What's Yours is Mine

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MUUNILINIST

“And finally, to my third wife, Simone, I leave my collection of antique speeder-bikes and the vacation home on Kashyyyk” read the lawyer, finally folding back that page of the will so he could proceed on.

The third wife, Simone, wiped a tear from her eye. Of all the wives, she was most distraught by Arnhurst’s death. Visibly, anyway. Perhaps she was just crying tears of joy over the vacation home and the speeder-bikes, both of which were appraised for very high values. The two preceding wives were miffed at this development: their gains were comparatively small. Arnhurst’s fourth and final wife had died with him in the speeder crash. Aside from the three ex-wives, the only other attendants to the reading of Arnhurst’s will were his four children. Arnhurst had outlived both his brothers and his sister. No other family were included in the will.

Presently, his children were not at all upset about his death. They were angry. Angry that they were missing out on the speeder-bike collection and the vacation house. Where was the justice?

The lawyer continued on now. “As for the shares of my company, Nollick Extractions...”

There was a silent rolling of eyes. Of all the family assembled, no one enjoyed the prospect of owning Nollick Extractions. Arnhurst’s children each independently crossed their elongated, Muun fingers that the mess of selling it off wouldn’t fall to them.

“...I leave 25% of my shares each to Galenna, Galwyn, Gavin, and Ulthor, my children.”

If Arnhurst had been a more bitter and angry fellow in life, it would have been easy to say he did this explicitly to spite his offspring. But he wasn’t. He genuinely believed this would bring them closer together. Make them love each other, or so it went. In a way, it did, as they immediately pounced upon one another in great anger, blaming one another amidst furious wailing and gnashing of teeth. Of course, no arrangement was come to that day. Or the next day. Or any day after that.

Because they all hated one another that much. Galwyn ultimately decided that he did actually want to own the company and was prepared to take the shares. Yet since all his siblings hated him, they refused to sell them out of spite. They also refused to sell their shares to third parties, as the unspoken rule that had gotten into all of their heads was that whoever held onto their shares the longest would “win.”

Simone, meanwhile, had speeder-bikes to auction off and a vacation home to retire to.

 

[Ugoto Chivaro]

NOLLICK EXTRACTIONS

While a lover of women and antique speeder-bikes, Arnhurst was not a scrupulous businessman or a particularly competent one. Nollick extractions operated only two mines: one on Mygeeto and one on Monhudle. These were productive mines and very profitable, but his failure to expand was the result of a colossal lack of wit on his part, as well as his preoccupations with one, two, three, four Muun women. All as beautiful as one could reasonably expect a Muun to be.

The mines were large and employed thousands. Hired laborers were supplemented with mining droids. Mygeeto in particular had the local boon of Lurmen slaves. The enslavement of the Lurmen natives was commonplace on Mygeeto and a widely tolerated institution on Muunilinist. Arnhurst, simply, had not been raised to believe anything differently.

In the hands of one semi-competent owner, Nollick Extractions could have continued to be profitable from a stagnated point on its own. Unfortunately for the thousands of employees, it was not under the command of one semi-competent entrepreneur. It was divided equally among the grubby, nonsensical hands of four children without the sense to put aside their squabbles. Conflicting orders were rampant, key decisions were not being made. CEOs were resigning as quickly as they were hired.

At the current rate, Nollick would collapse from indecision, corruption, and mismanagement within the next three years. However, now there was blood in the water. Nollick Extractions had many competing mining companies, but none had been prepared to act as swiftly as the Helix Syndicate.

 

[Ugoto Chivaro]

MUUNILINIST

When all was said and done, none of the children could reasonably prove that any wrongdoing had taken place, and so filing charges was pointless. There was also the additional clause that the Helix Syndicate had informants and contacts all over Muunilinist, and that charges would be snuffed as quickly as they could be filed. Theirs was an invisible clout- a string of agents that hadn’t even heard of the Helix Syndicate, but were controlled and pawned through different intermediaries.

Pollux started with Galwyn. Galwyn was angry about the whole situation and all it took was some gentle prodding to get him to give up his shares. He was the better of them all, clearly. Far more mature, far more wise. But he didn’t know how to run a company. If he would only give up his shares, the Helix Syndicate would allocate him a nice managerial position. He’d have it better than any of his siblings ever would.

