Blake Rowan exited the Luxury Yacht and onto the clean docking bay floor. He stood near two bodyguards whose eyes were constantly searching for threats--the eyes of predators. Meanwhile, Mr. Rowan lit up a cigarette. He could have used one of the electronic varieties that so many of the youth were interested in these days, but he preferred a simpler more analog sensation. His pressed dark suit and dark red tie stood in sharp contrast to his surroundings. He stood tall and proud as if the world was his to conquer. The guards who flanked him wore equally impressive suits but were far more imposing than the man they protected.
This was by design--the true wolf was the man standing between them.
In the distance, a security gate opened, and a smaller man exited. While the two men looked alike, that is where their similarities ended. Where Blake stood tall, proud, and meticulously groomed and presentable, this man slouched with his hands in his pockets, his hair a mess, and his attire a hooded sweatshirt with baggy and stained jeans.
"Thanks for picking me up, dude." he mumbled as he got within earshot.
Blake looked down on him, blowing smoke from his lips after taking a drag. Tommy had always been the fool of the family, Blake had long believed it was him acting out as a youth, but now with him nearing his mid 20's, he was starting to believe it wasn't a phase. No doubt he had inherited their fathers genetic trait of idiocy while Blake had taken on their mothers driven personality.
"I am not a 'dude', Tommy. I'm your brother. Speak with some respect." he replied with a straight face--wisps of smoke escaping from his lips as he spoke.
"Why the fuck are you always so uptight? I go by Thomas now, get it right." he said emphasizing his name.
He moved to get into the yacht behind Blake but was thrown back by one of the guards. He stumbled backward, shaking off the large mans grasp. He glared at him, adjusting his cheap stained jacket as if the guard had done anything to make it's appearance worse.
"It's Tommy." Blake said, having not moved an inch during the brief altercation. "When you learn to grow up, you'll be Thomas. You might've thought you were hard in there--" he said gesturing his head towards the security gate where the other prisoners milled about. "--but out here, you're nothing." he flicked the cigarette away, as if punctuating his sentence and turned to enter the Yacht. His two guards followed him inside as the younger Rowan brother scoffed and entered behind them.
The Hollow Crown, Ledgermen, whatever name you chose to call them, were a smaller organization inside the Liberty Rogues. They are not common pirates but consider themselves heirs to a forgotten craft: Businessmen, negotiators, and enforcers who maintain a more disciplined style of underworld conduct.
Where other Rogues raid blindly and spend their spoils on foolish flights of fancy, the Crown invests. They run smuggling networks rivaling the Junkers, manage vice and contraband, and offer "protection" for those who know better than to rely on the promises the Navy often projects. They wear their crimes with a veneer of civility--carrying themselves as gentlemen and professionals, even when violence is necessary.
The Hollow Crown is not worn by kings but by those who seize power in the cracks of the empire. Their ledgermen hold the pen as often as the knife, and either one may be used to balance the accounts.
Blake settled into his seat as one of his guards silently poured an amber liquid into a short glass with a single clear square chunk of ice inside. Afterwards, the guard handed the glass to the elder Rowan. He absentmindedly took a sip while keeping his focus on the exterior of the yacht. The yacht turned and departed Sugarland and laid in a course in the direction of Beaumont. Tommy shuffled up with his hands in his pockets, stopping near his brothers seat and eyed him. Blake paid him no mind and looked out his small window to the space behind. The two remained like this for a few moments before Blake spoke.
"We are legacies to a bloody heritage, Tommy." he said continuing to look out the window. "Father left us with what little he built before he ran off and got himself killed by some Outcast don for speaking out of turn. It's our responsibility to pick up and continue the work he did to build our small but growing empire."
"I don't know why we keep taking their shit. We could stand our own if we wanted. We don't need their help." Tommy said collapsing into a seat opposite his brother.
