Incoming Transmission
To: Office of the Gottkanzler, New Berlin
From: The Director, Search/Destroy Agency, New London
Subject: Future Role of the Bounty Hunters Guild in Rheinland
Priority: Highest
Message reads:
Formally and belatedly, greetings from New London on behalf of myself and my associates. It has been too long indeed indeed since I was in the Rheinland. Those New Berlin winters are perhaps too severe for a man of my years to consider a personal visit at present, but I digress.
I seek a meeting to discuss Rheinland's policy with regard to the Sirius Bounty Hunters' Guild.
I would hope from this to come to understand the reasons behind Rheinland's resistance to an organisation that could perhaps offer so much to both the government and people of Rheinland.
Incoming Transmission
To: Search/Destroy Agency, New London
From: Admiral Hans Krieger, Rheinland Kriegsmarine, New Berlin
Re: Future Role of the Bounty Hunters Guild in Rheinland
Message begins
Guten Tag, Herr Direktor.
This is Grossadmiral Krieger of the Rheinland Kriegsmarine. As representative of the office of the Gottkanzler for matters of national security, the Rheinwehr Oberkommando (RMHC) will deal directly with any representative of the Bounty Hunters Guild.
Your request for a meeting is accepted, Herr Direktor. I trust you will find the climate at Planet Baden Baden more tolerable.
Incoming Transmission
To: Grossadmiral Krieger, Rheinwehr Oberkommando (RMHC).
From: The Director, Search/Destroy Agency, New London
Subject: Future Role of the Bounty Hunters Guild in Rheinland
Priority: Highest
Message reads:
Greetings Grossadmiral. I have arranged a conference venue on Planet Baden-Baden (data enclosed). I estimate my transport will arrive there within forty-eight hours.
The Orbital Spa and Cruise Resort, Planet Baden-Baden, Stuttgart System, Rheinland.
The blazing sun beat down on the smooth rocks of the cliff side. The crisp seaweed pushed onto the rocks by the waves, lay baking baking at the sea's edge, occasionally moving with the tide. A clear sea of purest azure rattled the tiny pebbles embedded in the black sand.
A cool breeze blew gently across the bar's veranda. The resort is one of Orbital's finest, and most expensive. It normally takes up to three years to reserve a room here.
The Director wiped the sweat from his forehead and took a sip from his drink.
"Grossadmiral Krieger, I want to thank you for meeting me here."
He sat back.
" I will speak frankly. i know as well as you that this all around us is no true reflection of the world we live in. Our world, the real world, is falling apart."
"Crime is spiralling to a level that is unparalled in our history. Even the House systems are threatened by the worst miscreants one would normally expect to encounter on only the most remote and uncivilised of planets. These vile scum murder, rape, enslave, traffic in substances that destroy lives, plot against governments and have no regard for human life."
"To add to this dire situation, private security companies have been appearing left, right and centre. They are typically little more than armed mobs and vigilantes who engage in shameful and almost criminal activities, and all too often leave as much destruction in their wake as the criminals they purport to target. They show little regard for the forces of law and order and frequently disrupt traffic and trade."
"Throughout the Houses this has had dire consequences for the decent and hard-working citizens who labour to earn money to raise their children and build this fine civilisation we share."
"Now Grossadmiral, in my experience it is better to know some of the questions than all of the answers. "
"How did this dire situation come about?"
"How are pirates able to organise and co-ordinate such well-planned raids?"
"Why have so many pirates become adept at disbaling large combat vessels?"
"How is it that despite the many individual combat ships that proclaim to police the trade lanes, the pirate menace endures?"
"And in the face of all this, why do the lawful forces of the Rheinland demonstrate such reluctance to call on the assistance of the Guild to aid in restoring law and order to our world?"
Grossadmiral Krieger sat across from the director with his legs crossed and hands gathered in front of him. He had a serene yet attentive expression on his face. In a military organisation which was probably the sternest in all Sirius, it was inescapably unsettling to reconcile the concept of a young man, as Krieger was, occupying such a position of power. One would expect a much older man or woman, with at least Krieger's age worth of field experience, to stand as one of the leaders of the famed Rheinland Kriegsmarine. Still, the young man wore the decorated Grossadmiral uniform without the slightest sign of self-consciousness; as if it was only fitting for him to wear that uniform.
