A Trader's Woes - Part 1

Here, take a seat. You asked where I was the last few days, well, let me tell you. Actually, before I start, I am going to open a bottle of that smuggled Gallente stuff. I was going to sell it for a nice amount of ISK to some corp exec with special tastes and no scruples about buying illegal imports, but I need something really strong now. Here have some too.

All right, so it started four days ago. As you know, my trading subcontract from Kaalakiota was not turning out so well, and we both know what happens to unsuccessful subcontractors, right? I really don't know what I was thinking when I took on that license in Defsunun of all places. In the middle of nowhere, in Aridia, with only Amarr settlers around. I guess I reckoned, that so far out, close to the borders of the Empire, I'd get myself some good deals with the capsuleer alliances claiming the regions even further out on the fringes of the Galaxy.

You have to know, those Amarr border settlers are the worst of the whole lot. Religious puritans to the extreme. Sure, officially they are our allies, but that does not mean they like to buy our stuff. I tell you, some of those people refuse to even touch stuff that does not have a seal of approval from the Empress herself, and wasn't washed with the consecrated tears of a hundred holy virgins. Anyway I digress.

So I am sitting in my trade office, fretting about the figures of my business all being stagnant when they are not plummeting. While I'm sitting there, wondering how I can make ends meet, the secretary I haven't paid for a month announces that someone wants to speak to me. I tell her to send them in, and that girl appears in my office. Cute young thing, in this weird Amarr way. You know those doll-like dames with skin like cream and hair so light-coloured it's almost white? Sort-of graceful and feminine, but with that look on their faces as if all of them are a better sort of human being, just because they have a woman running the business over there.

I had a weird feeling about her the moment she walked in, so I ran her ID on my workstation. Turns out she used to be a capsuleer with the 24^th Crusade. You know, that's the Amarr equivalent of our State Protectorate. Mostly capsuleers and some regular Amarr Navy elite crews giving the Minmatar a run for their money. When I say 'used to' I am actually meaning this in a very literal sense, because she is listed as being dead.

Give me the bottle I need another one.

Of course I put on my best Pettokori-face and don't let on what I found out, but still her first words were. 'You are surprised to see me here alive and well, tradesman Aluvetti.' It was a statement, not a question, and she looks at me with those gray eyes like she's a corp auditor who knows every little detail about me. I still try to play it smooth though. I mean, you know me, I'm willing to listen to any business-proposal if it's bound to make ISK. That was even more the case with my position, facing an audit in only a week and not much value to my name. Also there was something in the way she said those words. Something that tells me I want to hear her out. No idea what it was, but I did. I guess I shouldn't have.

So I tell her I'm not asking questions if the deal looks right and she smiles at me as if she already knew I'd say that. She adds a satisfied nod to the package and drops the contract on me. Well that was when my professional composure suffered, and it would not be the last time in this episode. I reckon I must have had a look on my face like a startup exec making his first big hit on the market.

What she had there on sale was not just some valuable stuff. I'm talking several thousand tons worth of the most rare ores. Arkanor, Crokite and more of the kind, all compressed to the highest density. And that wasn't all. There was a long list of things, most of which I had to look up in the trade register because I've never heard of them. It was the sort of material used for Tengu class ships, just that I have never seen the base materials for such a construction before, only finished parts at insane prices. With a stock like that you would be able to build any ship of that sophistication. The Gallente, the Minmatar or the Amarr variant, just as well as a Tengu. And not only one, a small fleet's worth of what the trade register calls 'Strategic Cruiser Subsystems'. I couldn't believe my eyes.

'If you doubt the legitimacy of my offer you are welcome to inspect the cargo in person.' that young woman says with her stilted Amarr accent.

Of course I tell her, that I would certainly wish to do so. I didn't quite take her seriously. I thought it must be a scam of some sort. To be honest, wouldn't you? I mean, she was a capsuleer, all right, but she looked so young and inexperienced. I did mention that she was also officially dead, right? I wonder whether it was there that everything began to go wrong, or right at the moment when I decided to hear her out instead of reporting her immediately.

Pour me another one, will you.

