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Things were noticeably different at the Acarron Oort Camp.
With the countess gone, there were a lot of changes to the various opportunities available. While her legitimate business dealings continued, her criminal empire had been torn apart—and only the most profitable ventures taken up by others.
Following Mira-Acarron Shael’s arrest, it was only a matter of weeks before most of her associates fell too.
For starters, it turned out that more than half of her smuggling and criminal operations had been almost entirely about her. They played a part in her schemes to take the Acarron crown for herself. Otherwise, they seemed to serve nobody else.
Then, because Avra had been involved, all of the countess’s direct partners, lieutenants, and close contacts had also been removed. While she was not the only game in town, per se, it had always been an unwritten rule that everything passing through the Acarron Oort Camp first passed through the countess and her business.
Her criminal empire was not just shifted, but largely eliminated. Avra had been sure to employ the Acarron government to be thorough when they took her down.
Mira-Acarron Shael’s trial had been extensive, and quite the local show. It took just over a month, but when it was complete, she had been stripped of the use of her title and sentenced to life in house arrest.
That might have seemed lenient to some, but the nature of it would haunt her. She would live in a cottage on the grounds of the crown’s mansion, in sight of—but never able to reach—the crown. She would be cut off from all outside communication and under constant guard.
Members of her criminal organization were imprisoned for varying lengths of time, exiled, and, in a few cases, fined and threatened that next time the courts would be less lenient.
Shi’tra and the crew were meeting with a contact they had used before at the Oort Camp. In fact, it was the same contact they had gotten a job from after rejecting the countess’s offer.
As they made their way into Camp Sector Brown Gamma One, the first obvious change was the silence from Mira-Acarron Shael’s tavern. Nobody had claimed it since her business had been brought to its end, so it remained a silent, unused structure.
“That’s just eerie,” remarked Lori.
Shi’tra did not reply. But he also noticed that the area was far less noisy and active than it used to be.
“Hey,” Roy chided his twin. “You remember the second trip to the tavern, there? We got challenged to a fight by those two Human goons, calling us alien runts and saying we were too small to hurt them?”
“Yeah,” Rhi replied.
Roy waited for more, but when Rhi didn’t say anything, Roy continued, “We took ‘em both down in...what, a couple seconds? They never knew what hit ‘em. What did you say then?”
There was a moment’s pause before Rhi responded, softly, “Don’t think of it as getting beaten up. Think of it as getting beaten up by alien runts.”
Roy chuckled, but Shi’tra could tell it was largely forced.
Ducaine did have a personal physician, and she saw to Rhi when they delivered the cargo. The eye was lost, but the nerve endings were spared and attached to a new cybernetic eye.
It was, however, an eye intended for Humans. The doctor had been skilled and was able to adapt the nerves to allow it to be implanted in a Doolari. But to get a Doolari cybernetic eye would take a trip to a Doolari sector of space.
Rhi claimed not to care, saying he just wanted his eye back. As such, Rhi now had one normal Doolari eye and one Human-like cybernetic eye.
Ducaine had surprised the crew by not charging them for the use of xerz physician. Xez had not expected Gazer to react as he had, and xez regretted the Ravusqan Raider crew getting caught up in that.
Rhi had gained some additional spectra of use out of his cybernetic eye. He could set it to see infrared and x-ray. According to the doctor, that was due to how the Doolari nervous system adapted to a Human prosthetic.
Though physically recovered, Rhi was not the same. He was much less boisterous, and far less talkative than he’d been before. Though none of the crew had discussed it, everyone had noticed that Rhi had changed.
Shi’tra wondered if he should speak to Roy about his twin’s mental health. He’d suffered trauma in his time, so he had some understanding of how the loss of his eye might have impacted Rhi.
What was more, though, was that Shi’tra suspected Gazer getting the jump on him was the most unnerving part. The Ko twins were whip smart, swift, and sure attackers. They always worked as a pair and, though small, they were an irresistible force. Nobody bested them in a fight, fair or otherwise.
Gazer had taken Rhi off guard. His attack had been swift and unexpected, and it was the first defeat Rhi had ever suffered.
Even as children, Roy always had Rhi’s back, and vice versa.
Roy also was stung by Gazer’s attack. His twin was hurt, and it was unacceptable that someone had gotten the drop on them. But Roy remained his usual, loud, flippant self—while Rhi seemed more withdrawn, frequently getting lost in thought.
Lori, as always, could be counted on to break the tension. “Any idea what Rampart wants us to move?”
“Well,” Gek Guv Geq began, “I know it’s not guns, nor explosives, and nothing radioactive—oh, and also, not perishable.”
“In other words, no,” Lori concluded.
“Knowing what it won’t be is still an idea of what we’re being asked to move,” Gek Guv Geq defended.
Hakk sniggered. “Honestly, would our quartermaster ever admit to not knowing something?”
“Never,” stated Tvi’pra.
“I should be offended,” commented Gek Guv Geq with mock indignity. “I always know something. When you don’t at least know something, you might as well be dead.”
Both Roy and Rhi chuckled. Shi’tra grinned; that was more like it.
