Lost to the wind

[Serpentis]

They had waited for nearly six hours on New Tokyo, when finally a transmission came through, Sergei walked over to the comm console and accepted the incoming hail. On the screen were the ever lovely Li Hana, she did not smile, but there was a hint of what Sergei would guess to be ‘interest’, most likely not in Sergei himself, but what he offered.
“Mister Sergei.” she nodded her head and Sergei smiled and nodded right back.
“Just Sergei, mistress Hana.”, he couldn’t help but smirk slightly, which she noticed.
“Li Hana.” she corrected, “Now, we are prepared for you to come to us at Morioka whenever you have the time, my sisters have been informed of your visit and you shall not be targeted. But do not dally, we have business to attend to.” and then shut off the transmission.
Sergei turned to Karl, “Well, that’s that I suppose.”, Karl chuckled and walked over to the nav console as Sergei requested permission to leave the planet.
As they glided through space and hit the Shikoku jumpgate, Sergei was reading up on the net about the Chrysanthemums, unfortunately, there were little to no details on the net. He frowned and sighed.
“I’ll be working with nothing in this deal, gonna be tricky, but I suppose that I should just approach this as working with any other Kusari organization. Respect.” he groans and looks over at Karl. “Want to take over, number two?”. Karl barked out a laugh, “No, not all boss, you go right ahead and deal with the hot terrorists.”. Sergei laughed at that right back.

