//OOC: Please give me feedback in this thread: Feedback Thread. Anything would be nice, this is the first time in a while I am doing a extended storyline! Thank you! Or you can just add me on discord and give me some feedback there: "Wormwood_"
I should mention as well that each NEW character that is introduced (that matters) and we've seen their face in the story, will show up as a link to an image of them in their name!//
"Why was my nervous system on fire?", Sergei thought to himself as he looked up from the ground, into the barrel of a rifle, the holder, a dark skinned man with scraggly beard grinned at Sergei. “So, this is it, this is how I die.” Sergei closed his eyes, while his body calmed down and he accepted his ending. Then, the rifle clicked and Sergei, at the last moment leaned to the right as the shot passed by him and then came the low kick at the feet of the gun holder, he slammed into the ground and then found himself losing control of his weapon as Sergei grabbed it and turned it in hand to aim down at the f*cker who just tried to shoot him. “f*ck you. Idiot.” and then squeezed the trigger, blowing the head off the man he just ten minutes ago met.
Sergei got up, dusted himself off and pulled some pieces of brain matter off his shirt. And threw it down onto the headless asshole. He then checked the clip on his new wonderful piece of Rheinland engineering. “Twenty shots, good enough.”
He moved over to the door, put an ear against it, hearing some movement on the other side. “Of course they heard that.” he sighs and prepares to kill some more people. “Wait, is it Wednesday already?” Then elbowed the door panel and the door slid open, he took a quick glance into the room. There were three of them, two were looking at the other door and one reacted to the door by him opening. He leaned over and shot the one that was gawking him, direct hit to the chest, "f*ck yeah" and offloaded three more shots into the other two, falling like dominoes. He ran into the room, checking each corpse for weapons and ammo, finding a lovely pistol to add to his growing collection and not to mention a damn nice knife.
Then, of course, his mood was dampened with the sound of steel clad boots on the steel floor. “Probably more of their friends, wait.. What the f*ck was I doing here?” he finally realized he had no idea why he was here to start with. “f*ck, f*cking brain, not now!” he slaps the spot where his implant was a few times, all it did was hurting him. “f*ck.”. Then hearing voices in a very obvious Rheinland accent. "It's just one!" and he couldn't help but laugh, then picked up one of the free rifles on the ground, opening the magazine. “Standard energy rounds.” he then shoved the knife into the mag and waited for it to start to overload. He ran to the door and elbowed the panel and threw the rifle into the room and then, he of course hid around the corner until the rifle blew up in a loud ‘BOOM’, he chuckled and ran in, picking up mags and shooting the last guy by the door, his arm was burnt badly, so, of course, he was doing him a favor. Through three more doors and was facing a long hallway at the end, but he heard the familiar groan of a hangar, those Rheinland engines were hard to mistake for anything else. “Sh*tty f*cking….” he chuckled. “Ok, no no, they’re fine. Just loud..”. He fixed his clothes, grabbed a random hat and then walked into the hangar, casually, holding the rifle as any other Rheinland soldier. Then heI saw it, the most horrifying piece of engineering, an impounded Black Market Frigate. He idly strolled towards it, nodding slightly at each that passed him by.
Luck is on his side tonight as he walks onto the ground floor of the old rustbucket. “Oh my god, it’s fantastic.. ally ugly.” he chuckles and heads up to the bridge. Checking the systems he noticed that they had failed to lock it down or even remove the weapons. He grinned, wide and checked fuel and energy reserves, all were in green. He checked the area and the hangar through the sensors, there was a horrifying gunboat outside the hangar and at least one fighter in the hangar itself. He checked the weapons onboard, half charge in all turrets and.. Three out of six turrets were capable of aiming at the fighter. He made some calculations and entered a program for the ship. Then, he noticed through the cameras that soldiers had begun running towards the hallway he came from. “f*ck, time to go.” and started prewarming for engines and primary systems. That brought some attention from the hangar crew, but it was way too late to worry about all that.
As the frigate left the floor the turrets activated and blew that fighter up in a fireball of chaos. “And there are the alarms..” and he sighed as he exited the hangar, the gunboat now turning in space, gliding towards him, those lovely Rheinland engines thrusting away. “f*ck me.” as he engaged all turrets and aimed them at the gunboat. “I don’t have a chance with a f*cking gunboat”, he checked his other systems, noticing something.. “Cloak.. Well f*ck me.”, as the turrets engaged the gunboat he started to pull energy towards the cloak. “Give me time.” the turrets kept firing at that f*cking gunboat, surprisingly enough, the shield of the gunboat was down but he realised it was a losing battle as his own shields had been pounded to nothing. “f*ck, go go go, f*cking CLOAK!” and as the gunboat turned towards him fully showing all of it’s forward guns. Then, just as the guns fired, the frigate's cloak engaged, unfortunately the hits from the gunboat hit the frigate. “SH*T!” he engaged the cruise engines and headed off far from the hangar of.. “Where the f*ck am I?” , checking the maps he saw he was in New Berlin, he put through the coordinates for the nearest jump hole he knew. Meanwhile, the gunboat was firing at random, hoping to hit the Frigate. But, CRUISE mother f*cker.
After a while, Sergei found himself by the Dresden jump hole, heading to safer waters. “Now, only to get to Northeim and I am fine.” .
While traveling he sat down at the captain's chair and sighed, he hit the side of his head a few times “f*ck this implant.” Sergei knew he needed a full 100% medical check at the Hessians, they owe him for a lot of sh*t through the years but then again, he owed Heinrich a lot too... But, he won’t be heading back to the Coalition right now. Besides, he can't remember it all. “Why does everything need to be so f*cking complicated?” he thought as he drifted off for a bit.
Docking at Northeim was a battle in itself, as he got close he sent the code over direct communication, what came back was a hail. “F*ck.. Here we go again…” And tapped the comm panel. “Guten tag, Heinrich. Hope all is well?”, Sergei exclaimed with enough charisma it could buy a Kusari wh*re at a discount. The voice that came back over the channel was less appreciative. “Sergei.. I hope you bring the credits you owe me for the last time you ‘visited’ in a hurry. You have them, right?”- The man’s question turned into a weird threat at the end. Sergei chuckled into the channel. “Heinrich, Heinrich, whenever have I tricked you? Look, I don’t have any assets on me right now. But..” Heinrich stopped him before he could continue. “Nein! NEIN! Sergei! You either bring me the credits or I will tell the patrol that is coming to open fire on your ship!”. Sergei sighed hard and nodded a few times. “Fine, I have this lovely frigate here.. It’s worth way more than what I owe you, how about.. We trade? You give me a fighter or a freighter and you get this beauty in return, ja? Sounds good, comrade?” Heinrich was silent on the other end for a few minutes before he responded. “You can dock, ‘comrade’ and then we talk, ja?” and with that the All Clear signal came through and minutes later, Sergei had docked with Northeim.
Sergei grabbed the stuff he actually wanted to keep, the weapons, ammo and a few knicknacks he found onboard. He casually exited the Frigate, meeting with the man named Heinrich, a Red Hessian lower administrator of Northeim, nothing big, but big enough for Sergei to barter with and get some help. Hopefully. “Heinrich. Look, this is a fine ship, f*ck, it’s a great ship.” Sergei offered the best smile he could muster. Heinrich on the other hand, he just stared at Sergei. “Where did you get it?”. Sergei sighed out long and hard. “Navy Impound. New Berlin.”. Heinrich looked up at the ship itself and Sergei wasn’t wrong, it was a great ship, well worth more than the four hundred thousand he owed Heinrich.
“Fine, It covers your debt, I will clear it with the others.” he sighs and rubs the back of his head and motions to Sergei to follow him, which he did. “How did you end up in a navy impound, Sergei?”. Sergei chuckled a little. “To be honest, I'm not sure, implant is on the fritz.” Heinrich looked behind him. “I’ve told you to have it checked out.”. Sergei shrugged and continued walking.“I know it’s important, from..”. Heinrich nodded. “From being in the Coalition, yeah?”. Sergei nodded. “I’ve tried to get the backup up and running, even got my hands on some old Zoner tech that would help fix it or at least.. Well, anything.”. It’s true that Sergei had done a lot of sh*t to get his old database back from his days as Commissar in the SCRA. It’s not like he doesn’t remember anything, he knows a lot, but he has no idea what happened to him around at the end of when Katz was head honcho. It’s all cloudy for him, he remembers that he went deep undercover and that required him to get some things f*cked in his head. The Implant was supposed to help him remember things a lot clearer and allow him to transfer and copy data from his memories to an external storage device. But, of course, something happened and he ended up in a psych ward in Rheinland.
