Two good sized ships set out from the Gallant System, home to the Judgement Department's penal operations in the galactic east. The destination is Silence IX, a planet placed in the far reaches of the confederation's northern frontier.
You first ride aboard the
Trumpet of Revelation, a testament class heavy cruiser that has been converted to serve as a colony ship following a long career as a pirate hunter. Although the heavy sensor array has been replaced with a civilian model to make room for more passengers and cargo, by your appraisal the
Trumpet is still a worthy ship. Its weapon systems and shields are sufficient to handle most pirate craft, and the truly impressive sub light thrusters allow it to evade and even safely shadow most things it cannot take in a fair fight.
Your jailors permit you free movement aboard the the Trumpet, but although you are allowed on the bridge command falls to Congresscleric Jasper Reich, a non-parliamentary member of the Congress of Bishops, ranking agent of the Judgement Department, and political officer in charge of the mission to escort you to Silence IX. For a government toady, Jasper seems friendly enough; Although you suspect he was picked for this job because you might find him agreeable. He is a official and divine caster of the Church of the Blue Sorrow, which is a sanitized government approved offshoot of your own Sparrowite faith, and thus you share a good deal of common beliefs and religious practices. Jasper tells you that once you arrive at your destination, he will formally grant you a conditional pardon and command of the ship, and from that point on the only authority he will hold over you is the right to veto any travel plans that may take you out of the system. He will remain in your service until he is positve that you are not a flight risk, and that your colony will not require further support from the Department of Judgement.
They say that the voyage will take five jumps. After the second, Jasper feels comfortable enough with your behavior to transfer you back to the helm of the other ship in the formation. Your ship. The
Solo. One of the last Falcon class smugglers to come off the assembly lines of the Caribbeos System Shipyard before the patron star of scallywags went supernova 130 Sols ago, it was stolen by your maternal grandfather Emmanuel as part of an inside job (great uncle Junior was head of shipyard security at the time). Emmanuel had the brains to be a smuggler, but by most accounts lacked the luck or courage to truly be successful. He eventually offered the
Solo as a dowry to secure the hand of your father Gunther, a member of the influential Zurgst merchant family, for his only daughter Widelene.
Widelene and Gunther soon found themselves in charge of both the
Solo and the black to grey market end of the family business at large, a duty which they carried out until Gunther's death. Everybody assumed that Gunther's duties would fall to you, his only son, but the family decided instead to divvy up your dad's holdings and responsibilities amongst themselves, leaving you with nothing but the ship. You and Widelene rebuilt, of course, attracting both merchants and crooks from the confederation, and refugees from Caribbeos to your cause as you forged a drug and magic smuggling empire all of your own.
Apart from its role as your home and inheritance, the
Solo is a fine ship. Each Falcon class sits somewhere on the line between heavy cruiser and capital ship, with a custom 1 of 1 exterior design crafted to resemble a harmless freighter. It has heavy armor and shields, and a warp drive that can charge faster and jump further than any hostile craft it is likely to encounter. Many Falcon class captains choose to sacrifice some cargo space for additional weaponry, but you and your ancestors have always favored the default loadout; twelve tubes capable of firing long range EMP torpedoes. No smuggler likes being accused of piracy, and nobody can make that accusation credible if your ship lacks the capability to crack anyone's hull. Even these nonlethal weapons, however, are off limits to you for now. Jasper has stationed 50 Silver Anchors, heavily armed and armored transhuman marines, aboard the solo with the strict orders of keeping the crew from accessing the warp drive or weapons systems to subvert your trip to Silence IX.
Jasper likely felt the need to station transhumans because you command some of your own aboard the
Solo; 39 refugee Chrono-Sirens, each a skilled illusion sorceress and assassin with the terrible ability to drain the youth and health of anyone they deceive with words, feints, or spells. However everyone, including Captain Hellfire of the Silver Anchors, is of the thought that if the Sirens and the Anchors were to clash aboard the
Solo, your transhumans would probably win by virtue of trickery and familiar terrain in spite of the slight numbers disadvantage. You can't help but think, then, that Jasper trusts you and has simply used the presence of the Sirens as an excuse to add more super-soldiers to the mission that you will someday command.
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The small convoy makes its third jump, and then its fourth. While the drives are recharging, you are roused from your nap and summoned to the bridge for a briefing.
