Well things have taken a turn for the worse. Having Melanie steal my PDP and write a rejection note to me was bad enough, but now I'm being forced to sell the Grey Jackal. The poor girl just doesn't have it anymore. Keeps breakin down and demanding attention... You'd think I was married to the cursed thing, the way I'm constantly pleading with it to just make it to the next station.
So I went and used the money from the sale to go buy an Albatross. Figured I'd take up smuggling for awhile. Got some Junker guns for defense against fighters, and a whole lot of armor. This ship is built to run, not fight. I've named her Scrapyard Dog, in <strike>loving</strike> memory of my Junker lifestyle. Who knows? Maybe in my journeys I'll run into Melanie again...
Looks like some excitement might be headed my way. As if avoidin Liberty and Kusari patrols wasn't enough excitement already. Honestly, one of these days this Cardimine smugglin is gonna get me killed... but I digress.
I recieved a message over private comm from a gal by the name of Jenny Ives. We ran in the same circles back when I was still workin with the Junkers, so I know who she is, and that she's dead serious when she says she needs help.
Turns out Jenny was out relieving old wrecks of their weapons and other valuables, when she happened upon a rather unique find. From the design of what was left of the ship, Jenny tells me it must have belonged to the Hogosha. Inside, however, was an even bigger suprise. According to her, she found Nomad weaponry. That's right. Nomad. So what do you think a Junker's goin to do when they come across something that rare and dangerous? Sell it of course!
Only, now it seemed she was wishin she'd never laid a salvage claw on that wreck. It was hard to tell over the comm, but she seemed scared. Like someone or something was after her. I was told I'd recieve more info when I see her at Freeport 10. So just as soon as I'm docked, I'll be able to elaborate more effectively...
Alright fine. I dropped the PDP accidentally while disembarking from the Scrapyard Dog. Then I hit my head on the hull while bendin over to pick the darn thing up and my heavy boot stepped on it. That's right. I stepped on my personal datapad because I'm clumsy. Anyway...
I arrived at Freeport 10 without incident. No ships hailing me, or sneaking scans of my cargo hold, or askin what I was doin way out here. It was quiet. Very quiet. But then again, it's the butt end of nowhere, so what did I expect?
So here I was strollin down the hall to room 302. Jenny said that was where I should meet her and that I should bring a gun. Odd, I thought. So I have an old pulse pistol, styled after a Colt revolver from ancient Earth history, strapped to my hip. It's meant to disable a human without killing them, though it is lethal if you place it point-blank at the base of the skull. Don't ask me how I know that.
So I walk down the hall and find room 302. I brace myself, prepare to knock, and the door opens right as I bring my knuckles down. And what fair lady did I have the unexpected pleasure of knocking square on the nose? Why, Melanie, of course!
I don't remember what happened after that exactly, other than waking up on Jenny's couch with a sore jaw. Turns out that Jenny and Melanie are long-time good friends. Jenny had asked Melanie for additional help with her situation, which I will explain in detail right after the room stops spinning when I try to stand.
I gotta hand it to Melanie. She's got one heck of an uppercut. Oops, she's lookin over my shoulder...
Alright. The room has stabalized, so here's the situation:
Jenny was looting wrecks and found what she believes was an Hogosha trasport. In the hold were two nomad weapons, at least that's what we think they are. She went to sell them to a fence that she'd used in the past for risky and valuable goods. He agreed on her price for the guns and set a rendevous at Freeport 10 for the handoff. Only... he never showed. The meeting should have taken place 25 hours ago, and Jenny couldn't raise him on the private comm. Bein the kind of tightly strung woman that she is, Jenny is... well let's just say I was lucky it was Melanie and not Jenny I accidentally suprised.
But instead of completely bailing on the sale, Jenny's holding out hope that her fence is just running behind schedule and has us camping out with her in room 302. We're taking shifts watching Melanie's datapad, which is currently synced with the Grendel's sensors. At the first sign of trouble, our plan is to run to either the Grendel, the Scrapyard Dog, or the Scavenger's Refuge, the latter one being Jenny's Recycler. Currently I'm on watch with the two gals asleep in the ajoining room. Thus far there's been no...
