The droning sound of the metallic floor, accompanied by the echo of the Maintenance Crew working on the distance and the ocasional hollow sound of rocks hitting the station, was the sole company he had. He had dismissed the crew - their expenses paid, the captain ordered to make sure they rested. Allan wanted to think.
"Kept in secret" the frenchmen had said.
Twenty hours prior, Allan finally got the information he had paid for - a map, with notes regarding a few scouting parties. Was through this leverage that, sixteen hours later, he had managed to find the system, and eventually an Outpost on the region in order to try and make contact with The Council forces.
Conversation was brief, but interesting - there was no need to hide his motives or his cargo so he spoke the truth. In the end, the registry on something called Job Board was made, something - he quickly realized - not one of the Interspace Commerce affiliates had yet done.
It was through the manner of the man's speech and the secrecy regarding the situation - both in the System and on the way they operated - that it was made evident this was an untouched market. A sealed box, waiting to be opened, filled with the different need of different people, racing from a crumbling society and a tyrant man. There was profit, yes, but there was also the need of empowerment to the people. In a sense, he was curious.
- "Close the shutters." - He said in command to the system responsible for his quarters - "Personal files, access code Zero-Zero-Gama-Hercules-Five, password endloser-Winter."
With the shutters closed, the room had darkened considerably. Now, only the commands readying up on the holographic screen on the top of his desk, associated with his own files and data, illuminated the room in a dark green tint. Allan took a bite out of his pills, together with a sip of Gin, and continued.
- "Download the files made available to me by The Council and access the Jobs available." - The screen flashed and changed interfaces a few times while he patiently read through the data. - "Open data code 003-CLDA-C6-03."
The applied filter started removing unnecessary data, leaving only two entries on the Database on a system named Champagne - one pointed to a planet named Marne and another to a base called Châlons-en-Champagne.
- "Reach the Interspace database, I want to see the prices of these commodities on the known planets, give priority to IC bases and Rheinlander outposts." - Numbers flooded the screen, with information being poured from every corner of Sirius. A few moments later he had the data-set he wanted: A map from the House Systems, the commodities requested by The Council and the relation of prices for each one of them. He sat down and started to work.
The first step was to establish a metric to figure out which route to use, taking into consideration details such as the risk factor and length of every one of them. To do that, he took the data regarding supply and demand interactions on Sirius and took note of the differential of price, as well as the distance between every two points.
The second step was faster - he removed the outposts with limited data, incapable of providing through lawful means or simply not profitable enough. Then, he looked at the risks. Distance from Champagne and the House Laws enforcing each product. Some regulations would have to be ignored, he quickly realized.
Two hours later he had a cured data set, with the flight plans he needed. It was only a matter choosing a point of departure and destination.
- "Let's see how fast I can provide access to every one of these commodities."
His empty stomach was warning it was about time for lunch when they touched ground on Planet Marne. Allan was on his quarters when he heard the mercenary captain voice over the intercom - he had hired a new crew, along with several translators knowing he would have no chance to understand what half of the population was going to say, nor how they managed to count to 80 by saying twenty four times over and over.
- "Siur, our paper work has been cleared and we've touched down at the docks. The cargo clamps are being removed at this temps and the température outside sits at 20ºC. Requesting autorisation to leave - it's going to be a cold night, I rather have my rest early."
That didn't even classify as chill for Allan, but he nevertheless dismissed his official and proceeded to oversee the cargo being unloaded on the back of the Crane.
Marne was different than what he expected. He had assumed he would have to evade military outposts and Gallic government regulations, bribing, lying or even outright fighting, but instead what he saw was a home planet like any other - people gathered on the streets and buildings being raised like you would expect of a well populated area. What struck him more than anything however, was that The Council had no issue showing it's flags. The planet and surrounding space was indeed theirs.
He was walking through the cargo bay, making sure the delivery registration covered every detail the Board had requested, when the innocent, disembodied voice, said with a weak tug on his shirt:
- "Quel est son nom?"
- "Huh? I'm sorry, who ar-"
Looking down he noticed the kid. It was a little boy, probably on his 8 or 9 years of age, who had spoken. He had no idea what the kid was saying, nor from where he had come, all he could realize was the way the kid looked at the vessel Allan had almost no love for.
- "Entschuldigung, boy, I don't understand you."
- "Non? Non! Son nom!" - He kept saying, pointing at the ship.
Trying to fix the situation, Allan looked around, looking for a parent, and older version of the boy or something of the sort - to his dismay, however, no one looked like the part.
