Rocks

About a year and a half ago, I fell on hard times. My early attempts at being an independent lightbulk cargo trader were either subsistence or a disaster. Insult to injury, my ship was shot down by folks masquerading as Alliance.

Luckily, Coop put a good word in for me and Zeno got me a job as a pilot with Consolidated Associated Traders of Zenobia (CATZ) until I could get my ship repaired. I went corporate. Consolidated gave me a flashy uniform, a slick new office, a replicant secretary that made coffee and a larger newer ship.

Coffee and a few agricultural export was Consolidated’s main export, otherwise we just transshipped for other folks. We expanded exports with livestock, terraforma, fusionable fuel cells, unrefined radionuclides, asteroid mining tailings and processed spacer food.

We opened trade routes, orbital moorage agreements and offices. I got to hire crew, interns, spies and even subcontract other ships. Lord Sen made me Trade Consul at Large. Trade was the vanguard of Zenobian diplomacy. Our trade office on Al Raqis became a defacto embassy and I was made Consulari of the local diocese because no one else wanted the job. I got to go to fancy receptions and even send people to fancy receptions when I couldn’t attend.

I was successful as a corporate stooge. Good thing too, because I am only a mediocre pilot. The reason I work in the border and the rim is that I don’t need to qualify for a license there. The only reason I was even became a pilot to begin with was that I inherited the ship and I didn’t have enough of a profit margin to afford to hire a pilot when I started out.

Neck deep in careerism and my bodily tissues flushed with premium coffee, I never noticed that I am responsible to supply Zenobia's extensive Offworld Prison Program (OPP). "Gulags for Peace." As a disinterested third party, we reduce the potential conflict of interest a local government might have to interfere with the incarceration of the Zeks. The motto of the gulags themselves is "Rehabilitation thru forced labor," but they only send prisoners that they have no intention of returning to society.

Zenobia has asteroid mining gulags in Hale, Bihar, Zenobia and Al Raqis.

See that? I veered off into careerism again and got distracted. How did this happen? At what point did I become the go-to gal for gulags?



I met Rose Arcanum right after she was transferred to the Zenobian Foreign Ward D42X where I am based in Zenobia. Her short title was Interim Assistant to the Undersecretary of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Interplanetary Trade. Somewhere I have written down the long version and I hope I never have to recite it. I doze off about a third the way thru it. Formerly, Rose was Principal Executive Assistant Administrator for the Assistant Associate Deputy Chief of Staff to the Second Principal Assistant Deputy Underminister of Foreign Relations, but it might be Assistant Chief of Staff to the Principal Executive Assistant Administrator for the Assistant Associate Deputy Chief of Staff to the Second Principal Assistant Deputy Underminister of Foreign Relations. Zenobia's parliament believes that new layers of management and more managers at each layer somehow improves accountability and performance. The consensus of the subtle Kremlinology of the nuances of bureaucratic titles, I am assured that this was a promotion for her.

I am not sure exactly what she actual function is, but she is in charge of Zenobian Foreign Ward D42X. Her 16 Acres and a mule: the medical center, prisoner transport, trade station and refueling station, all her jurisdiction. I am not sure about the submarine supply or the orbital refinery. I think her jurisdiction ends somewhere below the Alliance Monitoring Station in high orbit.

Rose probably negotiated some deals with the UAP and maybe directly with some planets and moons, got lobbyist to legalize the consumption of petfood for prisoners.

They are all conveniently located in and around where we have asteroid mining concessions. Technically, they are Trojan meteor mining concessions, but no one calls them that. Asteroids are greater than 100 meters in diameter, none of these are greater than 64. They are marginal claims, the good ones went to megas like Corone Mining, Weyland-Yutani and Jupiter Mining Corporation. Some are even second hand, the most valuable ones already picked thru by the larger mining concerns. These marginal claims are only minimally profitable with forced labor.

So now on top of all the other stuff I do, I gotta hire crews to drop off supplies of water, air and food to desperate albeit minimally armed prisoners and take back any ores. That or I send interns. Good interns are hard to come by though, hate to risk them unnecessarily.

Lynx is a busy intern. I am not sure exactly what he does, but very little gets past him so he must be doing something. He keeps his eyes & ears open and gets us information that we need. I heard from Miya that he is looking for Pepper and I. I checked in with him. He was very concerned about the increase in people checking out our warehouse. I gave him a briefing about what was going on and what to be aware of.

We picked up LaDonna as an intern a few weeks back. Petite blonde trader type, so naturally I was suspicious. She hustles trade goods out of a used cargo ship. Keeps a bartenderbot and dancebot for emergencies I suppose. LaDonna actually made two blood transactions. Very slick. Blood’s an ugly business.



