How to make Federation Enemies

As far as Federal minions went, Zenaro was a nebula-sized scumbag like few others. Those loyal to President Hudson were, under normal circumstances, an agreeable lot. Perhaps a little to militaristic and uptight for my taste, but my experience with Federation pilots was usually, if not cordial, at least not hostile.

Federal administrators, on the other hand, ranged from bureaucrats who could not go to the toilet without filling out half a dozen notarized forms, to those who would not allow you to unload that kind of cargo without charging you for station mass balance. For a galactic power that outlawed most of the fun substances in the known universe, they were hardly moderate in their attitudes.

Then there were the human bio-waste equivalents like Zenaro. I like that the Federation believes that governments should not meddle on the lives of individuals. Hell, the fact that they will turn a blind eye to whatever goes down on a system, as long as it provides enough command capital to strengthen its military is what keeps pilots like me employed and alive. If a system manages to keep criminal activity out of the public eye, the population under control, and the Empire and Alliance at bay, the Federation will overlook almost anything. And Zenaro is very good at doing just that.

The best way to control crime, as Zenaro exemplifies, is by being both the enforcer and the biggest criminal. As the federal faction leader of the Sui Guei system as well as the main criminal boss not only generates considerable profits, but it also allows for control of every station and outpost. Be it on the commodities market or the black market, Zenaro got his cut.

When Toshiro told me that we would be stealing from him, I considered letting myself out of an airlock and saving everyone the trouble. As pilots, we do reckless and dangerous things on a daily basis, that’s just part of life in an environment that wants you dead and uses every law of science to ensure you end up as space debris. But there is a difference between high-risk/high-reward, and high risk, -there-is-no-way-the-reward-can-be-high-enough.

It is a simple formula, really. You smuggle, heist, or salvage and sell it to criminals, or you hunt criminals and hand in bounties to the authorities. But here the criminals and the authorities were the same. There was no winning scenario.

I expressed these concerns and more in a loud and, in retrospect, perhaps too childish manner. I may have thrown a tantrum, even. But Toshiro just chuckled and waited for me to regain my composure, which is a terribly impolite and infuriating way to react to emotional outbursts and not the response I was aiming for.

“It is actually not that complicated or risky,” Toshiro enunciated perfectly in that annoyingly deep voice of his. “You just fly us to Forfait Installation. Mirez will take out the turrets from above, and Bolo will drive the ground vehicle to retrieve the data on Zenaro. We’ll be in and out in no time.”

Despite his calming and confident tone, every word he had spoken left me feeling more uneasy. “Forfait? That is not even in Zenaro’s system, that is over at Mu Aquilae. Why would Zenaro hide any data on another oooh…” I trailed off. Of course. Number one rule for any criminal or entrepreneurial individual: don’t shit where you eat. If Federation auditors were to find anything on Sui Guei, the gig was up. But they would hardly look in an outpost on a rock with no atmosphere some ten light years away, hidden in another system.

Information is a very valuable commodity, especially in Federation space. Blackmail Zenaro, sell it to his rivals, there certainly were credits to be made. Might want to avoid Sui Guei for a while after the job, which was a shame since it has a very nice black market, but the possible pay off was worth it.

I trusted Toshiro, despite not having known him for long. Hard to explain, really. I even trusted Mirez, one of the other two crew members, to some degree. She had scientific approach to explosive ordinance that I found incredibly amusing. She treated weapons modules more like laboratory equipment than armaments.

Bolo, on the other hand, made me uneasy. From what I had gathered, he used to be an explorer. He was a quiet guy, but he would drop remarks on occasion that made me shiver. He would mumble about having seen something out there, or would say something about Elder Gods of the deep abyss. Not the best conversational partner when facing potential death on the hands of criminal bosses slash system administrators.

Uneasiness or even abject terror at the job or not, I was involved. Plus, if I avoided every job that frightened me, I would not ever leave a station. So I followed Toshiro’s commands, sat back behind the ships controls, and plotted our course. Flying the FDS Cyclopean Endeavor was becoming more familiar. Having a crew take care of ship functions made my job much easier, too. Maneuvering this drifting hunk of metal was difficult enough as it was without trying to fight off aggressors.

