Runners

[Ash]

There's over twelve trillion humans living in sirius, and over two thirds of those noble citizens can readily access any offensive weapon, vessel or vehichle with the right amount of readies. Were looking at the largest mobilisation in civilian arms ever seen. The only question that remains is, how do we arm the other third?

My name is John Smith. And I sell guns. Now i'm not going to tell you a bunch of lies to put me on a pedistal. I'm going to tell you how it is and it's up to you to believe it.

I grew up with my sisters Katie and Laura on London. This was back in the days where the protecting eyes of the police force were up in the stars, which made it almost a living hell for a bunch of small town lowlifes like us. It was 792, and we had to do what it took to survive. Back in those days, being thirteen and looking out for two seven year old girls; you had to think on your toes. As you may have guessed by this point: our folks were gone. My old man got himself shot up by some less than admirable junkers, and our mum did a runner when she realised the three of us were just anchors pulling her into poverty. Can't say I blame her, but these were the hardest years of my life.

We trusted no-one. At the time local orphanages often made deals with border worlds slave traders. We had to do everything to stay away. In the worst of times they sent out snatchers to "bring back" or "rescue" kids from gutter-rat gangs like ours. There was no telling what they did to them poor sods they caught since we never heard from them again.

We learned not to distance ourselves the hard way. The three of us used to run with a handful of kids. We called ourselves the scrap rats; safety in numbers and all that, or at least that's what we thought. For a year we stuck with this lot. Gradually kids would leave, get caught by the orphanages or simply vanish. I hadn't thought of the possiblity of a snitch in our midst until it hit my square in the face. It was only one night I caught the bastard, i'd taken my eye off Laura for a minute, and if she hadn't screamed I wouldn't have seen him dragging her off toward some dark corner of the slum we called home. I ran him down to the local landing pad, he pulled a knife and then his head explodes. To be fair I was utterly flummoxed. Then this bystanding junker steps down from the pad across the way and I noticed he'd blown the poor bastard's cap off. I never hated junkers for what they did to my dad, after all my dad was mostly responsible for our lives heading to shit in the first place. This fella seemed fair enough. He tosses me the gun and told me to be careful next time. It was a Hertx .65 calibre revolver, which at the time I hadn't any idea what it was. But from then on, I was in business. I'd sold bits of scrap and whatever I could find for food enough to know what your average pistol would usually cost, and it was enough for the three of us to eat well for a few days. And as much as i'd been compelled to march into the local orphanage and start a party, family came first.

Old Jenkins had a workshop on the outskirts of town, he usually bought whatever you had wether it was banana peels or engine parts. But he wasn't there that day, so I headed out to the nearest landing pad. The pilots there sometimes bought spare parts and bits of junk. I'd got bartered away by a number of poeple before I found a guy who was interested in the gun. He offered me seven hundred credits off the mark. I hadn't any clue it was worth as much as that but i snatched his offer and gave him the gun. The money bought us two weeks of food with five hundred to spare. I couldn't tell the girls I had that much, in the slums secrets got around, and i'd be torn apart. I trusted Katie and Laura with all my heart, i loved them, but you never knew who's listening. The fella who I sold the revolver to made a few more appearances in the slums that week, I saw him twice around Jenkins' place and a few times at the landing pad. I'd learned he was into guns. Just small arms and spud guns, but what seemed enough to earn him a fancy attire, especially for the slums. I'd thought on it for a while and decided to confront him, make him an offer. My five hundred got me seven colt gas pistols. I'd figured if I had half a mind to shoot up an orphanage then half the kids in my neighborhood would want a gun to do it with too. I sold them on, one by one to avoid suspicion. In three days i'd sold them all for double what i'd paid. Then things moved a hell of alot faster. Scavanging activity in the slums had never been so high. More and more kids kept coming to me asking for their own shiny toys, and I obliged. My contact from the spaceport landed me with pistols, shotguns, rifles, machine pistols and even a low end grenade launcher. About that time things went sour when some kid decided it was a good idea to use his ordnance collection to ignite a local orphange. The slavers' revenge was a relentless massacre. The snatching patrols doubled, and they came armed to the teeth. Seventeen kids died in the first three days. We were starting to draw police attention and everyone would be either dead or locked up by the end of the month.