"I might agree with you--but even you should know we can't come out and say that. That's what father did and look at where that got him--sucking vacuum." he turned to look at his brother with hard eyes. "Use your head for once and think. We might be able to stand our own, but how do you think they would look upon a competitor in an area where they hold dominion? We have to play the game."
"So we change the rules."
Blake laughed a sharp laugh bordering on a scoff, he shook his head in disbelief.
"Oh, to be young again and not consider the consequences."
He leaned forward, boring eyes into his younger sibling.
"If we were to break ties with the Outcasts, even our small little organization, they'd come out here and murder us in our beds. Hell, they probably wouldn't even come do it themselves. They'd send some Cardamine tweaker to do it with the promise of more of their poison. No, we can't change the rules. We can't just sever ties with them. We have to pretend to play the game as long as it takes."
The younger Rowan scowled at his older brother. "...and how long will it take?"
Blake leaned back in his seat, resting his chin on his balled up fist as he looked back out the window. He swirled the amber liquid around in his glass as he thought to himself before answering.
"Until we build an empire to rival theirs."
He let his statement hang in the air as the two sat in silence for the rest of the trip--making their way home to Buffalo.
I've lost people who meant the world to me...and I'm still doing just fine. I'm coming for everything they said I couldn't have.
The Hollow Crown had its beginnings in the now-abandoned system of Kansas. Its founder, Hargrave Rowan, came of age during the wars Liberty waged against both the Hellfire Legion and the Insurgency. In those years, he carved out a life as a high-risk smuggler, running supplies to those fighting in the rebellion. Though he considered himself a freelancer rather than tied to any one cause, that distinction did little to spare him the attention of Liberty’s relentless war machine.
More than once, he found himself hunted by the Navy’s massive ships in orbit as he risked his life to deliver vital cargo to the surface of Veracruz. Eventually, he was declared an enemy of the state and marked as a kill-on-sight target whenever he appeared on radar. Rather than flee from the title, Hargrave leaned into it--embracing the role the Navy had painted for him: he began calling himself a Rogue. From his growing legend, others were drawn to him: like-minded smugglers and restless wanderers who took up daring, often suicidal, runs past blockades and embargoes for the sake of the oppressed.
As their reputation spread, it reached the ears of other smugglers--namely the Outcasts--who saw opportunity in the fledgling network’s talents. They began using the group to slip their contraband into Liberty space. It was during these runs that the Liberty Navy first recorded the name “Hollow Crown,” after spotting a ship marked with the symbol of a crown with its center cut out. The group itself referred to their members as “Ledgermen,” but the name “Hollow Crown” stuck, and so the Hollow Crown Ledgermen were born.
Although they operated as Rogues, Hargrave drew a line between survival and savagery. Early on, some members took to piracy against unsuspecting transports throughout Liberty and the Independent Worlds. Hargrave quickly put a stop to it, declaring that they were above such barbarism. Instead, he instructed his people to offer “protection” to convoys moving through Liberty space--protection that could be enforced by force if refused. Some left the group in protest, but those who did were the kind of violent opportunists Hargrave never missed.
As the Insurgency faltered and ultimately failed, the Hollow Crown shifted its operations from supplying the rebellion to running cargo for the Outcasts. Hargrave despised the Outcasts and their Cardamine trade, but their business provided much of the group’s income. Eventually, his contempt outweighed his pragmatism. He informed the Dons that the Hollow Crown would no longer traffic in Cardamine and would instead return to arms smuggling for factions across Liberty and the border worlds. The Outcasts saw it as an act of rebellion. Days later, Hargrave Rowan was gunned down on Rochester Base. He was fifty-two.
Leadership of the Hollow Crown fell briefly into chaos until Hargrave’s son, Blake Rowan, wrested control from would-be successors. A short but bloody struggle followed, leaving much of the old leadership dead. When the dust settled, Blake made one thing clear: the Hollow Crown would always be led by a Rowan--no one else.
