In It For The Money

2001 short story by Paul Squire

Thirty-five years after Episode IV – A New Hope

There was coldness to the vacuum that Sevrina Maris loved.  A tantalising chill that sent goose bumps running across her smooth skin and heightened her senses to almost overloading sensitivities.  The tightness of her flight suit fighting against her chest as she filled her lungs with air, the poised power of her starship as it coasted through the void, the furtive glances of her passengers; it all conspired to make her feel more than just merely ‘alive.’  This is what she lived for, and no frecker could take this feeling away from her.

A casual glance at her scope showed nothing.

She hadn’t really expected to be followed, but old habits died hard, and she had been smuggling for, well…practically her whole life.

A mischievous smile touched her lips, and she glanced again at the image of her lounge, and the uncomfortable looking beings sitting there.  They’d been a time when those honourable beings would have paid handsomely to have her incarcerated.  Now, they paid even more for her talents.

Maker, but she loved her life.

Mando Kerreet hated his life.  Spokesman for the largest bulk of non-affiliated planets within the Setnin region gave him prestige and a modicum of power he was comfortable to wield.  He’d never expected to be the pivotal voice within the sector, but he had enjoyed his years within the Chamber of Systems on Benesk.  Raising the heckles on the Galactic Alliance’s representatives, as well as their Setnin Sector colleagues had always been an enjoyable pastime.  He’d even managed a little sabre-rattling of his own, but his efforts paled next to the Ki-Ki’s.  Five years of bluffs, counter-bluffs and downright threats between the Setnin Council and the Senate of the Ki-Ki Prime Lord had finally, inconceivable, erupted and now he found himself here.

He checked his chrono, and then glanced out through the freighter’s lounge window at the stars beyond, urging the ship on, and yet hating the necessity of his mission.

His eyes darted to the stack of crates secured by cargo netting to the rear bulkhead, and shook his head imperceptibly.

   “Thinking of your retirement?” drooled Hens, noticing where his fellow council member was looking.

Mando shot him an acidic look, but refused to be drawn.  The green and brown sphere of Gurney was just coming into view and he could make out the tiny crescent of its single small moon beyond, and that meant that they were almost at their destination.  Finally, he thought.

   “Not that they’ll be worth much soon,” continued Hens, his sardonic smile making his misshapen hairless head look even uglier than usual.  “Should’ve brought Republic creds instead,” he snorted loudly. “Or even Ki-Ki gold. Least we know that’ll still be worth something.  But Setnin creds?”  He raised his bulbous eyes upwards and huffed loudly.

   “Setnin creds will be perfectly acceptable, H,” consoled Kro Shush from the far side of the lounge, but she didn’t sound convinced, and Mando spared her a look.  Her face showed the worry they all felt, but he’d be damned if he let either of his colleagues see his fears.

   “The Republic won’t let any of its Setnin worlds fall to the Ki-Ki invasion,” he growled, but he didn’t believe it even as he spoke it.  And neither did his colleagues.

   “Like Leogard you mean?” spat Hens, and a sudden chill filled the room.  “Or maybe you refer to the gallant way the Republic’s navy valiantly sat on its fat behind whilst Admiral Travees’ Setnin Defence Force fleet was systematically annihilated by the Ki-Ki war machine?

   “The Republic doesn’t give a damn what happens out here.  Either to us or the rest of the Setnin Sector,” he looked contemptuously towards Kro, who was wringing her hands in worry.  “They didn’t like the sector’s independence before, and they like us even less for it now.  Give it two years and there won’t be a Setnin Sector, Republic or non-aligned, just more provinces of the mighty Ki-Ki Empire.”

   “Then what are we doing here?”

   “Acting,” said Hens slowly, and he couldn’t keep the despair out of his voice.  “Just playing our parts in the final chapters of the Setnin Sector, and damn them all.”

Her hands flew deftly over the controls, and Sevrina gently banked her sleek ship round on a new heading.  The curve of the lush forest planet dominated the upper part of her canopy view, a mixture of deep greens obscured here and there by wisps of white cloud.  But her attention wasn’t on the nearby world, but on the sun reflected gleam of the space station beyond.