The slums were going to hell and we weren't going to hang around to see it. We'd earned enough money to buy enough goods to set up a business on Cambridge. We'd have gone quietly if some derailed kid hadn't have put a bullet through the back of Katie's head on the landing pad. I recognised him as a regular customer who'd been pleading for some grenades and ammunition all that week. I'd told him no, mostly because we were saving stock but also because we needed a subtle departure. I never told anyone we were headding up, they relied on me, and that was dangerous. Even the girls didn't know until the night we left. I lost control, put a bullet in his knee and beat his face into pulp and shards with a rock. He had friends, lots of them, all holding the guns i'd sold to them, and repeat business wasn't what they had in mind. If my friends at the space port hadn't have stepped in, i'd have never made it to the ship with Laura, and wouldn't have died there with Katie pumping every last inch of hate into every bullet I shot, like I should've done.

The whole journey Laura was silent, I comforted her, but I doubt it made much difference. She'd lost her sister, and her twin, and I could never imagine how much that affected her. All I could do was be her brother, and her father. My contact from the port made a last minute decision to join me on my voyage to Cambridge. Maybe he just didn't want to get shot like everyone else. His name was Jeremiah Stanford, and he was a gun runner. Compared to him I was a gypsey putting up a disposable table of trinkets next to a corporate superstore. I wasn't stupid, i'd been selling long enough to know that anyone in this business is in it for their own ends. So one way or another, every sale he made to me was for a reason, that reason usually being profit; usually. He made me realise that if I was ever going to stop living on the ground, I wasn't going to end up like Jenkins. I was going to aim high and expand far. Screw gang wars, the real money is in real wars, political wars, hell, even alien wars.

---

[Ash]

Throughout the flight Stanford was adament about talking business. I'd just seen my nine year old sister shot in the head for god sake, and this guy was trying to sell me some middle grade packs of explosives. It wasn't that I had a cold heart, but in the end, you had to look out for yourself, and you never know when an opportunity could be your last. I struck a deal with him for five crates of plastic charges to shut him up. No, I hadn't any idea who was going to need enough power to bring down a small city block on Cambridge, it's probably why he sold them so cheap. Anything just to get him to stop yapping about the weapons that killed our sister would be worth it.

The first few weeks on Cambridge were tough. It was a new world and we had no option but to start from scratch. Stanford supplied us with goods but hadn't bought anything from me since our first encounter. Finding contacts was hard, and it was mostly instant opportunities you had to catch before they passed. One such opportunity I took that I've learnt from ever since. I found a buyer for the explosives I bought from Stanford, a chance encounter with some Gaian terrorists. Had I been anyone else I probably wouldn't be here to tell you. I stumbled in on a Gaian meeting in the back of some bar, it wasn't quite what I expected to be the bathroom. Naturally I had a matter of five seconds to think of something smart before the five charming fellas decided to fill me with bolts. I could only imagine they were plotting an attack. I listed them what I could offer and they eased off eventually, enquiring into quantities and prices of what I had. We struck a deal there and then for twenty crates of those middle grade explosives and some detonating equipment. Naturally Stanford wanted to know where the explosives were going, why I needed more and how I'd managed to shift them. To be honest, I never fancied myself dealing with terrorists and I haven't since, you'l see why. I kept my mouth shut, so he charged me an extra hundred for each crate. Small pennies compared to what i'd be selling them for.

An attack was reported that week on the Planetside branch of the Cambridge Research Institute. And if it hadn't been for the fact i'd been cheated and sold low grade, home made untraceable bombs, i'd be in deeper trouble than I'd ever imagined. I probably wouldn't have a terrorist organisation hunting me down because their target building didn't quite crumble the way they wanted. But looking at the whole scheme of things, I'd say I came out ok.

Since then i've chosen my clients carefully, and set down a number of rules to follow if i'm to keep my head.

Rule #1: Stay out of anyone's pocket

As soon as you buckle under pressure your gotten by the balls. A gun in your face isn't much of a threat if you can replace it with the latest model with a silencer attachment. Pay people promptly and in full, don't take favours, especially if their offered. Business is business, clients are clients.

