage of their yearly profits. During that training was where she had met and befriended Aldin who had been on the same educational track she had been on. They had become excellent friends despite their often opposite personalities, and for his own reasons Aldin had decided to accept Logan's invitation to follow her back to Detroit after their graduation.
Logan could see Aldin's excitement at the prospect of getting back into the cockpit of a 'Mech, as well as see his questions. She'd decide later how much was safe to tell him about everything that was going on. In the meantime, she was going to use the fact that he was currently mentally on the backfoot and the fact that he was currently stuck in bed to her advantage.
"Say, do you mind if I leave Beatrice here with you for a few minutes?" Logan asked innocently. "I need to go check on Captain Qadir and I'd feel better if I could leave her with a trusted adult."
Beatrice shot her a look, evidently torn between outrage at the implication she needed adult supervision and thrilled at the prospect of being left alone with Aldin. The mulleted man for his part gave her an odd look before nodding agreeably, flashing Logan a blinding smile.
"Sure, no problem. I'll keep an eye on the kid. You can count on me," he said, sounding so incredibly sincere.
Logan shook her head with a smile. It was no surprise to her that Aldin managed to be a complete heartbreaker and panty dropper everywhere he went seemingly without even trying. Too bad the smitten women he left in his wake were all barking up the wrong tree.
"I'll be back soon. Be good," Logan said to the both of them, before getting up and walking out of the room.
Unexpected change in Roles[]
Visiting Musef Qadir was a much more solemn and serious affair.
Musef was a man in his 40s, and a veteran of many skirmishes in the periphery where he'd served various local governments and mercenary groups in various different leadership capacities for nearly two decades. Wanting to put down roots, he'd been happy to take up the position as the head of the Axe family's security forces about five years ago. A serious and nearly dour man even at the best of times, now those qualities seemed to be highlighted as he faced what was no doubt a terrible personal tragedy.
"Ma'am," Musef said, quickly hiding his surprise at seeing me. He reached over and used the controls to raise the head of the bed as far as it would go, doing his best impression of standing at attention even in bed and wearing a hospital gown. I tried not to stare at the missing lump under the sheets.
While coordinating the defense Musef had been seriously injured, leading to the loss of his left leg above the knee.
"Captain Qadir," Logan said to him with a respectful nod. "It's good to see you well enough to receive visitors. How are you doing?"
Logan calling him Captain Qadir had been very deliberate. A lot of employers would have demoted or fired Quadir after the losses they had suffered and/or because he was now physically handicapped. Logan and Hector, however, had no intention of doing that. Qadir was capable, loyal, and had done his best to coordinate the fight in their defense and had paid a heavy price for it. Punishing him would not only have been unjust, it would have been self-destructive and borderline obscene.
On top of that, prosthetic technology had come a long way since the 21st century.
Musef frowned, his thick eyebrows and dark skin marking his mixed Hindu and Muslim ancestry. "About as well as can be expected, I suppose," he said carefully. "Though truth be told, I'm unsure if I will be able to resume my previous duties after I am cleared for service. Assuming you would still have me, that is."
"Of course we would still have you," Logan said, her voice surprisingly earnest. "Why wouldn't we? Assuming you don't want to quit, I figured after sufficient time to get used to a new prosthetic you would resume your duties. And as per your contract, we'll cover whatever costs are necessary to get you back in fighting shape."
To Logan's surprise, Musef shook his head. "I'm afraid that will not be possible," he said with a resigned certainty in his voice. "The doctors have already come in and had an extensive conversation with me about my options. Apparently, while prosthetics do exist that might allow me to return to being fully combat capable, that sort high end medical technology has not been available anywhere on Detroit for over a hundred years. The best they can do is something that will allow me to live a normal civilian lifestyle, but nothing that will stand up to the demands of active military operations."
Logan frowned at that. Captain Musef was very much a "lead from the front" type of leader, which made made everyone under him respect if not straight up love the man. Whether leading infantry or commanding their limited number of combat vehicles, his style of leadership was always a physically demanding one. That they no longer had the technology to help bring a man like Captain Musef back up to operate at his full potential was infuriating.
With what was coming, she was going to need the help of Captain Qadir. She was going to need him in her corner. And more than that, she sheer injustice of not being able to help one of her people when they needed it burned.
"I'm not demoting you," Logan declared boldly. Technically Hector would have final say, but Logan had been trained and groomed to be in overall command of their defense forces for many years now. It was well past time for her to step up into that role. If Hector didn't like her decisions, he could go pound sand. "Get the best prosthetic you can for now, but I'm not going to accept simply leaving you with something sub-par. We will get you the medical and technical expertise that we need and you will have the highest quality combat rated prosthetic that we can find."
