Everyone knew the rumours of corruption surrounding Ageira. I, like many, blew them off as just that - rumours until now. I'd been with the company for 5 years, working in the finance team. A week or so ago I started coming across some strange transactions, money going nowhere, coming from nowhere. I raised the discrepancies with my boss who brushed it off as glitches and clerical errors and told me not to worry and move on, but none of it felt right. I started compiling what information I could, trying to be careful - asking around for clues from the technicians, programmers, and people I considered friends to piece together whatever this was. Eventually, I hit dirt! backdoor deals for sub-standard parts. Hush money for lane failures and god knows what else. Panicked, I tried to contact friends to warn them of what I'd found only to have no response or "they no longer work in this department". I wanted to try and take a copy of as much as possible but suddenly my access was revoked and in storms a security team who grabbed me and escorted me away while my office was being ransacked.
I was shoved into a detention cell. Outside I could hear Guard running around and yelling before I was subjected to what felt like hours of questioning myself. Alone and tired I almost didn't hear the lock *click* open and a keycard with a note slide in. I went to the door and peeked outside, the corridor was empty, I hurried back to the keycard with the note "YOUR LIFE IS IN DANGER! GO TO THESE COORDINATES, THERE'S A SHIP IN THE SERVICE HANGER. HURRY!" It took what felt like an eternity to process the note before I bolted for the door and towards the hanger. As I reached the ship the alarm started blasting but they were too late, I got the ship powered and escaped the station.
patrols were heavily searching the asteroid field but I managed to stay just hidden enough until I ran into a squadron of Xenos pilots who, as luck would have it, were already busy with someone. against my better judgement, I got on the comm and offered to help, hoping they might be willing to return the favour. Fate was kind and the person I'd run into, who'll I'll refer to by their new alias Marshall, was one of the people I'd reached out to while investigating. We quickly dealt with the Xenos before heading to New York through a jump hole nearby I was aware of, better to be safe than sorry considering the sensor suites used on Jump Gates.
Once in New York, I realised the coordinates I'd been given led into the Badlands, not somewhere either of us was ready to deal with just yet. Rochester, a Junker station, was nearby and our first port of call. with the few credits I had and what was left on the ship I managed to grab some food while Marshall managed to get us in on some pest control contracts nearby which helped with the lack-of-credits situation.
Not wanting to sit around for too long we decided to make a break for the coordinates I was given, however the area is a known rogue hotspot so Marshall somehow managed to modify our ships IFFs to show as one of them and we made it to Buffalo station, a rogue base hidden in the asteroids of the badlands. Unfortunately upon landing it was obvious we didn't look like we belonged there and the Rogues were not happy at our trickery, if it wasn't for us getting a new message from our mystery saviour guiding us to a station in Pennsylvania and the name of a contact there we'd have been in a very sticky situation.
The gate to Pennsylvania was always having issues and I knew its local sensors rarely reported back which made our journey into the system and onto Niverton a lot simpler. New ships and new IDs meant I could finally take a breath before our contact told us about a rumoured weapons Cache which the rogues would be very happy to get their hands on at the site of the Dallas Incident in exchange for the data I'd copied investigating Ageira.
with the use of jump holes getting into Texas was surprisingly easy, with a quick stop at the local junker base, Beaumont, for some nav maps of the fields before heading out to the rumoured cache. The new ships held up great, considering the storms and radiation on the other side of the hull and we managed to find the cache among the wreckage. on the way back a close call with LPI meant an extended stay at Beaumont to let things cool down, taking on some more contracts and even taking out a few FOBs in the process. During this time word of our find apparently had already made its way back to Buffalo and they requested our presence. Feeling pretty smug we made our way back to New York.
Unfortunately, this was short-lived. While we were allowed docking access, no one wanted to do business with us as none of the traders knew anything about us. we were allowed to tag along with the combat pilots, doing some defence patrols and hit/run on the nearby lanes increased our favour with some. Eventually, a station official offered to vouch for us to a distributor, for a fee of course. We accepted and were reluctantly sold a hold full of Cardamine Cartridges, there was no way we were getting the pure stuff.
While my hold was still being filled Marshall had gone ahead to check out our route and found Liberty Navy doing border checks at the California gate. Marshall, who seemed far more adept at this than I feel he should have been messed with the nearby lane security and caused the team at the gate to check out the disturbance giving us enough time to access the gate
we hoped for the best and made our way through the system and onto Cortez as quick as we could. Disappearing into the icefields, we finally made it to Montezuma base and handed off the cargo as requested
Typing this up, waiting for any information from our Saviour, I wonder how my life got turned upside down so quickly...
PERMANENT AFFILIATION POLICY CONSENT: I hereby agree that my character will be permanently affiliated with The Lane Hackers. In case of leaving the official faction I am allowed to continue playing my character only under independent Lane Hacker affiliation in accordance to generally accepted Lane Hacker lore.
![[Image: default.png]](https://lh.discoverygc.com/image/portraits/square/default.png)
![[Image: 0.png]](https://lh.discoverygc.com/image/levels/0.png)