A frown creased her otherwise pristine features, and she double-checked her scan.

   “Mister Kerreet.  Can you come forward.”

Almost immediately Mando was standing behind her, crouching slightly in the cramped cockpit, and she could sense his concerns matching hers.

   “I thought the Garyra Station was all but abandoned?” he said, half question, half statement.

   “So did I,” whispered Sevrina, and nodded towards her scanner’s display.  The buzz of activity ahead of them showed that the station was anything but dead.  “Maybe I should do a focused scan and see what—“

   “No,” snapped Mando quickly.  “No need to draw undue attention to us.  We are, after all, bordering the Borden Space Lane.  Maybe someone’s taken advantage of the stations proximity to it?”  His mind raced.  When this meeting had been arranged the suggestion to hold it in the Gurney System seemed not just convenient, but also appropriate, considering his cynicism towards the Galactic Alliance.  The Gurney government had been amongst the first of the Setnin worlds to join the Republic, and the first to suffer from its loss of sovereignty and independence.  Garyra Industries had been its state owned cruise liner company, and famous throughout the Setnin Sector.  They’d commissioned the station to be built, and used it as both berth and building yard for the pleasure cruisers the company had specialised in.  The ‘rebalancing’ of regulations that the Republic had imposed on Gurney had laid Garyra Industries wide open to privately owned competition.  With its government barred from bailing the struggling company out, it had inevitably folded.  As the system’s main employer, the consequences on the Gurney population were damning.

Mando doubted that Republic officials had even noticed.  The prosperity of one sparsely populated world was insignificant when compared against the population of the whole Republic.

The politics of it left a bitter taste in his mouth, and he laughed humourlessly at himself.  He was a political animal; he knew the score.  Besides, he’d be using every trick he’d learned in a lifetime of politics to make this trip a success.

He laughed again, and drew a quizzical glance from Sevrina. He may be a cynic, but at least he knew himself well enough to also know what a hypocrite he was.  Strangely enough, knowing that made his smile all the more genuine.

   “Maybe it’s a good sign,” he said, nodding towards the buzz of activity around the station ahead.  “Won’t find out unless we dock.”

Sevrina regarded him coolly, but then her dark eyes sparkled.  “Never took you for a risk taker,” she drawled.

   “Hey, you forget,” he shot back.  “I’m a Setnin politician.”

“…docking pad 9.  Welcome aboard, Octron Disk.“

Sevrina turned off the comm., checked her nav-com, and adjusted her flight vector.

   “Easy does it, baby,” she muttered to herself, and within a few minutes had brought her small starship down to a gentle landing in its designated docking bay.  The blue haze across the hanger bay behind her indicated that the ion shield was already in place.

   “Looking good for a run-down station,” she commented dryly as she entered the lounge and walked over to a bulkhead cabinet.

   “It’s not what we were expecting,” Kro said as she stood up and shook out the folds of her gown, and then frowned across at the leather-clad pilot.  “You really think you’ll need those?” she asked as Sevrina clipped on her holster and double-checked the power reading of her heavy blaster pistol.  She then clipped a stun whip onto the other side of her belt and marched towards the airlock.

   “You may want to walk unarmed into the unknown,” she said and nodded towards the large stack of crates, “but when you’ve a hold full of creds…”

   “How do you know we’ve—?”

 She raised one pencilled eyebrow and looked Kro Shush straight in the eye.  “Lady, this is my ship.  You think I’d let any old cargo on without knowing what it held?”  She didn’t pause for a response before jabbing a finger towards Hens.  “Besides, the three of you were talking about it all the way from Zelon.  Politicians!” she tutted derisively, and hit the airlock.

   “She’s right you know,” whispered Mando as he moved towards the ship’s ramp.

   “Hey, I didn’t start tal-“ began Hens, but Mando waved him quiet.

   “I mean the station,” he said, and took hold of the Noscage councillor’s elbow.        “And don’t tell me you didn’t make out that keel laid down in one of those dry-docks.”

