The weekly newsletter for Fed2 by ibgames

EARTHDATE: October 19, 2008

Inside Scoop page 1


BOY SCOUTS, BAD BOYS OR BOTH

An investigative journey into the Federation Underworld
by Jezz
(Location withheld to protect sources)

The pleasure droids were cheap but the drinks were expensive. Smoke rings wafted lazily towards the cracked plaster ceiling, expanding like ripples on a pond until the chugging ventilation system tore at their symmetry and slowly sucked them out of existence. The burly tattooed bartender shook his head at my whispered question, put down his cleaning rag, hefted a bucket of water and doused the source of the smoke rings which appeared to be a shorted out waitdroid.

The yellowed ivory on the old piano in the corner, along with everyone's ears, was being tortured to death by the thick fingers of a bear of a man. His stumbling, discordant rendition of "As Time Goes By" was accompanied by the creaking of the piano stool barely managing to support his great bulk, and the quiet groans of patrons either too afraid to tell him to stop or too reluctant to be noticed.

I was sitting at the bar nursing a martini and debating the consequences of asking for another olive when the rasping voice cut like a knife through the haze of murmured conversation and all heads turned towards the door to the back room.

"In all the gin joints on all the worlds... Lady, there ain't nobody who knows what the mailman does with your copy of The Star. Now call off your pet ape and we'll talk."

I nodded towards Lucabrasi, my borrowed body guard for this foray into the seedy underworld of Federation Space, and he rose sullenly from the piano stool.

"The Don ain't gonna be happy if I leaves ya here wid dis mook, capice?" said Luca in a voice like gravel raining on a rusty oil drum.

Trying on my best nonchalant smile, I instructed the glowering Luca to wait for me by the door where he could still see the goings on in the bar but couldn't reach the belabored piano. The sense of relief in the dimly lit room was palpable as the bar owner took a seat beside me and pushed back the rim of his fedora with the tip of his finger.

"So you gonna tell me what a nice little newsdroid like you is doing in a place like mine? ... apart from upsetting my not so illustrious patrons, that is," asked my bar-stooled neighbor. The corners of his mouth half curled into a crooked smile as I explained my quest to understand what happened to the many tons of goods taken from loading docks all over the Galaxy and why they just disappeared into thin air. He gave me a measuring look... a look that seemed to pierce my very soul, assess my intentions and, for whatever reason, find them to be worthy of an answer.

"You see it's like this... It ain't easy for the little guy out there amongst the stars. Life is hard for the blue collar worker, the farmer, the factory hand, the nuts and bolt, grass roots fella that's just trying to make a living. Some of those Planet Owners, they just don't seem to understand or care. Yeah, I know they got their own problems sitting up there in their ivory towers, wondering if they should build a golf course or a massage parlor, but they need to think about the guys down here in the muck and mire too.

"My cousin Bert worked in a gold mine, worked hard he did and for darn little in the way of groats too. The seam they were working wasn't easy and gold production was slow but they had a bit of surplus they could sell to the exchange and that's where the profit groats came from. They were doing alright, just managing as best they could, when along comes this shiny new Founder who decides they ain't working fast enough for his liking. His stockpiles ain't growing at the rate HE thinks they should. Of course he don't know jack about gold mining but he don't care. So what does he do? He hauls in gold from some heap of slag other planet just so he can see all the pretty shiny stuff piled up in his exchange! Now cousin Bert... he knows that stockpile can only get just so big and that freaking Planet Owner just wiped out half Bert's ability to sell to the exchange, without a thought as to how Bert is gonna feed his four kids and keep his wife in the manner to which she thinks she ought to be accustomed when the stockpile is full. So, I ask ya... what would you do? Yeah we take it off the dock and sell it on the black market. It ain't stealing if ya don't get caught and it's justice I tell ya.

"We got a right to survive. Way I see it, if a Planet Owner don't count the tons he's hauling in, or he lets others sell to the exchange when it should be his population getting the groats, well then he don't deserve to keep all the goods.

"Now don't get me wrong. We ain't evil. If we went and took all the stuff we'd be asking for it. But we just take half to make up for what we can't sell legal-like. Why, just the other day I got news of someone hauling in a producer and cutting the workers out of the deal just so as he could say he had a stockpile of the stuff. He didn't even get the message when the Owner of the planet he was hauling from says on the comm that he's bought six thousand tons. Heck no... he replies that he only took three thousand. Well he only GOT three thousand in his exchange but he wasn't counting what was going on his ship and what he was paying for. So he's paying double what he thinks for his stockpile and we are just trying to make a living taking half of it.

"Yeah I know there are times a good Planet Owner has to do it coz of some emergency or something that means the factories can't run because they don't have the inputs. But them Planet Owners know we are gonna take our cut just to make the point and they don't get all twisted up over it."

At this point I managed to ask about the goods that disappear when something the planet doesn't produce is hauled in above the zero mark. "Doesn't that eventually harm the population because the stockpile you could have bought is gone faster?" I asked him.

He laughed softly and swirled his drink around the glass before answering.

"Lady, there ain't too many Planet Owners who ALWAYS make sure they have an emergency supply of ALL their deficits to hand. Least ways I haven't met one yet. So we gotta figure every now and then that supply is gonna dry up. Just because the planet owner ain't hauling it don't mean we don't need the stuff so if there's a pallet sitting out on the dock because the emergency supply warehouse is full... yeah we are going to take it for a rainy day.

"I heard about some ancient paramilitary group that used to have the motto "Be Prepared"... yeah that's it... Scouts. We're just being prepared for when we don't have what we need." He gave me that look... the one that is both frightening and almost irresistible, as his lips lingered for a moment on the rim of the glass. "I'm just a boy scout and, Lady, I've got some knots I'd sure like to show you in the back room."

Luca shifted uneasily by the door, making the floorboards creak ominously beneath his bulk and I decided that this interview had best come to an end. Making my excuses, I left with my body guard and a new understanding of some of the workings of the Federation Underground. I'm sure there is much I don't yet understand. Boy Scouts or Villains? That's one of the things I'm not sure about but I am sure I won't drink a martini any time soon without a small shiver, the memory of the man in the fedora and the scent of cologne coming to mind.


Fed2 Star index Previous issues Fed 2 home page