Forums » Role Playing
Some times it isn't for profit
Ryan lay on his back, tools strewn about as he worked on the comm systems and ignition of his battered Moth XC. Occasionally a steady stream of curses escaped his lips as he cut a knuckle or the micro torch burned yet another finger.
"Finally." he muttered as he looked at the jury rigged connection from the communications system to the ignition. He walked slowly to the to the plasma exaust vent, manually closed it off and ripped the hoses from the access points that sent the used and unsafe plasma to the safety of the void. He looked at them for a moment before letting them fall and hang loosely inches above the fuel cells. It didn't matter where the hoses were aimed really, the white hot plasma would burn anything it came into contact...the fuel cells would just be a minor bonus.
He ran his fingers lightly over the instrument panel and his eyes lingered on the rough shod Xirite patches where pirates AGT rounds had penetrated the hull. Finally his eyes came to rest on two trails of bundled wires, four hundred wires in all running from the flight area to the cargo hold where each wire split off to meet its end. Ryan cautiously edged down the ladder that led to the decrepit ships hold following the wires.
The door to the cargo hold hadn't worked in months, not that it would of closed with all the cables running through its small opening. He exhaled deeply and side stepped into the hold. the wires split off and wound their ways round the hold, leading to 400 Screamer missile warheads. The missile housings had been jettisoned on known trade routes allowing him to double what he could normally carry. Perhaps some down on his luck trader might pick up the housings and turn some profit.
He paused and thought about all the Itani had done for him. When had been in the depths of insanity having spent years alone in space searching for Developia, it had been the Itani monks who launched a rescue and nursed his shattered mind back to health. Afterwards, he had done a fair amount of trade with the Itani and made many friends. He had even run missions with the itani military...though the military people and their commanders gave him chills. Philosophy and religion should never be governing powers, in his experience no good ever came of it.
Six months ago he had been sitting in a bar on a UIT station looking over trade reports when he noticed the price of refugee support kits and medical supplies in the Serco border system. For every credit he spent...he might make thousands. That's all it was just another simple trade run, money to be made.
He was unloading the cargo when a young Serco woman approached him.
"Are you making good money for this?" she asked coldly.
"Actually, yes..." he smirked a bit. "...6000 cred investment, and I'm getting over a million in return."
The Serco woman scowled, clearly not impressed by the profit.
"Have you ever even seen the refugee camps? Or the field hospitals? How about the orphans? have you seen anything in this war other than profit?"
Ryan thought about this...the fact that he had seen the inside of several Itani HAC turrets was clearly a bad response.
"Hey...I'm a trader, ok? I bring you guys supplies and I bring the Itani supplies, I make a profit...I go to bed."
"You UIT are all the same, you're not traders. You are traitors!"
The last part sounded especially hostile.
"How are we traitors? How am I a traitor?" he asked some what stunned. "I'm not Serco, I'm not Itani...I'm UIT and its not our war."
"You betray yourself. You sell to both sides, it makes you the worst of all. The Itani fight this war to kill us, we fight this war so we may live...and you sit back and count your profits."
He fumbled for words but all he could manage was..."It isn't personal"
She moved to within inches of him and put an arm around him pulling him in close.
"Come see the camps, the orphans and the wounded...then tell me it isn't personal." he might of refused except for two things...even with all the implants she was beautiful, and she was pressing an Ineubis phase blaster to his crotch.
The shuttle trip to the surface of the small planet was short and dull. The vast waste land below was sparce punctuated occasionally by the rubble of what were once cities.
An hour passed in silence before the young woman spoke.
"We're here." Ryan glanced out the cockpit. They were approaching a crude landing strip from over a large lake. For miles in any direction tents and various shelters spread into the distance.
On the ground a small crew started off loading the shuttles supplies. The woman thrust a crate of medical supplies into his arms and indicated he should follow. All around him was misery and desolation. Out side a small shack a teary eyed woman tied a short red string around a tree branch, while off to her side two emaciated children played with a rock lizard. The younger of the two was missing a leg.
"Whats with the string?" he asked.
"Its to commemorate her dead, see how short it is? That indicates the dead in this case was a child."
As they walked he took in a scene of utter horror...women and children missing limbs and on the brink of starvation. A young Serco pilot limped by them on a cybernetic leg at least 50 years old...the flesh on the left side of his face had been charred off leaving his no longer fuctioning implants exposed. The emblem on his jacket indicated he had piloted a medical supply ship. A young Serco nurse held his arm to guide him.
