*
By this time some of the Races in the city knew about the Terrans and their predicament. A few were looking forward to buying them, some were sympathetic, most were indifferent.
But Paswalda had had the Terrans watched by one of his crew who came back one day and said, “The Priskya have reclassified the Terrans as amphibian! Most of them have moved out of the Terrestrial accommodation and into free housing.”
Paswalda was furious. “Oh no! The classification of amphibian lowers their value, gives them free living conditions and stops their debt growing. Blast them, they caught on too quickly. They aren’t in nearly enough debt yet and are now in a position to start reducing it!”
Paswalda had also been visited by a very annoyed legal counsel. “You will get no ten percent for these People. We have been suspicious of you before. One of the Terrans has made allegations against you for fraud and false representation. They say they paid for their transportation here, and can describe the trade goods they paid with. If this is so, more charges are likely to follow.”
The legal counsel was a Ridianit, one of the race that had developed this world. “We are not pleased about the activities of slavers like you. It brings discredit and crime to a planet to have this type of thing happening. The Okme Helkmid has laid a complaint as well on behalf of the Terrans.”
Paswalda, perturbed, watched as the Ridianit stalked off and wondered what this had to do with the Okme and why they were involved. But clearly it was upsetting them, and no one wanted upset Okme on a legal matter.
Reluctantly, Paswalda decided he had better not sell the Terran trade goods he had taken in payment for the fares here. He had buyers lined up too, especially for the seeds. If he were caught selling these goods he would have to explain where he got them. If the Terrans claimed they were fare paid in kind, he would be in a lot of trouble. Especially since the Terrans would claim it was supposed to be a return trip.
Paswalda ordered his exec, “Contact the crew and inform them that we will be leaving Torroxell in five days. Most will have to be recalled now.” He said glumly, “It will take us several days to buy more trade goods, fill up with supplies and find a contract and some passengers.” He knew the legal system well. All successful law breakers do.
His exec agreed. “The Ridianit will not want the cost of legal action. If we leave in a few days, they will drop the charges. Their legal system is slow. Processing will normally take weeks, if not months. We should get away with this but our profit will be much reduced on what we had anticipated.”
“And the Ridianit will not allow us to come back to this planet,” said Paswala. “Scrub yet another planet off our list! Many of the trade goods to be sold here have not yet been sold and we have not had enough time to arrange this.” He was very unhappy.
Supplied to Order
The ship’s majority owner, Lijfomid, watched with great satisfaction as Tyrid manoeuvred the huge starship into position. The other six starships followed, arranging themselves behind the largest moon. Tyrid and Lijfomid sat down to discuss the operation.
Lijfomid was delighted. “I had been told there was no defense system and only rudimentary air-traffic control. No outer defenses. As usual my Intel appears to be correct. We appear to have not been detected. No challenges and no alarms. This is good.”
Tyrid checked. “No sign of detection, very few satellites, no mines, nothing in the way of offensive or defensive weaponry. Very little in the way of communication as well. Primitive, in fact.”
Lijfomid’s ship, nicknamed a Flying Fortress, contained one hundred or so planes and 500-1000 hunter/killer/communication satellites as did the other ships. As their name suggests, the task of the satellites was to jam communications and destroy any ship, plane, satellite or any other large non-organic object which was not squawking the correct signal. This allowed the Flying Fortresses to get on with the job of subduing the population without the pesky worry of the thousands of air and space craft, in the air around the planet, plus the incoming and outgoing spaceships.
As the starships reached their designated positions, Lijfomid looked over to his First Officer Tyrid, and said,
“Maintain communication silence, level two. Check location of those troop ships. Maintain position,” and left the bridge, heading for the Mess. He knew Tyrid would not interrupt him unless an emergency occurred. Tyrid knew better.
That was very true. Tyrid watched, fuming, as the owner left the bridge, infuriated to be given superfluous and meaningless orders. Just who ran this ship? Not the pontificating, insufferable idiot who had just left. Lijfomid, as the majority part owner of the ship, could call himself a Captain. He could call himself anything he wanted and there were a few things Tyrid would like to call him. But he wasn’t the Captain. Tyrid was, in reality if not name, the Captain and Tyrid hated honorary, unearned titles. Especially ones that interfered with the running of what was his ship in practical terms.
Lijfomid seemed to roll his formidable bulk through the corridor, ship crew scattering at his approach. Keulfyd often gain considerable bulk in their middle to older years and Lijfomid was a sterling example. He was so vast his four legs could barely be seen and he had not been able to cross his arms for decades. He was very satisfied as he watched his crew. Although there was no more work to be done by the crew at this stage, they pretended to be busy doing it. They thought they were fooling him but they weren’t. Lijfomid was much more astute than Tyrid and the crew were aware and he loved stirring Tyrid up. It was so easy to do. Tyrid had such a miniscule sense of humour. He also didn’t notice that Lijfomid knew when he could safely interfere and when, like now, to get off the bridge. The next few hours should go smoothly but if anything unexpected happened and the ship had to fight, Lijfomid knew he was best out of it.
He looked around the mess for other Keulfyd as he had little tolerance or interest in other Races. He sat by the medical staff and declared, “Well, that’s my work on the planning done so my part is probably over. It will now be a boring month or two until we leave the planet. The work of the crew is done for now too. It’s up to the satellites, pilots, medics and mercenaries for the next stage. No shore leave on these jobs, of course. The bonus will be worth it, though.” He pretended not to notice the dirty looks the tired, stressed and harassed medical staff gave him. They were flat out and would remain so while he languished and, they thought), probably counted his money.
They got that one right. He was counting his anticipated money. Lijfomid’s bonus this time was to be in spaceships. He was to be allotted a portion of the huge numbers of spaceships that would be on the ground and he had carefully chosen the pilots who would be flying them back for him. There should be enough pilots to crew about 20 given that they only had to stock them up and then fly them, following the Flying Fortress. The spaceships would, of course, be stuffed with booty. That was expected. And he would let the crew grab some booty for themselves. Mustn’t be greedy, he reminded himself—potentially rich pilots would be happy and co-operative ones.
He was relaxed. He leisurely enjoyed his food and looked around. He loved this part. He loved watching others carrying out his plans. The crew were various Races but most of the senior crew were Keulfyd, all carefully hand picked, many from established criminal families or organisations, or military, all held to secrecy by the inevitability of a quick death should they talk and all very used to being careful with their tongues. A born trait so to speak, or not speak in this case. This job had taken many years in the planning. He had been involved for two years and it was looking to be a winner. Like many of the super rich, Lijfomid was obsessed with adding to his wealth. He continually compared his total worth with others of his ilk. This would put him up a few notches.