I have to be quick. I woke up the gals because the datapad went off with a nearby reading. IFF reads freelancer, but I don't buy it. That ship's got a serious sensor package for someone who's just mindin his own business. I'd bet a whole shipment of alien artefacts that he's scannin the ships docked on this freeport, and I'm fairly sure I know exactly what he's after. And I just bet he isn't workin alone neither.
And...
He just docked.
Oh... no, please tell me he didn't dock in the same hangar as the Refuge...
A man entered the room. He thought we were asleep. He had a gun on his hip, and a knife in his hand. Only he didn't see me. Behind the washroom door, with my pistol leveled at the back of his skull...
He's dead now. Back in the room from whence we fled. Melanie's datapad started goin crazy. The sensors were pickin up a full wing of fighters. Don't know who these crazies were, but they had no regard for Zoner neutrality...
We were headed for the Refuge, when the sensor readings on the datapad winked out. Passing by a portal, I saw the Scrapyard Dog explode in a ball of light before my very eyes. The fighters were a mix of civilian equipment and Kusari designs, though their affiliation wasn't clear.
Upon arrival in hangar 3, we discovered that the Scavenger's Refuge had been disabled. The entire engine housing had been breached and would have exploded upon powerup. So we crammed into the Drake that our assassin had arrived in and shot out of the hanger without waiting for clearance. It was only three hours later that we realized our assailant had transferred the nomad weapons to his hold before coming after us in the room. So we still aren't safe. They'll come after us, whoever they are, until we are dead and the nomad technology rests in their hands.
It's been three days since we escaped Freeport 10. It was hard keeping the food and oxygen from running out, but we finally arrived at Java Station in Tau-23. Or is it 32? I always get those numbers reversed...
It's safe to say we couldn't make it all the way back to Puerto Rico (the only system any of us trusted) in the Drake we stole, so with the little bit of cash that all three of us were able to scrape together, we managed to purchase a used Spatial. Then Melanie spoke up and reminded us that we'd need some guns just in case our persuers caught up with us. Well, Jenny and I were stumped. That's when the dealer asked us if we had any cargo we wished to transfer to our new ship.
The nomad weapons! Of course! Use what our unknown enemies wanted against them! It seemed brilliant at the time. Until we cracked open the sealed crate.
None of us had actually opened the weapon crate Jenny'd fished off that Hogosha wreck. We just assumed they were nomad from the odd energy readings she'd recorded from scans. Turns out, we were wrong. Really wrong.
Upon removing the steel cover, our eyes beheld two black cannons, but more importantly there was a small, unassuming black box strapped to the inside of the container... a tracking device?
When we cracked the black box open, we discovered it housed a data-disk.
Upon taking it back to the Spatial, we found that the disk was highly encrypted with a Kusari Military code. So it seems the real target of these unknown adversaries is whatever is on this disk. And I don't think simply handing it over and saying 'sorry we stole your secret data-drive' is going to convince these people to spare our lives.
Now I'm having trouble falling asleep. I'm not afraid of dying if it comes to that. I just don't know if I can handle the thought of Melanie...
No. It'll never come to that. I won't allow it. We will find out who is after us, and we will live through this. All of us.
Ten days since Freeport 10. We've been flyin through empty Kusari space, avoidin the trade lanes. We aren't taking any chances. We should arrive in the Texas system in 5 more days.
We finally discovered the identity of our attackers. On the bottom of the black box (the side that was concealed against the side of the crate) , we found an laser-etched emblem on the shiney black surface.
[|]
We are being chased by none other than the Black Dragon Society, the assassins of the Hogosha.
Upon discovering this important fact, Jenny had a complete meltdown. She was a complete mess. We came to the conclusion that continual shifts with only one person awake to pilot the ship was too stressful. So we navigated into a nebula, powered down the ship's engines and weapons, and took 8 hours to sleep. No one on watch except the sensors.
Four hours into our respite, I was awakened from a fitful sleep by the sound of feet padding down the metal gangway toward the cockpit. Needless to say, I was fully awake in an instant and followed as quietly as I could. I found Melanie staring out of the viewports at the swirling clouds of gas. Over time we'd become better aquainted, and had many discussions about our personal interests and the like. But I'd never seen her like this before. She looked so lost against the background of swirling cloud. Coming up behind her, I caught a tear running down her cheek before she realized she was being watched and hastilly brushed it away.
