Sean-Michael Argo - Trade War

Samuel was hopeful, about his friends and his own journey, yet he tempered that hope by preparing himself mentally and emotionally for what obstacles remained in their path. There was still a long and dangerous journey across Ellisian space, countless salvage missions that could prove deadly, and not everyone was going to make it back.

This was necrospace after all.

Years of war and seemingly endless hardship, the long haul out of Ellisian space, the grindingly slow expatriation process, and the treacherous journey across corporate space to reach the lawless frontier, had taken their toll on the former marine, but finally, the forest homestead they had endured so much to win was a reality.

Once he’d rendezvoused with Sura aboard the Rig Halo as it anchored in high orbit over the small forest planet, it all felt absolutely worth it.

Land was cheap when there was nobody who claimed to own it, and Sura had done well in using her time aboard the prospector ship to collect the supplies and building materials their family would need to settle in the wilderness.

Sura had been a valuable member of the Rig crew, and the spirited captain Dar had been willing to delay the next expedition so that they could wait for Samuel to arrive for a much more modest fee than he could have charged. Life on the frontier was hard, especially so far from the costly convenience of corporate civilization, but the Hyst family thrived.

Those had been some good years, thought Samuel to himself just as the shooting started, and an all too short time of peace considering the price we’ve paid. He tightened the grip on the rifle in his hands. Now there was a violent tithe to pay before that peace and liberty could be renewed.

Samuel desperately hurled his body to the ground to narrowly avoid being riddled with bullets as one of the slavers he was facing cut loose with a modified automatic pistol. The storm of small caliber rounds chewed through the underbrush, and from the shout of pain nearby Samuel assumed one of the posse members had been hit. The former marine did his best to tuck and roll, using his fall to get him a few extra feet away from the gunman.

Samuel could tell that he had been several years removed from the rigors of military life, as his physical conditioning was not what is had once been. Still, the years of experience were etched into his muscles, his very bones, and his body moved like it once had, heedless of what pain he might be in afterwards.

He came up out of the awkward, but moderately effective roll and began firing his rifle from a mid-guard position, allowing his instincts to guide his aim as he snapped shots toward the enemy. It was difficult to tell exactly how many there were in the thick forest, though Samuel could see that their ship took up most of the clearing nearby.

Samuel knew that he had to end this as quickly as possible. The longer he gave the slavers to react to the sudden ambush the more likely they would be able to regain the advantage thanks to their superior equipment and combat experience.

Life on the frontier was hard, and the folk who chose that kind of life were as hard as the space they settled. In many ways, the people who populated the small village of Longstride Beta, reminded him of frontier versions of his old comrade Vol, presumed long since dead in Vorhold’s deepspire.

They came from all walks of life, most of them like him, having found life in corporate space unsuitable and had struck out to the bleeding edge of mapped space in search of a different kind of freedom. Some were skilled techs or craftsmen, others just general laborers or unskilled folks, but few had any military experience.

That fact had landed Samuel in a leadership role, and despite several years off the job, Prybar had found himself falling back into his squad leader mindset with great ease.

The problem was that these hard-bitten settlers and adventurers weren’t marines, and these slaver operatives were most certainly Tasca cartel. The former marine knew he had to end this quickly, or what had begun as a clever ambush would swiftly turn into a bloodbath.

Samuel kept firing as he sprinted diagonally in relation to the shooter, managing to score a few hits, though he wasn’t convinced he’d killed anyone.

The slavers were wearing advanced dropsuits just like the operatives he’d faced in the void some years back, and it was likely that the armor would deflect anything but a clean direct hit.

Samuel’s rifle clicked dry and he dropped to a knee, allowing the thick foliage to obscure his position from any hostiles who might have been tracking his progress.

The posse, roughly a dozen shooters strong, was spread across nearly a hundred yards of forest floor. As ordered, most of them were hanging back and taking shots of opportunity when they could get an operative in their sights while Samuel and four others made a frontal assault.

The ex-marine had not expected the operatives to counter-attack so quickly, and in retrospect, Samuel felt like a fool for not recalling just how deadly these high-end operatives could be. He slapped in a fresh magazine he considered his situation.

The Longstride Community was a registered co-op with the Currency Control Complex, and dutifully paid their modest taxes to maintain their status. Though insignificant in the grand machinations of corporate space, the Longstride community’s registration kept them off the Red List. While that in no way guaranteed their safety from the multitude of dangers on the frontier, they were at least free from overt interference or predation by corporate interests.

Perhaps if the Longstriders had settled upon a world with rich resources, being a registered entity would not matter so much to the corporate mercenaries and expeditionary forces that would wipe them out and stake a claim, after the correct bribes and paperwork had been filed. Pirates and scavengers honored no codes or regulations.

As yet, none had sought to attack Longstride for a very specific reason, the very reason that Sura and Samuel had chosen to buy into the co-op and settle there. This primordial world had no real resource value, there were no mineral or gas deposits worth exploiting, and despite being covered in thick rain forests the profit margin of frontier timber was too small for corporate interest to concern itself.

The only commodity the fringe world had was its beauty, and other than the three small villages, each with populations of only a few hundred, and the occasional homestead, the world remained untouched by human industry. Such abstract value was meaningless to the corporate world, and so Longstride had nothing worth taking.

Sadly, there was one resource worth fighting over, thought Samuel to himself as he racked the slide of his rifle and began creeping low towards the clearing while his posse continued to exchange salvos with the operatives, and that was the Longstriders themselves.

The anger boiled in Samuel’s blood as he considered the harsh truth that even here, on the edge of the known universe, the hand of greed and exploitation could still strike them.

It made perfect sense in a horrific sort of way, that small non-militarized communities like Longstride would be soft targets for slavers. Likely this task force was moving through the sector, dropping human cargo on one of the outlaw agri-worlds or taking a shortcut across the frontier to reach some of the more far flung trading posts of corporate space and they noticed Longstride by happenstance.

There had been a violent raid on Longstride Alpha three days ago and Samuel had organized the posse to ambush the raiding party that he expected to assault Longstride Beta. This world was just a target of opportunity for the slaver crew, though once they were committed to action Samuel had a solid guess at the enemy’s most likely landing point.