Into the Black

Setting up a Corporation (what this game called guilds) was pretty straightforward. Since I was the boss, I unilaterally decided that the Corporation would be called the Black Star Trading Company. I set myself as the President/CEO, obviously, and made Jaynie the COO. Shearah got to be Vice President of Operations, Carissa was Vice President of Accounting, and Cali was Vice President of Public Relations. That caused the sullen sexpot to snicker when I said she could ‘relate’ to the public with either her ‘talents’ or her shotgun, whichever was more appropriate. Everyone agreed that the 10% guild tax was fair.

Imperial First Bank was a pretty solid institution, according to my reading. They had branches throughout the Empire, and were one of a few banks that actually had branches in other factions’ territory. Their coverage in areas outside the Empire was more spotty, but they at least had a branch in the capitol of every major planet in ‘Known Space’. Which meant I could access my accounts from most places. They also were surprisingly good with client confidentiality, being a lot like Switzerland in that regard. The flip side of this was that they had very strict identity scans, the interest was low, and they wouldn’t open accounts for anyone who had a criminal record.

I opened a personal account, and gave each of my four ‘extra’ IDs access to it, so I wouldn’t have to worry about always wearing this face when I needed to see a banker. None of those IDs had a criminal record, and they all were issued by a legitimate source, so it only took a hint of Influence to make it pass muster. Jaynie already had an account with a lesser-known bank that didn’t spread past the Empire’s borders, but offered better interest (and didn’t care about IDs). The other girls were all Property, so couldn’t have bank accounts, naturally.

I opened two more accounts, one for the Corporation, and one for the Raven. It took a little bit of work, but finally I set up my ‘shares’ system for funds coming from missions. One quarter would go directly into the Raven’s account, one half into mine, and one quarter would be split between the free individuals on the crew, which basically meant Jaynie, for now. 10% of what went into the personal accounts (whether mission-related or not) was automatically deducted for the Corporate Tax. I planned to use that as a fund for gear maintenance, or purchasing items for the guild as a whole.

Not wanting to keep a whole bunch of cash on my bracer, I immediately deposited 464K credits into my new personal account, and nodded to myself as I saw 46400 credits move into the Corporate account. Felt a whole lot more comfortable not carrying around half a million credits just sitting there asking to be stolen.

Now I had a crew, I had someplace to drop the Princess, and I had paying work going the same way. So I was in pretty good spirits when we left the bank and headed back to the tram. This time, we weren’t alone in the tram. Six big, burly men, all wearing similar outfits, and carrying obvious weapons. I pegged them as one of the local gangs, and slipped my hand to the hilt of my energy blade, unclipping it, but keeping the device hidden inside the sleeve of my coat. No sense in warning the fools. Especially since they were Nomads.