The crew were all together for this meeting. It had nothing to do with trust—or the lack of it—in Rampart and his organization. The Ravusqan Raider was secure, and they were a mixed and bizarre family of pirates.
Rhi’s injury had that positive outcome. The crew had come together even more than before.
It wasn’t long before they reached the warehouse, which looked like any planetside warehouse, despite being on a space station. Two women in light body armor, but no helmets, leaned against the jambs on either side of the door.
“Asha, Prat, it’s lovely to see you,” remarked Gek Guv Geq, stepping up to stand beside Shi’tra.
“Gek Guv Geq,” the one Shi’tra knew to be called Asha said. “Captain Shi’tra. The chief’s expecting you. Go on in. You won’t be able to miss him.”
“Thank you, ladies,” Shi’tra replied. The large door irised open, and the crew made their way inside.
The warehouse was typical. It had a wide, central passageway, with row upon row of tall shelves to either side. A dozen various people, mostly Humans, were moving items via hoverdolly, forklift, or cybersuit.
A small group was toward the center of the open space, where Rampart was holding court.
Rampart was a very heavy Human. Though less than six feet tall, he was a wide, boxy man. He had an impressive gut but was also barrel-chested and broad-shouldered.
Also, Rampart had no legs. His upper torso was mounted atop a custom-modified hoverchair.
As a young man, Rampart had taken part in a form of racing that involved modified, one-man vacuum construction pods. They were designed for repairs of space stations and starships in spacedock. But someone got the idea of taking them to a wholly different level—and gave them starfighter engines and extreme maneuvering thrusters.
These would then be raced around asteroid fields. Some were fields that had been stabilized, while others were not. The sport was dangerous, and the average lifespan of a racer’s career was less than five years. At the end of it, they tended to have been severely injured (sometimes more than once), they came to value their life more and stopped racing, or they died.
Rampart had been in a spectacular crash. His racer pod had exploded around him, and only because his exosuit was high quality, he had managed to survive.
Despite surviving, he was not unscathed. His lower legs were ripped off mid-thigh, as well as his left arm. He’d also suffered massive internal damage.
That was part of why he had the hoverchair rather than cybernetic legs. It contained life-support systems. There was speculation among the crew of the Ravusqan Raider that much of Rampart’s internal functions only worked because of his hoverchair.
Rampart’s left arm was cybernetic but featured no special tools or attachments. It was covered in synth-skin. If he suffered any other damage, it was not apparent.
Rampart was jovial, and Shi’tra, for one, liked him. He had his own network or shippers and smugglers, which was why jobs for him were not all that frequent.
The loss of the countess, however—according the Gek Guv Geq’s sources—had been Rampart’s gain.
As the crew neared Rampart and those around him, he shifted toward them, saying, “Ah, Shi’tra, Gek Guv Geq, and the crew of the Ravusqan Raider. It’s a pleasure to see you!”
“You look comfortable, Rampart,” Gek Guv Geq stated. Shi’tra and Rampart shook hands.
“It is good to see you again,” Shi’tra said.
After everyone said hello, Rampart gestured to the five who had been standing with him. “I want to introduce you to one of my crews. This is Captain Erico of the Starhopper.”
Erico, Shi’tra noted, was an unusually tall Human female. She extended a hand to Shi’tra, and as he took it, she said, “Captain.”
“Captain,” he replied.
Rampart continued. “The Starhopper is one of my best. They have been working for me for a long time now.
“Are you based here?” asked Lori.
“We are,” Captain Erico replied. The Starhopper crew, Shi’tra noted, were all Human. “All of us served the Acarron military in one capacity or another, and we left the service at the same time. Buying a ship was easy. Getting decent paying jobs was less so.”
Rampart chuckled. “They had been hired, cheap, for a job by the former Countess’s legit business arm. I had a buyer who wanted that same cargo for better money.”
“We staged a ‘raid’ and ‘lost’ that cargo,” said Erico. “Ironically, we found out that while she was moving it via legitimate business, its end destination was for her smuggling operations.”
“She did have a lot of different balls being juggled,” said Gek Guv Geq. “I wonder how often she played that hand?”
“Impossible to say,” remarked Rampart. “After that, the Starhopper crew became one of my best associates. They have run all over the galaxy for me—but they generally don’t leave Human territories.”
“Which is why you have something for us?” Shi’tra inquired.
Rampart grinned. “Exactly. Captain Erico?”
Erico gestured to a member of her crew, who stepped away a moment. She returned with a small crate in her arms.
Erico stepped to her side to open it. Shi’tra and the Ravusqan Raider crew moved nearer to see.
The crate was open, but apart from a sort of cloth lining, it was empty.
“That’s anticlimactic,” said Gek Guv Geq.
“Look closer,” said Rampart.
Shi’tra leaned in, and it took a moment before he saw what they were looking at.
“I have never seen one of these in person,” he said.
The item at the bottom of the crate was so clear that it was virtually invisible—until you looked closer. Then you could see the orb within.
It was oval, and perfectly flat at the top, and presumedly the bottom as well. It was so flawless that it looked like an impossible thing.