Blake, the son of Hargrave and a rumored Libertonian aristocrat, proved as ambitious as his father, though far more calculating. He sought to continue his father’s legacy--minus the reckless public statements that had gotten the old man killed. Privately, he shares his father’s disdain for the Outcasts, but he keeps his opinions behind closed doors, quietly working toward the day he can free his people from their so-called “allies.”
His younger brother, Thomas, is far less restrained. Known for his temper and sharp tongue, he has nearly gotten himself killed more than once by speaking out of turn. Blake does what he can to rein him in, though his efforts rarely meet success.
The youngest Rowan, Sasha, is a ghost within the Hollow Crown. Few have seen her in years. Rumors persist that she quarreled with her father upon reaching adulthood and left Liberty altogether. The truth remains buried, and discussion of her within Hollow Crown circles is quietly--but firmly--discouraged.
I've lost people who meant the world to me...and I'm still doing just fine. I'm coming for everything they said I couldn't have.
The Reagent Yacht moored to Buffalo--an odd sight, to say the least. Its gleaming panels stood in stark contrast to the dark, rocky texture and muted colors of the station--not to mention the dirty, barely held-together Rogue and Junker ships that frequented the dingy outpost. The only vessels that came close to competing with the yacht’s elegance were the scattered Outcast ships lurking nearby.
The mooring hatch opened with a hiss as Blake prepared to disembark. He exchanged a few brief words with the pilot before stepping off.
"Keep to Erie as we discussed. If anyone asks for your flight logs, give them the ones I already programmed into the ship’s computer. Those should be enough to dissuade any would-be spies trying to ascertain our whereabouts for a while."
The pilot nodded and returned to the cockpit, sealing the door behind him. Blake adjusted his suit jacket and stepped through the mooring clamp into Buffalo. Tommy followed close behind--hands shoved in his pockets, posture slouched as always. Two guards flanked the Rowan brothers as they made their way toward the area of the station that the rest of the Hollow Crown frequented.
Blake hated this place. The other Rogue crews occupying the station were rough, but they knew to steer clear of the Hollow Crown. Recent attempts to take over their crew had been met with brutal consequences--swift, vicious, and final. They might be smaller than most, but what they lacked in numbers they made up for in ferocity and cunning. That cleverness, that ability to outthink and outmaneuver, was what truly set them apart.
Still, it didn’t stop others from trying. After his father’s death, Blake had needed to move fast and strike decisively to ensure no one dared challenge his claim. He’d once feared that Tommy might make a play for leadership himself, but his younger brother’s stint in prison had made that impossible.
He was thankful for it. He didn’t want to kill his brother, even if duty might have demanded it. As for Sasha...
Well. They didn’t talk about her.
The four men reached their small corner of Buffalo. As Tommy entered, a cheer erupted from a cluster of Rogues. They clapped him on the back, ruffled his hair, and shoved a drink into his hand with grins all around. For the first time since leaving Sugarland, Tommy smiled--a real smile--as he bantered with his old friends. Blake watched the scene with a carefully neutral expression, studying the group from across the room.
"Sir." one of the guards said, nodding toward an older woman seated alone in a nearby stall. She was immediately out of place among the grime and rust--a woman who oozed class.
"Keep watch." Blake murmured, scanning the room as he moved toward her. The guards gave curt nods and turned outward, forming a quiet wall of muscle between him and the rest of the bar.
The woman regarded Blake coolly over the rim of her glass as he sat down opposite her. She was in her late forties--perhaps early fifties--but carried her years gracefully. Her maroon sundress was loose and elegant, her jewelry expensive and dangerously conspicuous for a place like Buffalo. Still, the other crews gave her a wide berth. No one dared cross this woman--not with the Hollow Crown protecting her. Blake regarded her with a cool expression for a moment before finally speaking.
"Hello, Mother."
I've lost people who meant the world to me...and I'm still doing just fine. I'm coming for everything they said I couldn't have.
