Covert Loses - 05/Aug/2012
Early January 2012, Asteroid Belt.
Prisoner relocation. From 'Asteroid X' to 'Asteroid Y'. Of course, they'd got better names than that. But, Boskone were rattled. Taking silly security precautions.
Something had been picking-off raiders. Captain Roberta had detected something, on the limits of her passive scanners. Four groups had reported losses, no sign what happened to them. Some high-value prisoners were being relocated.
The Captain was considered pretty reliable. She was careful, used stealth tactics, and those who worked for her got rich. That's what the scuttlebutt said, anyway. Now she was obviously jumpy, even more abrupt than usual. It was a bad sign.
The prisoner was one 'Arthur'. He'd turned up several months ago, in a fancy waved-up aeroplane. With a big robot bodyguard. Wanted to get in on the action. Bit stupid, really. No contacts in Fenspace; just a 'Dane.
They'd smashed his robot, straight-off. Nearly killed him, too. But, it looked like he was good with the 'wave, so the bosses kept him around. Checking his work, of course. He seemed pretty good with robots, and they'd taken precautions to make sure they stayed loyal.
The relocation team were lucky no one'd found a good use for Arthur's fancy plane. One of the bosses had taken a good look at it, said it was nice, but a bit too flimsy, and didn't carry enough cargo. The fact that you needed a pilot's license to make it fly may've had something to do with it. Who knew that jerk EMPath had one?
They'd been gone half an hour now. Everything thing went pretty smoothly, and Captain Roberta didn't even threaten to kill someone, like she usually did. Wait a minute. How did EMPath get to fly that plane? He had to stay in range of his brain, in the Captain's ship, and they weren't taking that. And, wouldn't his EMP trash the plane?
Heads were going to roll. It was just a question whose.
--
"It is the business of the future to be dangerous" - Hawkwind
Early January 2012, Asteroid Belt.
Prisoner relocation. From 'Asteroid X' to 'Asteroid Y'. Of course, they'd got better names than that. But, Boskone were rattled. Taking silly security precautions.
Something had been picking-off raiders. Captain Roberta had detected something, on the limits of her passive scanners. Four groups had reported losses, no sign what happened to them. Some high-value prisoners were being relocated.
The Captain was considered pretty reliable. She was careful, used stealth tactics, and those who worked for her got rich. That's what the scuttlebutt said, anyway. Now she was obviously jumpy, even more abrupt than usual. It was a bad sign.
The prisoner was one 'Arthur'. He'd turned up several months ago, in a fancy waved-up aeroplane. With a big robot bodyguard. Wanted to get in on the action. Bit stupid, really. No contacts in Fenspace; just a 'Dane.
They'd smashed his robot, straight-off. Nearly killed him, too. But, it looked like he was good with the 'wave, so the bosses kept him around. Checking his work, of course. He seemed pretty good with robots, and they'd taken precautions to make sure they stayed loyal.
The relocation team were lucky no one'd found a good use for Arthur's fancy plane. One of the bosses had taken a good look at it, said it was nice, but a bit too flimsy, and didn't carry enough cargo. The fact that you needed a pilot's license to make it fly may've had something to do with it. Who knew that jerk EMPath had one?
They'd been gone half an hour now. Everything thing went pretty smoothly, and Captain Roberta didn't even threaten to kill someone, like she usually did. Wait a minute. How did EMPath get to fly that plane? He had to stay in range of his brain, in the Captain's ship, and they weren't taking that. And, wouldn't his EMP trash the plane?
Heads were going to roll. It was just a question whose.
--
"It is the business of the future to be dangerous" - Hawkwind