"The answers to your questions, Herr Direktor, can all be gathered from your own initial speech."
Krieger picked up the single manilla file he had brought with him and had left to rest over the coffee table in between them. He opened up the file over his lap and started flipping the papers nonchalantly.
"From the information we have gathered about yours and your company's trajectory so far, Herr Direktor, I trust you to be very well acquainted with the answers to your questions already. As my father would say: "you are asking questions to which you already have the answer". Not only that, I also trust you to have both a very good idea as to what are our governments perspectives regarding those issues and some well fundamented arguments to support your own perspectives. You mean to expose them to me here today."
The military man punctuated his sentence by closing the file, which he put it back over the coffee table. For a split second, Krieger's eyes drifted towards Baden Baden's golden horizon.
"Regardless of that, Herr Direktor, I will entertain this conversation. There is a reason why I accepted to see you here today." The Admiral sat back and re-assumed his relaxed position.
"First of all, let me say that I agree with your assessment of our current predicament. Though I understand this not to be a privilege of Rheinland, criminality within our borders has indeed spiralled to such levels our forces have their hands full withstanding the threats inside our space. So much that we have to spread thin if we are to occupy ourselves of safeguarding our interests against threats from without as well. Today, even the civilian type groups as the Bundschuh and the Landwirtrechtbewegung have demonstrated the capacity to challenge not only our police, but also our military forces. Last year the never ending war between the Red Hessians and the Corsairs, that was so far restricted to the Omicrons, have spilt blood inside our territory. The Corsairs were bold enough to launch a military campaign against the Hessians that directly threatened Rheinland. So much that we had to intervene."
"It is true that we could benefit from the support of an organization whose actions were not limited by jurisdiction and that could afford to patrol the less monitored areas, which are used by the criminals to stage attacks against the citizenry and our forces. Unfortunately, the term "organization" hardly ever applies to the Bounty Hunters Guild. Up until now, the Guild is yet to demonstrate itself as a private initiative that will work with the government. On the contrary; so far, Guild members have almost exclusively acted regardless of House authority, quite frequently configuring part of our problems."
"I'm sure you understand, Herr Direktor, that criminality control and law enforcement are as much political aspects as any other. Regardless of the martial implications of such matters; for a government to properly function, such aspects must be handled with due process. Considering that, no sane administration will ever condone a kind of activity that can only be described as vigilantism. For an agency that claims to be engaged in supporting House authorities in enforcing their laws, ignorance and, even worst, non-observance of those governments' specific regulations is completely unacceptable."
"Right now, a considerable part of the Bounty Hunters Guild can hardly even be distinguished from the criminals they pursue, such is their disregard for local authority. Yet, for some reason, those same individuals presume we should be thankful of their "efforts". And here I was under the impression your kind was engaged in a business activity. No, Herr Direktor, right now the Guild doesn't appear to be the kind of organization that can be relied on to help uphold the law, let alone instil order, in Rheinland."
The Director was a little startled by Krieger's frank manner. He allowed himself a smile.
"A plain-speaking man you are, Herr Grossadmiral. It's refreshing to think that that I won't have to waste my time with you."
"The Guild is a curious beast. Its structure is a relic from old Earth's ancient past when Guilds were loose confraternities of craftsmen united by a common profession. The Guild, our Guild, has never progressed beyond this simple a level in Sirius. Perhaps it is still in its infancy. Perhaps it has lacked a steady hand to guide and foster growth and maturation. However it is changing. It must adapt or die. History tells us that."
He took a drink.
"I am not interested in tradition and history out of some idle whim. Tradition and history offer us an insight into our own futures. So when I tell you that the history of guilds is of interest in solving our present problem, you can be certain that I am not merely killing an afternoon."
"In ancient times, a truly successful and reputable guild was offered letters patent, usually from a monarch, and held a monopoly in the town in which it operated: other craftsmen were forbidden by law to run any business if they were not members of a guild, and only master craftsmen were allowed to be members of a guild. Now, more importantly, the town authorities were represented in the guild meetings and had a direct means of controlling the guild's activities."
"This was important since towns very often depended on a good reputation for export of a narrow range of products, on which not only the guild's, but the town's, reputation depended."
A wry smile crossed the Director's face as he gestured at the folder that Krieger had produced.