When the Lindwyrm left the last trade lane both men on the bridge took a moment to look at each other and nod before heading into the Keiun cloud, where the Chrysanthemums had a base and were in complete control. After a minute or so gliding through the cloud the sensors beeped and they saw two beautiful Chrysanthemum fighters, they passed the Lindwyrm and then turned around to guide the ship further into their territory.
“Seems they brought a welcome party, quite happy it’s a literal one and not an explosive one. I am decently sure I would not like to fight the sisters if I could help it.”, Sergei smirked and Karl reacted with a short snort.
A hail came onto the speakers, “Lindwyrm, do not power up your weapons and stay on course.”
“Got it, staying on course.” and made sure that their weapons were indeed powered down. A few minutes later, the Lindwyrm and its guides came upon the Morioka, a station like any other, but this one had some nasty looking weapon platforms that all seemed to target them as the Lindwyrm approached the base.
“Lindwyrm, you are clear to dock.” a female voice said, Li Hana’s, Sergei maneuvered the ship to dock as requested. As the ship and base connected, Sergei exhaled and looked at Karl. “Ready?”, in response Karl just shrugged, “As ready as I can be.”
As they walked through the corridors towards the airlock, Sergei wasn’t really nervous as much as he was preparing for problems. He checked the gun on his belt and tapped it twice, Karl noticed and tapped his in response. The crew had been told to stay away from the airlock, just so they don’t seem threatening.
The airlock hissed open and in front of Karl and Sergei, stood two beautiful Kusari women, the one on the right carried a pistol on her belt and Li Hana had one in her hands, which were held against her stomach. As Sergei and Karl stepped onboard the station, Li and her sister bowed their heads slightly.
“Mister Sergei, who is your friend?”, Sergei and Karl bowed back and Sergei looked at Karl and then back at Li, “My second in command, Karl.”.
Li nodded at that and turned to her side and motioned them to follow as she and her sister walked further into the station, Karl and Sergei looked at each other and then followed. They were led through several corridors and past a few rooms, all they saw were female Kusari, each occupied in some kind of job. Eventually, Li led them to a conference room of sorts, two chairs on each side of a round table, there were beautiful pieces of art on the walls and a very fine statue in the corner. On the table sat a bottle and four glasses, as Li motioned to two of the chairs, she started to fill the glasses with a clear liquid. Both Sergei and Karl sat down and bowed in thanks for the drinks, the Kusari women sat down as well and took their glasses.
“We are looking for people to run certain goods for us, normally we’d have others do this work, but..” Li looked at her sister and then back at Sergei and Karl.
“Well, normally, but in this case we need someone that isn’t aligned with anyone. We have.. Precious works of art that we need transported and in return we are getting weapons. There is in total ten thousand units of art in exchange for ten thousand units of weapons.”. Li squinted and observed the two men.
Both Karl and Sergei frowned slightly, then looked at each other, as they turned back to Li, her sister scoffed.
“See, they can not do it, I told you it was a bad ide-”, Li snapped her fingers and her sister shut her mouth, then Li spoke again.
“Are you able to do this job, yes, or no?”
Sergei sighed but said, “Yes, but it will take some time, we have limited space on the Lindwyrm.. Where are you selling the art?”.
Li smiled and nodded, “Bretonia, we have found a buyer and in return he has arranged several thousand units of arms, which we could have some use for.”.
Sergei nodded, “We can do it in four trips, and it should be fine. What’s the payment?”.
Both Kusari women smiled, “It is negotiable, but we are thinking Eighty credits per unit.”. Karl frowned at that and leaned to whisper to Sergei, who listened. “It’s hardly a big profit, boss.”, Sergei nodded and looked back at the sisters.
“A hundred per unit and we want a bonus for the job itself, a nice hundred thousand.”, Sergei was hoping they were desperate.
Li and her sister also began to whisper with each other, Sergei couldn’t hear much but he realized it was useless since they spoke in Kusari. They took a few minutes to discuss, Sergei sipped the drink and he recognized it as sake, which he actually did not mind at all. Eventually they turned back to the two men.
“Ninety a unit and eighty thousand.”, Li had a smile on her face and Sergei knew that she was playing a game. But, he was actually ok with that.
“Ninety Five and eighty thousand and we have a deal.”
Li stared at Sergei, observing him for a long time until she nodded.
“Deal.”, she raised from the seat and walked over to their side and offered her hand. Sergei and Karl rose as well and stood in front of them, Sergei took Li’s hand and nodded. “Arigato.” he said. Li quirked an eyebrow and chuckled. “We have the cargo here, so you can begin when you see fit. We know that the art itself is not illegal, but might raise questions if scanned. The arms though, well. I think you’ll manage.”.
Sergei chuckled and shrugged, “It’ll be fine, we’ll manage, just got to take the jump holes. We’ll start today and get a good route planned out.”.
Li nodded at that, “We’ll show you to the cargo bay, you can have your crew get the first batch of art and you can start.”. Sergei and Karl, together with Li and her sister, walked down to the cargo bay and indeed found crates upon crates with art, statues, pieces of vases and other precious objects. Sergei had no idea of what they meant or which periods they belonged to, but they sure were pretty. All the time they were in there, there was at least one guard with a pistol in her hand nearby.
Sergei and the crew managed to cram as much cargo as possible into their cargo hold, at least to the degree that they all were safe and secure. Jurgen had popped in his head into the cargo bay as the last crates were brought in, he had a bit brighter expression than when Sergei had spoken to him. And as Sergei walked over to the airlock to say goodbye to Li, Jurgen trailed a bit behind. Li was waiting for him at the airlock as he thought, she gave Sergei a smile.
“Very good, Sergei, we look forward to the first shipment of arms. There is no real time limit to this, so, don’t take too many risks, yes?”, she again bowed her head.
Sergei mimicked the motion and smiled back, “Of course, we’ll be back as soon as we can. Goodbye.”
Li looked behind him and saw Jurgen, she tilted her head before looking back at Sergei, then hit the airlock panel and as it closed she said. “Goodbye.”
Jurgen walked up to Sergei, who turned to him. “Feeling better?”, Sergei knew that it was just a matter of time and food, to get him in a better mood.
“Yes, captain, I wanted to thank you for.. Well, you know.” Jurgen sighed and offered a light smile to Sergei, who in turn patted his shoulder.
“You’re fine, come on, let’s go, we got smuggling to do.”

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