Shi’tra had heard about icequartz, as they called it. Composed mostly of silicon and oxygen, unlike other forms of quartz, it also had another, much more exotic element Shi’tra could not recall the name of. It caused the interior to form with no impurities.
The resulting icequartz could only be found in an oort cloud, as it formed in the core of long-dead comets. Initially refined to bring out the purity, it was a sought-after commodity for external portals on starships—generally, yachts and high-class passenger liners.
“This was part of the former countess’s contracts,” said Rampart. “She had gotten it on her family name, so of course her arrest meant they wanted someone else. I was able to step in to take it over.”
“I don’t recall ever moving this stuff for the countess,” said Lori.
“You wouldn’t have,” agreed Rampart, “since this was part of her more legitimate enterprises.”
“Wait a second, hold it, pause,” said Gek Guv Geq. “You want to hire us to move a legit cargo?”
Rampart chuckled. “Not exactly. You see those shelves to the right?”
Shi’tra turned. Upon the shelves were an uncountable number of crates similar to the one in the arms of Erico’s crewmember.
“Those are a known quantity of the trade guild, spacer’s guild, and gem and minerals guild,” said Rampart. “Now look to the next row beside those.”
Shi’tra shifted his gaze and noted another set of shelves with an uncountable number of those crates.
“Those don’t exist,” said Rampart.
Gek Guv Geq started laughing.
“I admit, I don’t get it,” said Hakk.
Lori said, “They mine at least twice as much of the icequartz as they claim. Which means there is quite a lot that can be moved on the black market without losing profit of the legit stuff.”
Hakk was shaking his head. “I thought icequartz was super rare?”
Rampart grinned. “That’s what they want you to believe. Makes it a lot more valuable. But it’s not just found on long-dead comets: it makes up the majority of the debris in any oort cloud it’s found in. And this particular oort cloud has been mined for millennia.”
“Lots of solar systems have oort clouds,” said Kyyl.
“That’s true,” said Rampart. “But most of the non-Human races have ignored them, often in favor of Kuiper belts. Only a few Human governments have bothered with them. It would seem, once they learned how valuable the icequartz is to so many, they persuaded the few in possession to horde it.”
“Clever,” said Gek Guv Geq. “Create an artificial market of a ‘rare’ item. Sell it at a premium, as such.”
“But in having considerably more available than is known,” took up Rampart, “you get an item you can smuggle with little to no overhead. This was Mira-Acarron Shael’s family fortune-maker.”
Shi’tra grinned. “And you can now profit from this and grow new sales.”
“Precisely,” said Rampart. “By using independents like you and your crew, it keeps the level of secrecy necessary.”
“Save that you’ve just revealed it all to us,” said Lori, giving him a look of suspicion.
“I have, haven’t I?” said Rampart.
Shi’tra tensed. Were they being set up somehow?
Rampart and Erico began laughing.
“What am I missing now?” asked Hakk.
“The secrecy is a joke,” chuckled Rampart. “It’s a thing that super wealthy idiots buy into. The notion of the ‘purity’ of natural icequartz versus the synthetic used for militaries and shipping companies is false. We could tell them the truth and they would never believe it.”
Gek Guv Geq chuckled. “Classic. A falsehood millennia old, so ingrained in the mindset of the wealthy that the truth becomes the lie.”
Shi’tra understood that completely.
“I have a potential Doolari buyer on the edge of Doolar Kitermnal Gra and the Karvama Union,” Rampart informed them. “I load you up; we split the profit fifty-fifty. No negotiation with the buyer on your part—just delivery.”
“We usually have some negotiation power,” Gek Guv Geq remarked.
“I know,” said Rampart. “But this buyer is very particular. He was not thrilled to work with me, but agreed to because of Mira-Acarron Shael’s departure from this business venture. We set a price, he paid. Now I just need it shipped.”
“Got it,” said Gek Guv Geq. “Well, given your supply, and the demand, and the potential for a broader venture between us, fifty-fifty split is fair. Except...you’re not doing the shipping. Since we are, let’s say seventy-thirty.”
Erico half coughed, half laughed at that. “That’s crazy.”
“Is it?” asked Gek Guv Geq. He began to tick off on his fingers, “First, it’s a very valuable cargo. Second, you have us transporting it illegally. Third, a cargo of this sort coming out is high-risk for everyone. Fourth, we’re crossing between not just starsystems and Human governments, but the Doolari. And fifth, all the hazard is on us.”
Shi’tra always enjoyed watching Gek Guv Geq negotiate.
Rampart chuckled. “You just had to complicate this, didn’t you? Very well. Fifty-five, forty-five.”
Gek Guv Geq shook his head. “Sixty-five, thirty-five.”
“Try sixty-three, thirty-seven.”
“Isn’t that just splitting hairs?” asked Gek Guv Geq.
“I drive a hard bargain,” argued Rampart.
Shi’tra intervened. “Sixty-forty. Renegotiate down the line depending on mutual profitability.”
“I knew I always liked you, Captain,” said Rampart. “Done. Sixty-forty.”
“You spoil all my fun,” muttered Gek Guv Geq.
Shi’tra found comfort in planning business as usual.