S.S.S. Nicholas van Rijn

[Grog]

"Dang that's a pretty ship" the Tripoli mechanic exclaimed, wiping his greasy hands in a handy rag... "You sure about the new name now... got alot of letters in it." He was of course referring to the "S.S.S. Nicholas van Rijn" painted on the bow of the shiny new Border Worlds Transport I had brought in for a tune-up and a paint-job.

"van Rijn" I explained, "was one of the greatest space traders of the Old Earth Empire. My hero, in fact. I don't expect to have my own trading empire like he did but I'm certainly going to try."

"But isn't that a Druggie ship?" he asked, spitting to one side.

"No, it isn't, they still haven't found BorderWorlds' shipyards but it isn't in Alpha space, and like you said it beats the heck out of those Pirate Cargoships alot of people run around in"

"True, true... the boys like to leave them in their sights when they see them whether they're supposed to be here or not, flying piles of junk they look like... and they *are* Druggie ships, at least one of their minions' anyways... Liberty Rogue flying scrapheaps"

"Well why don't you take some of those old Flying LunchBoxes and convert them into Cargo vessels?" I asked, "they look like they could carry 35... maybe 3600 Cargo easy and still have Armour enough to walk through a flock of Hessian VHF's unescorted". The look he gave me reminded me that I still wasn't a *real* Corsair even though I owned one of the nicer estates on the North Hills of Crete and have been flying Food and Fertilizer into Crete for ages in various contraptions. Ah well, you can take the boy out of Liberty but you can't take Liberty out of the boy.

"Now about that IFF..." he began. See, last time I was in here I had them "fix" my IFF from Liberty Police to "anything else but" thinking they'd set it to Corsair... they didn't and I'm now "Orbital Spa and Cruise" which is worth a snicker in some parts, but I do quite a bit of running for OSC bases so what the heck. Even more now that I have a ship that doesn't look like a three-ship collision.

"Ahh leave it, it gets me through Customs" I replied, "besides, you never know, I could start a Tourist branch for them out here". He laughed at that, but I wasn't kidding; there's a market for people who want "wild and dangerous" and Crete certainly is that; and that Neutron Star in Omega-41 is quite the sight. Of course it'd mean having a chat with some of the senior Corsairs to keep the more junior ones from killing the Tourists just for fun.

Then he went on... "You know a couple of the boys found a wrecked LuxLiner out in the Omegas a couple months ago... wasn't us that wrecked it either; from what they say, sounds like it had a few problems coming through a jumphole...". And then he rambled on about something technical, size to weight, hull bracing, et cetera. I drifted off for a bit but then something he said brought me right back to reality. "You're saying they can be fixed so they come through jumpholes okay?" I asked. "Sure" he says, "Military does it all the time, it's all in the armour plating; now Liners are just thin shells, but triple the hull strength and you could be in and out of Jumpholes all day long".

Hmmm... "Let's talk" I said, "Now where was this wreck, exactly ?..."


Guess I should say a bit about myself; I'm Heironymous Grogopoulos, known to my friends as "Grog"... and occasionally "hairy grog" "anonymous grog" etc... you get the picture. Born and bred in Liberty despite the handle, raised on swashbuckling stories from Old Earth and despite decent grades washed right out of the Academy; motion-sickness, go figger. I'm okay in freighters though; as long as the anti-grav is steady I can mix it up with the best of them.

So I bummed around Liberty for awhile in a Rhino, graduated to a Samara (very nice ship, I highly recommend it), then a Mammoth, running H-fuel and parts into our yards. Then some creep in a Pirate Transport took me out... annoying but survivable. "I gotta get me one of these" I thought, and so I did. Almost invulnerable the "Pirate" Transport sports 9 count'em *9* transport-class turrets and has a good bit of hull-plating. Seriously ugly though and unlike the Mule you can't remove those deflector-plates for more maneuverability // <cough> //.

But there's a problem: see I'm a "lawful" carrier; I can carry on in bars with the odd Rogue or two, but at the end of the day I'm carrying Neon not Cardamine. Horrible stuff that, junkies in back alleys waiting to get the crap beaten out of them when they try to mug somebody... but I digress. So the skull-and-crossbones ship, while an able vessel, just makes the donut-munchers nervous and excited for no reason.... blah. Oh I should have mentioned, I met some of my "heros" the Corsairs. Good chaps, not at all like those "Outcast" psychos you see hanging around Buffalo waiting for their next "enhancement" fix, bit rough around the edges is all. I been to Crete, in fact I been running there with food-rations every chance I get; they're still working on making the planet self-supporting; when they do the Bretonians will be breathing a bit easier. One thing I'm a bit wary about are those Alien Artifcats they export, though; weren't those the things what started the last Nomad War ?... and from what I hear, they're at it again and *again* in Rhineland; a whole bunch of people called "the Wild". But Crete has nothing else to export and they have to eat. So I move AA to Leon for them; my hands are a *bit* dirty but not too much. Crete, by the way is a *lovely* planet, and the system is quite pleasant to fly through. So I think to myself "hey what about tourism ?". I got some funny looks but the Elders just shrugged and said "sure, go for it" more or less.

So I go back to Liberty and pick up one of those little Liners; you know the ones... "Prison Liners". I can't afford a LuxLiner and the shipyard won't sell them to Independents like myself anyways. What a cow this thing was: takes a day and a half to turn around and always getting stuck in the tradelanes. But it's a "liner". Sadly that's not the way people look at it. Even with the extra work I put into it, almost nobody wants to go on a tour in a "Prison Liner"... mind you those that do are seriously impressed, that neutron star in O-41 is quite the eyecatcher (can't stay too long 'cuz of the rads though), and the boys in Crete always put on a dogfight in their Titans (word of advice: don't call them "hood ornaments").

Now just last week I decided to go for a spin in the new systems, the one everybody's been talking about: Gallia. *WOW*. I almost ran into a planet looking at the sights. Talked with a couple of seriously well-mannered pirate types (first time I ever actually decided to pay a tax too), they recommended their planet for tourism... I went there... ummm... not that great to look at during the day and the air's a bit stuffy, but the night sky's as good as anything else in Sirius and they have some decent bars and restaurants. I tells them I'll see what I can do.

Seriously this is an amazing opportunity; get a foot in the door, be the one that opens up a new House to the rest of Sirius for Tourism. But that "Prison Liner" is going to get me nowhere; apart from the name, I got myself blown up in that Orkney system by a small flight of Sabres... danged drugged-up Outcasts... so I need a better ship to do this.

And this is where the story begins: I've sold the small Liner and picked up a BW Transport; still not good enough for moving tourists around in comfort but it's the fastest route to be able to afford a proper Luxury Liner someday and it's just maneuverable enough to dodge a pack of Sabres. I'm doing my usual thing: food and a few tourists into Crete, running around stocking up OSC's bases for them (they're a bit annoyed that I have an OSC IFF but they like the look of the BWT as long as I keep it polished) and even allow me to run out some passengers who haven't time to waste waiting for an AT to show up; I guess turning the Corsair charm onto the ticket-handlers worked like I thought it might.