He went for it, signed the dotted line, and was instructed to wait.

Talking with Galwyn was an annoying affair. Not because of Galwyn in general, but for the incessant complaining about his siblings. It did not exactly leave Pollux or his Enforcers in a negotiating-mood as they tracked down the rest of them. Ulthor was next. A pair of Enforcers visited him while he was out for a jog. They informed Ulthor that he needed to sell his shares to the Helix Syndicate at below-market value. When Ulthor refused, he tripped while jogging. He tripped while jogging seventeen times, then found some stairs and tripped down those as well.

Two days later, when he regained consciousness, Ulthor sold his shares to the Syndicate at the discussed price. He was discharged from the hospital a month later.

Galenna was cooking when the Enforcers visited her after Galwyn. She was diligently working in the kitchen, preparing dinner for her husband and her children, who had yet to return home. After inviting themselves inside, the Enforcers informed Galenna that she needed to sell her shares to the Helix Syndicate at below-market value. She was, understandably, annoyed by their entrance and expressed both her refusal and her desire for them to leave. It was during this expression that she accidentally cut off one of her fingers just above the knuckle. Then a second one. How clumsy. It was a careless culinary mistake- happens to the best. The Enforcers advised her that more careless mistakes would be inclined to happen, to her and her family, if her attitude remained clouded by this business about selling the shares..

That night, Galenna sold her shares to the Helix Syndicate at the predetermined price. She is adjusting to her new prosthetics very well.

When they found Gavin, the young Muun was in a state of distress. So many accidents had befallen his siblings just before they sold their shares that he elected to err on the side of caution and sell them without any debate. Well, except for his request that they leave him well enough alone and promise to stop all this madness. And, of course, being upfront and honorable, the Helix Syndicate agreed to these terms and promptly ended all madness… As it applied to Arnhurst’s children.

Elsewhere, the real madness had not even started.

 

[Ugoto Chivaro]

NOLLICK EXTRACTIONS

Now firmly in control of the company, the Helix Syndicate implemented their first sweeping changes. These mines were to be turned into penal colonies for debtors who could only work off their accumulated debt through hard labor. As a result, the Helix Syndicate had no need for enslaved Lurmen or the rest of the miners. On Mygeeto, the Lurmen were sold to a different company and the miners were laid off. There was still some time before they could construct the necessary additions to the mining complex, so the droid workforce was kept intact to keep generating revenue.

Many of these miners had nowhere else to take their skills or had been working in these Mygeetan mines for generations. They did not take kindly to their company’s quite-hostile-but-not-quite-that-hostile takeover. They also disliked the removal of the Lurmen slaves, as that was a cultural institution and a valid part of their culture. The Helix Syndicate had not considered that the miners would be so attached to these deplorable working conditions and were not prepared to deal with the resulting backlash. Organized strikes started popping up around the mines, obstructing both construction operations and the day to day mining operations. Droids were ven sabotaged.

The situation on Monhudle went far more poorly. For every miner on Mygeeto that felt a strong sentimental connection to the mines they had previously worked in, there were ten on Monhudle and all of them were much more violent and organized. The mine on Monhudle was not just plagued with strikes, it was completely occupied- the droid laborers were even hijacked by the rioters to serve as a makeshift army. The mine on Monhudle was completely shut down. The Syndicate was hemorrhaging money from the wasted time.

To make matters worse, rumor had it that the rioters on Monhudle were negotiating with a previously rival company to Nollick Extractions, conspiring to bully the Helix Syndicate into selling them the mine at greatly lowered price. For the time being, the tables had turned, and [member="Pollux"] privately swore that he would either turn them back around or destroy them entirely.

 

[Ugoto Chivaro]

MYGEETO
BILLABA CRYSTAL MINE

This kind of behavior would not be tolerated. To get this point across as clearly as possible, Pollux resolved to end the Mygeetian sit-ins as violently as reasonably allowed. Helix Syndicate Enforcers, armed with riot shields and stun batons, were deployed en-masse to the mine to break up the strikers’ encampments. Heavy speeder trucks were jury-rigged with high-power water cannons. Given the frigid conditions Mygeeto was known for, this was used to great effect. The protesters were gradually pushed out, although progress was slow-going.