He saw a field hospital ahead, but the woman just put down her crates and kept walking. He was glad they had not entered, the sound of screams, crying children and anguished mothers filled the air. As they walked by the entrance, he made a note that most of the medical equipment he saw inside was horribly out of date. Unburdened by the crate he was better able to keep up. He tried to focus on the woman leading him or the horizon, anything to keep his gaze off of the rampant suffering. The further they walked the more he began to notice a smell.
A mile further he began to notice a foul smell, intensifying as they walked further.
"what is that? it smells disgusting." his only response was a sharp back hand that sent him sprawling in the dirt. When his eyes came back into focus he saw the source of the smell. 10 meters ahead, a small field seemed to be burning. upon further inspection he noticed people at the edge of the fire...they were tossing bodies in. He stared almost hypnotized as the men overseeing the burning tossed the bodies of men women and children into the flames. Most of the piled bodies they threw into the fire, were children.
"This is one of the smaller camps only 250,000 people here but, the number gets smaller daily. The only way we can keep infections and illness at bay is to burn the dead. Of the 250,000 people here almost 100,000 are children, by the end of the day...about 200 to 300 hundred of those children will be dead of infection or starvation, by the end of the week...over 1000 will have died. this is the part of the war you people never see.
"I just wanted you to see this..." she waved her arm in a sweeping motion. "...so you know the war, that your profits come at a cost."
Six months after the refugee camp, he guided his cargo ship into the Itani advanced bio weapons research station in Deneb O-1, long known to have stong ties to the Order of Akan. minutes before jumping into the sector he'd sent a false communication indicating that the station had to be evacuated. He hated what the people at this station did, but he was no murderer. He sat outside of radar range with all power down, even life support...he wagered there was enough air in the ship to last until everyone jumped to the Itani barracks near by.
He stepped out of the Moth onto the Itani flight deck and looked around there was only one ship left...a Valk Vengeance.
A few moments later a Valk sped out of the docking port. Ryan tapped the comm button and entered the text..."its not always for profit".
3 seconds later the ignition of his battered Moth XC sprang to life, venting plasma into the ship and electrical current to the 400 screamer warheads. The space around him seemed to glow like a sun as he raced towards his jump point. the station no longer appeared on radar.
"Finally." he muttered as he looked at the jury rigged connection from the communications system to the ignition. He walked slowly to the to the plasma exaust vent, manually closed it off and ripped the hoses from the access points that sent the used and unsafe plasma to the safety of the void. He looked at them for a moment before letting them fall and hang loosely inches above the fuel cells. It didn't matter where the hoses were aimed really, the white hot plasma would burn anything it came into contact...the fuel cells would just be a minor bonus.
He ran his fingers lightly over the instrument panel and his eyes lingered on the rough shod Xirite patches where pirates AGT rounds had penetrated the hull. Finally his eyes came to rest on two trails of bundled wires, four hundred wires in all running from the flight area to the cargo hold where each wire split off to meet its end. Ryan cautiously edged down the ladder that led to the decrepit ships hold following the wires.
The door to the cargo hold hadn't worked in months, not that it would of closed with all the cables running through its small opening. He exhaled deeply and side stepped into the hold. the wires split off and wound their ways round the hold, leading to 400 Screamer missile warheads. The missile housings had been jettisoned on known trade routes allowing him to double what he could normally carry. Perhaps some down on his luck trader might pick up the housings and turn some profit.
He paused and thought about all the Itani had done for him. When had been in the depths of insanity having spent years alone in space searching for Developia, it had been the Itani monks who launched a rescue and nursed his shattered mind back to health. Afterwards, he had done a fair amount of trade with the Itani and made many friends. He had even run missions with the itani military...though the military people and their commanders gave him chills. Philosophy and religion should never be governing powers, in his experience no good ever came of it.
Six months ago he had been sitting in a bar on a UIT station looking over trade reports when he noticed the price of refugee support kits and medical supplies in the Serco border system. For every credit he spent...he might make thousands. That's all it was just another simple trade run, money to be made.
He was unloading the cargo when a young Serco woman approached him.
"Are you making good money for this?" she asked coldly.
"Actually, yes..." he smirked a bit. "...6000 cred investment, and I'm getting over a million in return."
The Serco woman scowled, clearly not impressed by the profit.