   “So?” shrugged Hens.  “Maybe they’re building liners again.”

“That was no liner being built.”  Mando shook his head.  “Looked more like a—.“  The sound of a hanger bay door opening cut him short, and he looked down the ramp and towards a squad of four men marching across towards them.

   “Liners, huh?” he said to Hens, his eyes sceptical, and looked back at those who’d come to greet them.  All four were clad in heavy looking khaki coloured armour, black berets, and armed with some very business looking blasters.

Taking a deep breath he stepped forward, hand outstretched.  “I’m Mando—“

“—Kerreet,” finished one of the newcomers.  His flint grey eyes twinkled, but there was no telling whether his humour was good natured, or just malicious.  “Kro Shush and Hens,” he continued looking at the other two non-affiliated Setnin councillors in turn.  “You’re on time.”  He gazed over the ship, and his attention fell on Sevrina.  A subtle hand signal sent two of his company to stand fore and aft of the ship, and he shifted the weight of his rifle.

   “You’d be welcome to relax in the station’s lounge, ma’am,” he said, making it sound less of an invitation than an order.  “Corporal Harrell will escort you.”

Mando felt particularly uneasy.  There was a feeling of violence about these men.  Knowing whom he’d come to see, that in it self didn’t surprise him, but he still felt far from comfortable.  He was still less comfortable leaving the ship unguarded with these people.  “Captain Maris was planning on staying with her ship…” he began, but faltered as the flint-grey eyes bore into him.

   “I wouldn’t worry, sir,” said the trooper.  “The spacer’s lounge is quite safe.  It’s located right next to the main barracks.”  Mando had seen warmer smiles on frozen cratefish.  “Now, if you’d like to come with me, the boss is expecting you.”

   “Is meeting this man really such a good idea?” whispered Kro nervously as the councillors were escorted through the station.  They’d left the Octron Disk far behind, and their feelings of trepidation had increased with each step.  For an all but abandoned station, they’d seen an awful lot of work crews busy cutting and fitting.  Someone was breathing new life into this old station, and that in itself posed a number of questions. 

   “Good time to change your mind, Kro,” sneered Hens, and his yellow eyes flashed angrily.  “Maybe you’d prefer to side with Centis Dro?”

   “Don’t you dare try and align me with that, that,” she searched for the word that would fully express her distaste for their one-time fellow councillor.

Centis Dro had led several other non-affiliated councillors to sign non-aggression pacts with the Ki-Ki Empire in exchange for allowing their forces to re-supply within their systems.

   “Leave it alone.  Both of you.” He snapped under his breath, and turning his attention towards their escort asked in a much calmer voice, “This is still Galactic Alliance space?”

There was an amused look on the flint-grey eyed trooper, but he remained stoically silent.

   “You’re unit is independent?” he pressed, and there was a trickle of concern edging his voice.  They’d come to meet with an Indie mercenary.  He may be able to accept contracts from within the Galactic Alliance, but the Coruscant Senate had very strict laws about where non-Republic registered mercenary organisations could establish bases.  Another reason for meeting here was that the station was still technically Republic territory, and at the least offered the illusion of Republic protection whilst they discussed business with the mercenaries.

   “The station has been leased by the Trac-Tran Transit Company, councillor,” said the trooper, still with that same cold smile on his face.  “They’re a Republic registered shipping company,” he continued, obviously reading Mando’s thoughts.  “We just provide them with escort and security.”

   “You mentioned having a barracks?” pressed Mando.

   “Ah!” replied the trooper, a little uneasily.  “You misunderstood me, sir.  I was referring to the TTTC’s crew quarters.  As extended crew, we’re also allowed to bed down there.”  He coughed loudly to clear his throat.  “I’d never suggest that we actually had a permanent presence here.”

   “Of course you wouldn’t” smiled Mando conspiratorially.  “And I doubt the fighters we saw on our final approach are part of a regularly stationed force?”