So we go to inspect the cargo hold of this Orca-class mining ship. I reckoned that it was not her ship. When I checked her, I found out that she was not certified to fly such a ship, at least not before her 'death'. I saw quite a few crewmen, all Caldari. Mostly Achura and some Deteis. Two of those tagged along as guards. They carried heavy plasma guns and wore nano-powered armor suits. Another one of those details that should have screamed 'Get out of this now!' at me, but all the cargo checked out fine. I was too busy running the numbers on this sweet deal to think of anything else. At this point I begin to feel much better about the upcoming audit, and then all hell breaks loose.

I don't know where they came from or how they got onto the station, let alone that ship, but all of a sudden, a whole unit of Amarr commandos storms in with guns blazing and do their best to disrupt this business deal. Those Deteis troopers return fire, and I dive for cover with the feeling that my stocks just crashed again.

Ducking and running like crazy I try to come up with a way to salvage this. It occurs to me that I still have that contract offer on my portable. I figure, if I could link up with the corporate network, close the deal and add some insurance clause, I could at least get the ISK transferred even if I might lose the goods. I know, that's not how you run a straight business, but I was on overdrive like a prime share on it's first day of trading. I hide behind some containers and link my portable to the fluid-router trying to find contractors to bite before this deal is fouled. All around me, high powered weapons are being fired and then I feel a vibration The ship was moving! Shortly after that, my fluid-router link got cut off. I only found out later how that happened.

The next thing I remember is that Amarr waif grabbing me from behind and twisting me around in some way that happens way too fast for me to figure out what she did. Then that girl, probably half my weight, slams me to the ground as if it's nothing. Right when I am lying there trying to figure out what just happened she strikes me at some extremely painful point on the side of my throat and I pass out.

All right, fill up the glasses, because I can tell you, this is the point where it becomes even weirder.

A Trader's Woes - Part 2

When I woke up I was on another ship. I felt the slight vibration of engines before I could even see straight, so we were obviously moving. When I came to, I could see from the surroundings that it must be a Caldari vessel, so I knew it wasn't the Orca. The typical gray metal and glass was unmistakable. I was sitting, stripped down to my briefs, and noticed right away that my hands were bound behind my back with some sort of compound rope that only became tighter when I struggled against it. My legs were also bound to the chair with the same stuff. I also noticed a woman sitting across from me at the end of a large smoky-gray transparent table.

It wasn't the Amarr girl from before, but a taller more mature looking one with long black hair. Not a bad one. Oval face, tan skin, full lips. When she looked at me over some datapad she was reading from, however, her intense dark eyes seemed like they were burning through me.

'Where am I and who are you?' I ask her. I am not even really scared at that moment, just confused. My throat hurts like I have a severe case of Jita fever, though. Things slowly start coming back to me when this woman gets up and walks over to me. Great body, but something about her gives me a feeling like a deal that is too good to be true.

'Mikkai Aluvetti, subcontractor tradesman for Kaalakioota. That is your identity?' she half states, half asks with an accent that tells me what I had already suspected: She's Gallente. Right there I begin to feel quite a bit worried about what I've gotten myself into.

'Are you Federal Intelligence or something?' I wonder at her while she sits down on the surface of the table just in front of me. Normally I wouldn't mind a woman of such looks being that close, but I am bound and, like I said, there's something about her that makes me feel definitely uncomfortable.

She only laughs as a response, and then she levels that penetrating gaze at me. 'There's something I wanted to demonstrate to you.' she stands, and I get the feeling it wont be a marketing presentation. 'The Intaki people have long preserved ancient medical knowledge of the pre-technological age.' she begins to flex her fingers in some really disconcerting way and I'm getting a really bad feeling about this. 'They knew about the connections in our nervous systems with certain organs. For example there's a nerve strand here.' and with that she pinches me at the top of my left pectoral muscle and inside my armpit. I tell you, the pain that shot through my chest was like nothing I ever felt. My heart did one heavy thump in my chest. I felt my ribcage shake with it, and then blackness took over my vision.

