How We Got Here

[Thexare]

Near the edge of the Silverton field, there was a rock that was almost entirely unremarkable, save for its size and the small airlock sticking out. Such miniscule outposts popped up from time to time as temporary cargo storage or tiny, easily-missed hideouts for the local criminal element to lay low until the police give up. The Mollys were believed to have hundreds of these hideaways scattered around Bretonia, a rumor they were happy to promote and exaggerate, and patrols within the Badlands often have to be alert for larger outposts that ambush squads use.

This one was a hacker cave in every sense of the phrase, lined with surveillance equipment, servers, and computers. A brunette, likely dyed judging from the light roots, climbed out of the still-running early-model Anki at the entrance and took in the sights. Most prominent was the corpse of the previous owner, his upper torso still sticking out of the garbage chute with his mouth stitched shut. This all seemed over-dramatic and unnecessary; the Hacker that told her about this outpost already told her about the previous owner and his poor decisions, and no one else would ever see the message. Beyond that, the room had the characteristic look of an abandoned hovel, just with less dust. The loose debris of prior unclean inhabitants was scattered around the floor, and there were sticky patches where sugary drinks had been spilled with no concern for cleaning. No small insects out here, Luciana surmised, but she still hated seeing such carelessness near such valuable equipment. Well... formerly valuable, anyway; it was rather old and outdated at this point, far from the top of the line modern Hacker tech. Good enough to get the job done still, but not a real loss if it's seized or blown up.

This outpost was located near enough to Pueblo to monitor all the station's traffic, as long as it was manned - which it usually wasn't. These rocks were a miserable posting with barely any amenities, especially for the standards of the Lane Hackers. Luciana, on the other hand, found it quite reminiscent of her old apartment on Shinagawa. Kishiro didn't pay for comfort. In fact, they barely paid.

She wouldn't be here long enough for comfort to be a concern, though. She immediately activated the ship scanner, filtering for Navy, LSF, Ageira, and Bounty Hunter signatures - she already knew the LPI wouldn't be called for this. After shutting down all the servers, she started opening them up to retrieve their storage drives, and ran them back to her freighter by the boxload. A message from the main display reminded her that time was short, a Navy patrol was only about an hour away. With the last drives boxed, she had thirty-five minutes to go. Still enough.

Demolitions was not Luciana's field of expertise. Sure, if you give her a bomb and the instructions, she'll be able to blow things up, but the mechanics of these energized plasma charges were beyond her. She knew that it was largely the same concept as plasma cannons, but more than that wasn't her field. That was never her real interest, she wanted to create, but here she was in a miserable rock, destroying something else. She stopped herself from another rant that no one would care about and set the explosives. One in the center of the main room, one in the simplistic life support hub, and one at the interior entrance to the airlock. With one more glance over her shoulder, she saw that the patrol was enroute, ten minutes to go.

She was out of time, this had to be enough. She rushed back into her still running Anki and forced the airlock open, overriding the safety protocols. Pulling away from the base on full thrust, she activated the remote detonator, shattering the asteroid and reducing all the equipment inside to molten slag. In better days, she'd have wanted to save the equipment, but she wasn't given the time.

As she rushed away on cruise toward Denver, a patrol of torpedo-armed Guardians hailed her. "Civilian vessel, this is Navy patrol Green 3. Please identify yourself."

"Luciana Penrose, freelancer. I was tipped off to a Hacker outpost out here, so I blew it up." All true, after all.

"Thank you for your assistance, but there may be others. We're performing a sweep of the area, please make your way to safety. The Pueblo junction is nearby."

"Understood. Keep up the good work," she replied cheerfully, closing the channel.

A few days later she woke up in a hotel on Denver to a message, which she read over breakfast

Lucy, good work on that base. Unfortunately, we weren't able to retrieve any data or equipment, but the tip from the mole was acted on and the problem has been resolved. Your payment is in your account. We'll be in touch.

Clever phrasing, she mused, sipping her tea and smiling as she checked her accounts. She wanted to create, but destruction was proving rather profitable so far.