“Yeah, I get that Sergei, but. We both know you have a Coalition history, why not go to them?” Heinrich asked, with almost pity in his words. “F*ck you..” Sergei thought to himself. “I have been there, once.” He admitted. “It felt like.. Being home and not at the same time?” Sergei shrugged and Heinrich chuckled. “I get it. I know you also do not tell anyone the full truth." They rounded a corridor and Heinrich led them into his office, sitting down on the other side of the table and nodding at the free chair in front of him. Sergei took a seat and let out a sigh of relief. “So.. What’s your next move, ‘comrade’.” Heinrich grinned at Sergei, who sighed again in annoyance. “Not sure, not even sure what I was doing before the impound. Remember I was at Kreuzberg doing some business with a Junker named Jack, he had some leads on some interesting tech they found out in the Omicrons. But that was.. Months ago.”
Heinrich nodded at that and as Sergei was about to talk he pulled out two glasses and a bottle from a drawer and filled the glasses up. “What’s the last thing after that you remember?”. Sergei took the glass and downed it, whiskey, cheap Molly whiskey at that. “Gun to my face, accepting death and then killing a few navy guys and then, well here I am.” he shrugs and puts the glass down onto the table, Heinrich fills it up again. “How many did you kill? Cause that might end up with you on a wanted poster, especially if you got caught on camera.” Heinrich downed his own glass and refilled it as well. Then Sergei said with a grin. “It’s fine, will just have to pay off the bounty or something.. Or, you know, get a new ship with a new transponder?” He winked at Heinrich, who just groaned. “Ja, ja. We’ll get you something.”. Sergei smiled and nodded. “Danke, Heinrich, I owe you one. And look, I did finally pay you back? Right?”. Heinrich sighed and shook his head. “Look, take the frigate, we’ll get new paint, transponder and such. You instead do a few jobs for me and the Hessians, we’ll call it even. Ok?”. Sergei just stared at him for a while. “But why? You could get it all now?”. Heinrich shook his head. “Look, I need a freelancer for some drops in Bretonia and Liberty. I know you might get some attention with that frigate in general, but, just a freelancer, trading some general wares, it should be fine.”. Sergei raised an eyebrow at Heinrich. “And what am I dropping off then? If I am carrying other goods?”. Heinrich waved hand at him. “Nothing that shows up on scans, just a number of storage devices and a collection of pads. They’ll all be marked and the payments have been transferred, all you need to do is get to Dublin and then Rochester and meet these specific people and give them their items. That's all.” Sergei did not buy it and squinted. “And on the way back?”. Heinrich chuckled and nodded. “You’ll get some sealed communications that I need back as soon as possible, for the movement. See, nothing too big or dangerous. But, I don’t trust most other freelancers that are around, so. Why not use you?”.
Sergei accepted this. “Sure, sure, thanks for all the help, but this isn’t enough to pay yo-”. Heinrich shakes his head. “The deal is, you do this and maybe a few other jobs for the cause as a Freelancer and the debt is paid in full. And.. I’ll send the word out to look for some people that can help with your implant, ja?”. Sergei froze, he couldn't believe what Heinrich was doing for him. “Danke.” is all he managed to get out and he downed the whiskey again. Heinrich nodded then he clicked a comm panel. “Sven, get Anna and get started on the Frigate attached to port Two right away, transponder and ID to Freelancer and..” He then looked at Sergei. “Name?”. Sergei quirks an eyebrow and thinks for a moment. “Lindwyrm. That works.” Heinrich chuckled and said. “Change the Transponder name to Lindwyrm, then take a look at the rest of the equipment and change what you feel is bad enough.”. There was a small pause and probably Sven said. “Alright, we’ll get on it. Will take a few hours though.” and Heinrich nodded. “It’s fine, tell me when it’s ready.” then clicked off the comm again and looked at Sergei. “How about you grab a cot in the crew quarters and get some sleep?”. Sergei got up, nodded and then offered his hand to Heinrich. “Danke, really. I’ll get to work when the ship is up and running.”. Heinrich smiled and sat down to continue to work.
Sergei took a last look in the office before heading to the crew quarters. So, it would seem that he had something to do with his time from now on, well, again. Maybe even will get some information on fixing his f*cking implant. Then he found a free cot and crashed hard.
Flash of red and the sensation of pain hit him like a brick, he found himself kneeled on the deck in a room whose only lighting was that of screens on the sides. Sergei knew this room. He looked around, then noticed there was someone else in the room, he was young, short hair, damn good looking, dressed in a Coalition Commissar uniform, watching a monitor and idly tapping a pad in his hand. Sergei looked upon his former self, the man he once was. He remembered he took the name of ‘Rasputin’, after the Old Earth Legend of the man that was a mystic and close with Nicholas II. It was a whole thing, he was so proud of being with his people after running away from Bretonia and he took on the name of Ivan Rasputin. What a f*cking jerk. Well, here he was. Who he used to be. And in his deepest desires, wished to be again. But, then, he had to change and go away, far away, a new face, new identity. Rasputin looked at the screen for a while longer, then a ding was heard and he checked a communicator, Sergei could hardly hear what was said, but he recognised the voice itself. Katz.
SLAM! “Urgh..”, Sergei felt himself hit the floor in his bunk on the Lindwyrm, his new wonderful ship. He got up and rubbed his forehead and sighed. Then dragged himself off to the mess hall, in there he noticed he only had basic provisions for the future. He had to check with Heinrich if he could get some, not to mention the crew that he was gonna station on the Lindwyrm. “I am gonna have to buy him a new station if this goes on..” Sergei mumbled to himself and grabbed some rations and a cup of coffee.
Eventually he found himself back on the station and was gonna have a chat with Heinrich, he walked up to the office and knocked on the door frame before stepping in. "Guten morgen.” Heinrich said, without looking up from the screen on his desk. “Hey, Heinrich, got stuff ready in the cargo bay, just need some crew and supplies and we’re good to go.”, Sergei yawned and sat down on the chair in front of the desk. “Good, good. I got a few crew that wanted to sign up, and got tired of running hangar duty on this station.”, Heinrich finally looked up from his screen and at Sergei. “They’ll be on our payroll for now until you’ve done what we’ve asked you to do.” Heinrich smiled at him. “Don’t worry, you’ll make a profit with regular cargo, and when this is done, you can do whatever the f*ck you want.”.
Sergei smiled at that and leaned back in his seat. “That sounds good, thanks again Heinrich. Giving me another shot here. Well, I mean, the cause did owe me a bit as well.” Sergei smirked at Heinrich, he on the other hand rolled his eyes. “Not enough to pay for a ship and crew, but yeah, you’ve done some great work for us in the past. But, only for us here. The big guns, the higher ups? They don’t care about all of this minor stuff. They have a war to wage.” Sergei raised both hands at him. “Fine fine fine.. But, yeah, we’ll get going as soon as everyone and everything is on board. But..” Sergei stopped himself. Heinrich quirked an eyebrow at him. “Hm?” Sergei said low. “Well, if you find anything about implants, I really could use some help with this. The tech is far more than ordinary sh*t after all.”, Sergei was unsure he even wanted more eyes on this, he had no idea what it may be worth to some people. Heinrich just waved a hand dismissively. “It’s fine, I’ll ask around, not mentioning any names, ok?”. Sergei nodded a few times. “That works, thanks. Well, I’ll check the hangar and such, can you introduce me to my new crew, ja?”, Sergei smirked at Heinrich who got up and they headed out.
There were a few new faces that Sergei hadn’t met before on Northeim, young faces, damn young. The six others were older ones though, but bored out of their minds. Pleasantries and introductions aside, they managed to get it all on board and the crew got Lindwyrm ready for launch. Heinrich grabbed Sergei’s arm before he boarded. “Look, I trust you with this. But, if sh*t comes down, blow up and destroy the real cargo, got it? No matter what, destroy it.” Heinrich nodded, all serious like. Sergei looked confused, but nodded. “No worries, I got it covered.” he pats Heinrich’s shoulder twice. “See you when I see you.” and Sergei gave Heinrich a two finger salute and headed onboard the frigate.