It took only a few seconds or so, but those were the longest seconds in my life. 'If it is blocked, then the heart stops beating. Fascinating isn't it?' she adds with an unsettling tone almost like amusement when my senses return.

I still feel like I am dying, and I'm breaking out in sweat, but I also reckon there can be a deal made here. 'What do you want?' I ask her half consciously.

She looks at me with those black eyes and nods. 'You are a quick one tradesman Aluvetti. You tried making some ISK with a scam while there was a vicious firefight going on around you. Not a very nice thing to do, but crafty and resourceful. Fortunately for all involved parties besides you, we managed to jam your uplink with the ECM on this ship here.' She cracks the joints of her fingers and then continues. 'So will you tell me how you sold out my companion to the Amarr? Or do I have to demonstrate some more functions of your nervous system?' she threatens.

Now I feel like someone is trying to bill me for something I didn't order. 'What are you talking about?' I ask her 'The dead girl? No way! That was the sweetest deal I ever saw. The damn Amarr messed it up for me.' I can tell you I very sincerely hoped she would believe me. I didn't want my heart stopped or feel that pain again.

She just nods and simply says 'I really believe you.' then she puts two fingers each on both sides of by sternum and presses hard. Again pain shoots through my body and I gasp for air, but it doesn't help. I feel panic like never before.

Oh man is this drink already finished, well there's more in the bottle, right?

'See, these immobilize the intercostal muscles. That means you can't expand and collapse your ribcage anymore. Makes it hard to breathe doesn't it?' she calmly explains while I struggle like a fish on dry land and try to hold on to consciousness.

When she finally took her hands off me, that first breath of processed air felt like closing a deal with a billion ISK profit. 'Why do you keep torturing me, you said you believed me?!' I scream at her as soon as I am halfway capable to do so.

'You do not understand tradesman, this is not torture, this is an educational session.' She pulls up a chair, sits, and looks into my eyes. 'You need to be aware of the consequences of betrayal.' she runs a finger along my exposed right arm and I am trembling with fear at what she would do next. She puts pressure on some point close to my elbow and all the muscles of my upper arm contract in a way I never thought possible.

'You see, there are pressure points that can make your muscles tense up so much, that they will eventually snap. Or they could break your joints with their excessive force.' she tells me as she releases me again. My bicep is trembling uncontrollably. 'You now understand that you could suffer a very painful and slow death at my hands, don't you?' she adds to it.

I just nod and hope that this will satisfy her. When she looks at me in an urging way, I tell her that I certainly do.

'Very good.' she says with that annoyingly smooth Gallente accent. 'If we are to do business with each other, it is very important that both of us understand the underlying conditions.' she walks around me and releases the self-tightening compound ropes that have kept me bound to the chair. I don't even think of running. All I want to do is try to work the cramps and the pain out of my body while she gets that datapad she was looking at earlier.

'You are still interested in closing the deal my companion has offered on our behalf I assume?' she says when she returns to sit again.

Now she's talking my language. I almost forget all the pain and anxiety right then and there. All I can do is nod eagerly.

'We will trade directly with you, circumventing all broker's fees for both parties.' she tells me like I didn't know how that works 'You are not to disclose any information about your sources. We will provide flight recorder data that confirms you found this load adrift and claimed it according to salvaging rights granted by the Yulai Convention.' That, I had to admit, was a smart move. 'You have seen that there is some inconvenience for us doing business in this region. You have also just been demonstrated what the consequences would be if you broke our agreement. I guess I can rely on you acting accordingly?'

I tell her that she can be as sure as the fact that the stock market will reopen for trade tomorrow.

Ah, damn I got a real buzz going on now. That stuff is good.

Well, that's about all of the story. We closed the deal after agreeing on some clauses, and they gave me a shuttle to fly back to my trade office. Why I tell you all this despite the warnings? Well, the stuff they have on offer is way more expensive than what I can afford right now. You have been my best business partner throughout many years and you can keep a secret, I know that. Thing is I need the funds to take the stuff off of them, and I know you have them. Here take a look at the itinerary. We will make three times the buy value if we sell this to the right manufacturers. I cut you in with fifty. You're in, right?