as written by Azrican and DemiKara
The damp confines of the old electrical network had once sustained the bustling sprawl of Krakov’s settler district, Bahnbrecher, for nearly three decades. Carved out from the treacherous stars of the Western Frontier, Kosterbrau had long since it’s first colonization attracted some of the Empire’s finest to tame her untouched islands and continent. For many of those who set foot on the planet, work and great Kampf kept their lives bright despite the looming presence of the Collective a metaphorical stone’s throw away. Or any other number of imposing threats that might befall a loosely held colony world.
For others this remoteness from the Empire’s ever watchful eye was the last, desperate tether restraining mankind from it’s darker inhibitions. Here at the delicate fringes of civilization, many achieved the humble existence they were aspiring for. Others at this lonely precipice descended into the depravity of wild men.
With time, the Bahnbrecher had become a blighted worker’s hovel: transients and the unemployed were frequent sights in the old sector of Krakov along with many of the sins that accompanied an idle body. While the law did not avoid the district, most of the nobility and commoners did their best to keep any presence in there to a minimum, causing the commercial prosperity of the locality to falter even more. Many shops left abandoned were occupied by the social rebels, maybe a delinquent or addict and then a prostitute here and there.
This festering public welt is the sort of open wound on a society that had allowed the Red Halo networks to sink their fangs into the lifeline of Scatterran frontier worlds since the closing days of the Exodus. Whether it was money from selling drugs to the needy, or the revenue generated from making sure the strays ended up either strapped to an assault rifle in a far away conflict or chained away by slavers, to the ever irreconcilable desire for a firearm. It was a method of business that had not been forgotten despite mankind's supposed transcendence of woes and vice.
The formula itself, like all sciences, had been refined over the years by all sorts and types, from all the walks of life. While more white collar criminals might be more interested in the hearts of the cities, Krakov being no lesser target, the demand for men and women capable of manipulating the cesspits like Bahnbrecher were always in high demand: and also rather handsomely compensated.
That was why, despite the cell's association with an obviously dangerous personality, David Hummel wasn't entirely against the situation at the moment. Trafficking was only one of the career-criminals many skills, the obvious others being a penchant for security no matter what the situation -- a hold-over from the Weltraum that he had never really let himself outgrew. Even with his gracious deliverance from ultimate death by the compassion of the Emperor, he felt it a rather wasteful use of his skills to only lapse into obscurity due to some mischievous conduct. When the Imperial military had become exhausted with his skillset however, the generous Syndicate was waiting for him.
In many regards he had little of a choice either, lest he end up on the relatively civilized side of the Western Frontier and not behind the Collective line. While an honest Saren he wasn't a fool however, and saw no use for his death to be one of the many billions that end up scrawled on a wall in some nobleman's estate. So now here he was in a similar predicament: albeit he lacked a uniform, or any particular rank other than the most common associated with a drug-peddling, weapon's-and-people-smuggling thug. What he did not lack was weaponry however, and a command among the dredges of this planet that often reminded him of the presence he and the Weltraum had amongst the other Imperials they often saved.
The rejects under his charge weren't much different either. Some of them were from the Weltraum like Hummel: like him they were scooped up by the Syndicate in the eerie twilight before their impending death became a truthfully obvious reality. Some were from the other sects of the Empire's great forces though, a few even active Heimat men that thought a little salary from drug trade didn't necessarily violate their loyalties to House Aodha.
Aodha, of course, would certainly consider all of this treachery. Hummel was glad he was an offworlder: he rarely ever thought about his own home as well, let alone the tiny house it constituted. Dollman was always a finer cut of cloth than many however. Just as he was a good Saren he wasn't a partisan however, he never bought the petty squabbles amongst the realms to keep an air of legitimacy that could only ever be maintained through arms.
As Hummel kept his thoughts swimming around between his ears, he noticed one of the jacketed gunmen nestled on an open crate of fertilizer notch a finger at him: smoke whisping away from his digits as he heard a door creak open. "Think Ritz's done ... " Warrel replied, the Azrik chewing on the other end of the cigarette as he put in back between his lips.
Hummel cocked a head sideways, past Henning and Schmitz perched on a discarded fuel tank that would serve as a suitable container for the explosives once they were assembled and saw her: Ritzeltochter as she had called herself had directed the cell's most ambitious activity after Hummel had been given his own 'outfit' by the Syndicate. Rumors and suspicions surrounded the woman that practically every man had an opinion on. Some of them were rather amusing to hear, others should have been better left out. Hummel had made it his priority to keep that all separate from the actual dirty work: whatever kept the Syndicate spinning is what he needed to do.
Repeating that to himself, he pulled himself off the wall and watched the woman on her way off: being sure to keep quiet before giving one quick look to Warrel. "That's it then, you remember the plan." He replied shortly. Warrel was an old acquaintance from the Imperial military, though not of the Weltraum. The Naval cadet he had met in a sortie against a rebelling planet nearly twenty five years ago couldn't be so far from the creature he saw now.
