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[Thaago]

The following was something I wrote on reddit in response to a prompt titled: "Your lifelong buddy offers you this contract... WYD?"

It had a picture of Caliban Tseen Ke offering the dreaded double Radiant fleet(with 3 S mods on all) + Dorito, all for only 930k in reward.


The silence between Caliban and I stretches on, the flickering lights of the rotating tactical hologram bathing our faces pale blue. What he wants me to do... the AI fleet he's asking me to take out is a menace that could destroy worlds, topple polities, and the Hegemony is offering barely enough to cover a new Onslaught. I'm going to lose ships. I'm going to lose loyal spacers by the hundreds. This is not going to be a profitable contract.

I stare my old friend in the eye. He's responsible for so much of the startup funding, bounty contracts, and discount warships that without him I don't think I would have been able to afford an Enforcer, let alone launch my interstellar empire. Time and time again he's been there when I'm down and out, always ready with some contract that's just right.

I also know that he knows about some of my early... questionable... activities, but he's never called me on it. Instead, every time I'm at Coatl he greets me with a smile and a drink. Sometimes I'm on and off the station so fast that I have to chug the drink. Other times we'll spend the whole night together, reminiscing.

I owe him one. More than one.

"Captain Helios," I say to my flag captain sitting beside me, never breaking eye contact with Caliban. "Send a message to Sanctuary. I want my personal XIV capital squadron prepped for anti-AI engagement. Break out the artifact weapons." I pause for a moment. "Order a full mobilization of the home defense battlefleets, in case the Tri-Tachyon launch a revenge attack."

"Sir!" Helios replies, snapping a salute. She's out the door moments later, a single marine as an escort, barking orders of her own to her AI assistant.

"It's as good as done," I say to Caliban.

"Thank you, Admiral," he says back, cracking that smile of his. For a moment there's a brittle edge to it, a worry he tries to hide. After all, he knows just how powerful a force I'm mobilizing to do this job of his. He knows that with this fleet, I could challenge Dowd, and throw the Hegemony into civil war.

I smile back at him. "You're welcome, Caliban," I say to him, "If anyone else asked, I would laugh my way out the door. But for you, I will break the stars. Now let's have another drink. The night is young, after all."

[Hatter]

I'm interested in the politics of Caliban offering this. Experimental AI craft and anamolous fleet movements seem like something that could plausibly end up on Baikal 'The Dowd' Daud's desk.

Then, Daud starts running the numbers calls everyone together into the Big Important Room full of Top Men. They look over their anti-piracy commitments, the distress signal patrols, and the incredible overlap between them. They do the math, then do the math again. They realize this is going to cost Chicomoztoc's yearly production in scrapped hulls. For the good of the sector, they begin discussing preperations.

Then Caliban polishes off his glass of '64 Eventide vintage, stands up, and says 'Dowd- Daud, give fifty million credits and I can get this solved.'

Everyone knows who Caliban calls in to solve problems. All of the Top Men titter. They don't approve of Caliban spending his nights with the most prominent figure of an upstart periphery power.

Daud is unmoved. Fifty mega-creds may be cheaper than the cost of mobilization and expected losses, but the Hegemony has responsibility to see this through.

Caliban sits through the rest of the meeting, but he isn't really listening. He's running through the budget.He strips out two galas, a ship procurement, and a half-cycle of mainteniance for some of the more busted fleet ships. He's able to whistle up a million credits. He looks harder, and realizes that if cancels that Lasher procurement he's going to have to fight approximately four duels over it.

He can't make up the difference: the emergency fund is bone dry: he had to rebuild the station when the big pirate fleets knocked it offline. He swears there's more converted Atlas' than stock at this point. It will be a month, minimum, before the Hegemony can assemble the task force to deal with this. That gives him enough time to rustle up a premium spirit and brush up on his persausion, weedling, fast-talking, and outright begging. Pitching this is going to be hard.

930,000 credits is nowhere near enough, but it's what he has. Also a charming whiskey from Gilead.

Anyways, I'm really looking forward to when Omega intersects with the story! Right now the only interaction is giving Kanta an Omega Weapon, I think. Otherwise they're just there, ominous. Spending all their time X-posing.

the AI fleet he's asking me to take out is a menace that could destroy worlds, topple polities, and the Hegemony is offering barely enough to cover a new Onslaught.

But Thaago, I'm a a menace that could destroy worlds, topple polities, and people try to kill for less!

The pathers hanging out in a slipstream gve me a choice between paying ~10k credits or death. I had an end-game fleet. Also enough credits to Trivially pay them, but it's the principle of the thing :|.

[Thaago]

I can't believe I misspelled Daud...

I like the idea of Caliban scrounging up the 930k only semi-officially cause everyone else is too hidebound. And what's the fallout when he comes whistling in to the next meeting with a fresh bottle of whiskey and says 'welp, I solved it for 1 million, can I get that reimbursed?' Nice stuff there.

I can kind of see it as a montage where Caliban just keeps getting more and more outlandish things done for way under budget, but also his discretionary bar spending is flagged for internal audit.