   “Indeed not, sir.” The trooper looked increasingly uneasy.  “There is a small number of Setnin Defence Force fighters assigned here, and when our conveys berth, our own fighters are granted access to the repair and refit shops.”

   “I see,” said Mando.  And he did.  It would seem that a tidy little agreement had been reached between the mercenaries and the Gurney government that managed to side step the Republic’s laws.  No doubt the mercenaries had a permanent presence here, but with local help, managed to dress it up as shore leave and refits.

They obviously had an op centre here as well; he just wondered how they worked around the red tape on that restriction.

The answer wasn’t long coming.

They’d been led out into what appeared to be a waiting lounge by one of the station’s berths.  Beyond the row of reinforced windows was anchored one of the most elegant ships Mando had ever seen.  Though obviously uncompleted, the sleek lines of the starliner had been beautifully designed.

“The Pleasure Seeker,” said the flint-grey eyed trooper, and for the first time Mando detected a hint of emotion in his voice.

   “Aptly named,” he said.  “No doubt temporarily berthed.” he said dryly.

   “Right then,” said the trooper briskly.  “Sirs, madam.  If you’d like to take the boarding tube.”

The Pleasure Seeker didn’t turn out to be as elegant inside as she was outside.  There was no carpet or plush decoration, only standard starship plating inside, and it was clear that there had been no work carried out for some time.

   “Untouched since the day Garyra Industries folded,” muttered Mando, and Hens nodded in agreement.

   “Except for a few modifications by my people.”

A man in a crisp looking black and red-piped uniform approached them.  The sparkle of his ice-blue eyes and shock of white hair contrasted with his worn face, and Mando could see the thin purple line of a scar running down the left side of the man’s face.

   “Ryath Centaur,” nodded Mando and offered his hand.

   “Councillor,” came the curt reply and the two men shook hands, followed quickly by Hens and Kro.

   “I’ll get straight to the point,” said Mando, adding a thank you, as he was handed a drink.

The three councillors had been shown into a stateroom aboard the Pleasure Seeker, and unlike the rest of the ship they’d seen, this room at least had been furnished.  It was still somewhat spartan, however, more businesslike than restful.

   “Between Councillor Shush, Councillor Hens and myself, we represent two dozen non-aligned systems situated in the Setnin region.  Neutrals if you will, and” he added knowing he’d strike a cord with their host if the report he’d read was accurate, “comfortable with our independence.”  He watched his host’s face, careful to observe any reaction to his words that would help him get the measure of the man.

   “However,” he continued slowly, “needs must when the devil’s at your door.”

   “I’m sure the Ki-Ki Prime Lord doesn’t see himself as a devil.” There was no hint of humour in Ryath’s voice, but there was no condemnation either, and Mando allowed himself a private smile. 

What had been missing from his report was whether Ryath Centaur’s mercenaries had a contract with the Ki-Ki government.  Hell, thought Mando, he may even have contracts along both sides of this dispute - mercenaries weren’t known for their scruples.

   “We’ve lost five worlds to Ki-Ki forces already, Mister Centaur.  Our transports and freighters are being attacked and seized.  Major trade routes, such as the Borden Space Lane, have been either restricted or blocked altogether.” The anger in Mando’s voice was clear, and he forced himself to stare down into Ryath’s cold eyes.  Let’s see how cold our mercenary really is, he thought, and noted again what a cynic he really was.

   “Our people are being cut off,” added Kro Shush, and her gentle voice wavered slightly.  “They think they’re alone, and they are afraid.”

   “As well they should be,” countered Mando, and he allowed himself a furtive glance at Hens.  He could see the twinkle in the Noscagean’s eyes, but saw the message too.  Let’s not get too mellow dramatic here.

   “So you see, the Ki-Ki Prime Lord and his henchmen are very much our devil.”

   “War doesn’t discriminate, Councillor.  It treats everyone harshly.”