"Jawohl, kapt." Warrel said with a faux solute, gloved hands falling to his waist as he glided off the impromptu seat and checked the slide on the tiny 9mm handgun he carried. "So what, we just snag the money and leave them hanging?"
His rather impressed tone was enough to catch Hummel doubting himself for a minute: of course he wasn't going soft any time soon though, business was merely business. Without the creatures like him and Warrel, or the Halos working for the Syndicate, there would be no need for the Hegemony: the Coalition, for any state. He was the first to admit the need for a necessary evil, just the way this thing that he used to see writing poetry in the Sternflotte had him unsettled. Ritzeltochter had him unsettled.
"Yes, soldat. I'll take Schmitz to the radio center, Henning and Wilfried will be meeting the buyer." He said, looking over the individual team leaders before his shoulders straightened and he made his voice a hush. "Now run along and do your fucking jobs, children. Shoo shoo shoo. Schmitz, let's go."
____
“Hummel! Get in here. Did the nobles agree to pay for their precious daughter?” She asked clearly annoyed that it had taken so long. “I want to get rid of her sniffling.” They would have paid, she was sure. If not, they’d keep the girl for a few more days, to see if the nobles changed their minds.
Of course, had they paid, the girl still wasn’t going home. Faith didn’t see the point in only getting paid once when she could easily be paid twice for the same girl. Out here on this back world, what was some cousin noble going to do? House Aodha may be a major house, of course, but this girl was just a cousin of this, and not half so important. Her kidnapping wouldn’t warrant more serious forces than Faith was prepared to deal with.
The Erutin mercenary was fairly pleased with the plan. They’d have more than enough to purchase the explosives this way, and she’d get to sow a little terror in these xeno hearts. Besides, there was always something exciting about seeing her little kidnapped idiots panic when they realize that no, just because their parents paid for it, they didn’t get to go home. Why should they? They weren’t worth that to her.
Faith didn’t bother with the sort of kidnapping where the victim got to go home. People would pay good money for a slave, and it was perfectly legal for non-Erutin to be slaves in the Erutin Empire. She could always sell them herself, if her men didn’t find a buyer.
That happened only rarely of course. These were scum of the worst sort, with the best sort of connections for what Faith wanted. “Better yet, have the arrangements for our explosives been made yet? I’d like to get down to business more ambitious that stealing the cousin of a noble.” The derisive way she said that made it clear what Faith thought of the nobility in the Hegemony. “I want the arrangements made for our…necessary evils…soon.” Isn’t that how Hummel put it? Necessary evils.
It was such a quaint little term. A government controlled criminal underworld, just so every day citizens could have something to fret over. All that extra work to make it clear that these filthy creatures needed to submit to tracking of their every movement.
Either way, it wasn’t difficult to infiltrate, this government sanctioned crime, and it was all too easy to take advantage of when she needed to. Whether it was selling children, adults, or killing those in her way, it was all too easy to use their own resources to do so. She had enjoyed finding that out, enjoyed the irony in realizing that their own petty government had made it possible for her to topple them, were even funding the dissent she was sowing on both this side of the border and on the ICON side. Her contacts there were just as successful as these, and Faith knew that the other Red Halos liked those missions all the more.
Soon, Faith had plans to have her own little barcode purchased, records falsified and a cute little identity made up. It would be easy enough, once she had siphoned enough money from these ventures to purchase the requisite device, and found a corrupt enough doctor to give her the required implant.
That identity would get her to Tannhauser, she was certain of it. Once there, she’d enjoy bombing the palace and killing the traitor empress. Wing Kampf deserved the death that Faith had planned. That, though, was a longer term plan, one that would take more time and planning and patience to put together. For now, she had a pretty little brat to sell and bombs to buy.
Faith planned on enjoying herself as she sewed this dissent, killing the weakness of any species, the one thing guaranteed to make them sit up and listen: their children. She hoped to get some rather young ones, if she timed it right. Failing that, numbers would do for her. That much the Halos knew, of course, and knew well. They didn’t know that she intended to make it clear that it was an Erutin attack, rather than making it into an ICON attack, or make it seem like one. She wanted to time it just so that both ICON and the Scatterran Hegemony were hit at the same time, if not exactly the same time. She’d be here for the one on Kosterbrau, of course, and had some rather gullible idiots, upset with their new First Dark being a foreigner, readying the attack on ICON.
Her dear sweet, foolish idiot of a twin shouldn’t had mated with a foreign wench, ‘cementing the alliance’ or not. It was a stupid cover up, given Hope had been one of the main harriers of the woman’s command during the fighting between the two nations. Clearly the new First Dark had been chosen to destabilize the Erutin people.