Blake's mother was an upper-class woman from Manhattan, and his father was a smuggler breaching embargos and blockades. Two people from vastly different worlds had somehow come together and had not one, but three children in the span of a few years. Blake didn't care about the story--or god forbid the logistics involved. He'd always found the entire ordeal a mystery, one that neither party would answer, even among the living. His father took the secret to the grave, and he suspected his mother would as well.
He'd never met her until his father's passing. She offered the Hollow Crown resources--resources she claimed to have used to help his father a handful of times. Blake had always turned them down--why would he need anything from a woman who never had the decency to meet her child until his father was dead?
"Hello, Blake." she greeted after setting her drink down softly on the table. Even the smallest movements were full of class.
"What are you doing here?" he asked.
The woman sighed, resting her elbow on the table and leaning her head into her fist as she examined Blake’s stoic expression.
"Why must everything be a transaction with you? Can't a mother come to celebrate her son getting out of prison?" she said, glancing toward the increasingly loud group of Rogues in the corner.
"No." Blake replied flatly. "Thomas doesn't even know who you are. I'd like to keep it that way. We both know what happened with Sasha."
The woman's mask faltered for a moment, but she gracefully recovered, reaching for her glass and taking a slow sip before setting it back on the table.
"That was your father's doing."
"How convenient to place the blame on a dead man. I find it interesting it all went down soon after you met her for the first time."
"I simply gave her what she wanted."
Blake slammed his hand down on the table hard enough to draw attention. It was the first time he'd lost his composure in a long while. This woman always had that effect on him. Slowly, the noise returned to the room; those who overheard his outburst knew better than to comment, lest they draw the ire of their frustrated boss.
Sasha had been on his mind a lot lately. With Tommy recently out of Sugarland, it pained him that the three children who’d grown up in the halls of various Rogue installations were still fractured. But Sasha had made her peace with what she’d done, and there was no coming back from that now. The woman seated across from him had made certain of that.
"Get to the reason you're here." he said, his words cold as ice.
"I thought it prudent to bring you this." she said, sliding a key across the table. She withdrew her hand, leaving the key where it lay. Blake regarded it with cold eyes.
"Is that supposed to mean something?"
She sighed and rolled her eyes toward the ceiling. He heard her mutter something about his father before returning her gaze to him.
"Hargrave was many things, but a fool was not one of them. He suspected he’d die at the hands of those mutants from the Omicrons one day, so he took out a little insurance policy. He left it to me in his will--it only just reached me due to the amount of red tape involved."
A will? Since when had the old man had the foresight to do that?
"Your father was a part of many things you had no idea about," she said, almost reading his thoughts. "He raised you to be his successor should that day ever come--and he chose wisely. You might not believe this, but he was determined to raise you on his own, without external help--from me included."
"Why not take this insurance policy for yourself and sell it to the highest bidder? You're selfish enough to do so."
The woman slid to the edge of the booth and stood. She turned to Blake, the briefest hint of sadness in her eyes.
"Do you really think so little of me? I may not have been there for you in your youth--at your father’s request--but I still gave birth to you. Hargrave wanted me to give this to you. It was the only way for it to get to you without the prying eyes of the Outcasts."
She turned to glance at the group of Rogues, now growing ever louder.
"I'm glad he's out and back with you now. I wish things had been different with Sasha. I do...but..."
"...it was her choice. She has to live with it."
She turned back to her son with hard eyes.
"We all do, Blake. We all do."
With that, she turned and departed, gently placing her hand on one of the guards in thanks as she passed. Blake watched her leave, his attention shifting back to the bronze key sitting on the table. A game his mother was playing, or truly a gift left by his father from beyond the grave? Whatever the case, he'd follow this clue to its conclusion. If there was some kind of insurance policy that could free them from the Outcasts’ influence over their family, he would seize that opportunity. Something in the back of his mind screamed that the key would open more than just a lock.
With that in mind, he rose from the booth, straightened his jacket, and pocketed the key. If he knew his father, he'd hidden it somewhere only Blake would know to look--he just had to find it.