“F*ck..”, Sergei looked out the cockpit at the incoming Bretonian Patrol. “Power down the engines, prepare to be scanned.”. Sergei knew better than not to comply and indeed shut down his engines and sat there waiting for them to do their scans. “Heinrich better have been right about the secret cargo..”, he thought to himself as the scans continued, after a minute or so the patrol continued, “Hm, interesting ship there, mate. Don’t really see them carrying Engine components, but.. Well, illicit cargo.”, there was a chuckle and Sergei decided to play along. “Well, mate, we work with what we got and I got this baby real cheap so.” ending it with a chuckle. The patrol leader responded with a snort and a, “Well, you go on ahead, stick to the main lanes will you. And I hope not to see you carrying anything else in the future, ok mate?”. Sergei internally sighed and said, “Yeah, no worries, I am sticking to legal cargo. Have a good one, officers.” and closed the transmission. The man at the other console in the cockpit looked over at Sergei and asked. “That was a close one, right?”. Sergei shook his head at the man named Karl, “No, not really, I doubt that Heinrich would lie about the cargo being hidden. But.. The ship will continue to cause some unneeded attention from the law, no matter where we go.”. Karl nodded and continued reading the text on his console.
It’s been a few hours since they left Rheinland and now they were closing in on their first stop. Sector C-5 in Dublin, meeting a Molly transport, it would seem that the Molly’s don’t want some courier to know their bases locations. Sergei couldn’t blame them, they’re fighting a hard fight against the Crown. Back when Sergei was a commissar he remembered helping the Molly’s in their fight a few times. Since he most often was out collecting data and conducting scout operations, he tended to move around all over Sirius. He checked the details he got from Heinrich. “Cassie O’clare, hmm. Don’t remember the name.” Sergei thought to himself and turned to Karl. “Know who our contact is?”. Karl shrugged. “Way above my paygrade.”. Sergei accepted this and put the tablet down and focused on piloting, luckily for them, the entire trip was basically just flying through the trade lanes, no need to deviate off towards jump holes. There had been some Corsairs that had caught the trail of them as they moved through Omega 3, but they gave up on the hunt when Lindwyrm hit Freeport 1.
As they passed through the Jump Gate to New London, Sergei saw another patrol on scanners, moving away towards the Capital planet. Sergei groaned. “Here we go again.” and Karl turned. “Another patrol?”, Sergei nodded. “By New London.” and Karl sighed, then they entered the same trade lane after the patrol. As they arrived by New London, there was a gunboat and two fighters floating near the lane. Moments afterwards the incoming hail came. “Freelancer, Lindwyrm, power down your engines and prepare to be scanned.”, Sergei did as they asked, a second time within 30 minutes. After a minute the officer came back. “Freelancer, where are you going with those Components?”. Sergei took a minute to remember where to go. “New London was the plan, officer.”. The officer took a while before answering. “Well, you’re clear to land. Safe travels.” and cut the transmission. Sergei brought in the Lindwyrm to land at New London, they got their landing pad information and minutes later landed with a thump.
As the crew began to unload all of the engine components onto the landing pad, Sergei walked over to the Commodity trader, they shook hands, agreed on a price and got paid. Short and sweet transaction, not a bad profit either. The crew took a bit of a break to grab an ale at the nearby bar. Sergei remained at the ship and checked the radar. “Let’s hope the patrol moves off within an hour or so, rather than have them see us head to Dublin.”. However, he was sure that Graves sold gold at a reasonable price. He checked the Net and double checked, sure enough, Graves sold Gold and the net confirmed that Fort Bush bought it. “Perfect.” he thought and leaned back in his chair, closing his eyes until the crew get’s back.
Thrumming, heavy bass thrumming in his ears, there was this background noise though, like a siren. But he had trouble focusing on it, it was like it was being hidden by the thrumming. But he knew, somehow, that the siren was important, if he only could hear it properly. Then he felt sudden shock to his brain and he felt an intense piercing sensation into his spine. The thrumming was gone and instead there was the buzz of a drill and the clicking of buttons, he couldn’t see anything, but he felt steel against his head, he wasn’t supposed to be awake for this, he knew that, but he was. There was a voice, “Implant is activated, are we going to make a backup, sir?”. There was a short pause and another voice said, “Yes. Be sure to upload the correct data as well.”. Sergei felt how his brain got put in a blender, he felt how his memories were removed and altered, how Ivan was removed, or, pushed down.
Sergei snapped back to reality and gasped for air, he managed to calm himself down and take long breaths. He had a look around, the crew wasn’t back yet. He checked the scanners, the Patrol was preparing to move on. He clicked the communicator, “Karl, get back here asap, the patrol is moving out.” a moment later Karl responded; “Got it, we’ll be there in 5.”. Sergei leaned back in his chair again. He thought of what he had seen as of late, the experiences he has had.. What if, all that he remembers is wrong? He remembers his childhood and his early days in the Coalition, he hoped.. But, everything else is muddy. He groaned and slapped the side of his head. “F*ck this implant.”. He grabbed a bottle of water and downed it. A few minutes later, the crew got onboard and Sergei prepared to leave the planet, towards Dublin and O’clare, time to get this job handled.
As the Lindwyrm exited the atmosphere of New London, the scanners showed the patrol heading away from the planet, opposite of the Dublin Tradelane. Sergei smiled and chuckled, “Looks like we’re in the clear.” he nodded at Karl, who smirked back at him, “Good, rather not have them question us again.”.
As they entered Dublin through the jump gate, Sergei scanned the area for any other ships, within 10k there was just a miner on course to one of the gold fields, he set a course for C-5 and hit the cruise engines. As they passed the vicinity of Essex, he awaited the dreaded hail, but, to his surprise no hail was sent, so on they glided through space to the meeting spot. As they closed to the rendezvous spot, Sergei sent out the signal and sat back in his chair, “Now we wait.”. And so they did, for over an hour, until a confirmation signal came back to them. “There we go, we’re in business.”. Karl chuckled and gave a thumbs up. A few minutes later a Barghest flew out from the nearby field and approached the Lindwyrm, opening a channel, from the other end of the line a woman’s voice boomed, “We’ll dock in a moment, but.. Tell me, who sent you and who are you?”. Sergei frowned but responded, “Heinrich sent me and I’m Sergei, you O’clare?”. It took a few moments before she responded with a chuckle. “Yep, Cassie O’clare, good to meet you, Sergei. Glad we got the chance to get this data. Which docking port?”, Sergei smiled a bit and responded with, “Port side, we’ll meet you there with the cargo.” and clicked off the channel and looked at Karl, “Keep an eye on the scanners for any signs of trouble.”, Karl nodded and Sergei headed down to the cargo bay. He used a trolley to load the storage devices on to and headed off towards the port side docking port. As the airlock opened, Sergei was greeted by one of the most beautiful women he has seen in a fair bit of time, red hair and a fierce look in her eyes. She smiled at him as she stepped on board, her eyes locked on Sergei’s then looking down at the storage devices. “Great, cheers for the help, Sergei.” and she turned to grab a medium sized case and offered it to him, he took it and nodded. “I’ll get this to Heinrich, asap.”, Cassie smiled and nodded and turned to head back onboard her ship, with the storage units, she stopped, “Oh.. And you might want to avoid Dublin the next coming weeks or so" she turned and winked at him and in return she got a raised eyebrow. Cassie just grinned at him and headed back into her ship, minutes later, the Barghest undocked and flew off into the nearby field. After securing the case in his quarters, Sergei moved up to the bridge.
Karl looked over at Sergei as he entered the bridge, he nodded at his console, “No ships on scanners, think we’re in the clear, boss.”. Sergei nodded and set course back towards the jump gate, “Onward to Liberty.”. As the Lindwyrm glided through Dublin, Sergei sighed. “F*ck, Graves and pick up gold. We need a reason to travel after all.”, he switched course and headed down to Graves, it didn’t take too long to make a deal and get an almost full cargo bay of gold. As they exited the Gold field and passed by Essex, Sergei saw that it was scanning them and then, moments later, a hail from the battleship. “Freelancer ship, we saw you headed further into Dublin and not to graves, mind explaining?” . Sergei sighed hard, they’re being very paranoid it seems, “Well, to be honest, sir, we sort of headed the wrong way, that is all, when we noticed some Molly ships on scanners we changed course until we got Graves on the scanner.”. There was a bit of time before the voice came back with, “Ah, got it, well, glad you didn’t get hit by the Molly’s, safe travels, Freelancer.” and closed the connection. Sergei groaned and looked at Karl, “Let’s just get to Liberty as soon as possible.” and he set a course towards one of the houses he hated the most.
Their trip through Bretonia was surprisingly calm and uneventful with only a few encounters with others, an Interspace transport and passed by a few junkers. Sergei checked his pad for the information on the Junker he was gonna meet and hand over the rest of the cargo, “Julian Atmor.”, he frowned, “I recognise that name..”, he continued to read up on what he could find on the net, there was little to no mention of him, just another run of the mill Junker. “F*ck.. Eh, doesn’t matter.” he gave up and returned to focus on the helm.