They say don't believe everything you see in the tabloids, I say believe it. Because when you cut out all the bull **** to set the dramatis, you'l find there's an element of truth however small it may be. Newspapers have reputations, reputations they wont let fall because of some fabricated fan fiction. They check their sources, and don't publish stories without good reason to. And this is how it's relevent: Take the strange coincidence of the wandering Commander Henderson of Her Majesty's Armed Forces, and the reduction in Hacker activity in Manchester recently.

The command of Commander James Henderson; captain of the Battleship Falkirk and her complimentary attack group; is in question with Armed Forces' command due to recent events. The Falkirk and her attack group are currently assigned to border relations in Manchester, but has recently been mobilised in the system without orders or filed reports. Such accusations are yet to be validated by Her Majesty's Armed Forces and Military investigations are still underway.

System: Manchester

....In other news lane hacker activity has been almost non-existant in the system recently, with local traders seeing a significant decrease in financial shrinkage. Lane Hacker representatives could not be reached at this time, but questions have been raised on the hackers' interest in Bretonian space. Wether they have interests elsewhere or if there's a more sinister reason behind this untold change of heart, stay tuned for more developments.

Here we have on the surface, another moderatley interesting story that's bound to blow over in the next week or so. But really when your in the business, it's a business opportunity on a platter, that's bound to blow over in the next week or so. After a while you realise that there's no such thing as a coincedence in the media. The commander turned me down at first, but he began to speak my language when he saw his boat's bow blown open by some Hackers flying BMM tagged vessels i'd sold on days before.

After then Bretonian military personnel were clients, looking for the means to settle grudges or selling on military property to fund their own wars. Either way the deals were always prompt and smooth with the gents of her majesty's fleets. Which leads me onto my next rule.

Rule #2: Treat your clients well

Show them your the best, you're a gentleman, and business off the books is just another form of business. If some goon from the barrier gate can deliver it in a week, offer to have it shipped out the next day, and throw in a case of scotch to sweeten the deal. When settling a deal, secrecy is overrated, cut out the comms and set up a meet in a five star resteraunt, order in 777A.S. bottle of shrapnel and finish with some cigars. Arms dealing is a gentleman's game, it takes class to deal with the classy.

My contacts in the Bretonian military landed me with a much wider variety of goods. The best sellers were unmarked vessels, in particular unmarked crusaders or "naked" crusaders as they've come to be known. My government contacts in her majesty's fleets and armaments landed me with a whole variety of ships. Ranging from decomissioned templars to brand new reserve hussars, and even a paladin or two but that's another story. Naturally dealing with lawmen put me in a vulnerable position, but as long as I had some kind of dirt on every one of them, it was business as usual. After recieving the vessels from my contacts on Leeds, they'd go out to Jenkins on London. He had a knack for dodgy mods people wanted done off the books, and he was reliable. Jenko wasn't the most trustworthy of people in my businesses which is why I never let him know too much, but I made sure he got a little on top of what i owed him to keep his mouth shut. He'd strip the vessels of insignia and registration before they got sent out to Sheffield where I stored alot of my stock. Anonymous vessel dealing was perfectly illegal and very expensive, but the margins were good and the demand was rising, fast. And before long I was the number one supplier of illegally wiped vessels in Bretonia and it's border worlds.

---

[Ash]

Even though my business had taken me up into higher places, munitions dealing was still a reliable source of income. It was my safety net if things up high went wrong and i'd need somewhere to start again. I never rushed into new markets, a zoner fortune teller once told me I could have been a connoisseur.

Rule #3: Try before you buy

Not everything that claims to be brand new and brilliantly lethal can be what it's made out to be. When a man pitches to you this new tube of fire can take out fifty men a shot, you wanna make sure he specifies weather or not if these men are packed into a confined space and all chained to each other. Get wise on how to use the weapons even if you don't intend to. It makes it easier to judge the difference between quality goods and polished scrap.