I've lost people who meant the world to me...and I'm still doing just fine. I'm coming for everything they said I couldn't have.
Blake had sat on the key for two weeks without making a move to uncover its secrets. He’d been busy shoring up smuggling routes, meeting with Junkers to handle the “last mile” hauls, negotiating with other Rogue groups for operational clarity, and juggling a dozen other matters that required his direct hand.
Heavy was the crown.
One quiet evening, alone in his small room--half office, half bunk--he picked up the key from his nightstand and sat on the edge of the bed, staring at it with intent. It was simple, nondescript--just a locker key. Four numbers were stamped into the metal: 7435. No doubt a serial to match its paired lock. Where that lock existed was another matter entirely. His father had taken that truth to the grave.
Blake frowned, turning the key over in his fingers, feeling the teeth, searching for anything; any hint of what it might mean.
He pulled out a compact terminal and scrolled through the old logs and notes his father had compiled over the years. Aside from a few vague mentions of a contact in one of Manhattan’s shadier districts, Hargrave had rarely visited the planet. That was Manhattan out--truthfully, he was thankful that the planet was eliminated from his plan--searching an entire planet for one locker was not something he enjoyed thinking about. The place he had frequented, however, was Beaumont. A natural hub with material flowing in from Kusari, moved through New York, distributed across Liberty. Beaumont made sense.
Blake flipped the key once and tucked it into the inner pocket of his jacket.
He left his quarters and headed toward the Hollow Crown’s hangout. Two guards melted out of the shadows to fall in beside him. Without breaking stride, he issued his orders.
“We’re moving to Beaumont. Chuck, get ahead of us and secure three civilian fighters. Nothing flashy, something that blends. Make sure they’re coded to Freelancer. I don’t want attention. Joel, find my idiot brother, make sure he’s not causing trouble, and drill it into his skull not to start anything with anyone. I’m not cleaning up his mess today.”
Both men nodded and peeled away.
Blake entered the Hollow Crown pub, slipped behind the bar, and opened a concealed hatch. Inside were IDs and stacks of currency--Liberty, Sirius-wide, and the kind used when questions weren’t meant to be asked. He gathered what he needed, sealed the hatch, and slid one of the bartenders’ rubber anti-slip mats back over it. Then he made his way to the landing bay.
Three ships were already idling on the pad, engines humming. Chuck was overseeing preflight and clearance signatures. Joel, on the other hand, was holding a thrashing Tommy by the collar.
“What the fuck is your problem, guy? Let me go!”
Blake approached. Joel released Tommy at the exact moment Blake grabbed him by the front of his jacket and hauled him close. Blake was not known for displays of aggression--Tommy froze in shock, his protest dying instantly. The key, his mother, the memory of his sister…all of it had worn Blake thin.
“Listen here, Thomas,” he said, using the full name with cold precision. “It’s past time you grew up, or I’ll throw you into the deepest pit of Sugarland and lose the key. Stop acting like a child and get your head straight. Things are moving--I need you sober, alert, and not jacking off with your idiot friends. If I die, you’re the only one left to lead the Hollow Crown. And I’ll be damned before I let you run it into the ground. Start acting like a Rowan--not some run-of-the-mill Rogue.”
He shoved his brother back and turned toward his fighter, which was just finishing its clearance cycle. As the pad rotated toward the launch vector, Blake glanced back. Tommy stood there motionless, eyes wide, torn between anger, shame, and something like resolve.
Blake hoped his words had cut deep enough. He doubted it. Thomas was immature--but fire either tempers steel…or destroys it. And Blake could not afford to lose another sibling. Moments later, his ship lifted from the pad. The trio of fighters slipped into the black, bound for Beaumont--and the mystery Hargrave Rowan had left behind for his son.
I've lost people who meant the world to me...and I'm still doing just fine. I'm coming for everything they said I couldn't have.
![[Image: eE8EqfD.png]](https://imgur.com/eE8EqfD.png)