Entering Magellan however, things got interesting. As they entered the Cordova trade lane, it was disrupted, and the Lindwyrm faced a Lane Hacker bomber and a lovely fighter. “Now now, let’s not be in a rush, we see you got some good gold in your cargo bay, how about you drop some of that for us and we’ll leave you to go on your way?”, Sergei sighed hard and returned the hail. “Well, I see we have very little choice, you got us outnumbered and outgunned, how much do you want?”. A few seconds later the man on the other side of the line barked out a chuckle. “Clever, well, leave us 500 units and we’re good.”. Sergei nodded and made the call down to the cargo bay and within a few minutes, part of the gold was dropped into the open space. The two ships tractored in the gold and sent a final message back, “Nice, we’ll tell our guys to leave you alone for now, have a good one.” and they headed back into the fields, disappearing from scanners shortly afterwards. “F*ck me, that sucked.”, Sergei was getting frustrated and Karl noticed. “You good, boss?”, Sergei just waved a hand at him. “It’s fine, just annoyed.” and they continued their travels.
As they hit New York, the first thing they got greeted by at the jump gate exit, was a Liberty Cruiser who hit them with a scan the moment they exited, moments later, they hailed them. “Freelancer ship, Lindwyrm, state your intent and destination.”. Sergei responded with a neutral tone. “Hello officer, we’re just trading what we can get good prices on, right now we are going to check Pittsburgh and see if they have good prices on Gold there.” A few moments later the navy officer responded. “Well, it’s uncommon to see a ship such as yours in the area, especially doing honest work and not.. Smuggling.”, after a bit Sergei sort of had enough of this. “Well, officer, is it illegal to use the ship? Cause we got a damn good deal on the ship and I’d hate for us to be breaking the law by using it, would have to try to get our money back if so.”. This time, the officer seemed to have relaxed a little. “It’s fine, Freelancer, you go ahead, stay out of trouble.” and they shut down communications. Sergei was getting annoyed. “Third time we got stopped, for the damn ship..”, Karl reacted with a chuckle. “Welcome to house space.” Sergei chuckled as well. “Yeah, true, let’s just get this done.”.
As they exited the trade lane to Pittsburgh, Sergei realized he had forgotten about Fort Bush, who also bought Gold at a good price. But, decided it wasn’t as important as getting close to Rochester. After selling what was left of the gold they headed down the debris field towards Rochester. On the scanners they saw a Junker Salvager and.. A damn Rogue fighter, as they closed in they heard the open comm traffic, “So, I told the f*cker to f*ck off and find his own debris.” and responding. “Did you manage to get him to leave?”, the Junker chuckled in the comms, “I paid him and he went on his way, made a profit on all that juicy- Hey, Freelancer! Welcome to Rochester.” . Moments later, the Rogue scanned the Lindwyrm and stayed quiet. “Hey guys, just dropping off some stuff to a guy named Julian?”, Sergei realized he would be safe if the Junker were good with them being there. “Oh yeah, he’s in the upper offices, let me get him on the line-” Sergei said quickly. “It’s fine, could you just tell him I got a package for him?”, the Junker chuckled. “Gotcha, you go ahead and dock.” . The Rogue kept his sights on the Lindwyrm for each moment they were docking.
They continued their conversation and Sergei walked onto the station, carrying a crate with the data pads he was gonna give Julian. He checked with a few workers in the cargo bay and they directed him to the lift and the third level. When he reached the third level, Sergei was greeted by a rough, white haired and plump looking man, he coughed as he nodded at Sergei. “Oh, you’re the guy from Heinrich, right? I'm Julian.”, Sergei just nodded. “You got it, I’m Sergei and here’s your stuff.”. The rotund man took the crate and moved further into the area, motioning for Sergei to follow. “Got your stuff in my office.”, the man led them into a dirty as f*ck office, there were plates and mugs all over and on some plates even old food. Sergei cringed. Julian put down the crate next to a table and moved to check a drawer, pulling out a storage disc and three tablets, gently putting them into a bag and offering it to Sergei. “Here you go, the data Heinrich asked for. All paid and everything.” he coughed and Sergei was sure there were crumbs flying out onto the desk. “Ok, great, got any good tips on good wares to trade in Rheinland? Need something to make the trip worth it.”. Julian sat down behind his desk and scratched his double chin, “Hmm, medical supplies is a good choice, Syracuse to Battleship Bayern, simple, legal and profitable.”. Sergei nodded. “Gotcha, well, nice doing business with you, Julian.” and turned to leave. “Tell Heinrich I said hello.”, Julian chuckled and started going through the crate he pulled towards him.
As Sergei entered the Lindwyrm, Karl waited for him. “All done, boss?”, Sergei nodded. “All done, now we just grab some wares and head back to Heinrich.”. They prepared to undock and head off towards Syracuse, when Karl reacted. “Sh*t, we have Outcasts and rogues in the area.”. Sergei groaned hard and checked the local chatter. Something about cardamine and going to see if they could get some action. “We’ll stay docked until they leave, rather not get into a fight with these guys.”. So, there they sat, waiting for the all clear. Karl headed down to the mess hall and Sergei took a little nap, having programmed the computer to warn him when the rogues and outcasts were out of range.
He was in a strange room, his head exploding with pain. He groaned and leaned his head against the metal wall behind him, the cold helped.. Or did it make it worse? He couldn’t tell. After a while he looked around, there were just crates all around. Where was he? Oh, right, on a transport for New Berlin. He had.. Gone into this mostly blind, his memories were fuzzy and hard to organize. Why did he have to lose some of his memories? Was that the plan? Or.. Was it because of what they implanted in his head? He groaned again as he tried to remember.. Then it got clear to him; New identity, Hans Meyer, former freelancer, going to enlist with the Rheinland Military and protect his home. Promotions are good. Primary objective, get as much information on what Intel the military had on the Coalition. This was a freelancer transport, the captain was an independent contractor working for the Hessians and Coalition. Thanks to the Hessians, he got a new identity within Rheinland that was legal and believable. As the ship exited transit to a new system, the engines roared and the hull groaned. He leaned back against the cold metal wall and fell back asleep.
“Boss?”, the voice was distant, in the back of his head. “Boss??”, Sergei groaned and thought to himself, “More sleep, f*ck off.”. The voice got louder, “BOSS!” and Sergei snapped out of his little nap, the intercom was blinking. He left Karl on the bridge so he could rest for a bit, he clicked the button on the intercom, “Yeah? What’s up?”. There was a moment's pause. “We have someone following us, can’t get a good reading on them.”. Sergei sighed hard and got up, grabbing his jacket, “On my way.” and clicked off the intercom.
He walked through the corridors in the ship, it wasn’t a huge ship, but big enough for ten crew, he enjoyed the ship more and more as time went by, it was.. Cozy? The door to the bridge opened and Sergei stepped in and went to the radar console where Karl was standing, he pointed at a signal behind them, “Yeah? I can se-” and the signal vanished. “Is it remaining out of range?” He checked the distance. “No, it’s within scanner range.” he frowned and checked their location, “Hamburg, we’re getting close.. How long has it been following us?”. Karl shrugged, “Not sure, I first saw it half an hour ago and kept an eye on it.”. Sergei frowned and checked the radar again, pop, “There it is again..”, Sergei frowned and went to the control station and hit a full stop by Planet Hamburg. “We’ll wait for them, see if they want a chat or just wait for us to be vulnerable.”. Karl nodded and kept an eye on the radar, there was a bit of sweat running down his brow, Sergei understood his apprehension, but he himself had been in much worse situations than a tail. “They’re still at eight thousand, boss.”, Karl said after a bit, Sergei nodded. “F*ck this.” and hit the comm panel. “Who ever is tailing us, either show yourself or f*ck off, we can’t be arsed to have you on our ass all day.”, Sergei sat back in his seat and waited.
It did not take more than 5 minutes until a hail connected to their channel, “So, you did see us.. That’s a shame.” a female voice said with a hint of annoyance. “What do you want?”, Sergei was tired of this sh*t. “You picked up something at Rochester, I’d like it.”.. Sergei frowned. “The communications?” he thought to himself. “We are just traders, got some medicines on board, as I am sure you could tell by scanning us.”. After a minute the female voice came back, “We know you picked up some communications from Julian, we’d like it. We’ll pay you for it?”, there was a pause there. “An after thought maybe?” he thought. “No idea what you’re talking about, stop following us now. Just f*ck off, ok?”. The channel got disconnected and Sergei sighed and looked at Karl, “Keep an eye on the scanners, get ready for an ambush.” He kicked in the engines and kept moving forward, then, suddenly, Sergei stood up and clapped his hands. “F*ck, we have a cloak..”, Karl just stared at him. “Oh sh*t.. Good plan, boss.”. Sergei moved over to another console and checked the cloak's batteries. “It’s at eighty percent, we got enough to get to Bayern and sell our wares and we could pick up some more there to get us back to Northeim.”. Karl nodded, “Sounds good, boss.”. And with that, Sergei activated the cloak, the lights on the bridge dimmed and a weird noise flowed through the Lindwyrm, Sergei looked up as the cloak activated, “Let’s see them follow us now.” and sat down and continued their voyage. Karl kept an eye on the scanners, but they lost the tail after a while.
