A Caldari without corporate affiliation or personal business was worse than nothing. Someone who could not fulfill a valuable or productive function in the greater economic scheme was dead weight, contributing nothing to common prosperity. Such failures would be forced to pledge themselves to others so they might be given at least some role in society no matter how menial.
They would give up the last thing they
had. Their freedom of choice.
Some claimed that this was virtually
the same as slavery like in the Amarr Empire, but Kassina Vikkonen
could not disagree more.
In Amarr society, the masters were
personally responsible for their slaves. In that religious value
system – which Kassina had always found strange and archaic - the
slave-owners had to feed, clothe and house their thralls. The way
Kassina saw it – and Caldari society as a whole embraced basically
the same view – neither the master nor the slave could ever reach
their full potential as human being if they were not individually
responsible for their own destiny. The slaves, because they were not
free to follow their own chosen path, and the masters because they
were tied down by a responsibility which was imposed upon them. Both
sides became restricted in their freedom of choice, and because of
that restriction, the full potential of the society as a whole could
not be reached.
It followed from that view, that
corporate executives and directors would gain the highest reward from
the business they conduct. After all, they have chosen to carry the
majority of the risk. No diligent employee would have a problem
finding new work if their corporation went bankrupt. A failed CEO,
however, was damaged goods and could spend the rest of their lives
without another chance at coming back to the top. They better had
savings and shares that yield them dividends, otherwise they could
drop from the very top of society's ranks to the very bottom.
That is where Tomoe Sairinen now was.
After having lost all the assets of her corporation in a pointless
crusade against a group of pirates and the even less sensible pursuit
of that group of wormhole settlers, she had reached rock bottom. No
surprise that the former young executive had pledged herself fully to
Kassina Vikkonen. Not that the Deteis bounty hunter had any interest
in making use of the Civire woman, but – and that was a
surprise – Tomoe Sairinen was actually worth something to those
wormhole settlers she had been chasing.
Or so it had seemed at the beginning.
As things looked now, Kassina was not
so sure anymore.
After she had finally located the
hidden space-borne settlement of Awakened Industries, she found
herself between the fronts of a battle. She had decided that
discretion was better for business than misplaced heroics and had
decided to wait it out.
After all, she was a bounty hunter, not
a mercenary.
When that alien structure appeared like
a thunderhead above the fighting ships and spat out a swarm of
spacecraft that looked more like living things than something that
came out of a shipyard, Kassina knew that she was better off holding
position far away from the engagement and hidden by a cloaking field.
Eventually the battle came to a
standstill. Kassina was not quite sure who all the fighting parties
were, but clearly Awakened industries had remained standing, even if
badly battered and surrounded by those unknown biomechanoids which
kept buzzing around the burning wreckage that remained like a swarm
of alien insects.
Only then, Kassina tried hailing the
wormhole corporation on the frequency she had been provided for
contact. When she had received her answer she chose ten of her best
men, landed her Tengu class strategic cruiser on the flight deck of
the badly damaged Gallente carrier ship which was virtually all that
remained of the Awakened Industries' fleet, and escorted Tomoe
Sairinen to a meeting with the leader of this strange crew.
Things went downhill from there.
'I can only repeat what I have already
told you a few times.' that irritatingly calm Gallente commander said
tiredly. 'That contract was not issued by my corporation, but by an
individual.' He stroked his close-cropped beard as if he were
pondering the ramifications of that himself. 'And like I said, her
ship and pod got destroyed and we have not been in contact ever
since.'
Kassina leveled her pale-eyed gaze at
the Gallente from where she stood on the other side of the conference
table which dominated the room. Her escort platoon was spread out
behind her, facing the Awakened Industry guards who stood behind
their commander.
'That individual was a leading figure
within your corporation. Her word should be the word of the
corporation itself.' Kassina insisted sternly. The way how this man
calmly ignored her obvious logic began to test her patience. He
seemed to try and find a loophole so he could avoid responsibility.
That only infuriated her further.
'That's not the way we work.' Cedrien
Roucellis said curtly. 'We are not exactly under the jurisdiction of
the Caldari Business Tribunal here.' he added.
Kassina Vikkonen pressed her lips
together an took a deep breath. 'You should at least have the common
decency to stand behind the commitments of your personal friends.'
she suggested. If clear logic failed, Gallente can best be reached by
appealing to abstract ideals. She had found that out during previous
negotiations.
'Look outside.' The wormhole capsuleer
gestured at the wide row of windows offering a view of the
smouldering remains that were left from the past confrontation. Those
enigmatic spacecraft systematically tugged and tore at the wrecks
with prehensile mechanical limbs. 'Does that look like I have time to
deal with some small issue like your bounty contract?'
He furrowed his brow and actually began
to sound angry. 'My main starbase is in ruins. I have a fleet of
Sleeper Drones around me who might decide at any time that we are
their enemies after all, and the only thing that keeps them from
doing so is the hunch of a megalomaniac Matari scientist and two
catatonic capsuleers. Most of my crews are dead. The rest of my
capsuleers are stranded out in Empire space and the one you had a
contract with has not even answered any attempts to open
communication with her. I don't even know where her clone is!'
He stood up and leaned over the table.
Still considerably smaller than Kassina herself, he nevertheless
managed to bear down on her with his angry dark-eyed gaze. 'So, you
can either help me out here or you can wait until things get sorted,
or you can take your ship and find your own way home.' He
straightened and obviously prepared to leave.
'Aluvetti'. Tomoe Sairinen had been
sitting the whole time at the conference table in front of the Deteis
bounty hunter who had delivered her here. She had been staring
morosely at the table's transparent surface, but at the Gallente
commander's outburst she had raised her head and whispered a name.
'Mikkai Aluvetti knows where her clone
is kept.' The Civire woman said, raising her voice.
Cedrien stopped and turned to look at
her. 'How do you know that?' he asked with rekindled interest.
Tomoe straightened in her seat 'When I
was on the trail of your corporation, my first lead was Aluvetti. I
found out that he had been in contact with a number of operators
running unregistered cloning services in Syndicate. Through another
channel I learned that he had been looking for some wormhole
capsuleer of a corporation he did trading for. Your corporation'
Cedrien looked impressed. 'That sounds
promising.' He inclined his head and addressed Kassina Vikkonen
again. 'If you want your money, I suggest you listen to what this
woman has to say.' He smiled subtly. 'And if you find my missing
capsuleer I'll pay you a substantial extra amount.'
'How substantial?' Kassina Vikkonen
asked.
Finally they were talking a language
she understood.
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