[u][b][i]Bushwhacker[/i] Low orbit over planet Socordia[/b][/u] Floating languidly in zero-g at the head of the [i]Bushwhacker's[/i] bridge was an aging, bald-headed man barely a meter and a half in height if he were to stand upright planetside. His was a kind and grandfatherly visage, with a thin, resting smile though deep wrinkles and crow's feet radiating from his eyes suggested something other than the passage of time had aged him beyond his years. First impression might suggest that he was merely the father of one of the vessel's crew; proudly touring the charge of his accomplished son or daughter. Difficult though it might be to conceive at first appearance, the kindly-seeming fellow at the fore of the bridge was perhaps the most wanted criminal in the entire Cluster. Though Rasvan Saroyan's relaxed, calm demeanor was misleading, his authority was demonstrated by the deferential distance allowed by the bridge's guard attache and the nervous glances stolen by ensigns from behind their holographic terminal screens. Between checking core outputs and monitoring the starship's myriad systems, the bridge crew watched anxiously as Saroyan stared pensively into the horizon directly ahead of the orbiting starship, where Socordia's anemic gray-blue atmosphere faded into the pitch blackness of space. From several thousand kilometers up, Saroyan watched as Socordia's surface rolled past under his feet. Vast mountains capped with frosty glaciers rose up from dusty, sun-baked deserts. Even when surveying the planet from the comfort of an orbiting starship, Socordia seemed like a miserable hellworld. And it was. But ten years of terraforming at tremendous expense had made the atmosphere somewhat breathable, and enough liquid water now flowed on the planet's surface to support life as Man knew it. Socordia now was only barely habitable, and that was all that was needed. Saroyan did not need to replicate the garden world of Parravon, not for the crop he wanted to produce. As the [i]Bushwhacker's[/i] orbit took the heavily-armored destroyer over Socordia's subtropical doldrums, Saroyan was delighted to bear witness to his cherished crop. Ribbons of blue meltwater from the planet's high, jagged peaks irrigated the lower valleys and wadis and coaxed bands of lush green from the surrounding deserts. And mixed within those bands of green were blushes of pink and red: poppyflowers blooming in such great numbers that they could be seen plainly from low orbit. Even now, Saroyan could see the the reaping of this great harvest. Small freighters could be seen approaching to rendezvous with the [i]Bushwhacker[/i], rocketing skyward from depot-fortresses positioned deep in Socordia's deserts protected by hundreds of miles of sterile desert as well as redoubtable anti-orbital batteries. The pirate warlord knew their hulls to be laden with dozens of two-ton pallets of black tar heroin. Once refined into purer derivatives in the [i]Bushwhacker's[/i] onboard processing lab, Socordia's fruits would be ready to be disseminated across the Inner Cluster, where the street value of a freighterload of black tar surpassed the yearly output value of entire planets. The fortunes to be had were vast, but there was also so much that could go wrong. Much of Socordia's harvest - maybe a full half - would be seized at some point between Socordia's orbit and the crack dens of Mendicant. And despite Saroyan's reputation, despite his capacity to cause immense suffering, the lord of the Outer World Pirates still suffered a measure of [i]breakage[/i]. "Two shipments en route from the Belka Depot, sir," one of the ensigns reported to Saroyan as he depressed the mute button of his earpiece with an index finger. "How much?" Saroyan asked as he watched through the windshield as the freighter ships slowed down for their approach with the [i]Bushwhacker[/i]. "A shade under 42 tons, sir," the same ensign reported. Saroyan acknowledged hm with an approving nod. "And the Radak Depot should be ready for shipment when we pass over the southern latitudes again, no?" "Erm, I'm afraid not sir. Radak Depot's output is still low. They're reporting that the harvest in Mbuku's sector was hampered by a wind storm that damaged much of their crop. They sent a memo stating that they can either send up their 26 tons, or we can wait until they have a full load." Everyone on board the bridge knew at that instant that there would be trouble because of this. Saroyan's reflection in the windshield gave proof that his calm, kindly smile had withered into a frown upon hearing that. The pirate lord spun himself around to face the ensign. "Twenty-six tons? Did I hear that correctly?" "Y-yes sir," the ensign stuttered. "Radak Depot reports only 26 tons. If you'd like, I can respond to that memo and ask if-" "Ask [i]what[/i]?" Saroyan interrupted, obviously irritated but still perfectly calm. "If you want to ask them anything, ask them if Mbuku thinks I am a moron." "Mbuku thinks he can disrespect me: that's it. I don't need to ask them anything, because I think it's clear to all of us what is going on here. I never considered Mbuku to be a clever man. A savage fighter and a capable commander sure, but a clever man he is clearly not. Not if he thinks he can so blatantly disrespect me." "I regret that all of you had to bear witness to this," Saroyan said as he pushed himself off the deck and floated away from the windshield to the middle of the bridge. "I'm a fair man. My salary to all those in my employ is more than ample. So when someone like Mbuku tries to skim off the top - or in this case, rather obviously gouge - into the product, I feel disrespected. And unfortunately for you all, you're going to have to see what happens when I'm disrespected." "Put this ship in synchronous orbit over Radak Depot. Once we're above Radak Depot, point every armament this vessel has at the depot. Let them know Mbuku has two hours to submit himself and everything he has before I glass him from orbit." [hr] [b][u]Ciudad Capolicán Planet Nuevo Arauco[/u][/b] Gray, polluted rain pattered upon a ratty tarp draped sloppily over a twisted piece of rebar. With gray rainwater dripping slowly through several pinholes onto a floor of street trash and filthy, worn-out clothes, it was a miserable place to call home. Sofia didn't give a shit, though. Nor did she care about the fact that she was going to spend the night on the street, sleeping on a bed of dirty clothes infested with alien