After some time, they approached Bayern and New Berlin, they halted a fair bit away from the last trade lane and decloaked. As they docked, Karl sighed, “Think the tail is nearby, I saw a click on the scanners.. Could be anyone else though, we’re in New Berlin after all.”, Sergei nodded. “It’s fine, we’ll move off and recloak after selling our cargo.”. Onboard the Bayern, Sergei managed to get a good deal on the medicines with the quartermaster, after having transferred the credits the quartermaster stopped Sergei from walking off, “By the way, be careful of traveling near the Omegas if you are going to trade through there, heard there was some Coalition ships causing issues.”.
Sergei nodded slowly, “Danke, we’ll be careful, have a good day.”. As they undocked, Karl gave Sergei a thumbs up and the Lindwyrm headed off towards Stuttgart. As soon as they exited the scanning range of anything else, they recloaked again and for a while, were safe enough to get to Northheim. Even if they didn’t pick up any batteries, Sergei felt that buying some from the military was a bit of a bad idea.
As they hit Omega 11 and entered the field, their scanners began to send off several proximity warnings and before they had a chance to engage their cruise engines, three ships, civilian fighters began to scan the area heavily, “They had been waiting.. Karl, how is the clo-” and then they heard a screech and the cloak dropped. “F*ck!”, moments afterwards the three fighters surrounded the Lindwyrm and a familiar voice came back on the comms. “Well, it would seem I got you after all.”. Sergei frowned, “How did you know where we were going?”, the woman chuckled on the open frequency, “Because we knew you came from here, now, we are going to dock with you and you are going to give me your cargo, we got you where we want you.”. Karl looked at Sergei, who looked right back, then muted the comm, “What?” he asked Karl, “We could alarm Northeim, we got patrols nearby?”. Sergei nodded, “Go.” and then unmuted the comm, “Mind telling me who you are and why you want the cargo?”, there were a few moments of silence, “Helena, I am working for a.. Rather secretive organization and my employers have an interest in those communications.”, Sergei quirked an eyebrow, “Secretive organization?” he thought to himself, doubting that the Order would be interested in this. “Well, I am sorry, but I really can’t give you what you want, I suppose this will end with a lot of gunfire?”. Sergei was hoping it wouldn’t, but, if it did, he knew that the Lindwyrm was equipped with gunboat turrets and they did not have a bomber, it could go their way. After a while, the woman said, “I am afraid so, we really need that data, but don’t worry, we won’t destroy you, just disable and board you. Toodles.” and shut down the channel Sergei looked over at Karl, “Did you get a message through?”, Karl gave a thumbs up and ran to the turret console, activating all turrets.
Sergei began to move into the field and down towards Northeim, the fighters began to hit the Lindwyrm with all they had, but it had some powerful shields and could take a beating. Sergei tried to maneuver the frigate so the turrets could get a lock on the fighters. The turrets hit the fighters and they veered off and returned on another vector, Sergei cursed, “They know how to fly, I’ll give them that.”, then the Lindwyrm shook as a missile hit their stern. “F*ck..”. Karl was doing well and was forcing the fighters to retreat and come back, giving them more time for the Hessians to get there. As they continued through the debris field, Sergei managed to pilot relatively well, but it was hard to manage to both maneuver so the turrets could aim and also to avoid the bigger fragments in the field. Another three hard hits from the missiles and the shield was at its limits and as Sergei veered off to the right to avoid a large hunk of rock, the Lindwyrm’s turrets managed to get a perfect hit on one of the fighters, which broke off completely, “Nice shot, Karl!”, Sergei shouted. And then another few hits of missiles and the shield was down. Just then, Sergei saw through the windows three Hessian fighters approaching and an open hail went out from them, “Hostile targets, leave the area or be destroyed, we have you outnumbered.”, all weapons on the fighters were in position and the fighters were heading straight for the attackers, it took a few seconds, but they halted fire and broke off and headed back from where they came. “F*cking sh*t, great job guys, danke schön!”, Sergei laughed, a moment later the wing leader responded with a chuckle, “All gut, Lindwyrm, Heinrich is waiting for you, let’s get back to Northeim.” and they turned back towards the Hessian base, with the Lindwyrm close behind.
After having docked with the Northeim, he saw from the windows scorch marks on the hull, he pouted, “They scratched the paint.” and Karl reacted with a chuckle as they walked into the hangar. They met with Heinrich grinning, “Sergei, glad to see you. And you as well, Karl.”, behind them, one of the crew came out with the cargo on a trolley, and Heinrich stopped him, pulled out the case, opening it. Sergei got a glance at the contents, a medium sized storage device. Heinrich nodded and put the case back into the trolley, he nodded at the crewman, “Bring it to my office, danke.” then turned to Sergei, “You’ve done your job well, thank you.” he smiled. Sergei shrugged with a smile. “Only got shot at at the end. Julian said to tell you hello.”, Heinrich chuckled. “He’s a fat f*ck, but he’s honest for a junker. Come on, let’s grab a drink, Karl, want to join us?”, Karl shook his head. “I was thinking of grabbing the rest of my stuff, if you want me around, Boss?”. Sergei smiled and walked over to shake the man’s hand. “Absolutely, you make yourself at home onboard, check if the others want to stay too, yeah?”. Karl nodded and headed down to the crew quarters, while Sergei and Heinrich walked up to his office.
As Sergei sat down by Heinrich’s table, he felt how stiff and sore he was, he had mostly been awake for almost an entire day, only a few naps in between, but so had Karl, but he was built differently. Sergei smiled as Heinrich pulled out another bottle, this one was a bottle of Bretonian gin, he poured them a glass each. “You did good, Sergei.” he said as he sat down behind his desk, he sipped his gin and Sergei did the same. “Yeah, well, the only bad part was all the constant patrols stopping us, and of course.. Whoever Helena was, which, I am sure you are about to tell me.”, a sly smirk appeared on Sergei’s lips. Heinrich frowned but raised a hand, “Fine, fine..” he sighs, sips his gin then continues, “Not exactly sure who she works for, but she is absolutely part of some kind of intelligence agency, first thought was Liberty, but.. Your guess is as good as mine at this point.”.
Sergei quirked an eyebrow at him, “But, you sound like you know about her at least, when else have you been running into her?”. This time, Heinrich took a few moments longer to answer than before, “She worked here for a bit, under an alias of course, she came in on a transport six months ago, she spent that time working the hangar and seemed like just another person looking for a change of scenery. She was friendly and she made friends quickly. Of course, it was just a ploy to get information from us.”.
Sergei shook his head, “A spy? In Northeim? What the hell is important here? You told me before, no one cares in the higher ups, surely you don’t have anything big here, right?”, Heinrich frowned and began to tap the table with his finger. “We have some.. Well, Northeim usually acts as a communication hub for potential allies and actual allies, especially the communications that come in physical form, the ones we can’t trust over long range comms. So, we kind of get some big stuff from time to time.”, he sighed hard and downed the glass.
Sergei whistled low, “Damn, ok, fair enough.. You hide it well. Each time I docked it just seemed as if Northeim was used as a place to repair and refuel and had some fighters for patrolling the area. Good to know.” and downed his own glass of gin. “Yeah, well, keep it to yourself, ok?”, Sergei nodded, “Of course, I won’t say a word.”. It was silent for a bit before Sergei asked, “So, what’s next?”, Heinrich chuckled and shook his head, “Nothing right now, waiting for a parcel to come in, but before that, you are free to do what you want.”. It took almost a minute before Sergei responded and it was with a chuckle, “Well damn, I have no idea what to do.” he lets out a loooong sigh and moves to fill his glass with Gin. Heinrich smiled widely, “Come on, you can do some trading and just explore? You got a good ship on your hands that can handle a lot of situations, I even heard rumors of jump drives up in Kusari now, maybe try to get your hands on one?”, Sergei frowned at that, “F*cking hell, how the hell could I afford one of those?”. Heinrich took a moment to tap on the keyboard to his monitor and turned it around towards Sergei, there was an image of a lovely Kusari woman, Sergei looked at Heinrich confused. He just chuckled and turned the monitor back to him, “Her name is Li Hana, she’s with the Chrysanthemum and she has been looking for someone to.. Well, move cargo for her and her sisters.”, Sergei looked at Heinrich as if he was speaking Nomad, “Work, for the Chrysanthemums? I’ve never been in contact with them, or even been in Kusari besides traveling through it.”, he leaned back in his chair and sipped his gin as Heinrich smirked at him, “Look, she needs freelancers and that is what you are now, I can’t make introductions, since I am decently sure she has no idea who I am or would like who I am with. But, I can give you the communications frequency to her, I am sure she’d appreciate some help from someone like you.” he winked at Sergei and then they turned the conversation over towards general stuff, some war stories and rumors around Rheinland. Eventually, Sergei found himself on the Lindwyrm and he walked to his quarters to take a well deserved night’s sleep.