[member="Pollux"] ordered the Guavian commanders to pick up the pace. Grenade launchers containing percussion and stun grenades were deployed accordingly, breaking apart large swaths of protesters and injuring many of them. The Billaba Crystal Mine was a remote location. It was relatively easy to snuff attempts by the miners to draw protracted attention to their plight. Sabotage on the part of the Helix Syndicate became commonplace. Helix Syndicate Specialists were deployed for the first time, sneaking behind enemy lines and destroying supplies.

The Enforcers also became more aggressive, frequently leading charges directly against the protesters. The protesters, by this point drenched in freezing weather and hungry, often broke and ran. After a few weeks, the protests ended completely. There were none left willing to carry on the terrible battle, especially not when there was no outside support or awareness that could be generated in the face of such organized opposition.

Many Enforcers remained behind to serve as security while construction was completed and the mining droids continued their duties, but they proved to be unnecessary. The miners were too demoralized to continue even passive resistance. Despite the progress made on Mygeeto, Monhudle remained a bigger issue. The rioters there were being directly supported by a rival company, Modo Industrial, and were too well-fortified to risk a direct assault as had been seen on Mygeeto.

Modo Industrial was already attempting to bargain with the Helix Syndicate to acquire the Monhudle Mine. It was a typical extortionist move, one that the Helix Syndicate would have gladly visited upon another. That in particular was why it disgusted Pollux so. Extortion on the level the Helix Syndicate employed it was akin to artwork, and here these rank amateurs were attempting to use it against a learned master.

They needed to be taught a lesson.

 

[Ugoto Chivaro]

BASTION
FORT ARMANATH

The headquarters of the Helix Syndicate was a remote, densely fortified place that few had the capacity to find or the audacity to reach. The mountains and inclement weather deterred most. Aside from the usual day to day activities of running the Syndicate, Pollux had another matter to attend to. The unfolding debacle on Monhudle could not be resolved with a brute force application of violence. It had to be taken care of more… Carefully. Yes. But no less violent.

In fact, simply dispersing the rioters would not be enough. A clear and concise message also needed to be sent to Monhudle Industrial. Monhudle Industrial, and every other corporation on the planet, needed to be informed that the Helix Syndicate was not to be trifled with. Their web of informants stretched too widely across this sector, their lack of restraint in exacting vengeance too great. The Helix Syndicate was not just some upstart holding company without the foggiest idea of what to do. It was a ruthless Syndicate, and those that ended up in their crosshairs tended not to be there for too long before being destroyed.

To this end, Pollux contracted the services of two Seyugi Dervishes. The Seyugi were Force Sensitive contract killers, renown for their effectiveness and brutality. They preferred to work individually, something Pollux could respect. Seyugi-1 was to interrupt a meeting between the rioters’ leadership and a Monhudle Industrial representative and kill everyone present. Seyugi-2 was ordered to find the two shareholders in Monhudle Industrial who were the ringleaders of this trespass against the Helix Syndicate and teach them an appropriate lesson.

Seyugi Dervishes were on the pricey end of the spectrum as far as hired killers went, but Pollux did not want a situation where he had to send out doens of assassins because they kept botching the operation. If there was one thing the Seygui Dervishes could be counted on for, aside from their exorbitant price tag, it was that they would do it right the first time.

 

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MONHUDLE
KOON MINE

A meeting was taking place within the mining complex. A repurposed meeting room in one of the mine’s repurposed office buildings. The whole point of this meeting was for Monhudle Industrial to assure the rioters that they were doing everything they could to acquire the mine from the Helix Syndicate and that, pretty soon, they would all have a job there again. There were some other finicky details to work out, like how much supplies and resources the rioters needed to keep control of the mine.