Anyone who thinks the police are stupid are stupid. When you find yourself on the opposite side of the fence of Her Majesty's police authority it's no easy game. Just because their not floating out there where you can see them doesn't mean their not watching you from where you can't. From the day I sent my first shipment out of cambridge i've been ever mindful of the police. They have an arsenal of gadgets they can use to catch your humble arms dealer. Tracers, Log Trackers, Bugs, Line Taps, Interspace Archives and Docking Records. At first it's cowboys and indians, intitially you just don't have the contacts and resources to take risks, so you just have to make do with suttlety and secrecy. Back door jump holes are home free gateways in Bretonia regaurdless of what toys your packing. As the money rolled in and Jenkins got back in touch, he was able to fit jammers and all kinds of dynamos to my boats. He fixed me up with a little gadget that effectively masks your cargo with holograms of legitimate goods to exterior scanners. I knew Jenkins, and i'd known half of the things he did to his customer's equipment. He may have looked crooked, but he wasn't a crook, not as long as i'd known him anyway, which is why he was always my go-to man for equipment.

Rule 4: Know your stuff

NEVER buy anything that you'l need to rely on from some ragged ass Zoner on some god forsaken Freeport. It could be in perfectly good working condition, but who knows who made it? And what else it can do? Blow a hole in your hull seventy meters wide? Send all your falsified details and records to another recipient? Any of it landing you with a big problem and little choice on how to deal with it.

Naturally having your goods appear legitimate was a lifesaver against those rookie pilots not engaged in the war. And it let me slip past patrol after patrol, but jump gates, they were a problem. Since the whole atrifact fiasco in Liberty most jump gates these days were now fitted with goods scanners of their own. Got something the IC doesn't know about? Then your not getting through, and the fuzz will be on you in seconds. That's why i pushed alot of money that way to make sure my goods do get recorded as legally passable. The IC are greedy when it comes to bribary, but their always open for negociation. They could run their own smuggling organisation and nobody would know a thing.

But then there would be times a veteran happens to be on patrol, and they're persistant bastards. By then i'd been accustomed to detonating entire shipments to avoid being caught. With all the high tech dodads and gizmos the police are packing these days, as soon as a smartass gets within scanning distance of one of my shipments it's game over. I never killed any of my own men to stay clean, and don't intend to. But it's a motive for them to haul ass to the pods when they know i've got a remote detonation switch with me at all times. It's an assured method of keeping my name clean, but an expensive one.

As my business expanded I saw myself needing to take on a crew, and for crews of other vessels i'd bought. By then I owned a fleet of transport class vessels shipping guns, goods and garments out to every corner of Bretonia and beyond. I have to keep a tight grip on it all and it's what I spend most of my working day doing. It doesn't take long for it all to come crumbling down. I'm no idiot, I know the desires a man has to steal from another, i've felt them, and yielded to them, and have no intent to be stolen from. Fortunatley so far none of them have been stupid to attempt it.

Rule 5: Look after your own

Whoever you go into business with make sure you give them a fair slice of the pie. And that works both ways. Every man will want more at some point, but the cocky ones will find they're left out of a bonus pay packed to those who aren't as openly greedy. Then when he comes to question his share he'll will find himself on his own side against the rest. It's an easy way to keep the men reasonably happy and make the idea of mutiny straight idiotic.

Markets were expanding daily, I'd hit the roof in vessel and armaments dealing, but with the Bretonian government talking about making cuts on her own shipping vessels. It was only so long before nuclear equipment was being contracted to independent shippers, and the nuclear arms bazaar would be open for all.

I always took the utmost precautions when dealing nukes. Not because their radioactive lumps of rock that give you tumours no. But because these were the weapons that changed wars, governments and entire worlds. It's an enourmous power to have, and shouldn't be taken lightly. I never dealt nukes into the hands of pirates, and especially terrorists, and that meant never telling them what I could get my hands on. This usually meant turning down plenty of requests and sometimes massive sums of money, but nuking regimes tend to have a much different effect to simply toppling them. You see I was never much of a gambling man either. Regardless of the turmoil sirius was in at the time, all the governments in power were relatively stable and hungry for war. Rheinland and Liberty were so busy taking digs at each other they welcomed an independent trader packing over 4000 units of nukes without even asking where they came from.