Musef blinked, and for the first time his stoic expression cracked a bit. "Pardon me, Ma'am, but how do you intend to do that? I'm given to understand this isn't the sort of thing that can just be causally brought in on a DropShip."
Logan pondered what she could reveal for a few moments before giving Musef a reassuring smile. "What I'm about to tell you stays in this room. But very soon we'll be mounting a military expedition off-world. If it makes any kind of sense at all I'll try to include a stop to a world with better medical technology than we have here. Then we can see about getting you the type of prosthetic you deserve, Captain Qadir."
Musef had clearly not been expecting that, since he looked positively stunned. "An off-world military expedition?" he said, sounding baffled. "How? With what resources? After the mauling we received, how are we even-"
"That's all need-to-know," Logan said firmly. Qadir straightened at her tone. Logan let her voice ease into something more conciliatory. "All you need to know is that significant resources have been procured. And that I want you with me when the time comes. Not just in hopes of getting you a proper prosthetic, but also because I'm going to need your leadership. This will not be a small or easy thing. So what do you think, Captain? Can I count on you when the time comes?"
Musef's look changed to something Logan found much more workable. A bit of skepticism, but mostly a sense of renewed energy and hope. "Of course Lady Axe, if you will have me," said Musef with a respectful nod. "I'll be somewhat limited but I'm sure that I can still be of use to you."
"Good," said Logan firmly. Then sensing a change of subject was needed, she turned to a subject she knew Musef was quite happy to talk about. "So have you seen your wife and son yet? How old is Kumar again? He turned two recently, right?"
Musef smiled, and he looked like a completely different man with how much he lit up at the mention of his family. "Yes, I saw them first thing this morning. Kumar turned two just three months ago."
As simple Detroit-Logan she wouldn't have managed nearly so well here, bonding and even joking with a subordinate over stories about their families. With her new memories however she understood how valuable forming this kind of personal connection was, and she now knew how to near effortlessly foster genuine investment and good will in Captain Qadir.
Logan was slowly coming to understand that she was far more dangerous now than she had been before, and that it had nothing to do with her ability to pilot a 'Mech or lead a group of subordinates into combat.
Auspicious Meeting[]
Detroit, Rimward Periphery
30th March, 3012
"What the hell are we doing here Vince? I'm starting to feel like I should have brought my sidearm."
Vincent had taken Logan to a part of Dearborn that she had never been to before, and with good reason. All around her were run down areas with trash littering the streets, defaced or damaged property were the norm, and a downtrodden populace that looked like it produced as much crime as it did human misery walked with hunched shoulders and suspicious eyes. Every city of any size in all of human history had what could be called a slum and for Dearborn this was most definitely it.
Logan had never been what you'd call a sheltered princess, but taking a casual stroll through that type of neighborhood (unarmed) was a little bit out of her comfort zone.
"Relax, it's not that bad," Vincent insisted, looking completely at ease. "This place is completely safe, so long as you're not stupid and avoid certain streets. And don't wear the wrong colors down certain streets. And can run off a few punks if you need to. You just gotta be smart, that's all."
Logan resisted the urge to pinch the bridge of her nose. She could feel a headache coming on. "Yes, lovely place, I'll have to see about getting a flat here," Logan said dryly. "You still haven't told me why you've dragged me here. Did Valeria decide to get rid of me and now you're taking me to someone who will harvest my organs?"
"Val wouldn't do that. She'd tell you exactly what you did to piss her off before she shot you face-to-face, if it ever came to that." Vincent replied cheerfully. "Though fine, I suppose I've kept you in suspense long enough: we've been working hard, right? Getting everything we need ready for our little paramilitary group to go cause some chaos out there in the stars. But like we've discussed, we still don't have a good target."
Logan frowned at that. Vincent was right, of course. They had been working hard. Writing up an inventory, procuring supplies, finding personnel that were trustworthy enough, organizing finances and writing contracts, writing up a code of conduct, figuring out their command structure… for the past couple of weeks, Logan felt like she had been tap dancing as fast as she could and was only barely putting a dent in all the things that needed to get done. If Vincent hadn't also been working on things with her full-time and taking half the workload, she might have thrown her hands up and set something on fire by now.
On top of that, it was also true that once they finally had everything ready in another month or two (optimistically) they had no true plan of what to do first. Become an official merc company registered with ComStar and the MRB? Look for sketchier non-ComStar "jobs" so long as they got a ton of salvage out of the deal? Or, better yet, could they go after pirates and other scum? Logan frowned. The last would be her first choice no doubt but those types only tended to survive by keeping their locations as secret as possible.