- "He wants to know the name of the ship, sir." - One of the nearby cargo workers spoke, trying to be of use.
Allan still looked baffled. There was no name. The Crane he had purchased was just that. He had his mind forward so much, being used to change ships quite often, he didn't really bother to name it. He was still debating whether or not to name it right there on the spot when he realized another man grasping the boy by the arm and saying several sentences which he believed to be some kind of command.
- "Pardon! Pardon!" - The man bowed his head, dragging the kid away.
As the man got back, Allan finally noticed the line of people hanging right outside the cargo bay. Bags, suitcases and sacks filled the ground around them. Travelers, perhaps?
- "Entschuldigen Sie, bitte...!" - Allan said back to the dock worker - "Who are those people?"
- "Who? Oh the line outside?" - Said the man nonchalantly, having stopped his cart to move closer, realizing the german was feeling more than simply lost - "Well, my friend, those are... just people. Looking for foreign passage, but people unmistakably."
- "Where?" - He questioned instinctively whilst knowing that was a stupid thing to ask.
- "Away. Fleeing le Roi." - The dock worker was almost back to his cart by now and each step he took made those people look ever closer to the ship. - "Anywhere but here really."
Allan took a deep breath. He knew what he shouldn't do. He knew he shouldn't be remembering hiding Rheinlander separatists on the cargo bays during his youth. He knew he shouldn't be staring at the women who looked just like the wounded asian teenagers The Chrysanthemum had forced him to give passage on his ships, more than ten years ago, to escape the Kusari Police. He knew all those things.
By the time he stopped knowing, however, he was already heading to New York with whole families hiding inside the unnamed Crane.
- "I really should start thinking about replacing this ship."
The past few days had went by furiously fast. Allan had changed the crew three times already, replacing and rehiring captains and officials on the spot rather than simply let the crew rest. Even him knew that something was wrong, something was building up. That wasn't like him at all.
Logistics were taken care off and he had kept his promise to The Council. With some extra effort on his part he had found each kind of the requested Sirius merchandise, and even if he had disregarded some of the best profit margins, none of that was the cause for his humors. Something else was making him uneasy.
Allan was born in 770, so he was well past his 50's. He was more experienced than anyone else he knew and had more contacts under the belt than he cared to remember. He did abhor the idea of stopping his work, but his bank savings had more zeroes than than he had days left on his life. He knew he could just settle down and retire.
But that was the fourth War he'd seen.
First there was the war of the 800's, when the aliens showed themselves for the first time. Allan hated that word, because it made no sense, but it did serve a purpose: The enemy was simply unexplainable. There was no diplomacy, there was no reasoning, there was no mercy. People died back then for reasons others would still be trying to figure out more than fifteen years afterwards. For him, those things were more animals than anything else. They were Predators.
Then in 814, Kusari and Bretonia clashed in an all out war - and while he did not judge the ideological reasons illogical at the time, now he only saw greed. All the propaganda, all the speeches he heard during his business with Samura at the time only contrasted with what he heard from his family in Rheinland, and now it began to become clear why.
When his country revealed the Libertonian experiments in 817, he feared for the integrity of his family. It was then he sold his assets and bought his way home through the Sigma's, hoping to find his home in a better state than what the rest of the universe seemed to be. That was certainly not the case. By then, his father had been questioned for his political views by the Reichstag and offered the chance to retire in order to avoid further prosecution - an offer he accepted. Allan, which had always trusted a well spoken man is the best man for any kind of job, could only remember those days with grief.
And now, this.
Planet Marle was filled with political fugitives, seeking asylum anywhere but in Gallia. Leeds was bleeding out slowly, as the casualties of war pilled up and more and more people sought refugee inside of any ship capable of hauling cargo, disregarding any kind of comfort for a slimmer of hope.
And his request for integration at the board of directors still had not seen the light of day.
His appeal to the forces of liberty for regulations regarding passengers was unanswered.
Libertonian engineers were silent about improving the conditions inside his cargo bays.
How different were any of them from those forgotten predators?
Money was no longer the answer the people he worked for had convinced him to be. It wasn't enough to simply buy things and expect people to be happy, healthy and safe. Some individuals truly had their minds set to exploiting others for their own gain. And while that happened, legislations struggled against personal interests, communities were forgotten and people starved to death.
As he landed in Stuttgard, and refugees started stepping out of his ship with something else than despair on his eyes, he realized that, for the first time on his life, he was broken.
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