Hey INNers, here is the next installment of the BRIMSTONE saga! Life ain’t easy for pirates and smugglers, whether you are trying to get lost in crowded traffic or sneak unseen along the far edge of the black. The ‘verse can be a big empty place until you are trying like hell to hide.

Part 2

“I MAKE IT A SEVEN”

Elysium Sector

Idris-M Frigate SS James Archer

——————————————————————

“She’s running sir.”

Captain Ron Scanlon shook his head. Pinging an active scan is like turning on the light in the galley; the cockroaches always panic. He closed his eyes and made a tired, back-handed gesture towards the main screen. “Explain it to her, Lieutenant.”

“Aye sir.”

Scanlon knew from the sudden THRUM that a beam of crimson energy just lanced out from an overhead turret, cutting a brilliant line through the darkness of space. Knowing Colter’s flair for the dramatic, the shot probably scorched paint off the nose of the Freelancer.

“She’s shutting down sir. Engines off, shields off, lights on.”

“Uh huh.” Scanlon sighed as he opened his eyes. Funny how that works. He glanced over at Colter. “What do you think? A Six?”

Colter gave the question a moment of serious thought. “Well he did try to run sir, and this is a Tier-One zone. I make it a Seven.”

Scanlon narrowed his eyes. “You’re a hard man Colter.”

A grin creased the younger man’s face. “Just doing my part to keep the system safe sir.” The delivery was almost believable.

Scanlon stood up and tossed the ComTab into Colter’s lap. “Lemme know what you find.” He couldn’t help but chuckle as he walked off the bridge.

Navy doctrine had protocols for everything, and by the book, all interdictions were to be treated alike. That’s not how things worked out here in the black. There wasn’t enough time to run a down-to-the-bolts check on every two-bit hauler that may or may not be smuggling crap across the galaxy. Scanlon was here to guard against the Vanduul, who lurked en masse just a single jump away. When every search is a 10, your inspection teams get numb. They get sloppy.

The flip side of that coin was every bit as important; the unspoken understanding between hunters and hunted. Don’t run; don’t make me chase you. Shut down, play nice, we do a casual glance for VBT, Very Bad Things, and everybody goes on their merry way. If you run, you lie, or God help you, if you point so much as a sharp stick at one of my men, things will go very differently.

‘Different’ covered a very wide range. Border duty on the fringe might feel like a career dead-end, but it has its perks, autonomy being one of them. Scanlon could order a ship dismantled down to her floorplates, even call in a Crucible to do the job right. If really pissed off, a Border Patrol Captain could have a suspect ship fed to a Reclaimer, “just to be on the safe side.”

That last option could put solid cash into the pocket of a savvy Captain. Vulture Teams hung around for just that purpose, listening to police-band comms on the hope that a six-hundred metric ton metal-grinder might prove handy.

Hence the 10-scale. If a response gets above a Five, things start getting broken. At Eight, somebody’s getting hurt. Tens are easy; a Ten never happened. When you shove a boat deadstick into a star’s gravity well, there’s no need to write a report.

Things only work out here when everybody understands the rules.

Elysium Sector

Idris-M Frigate SS James Archer

The Brig

——————————————————————

“You just don’t understand the fucking rules, do you?” Scanlon slapped the tablet down on the steel table. The little counter in the back of his mind had already climbed to an 8.

“What’s to understand?” Rayson Drax held up his hands. “I’m a businessman. I thought you guys were pirates. What can I say? I panicked.”

Judging by the calm he showed in his current predicament, Scanlon guessed that Drax wasn’t prone to panic. The natty man in the leather coat leaned back, projecting thinly veiled condescension.

“Look Cap, this is going nowhere. You ain’t found anything on my boat because there’s nothing to find.”

“Nothing besides the dead body?”

Drax face-palmed, venting his own growing frustration. “How many times I gotta tell you? The stiff was a floater. I got the tag, stuck him in the hold and out of the goodness of my heart I’m taking him home to…“

Scanlon glared as Drax ran on. The story on the corpse was likely true; it had been dead for a while, a freeze-dried floater with no sign of foul play. The cursory Medscan said that the tumor in its brain was a more likely COD than some lead pipe to the skull. With some of these roughneck outfits, a poor bastard dying in his sleep is just as likely to get spaced out the airlock. One less share of the profits to haggle about with the widow. Still, the fact that any part of Drax’s story might be legit pissed Scanlon off even more.

“Do you think I’m stupid?” Scanlon growled. Drax might have been tempted to reply, but wisely shut up.

Scanlon placed his fingertips on the tablet and rotated it slowly to face the manacled prisoner. Most of the gloss surface was taken up by a rap sheet that carried numerous jurisdictional icons.