"I don't know how much you know about us. I do, however, care. To disregard what the world thinks of us is not only arrogant but utterly shameless. "
He sat forward, and the smile had gone.
"I am no stranger to military life. Nor am I a stranger to things such as discipine, protocol and order. Qualis dominus, talis et servus. As is the master, so is the slave. I have a distinct preference for a military background when I employ my operatives. When I give orders, they are followed. I and my employees may be a part of a confraternity, but our structure is para-military. Our agency is composed of professionals, and is managed by former police officers and military personnel."
He sat back and took another sip of his drink.
"As for being master craftsmen: well, one doesn't like to blow one's own trumpet but anything I tell you now, you probably already know. We are equipped with both the means and, more importantly, the knowledge to hunt the criminals and take the battle to them in a manner these amateur security companies cannot. Our fighters are fast and agile and capable of ambushing and intercepting them in the asteroid fields they use as cover. We hit them when they don't expect it, disrupting their organisation and planning. We are pro-active; we hunt; we learn; we finish what we start and we are single-minded in the pursuance of our objectives."
The Director reached into his bag and produced a folder.
"This is the sum of our data on our activities in Liberty and Bretonia. As you can see, we continue to work closely with the Police authorities in both Houses. We have routed pirate incursions into centres of manufacturing, intercepted contraband on borders and ambushed pirate gangs in the early stages of their activities."
"Without a close working relationship with the authorities of the Houses, we simply cease to be. It is such a relationship I envisage us having with Rheinland. You can see I have also enclosed our personnel files. Certainly, many of my men have walked a different path to you and me, but an amnesty is an amnesty, and they are loyal to me as any soldier is to a trusted commander."
"This is what I propose: I will offer my own personal experience in assisting to establish a permit system for those willing to provide security services for the benefit of Rheinland's lawful forces and corporations for a reasonable fee. I will assist the lawful authorities in Rheinland with establishing a network by which this contract system may be managed. I have specialists who have worked in Liberty and Bretonia with the police authorities who can be made available as consultants to help in drafting the agreements with regard to jurisdiction. Certainly the demands on fuel and so forth will have to be taken into account. A massive influx of start-up security firms could deplete Rheinland's fuel reserves if not carefully managed."
"Whatever other aspects of the negotiation may be required I will leave entirely up to you. If you wish to have a member of your staff present at our next agency meeting to observe how we run our business, then I will accomodate it. We are, after all, on the same side, are we not?"
Krieger skimmed through the contents of the folder the other man had produced and then picked up the manilla file again.
"You needn't worry about the contents of this file, Herr Direktor." Krieger tapped it lightly, "What I have here is merely some background work on your organisation, yourself and some of your key employees. As for the thoroughness of these reports, let's just say that whatever shadier details I might have found in them weren't enough to eclipse the fact that your organisation has managed to set itself apart from the gross part of the Guild. Allow me to congratulate you at that. It's a remarkable accomplishment in itself."
"As I have mentioned before, there is a reason why I have agreed to meet you here today. Most of it is due to what I have read in these reports. So I apologize if I have stricken you as uninterested in the folder you have presented me, but I have already got the unembellished version of the facts and numbers stated there from my own sources."
Krieger produced a small buttoned device from his jacket's pocket and pressed one of the buttons. Not two seconds later the Admiral's aide entered the room carrying another file. This new file was very different from the one Krieger had brought with himself and which was handed to his aide along with the folder the Director had given him. Krieger picked up the new file and dismissed his aide, "Vielen Danke, Herr Klein. I'll call you back if need be."
"Herr Direktor, much more than your pilots' exploits, but your approach to the business and specially your posture towards House governments is what got me interested in your agency." Krieger offered the new file to the Director. This one was grey coloured and had Rheinland's flag decorating the cover. "For some time now our government has been entertaining the idea of making room for the Guild inside our borders. By "making room", I mean implementing an official bounty board financed by the government. In this file I have just handed you, you'll find the basic description of what we have in mind for that along with some new regulations that will concern and apply to the Guild."
Krieger shifted in his chair and crossed his legs again as the Director studied the document, "Currently your organisation's operation standards are what best represent the role we had envisioned for the Bounty Hunters Guild in Rheinland's space. We want to employ you, Herr Direktor, as a consultant and a facilitator towards the Guild and its members during the implementation of this board. As a compensation for that, we are willing to offer your agency a bonus over all rewards we come to offer."