I don't have any regrets seeing my weapons used in 7/8 war zones in all of sirius. 6 of which i'd been dealing to both sides. It was genius, outwitting hordes of faction investigators by using their own greed and bloodlust to my advantage. I sold corsair-made cannons to outcasts, rheinland made armor to libertonians. I've sold to pickpockets, pirates, revolutionaries, mercenaries, dictators, vigilantes, terrorists and even neutralists but their not the most regular of customers. These were the the golden days of gun running and I made the most of it while it lasted.

---

[Ash]

Leading up to the Rheinland trade embargo in 16 a few of my storage depots were raided. I often stashed merchandise in remote derelict cargo pod depots as an easier alternative to shipping everything out of Sheffield. It hardly helped the situation seeing as after that, the summit at Curacao gave just about every cop in the sector a license to kill smugglers at their own discretion. I never knew why, but for about four years Rheinland had a real score to settle with the black market. Life became increasingly difficult from then on since everyone from clients to suppliers were pretty shaken up.

An embargo in general was never really a big deal, more a formal 'up yours' between houses really. Once an embargo came into effect it was usually easy to exploit a lesser known route into house space and after a while the authorities would give up on enforcing it altogether. But the with Rheinland almost isolating itself by setting up a blockade at nearly every hole and gate, it was nearly impossible to move any goods there. The first few shipments I sent through went missing and no incident was ever reported. I accompanied the last delivery attempt myself and was almost spaced by a squadron of bombers in Hamburg. I'l tell ya, I've never been so paranoid in my life, but it saved my ass:

Rule #6: Be paranoid

If you're not a paranoid runner then you won't be a runner for very long. The best advantage a runner can have is to be as many steps ahead of the authorities as possible. It's important to see them before they've even noticed anything suspicious. Always suspect the worst possible scenario and have an action plan ready for a moment's notice..

With the Bretonian and Kusari fleets engaged in the Taus, and most of my contacts with them, I started dealing with clients in the Omegas, mostly Corsairs and Hessians settling their own private vendettas. Then word of a new Zoner colony there emerged, opening up a chain of systems from Bretonia to Freeport 9. Although I'd done business in the Omicrons in the past it was mostly with private buyers; bounty hunters and mercenaries. The age long war between the pirates there was something I was happy excluded from until then. At the time I was determined to expand my empire and the events in Rheinland had stunted that considerably. After a while I was contacted by a reputable family in the Outcast cartel looking to buff their army pressing into the Tau systems. It wasn't long after I delivered the shipment that I realised they had no intent of paying. It probably had something to do with them accusing me of supplying the Corsair fleet in Theta with some shiny new mortars. If they'd known I was on the transport when the goods arrived I'm sure that's not all they'd have done. The Corsairs none the wiser welcomed me as an ally, and it's still the only war I supply where I've been forced to take a side.

Rule #7: Be Cautious

It's best not to dive into something you're not familiar with, no matter how imminent the opportunity may be. Know the people you're dealing with before you even meet them. Everything has a price, but who says that they have to pay it? So always have a Plan B.

Business was slower than slow after that. When word came from Orkney that a foreign invader was pressing into the Taus with a fleet the likes no-one has ever seen. A peace treaty between the Kusari fleets in the Tau systems and Bretonia was forged putting an end to a conflict that was more or less a cash cow for those with connections. New clients are always hard to negotiate with but I can't blame the Gallic commanders for turning me away since they had enough gear to conqor the whole sector three times over. Nevertheless, the combined fleets defending the Tau's still provided a reliable income and even opened up some breathing space; since whenever an unusual bit of gear was noticed it was always put down to the cultural difference. Thankfully my one sided participation in that feud actually ended up working out well for everyone since the defenders were able to force the invaders into a stalemate in Tau 31.

Now stalemates can be bad for margins but good for business since armies are never rich enough to buy anything classy but still require a steady flow of bog standard kit. It's kind of the philosophy of not buying a chain gun because a shot to the head with a gas pistol will do the job just fine. If you ask my opinion I'd say the Bretonians and Kusarians had a lot of self confidence in their aim, but then hey, I just sell the stuff. Expansion at this point was completely off the table. Usually in this scenario it was all to easy to sway the fight by selling weapons at a discount to one side until the other was desperate enough to splash out, but stalemates have the tendency of being long standing problems. There was little I could do but be content with the margins as they stood, and despite all the wars going on at the time, Sirius couldn't have been less exciting for a runner.