   “Some more than others.”  Mando removed a disc from his belt and passed it over the table to the mercenary leader.  “It’s a copy of two meetings we held,” he said as neutrally as possible.  “One was with the Setnin Council, and the second was with a direct representative of the Coruscant Senate.”  Mando put as much scorn as he could muster into his voice.  “Apparently now isn’t an appropriate time for applications to join the Galactic Alliance to be considered.”

   “You jest?” exclaimed Ryath, and Mando could see his surprise was genuine.  Hell, he’d found it hard enough to believe himself when the Republic had all but left them wide open to the Ki-Ki invasion.

   “Politics is a dirty game.  I’m sure you’ve enough experience of it to know.  As a politician myself, I can see how this will play out.”  Again Mando paused, just long enough to take a sip of his drink and collect his thoughts.  “You understand that the Prime Lord has declared war on the Setnin systems?  His announcement was quoted from one side of the Ki-Ki Empire to the other, but I very much doubt that the man’s a fool.

   “He’ll not push the Republic so far that it has to respond.  The invasion of Leogard can be argued one way or the other, but we all know that the Republic can afford to let that incident pass.  As for the destruction of Admiral Travees fleet? Well, that was not a Galactic Alliance fleet, just a backwater militia that was very much an embarrassment to the Republic.”

Ryath leaned across the table, “But your non-aligned worlds are still being invaded?”

   “Of course,” said Mando, his voice touched with sarcasm.  “Are we not what the Prime Lord promised his people?  He declared war on the Setnin systems.  Are not our systems Setnin systems?”

A hush fell across the room, and Mando could see the mercenary deep in thought, but his eyes already said all that Mando needed to hear.  A quick look left and right indicated that his peers had seen it to.

   “Surely you’re not asking me to go to war against the entire Ki-Ki war machine?”

   “We can pool the resources of our worlds, but they’re pitifully few.  We’ve maybe a dozen frigates, two old cruisers, and just a smattering of fighters and in-system cutters.  Our crews are as young as these ships are old.”  Mando shrugged.  “But there’s a fighting spirit that’d make any Setnin born being proud.”

   “Councillor,” said the mercenary slowly.  “That’s not even enough to hold one system, let alone twenty.”

   “Then what do you suggest?” asked Mando carefully.

   “Consolidate what you can hold, and cut the rest free,” Ryath held up his hands to silence the protestations coming from Hens, but Mando and Kro both nodded in agreement.  “Unless you want to lose all, you’ll have to buy enough time to build up your forces.”  He paused, and his eyes flashed with an anticipation that unsettled Mando.  He was getting this same feeling of controlled violence that he’d picked up from the armoured troopers who’d escorted them here.  He smiled.  It was a violence he’d be directing against his enemies.

   “First we need to ensure that your commerce continues trading.” Mando nodded, but it was obvious that the mercenary was brainstorming, thinking out loud.  “We’ll need to keep the shipping lanes open, and that means fast transports and convoys.”  He tapped away at some keys on his desk computer and swivelled it round to face the councillors.  “I’ll be able to obtain an agreeable discount from the Trac-Tran Trading Company. They’ve an office here on station,” he explained.  “They’ve fast enough cargo haulers, and know routes not listed on any star charts.  I’ll provide escorts and we’ll make sure your commerce doesn’t dry up.

   “Can’t have you going bankrupt now you’ve hired me,” he added with a flash of a smile.

   “Then we can send in some advisers.  We’ll train up your men, and expand your ramshackle fleet,” again the smile.  “Once we’ve worked out a solid defence, we’ll supplement your ships with some of our own.”

   “So you’re accepting the contract?”

   “It all comes down to credits, councillor.  If you’ve the money, then yes, you’ve just hired yourself an army.”

In It For The Money

2001 short story by Paul Squire

Thirty-five years after Episode IV – A New Hope

Histories – Following the actions of three non-affiliated senators, this Paul Squire story shows some more of the machinations of politics going on behind the scenes of the war.  More than a simple one-on-one battle, lines are crossed and friendships made as the various factions scrabble for safe ground and new alliances.

Cast of Characters

Mando Kerreet

Hens

Kro Shush

Sevrina Maris

Ryath Centaur