Chapter 48 - The Market
If you’ve seen one interstellar slave market, you’ve seen them all.
Can’t really believe that I just thought that. This game is too real, and yet too different from real life. Makes it easy to get lost in things, and just go with the flow. And I guess that’s what I’ve been doing, except for a couple times when I took preemptive action to make sure I had cards to play if I needed them.
At any rate, the statement wasn’t false. The slave market on Charybdis Station was remarkably like the one on Choson Ring. The auctions were postponed because of the volatile situation (no one wanted to draw more people to the station when it took time to carefully check every passenger and piece of cargo offloaded), but the market itself was still open for business. I just hoped we would be able to find enough skilled crewmen to man the Shadowdancer. Of course, I’d settle for a handful of skilled crew, and a group intelligent enough to learn.
Now, instead of paying for the slaves, I could always have gone out hunting and ‘found’ enough freshly collared slaves from some of the local ships that I could crew the Shadowdancer, but the Confederacy was stricter with who could be made a slave than the Empire. Part of the way they enforced those restrictions was by mandating that slaves be registered, and part of the registration included a requirement to have a licensed slave trader sign off saying the slaves were legally collared. You could get around it, sure, but that was annoying to have to jump through the hoops, and it drew the wrong kind of attention. ESPECIALLY when bodysnatching nanite plagues were running around.
With that thought in mind, Cali, Carissa, Nyna, and I entered the slave market the morning after I purchased Shadowdancer. I’d paid for the ship out of my own funds, but the slaves were going to be bought out of the Corporate account. Mainly because I’d spent the majority of my personal funds getting the damn ship, and I wanted to keep a heady reserve, in case I really needed something. Call it Murphy Insurance.
| Product
| Price
| Description
|
| Jeffery Blue
| 21685 Credits
| Level 20 Human Male. Former Lieutenant in Alliance Navy. Reason for Enslavement: Assaulting a Government Offical
|
| Khess Darkscale
| 1500 Credits
| Level 13 Ihm Female. Trained Mechanic, and Bladesmith. Reason for Enslavement: Captured in pirate raid.
|
| Seirye Binan
| 32000 Credits
| Level 15 Knelfi Female. Trained surgeon from Diymia. Reason for Enslavement: Medical Malpractice.
|
| Anna Chase
| 3000 Credits
| Level 30 Human Female. Trained ship gunner and raider. Reason for Enslavement: Captured in pirate raid.
|
| Galen Grinelis
| 500 Credits
| Level 5 Knelfi Male. Trained starship pilot. Reason for Enslavement: Sold by Parents
|
| Lornic Barrelbow
| 1000 Credits
| Level 10 Gauz Male. Trained navigator. Reason for Enslavement: Defaulted on debts.
|
| Sam Spacey
| 100000 Credits
| Level 50 Human Male. Former Imperial Navy Marine. Reason for Indenture: Buying passage for family out of Jagloth System
|
| Ayla Kelthyra
| 2100 Credits
| Level 20 Knelfi Female. Trained bodyguard. Reason for Enslavement: Defaulted on debts.
|
| Taenya Elro
| 2500 Credits
| Level 20 Knelfi Female. Trained companion and gunner. Reason for Enslavement: Murder
|
| John Dusk
| 2300 Credits
| Level 16 Human Male. Trained Merchant. Reason for Enslavement: Sale of Illegal Nanites
|
| Gaxl Bladeshimmer
| 5500 Credits
| Level 23 Ihm Male. Trained bodyguard and companion. Reason for Enslavement: Captured in Pirate raid.
|