I couldn't help myself. I hugged her tightly and then just held her. She stiffened in suprise at first, but quickly went limp in my arms and began to sob into my shoulder. I hate to admit it, but my own eyes were moist too. I knew it wasn't my fault that we were all on the run, but I still felt responsible. Responsible for her safety. We stayed like that for close to an hour before her tears dried up.
I would have kissed her, if my conscience would have let me. But I couldn't. I couldn't take advantage of her emotional breakdown like that...
Bah. Listen to me! Going on like... I'm some kind of... or like I... even if I... I mean, I would like to kiss her... it's just... I mean... I'm not...
Forget it. I'm too exhaused to type a rational sentence.
Jenny tells me that she has a plan to get us out of this mess. I just pray that it works.
In the meantime I am going to write up a proposal for the Junker Congress. These events have been very telling, and it is obvious that the Hogosha are much more organized and dangerous than we would have believed. It's time the Junkers took action against this threat.
Early this "morning" Jenny called in a favor. A guy by the name of Keith Maron who works for Agiera.
Keith used to be a Junker, just like the rest of us. That is until a research vessel came under pirate attack in the Magellin system. They had managed to beat off the Hackers on their own, but they were badly damaged. Keith happened to be travelling through the same system and recieved their distress call. He helped them repair the ship's engines and life support so they could make it to the next station. But more to the amazement of the crew, Keith helped solve a complex formula that had stumped the scientists for weeks. In exchange for his help, the research vessel told Agiera Corp. about the prodigy Junker they'd run across in Magellin.
Shortly after that, Keith was sought out and employed.
Now Jenny was asking him to sacrifice his job to help us.
Keith has to steal one of Agiera's white boxes. You know; the ones that they ship gate-lane parts in. The ones that require a biometric key and detonate if opened outside of an authorized facility. Our plan? Lock the data-disk in that box and let our persuers find it. Then we force their leader to give up his name and face in exchange for the biometric key. In theory, we should be able to blackmail our adversaries into letting us go in exchange for the weapons and our continued silence.
Not the most perfect of plans, but if nothing else, it should buy us enough time to make it back to 'Rico.
Even over the comm. it wasn't hard to tell that Keith wasn't happy. But for some strange reason, he agreed to the insane proposal Jenny had whipped up. I think he likes Jenny, but that's just my speculation.
Now all we have to do is hope he doens't get caught before he can execute his part of the plan.
If this doesn't work, we're dead. Upon meeting Keith at the rendevous, he and his stolen package joined us in the Spatial, which we've now named Hopeless Gamble. Then Jenny flew us through a single tradelane ring and let it scan our cargo. Then we dumped the box containing the disk into space right next to the ring, and ran as if Phantoms were after us.
So now we are...
Hold on, we just recieved a communication request.
Alright, it appears they have the package.
They just said something about hunting for... oh frak.
They found us.
--Data Entry Paused--
--Data Entry Resumed--
There can be no doubt now. We are most definately going to die. Currently we are running as fast as out poor Spatial can take us. There are five Black Dragon's following us and slowly tearing away our armor. I estimate we may be able to hold out for another two minutes.
If anyone finds this PDP, take it to the Junker Congress in Puerto Rico.
This is Jake Cohen also known as "Hobbes". Also onboard are Jenny Ives, Keith Maron, and Melanie Gibson. We found an encrypted data-drive belonging to the Hogosha and the Black Dragon Society that is obviously extremely valuable to them. We were able to discern that the disk was sent from the Hogosha and intended for the Kusari Navy. I fear there is something much more sinister coming; something that will shorten the number of days left for Bretonia, and as much as I dislike the Bretonian government, they are still a safe haven for Junkers. Bah, now I'm rambling...
Elsewhere on this PDP, you will find an encrypted file. The Junker Congress will know the code. This proposal is of the utmost importance, as well as the findings regarding the operations of the Hogosha.
This is the last record of the Hopeless Gamble and its crew.
Hobbes out.
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