Aeten-tion to mining (PM for invite)

[James Justice]

James wanted and more than that needed, stygium crystals for future mining projects. Being a crime lord with lots of ships and a smuggler with lots of ships required one thing--the ability to move quietly and undetected as needed. Of course there were false ID's, Transponders, cover stories, bribes, and all that lot. But the truth was, Justice Shipping was big these days. Bigger than it had been in the old days. James was more iconic and well know. There was nothing quite like just being able to move in and out of a system undetected. There was nothing better for that than good old Stygium.

Of course, James had the Angel's Glory, a stealth craft that he had made. Gray of course, had one as well, and it was a very good ship as far as all stealth ships went--but a man had to be prepared. A man had to have stygium, he had to have several ways of getting the job done. And for a crime lord who had his own planet to look after--well that was even more so the case.

James sighed and tossed the papers he held on his desk down as he thought about all of this. It was time for action, enough dilly-dallying.

 

[James Justice]

The spacer looked over the mounds of paperwork on his desk. There were shipment forms, revenue investments, and lots and lots of numbers. The spacer hated paperwork, and the fact that it was all over his desk only made him hate it even more. James was a procrastinator when it came to responsibility, more than that he was a consistently unorganized man. His late wife had not failed to tell him so on the regular.

He began to shuffle through the stack/pile that was composed of old receipts for the Angel's Den. These were everything from new pipes to the paychecks of the erotic dancers that had to be dolled out every month. Yup, there it was, under all of it, his datapad. The spacer tapped it alive and leaned back, combing through planets. He did a quick search for Stygium planets. There were several options--well not a whole lot, but there were more than the average being would expect, he supposed. The spacer tapped on Aeten II. It looked as good as any and was more open than a few others. And by "more open" he meant more able to be bribed and paid off.


With a satisfied grunt he looked through the listings of planetary mines, and subminer companies. He could probably buy stygium crystals online and have them shipped to his front door--however, there was a strong chance that they would be fakes or that they would come with a "surprise" from the old Prosecutor. Pure paranioa was what drove James to want to mine his own crystals.

 

[James Justice]

James' eyes alighted on one, "Aeten II Independent Mining Collective," which sounded legit enough. And by legit enough, he meant someone who would take a fair amount of credits and look the other way when he came over under their "protection" per se. He tapped out a request to come and mine under one of their Mining collective shafts. It was short, simple and to the point. Besides that he included his last name and a generous offer of credits. The name was to give a hint of who they were dealing with, the other was to appeal to their greed. The former was intimidation, the later was generosity, the whole things was "an offer you cannot refuse.'

Halfway through a cigarette, James got the reply back, he could all but see the dollar signs in the foreman's eyes as he read it. James guessed the group was pretty poor. He guessed if they had much of anything in the manner of credits, it got funneled away into prostitutes, alcohol and drugs. It was sickening. At least James didn't do drugs and didn't have to pay for his women. The spacer tapped out an estimated arrival time and rose from his chair, stalking out his office. A soft humming tune emanated from him as he moved along. He was in a good mood--at least relatively so today.

 

[James Justice]

James tapped his wrist comm active.

"Oh, 'allu Misour Joustice?" answered the secretary in her exotic accent. She was a freed slave girl from the far reaches of the outer rim. One of the reasons James had hired her on as his secretary was her accent was ear candy. The other was she was eye candy.

"Angela, tell the mates to start prepping for a mining expedition, we are gonna go to Aeten II, give em 20 minutes before launch."

"Qui qui, Misour," she said with a slight giggle.

He ended the comm and stepped into his private little closet in his office. It was concealed with the whole classic moving bookshelf thing. He grabbed a fresh leather jacket, tee shirt. There was no need to go out and be a fantasticly dashing crime lord in office clothes after all. He slicked his hair back and gave himself a look over in the mirror. Yup, that was the classic dashing James alright.

A few minutes later he stepped out onto his private landing pad and looked over the heavy freighter that was getting loaded. The last of the mining droids were loaded on with pallets by the dockhands with their dollies and such. There were two other frigates waiting to escort it to Aeten. James was tired of taking chances, and so here he was going in with his armed escort.

"We all ready, Mistur Justice," said the foreman in his thick country accent, "Y'all got anything else for us, sir?"

James gave him a pat on the sweaty shoulder, "Good work, Sam, I be back soon."

"Alright, sir. Yall take it easy now."

 

[James Justice]

After James stepped onto the freighter it didn't take long for it and its two escort vessels to jump to hyperspace. The spacer drummed his fingers on the dash as he waited. Oh, and what else did he do as he waited? Drank of course. And smoked. He would ordinarily have to wait hours or days to get Aeten II to get there. But no, James was clever. He was going to travel by map.

It was the only way to travel, all the kids were doing it these days. Not only was it a fast way to get to places, but it was a great way to cut the bull from dev threads and attempts at "post filler" such as "I watched the stars streak by and got filled with some sort of philosophical thought" or whatever. Nah, that wasn't helping anyone.

By the time the video of traveling by map was over, James' three ships came out of hyperspace over the red planet of Aeten II. The spacer looked at the molten lava fields. He took the helm and moved his ship in towards the co-ordinates he had been given for the Mining Collective. Their base was pretty tragic, and thankfully there were no other customers here. The heavy Freighter landed with a creak on the duracrete slab and rested down with a voom as the engines cooled down. James climbed down the loading ramp. Behind him the mining droids began to clambor out, activated by the other workers on board.