I have them both based in our Little Belgium Compound. (Little Belgium is a crossing point for heavily armed soldiers) I think it might be better to hire outside crews for the gulag resupply than to send interns.

Zenobia also has open prospecting of smaller meteors in Bihar, Zenobia and Al Raqis. No special equipment is required, any collision based weaponry will break open the rocks. They are troublesome, sometimes when they fly apart it is very fast and far outside of mining range. But if you’re diligent and patient, you will eventually wittle some shard down to a 2.5 meter core which will probably plummet dirtside. (Buy original for 0L then take it before it bounces out of the sim or someone else takes it. Part of the game.) Prospectors have a full load (32 tons or 4 cores) can contact a member of Consolidated for assay. Send me or one of our interns a wave and we can meet at one of the refineries, moorages or trade offices. We have refineries in Zenobia and Bihar. Moorages in Hale, Zenobia, Londinium, Paquin, Beaumonde, Hera and Al Raqis. Offices in Hale, Zenobia, Paquin and Al Raqis. Assay is free, they can accept the list price or take it in trade. If we meet at one of the refineries they can accept refined product.

I have been so busy, I was not even able to do the fun parts of my job. There was a formal dress masquerade reception of some fanatical isolationist group. Fortunately Miya and LaDonna were able to go. I coached Miya as best as I could about who was who and had her deliver some gifts.

I had to pay out a little bit of water, desert spice and blood thru some agents to get a little bit of intel, but overall that trade is still profitable.

Blue Sun is blowing out some Kei64s from their fleet inventory, some salvage, some refurbished and a few in mint condition. Some technical problems, something to do with an AI. Had to reprogram the engines from scratch.





I ran into Desmond Serenity on Hale while I was attempting to respond to a distress call from Steve Torrance. Fortunately a lovebot named Yumi was able to save the day. We hung out in Ibram’s Bar, The Cellar, under Fook Yoo’s and talked about how Desmond avoids sexual relations with mechanical devices and we played a drinking game. You know, the usual. Same ol’ same ol’. Just like my Gramma used to say, “If sheep could cook and vibrators could mow the lawn, society would be much different.” Now thanks to the advent of Do It Yourself Cosmetic Surgery and the lonely autoerotica boys at Weyland-Yutani, that day has come.



Moving on.

Desmond kept disappearing into Mr. Ibram’s office, once with a pickaxe. After everyone else left, he showed me how the excavation for the underground bar uncovered the entrance to an old Hansu base. He blew open the last obstruction and we looked over the old installation.

There was some interesting things, bad math, a blueprint for a rocket propelled chainsaw, what looked like a giant egg cooker and a fancier version of Gallgher’s still. Dharma’s a hard drinking crowd I suspect.















Apparently this used to be Desmond’s old workshop thirty some odd years ago. His Hansu ID card was still present, apparently he was a scientist that studied head. There was a dead mutant and the xray of someone who won a game of Hide the Bottle. Desmond says there should be one more person, but we could not find any person or corpse.





The next week, I met up with Gallagher. He told me that they found some deranged former Hansu employee hiding in a hidden panic room. I didn’t ask about if there was a bottle lodged … somewhere …. nevermind.





I was surprised to hear that ________ is illegal in Hale. Martial law, all that. Fortunately the Minos has safety features to prevent the sniffer pigs from detecting it. High quality decontamination also. Those Dharma boys know how to party. Dharma is no doubt inspired by that humanitarian classical musical quartet, The Beastie Boys, “You gotta fight for your right to party, Kick it.”

The Zenobian Aegis has been busy. Manda and Qui managed to deactivate a Spacing Guild recon drone before it could deactivate. They took it back to Zenobia where the professor has proper tools. He also took the copy of HAL back. I think the original HAL got destroyed in the blast that destroyed the Destiny Compound.

After assisting the prof, Manda was sent off to Paquin on some forensics errand regarding two kidnapped girls.

I know Seana gave Cody a talking to a while back and whatever she said had some good effect. After popping a cap off in the backside of that marshal, Cody has been miraculously able to avoid getting shot. Yay Cody.

I ran into Cody at Paquin, he was running some errand on Paquin. I liked his new cargo ship. Apparently AuroraBlue is living on Paquin too.

The Abraham Sinkov is back in orbit. Hadn’t seen it in a while. It’s new styley shuttle bays are a clue, maybe it was getting pimped out. Silvermane wants new rims for her fly ride. That’s me trying to speak ‘hood. Pathetic, I know.

Asteroid destroys an apartment building, some months later the floating Ho-Tel, then the destiny compound. I can’t put my finger on it, but I sense a trend. X0x0 camped out by the crater for a long time. She seemed broken up about Krenshar’s death, but maybe okay now.



Consolidated’s loss in the warehouse was insured, but I wonder what Miya and Thoth will do after the loss of their home.