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Thread: [M] TradeHard, an Adventure of Exploration and Trade.... In SPAAAACE!

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    Default [M] TradeHard, an Adventure of Exploration and Trade.... In SPAAAACE!

    [Rated M for the Four Horsemen of Violence, Sex, Adult Language, and Drugs]

    (Co post between Holeypaladin & Enigma)

    Capt. Skia Kerssi pressed the annunciation button for the owner's quarters, and waited.


    A short time later, the voice of the male financial director who called himself John Smith replied, "Captain. Come in." The door to his quarters soon opened, to reveal a rather modest room not all that unlike the rooms for most of the other crew members aboard the Trade Federation light freighter Spice of Life. Mr. Smith saw no point in flaunting needless luxury, as the fact that the ship itself was now his own personal property was enough.

    Currently, he had the room arranged into a sort of office, with the bed tucked away into its position on the side of the wall. He was sitting at a desk, and his eyes glanced up at the tall, slender woman who was in charge of running the ship. "Feel free to take a seat," he remarked, gesturing to a chair on the opposite end of the desk. "I'm sure you have questions, and things you need to know in order to do your job. Feel free to ask what's on your mind, and I'll fill you in on the rest."

    "Thank you, sir," Skia said, taking the offered seat. "I came aboard with the other replacements, who are currently being settled, while the last of the departing crew are already headed back to the station. In one hour's time, I've asked that the crew who are not on duty meet in the mess hall. Will you be present?"

    As the captain sat down, John Smith sized her up, taking into account his impression of the woman. She gave off an aura of military courtesy, which was something he was familiar with, although more common aboard military vessels than civilian ones like this. Thinking over her question briefly, he gave a shrug. "I don't see why not..." he remarked. "It couldn't hurt to see what kind of crew you run." While he wasn't interested in making friends, having an impression of the ship's crew was important.

    "It's my understanding that Cargo Hold 5 is to be secured, nor does any cargo it contains appear on the manifest. This may be a problem for any customs officials who board us, but I have your assurances that whatever is in that hold is not a hazard to this ship or this crew, and does not contain any contraband? In which case, I need only to know its mass and that it is properly secured."

    "Additional security was requested, however all I was able to find was SecBorgs. They're synthetic life forms, part machine, part cloned organic material. They're being uncrated now in the auxiliary hold immediately adjacent to Cargo Hold 5, including four repair stations and four SecBorg monitoring consoles. Would you like a monitoring console installed here?"

    The captain was getting straight to business. This was something that John Smith particularly liked about the woman. She had some important matters to discuss, and asked them directly, without beating around the bush. As he listened to her words, he gave an occasional nod to confirm that he understood.

    "That is correct," he said. "Cargo Hold 5 is off limits to the crew, and to everyone aside from myself. I understand the need to know the mass of its contents, but I'll also need you to exercise discretion in concealing these figures from customs officials along with the rest of the crew... through use of artificial gravity systems to compensate for the mass, if necessary."

    "The mass of my personal belongings that are to be held in Cargo Hold 5 adds up to 14,454 tons," he stated a somewhat staggering figure in the upward range of what the hold was designed to carry fully loaded with dense cargo such as ore and machinery. He considered offering her additional rewards for discrepancy, but her record indicated that she was too honest to ignore such suspicious behavior. So long as she knew it was his own personal effects, the excessive mass of his belongings shouldn't be too suspicious... hopefully. "And you can install that monitoring console for the SecBorgs here, yes."

    "I'll put in the work order myself. I'm sure we can have it done after the meeting?" Captain Kerssi nodded. He hadn't tried to bribe her about whatever he had in the cargo hold, so it was most likely what he claimed, personal belongings. A lot of personal belongings.

    The former captain's idea was that Mr. Smith was shipping a starter colony with a robotic workforce, autofacs, generators, uterine replicators and fertilized ovum - everything you need to start a private paradise.

    Judging by his appearance and this modest cabin, she'd have him down as a monk, shipping bound books in vacuum to preserve them. He must do a lot of reading. But that would still leave room for the starter colony.

    "Is there anything else, sir?" she asked.