 

[James Justice]

The buildings surrounding this landing pad were basically metal shacks. They looked like they had been either tossed together or made form whatever was laying around. Either way they were in pretty bad repair and were barely held up. And most of what held them up was either glue or rust. Probably a bit of both. From one of the bigger ones a man trundled out. He looked like he matched the sheds too. He was all nasty, sweaty, and ungroomed. His overalls were thread bare, and the stained white tee shirt he wore under it was icky. When the man gave a smile, there were fewer teeth in his head than apparently there were razors laying around. "Well howdy do, your Mustur Justice?"

James nodded, he tried to not be appalled by the horrible breath coming from this man's mouth, 'Aye, mate I be him. Ye have our mining permit for the day?'

The man reached in his pocket and pulled out a frumpled peice of paper. His palm sweat wet the page and James did his best not cringe. He was sure he could see a few food stains on it too, maybe coffee and some sort of jelly. He hoped that was a jelly. Either way, the man tried to make it clean by rubbing it on his overalls. Which made it worse. "Here ya go, Mustur."

James took it and forced a smile, "A pleasure doing business with ye, mate."

 

[James Justice]

A speeder slowly pulled itself out of the heavy freighter. It was a long, hauling speeder with a bed for carrying ore and refined materials. You could think of it as a speeder version of an eighteen wheeler. The droids hopped on inside, clamping and holding themselves down for the journey to come. James unfolded the paper and gave a quick look over as the droids prepared for their ride. He found the mine they were given use of. It was good, one of the best by the writing on this page, nestled closer to a dormant volcano. The whole planet reminded James vaguely of Mustafar, only it was slightly cooler. At least, just in his opinion.

He climbed on board and took over behind the wheel. When the last droid was on, he shifted the truck in gear and went forward--strait over one of the sheds. Oops. Oh, well, he had done the galaxy a service by running that thing over. It was a threat to safety and happiness. Just for good measure, he backed the speeder up and ran over another one. Just for bonus points.

Down, through the fields he went. Their path was somewhat marked by hovering lights like the ones that people had installed on their yards for the night time. Their white LED glow shone out against the red heat of the lava and dark sun. It didn't take long for James to start sweating under these conditions. He reached into the glovebox and pulled out a flask of some alcoholic beverage. A few mouthfuls later he felt better. He considered lighting up a cigarette to distract him but changed his mind. It was too hot to smoke.

 

[James Justice]

James crossed one last red desert and climbed the speeder up the steep side of the dead volcano. The speeder grumbled along as it complied, finally coming to rest in the inner sanctum of the volcano cone. James fished out a flashlight and flicked it on. He looked around the chamber they were in and was quickly satisfied; he had been worried there for a little that this was going to be a scam. Not because he was afraid of loosing money but because any time someone scammed him, the spacer generally had to just up and torture them. But here they were good. The droids in the back of the speeder could detect the stygium crystals on their scanners and began to whirl with anticipation. The spacer flipped the speeder's anti-grav hovers off and let it rest on the surface, "Alright, ye get out and get to work now."

The arachnid droids clamored out with glee like toddlers into a candy factory. They dug their tools into the volcano with glee, rapidly going to work pulling the crystals up and storing them in their small bodies. James leaned back against the hood of his vehicle as he watched them work. When each droid was full, it scurried back over and dumped its payload back onto the speeder. Back and forth, back and forth, each droid went, gathering as many crystals as they could hold. James stuck his hands in his pockets with a pleased smirk crossing his face.

 

[James Justice]

Two of the droids went for the same chunk of crystal. One tapped at it, and went to work with its laser saw. The other raised its two fore limbs in a challenge of dominance. Its drill shrilled in robot-like hiss noise. The other droid countered with a his of its own, jabbing its laser saw at his comrade. The metal of the droid's carapace grew hot and red, almost threatening to sunder in two under the assault. In retaliation, the droid brought his drill down on his robot brother's head with a loud "clunk."

"Ay!" James shouted indignantly, stomping forward. These two were both property, working good property. He didn't have time for this and he sure wasn't about to loose a couple of good mining droids over a petty spat.

The two pulled their bodies low in servile submission. It was sort of like looking at a puppy who knew they had sat on the couch when they shouldn't have. James gave them a point, scolding them with their eyes for a few intense moments for the droids. Well, sorta, I mean there was only so much the spacer was going to do to them. And a stern lecture was about it.

 

[James Justice]

The droids finished up their mining without any real further incident. The spacer slapped the side of his speeder, and the all clambered back on board, giddy for their recharge and to obey their master. James hopped back on and fired the semi-speeder back up. It pulled away from the mining site loaded full and heavy with stygium crystals. No laws were broken, no one had to die, and not a single shot was fired. It was a pure and simple mining expedition, the way things were supposed to be. When he returned to the freighter James gave a sigh and shook his head. The hill billy had eloquently painted across the side of the ship in bright orange graphitti, "MUSTUR JUST ICE R A HOME BREAKR"

James almost considered pressing charges, but he shook his head and shrugged it off. Anything he did would gain him ownership of this trash stand, and frankly, it wasn't worth his time or style. Instead, he just pulled up carefully onto his ship--and back down the ramp as fast as he could, trashing another shed. And another. He pulled up into the ship and parked the speeder in side it, a few of the workers on board went to tying it down as James strolled back to the console. A few moments later he was in route to Soceras once more, home free and homeward bound.