Lost to the wind

[Serpentis]

“F*ck..”, Sergei looked out the cockpit at the incoming Bretonian Patrol. “Power down the engines, prepare to be scanned.”. Sergei knew better than not to comply and indeed shut down his engines and sat there waiting for them to do their scans. “Heinrich better have been right about the secret cargo..”, he thought to himself as the scans continued, after a minute or so the patrol continued, “Hm, interesting ship there, mate. Don’t really see them carrying Engine components, but.. Well, illicit cargo.”, there was a chuckle and Sergei decided to play along. “Well, mate, we work with what we got and I got this baby real cheap so.” ending it with a chuckle. The patrol leader responded with a snort and a, “Well, you go on ahead, stick to the main lanes will you. And I hope not to see you carrying anything else in the future, ok mate?”. Sergei internally sighed and said, “Yeah, no worries, I am sticking to legal cargo. Have a good one, officers.” and closed the transmission. The man at the other console in the cockpit looked over at Sergei and asked. “That was a close one, right?”. Sergei shook his head at the man named Karl, “No, not really, I doubt that Heinrich would lie about the cargo being hidden. But.. The ship will continue to cause some unneeded attention from the law, no matter where we go.”. Karl nodded and continued reading the text on his console.

It’s been a few hours since they left Rheinland and now they were closing in on their first stop. Sector C-5 in Dublin, meeting a Molly transport, it would seem that the Molly’s don’t want some courier to know their bases locations. Sergei couldn’t blame them, they’re fighting a hard fight against the Crown. Back when Sergei was a commissar he remembered helping the Molly’s in their fight a few times. Since he most often was out collecting data and conducting scout operations, he tended to move around all over Sirius. He checked the details he got from Heinrich. “Cassie O’clare, hmm. Don’t remember the name.” Sergei thought to himself and turned to Karl. “Know who our contact is?”. Karl shrugged. “Way above my paygrade.”. Sergei accepted this and put the tablet down and focused on piloting, luckily for them, the entire trip was basically just flying through the trade lanes, no need to deviate off towards jump holes. There had been some Corsairs that had caught the trail of them as they moved through Omega 3, but they gave up on the hunt when Lindwyrm hit Freeport 1.

As they passed through the Jump Gate to New London, Sergei saw another patrol on scanners, moving away towards the Capital planet. Sergei groaned. “Here we go again.” and Karl turned. “Another patrol?”, Sergei nodded. “By New London.” and Karl sighed, then they entered the same trade lane after the patrol. As they arrived by New London, there was a gunboat and two fighters floating near the lane. Moments afterwards the incoming hail came. “Freelancer, Lindwyrm, power down your engines and prepare to be scanned.”, Sergei did as they asked, a second time within 30 minutes. After a minute the officer came back. “Freelancer, where are you going with those Components?”. Sergei took a minute to remember where to go. “New London was the plan, officer.”. The officer took a while before answering. “Well, you’re clear to land. Safe travels.” and cut the transmission. Sergei brought in the Lindwyrm to land at New London, they got their landing pad information and minutes later landed with a thump.
As the crew began to unload all of the engine components onto the landing pad, Sergei walked over to the Commodity trader, they shook hands, agreed on a price and got paid. Short and sweet transaction, not a bad profit either. The crew took a bit of a break to grab an ale at the nearby bar. Sergei remained at the ship and checked the radar. “Let’s hope the patrol moves off within an hour or so, rather than have them see us head to Dublin.”. However, he was sure that Graves sold gold at a reasonable price. He checked the Net and double checked, sure enough, Graves sold Gold and the net confirmed that Fort Bush bought it. “Perfect.” he thought and leaned back in his chair, closing his eyes until the crew get’s back.

Thrumming, heavy bass thrumming in his ears, there was this background noise though, like a siren. But he had trouble focusing on it, it was like it was being hidden by the thrumming. But he knew, somehow, that the siren was important, if he only could hear it properly. Then he felt sudden shock to his brain and he felt an intense piercing sensation into his spine. The thrumming was gone and instead there was the buzz of a drill and the clicking of buttons, he couldn’t see anything, but he felt steel against his head, he wasn’t supposed to be awake for this, he knew that, but he was. There was a voice, “Implant is activated, are we going to make a backup, sir?”. There was a short pause and another voice said, “Yes. Be sure to upload the correct data as well.”. Sergei felt how his brain got put in a blender, he felt how his memories were removed and altered, how Ivan was removed, or, pushed down.

Sergei snapped back to reality and gasped for air, he managed to calm himself down and take long breaths. He had a look around, the crew wasn’t back yet. He checked the scanners, the Patrol was preparing to move on. He clicked the communicator, “Karl, get back here asap, the patrol is moving out.” a moment later Karl responded; “Got it, we’ll be there in 5.”. Sergei leaned back in his chair again. He thought of what he had seen as of late, the experiences he has had.. What if, all that he remembers is wrong? He remembers his childhood and his early days in the Coalition, he hoped.. But, everything else is muddy. He groaned and slapped the side of his head. “F*ck this implant.”. He grabbed a bottle of water and downed it. A few minutes later, the crew got onboard and Sergei prepared to leave the planet, towards Dublin and O’clare, time to get this job handled.

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