He was sitting in the military recruitment office on New Berlin, he fiddled with his application on the padd, he looked over at the door to the recruiter, double checking his own number and seeing that he was next in line. “Hans Meyer, born on Stuttgart..” he thought to himself. “Mother was Therese and father was Maximillian, they worked in the hospital in the capital.” he nodded slowly, the implant still hurt inside of his head, but they had done a good job covering the scarring. Then the sign turned green, “Number thirty two.”, Hans rised and walked into the office. He was in there a full hour but at the end of it, he was a Flieger with the Rheinland military, he was to train for twelve months and then fly with the real pilots, from there he’d attempt to get closer to the command staff, perhaps try to become an aide and get a better chance at any intelligence..
As Sergei opened his eyes in his quarters, he looked up into the ceiling, but there was something else in his head, he saw numbers float to his right and he heard a tick, in his head. Sergei sat up, the numbers remained and he saw for a moment; “SECTOR 3, FILE; RASPUTIN; PROJECT BABUSHKA” and then the numbers and text vanished and a searing pain in his head hit him like a brick, he fell to the floor, holding the side of his head and winced. The pain passed and he sat up in the bed, taking long deep breaths. “What the f*ck was that? Project.. Babushka?”, he sighed and lay back down again.
Sergei walked into the mess hall, where some of his crew were, he nodded at Alice as he passed her, he remembered that she used to work as a cargo worker for Kruger once upon a time. With Alice sat Morgan, Sergei only knew that he was a smuggler once in the past, he was sure he could use his experience at some point, especially if they were gonna go play up in Kusari. And at the end of the table sat Karl, reading an old book while sipping his coffee, “Morning, Karl.” Sergei said as he poured himself a mug of coffee and sat down opposite of Karl.
The man placed a bookmark in the book and put it down, he offered a smile and a nod at Sergi. “Morning, boss, got some good sleep?”, he poured some more dirty bean water into his mug and sipped it. “Yeah, I did, just some issues with my implant.”, Karl tilted his head, looking confused, “Implant?”. Sergei nodded as he sipped the coffee, nearly spilling some, “Yeah, some kind of implant that the Coalition put in, like ten years ago.”, Karl nodded, “Yeah, I heard you were in the Coalition. Couldn’t Heinrich help with the implant?”. Sergei took a few moments to think, then shook his head, “Nah, it’s a bit too advanced for most people it would seem, not even the Zoners had much success with it, well.. The ones I met at least.” he chuckled and tapped the side of his head where the implant was. Karl chuckled. “Well, I mean there’s that.. Uh.. Auxiea? Auxia? Aux? F*ck, the technocracy I’ve heard about? They deal in high tech, right?”, Sergei thought about that for a bit and shrugged, “Not sure to be honest, not had any contact with them.”.
Karl made himself a sandwich with cheese and sausage, “How very Rheinland of you.”, Sergei chuckled and nodded at the sausage, Karl just chuckled and ate. They drifted off into idle chatter, about their pasts and eventually they found themselves at the topic of Kusari. “So, what do you think of going to Kusari?”, Sergei asked as he refilled his coffee, Karl shrugged, “It’s potential work, right?”. Sergei nodded, “Yeah, that’s true, but you’re my right hand man, so, I need your opinion on what to do, we’re just waiting for Heinrich to need us again.. Right?”. Karl quirked an eyebrow at Sergei, “Right hand man?”, Sergei grinned, “Yeah, you’re the obvious choice for a first officer, saw you work after all, you got a good head on your shoulders.”. It took Karl a bit, he chewed on his sandwich while thinking, then after swallowing asked, “Does it come with a raise?” and offered Sergei a wide grin. “F*ck yeah it does.”, Sergei just chuckled and nodded. “Settled then, we don’t have a huge crew, but it’d be good if you kept an eye on stuff for them, you know them better than me after all.”, Sergei looked over at Alice and Morgan then waved them over, after a bit both of them walked over with their own coffee and breakfast, they sat down next to Karl. “Sir?”, Alice asked and looked over at Karl, then back at Sergei. Sergei smiled at them both, “Well, just wanted to inform you that Karl is second in command and will be dealing with most day-to-day stuff. But, we’re a small crew, so don’t hesitate to come to me with anything either, ok?”. Morgan chuckled and nodded, “Got it sir, we’re in for the long haul, besides, beat working the hangar at Northeim.”, Alice quickly agreed. Sergei chuckled and then pulled out his tablet and transferred a percentage of the profits they made, to all crew’s accounts, each of their own tablets beeped and they checked it, they all grinned at Sergei and then at each other, “Fair percentage of the profits, you’ll get paid each week and we’ll make stops for R&R when we get time. Sounds good to you guys?”, all three of them nodded, “Sounds good, boss.” Karl said and Alice and Morgan gave thumbs up. “We were thinking of heading to Kusari, got a tip of some Chrysanthemums having some opportunities for freelancers, which is what we are now.”, Sergei took a few moments of silence before he continued, “We’ll have to.. Ignore our pasts a bit if we are to make some money and get opportunities from others, there’s a lot of money to make out there and who knows what kind of stuff we get to get our hands on. But, we’ll still be in these areas and we are going to make a few more jobs for Heinrich in the future, but.. After that, we’re free to do what we want. Are you all good with that?”, each of them took a while to absorb the information, then they looked at each other, “Yeah, boss, we’re in.”, the other two nodded in agreement. Sergei smirked, “Good, we’ll stay here another day to patch up the Lindwyrm and get some more supplies, we’ll be off to Kusari after that, just got to reach out to this Li Hana and check if she really did have an opportunity for us.”. The others nodded and then the conversation began to turn to other things, some stories and experiences through their lives, they asked and got some answers from Sergei as well, not too much of course, he was careful to tell too much to too many.
As the workers got finished on the Lindwyrm, the crew took a good look at her from the hangar and Sergei, for once in a long time, felt a pretty damn positive feeling. The crew were good, the others besides Morgan, Alice and Karl were newbies, they barely passed twenty and most were just happy to get away from the boring duties on Northeim, where most just got stuck. But in the back of his head, he was wondering when sh*t would just fall apart, he expected it but really didn’t want it to.
As the crew went back onboard with their supplies, Heinrich grabbed Sergei’s arm and led him off to a corner of the bay, “Look, Helena might still be after you, believing you got some information that applies to her interests, keep an eye out, ja?”. Sergei frowned at that, but nodded, “Got it, keep an eye out for a secret organization woman that may want to board and steal our sh*t.”, he chuckled and so did Heinrich, “It’ll be fine, Heinrich, just keep in touch when you need us, ok?”, Heinrich shook his hand and nodded, “Alles gut, good luck Sergei.”.
And they parted ways. Sergei walked back onto the Lindwyrm and took it all in, the bulkheads and the occasional rust patches along the walls, he stopped by one of the crew that was fixing with a panel by the crew quarters, “Jurgen, right?”, the young man turned around, “Ja, I’m Jurgen, can I help you captain?”, “Captain.” Sergei thought, “God f*cking damnit, I am gonna be called captain now?”, he chuckled and nodded at Jurgen, “It’s fine, just wanted to check in on you, got all your stuff with you?”. It took a moment, but Jurgen nodded, “Yes sir, I got all of my gear and such, it’s in my bunk.”, Sergei nodded, “Good, chat later, Jurgen.” and started to walk off, but Jurgen piped up, “Captain?”, Sergei turned to the kid, “Yeah?”, he sort of looked uncomfortable, “Thanks for taking me along, really needed to get away from there..”. It took a bit before Sergei reacted, “Thank you?”, Sergei didn’t often hear anyone truthfully thank him for something.. “All good, Jurgen, you’re part of the crew now. Chat later.”, he winked at him and headed back up to the bridge. Karl was waiting for him by the navigation console, “Got a good route for us to take?”, Karl nodded, “Yeah, got one through the Sigmas, think it’s the safest.”, Sergei nodded at that, “I am gonna send a communication to Li Hana as soon as I get a chance, then we’ll head off to wherever they need me, we could see if we can pick up some goods that sell well in Kusari. Can you check the net for good trading opportunities?”, Karl nodded, “Sure boss, I’ll check as you make the communications.”, Sergei gave a thumbs up and headed back up to his quarters, he sat down in front of the comm display on the wall, he checked the numbers he got from Heinrich and tapped them in to see if he could send a message to this, Li Hana.
