ERROR ………>>

COMM /SEC INTERRUPT

UNAUTH SIGNAL >>

SIGNAL FOUND

B0otyCall coming in loud and clear, but this isn’t going to be Jester’s normal jaw session of fun facts from the flipside of the law. No, today your beloved Jester is slicing into the Spectrum with a purpose. So put down your drink, dice, knife or whatever else you got your grubby hands on and pay as much attention as your blasted-out minds can muster to this here warning -

To the outlaw who has been ghostin’ haulers in Oberon, knock it the hell off.

Seriously.

There’s a right way and a wrong way to do things, and shooting every damned pod you float across is for blasted sure the DAMN WRONG WAY!

As many of you know, there’s healthy trade to be had picking up haulers coming from the Gonn mine fields, but that’s all pretty much gone to rot ever since the MDK rate shot through the bloody atmosphere. In the last six months since this sadistic dredge has started operatin’ there’s been twenty-three reports of rescue pod’s being ghosted. Twenty-three. And that’s just the reported ones. Cargo’s done dried to a drip. Any cratelug with an ounce of self-preservation’s been avoiding the area like the shrimp at a Banu buffet. And those haulers filled with enough can-do spirit to make the run are hiring mercs like their lives depend on it. Which thanks to this cockup flying about, they very well do.

Get this. After spending two week on the hunt, my crew and I had only seen a single ’lancer. And guess how many Hornies were along for the ride? For a single little hold full of vanadium that bastard hauler had contracted a full-on fleet of five for-hire fighters from NightCap Corp. In normal times, a grab like that wouldn’t be worth a second glance, but during a drought, you see a drop of water, you damn well drink. Rollback, Pizzle, Headcase and I go in blazing hot and we came out with two crates of ore still intact and with Pizzle and his Cutlass never to fly again.

Now sure, Pizzle knew the cost of the game. Sometimes the luck doesn’t fall your way and no one would claim Pizzle was an ace by any stretch. And yeah, it cranks me when some pissant who can’t keep their gun in check comes along and ruins it for the rest of us hard working types. But even with all that in the mix, this is bigger than me just whinging about my job being hard, or looking to settle a score for a fallen friend. This is about all of us and our way of life.

Yesterday the reports came in that the twenty-third hauler was ghosted. And today? Today was the day that Jester learned the Navy issued orders to a battlegroup to come and poke its nose in our business. That, my scavs, is the final straw.

You think the Navy care whether they take out a good honest pirate or some creepin’ psychopath? It’s all the same to them. They’re going to sweep the system and they’re going to sweep it clean. That means it’s up to us to do the housekeeping before they show up. We need to stop this sick murdering cutthroat before all of us hang with him. I reached out, called in favors, and I am pleased as punch to announce that the Council’s agreed to put together a bloodprice of a hundred thousand creds for this fine specimen’s head. Now the real hunt is on. Listen good, all you right and proper proxies. I want you to get out there, find whoever’s responsible for this mess and end it.

And so I give one last warning to the outlaw who has been ghostin’ haulers in Oberon. You’ve messed up and now you’re going to die.

I guess that wasn’t really much of warning. More just me tellin’ the truth of things.

B0otyCall out.