Its been quite a while. Planetform held onto me long after they said they would, and then I had some trouble with that fellow on Nuremburg again...Insufferable bloke. Right. His name is Hans Die something, which I believe is much like calling someone 'Fat Tony' This bloke and I have a running deal, he tells me what he knows, and I don't shoot him, which had worked out in the past, but now he seems to have built himself a possy, and I had to offer him rather more money than his information has ever been worth.
After that, I had a rather chilling encounter with the Corsairs, one in which I actually spent a great deal of time in an escape pod. The new Underbridge isn't quite as nice as the last, though that may just be that awful new ship smell.
My day job, I'm a ten percent man. I make ten percent, of the profit, mind you. This is something I really have trouble expressing to the pirates out there. In my days as a Rogue, we understood economics, rent and such. I don't own this train, I didn't own the last one. I make ten percent, and if I'm pirated for three million, well, I've just lost three hundred grand, out of my own pocket, and my employer just lost two million, seven hundred thousand. I'm required to report that loss, or pay it myself. Of course I report it. Its not my business what Juno does with that information. But I know. She hunts down pirates. I'm glad I'm not one of them.
Promoted! And...well, Not sure where that leaves me. Miss Kietan has been my employer for a long time now, and now we're the same rank..she's dropped her Intellegence connections, too, so I think..I think she's just dropping out of the public arena. Shame, really. Brilliant woman. In the mean time, I've a new salary, nearly 50%...not that I expressly need it, but, then, thats not why I took this job.
I might take a shuttle up to the Unseelie to have a party with that band of Nietzscheians next time I see them, make sure Mariko knows she's always welcome...Make them all know they're always welcome.
Oh, wow...Those things...Hurt...Twasn't comms....Right, so, last month, Mariko dropped into omega 55, and had a conversation with some Wilde...I was more than a bit worried, so I dropped in, caught a wif of their telapathy..Didn't hurt, that time, seemed almost sorrowful. Made me want to cry....
This time, in omega three...This thing, absolutely screaming about some artefact..someone 'testing the light' and I'm on the other side of the system, with a star between us, and it gave me a splitting headache...I'm getting out of the omegas for a while. At least so long as these things are out there, searching for stolen goods...Its simply not worth experiencing.
Is this thing working? Control A; Playback recordings, please: "Is this thing working?" Control A; Record:
Ok, so. Uhm, I've a job. A Job! On a Train. An Advanced Train. Off of Dortmund and onto a train, hauling, on occasion, things that aren't radioactive or corrosive or infective or just otherwise incredibly dangerous. Which, of course, makes it the opportunity of a lifetime. Yes, sure, sure, it could be dangerous. But I'm not staring at possible gray goo, either. And there's walls and holds and niobium seals between the cargo and me. So I'll not ask to many questions about why I'm landing on Hessian bases, and I'll chat nicely with the good men and women in the Military, and pray they don't scan my hold for whatever might be in there. I could jump ship, sure. Just abandon it. I'm sure the AE corporation would find a new pilot...but I signed a contract. A more binding one than the one that had me trapped on Dortmund, and I couldn't get out of that till the lady offered me this...Lady. Like, a title. Talking to me!
Met the new girl...Amelia Lothar. She's really excited about the job, I would think. Felt a bit bad, breaking some of the harsher realities to her, and I think I scared her. Have to work on my people skills, I'm upsetting little girls.
In other news, again, I've been talked to about the Insurance. And how, for some reason, we've insurance under a company with some sort of massive deal with Ageria. Suffice it to say, it voids the insurance to use jump holes...which means, for the most part, I have no insurance. So I'm considering just dropping out of the insurance program completely, and paying out of pocket if I need a new ship. If I arrange a sinking fund, I can keep the insurance money, drop it in that fund, and with a little bit more off the top, probably arrange a stockpile that will more than pay for a new train. Buy them in installments, over the top of the sinking fund, to minimize interest on the thing..if I get a high risk portfolio, run it through an intelligent brokerage firm...Or my own brokerage firm, even!
That, then, is the plan. Establish my own insurance firm as a horizontally invested sinking fund, join an insider trading group somewhere...Run it through Planetform encryption and anonymous banking systems, and fly wherever I want, screw Ageria.
Well...That Wren fellow, he's a bit odd. Had a talk with me, and now, well, ugh.
I'm pretending I didn't have that talk. I work for ALG, I get orders from ALG...Doing...
Well, I move transport. Good enough?
I get blackboxed orders, and I follow them. That, or I go back to shoveling radioactive isotopes into magma canisters. This is better, no matter who I work for. This is better.
Seelie Personal log
Entry 2
"We don't deal in military secrets."
Of course not...Because I had every right to pick up that missile launcher from a BMM transport, who had every right to...what? Buy it from BAF surplus? So, I had every right to that missile launcher, that piece of merchandise that, alone, was worth shipping without manifests across the Omegas and then through Gamma itself, to be delivered to a buyer who insists on the 'neutral territory' of Freeport Eleven, of all places. Then, the strangest thing happened...The slush fund dumped. 88 million credits, disappeared, just before I finalized that transaction. The missile job itself, that paid 15 million. So, now, there's 15 million in the slush fund...which isn't, incidentally, enough to buy a new ship if this one goes down. Not even close.
I figured this out a while back: I've complete access to the networks. All the networks. ALG comms, Bowex-net, public servers, Zoner servers....I can access Maltese broadcasts. Anything, even encrypted files...Like a real person. Better than a real person. Like...like, a real person with money. And, I guess I do have money. I've the slush fund. Whatever the Seelie draws in, I hold, until it gets drawn off by the Lady. One Juno Kietan. Somewhat notorious. For things. I'm not really clear on that, and I'm not sure I want to be. She sometimes sends me on errands, such as the missile job...Oh. What I figured out: I'm not really ensured or employed by ALG. They don't have any records of me...not the contract, nothing.
Outrageous! Someone, some bastard dockmaster, has rearranged my cargopods. Or, rather, well, not. Just...put them back on. Like normal...Right, ok, so, he did. But I pay extra to maintain my pattern. Been paying extra at base after base, for however long now, for something that is not a pattern...fine, not a big deal. Still.
Underbridge Personal Log
Entry 74
"I could use a guide....to...Delta?"
Corsair is out of ammo. No idea. But, I'm headed through Gamma, and my manifests are public. I'm taking Fuel to Dabadoru station. If I'm caught...could mean my life. So I hired this pirate to guide me through. Told him I'd never been there before...and he got me past a battleship, a gunboat, a pair of bombers, and a whole slew of fighters. My first encounter, that is, the first one I started on my own. Found the contact, made the deal, plotted the route. All completely on my own. Last year? I was an indentured contract laborer....Today I'm a full fledged transport pilot.