There was some concern from the rioters, which was only natural. Monhudle Industrial’s efforts to acquire the mine had so far been stiffed by the Helix Syndicate. But that was why they had sent their representative, to assuage these concerns. Eventually this debacle would be too expensive for the Helix Syndicate to continue and they would be forced to sell the mine to at least gain a partial recovery for their losses. There was no way they could afford a frontal assault like they did on Mygeeto, he said. And if they did, the rioters had the resources to keep them at bay for plenty of time, thanks to help from Monhudle Industrial.

Just as long as the rioters weren’t secretly collaborating with other corporations to see if they could get a better deal.

The ringleaders said they didn’t know what he was talking about.

The representative said, oh yes, he thinks they do. Because they already intercepted encrypted transmissions from Bazz’iklan Mineral Services and know full well about their correspondence.

The ringleaders asserted that they had rejected Bazz’iklan’s offer and were rightfully insulted that they would assume they were going to sell out Monhudle Industrial. Which, by the way, was now putting considerable strain on their relationship by actively monitoring their transmissions.

The Seyugi Dervish finally piped up at this point, although most of his talking was done with his blades. There was a lot of screaming and no shortage of blood. Despite the sealed office doors, the yelling and carrying on carried quite far throughout the facility. By the time what passed for security arrived and pried the doors open, all that remained of the meeting’s attendees were an assortment of body parts scattered around broken and overturned furniture.

“You were right about one thing,” said one of the security guards to his pal, moments after the cloaked Dervish slipped out of the room and moments before his pal vomited all over their shoes. “The negotiations were short.”

 

[Ugoto Chivaro]

MONHUDLE
SOME CITY OR OTHER

Monty and Sifflin were two of the more important shareholders in Monhudle Industrial. And now that their plan had suffered a major setback, they were understandably annoyed. The rioters were supposed to have that mine on lockdown, no one was supposed to get in or out. Now they were telling them that someone had slipped in and brutally murdered not only their representative, but the entire organized leadership of the rioters. That wasn’t good. Not good at all. Now the rioters were going to fracture, or maybe even disband without organized leadership. The killings had been especially violent, or so Sifflin had heard.

An even worse case scenario involved the leaders would probably be more radicalized against dealing with corporate parties, especially after this fiasco. What if they turned into some kind of terrorist cell? Perhaps giving them weapons was a bad idea. Perhaps giving them enough food to last through the coming months was a bad idea. Monty dabbed his forehead with a handkerchief as he shuffled into his speeder-limo, Sifflin close behind him. The poor man hadn’t stopped sweating since he heard about the massacre. What were they going to tell their representative’s family? Speeder crash? Freak industrial accident? Anything but the truth, surely.

They really did not need it getting out that they had sent someone to negotiate under the table with enemies of their competition. The rest of the board of shareholders were barely on board with this whole thing, and now they were probably going to turn against them as well. Why was Sifflin so unconcerned about all of this? That rat-faced bastard acted like this was a minor hiccup.

As the speeder pulled away from the curb, ferrying them to a restaurant to meet with the other holders, Sifflin assured his colleague he was aware of the gravity of the situation and that he would handle it together. That just made Monty more sweaty and more angry. “Why the hell aren’t you acting like it, then? Why are you always so goddamn calm?”

Sifflin was about to remind his friend that he just naturally had a cool temperament and that he was not as prone to fits of emotional distress as he was. Then he noted that the driver was taking a rather different route than they usually did. “Don’t worry,” said the Seyugi Dervish from the driver’s seat. “It’s a shortcut.”

Sifflin began to sweat.

 

[Ugoto Chivaro]

MONHUDLE
SOME CITY OR OTHER

After prominent board members Sifflin Perez and Monty Walker were found strung up, flayed, and eyes gouged out (all of this post-mortum, but it hardly made a difference to the tabloids), the remaining shareholders at Monhudle decided it would be in their best interests to negotiate a ceasefire with the Helix Syndicate. Since in-person meetings were apparently a dangerous affair these days, it took place via hologram. The blank, pitiless, blue-tinted visage of Pollux appeared before the nervous and fearful shareholders. Some of them had sent their families on extended vacations far away from Monhudle, but that wasn’t really necessary.

Pollux did enjoy that they thought it was, though.