Logan didn't consider herself particularly bloodthirsty, but after losing two parents to pirate raids the idea of dropping in on them for a change and wiping them off the face of the galaxy held a seductive sort of appeal.
"So we're in this dump to find a target?" Logan asked skeptically as she saw a group of street kids spot them before whispering to each other and immediately running off. Spotters? "While I do think this place looks dangerous I don't think it's quite to the level where we need to drop in on BattleMechs."
"No, nothing like that," Vincent said with a shake of his head. "Alright, here's the deal: We're here to meet a man named Scipio. He's what you'd call an information broker. I put out some feelers, discreetly mind you, to see if anyone might know of a potential 'job' some enterprising mercenary types with a conscience might be interested in. Turns out Scipio says he's got something that could be perfect for us. Best part? He's offering to part with the information for free."
Logan gave Vincent a deeply skeptical look. "How do you put out 'feelers' like that? Seeing this neighborhood I'm starting to suspect you of less than savory dealings, Vincent."
"Well, you wouldn't be wrong exactly," he replied. "We have a lot of interests in this city, so someone needed to keep a pulse on what trouble might be brewing before it happened. It's also useful to have an, ah, understanding with the criminal element. Can't have our workers being harassed or our facilities and products becoming a target, you know? It'd be stupid seeing as we build all the guns around here, but desperate people can do really stupid things."
Logan looked at him, with his stupid Tom Selleck mustache and carefree expression, and wondered how he ended up as the person in their little soon-to-be united family with all of the underworld connections. "I'll admit, I'd never thought about it," Logan confessed. "We keep to the countryside and don't have to worry about that sort of thing much. Agriculture doesn't necessitate too much interaction with cities aside from using them as transport hubs." Then she frowned. "But even I know that an information broker offering to give you information 'for free' is suspicious as hell."
"It probably won't actually be free free." Vincent acknowledged easily. "But stranger things have happened. Besides, whatever info he's got, I'm betting it's good. You don't ask a noble to come out to see you just to waste their time."
"There's two of us here, Vincent."
"I know." he said, flashing her a smile. "Doesn't hurt negotiations to put on a bit of extra unexpected pressure, now does it? Besides, I figured you'd want to be there to hear this first hand."
Logan shook her head, smiling wryly despite herself. "Fine," she said. "At least this beats spending another afternoon in my room looking at spreadsheets of projected expenses, I suppose."
"Hell, yeah it does." Vincent said with a visible shudder.
It wasn't long before they walked up to a building that was in generally better shape than everything else around it. Looking up at the sign Logan saw that it was a bar named the Goes Down Easy. Shady types making their base of operations a bar? I guess some cliches haven't changed since the 21st century.
Vincent took the lead, opening the door which was unlocked despite the sign saying "closed" and still being an hour before noon. Logan followed behind and found more or less what you'd expect. Dim atmosphere, heavy wooden furniture, and a middle aged woman with a cigarette in her mouth behind the counter going through the motions of cleaning with a dirty rag.
"Hello, Mr. Vargas," the woman said to him with surprising familiarity. She barely spared Logan a glance. "Mr. Scipio is waiting for you. Down the hall, last door at the end. Can't miss it."
"Thanks, Gloria." Vincent said with a flirtatious smile the woman ignored. Then he strolled with confidence towards where the woman had indicated, Logan only half a step behind.
The place looked run down and needed better lighting but underneath all of that it was clear that it was at least solidly built. At the end of the long hallway was a door much like any other. Vincent knocked twice before a voice from the inside called for them to come in.
Sitting at a surprisingly nice table inside were two men. One was obviously a bodyguard, easily over six and a half feet tall, dressed in a generic cheap suit and with enough bulging muscles to give even the bodybuilder Vincent a run for his money. The other was one of the more eccentric looking men Logan had ever seen. He was wearing a pink suit with shiny yellow sequins done in the shape of birds in flight. He was wearing sunglasses with those rainbow lenses indoors, and had long dirty blonde hair slicked back with some kind of product. The man could have been thirty or fifty. He rose to his feet and greeted them with an enthusiastic voice fit for a car salesman.
"Mr. Vargas, Lady Axe, it's an honor to host the two of you in my humble establishment! I hope that finding us here wasn't too onerous?"
Logan narrowed her eyes as he shook hands with Vincent. Just name dropping her without even being introduced, that was a power play if she'd ever seen one. After a moment he turned to her and Logan reluctantly shook this Scipio's hand. He had a firm and professional grip at least, despite his off putting looks.
"Please, have a seat! Would you like something to drink? Martin here can get you anything from the bar, on me of course," Scipio said in a grandiose manner.
