Into the Black

(Former Slave Market, Madrigal Base, Madrigal System)

Walking into what had been the slave market for Madrigal Base back when it was run by pirates, I nodded approvingly as I saw that the area had been worked over to provide better housing for the slaves who were being kept on the station. After all, they were Black Star property, now, and I wanted to let them know that life was better with me than against me. The fact that there had been more than a few pirates and station staff helping with the work alongside their fellow slaves only helped improve the morale of those who had been captured by the pirates.

I was here because, frankly, while the Administrator may have kept good notes on the activity of the station, the people in charge of the slave market did not. There was a database, of course, but it only listed species, gender, and age, all by lot number instead of name. If you were lucky, there was a note or two about some special talent they had. Trying to work through that to find people who could be useful was annoying, at best.

In the month since I’d taken the base, I’d had people taking inventory of the slaves, expanding that database to include names, skills, and work experience, building it out so that I had actual data I could use to place these people where they would be the most help for the company. The interview process took a while, since there were almost a thousand slaves from all different species, and some of them needed time in the infirmary to make sure they were healthy before they could be interviewed. It was not a process that could be done both quickly and well, but it was finally over.

Which brought me to why I was coming down to the former slave market today. There were several slaves that stood out amongst the rest, and I decided I’d handle their interviews personally. Some of the positions I could see them filling would depend on their attitude, naturally. Looking down at my tablet, I checked to see the order of my interviews.