Monhudle Industrial vowed to back off and retract its support from the rioters, and would help convince them to back down if requested. It was requested, but this was not enough for Pollux. The humiliation of those fools at M.I. needed to be more expansive than that. It was not enough that the Syndicate won- others must lose. Unless Monhudle wanted both more assassinations as awful as Monty and Sifflin’s had been, they were going to need to dissolve a few contracts they had. This way, the Helix Syndicate’s new mining operations could fill the gap.

They were reluctant despite the clearly present threat on their lives. Pollux reminded them that the Helix Syndicate had many, many friends among the Mandalorian Crusaders and that their propensity for total violence was even greater than the Helix Syndicate’s. They would not be looking solely at attacks on them and their families, but on their employees, mining facilities, office buildings… Everything. The Crusaders had shown a remarkable propensity for burning down corporations. Especially since they were led by none other than Isley Verd, whose decisive purge of Subach-Innes was still whispered about.

Cowering, Monhudle Industrial caved, unwilling or unable to recognize Pollux’s bluff. The Crusaders barely even knew the Givin was there these days.

 

[Ugoto Chivaro]

MONHUDLE
KOON MINE

As it turned out, the rioters needed no further convincing. The horrific slaying of their leadership had done more than enough to demoralize them. They fled from the mine as quickly as they could, although most of them were captured by Helix Syndicate Specialists that had been secretly scattered around the mine. Most of the resources Monhudle had shipped them were still present. The Helix Syndicate confiscated the weapons, armor, and supplies for sale on the black market for another nice and tidy profit. The amount of money lost from this fiasco was divided up among the captives and assigned to them as debt. They would now begin working in these mines in order to pay off that debt and would not be allowed to leave any sooner.

And because of their particular role in causing the Syndicate to lose money, they would be charged for housing and food as well. It would not be impossible to work off their debts… Just very difficult. Time consuming. Possibly twenty years in some cases. They should have considered this before rioting, it would seem.

More droids were shipped into the Koon mine to supplement the modest amount of debtors collected. Production would increase posthaste and, as soon as the mine started generating revenue, the Helix Syndicate would focus it into acquiring more delinquent debts. Then the debtors could be put to work in these mines. They would have an easier time working for their freedom than the imprisoned rioters, but not by much. They would be paid little more than starvation wage, while the precious metals and minerals they carved out from the rock in their twelve-hour work days would be worth thousands.

Now that Monhudle Industrial was “downsizing” in the wake of the tragic deaths of two important shareholders, the Helix Syndicate was able to secure amicable contracts with the companies and organizations Monhudle Industrial had originally been supplying. Pollux received these developments with the same muted indifference. There was really no reason to celebrate when things went exactly according to plan; that was just his expectation for everything.

 

[Ugoto Chivaro]

HELIX SYNDICATE DEBTOR MINES

Months passed and the Syndicate’s mining operations blossomed accordingly. Debtors, the delinquent ones who lacked any sort of means to pay off their debts, from around the Pentastar Alignment were scooped up and dropped either on Mygeeto or Monhudle to slave away until the Helix Syndicate deigned to free them. The ruthless Imperial capitalism that ran rampant through the Pentastar Sectors ensured there was no shortage of companies willing to sell off untenable debts that they, personally, could not collect from.

It was in this way of partially reimbursing corporate overlords for lost money and making examples of the rapscallions that couldn’t pay up that the Helix Syndicate furthered its network of contacts throughout those sectors. Unscrupulous companies, and flagrant criminal cartels, that needed people taken care of would find there way to the Helix Syndicate one way or another. As this web of customers grew, the Helix Syndicate also began to privately offer individuals salaries for providing regular information missives. Depending on their reliability and authenticity, they would net a decent income.

The mines themselves eventually evolved into prison complexes on top of their status as mines. That many debtors in one place needed reliable facilities to accommodate them. They also needed a variety of defensive measures, like electric fences, security guards, auto-turret defense grids… The works. It wasn’t so much to keep the debtors from fleeing - the fact that these mines were surrounded only by harsh frozen wasteland was enough to see to that - but more to dissuade the inevitable and highly discouraged rescue attempts.

And that’s the waaaaaaay the news goes. Roll credits.

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