Logan let Vincent take the lead as mandatory pleasantries and small talk were exchanged. She actually could do that now but didn't see the point here. Frankly, calling all of this fishy would have been the mother of understatements. This alleged info had better be worth it.
After they were seated and given drinks she had no intention of touching they finally got to the reason for their visit.
"So, your message said you had some information for me?" Asked Vincent, taking a drink from whatever alcoholic thing he'd asked for. Logan wanted to kick him. Didn't he know any better than to accept drinks from suspicious characters?
"Yes, yes, when I heard the sort of thing you were on the lookout for Mr. Vargas, I thought that I might finally have the opportunity to settle a debt," replied Scipio with a long suffering sigh.
"Debt? What debt?"
"Ah well you see, some time ago I was approached by a man claiming to be part of a pirate crew of sorts," began Scipio. "According to him, he didn't know what he was getting into until it was too late. He was convinced the only way he'd be allowed to leave anytime soon would in a body bag, the poor man. He also had a distaste for the practices his 'crew' and their leader engaged in. So, he came to me when he was 'on leave' on Detroit, and said he'd tell me everything he knew about their operation. In exchange I had to promise to keep an eye out for someone willing to 'take care' of his little pirate problem, as it were."
Logan sat up straighter at Scipio's information, her eyes narrowing in suspicion. "How do you know this alleged turncoat is trustworthy?"
"Trustworthy?" asked Scipio, turning his rainbow colored sunglasses in her direction. "I certainly wouldn't call this gentleman that. But in the days he was here me and my people quite thoroughly debriefed him. Some of it I was able to confirm independently. The information has also proven somewhat profitable for me which it wouldn't have had it been false. There is also the matter of knowing a truly desperate man when I see one. As an information broker, I am in the business of only passing on good information. So far everything he's told me has panned out."
Logan opened her mouth to protest before Vincent cut her off. "It's all right Logan," he said to her, catching her eye. "I won't say I trust Scipio, but I trust he won't make stuff up to try to screw us. His reputation is on the line. Plus, if he purposefully gives me bad info, he knows full well that my family will come down on him like a ton of bricks. So trust his self-preservation instincts if nothing else."
"Quite," said Scipio, sounding a little bit miffed for the first time. "I am giving you this information for free. The least you can do is not question my professional integrity, if you would be so kind."
Logan frowned. "Fine," she said. "I'd like to see what you've been able to confirm independently. But for now let's assume that I'm willing to believe you. What exactly is it that we're dealing with here?"
_-_centered_Sarna_Map.png){kind=link}
Regional Star Map of Tincalunas as of 3012.
Scipio smiled. "Very well. Are you aware of the Tincalunas system? Otherwise known as Huanghuadian back when the Capellans ruled it some odd two centuries ago."
"Yes," replied Logan after thinking about it for a moment. "It's a system two jumps away from here. It's habitable, but supposedly it's been abandoned due to recurring natural disasters or some such."
"The planet's moon was shattered due to a freak celestial event, actually, back in 2851," began Scipio, his tone turning solemn. "It caused the volcanic activity on the planet to explode, literally, and that combined with the falling debris from the moon was too much for the population. The planet was abandoned and the Capellans wrote it off as a loss. The planet's volcanic activity has since stabilized – more or less – but no serious efforts to recolonize the Tincalunas system have been made."
"Ah," said Vincent, an eager light entering his eyes. "Sounds like the perfect place for a bunch of filthy pirates to set up shop."
"That is correct, Mr. Vargas. Though I'm afraid the situation is a bit more complicated than just some pirate outpost, I'm afraid," said Scipio.
"How so?" asked Logan, leaning forward in her seat.
Scipio paused, seemingly carefully choosing his words. "The leader of the group that has set up shop on the southern continent is a man that goes by the name Omar Kingston. Apparently he cut his teeth as a pirate as the lead tech specialist in a rather large and infamous pirate band on the Hyades Rim. Eventually he went his own way, tired of taking orders supposedly, and began to gather his own personal band of cutthroats,"
"He finally found his niche on Tincalunas; apparently, Tincalunas has an incredibly rare type of silicon that is almost never found occurring naturally. Silicon is incredibly common, but it takes a great deal of work and refining to purify it. On Tincalunas however you can mine silicon that with only token processing becomes 100% pure. I'm sure you can understand how valuable that is?"
Logan chewed her lip and nodded. Vincent however looked a bit lost. "What do you mean? Why does that matter?"