bugs. She didn't even care that she had just been fucked by a disgusting stranger in a nearby alley for 40 credits. All that mattered that this moment was that she had her needle full of Vidrio. Sofia held a hypodermic syringe to the bend in her arm and pressed the hair-thin needle against a pulsing vein in her arm. Scabs and healed-over scars all over the inside of her elbow gave proof that she had done this many, many times before. Sofia grimaced slightly with the familiar prick of the needle sliding into her vein. Once in, Sofia slowly pumped the tiny syringe full of clear-yellow liquid into her veins. She felt the Vidrio mix briefly with the blood in her arm before a rush a of ecstasy washed over her. Her arms, suddenly heavy, fell to her side as she gave a sigh of satisfaction. The spent needle fell from her fingers into the folds of an old sweater as she descended into her squalid nest of filth in blissful paralysis. This was definitely Vidrio - the good stuff - Sofia decided at once as she stared up at the leaky tarp roof draped overhead. She had been short on money a while back, and tried the product from another dealer that only set her back ten credits. It was a waste of ten credits; a bullshit knockoff that wasn't half as potent as Vidrio. The good stuff had to be brought in from offworld; Sofia's dealer said it had to be smuggled in from an uncharted planet where poppies grew like grapes did on Parravon and cannabis grew in forests as tall as a starship is long. Sofia didn't much care where it came from, all she knew is that the bullshit that enterprising folks tried to cook up on Nuevo Arauco didn't cut it anymore and that she would have to come up with four to five times as much to get the good stuff from offworld. Electric streetcars roared past on the road just outside Sofia's makeshift tent. Nuevo Arauco was a poor frontier world, and few people could afford the sort of flying personal vehicles that buzzed through the skylines of the cities on wealthier planets. Their plastic tires on the wet roadway kicked up a spray of filthy water that deposited itself in a fine spray over Sofia's nubile - if emaciated - body. Even in her atrophied state Sofia was quite attractive, but when she had just arrived on Nuevo Arauco she was gorgeous. Three years ago, Sofia recalled as she torpidly brushed away at itching dustfleas - nigh-microscopic, soil-borne zooplankton that inhabited the soil of this miserable planet, things had not been so terrible. Even in her Vidrio-induced euphoria, Sofia was able to remember arriving on this planet as an ambitious and perhaps naive colonist from one the crowded core worlds, hoping to acquire a fortune in the fledgling mining industries on this frontier planet. The mining prospects on Nuevo Arauco were vastly overstated however, and colonist-entrepreneurs like Sofia were left stranded and duped with no resources to buy passage back home. Sofia, having spent everything to get to this planet, saw little recourse but to sell the one [i]resource[/i] she still had that could earn her passage off of this rock. But as many in her profession do, Sofia fell into a bad crowd. Her new acquaintances had introduced Sofia to potent offworld heroin, and from that point on her life was ruined. There was no amount of Vidrio, not even in the fabled hashish and opium jungles described by her dealer, that would allow Sofia to forget the optimism and the dreams she had arrived on this planet with: her hopes of making a fortune, owning land, finding a suitor, and one day even raising children. Now her only hope was to score enough credits for the next high and wish that she did not wake up the next morning. Over the patter of raindrops on the tarp and the passing of cars, Sofia could hear the footfalls of passersby walking around her crude tent pitched in the middle of the sidewalk. Not one of them stopped to check on the torpid woman laying listlessly on a pile of dirty rags. Addicts were so prevalent on the streets of Ciudad Capolicán that nobody could care less. Even the city's gendarmes - the corrupt and comically-incompetent rabble that passed for authorities on this planet - routinely walked past makeshift camps of homeless addicts without so much as batting an eye. Sofia was aware of multiple people - maybe three - now standing around outside of her tent. She was too listless to even peer outside the tent and see who was out there, let alone yell at them to fuck off and be on their way. A part of her mind was screaming in alarm, trying to alert the rest of her brain that something bad was going to happen if she didn't react at once. But so long as she was feeling the high of the Vidrio, Sofia didn't give a shit. Maybe they would steal what few possessions she had left, maybe they would rape her, or maybe they would go easy and beat her around for fun. Whatever was fine; nothing mattered anymore now that she had her high. She was vaguely aware of mumbling chatter outside her tent over the drizzle now. "For an [i]adicta[/i], she's pretty foxy," a gruff male said in the planet's Spanglish dialect. "I've fucked a lot worse in my day," affirmed another male voice outside the tent. "No shit. Honestly, boys, I think she might be worth something." "Worth what? What do you want to do, try to rehabilitate her or some shit? Forget it, cabrón. Once they're on the needle, it's like they're zombies. Yeah, their body might be living still, but their mind, in their mind they're dead." "I'm not trying to turn her into a respectable woman or something stupid like that. Look, I know a guy that has the hookup with some offworld types. I'm tellin' you guys, they'll pay like... maybe 2,000 credits for this bitch. Hell, I'll even give you idiots 200 credits a piece if you help me carry her to the car." "What if the gendarmes see us?" "Are you kidding me? I'll just slip them 100 Credits and tell them to take a hike like everyone else does. You lot gonna help me or what?" The other two men tacitly agreed and tore the ratty tarp off of Sofia's makeshift shelter. Drizzling rain fell upon Sofia's face as she looked upon the kidnappers. "Fuck off!!" Sofia snarled groggily as the men seized her. She trashed anemically against her captors, but it was too little far too late. The kidnappers quickly tired of her trashing and shouting, pathetic as it was. Sofia had just enough to watch one of their fists coming down on her head and hope that it killed her just before the blow knocked her unconscious.