---

[Ash]

While Bretonia and Kusari dealt with the Gallic invasion the rest of Sirius was cracking. New factions were cropping up everywhere; the Sirius Revolutionary this and the Purist Protectors of that. Uncharted systems were being populated by groups like the Zoners before anyone else knew they were there. The universe as the houses knew it was expanding quicker than they could keep track. Before they could realise what was happening they were being attacked by a fleets assembled on hidden bases dangerously close to their core systems.

As well as this, Liberty and Rheinland had finally stopped flirting and gone all out; with assaults in the border worlds happening at least once every day. Both houses begun siphoning capital ships from security posts in core systems to station them defensively on the border. This marked the end of Rheinland's four year campaign against the black market.

Christmas had come early.

I was receiving more requests for arms than I had ever had before. In the first quarter after the war began my total net profit reached way over 18 billion credits, with over 80 new clients in Rheinland, 40 in Liberty, 30 in the Sigmas and just over 50 in the Omicron systems.

Rule #8: Good things come to those who wait

Wars, like the people that wage them, are unpredictable. You can expend all your resources trying to tip a war in your favour but in the end, it's all on a roll of the dice. Sometimes the odds just aren't good enough to bet it all, so it's sometimes best to wait, and let the chips fall where they may. See everyone is in the same boat in the black market. In rough times it may sound appealing to buy up whatever you can so as to pitch your variety. But a man selling a rocket launcher for $10,000 will be worth waiting for when he comes back a week later offering to sell for $1,000 because he's having as hard of a time as you are.

On top of everything the Zoners' expansion incentive was turning into an empire, making it only a matter of time before they started investing in a more intimidating way to keep the peace. Despite being neutral they trod on a lot of toes back then, and had the habit of colonising planets in the general vicinity of undesirables. From time to time they had a skirmish with their neighbours but I always made it my priority that they won. Neutrality in itself promotes war sooner or later which is good for business in the long run.

Being rich isn't as appealing as it seems when you're on a roll. I never bought mansions or villas on tropical planets because I simply didn't have the time to. Come to think of it, I honestly couldn't think of what I was going to do with all that money; retire? invest? I was so consumed by what was coming in I simply had no time to consider spending it on anything frivolous. The only outgoing that mattered was the one that was going to elevate my empire to the next level and keep me ahead of my competitors.

---

[Ash]

Word came from the Taus that the house's Tau fleet had been obliterated by an all out offensive by the Gallic invaders. There was nothing to stop them pressing into the heart of Bretonia after that. With the bulk of the Bretonian fleet destroyed this meant losing my oldest and most reliable clientele. The invaders set up a partial occupation, sending out raiding parties to Manchester, New London, Cambridge and Dublin from their new base on Leeds. If you ask me it seems that they really had no intention of gaining any ground but just wanted to see us beaten and submit. But you got to hand it to lads of her Majesty's Armed Forces, they fought hard at any given opportunity to remind them that surrender was definitely off the table.

So despite having lost some of my best contacts and clients in the admirals and commanders of the fleets, the silver lining was still there. I was often approached by Lieutenants, Colonels and a lower class squadron commanders for boons and ballistics shortly after. With the invaders refusing to do business, every square meter they gained was lost to me so there was never any doubt as to who I was backing. I gave the boys in brown all sorts of gadgets and guns to make those frenchies' lives a misery. The most frequent requests I heard from them were with regard to codenamed weapons. Now codenames are tricky business for a gun runner. They're used by all sorts of pilots across sirius for all sorts of reasons. Simply for that reason this makes business with codenames extremely personal so I never do business with the same client twice. On top of that they're hard to get, unpredictable, volatile to handle, and terribly desirable. About a third of my shipments of codenames are pirated. At least one item of every shipment is either faulty, fake or blows a hole in the side of it's transport. Another big problem with codenames is that you can never tell what is going to happen when it's primed. I've had more vengeance threats than any other kind because of relatives killed by implosions as a result of the massive drain these guns can have on a ship's power core. I have been quite cautious to sell to ambitious clients with civilian class ships. But then again you haven't laughed until you've seen a xenos startracker hurled through space by the sheer backfire of a single ARCHANGEL.