"Silicon is a pain in the ass to purify past a certain point, and the more sophisticated computer chips you want to make the more pure the silicon needs to be," Logan explained. "Getting 100% pure silicon as opposed to just 99.99999999% or whatever is incredibly energy intensive and time consuming, thus expensive. I imagine a lot of companies would be very interested in cheap source of completely pure silicon for manufacturing… well, manufacturing anything that uses high grade semiconductors, really."
"Yeah?" asked Vincent, eyebrows raised. "If it's that valuable why would the Capellans just abandon the planet?"
"Probably because to an economy the size of the Capellan Confederation, the savings would not be worth the hassle. Every planet with some basic industry, even ours, can refine silicon even if it does cost more," Logan said with a frown. "However, by the sound of things I doubt this Kingston character gave up a life of piracy to go into mining."
"No," said Scipio with a shake of his head. "Keeping costs down is how he makes a profit selling his refined silicon to entities… willing to look the other way. And the biggest cost in that type of operation is the workforce. Being a pirate allows him access to a theoretically limitless conveniently cheap source of labor."
Vincent's eyes widened. "Oh shit. You can't mean-"
"Slaves," snarled Logan, earning a few bewildered looks at the sudden venom in her voice and the hate on her face.
Scipio cleared his throat after a few tense seconds. "Ah, yes, yes, that is correct. At the time I received this information Kingston was keeping just over two hundred slaves working in his silicon mine."
"At the time you received it?" asked Vincent. "How long ago was this?" "A bit over eleven months now."
"Eleven months?" Logan asked, her tone a bit incredulous. "And what? You've just been sitting on this information for a whole year?"
"Not at all," said Scipio with a sad shake of his head. "Despite what you may think of me I, too, abhor slavery. It is a plague that has infected our species since the beginning of time. And I did begin to put out feelers to find a group or person who might be both capable and interested in doing something about this situation almost as soon I learned of it. But, well… Do you want to take a wild guess as to what the universal response was?"
Logan squeezed her fists hard enough that her knuckles popped. She could hear her blood rushing in her ears. "No one who could do something about it was interested in taking any kind of action."
Scipio shook his head. "Not one. Not mercenary groups. Not local governments. Not any of the big corporations or wealthy merchants or industrialists who populate this region of space. Even our local militia was uninterested in taking action. They simply said that it was simply 'not their concern.'"
"Shit," said Vincent with a frown. "No wonder this whole region of space is a giant shithole."
"To be fair, I think some of them wanted to help," said Scipio. "But this isn't some tiny undefended outpost. My intel puts the forces Kingston has there at over a hundred pirates, a handful of Scorpion tanks and a full lance of 'Mechs. A medium and three lights. The only guaranteed thing of value on that rock apart from silicon is, maybe, their DropShip, but the prospect of successfully capturing a DropShip is dicey at best. And who knows how the situation on the ground has changed after a whole year at this point? For most the cost/benefit analysis says hitting Tincalunas just isn't worth it. If I'd known how difficult finding someone willing to take out a group of slaving pirates really would be, I doubt I would have agreed to that as the price for the informant's intel."
"You're not really doing a good job on selling us to hit this place for you, Scipio," said Vincent wryly.
"It wouldn't be for me, since I'm not paying you a penny," said Scipio with a strained smile. "I'm just trying to uphold my end of a bargain. No, the one you would need to do this for would be for yourselves and for your own conscience. And for whatever valuables you might be able to liberate from that rock, which does include a sizable DropShip and exclusive 'rights' to any salvage. And to liberate the slaves too, of course. I'm guessing that would be important to virtuous folk such as yourselves."
Logan, in her heart of hearts, hated pirates. But surprisingly it was her memories of 21st century Logan that most stoked her hatred for the very concept of slavery. Out there in the Rimward Periphery slavery was so common as to be semi-accepted as an inevitable part of life even by those who hated it. Now Logan with her new memories couldn't even manage a resigned acceptance for the practice. Instead the very idea of slavery caused such instinctual revulsion that she could never see herself once again becoming merely resigned and apathetic to it's existence.
So a group of both pirates and slavers at the same time? That was an easy choice to make.
"Give us every last bit of information you have," Logan said, death in her eyes. "You can rest easy that you settled your debt, Scipio. We'll take care of this pirate problem."
On behalf of her new command, she had just accepted their first mission.
Chapter Note[]
- Note from the Author
- So, I want to state that I am an amateur writer. As such I'm still feeling out how to tell this story in the best way possible. The first five chapters I started writing in the first person point of view. However, after much reflection on the story I want to tell and where it is going, I came to the conclusion that this story would be much better served written from a limited third person point of view. As such from this point forward this story will be written in the third person. I hope this isn't too jarring for anyone and that readers will find the story works better this way.
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