Toshiro ordered the crew to strap in as I approached the solitary, featureless planet and angled down for orbital cruise. My old ship would have buckled and rattled as we approached the gravity well, even if there was no atmosphere, but this Federal Dropship cruised smoothly down. I guessed the ‘dropship’ part of the name was there for a reason.

Forfait Installation poked out of the inhospitable rock, a black smudge beside a large crater. When we were 30 kilometers away, Toshiro instructed me to reduce speed and hold off in a hover pattern outside its security range. The turret arrays brought back memories of my previous unsuccessful attempts at poking planetary installations. The combat drones zipping about around the installation were just icing on the cake of dread in front of me.

“Don’t worry, Neulen,” I heard Mirez over the comms. “I outfitted the medium module hardpoints with missile racks. I would have opted for plasma accelerators. Even with the difference in power consumption, by making adjustments in module priority I could ideally…”

“Not the best time, Mirez.” Toshiro cut her off. “Neulen, keep those turrets dead center, Mirez and I will pick targets and fire. Bolo, ready the ground vehicle and prepare to deploy as soon as we touch down. Everyone clear?”

The moment we gave the all clear, the fireworks started. Missiles streaked out from under the Cyclopean Endeavor, hitting the defense turret ahead of us. That same instant, red dots showed up all over my radar as the installations defenses came online. I kept the ship steady, drifting smoothly to the side while keeping the targets in front. A second barrage erupted and found their mark.

“Incoming missiles!” I shouted. Years of flying alone had resulted in me not learning how to contain the panic in my voice. In the little time I had spent with this crew it was already becoming a running joke. Still, I could not help it. Especially as my field of vision was soon transformed into a wall of flames.

The shields barely shook. It looked much worse than it actually was. Toshiro and crew were prepared, as they seemed unfazed by the fiery hell surrounding us. I, on the other hand, had already become a very religious person in the span of seconds, then had forsaken my faith, only to pick a new one and repeat the cycle. And I still somehow managed to keep on piloting the ship, maintaining it stable and aligned as Mirez unleashed another volley of missiles.

Security drones buzzed about, but Toshiro cut them out of the sky with the gimballed pulse laser, making short work of the little machines. They were designed to repel ground assaults, after all, and not a well-armed Dropship.

I circled the station, using the lateral thrusters to keep it constantly in my sights. In a short amount of time, all defenses had been reduced to molten metal and scrap parts. The command given, I lowered the landing gear, set down half a click away from Forfait Installation, and watched as Bolo raced off toward the base in the SRV.

There was a tense silence on the ship as we all stared at our consoles and fidgeted impatiently, waiting for Bolo to find the operations terminal and retrieve the data with the SRV’s scanners. We could hear him mumbling and grumbling to himself as the tiny surface vehicle zipped up and down the station.

“The thing is, power consumption does not have to be a concern if the adjustments to the power plant and power distributor…” Mirez, sensing an opening while we waited idly, said.

“Not now, Mirez.” Toshiro stopped her.

I did not like the waiting either. I had no idea what she was going on about power management, but would have gladly welcomed the conversation. It surely beat Bolo grumbling things like ‘Ythogtha take my cursed soul, where is that damned terminal?’ into the comms.

By the time he was done, I was sure the alarms would have already summoned a backup team that would blow us up before we could take off. Which was hardly likely, since there was not nearly enough time for a response team to reach this secluded installation. Still, fear and paranoia are good instincts to cultivate. More people died from overconfidence, I was sure of it.

I fired up the engines the moment the SRV made it back into the ships hangar, aimed the Cyclopean Endeavor 90 degrees up, and gave it all the speed it had. Once we reached enough altitude I engaged the frame shift drive that allowed the ship to travel faster than light, and blasted out of there.

Zenaro was not going to be too pleased that someone decided to attack his outpost. He would be even less pleased when he figured out what we actually took. Toshiro insisted that no one would suspect us. We were, after all, pretending to be Federal Navy doing support missions all over the sector.

I wished I felt as confident as he sounded. In my experience, things never went that smoothly. We still had to sell the data, and I had no idea who the buyer was, or even if Toshiro had a buyer lined up. Either way, there was no point worrying about that at the moment. My job was to put as much distance between us and Forfait Installation as possible. Surely Toshiro had a good plan. Everything else had worked out just as he said. No reason to think the next steps would not go as planned.

It’s not like we had messed with a Federation administrator who was also one of the biggest crime bosses in the sector.