Why then do you ask do I deal with these problem-causing, client-killing time bombs? Because your average shipment of high-grade explosives will be sold on for $150,000. Occupying the same amount of space a domestic-grade nuclear warhead will sell on average for over $3 million. Again, occupying the same space a codenamed weapon sold to the right buyer can be bought for up to $40 million credits. An average shipment of codenames to the Omicrons will return a $300 million turnover no-sweat and I send one out every month. The best part is it's all legal. Actually bounty hunters are my main clients for codenames both inside and outside the guild which is another reason why i keep the Omicron market well supplied. Shipping legal goods always makes business run much smoother. If I weren't so good at selling rocket launchers there's no doubt i'd have tried my hand at legal freight years ago.

Codenames are tricky to source. There's no telling where scavengers dig these bits of kit up and there can be plenty one day and nothing the next. That's why I have a man posted in Liberty solely for snapping up whatever decent gear he can find for me. I met Archie at a military expo on Holstein. Back then he was a prototype weapons specialist for the Rheinland technology company: Ariel. Rumor was he'd worked on a handheld version of a downscaled cruiser mortar - fantastic stuff really. I was making serious losses with my debut into the protoypic arms market so I snatched him up and put him to work on Rochester. He still think's he's working for an outsourced Ageira firm, but I pay him well. Liberty is a hive of junk dealers; most of whom dream of uncovering the next codenamed weapon to sell on to me or a domestic prototypic arms dealer. Because to them it means a hefty payout of up to $15mil for a good find. I source most of my merchandise there through Archie who sends it to one of my depots in the borderworlds where I accumulate it into complete shipments. From there they ship out to Freeport 9 or some other place the gunslingers are mad enough to give them a try.

Anyway I will admit that the majority of the deals I made with Bretonian pilots in those days just about broke even. But with millions pouring in from Rheinland and the Omicrons I could afford to be a bit political. Before those days I'd never really witnessed first-hand conflict on such large scale; and I tell you, those Bretonians can be crafty bastards:

I was tying up a deal with a Bretonian Major on the observation deck of the Hood in Dublin. Gallic patrols had gotten more muscle there in recent weeks and the gents were looking for a bit more bang. Lucky for them I'd been storing a shipment of nukes near the old Glorious wreck for a rainy day. We'd just struck a deal and were celebrating when we noticed something large moving through the asteroid field in the window. I remember the Major put his hand to his ear and murmured something. As... whatever it was in the asteroid field got closer it became apparent that it was a big ship; destroyer class at least given the distance. Seconds after that an array of fighters appeared out of nowhere and started swarming it. A lone ship launched from the Hood and began sailing off toward the fight. About a minute later the capital ship was drowned out by a massive explosion; my nuke. I was reminded why I'm so bloody careful with that radioactive crap, I was just glad to see 'em put to good use for once. And I tell you after a thousand years them Brets haven't changed one bit. Turns out the Major had ordered his squadrons to burrow their ships into asteroids and entrench themselves. The idea was to ambush passing raiders he told me. New dog old tricks I said and promised him the next shipment I could get my hands on would be on me.

Rule #9: It's always important to stick to your principles

A principle that's been working out well for you in the gun running business is best stuck to. It boils down to not fixing something that 'aint broken. Making exceptions is guaranteed to change things, and it's usually for worse.

I never really wanted to get involved with a client any more than what he's buying and what he's shooting. The idiots think your contributing and becoming part of their revolution or reigime but the smart ones sometimes get it. Having more connections with your client results in inevitable margin shrinkage. The closer you get to them the closer they get to you and have a means to exploit you as you exploit them. Now that little incident in Dublin may seem like a bit of flag waving but in the end that flag waving cost me six hundred and eighty million credits, and that's not to be sniffed at.

