Buzz launched his vulture from Daltas Hold. He was so angry that he had to drink half a bottle of Helio Mists just to keep his hands steady. He steered away from the station, but that single movement reminded him of why he was here, and why he was so angry. As he flew his ship, his chest, or rather, his breasts pressed against the jump suit that was not designed for the double D's that were adorning him. The BioCom salesman that had sold him the nano tech implants had not been present in the shop, apparently he had left for Nyrius. With the antidote to the nano machines that had created his breasts. He set the course for Nyrius and the salesman. He would find him, and then he would get rid of these things. Or else he would have to use his trusty .45 to persuade someone to fix it. Just maybe he would use it on him afterwards anyway.
Somewhere deep in Itani space, John was slowly rolling his bright green Behemoth XC towards the station, his hold filled to the brim with coolant fluid. The last batch of 20.000.000 crates that would guaranteed make an immense profit for him as well as for TGFT. He had borrowed around 400 million credits to pay for the cargo, as well as sinking a massive 1.6 billion into it himself. And today was pay dirt day, with a sell price of 200 credits each, he would net 4 billion, effectively doubling his stake. Then he would repay the guild with interests, but it would still net him a hefty 3.2 billion. That was around 120 million bottles of vodka. He smiled at the thought of so much vodka. He briefly wondered how many cows would be required to make all that vodka into White Russians, but eventually gave up and docked the ship. He sent for the dockhands to unload his vessel, and went to punch up an inventory screen, grabbing a mug of coffee from the stationmaster along the way. Humming tunelessly, he activated his account. He accessed the usual buyers on the station, and punched up the buy screen. Coolant Liquid, buy price 68 credits. He choked on his coffee, getting some in his windpipe, and almost gulped it all over the screen. How the, what the, who had....that would net him 1.36 billion, effectively a loss of 800 million once he had paid the guild. He punched the public SSCU for trade data from his other station. He had almost 20 million holo discs on the station from where he had bought the coolant fluid. He had been chartered of the guild to buy these discs and sell them for the guild, and while they were not his money it still represented four billion credits. Feeling his stomach contract to golfball size, he opened the buy screen. Holo discs, price 124 credits. He suddenly felt nauseous, and as he got up from the chair, he had to support himself before staggering over to the bright green Warthog Mk II he used for moving sensitive cargo. He would have to go to Ecka and discuss this; maybe the old miner knew something that John didn't. No matter what, he would have to explain that 4.4 billion of the guild money was not going to be paid today along with the expected 4.2 billion profit. He felt physically sick, and as he launched he had to keep the cooling fans to high, or sweat through his jump suit.
Dau K-10 was bustling with activity at least thirty TGFT ships were either docking or approaching the station, with only one or two ships leaving. Ato boosted as fast as he could for a docking bay, and smashed the ship into the cradle. Jumping out of the ship, he ignored the dockhands and walked directly towards the XO's office. The room outside was full of guild members shouting and making gestures, with Naoko behind her screen looking all lost.
"..need to see Surbius.", "I have lost", nobody should know".....
"Gentlemen, calm please." Ecka's deep voice cut through the chatter like a fusion torch through a foam wall. "I be sure tha Surbius will hae time fae each n every one a ya. So ya get in yon line behind Pasquel thare, and then when ye are finished, come have a blether with me in the command. Move it."
The guild members got in line as commanded, and Naoko looked admiringly at Ecka. Any other day he would have beamed back, but today he was stressed to the max. He needed a drink badly.
Pasquel moved into Surbius's office, and found it a terrible mess. At least nine papers were scattered semi randomly on the table, and Surbius was staring furiously at his screen.
"Hi Surb."
Surbius waved a hand without looking up, indicated the chair in front of the table and went on reading. After a minute he looked at Pasquel, and spoke, fatigue heavy in his voice.
"Well, how much?"
Pasquel was somewhat surprised about his tone of voice, but managed to stutter a reply.
"Estimated loss of 2.1 billion, including the return goods. How, I mean, I thought I was the only one?"
"If only that Pasquel, if only that. Apparently someone has crashed the entire trade net that TGFT has built over the last four years, and crashed them bad."
"Who would do something like this?" Pasquel was outraged, the amount of skill and money to do that was very high, and would only be possible for one of the semi-nation factions, or one of the major guilds.
"We do not know right now, but we have a couple of leads. Give the details of your trade route to Ms Naoko, and send in the next. We'll get to the bottom of this." With that, Surbius returned to his screen, and the despairing figures displayed upon it.
Hortan received a summons as he was floating in tranquility deep in a Helios roid field listening to Delibés Viéns Mallika Sûr lé Dome, one of his favourite classical pieces of music. He had found it by accident among some data thrash he had purchased from the original diaspora years and years ago. Most of it had been gibberish, but this particular piece of music had survived. Slightly annoyed that somebody interrupted him while he was mining Cassandra, he nevertheless took his feet down, faded the music and pushed the receive button.
"Assembly in the command. All are required to attend. Priority ASAP-Z." From Surbius's own terminal. Something must have gone terribly wrong Hortan knew, and he aborted the mining operations. 109 crates in the bay, it would have to do for now. He slowly turned the Ole Sloth Moth XXIV towards open space and engaged the engines, slowly at first so he wouldn't make heat scars across the surface of the roid, and then engaging full turbo after he was five hundred metres away. He set up the jump sequence, and brought the volume of the music up to full. The twin powerful female voices filled the cockpit to a crescendo as he jumped out of Helios towards Ukari. He would get the bad news in time, no reason not to hear the music out.
Hortan docked his lumbering ship in the cargo unload area of Dau K-10, and took the time to order storage space for the Heliocene. He had a stash of around five thousand metric tonnes of the ore in storage on the station, but he needed space for another thousand metrics for the ore he had mined. He exited the side door on the Moth, and started to walk away to the TGFT command. He only got a few metres before someone shouted.
"Hey Hortan, did yoo get the summons too?" Fluffy exited his own ship and walked over to Hortan. "Yoo know what it is aboot?"
"Hi Fluffy, no I have absolutely no idea. I was just mining when I got the message to come here asap. Do you know?"
"Nah, but I expect we'll find oot soon, don't you?" Fluffy smiled at Hortan. "How's the princess these days?"
Hortan looked confused at Fluffy. "Which one?"
"Ha ha, yoo are so bad mate, yoo are sooo bad." He grabbed Hortan around the shoulders and started walking towards the command centre. "Tell me all aboot it, every sordid little detail mate."