“You have outstanding warrants in four UEE sectors. The Xi’An want you for questioning, you are travelling under a forged Banu registration, you’ve even pissed off the Outsiders.”

Drax twitched. Tiny, just a hint of stiffness. Eyes flicked down and left.

“What, you thought I wouldn’t find out that the Leirans have, what, a hundred grand on your head? Looks like that natural charm of yours isn’t working anywhere.”

Drax tried to glare back but his veneer began to fray. “Look, you don’t work for those wackjobs, you’re UEE. So take me to Idris, Centauri, wherever —“

Scanlon chuckled, the sound laced with sneer. “Idris? Centauri? Places where, remarkably enough, you have no criminal record at all. Places where scumbag lawyers working for whatever syndicate you’re in are just waiting to sweep this away with an envelope of cash to a crooked Magistrate.”

Scanlon’s eyes narrowed, shifting from the tablet to Drax. A smile tugged at the Captain’s lip as he saw a faint sheen on the criminal’s brow. “You’re sweating.”

Drax swallowed. “We can work something out.”

“With what? A corpse-sicle and a hold full of salvage? You don’t bring much to the table.”

“Look Cap, be reasonable—“

Scanlon placed his hands on the cold steel and leaned forward, coming nose-to-nose with Drax. His voice was now a Nine-Plus snarl. “You had your chance to be reasonable, to follow the rules. But you thought it would be funny to jerk me around. That’s not how things work. So let’s see how funny the Outsiders find it.”

Drax swallowed hard. “You wouldn’t.”

Leir Sector

Leiran Navy Corvette LSS Independence

Airlock 18

——————————————————————

A shudder went through the floor as docking clamps released and the two huge bodies separated. While no sound carried in space, it was a sure bet that the UEE boat was already engines-hot, double-timing it back for the Elysium Jump Point. Back to home space. The mil-ship had all the badges it needed to get into Leiran space, but getting back out might not be so easy. That too, is how things worked.

Drax leaned against the pile of cargo MagLocked to the floor. A broad smirk creased his face as he looked up at the camera. With a cocksure flourish he swept both hands towards the stack. “Ta-daaa.”

The overhead beacon still rotated red, claxon blaring. It was the normal process as a computer in the ceiling made sure that both doors were sealed before opening either one.

The smuggler wiped a soiled sleeve across his face, dragging a clotted smear of red from his beard. It was hardly the worst beating the feds had ever thrown him, but it’s never fun to play the punching bag. Still, he was sure they’d hold back; you don’t get paid on a ‘Deliver Alive’ bounty if the subject is dead. Drax had been real specific on that point when he arranged for the bounty in the first place.

A hard metal bang resonated through the floor as pneumatic rams drew back the door-bolts. The beacon flashed to yellow and, thankfully, the claxon ceased its blaring. The heavy inner door rose ponderously into the ceiling. Drax’ smile grew when he saw the grey-clad figure standing back-lit in the cloud of vapor.

“And you said there was no way to get through the UEE blockade.” Drax stepped forward with a swagger. “Oh ye of little faith…”

He stopped in his tracks as six figures appeared to flank the Man in Grey. Guys in armor. Half a dozen ARs snapped up like switchblades.

“Hey woah, woah!” Drax backpedaled, open hands reflexing up in plain sight. The confusion on his face gave way to concern, this time the genuine article. “Dude, it’s there, it’s all there. Every scrap.”

A team of four technicians scuttled into the chamber; the six guns didn’t flinch. Drax watched as the yellow-suits powered off the MagLocks and started moving containers; tossing electronic components aside with hurried disdain. They paused at the long metal box.

“That’s just the stiff,” Drax muttered. “The hard drives are over there. I mean, I figure that’s what this is all about.” Drax looked up at Grey, trying to get some sort of engagement. “Nice touch with the dead guy though, lotta plausible deniability with that one. I gotta remember that in the fu—“

Drax words were cut off by the high-pitched whine of a laser-saw, and the sudden smell of burning flesh as the head was expertly severed. The tech team lifted it from the makeshift coffin and placed it into a small, cylindric cryotank. When the latch hissed shut, they turned and marched briskly out between the picket line of armor.

A loud bang overhead and the claxon blared anew as the beacon switched back to red. With a groan the inner door began to close. Six muzzles adjusted as Drax took a panicked step forward. No click of safeties coming off, no movie bullshit of bolts-slamming-forward as if they’d been on open chambers. If there was any sound that one might have heard over the deafening noise, it would have been the faint creak of slack coming out of well-oiled triggers. That and the sudden, fabric-tearing pucker of Drax’s ass.

As the inner door slammed shut, Drax could hear screaming. He realized it was his own just before the outer door blew open with the whoosh of a passing jet. The last thing Drax knew was a cold, infinite silence.