Rule #10: Keep your distance

Deal with clients the way you would with a one-night stand. You woo and ego stroke them for a few hours before you eventually get down to business, have a cigarette to top things off and never talk to them again. Unless of course they'd like to do the whole thing over with no strings attached in which case bonus. Don't ever let them get any leverage or even get their foot in the door, if they do you cut and run.

To this day I'm still paying for that sign of charity in my own way. Funny how being human while being called a monster pays off when people genuinely think your a monster and not human. I throw the lads a bone every now and again but after the whole thing on the Hood I focused a lot more on business in Kusari.

Kusari was a relatively untouched market by me. Sure I'd dealt with the Tau fleet's officials before but I never had any serious business in the core worlds. The Corsairs had connections there somehow and the house was riddled with eccentric terrorists so there was bound to be a market. It wasn't until after I started probing that I found out why I'd never dealt there before.

The Hogosha.

---

[Ash]

Despite my accoplishments I still do business personally. I just don't trust anyone else to sell on my behalf, esecially to new clients. This proved to be problematic when I first set foot in Kusari. It was due to an apparently greedy Kishiro board member on Junyo that turned out to be in the pocket of some less than admirable individuals.

The Hogosha are shady characters at best and not at all forthcoming about their motives. I was cast into their deepest darkest crevace after seemingly being drugged by an actually astounding 25 year old scotch. The Kishiro official, it would seem, was the bait. The interrogation I will say was very cli che with the dark room, lamp and table and all that but they seemed to understand the significance of fear in their threats of torture. All of which I'm glad to say was to no avail as I'd presumed I was worth more alive than mutilated. So I waited until the punks were done with their banter, and then their bosses were done with theirs until they eventually put someone important in front of me. His name, I was later to discover, was Hitori Matsumaru - the Hogosha boss liason of New Tokyo. By his explaination the group had been watching me for some time and waiting for me to step into Kusari to pin me. He was more than happy to divulge that my exfill team I had signalled to bust me out now worked for him. It was clear this man had intended to extract clientele iformation from me as his subordinates had so crudely attempted to do in the hopes of assuming control of my business.

I like the Hogosha. No really I do. As a system I think it is genius how they have so uniquely entwined lawfulness with lawlessness to the point where just about everything is grey. Problem is, most people in any real power here are ambitious and pompous to the point where they will backstab and cheat their way into as much power as they can get. And in front of me sits a man seeking my assets, my clients, my empire for his own ends when i'm sure his orders are to convey it all onto his boss. The Hogosha really do show how far you can take a criminal syndicate. How far you can exploit corruption, torture, blackmail and deception to make serious money. But when you break it down, having friends is so much more rewarding.

As he was in the thick of relaying to me what he intends to do with my business once I submit all my clients to him there comes a knock on the door. Five minutes pass, and i'm being untied and escorted to a hangar bay where Mr Matsumaru then reluctantly yet politely informs me to take my pick of any of the vessels before me to depart and go about my business.

The Hogosha have big pockets reserved only for money and people of influence. Seems they'd spent so much time fussing about what was in their pockets that they'd all seemingly ended up in someone elses. Marcel de Baturrica - head of an Artifact smuggling ring out of Cadiz, close associate and indeed relative of many of the Corsair high command on Crete caught wind of my predicament. Luckily he owed me a favour due to a run-in of a shipment of his with the Rheinland blockade in Dresden a few years back. Long story short he made the very touching notion of parking his Cruiser just outside Kabukicho to see to it personally that I was released. My exfill men had seen to it that he was notified after they followed me to the Hogosha base and accepted the bribe. The bribe I let the men keep and we all shared a few glasses of Marcel's home-distilled rum on the deck of his cruiser. All in all I was $50 million credits up, safely out of danger and a proud new owner of a Big Dragon transport ship. It's fair to say that the beginnings of my business venture in Kusari were off to a decent start.

Rule #11: Honesty is the best policy

Never undervalue honesty. In a world where most you meet are confronted to deceit and treachery it pays to say what you mean and keep your promises. This makes you predictable, but to those who value trust, it is a reasonable risk to take. Therefore try and do business exclusively with those who are trustworthy and you will be rewarded with friends you can count on.