Aboard the Provider on the route back to Bretonian space, the Director thumbed through the file Krieger had handed him. The story was the same anywhere in Sirius: disgruntled farmers and miners driven to desperation; annoyance at foreign influences; a vast and powerful military enaged in a perpetual war on all fronts
But this was an opportunity unlike any other, and a whole re-structuring of the Agency 's command structure was likely to be put in place within weeks to accomodate the expansion.
He read the synopsis of criminal activity attached to the file.
Quote:Piracy against transport vessels is a significant issue particularly in the trade route between New Berlin and Kusari space and in the Omega route to Bretonia. Both routes are used by over 50,000 commercial ships a month. Rising tensions between the Rheinland and Liberty regimes mean that the route via Bering and Hudson to Texas is quickly becoming a focal point for black-market smugglers.
The pirates seem to favor small ships to take advantage of the small crew numbers on cargo vessels but also use large vessels to supply the smaller attack/boarding vessels. The sheer volume of traffic alone means that many trade ships have to lower cruising speeds to allow for navigation and traffic control, making them prime targets for piracy. Small ships are also capable of disguising themselves as mining vessels or cargo vessels when not carrying out piracy in order to avoid or deceive long range scans.
Also, pirates often operate remote bases for re-fuelling and re-supply and as distribution points for stolen cargo, and seem to to evade capture by moving through areas beyond the navigation capabilities of local military and law enforcement. Most pirates are linked with organized-crime syndicates, but often are parts of small individual groups. Pirate attack crews may consist of 4 to 10 sailors for going after a ship's safe (raiding) or up to 70 (depending entirely on the ships and the ships crew size) if the plan is to seize the whole vessel.
Records indicate hostage-taking is increasingly perpetrated against civilians, and murder and extortion is also common. Drug trafficking is strangely almost non-existent. In some cases, pirates are not interested in the cargo and are mainly interested in taking the personal belongings of the crew and the contents of the ship's safe, which might contain large amounts of cash needed for payroll and port fees. In other cases, the pirates force the crew off the ship and then sail it to a port to be repainted and given a new identity through false papers often purchased from corrupt or complicit officials.
He lit a cigar. There was much to be done. New pilots to train, new ships to be built. Rheinland was going to be a challenge on all fronts. There would be losses. People would die.
He slept for the rest of the flight.
Back on the Doghouse, the arrangements for a special meeting of the Board were already underway. Harvey arrived from Sheffield.
"Well, good news?"
"Certainly, Harv'. We are now in the initial stages of being licensed to operate in Rheinland. I'll be moving to Rheinland for some time, so I want you to take over the running of the Doghouse. We better find a replacement for you over at the Sheffield Office."
"You? Move to Rheinland? You do remember what the weather is like on New Berlin, don't you?"
The Director smiled.
"Good point, Harv'. Say, have you ever been to Baden-Baden?"
He turned to the map of Sirius projected onto the wall.
"Three down, one to go, Harv'. Hmm, how well do you speak Kusari?"
When Brian entered with the contract sheets for signing, the two men were in near tears of laughter.
Incoming Transmission
To: Search/Destroy Agency, New London
From: Kanzler Reinhardt, New Berlin
Subject: Rheinland Military Bounty Coordination Office
Message begins
Guten tag, Herr Direktor.
Herr Krieger has told me about his meeting with you in the not so distant past, and progress made in said meeting. His discussions with me have led to the creation of new legislation legalizing the Bounty Hunter's Guild and Search and Destroy Agency in Rheinland, so long as you follow certain guidelines. Naturally, your warships are not welcome in Rheinland, but I doubt that is a problem we will have with the Agency.
I am pleased to personally inform you that we have officially opened a Bounty Coordination Office here in Rheinland, and that the Search and Destroy Agency is welcome within Rheinland Borders. And you will be glad to hear that I have personally ensured your members will receive slightly better pay-offs than the usual hunters.
I am appreciative of your cooperation with us, for we were able to come to an agreement for the betterment of Rheinland as a whole. For more information, please take a look at our announcement of updated legislation here, and or contact our office here. Of course, feel free to return this message at your earliest convenience if you have any questions at all. Either my secretary will take care of your, or I will.
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