Faith wouldn’t allow it. She’d have the nations at each other’s throats again, no matter what it took. The woman even had managed to smuggle an Erutin marine uniform to Kosterbrau with her, and was more than ready to be wearing it, markings out, some painted on to make her seem like a member of the military, when she placed the bombs.
She wanted to be seen for this.
“You got your people ready to deal with this brat, right Hummel? Assuming they agreed to the ransom?” She couldn’t wait for the chance to tell the brat that she’d never see Mommy or Daddy ever again. It was a thrilling moment, in Faith’s eyes, watching the hope break in a child’s eyes as they realized the truth of their situation.
____
Hummel left Schmitz to go ready their transport. Henning and Wilfried promptly departed to make their way to their own vehicle. Meanwhile, he was left with Ritzel, though fortunately the conversation would be kept quick. He hoped at least. Hummel took a small communicator out of his pocket as he followed the woman briefly, hoping to confer with her and be on his way as quickly as possible with Schmitz. "So far the nobles have been cooperating, almost too happy to make a little business expense like this end quickly as possible."
What he had learned, often, of the lower nobility is that their pride and image were often more important than their flesh and blood -- for these kinds, anyway. There was a reason such a family from an influential House found itself only lording over a sparsely populated frontier world. Ambition and loyalty only got a name so far without an intelligence and tact to go along with it.
"The zivis though, I believe may end up becoming a problem. The family has become rather, well, strained as of late. Missing a child and all, unfortunate I know. Something that may attract undue attention." He remarked quietly to her, before putting one hand onto the satellite device. "I have two waiting to meet with a weapon's dealer, a marketeer who isn't too concerned about where exactly the hardware will end up." Hummel said flatly and shifted the device through the air in front of him, though he had many contacts for such purchases Ritzel was looking to make he knew that most of his old suppliers wouldn't want to be associated with such high profile activities. Even on the Frontier, paper trails still existed after all.
"Two of my best men, who've been smuggling for a while. They're former NHA themselves." Hummel's tone changed just slightly. "Herr Ernst may decide he's a little in over his head soon though, a rather weak man like that often cracks under pressure." Hummel replied, sending a single message to Schmitz with the tap of a finger.
---
A junky Belkan utility vehicle trundled along the streets or Krakov's seedier districts, headlights cutting against the occasional vagabond or street walker and causing large shadows to play along the walls of condemned buildings. Inside, two men exchanged a quick chuckle with one another in the way one wins a very easy bet. "Three in sixty meters, if we'd be betting I'd probably have your share of the payout from the job now." Henning said through a wide smirk, reclined in the passenger seat with the satellite phone on his knee.
"Shut up and call Ritzel, tell her we're meeting the buyer now." Wilfried remarked through grit teeth before letting his hands play over the wheel and draw the four-by-four into the dilapidated carcass of an old meat processing factory. Wrought gates and rusting fences peeled away with a crack and split as the tiny utility vehicle crawled over discarded rubbish and debris. With Henning drawing the satellite phone up to his ear, he pulled out the antennae with one hand and covered the bottom of the receiver with the other.
"So how much you think this is going to net us anyway? I've heard Hummel's talk about this Ritzel and all this sounds like is us just pissing off some lesser nobility really ... where the hell's this all going to go anyway?" He replied, letting the phone ring for a few moments before turning back in his seat after getting a quick shrug from Wilfried.
"Eeeeh, you always thought too narrow anyway, now quiet -- This is Henning, we're south, still in the Bahnbrecher. We're about to make contact with Hummel's NHA connection."
01-06-2015, 10:49 PM
DemiKara
“Hm. Well, they aren’t a problem for now. The nobles will delay them finding out a bit longer I think. By then, the girl may not even be on planet.” There was no telling. She glanced to the child and shrugged it off. She didn’t want to be a child minder forever. The girl was annoying.
At least she was no longer sobbing and whining. Hummel’s appearance meant that she was likely to go to her parents, and that made the girl rather hopeful. “W-will I get to go home soon?” She asked. Faith turned to glare at the child, who quickly fell silent, and cowered away.
“Keep your mouth shut brat.” She ordered, and the child nodded her head moving with great speed as she cowered from the terrifying woman who had watched over her for days. The child had scarcely been allowed to speak thanks to Faith’s fierce anger if she so much as made a noise.
Faith turned her attention back to her associate in this business. Hopefully, he wouldn’t screw this up. She had a pretty solid lead on the best place to attack, and needed the bombs quickly, within a few days. The field trip was only a week away after all, and she wouldn’t want to miss it, or miss the perfect time to set the bombs.
There was no point in letting such a perfect opportunity pass. It was too bad for the children that their parents had such loose lips when it came to their little babe’s activities. Faith kept her false eye on the Aodha girl as she spoke to Hummel, her true eye on him.