The transmission got sent and after ten or so minutes a drop dead gorgeous Kusari woman appeared on screen, Sergei slightly smiled, she on the other hand looked awfully unimpressed. “Yes? Who gave you this frequency and who the hell are you?”. Sergei took a moment to collect himself and responded with as much charisma as he could, “Well, who gave it to me doesn’t really matter, but, I did hear through contacts that you might be in need of a freelancer to run some cargo for you? If I am wrong, I’ll be on my way.”. The woman stared for a few seconds and then nodded, “What’s your name, can I get that at least?”, Sergei smirked, “Sergei, got a good ship for this kind of work and I don’t hold any allegiances.”. Li nodded, pleased with the response, but tilted her head at the end, “Coalition? The name I mean.”. Sergei nodded, "Formerly, a long time ago.”, she in return nodded, “Fair enough..” she took a few seconds and looked away to the right to tap on another screen, or so he guessed, then turned back to him. “Morioka station in Shikoku, sector 7-E, in four days, does that work for you, Sergei?”, he nodded, “Absolutely, we’ll be there. The ship is a Black Market Frigate named Lindwyrm, so your sisters don’t shoot me down.”, she grinned at that and nodded, “See you in a few days, Sergei.” and clicked off the comms.
He sat down by his desk and let out a sigh, “Ok, got four days, four days to explore and get to know Kusari then.”. He clicked the comms panel on his desk, “Karl, we have four days until we’re meeting Li Hana, so, let’s check the net for additional trade routes, ok?”, it took a bit before Karl’s voice came through, “Got it sir, got a good ware to trade, Rheinbier from Stuttgart to Tokyo and we could link in there and check their prices for our next run?”, Sergei nodded, “Go for it, set course, I’ll be up in a few minutes.” and the line cut.
Sergei turned to check his console and looked up some information on news in Kusari, he hadn’t been much up there, even in his Rasputin days, he only kept to independent systems, which was where he needed to be. He remembered getting in combat in the Taus a few times, especially against the Crayters, one powerful memory was when he f*cked up a fighter with a nuclear mine. He chuckled to himself as he remembered, but right afterwards the implant started to hurt and he doubled over for a moment. “F*ck this thing..”, he grabbed his coffee and drank the rest of the cold cdrink and headed to the bridge.
As they glided through the Crow Nebula in Sigma-13 and hit the trade lane, Karl cleared his throat, “Boss?”, Sergei turned his head at Karl, “Yeah?”, a moment later, “You didn’t mention how the call with this Li was..”. Sergei chuckled and turned his chair around as he faced Karl, “She was.. Short with me, but then again, I’m a guy, as far as I am aware, the Chrysanthemums doesn’t really trust men as much as they do women.” he shrugged, “Could be rumors or something, who the f*ck knows?”, Karl chuckled, “Got it, boss. Well, good thing we got a few days until it’s time to meet them, yeah?”.
Sergei nodded, “Yeah, four days traveling around Kusari, been ages since I was here.”. Karl checked the console he was at and Sergei turned to the helm and directed the Lindwyrm into the next trade lane. “Been meaning to ask you, how did you like your time with the Hessians?”, it took a while for Karl to respond, “To be honest, it was boring as hell. I used to work on a cruiser back in the day, but got put on Northeim, not sure why. So, glad you got me out, boss.”, Sergei chuckled, “No worries, besides, I need you, ok?”, Karl Chuckled, “Danke, boss.”.
Then they continued in silence as they closed in on Honshu jumpgate, they hit the signal to jump and a few moments later they were in Honshu, greeted by a patrol of Kusari Naval Forces. “Halt, what is your business here, Freelancer?”, the man sounded annoyed and bored, “We’re selling rheinbier on New Tokyo, officer.” It took a few moments, “Ok, you can go, stick to the lanes.” and then clicked off the comm line. Sergei maneuvered the Lindwyrm into the next trade lane there was a sudden, “Sh*t..”, Karl sighed and Sergei turned around, “What?”, Karl looked at him, “Tail. Think it’s Helena.”, “Sh*t indeed.”.
As they reached Akita, the Lindwyrm drifted closer to the border station, and a minute later, a familiar fighter, Helena’s Eagle flew towards them.. “Incoming hail, boss.”, Sergei groaned and hit the comms button. “Helena, pleasure to meet you here of all places.”, there was a chuckle on the other end, Helena’s voice seething with delight for some reason, “Sergei, how nice to see you again, just a random happenstance. Yes?”. Sergei groaned, “What do you want, Helena? I don’t have your stuff anymore, remember?”, Helena let out a giggle. “What the hell?” Sergei thought to himself at the sudden giggle. “That’s not what I am interested in, I’d like to get to know you a little better, see.. We checked the Rheinland registry for a mention of you. Surprisingly, we only found a few mentions in the public records, buuuut, we found a lovely picture of a man named Hans from a few years ago.”, she was silent, waiting for Sergei to respond, he decided not to act stupid again, no point if they checked the Rheinland registry of all places, “Yeah, so what? Why? Are you part of the Rheinland intelligence or something? Or do I have a nice bounty on me so soon?”. Helena’s voice was smooth and extremely pleasant now, “No no, you got me all wrong, I was actually hoping I could hire your services for a job, it pays well and will remove some.. Issues my employers have with you after the last time we spoke.”.
Sergei frowned and muted the channel, “What do you think?”, Karl took a few seconds to think, “At least hear her out?”, Sergei nodded and unmuted, “What’s the job?”. Sergei could hear Helena’s smirk through the audio, “We need someone to make a delivery to Freeport 9, in about two months, you pick up the Package at Freeport 14 in Iverness.”, the line was silent for a bit until Sergei asked, “Why not use someone else? I mean, Freeport to Freeport, easy enough for a Zoner, right?”, Helena answered with a hint of hesitation, “Well, see, after having seen you work for the Hessians and saw your very professional attitude and allegiance to the job, I thought to myself that I could use someone like that. The pay is five hundred thousand, half before and the rest afterwards if it arrives safely at FP 9.”. It took a while for Sergei to think on the offer, he looked at Karl, who in turn shrugged, he turned back to the comms, “What’s the package.”, there was a chuckle, “I won’t tell you that, but I can tell you it’s not illegal, not that that matters in the Omicrons, but I would rather that it remained out of reach for all potential parties save the one person I will tell you about when you get to FP 14. So, interested?”. Sergei leaned back in his chair and decided to be a little b*tch, “Eight hundred thousand, half at start.”, there was a minute before Helena responded again, “Deal, I’ll send my comm frequency, I’ll give you a call in about two months.”, Sergei chuckled, then realized this package must really be important if she willingly went up three hundred thousand for a single trip. “Got it, we’ll be ready by then. Bye bye, Helena.”, her voice came back over the comms, a bit… Sensual.. “See you soon, Sergei, toodles..” and the line went quiet.
Sergei groaned and turned to Karl, “Eight hundred thousand is a lot of money.”, Karl nodded, “Aye, boss, it’s a hell of a lot better than any normal job.. Do you trust her?”, Sergei barked out a short laugh, “F*ck no, not after having her shoot at us, but, it might give us more information on whoever she works for, which I’d like to know.”. Karl nodded, “Yeah, I’ve been thinking about that too since she appeared.”. Sergei turned around and laid a course towards the New Tokyo jump gate. While they traveled, he kept thinking about who might be the employers of Helena, could be any intelligence agency, could also be The Order, but he doubted it. “Core? Hm, no, why would they want a package from house space to where they are? Wait, no, that actually makes some sense.”, he sighed and decided to push the thoughts aside for now and focus on the here and now, there would be time to ponder over his potential death later.
Had it not been for the fantastic sake at the bar on New Tokyo main landing zone, he would’ve stayed on the Lindwyrm, the rest of the crew, save Karl, were out taking some R&R. Sergei however, was sitting at a table, drinking, reading up on some local news, “Heinrich mentioned jump drives..” he thought to himself and scoured the news, there were some mentions of Kishiro working on such devices, he tapped into a thread on the news report and read the many comments regarding the possible breakthrough.