    The financial director nodded at the words of the captain. "There's no rush, so it can wait until after the meeting," he remarked. So far she hadn't given him any reaction to indicate suspicion regarding what he had in the cargo hold, though her honesty could prove a liability should she begin to suspect him of smuggling. Virtually all of the rich investors of the Trade Federation were involved in shady business... black market occasionally, with a huge amount of grey maket investment being common among the cutthroat capitalists. He imagined Kerssi's honesty could prove difficult for many of them, and while he respected it on some level... his own business was of the sort that couldn't be easily compromised, so he would need to come up with a better excuse for why his property was sealed and off limits.

    At her question, he gave a nod. "Some information regarding our course of action," he said to her. "I'll have it sent to our personal work station for review and leave the final decision to you. From the factory world of Jody III, we'll be purchasing either farm equipment or mining equipment. Using your negotiator, obtain the best deal that you can on high quality, reasonably priced equipment."

    "Should you find the farming equipment to be the better deal, we'll then set course for the agriculture colony of Sorett II, where we will be selling the farming equipment and purchasing textiles for delivery to the refactory in the Hist system. We'll then be selling the textiles and purchasing luxury clothing for delivery to the population center on Klarm III."

    "If the mining equipment is the better deal, we'll ship it off to the mining colony in the Joli system, and them purchasing ore to delivery to the refinery in the Flarg system. In Flarg we'd be picking up refined goods to deliver to Klarm III. Regardless which route we take, there are three systems along the way that I'll want to stop and survey. I took the liberty of having the Spice of Life upgraded with planetary survey equipment, in order to search for some potential planets that can support life. There's always a market for such data, so consider it a bonus objective in addition to our primary trade route."

    Skia nodded. From the prior course, he seemed to be an honest trader, going where the jobs were. And an order like that? Not likely to be smuggling anything, but at some point some customs official was going to want to look in that hold irregardless. Hopefully the idiot would have his hand out, she hated all the fuss that followed when one of the honest ones started making a stink.

    "When the SecBorgs are up, I'll assign a rotating watch on Cargo Hold 5, keyed to admit you only."

    All of his personal records indicated that John Smith was an upstanding citizen, though he had purposefully selected systems with rather lax customs regulations as his destinations along the spinward trade route. The less suspicious the cargo looked, the better, as far as he was concerned. The last thing he needed was someone inspecting his personal belongings and finding it too valuable not to seize.

    "Good," he said with a nod to the captain as she mentioned the SecBorgs. Though he wasn't impressed by their level of technology, using cybernetic enhancements to humanoid tissue, all the man really needed was something that was efficient enough and good at following his own personal orders. "That's all I really had for you at the moment, Captain. I'll let you know if I have anything else, but the ship is yours to run as you see fit, and crew selections are yours to make. If you don't have much else for me at the moment, you can head over to your meeting and I'll be around soon to introduce myself to the crew."

    "Thank you, sir," Skia nodded. Rising from her seat, she left the compartment.


    --------------------------------------------------

    "At 1600 hours, all crew not at your stations will report to the mess decks."
    Hearing this ship-wide message, John Smith told the voice in his head to remind him to arrive at the meeting at around 1605, in order to give the Captain sufficient time to prepare the crew with introductions prior to his arrival. In the meantime, he worked on compiling his own report of his journey so far.
    Last edited by Holeypaladin; 08-05-2018 at 12:58 AM.

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    Fluke stood in the doorframe of the messhall, sports bag beside her. She'd just boarded a few hours ago, on some spacestation. It had been a long journey; from her escape at the battlefield of Tar Nazar to the combat sport arena on Pentrica to make enough coin to push on. She would have stayed were it not for her disqualification from the tactical league for use of excessive violence.

    She smelled like an odor of sweat and blood coming from her weeks-not-washed combat suit and had a just-dried cut on her forehead beneath her black, short and wild pixie cut. She seemed both calm and slightly irritated.

    Oh, and how she hated the thought of soliciting someone for a spot on a ship. Asskissing and discussing her history were two of Fluke's least favorite things. Couldn't they just bring her aboard, assign her a post and shut up? Ugh.

    Her slightly irritated face morphed into a serious frown. Life did suck, but she was happy to be even further away from the past bloodbaths. Let's hope she didn't bring another with her.
    Last edited by Q; 08-08-2018 at 10:09 AM.

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