“Make sure the two remember it’s supposed to be smaller bombs in size, at least.” She said quietly. “We need to be able to conceal them.” The bombs would be concealed too, underneath the usual playground debris, some under the chips on the ground, some under the grass or under leaves. It was a fairly nice playground the little ones would be going to, after all.
“…Go ahead and take the kid. She needs to get gone. I’ll be on standby, and try and figure out how to deal with the zivis.” Zivis could be a pain in the ass, but she’d be done here before they got too far in the operation. At worst, Hummel’s men would be compromised. By the time she had acted, it would be too late for the child, or rather, for the children.
Once she had their attention, she’d make it clear. The only way the bombings would stop would be if the alliance was broken. Otherwise, she’d leave a trail of fear and terror wherever she went. She planned on cutting ties with the Red Halos as quickly as she could once she had control of the bombs.
The fuckers were going to be taking the fall for the kidnapping, but she had already begun contemplating what to say and how to deliver the message that this was her doing, and that she had one very specific demand.
Then again, the bombs would also be going off on Polis, in ICON territory. She had two sets of notes to deliver. This was this best sort of gift she could ask for. Even ending the alliance wouldn’t stop her, Faith decided. Scatterran scum had tainted her people, had slowed and stopped their dominion over all of space. They would die for the sin of desiring peace. They would die for tainting her Empress with their filthy touch, but most of all, she desired to decimate House Redwing. When she was done, she hoped there wouldn’t even be ashes to its name. The Scatterrans would fall. House Redwing and its allies would fall the hardest.
____
With Ritzel's command, Hummel left the underground complex for an old waste run-off that had been repurposed to accommodate a small fleet of vehicles. A few utility vehicles and a pick up waited for the other Halos who had yet to depart. As he stood beside the pickup they'd be using for the exchange the door from the maintenance tunnel popped open: a tiny figure drawn over the shoulders of a Halo. They had decided it'd be easier to transport the girl unconscious, rather than risk the chance of an incident.
"She'd better not wake up vomiting." Hummel remarked coldly. The gunman only shrugged two large shoulders, prying open the door with one hand while slightly dropping the slack body into the back of the pickup. Next, he slowly pulled a blanket over her form to make the back seats as inconspicuous a place in the truck as possible. While Ritzel would be here waiting for contact, Hummel and Schmitz would first escort the girl to the buyer: a sleazy Oriyak from a planet a little deeper into the Frontier. Next, they would pay a visit to their Signale Wachter, a rather endowed hacker and blackhat who would be more valuable than their bombs and guns once the actual chase for the terrorists began.
"Where's Schmitz at?" Hummel said, standing back to let the Halo roll himself into the driver's seat of the pickup. The other gunner pointed his hand out the window to a nearby utility vehicle. Hummel gave a soft pat on the hood of the pickup and spoke quickly. "Get her to Nikolaus, don't get stopped -- and anything happens to that girl before she's out of our hands, you'll likely end up in a box."
"Ja Hummel ja."
"Do you have the sat-phone?" He asked bluntly, on occasion glancing over the driver to the silent figure hidden beneath a large blanket. Hummel brought his head back out of the driver's side door when he produced the small device and shook it about in his hands.
"Ja."
"Good. Keep it on you, and stay in contact. After you get her to Nikolaus, we'll need the truck for the shipment. Don't break this thing either."
---
Rolph Fritjof was a weapon's smuggler that had served a few stints in the NHA before taking to the more 'free' fringes of society. As his operations became more and more impressive, he needed a lesser developed planet to commit them upon. Quite a few times, he had close calls with the authorities, that had cost him not only almost his life but money, and equipment. Here on Kosterbrau, however, he found it quite easy to ply his trade in weapons and explosives.
Or anything, really. As the two Halo insurgents surveyed the numerous devices and pieces he had laid out for them it became obvious Hummel had some serious connections when it came to equipping and arming a cell. Henning let the satellite phone hang from his vest webbing as Wilfried hefted a small block of explosives.
"How much are these for?" He asked shortly, and Rolph uncrossed his legs before hopping down from a crate of caseless ammunition. His smile brightened, revealing a few missing teeth and diseased gums while his eyes worked over the plastic explosives.
"We can work out a reasonable price for ... twenty pounds. You guys won't need more, right?"
Henning and Wilfried both looked at each other. Hummel was the man who relayed these requirements from Ritzel, and hadn't made an actual specification: he knew his explosives though, from tetranol derivatives to composite-plastics. They wouldn't need a lot, of course.
"Twenty will work -- Henning, give Hummel a call." Wilfried said quietly, planting the explosives back on the table and looking back over at Rolph. Besides explosives, there were a few more things they needed. Guns, particularly. Ammo for such as well, and something this Fritjof in all his clever styles might not have, convincing disguises. "Got anything with a bigger punch? Light machineguns, launchers ... anything?"
