Category: NPC Accounts

Here is Anson Kobleinz’s log entry for Week 10.

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User: Anson Kobleinz

Date: 187-1103

Location: Outbound from Colchis

Subject: Week 10 Log – Cousins, Corruption, and a Pink Tub

If you ever want to know what despair looks like, look up Colchis. What a bloody miserable place to put a sodding holiday resort.

We touched down at the Lowport, which is a generous name for a sweltering concrete box with fans that don’t work and officers that don’t fit their trousers. We met Officer Guntram at customs. Bloke was sweating pure pork dripping. Wanted to charge us an “Expedited Processing Tariff” because our body armour wasn’t on the “Class 4 approved list.” I’ve seen rock crushers with more subtlety than that crook. We paid the bribe. Quite frankly, starports are a bit too edgy a place when it comes to security to start punching goernment employees in.

Then we get accosted by a smiling government stooge wanting us to vote on lightbulb colours and cheese taxes. “Soft Morning Peach” or “Industrial Cool White”? I voted for the status quo just to see if the despair would crack his smile. It didn’t. Got a sticker for my trouble. Stuck it on the sole of my boot where it belongs.

Enter Taz Orsel. The lad is a taxi driver, but apparently, he’s also related to half the planet’s population. Need a hotel? His cousin runs the Marina Grand. Need food? His uncle runs Dudie’s. Need a boat? His other cousin, Kaspar, runs a marina. I’m half expecting him to tell me his auntie runs the local rebel militia and his nan is the planetary governor.

Speaking of the marina, let’s talk about The Painted Lady.

Kaspar – a man wearing a suit that used to be white some time before the war started – tries to sell us this floating disaster. Forty feet of pinkish-beige fibreglass. It looked like a floating brothel. The “hot tub” was a rust bucket (and I mean that literally), while the engine sounded like a smoker with emphysema trying to climb a very tall ladder.

Kaspar wanted 20,000 credits. Ferrik has an eye for a bargain and he talked him down to 5,000 credits to buy it outright. I told the man we were doing him a favour by saving him the scuttling fees. Me and Travis had to spend two hours pulling bird’s nests out of the intake manifold. Bird’s nests. In the intake. That’s not mechanics; that’s landscape bloody gardening.

While we were elbow-deep in sludge, the Doc went for a wander and met a local mechanic named Jhenn. He gave a bit of his best sparklee. She was sharp lass. Showed him some tech she’d pulled off the boats: Serendip targeting sensors and Neubayern kinetic slugs. It’s not a civil war down here; it’s an open-air, live-fire trade show for arms dealers. The Doc asked her for a drink. She said no. Smartest person we’ve met on this rock.

We killed some time at a bloody godawful excuse for a casino. Found the coordinates for the sinking of the Mary Lou in the archives, then headed out to pick up our gear drop. Smuggler style, out the back of a Free Trader. Dodged some government fighters. Standard Tuesday.

Took the pink tart – sorry, The Painted Lady – out to where we reckoned the last boat got sunk. Now I am not keen on boats and water at the best of times, and it did dawn on me during several boring, choppy hours on that floating tart’s boudoir that we were deliberately taking a small boat to a place where a slightly bigger boat got sunk. Me, Travis, and the Doc went down into the wet dark to find the wreck. Visibility wasn’t bad, and we found the ship. Bagged the bodies and the gear.

Meanwhile, topside, some rebels in a speedboat decided to try their luck. Bad idea. Rosa, Ferrik, and Zhana opened up with lasers and suppressed automatics. From what I hear, the engagement lasted about four seconds. I came up to the surface expecting trouble and just found a lot of floating debris and a very smug-looking crew.

We’re off-world now. Sternmetal is happy, our bank accounts are considerably heavier, and I never have to look at that pink boat again.

And if Taz asks, tell him I’m not related to anyone.

End Log.

181-1103: Colchis. Still dry, for now.

So, the fancy lot finally came back from their little excursion into town back on Acadie. While I were elbow-deep in the power couplings, actually making sure this rust-bucket wouldn’t vent us all into the vacuum the second we hit jump, the “Admiral” and her lot were off playing Spy vs. Spy. Apparently, they found a lock-up full of guns and a claymore mine rigged to blow their legs off. Zhana was looking very pleased with herself for spotting a switch behind the door. I told her if she wants a medal for not getting blown to smithereens, she’s in the wrong line of work. In the Belt, we call that “Tuesday.”

Then came the drama. Always with the bloody drama. They hacked some computer they nicked from the German lads – Neubayern, whatever – and found out it was all a big conspiracy to arm the locals and blame the neighbours. Next thing you know, the local copper, some bloke with a moustache you could lose a spanner in, calls up giving it the “we know what you did” routine. Travis, bless him, looked like he was about to pass a kidney stone. They ended up posting the computer back to the coppers like a late birthday present and we scarpered. All that faffing about just to do the local plod’s job for free. I swear, if there was a credit in it for common sense, this crew would be bankrupt.

We finally lifted off before the riots kicked off properly. I was glad to see the back of Acadie. Too much gravity, far too much constant rain, and too many people shouting in French. Give me the black any day. Me and Travis got the power systems singing again – well, humming, at least. He’s a decent enough mechanic for a trader, even if he does spend half his wages on those pills to try to look twelve. I’d rather spend my credits on a decent ale and a pie that isn’t made of reconstituted soy-paste, but each to their own.

The jump to Colchis was quiet, thank the stars. Just the hum of the drive and the occasional check on the “popsicles” in the freezer. Vanderpool kept fussing over them like a mother hen. I told him as long as the green lights are on, they aren’t thawing out, so stop poking it. He looked at me like I’d suggested surgery with a rusty spoon. Honestly, these people. You’d think none of them had ever had to strip a CO2 scrubber in zero-G before.

We touch down on Colchis, and I’m thinking, “Right, Anson, old girl. Time for a pint. A proper pint. In a glass, on a table that isn’t vibrating.” We get the freight off-loaded, get paid – which is a bloody miracle in itself – and head for the nearest watering hole. I could taste the foam. I was two steps from the bar, ready to order something that would strip the paint off a bulkhead.

Then, of course, a suit shows up. Sweating like a cheese in a sauna, tie all skew-whiff, looking like he’s running from the tax man. Turns out he’s from Sternmetal. Says they lost a boat. A boat. In a lake. In a war zone. And he wants us to go fetch it.

I looked at the others. I looked at the suit. I said, “You do realize we just got done drowning on the last planet, right?” But no. The money’s good, they say. It’ll be an adventure, they say. So now I’m polishing my wrench again, getting ready to wade into another body of water to fish out rocks for a corporation that couldn’t find its backside with a map. I’m a Belter. I belong in the void, surrounded by honest rock and vacuum. If I wanted to be wet and shot at, I’d have joined the other sort of Navy. This spying game isn’t what I’d hoped for at all.