Journal des boucaniers

[StellarViss]

Today was quite eventful. While my crew and I were lying low after hitting that gold shipment in New London, the Sigmas flared up—more so than usual—due to artifact smugglers. After meeting with a questionable man from Liberty and his friend, we decided to target those juicy shipments ourselves. It didn’t go as planned. I managed to find one of the transports alone, but that quickly changed when its escorts showed up. Luckily for me, they were willing to hire some extra protection. I sat back, thinking it’d be a standard escorting job—did plenty of that back in the Royal Police—but that went out the window fast. A group of Blood Dragons and GMG ships ambushed the convoy. What was even stranger were my fellow escorts; they ranged from other Hogosha to Corsairs, and even the Kusari Intelligence made an appearance to defend the convoy. I’d say my crew acted courageously, chasing away multiple attackers who were after the cargo. That lasted a while until the frigate we were protecting finally gave up under the brutal assault. After it blew up, we, aboard the Filiard-des-Dac, having a entrepreneurial mindsetwe, took the cargo, thinking we could sell it either to the Hogosha or their pursuers. To the higher bidder as they say. Having fulfilled our escorting obligation, we pulled out of the battle with our ship intact. After making it back to safety, deep inside crow, comes my favorite part—counting the spoils. We’ve got the initial one hundred thousand credits as our escort fee and the cargo filled with Artifacts but it’s way f-ing hot. The artifacts I grabbed aren’t just wanted by the Hogosha and the Spooks; I even saw Order ships flying around. This is beyond the usual gold or cardamine smuggling. What we’ve got here has every major power in the Sigmas stirred up. I dread to think what would happen if this was turned into an auction as originally planned. Maybe I should hand it over to the Kusari authorities? But knowing how the GRI used handles these cases, we’d likely end up dead. The bridge with the Blood Dragons and the Order is already burnt having attacked and possibly killed some of theirs. The most drastic option is to dump the cargo and run to the Omegas, though I’m not sure how the crew would feel about that. I’ve led a mutiny twice before, and know how to smell a reason to start one. The best option might be to lay low and reach out to groups not involved in this mess. Liberty could be interested in these artifacts, considering their sudden corporate presence in the Sigmas. Maybe I could stop one of those corp ships and have them send a message to their government? Then again, Rheinland is just one system away, and their spooks might want a piece of this. Though, I could listen to the remnants of my patriotism and call up the GNI—they didn’t kill me last time I crossed paths with them. For now, though, we’ll hide out in the Crow, and I’ll start searching for the right buyer.