"Have you ever even seen the refugee camps? Or the field hospitals? How about the orphans? have you seen anything in this war other than profit?"
Ryan thought about this...the fact that he had seen the inside of several Itani HAC turrets was clearly a bad response.
"Hey...I'm a trader, ok? I bring you guys supplies and I bring the Itani supplies, I make a profit...I go to bed."
"You UIT are all the same, you're not traders. You are traitors!"
The last part sounded especially hostile.
"How are we traitors? How am I a traitor?" he asked some what stunned. "I'm not Serco, I'm not Itani...I'm UIT and its not our war."
"You betray yourself. You sell to both sides, it makes you the worst of all. The Itani fight this war to kill us, we fight this war so we may live...and you sit back and count your profits."
He fumbled for words but all he could manage was..."It isn't personal"
She moved to within inches of him and put an arm around him pulling him in close.
"Come see the camps, the orphans and the wounded...then tell me it isn't personal." he might of refused except for two things...even with all the implants she was beautiful, and she was pressing an Ineubis phase blaster to his crotch.
The shuttle trip to the surface of the small planet was short and dull. The vast waste land below was sparce punctuated occasionally by the rubble of what were once cities.
An hour passed in silence before the young woman spoke.
"We're here." Ryan glanced out the cockpit. They were approaching a crude landing strip from over a large lake. For miles in any direction tents and various shelters spread into the distance.
On the ground a small crew started off loading the shuttles supplies. The woman thrust a crate of medical supplies into his arms and indicated he should follow. All around him was misery and desolation. Out side a small shack a teary eyed woman tied a short red string around a tree branch, while off to her side two emaciated children played with a rock lizard. The younger of the two was missing a leg.
"Whats with the string?" he asked.
"Its to commemorate her dead, see how short it is? That indicates the dead in this case was a child."
As they walked he took in a scene of utter horror...women and children missing limbs and on the brink of starvation. A young Serco pilot limped by them on a cybernetic leg at least 50 years old...the flesh on the left side of his face had been charred off leaving his no longer fuctioning implants exposed. The emblem on his jacket indicated he had piloted a medical supply ship. A young Serco nurse held his arm to guide him.
He saw a field hospital ahead, but the woman just put down her crates and kept walking. He was glad they had not entered, the sound of screams, crying children and anguished mothers filled the air. As they walked by the entrance, he made a note that most of the medical equipment he saw inside was horribly out of date. Unburdened by the crate he was better able to keep up. He tried to focus on the woman leading him or the horizon, anything to keep his gaze off of the rampant suffering. The further they walked the more he began to notice a smell.
A mile further he began to notice a foul smell, intensifying as they walked further.
"what is that? it smells disgusting." his only response was a sharp back hand that sent him sprawling in the dirt. When his eyes came back into focus he saw the source of the smell. 10 meters ahead, a small field seemed to be burning. upon further inspection he noticed people at the edge of the fire...they were tossing bodies in. He stared almost hypnotized as the men overseeing the burning tossed the bodies of men women and children into the flames. Most of the piled bodies they threw into the fire, were children.
"This is one of the smaller camps only 250,000 people here but, the number gets smaller daily. The only way we can keep infections and illness at bay is to burn the dead. Of the 250,000 people here almost 100,000 are children, by the end of the day...about 200 to 300 hundred of those children will be dead of infection or starvation, by the end of the week...over 1000 will have died. this is the part of the war you people never see.
"I just wanted you to see this..." she waved her arm in a sweeping motion. "...so you know the war, that your profits come at a cost."
Six months after the refugee camp, he guided his cargo ship into the Itani advanced bio weapons research station in Deneb O-1, long known to have stong ties to the Order of Akan. minutes before jumping into the sector he'd sent a false communication indicating that the station had to be evacuated. He hated what the people at this station did, but he was no murderer. He sat outside of radar range with all power down, even life support...he wagered there was enough air in the ship to last until everyone jumped to the Itani barracks near by.
He stepped out of the Moth onto the Itani flight deck and looked around there was only one ship left...a Valk Vengeance.
A few moments later a Valk sped out of the docking port. Ryan tapped the comm button and entered the text..."its not always for profit".
3 seconds later the ignition of his battered Moth XC sprang to life, venting plasma into the ship and electrical current to the 400 screamer warheads. The space around him seemed to glow like a sun as he raced towards his jump point. the station no longer appeared on radar.