Sergei chuckled to himself at the many outcries of fear for the technology, some Kusari citizens believed that activating such devices will tear holes into the fabric of the universe, “That’s kind of the point, it’s a jump drive…” he sighed and drank the rest of the sake. He stayed at the bar for some time, then ended up in a sushi restaurant, something he never had before, after eating a few he decided it was actually really good. On the way back to the ship, he walked past some clothing stores, he took a look at Kusari fashion, he wasn’t sold on them, too fancy.
At the end of his walk he came across Jurgen and another crew member named Klaus, Sergei nodded at them, “Jurgen, Klaus, had a good time?”. The two men turned and smiled wide, obviously somewhat intoxicated, “Yes sir, we were just going to continue drinking in the mess hall, if you want to join us?”. Sergei saw that they had a bag with some bottles of soju and sake, he chuckled and grinned at them, “I’m good, but where’s the rest?”, the two chuckled and grinned at each other then at Sergei, “The rest are at a strip club in the lower district.”. Sergei quirked an eyebrow at them, “Even Alice?” and the two laughed at that, “She was excited!”, Sergei just shook his head, “Come on, let’s head onboard, you can drag Karl with you.”.
As the others drank in the mess hall, Sergei was in his quarters and continued to read the news and checked some less than normal channels, there was a lot of talk about an amassing of Liberty Navy vessels active in New York the other day and that there had been some rumors that Kusari navy ships were seen more often than usual, patrolling around Kusari space. He tapped away on the tablet and found himself yawning and felt that a nice nap would do him good, then, his personal console rang, “Incoming transmission..” he walked over to the console and checked the ID of the call, “Unknown.”, that doesn’t bode well, he accepts the call.
The person that appeared on the screen was the last person he’d ever expect to call him, “Marlon?”, he blinked at the rugged older man that he remembered well from his days in the Coalition, “What the he-”, he got cut off, the man spoke with a deep voice, “I hear you go by Sergei now?”. There were a few moments where Sergei didn’t know what to say or do, at the end he just went, “Yeah, that’s what I chose.”, Marlon, the stone-faced man just looked into the camera, then smiled lightly. “Sergei it is.”., the smile turned into a frown, “I have a request.”., Sergei tilted his head, “Request?”, Marlon nodded, “We got a ping from a source on New Tokyo that you had landed, I need you to-”., Sergei had had enough, “Stop..”,. There was a long pause as Marlon stared at the camera, “This is getting annoying now, this is the second time in two days that I’ve been ‘asked’ to do something and before that, I was doing another job, it’s getting ridiculous and I am sick of it. Marlon, you know I am not part of the Coalition, why ask me? Why not one of your other spies on New Tokyo?”.
Marlon frowned, “Because you were a commissar of the Coalition, that means something, to me at least and used to, to you.”., Sergei frowned and then let out a tired sigh, “What do you want me to do?”. That brought a small smile to Marlon’s lips, “We need another agent that is operating on New Tokyo gone, he has sniffed out one of our operatives who is hiding right now in the lower levels of Saji district. I’ll send the details I have, including name and face. We need this done today. I’ll pay you of course, a hundred thousand at completion. Do you accept?”.. Sergei thought it over, it could give him an opening to the Coalition again. “Yeah, I’m in.”, Marlon nodded at the camera and moments later a file came through the net onto his console, he transferred it to his tablet and read the information. “He’s in the warehouse district, most likely in one of the smaller abandoned ones, looking for our agent. He isn’t alone, but shouldn’t be a problem for you.”.
Sergei looked it over, Hajima Tanaka, former Kusari navy officer, turned intelligence agent according to the information the Coalition had stolen. “Dispose of the body?” Sergei asked, Marlon nodded, “Yes, get rid of the body somehow, there should be some compactors down in the lower levels, as long as it can’t be identified we are happy.”.. Sergei finished looking through the data on Hajima and then looked at the screen at Marlon, “I’ll go now, hopefully won’t take too long.”. A few seconds later, Marlon smiled, “Good to have you back, Sergei.”. and closed the channel.
Sergei sat there for a long time, at least half an hour, just thinking, “Do I want to go back?”, he frowned, he just recently thought that he wanted his old life back, he looked around him at the walls and ceiling of his quarters. He decided to think more about this at a later time, he walked to the gun locker and withdrew a pistol and six magazines along with a knife, he grabbed another jacket, a hat and a scarf, in case of cameras. As he walked into the mess hall, he saw the crew drinking and having fun, he smiled and then walked over to Karl, “Hey, gonna head out for a few hours, keep an eye on things, if you can.” he slapped his back and Karl gave a thumbs up.
It took him an hour to get to the lower levels and to the Saji district, he noticed the lack of people on the streets and he realized that he had a lot of warehouses to go through, but he had a trick up his sleeve. He pulled out a device from his jacket, a communications scanner, which also worked to block outgoing ones. He activated it and started walking around. It took him another hour to get a ping, it was an old industrial warehouse, the door was locked, but no cameras were outside. He checked the lock, “Standard lock, easy to break.” he thought and cracked open the door panel and checked the wiring, after a few minutes he got it open.
He pulled out his gun and walked in, slowly and silently, he saw a light from the office on the far end of the warehouse and he heard voices. They were speaking Kusari and he frowned and sneaked closer, he got a view of three people, two men in black clothes and another in a suit, the man in the suit fit the picture of Hajima in the file. He took a closer look at the two others, each carrying pistols and Tanaka himself had a submachine gun, Sergei frowned. He tried to listen in, but they were still talking in Kusari, he moved over to another set of crates, close to the three men and waited for a shot. Then, one of the men turned and looked to the other side of the warehouse, “Sh*t, he might see the door.”. Sergei pulled his pistol and flipped the safety off and pulled his knife from his boot, one of the men started walking through the warehouse, Sergei followed him. When the man walked behind some tall boxes he came up behind him and slit his throat. There was that gurgle of a man dying and the attempt to make a sound, but there was none and never will again. He gently lowered the man onto the floor and listened for any movement, they just continued to talk.
He headed back to the crates he was at before and took a look, “I can take them, they have no idea I was there, but they’ll notic-” the other man turned and shouted, “Hiroko, nanishiteruno?”, Sergei cursed and decided it was time to act, he leaned around the corner, aiming his pistol at the other man, straight at his head and took the shot, he made a hard thud as he dropped to the floor, but Hajima was ready with his own pistol and had ascertained where Sergei was and started shooting. Sergei hid behind the crate, but it was a temporary cover, he tumbled to his right and took cover behind a steel box, Hajima had taken cover behind a crate as well and was peaking out every once in a while, “You doing the Coalitions dirty work, Gaijin?”, Sergei frowned, “Just doing a job, would be easier if you just stood up and let me shoot you, f*ckface.”. Sergei leaned and waited for a chance, Hajima peaked and he took the shot, the bullet hit the crate and ricocheted off it, missing the man’s head by a centimeter. He could hear the man, most likely cursing, taking the opportunity, Sergei ran towards Hajima’s crate and tackled the top crate down and there was a loud crash as Hajima was pushed onto the ground, Sergei ran around and aimed the gun down at the agent, the man just looked up at Sergei and sighed, “Do it.”, Sergei shrugged and shot him between the eyes. He’s killed a lot of people in his life, eventually you stop caring. He managed to place all three bodies in a large crate and used a lift to move it out of the warehouse, eventually finding a compactor in another abandoned facility, the machine was still functioning and Sergei dropped the crate into it and let it crush the crate and bodies within.
As Sergei came back to the Lindwyrm, he saw Alice and another man kissing outside of the landing pad, Sergei smirked and winked at her as he passed them. As he walked past the mess hall he saw that the crew had left, most likely headed to their bunks. He got out of his outfit and placed the gun back into the locker, sitting down at his desk he looked at the console for a while, he saw the frequency to Marlon and froze, “Did I really want back?”, it was time to face the truth, “I don’t, not right now.” and opened a channel, Marlon looked as stone-faced as ever, “It is done?”., Sergei just nodded, “Yep, bodies are mangled and unrecognizable, as requested.”. Marlon looked to the side and after a few seconds, Sergei’s tablet pinged from getting a credit transfer, he looked at the screen, “There, done, was nice doing business with you.” and was moments away from closing the call when Marlon said “Come by Omega 52 some day, meet some people.”., Sergei just shrugged, “Maybe, we’ll see, goodbye, Marlon.” and he closed the call. Sergei leaned back in his chair and let out a heavy sigh.
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