The meeting consists of you, Captain Hellfire of the Silver Anchors, and Lady Madeline, the most senior Chrono-Siren at your disposal. The former appears as a hulking eight-foot tall mass of silver trimmed power armor with a balding head as the only exposed flesh. Much to the captain's chagrin, Lady Madeline uses her illusion magic to mimic his appearance, changing only the color of his armor to the black and blue of the defunct Solar Kingdom of Caribbeos. Jasper holo-projects into the room, wearing the fine aqua colored silks of his priestly station, and gives his briefing.
"Captain, Lady, Lord Conrad. Welcome to the binary star system known to the locals as the Frontier Gate. We now face a decision, and although command is mine until we complete our final jump, the delema falls under the future governor's area of expertise. This system has been referred to the Department of Judgement for nonpayment of the confederate tithe. We have lost contact with every tithe freighter we have sent here for the past decade and a half, and believe the locals are employing privateers of some sort to deal with them. I don't see anything dangerous on the scanners, so it is likely said privateers employ stealth systems." Captain Hellfire grunts. Madeline mimics him. Jasper continues.
"To serve judgement, I have been granted a secret decree by both houses of holy congress. We are within our rights to seize anything and everyone in this system that isn't the personal property of a planetary governor or other individual who can trace their linage to old imperial nobility. To minimize the odds of contact with the privateers, I propose we wait until the drives are charged, hit one local planet with a quick raid, and then jump away before the locals can respond."Lady Madaline speaks next, after a brief pause, her voice a perfect immatation of Captain Hellfire's gruff tone, but she is unable or unwilling to conceal her thick accent.
"Oi! Shoulda told us that before, ya gubmint nit! Ol'Conrad and I know 'ow to deal with pirates an' the like, yeah? Where ta go an' who ta ask about em, yeah? But no shady folk gun trust us with answers now that we jump inta the system flanked by a damn gubmint cruiser!""Please." The real Captain Hellfire cuts in, clearly in a huff over Madeline's behavior,
"We don't need to employ the tricks of a smuggler who got caught, no offense, because the solution is straight forward. We have two cruisers and near one hundred transhumans. It is overwhelmingly likely that we vastly outclass whatever third rate pirate is picking off tax ships out here in the boonies. We put a planet to our backs to minimize the odds of an ambush, and publicly broadcast our decree on all channels. The scumbags will either foolishly attack us and be obliterated, or slink off like cowards and leave us to our business."Jasper hears the Captain out, and offers a polite pause before responding.
"Your solution is not unreasonable, but the Trumpet is carrying some fragile agrikits and autominers. I'd rather avoid any possible damage. Conrad, I'm sending dossiers on the local planets to your bridge. Advise me on which one you would raid, or if you have some other plan to nullify the privateers so that we may have our pick of the system's wealth at our leisure."A wall of text pops up on the bridge console, which you quickly begin to read.
Inhabited Worlds of the Frontier GateImperial Acres: A verdant world used a vacation destination for the confederation's elite. It is covered by private estates full of valuable worldly goods, and orbited by lots of private yacht-craft. The filthy rich keep slaves, the most wretched of which would probably welcome transportation to a dangerous penal colony. You know for a fact the Zurgst family keeps a few estates here, sacking the planet while sparing the holdings of your estranged family could be a conciliatory gesture.
Blackshaft: The moon of a Jovian world. Most of the population lives in domed cities, and farms edible fungus fed on nutrients harvested from the nearby gas giant in a network of airtight tunnels that stretch beneath the surface of the planet. These tunnels are said to feed the whole system with considerable surplus. Although you don't usually do business on this side of the confederacy, you know a small guild of thieves, assassins, and transhumans illegally grow small batches toxic, recreational, and truly supernatural fungi on this world for export.
Distant Diamond: A warehouse hub world owned by the Holy Frontier Corporation. It hosts small confederation-built space, air, sea, and land vehicles that are exported to alien nations beyond the borders of your civilization, as well as the exotic goods and currency that the company receives in payment.
Cauldron of Prayers: A hostile world of boiling geothermal seas. The people who live here develop mutations that make them hardy and ideal for conscripted labor. Although by no means industrialized enough to mass produce them, several monastic orders work to produce transhuman soldiers and mages in small batches here. Lady Madeline informs you that water from the geyser near the planet's south pole is highly magical, and believed to be a major component in the lost formula used to create Chrono-Sirens.
As you read through the options, a worry creeps into your head. Your network of smugglers and dealers will slowly follow you to Silence IX, bringing useful resources with them. These ships will almost certainly have to pass through the Frontier Gate. If the locals find out who raided them and why, it is likely they will seek retaliation on your underlings as they seek to reach you.
How do you advise Congresscleric Jasper Reich to proceed?
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Topic: (SG) Penal Governor (Read 8760 times)