The first delivery of the starships came in. Six Corvettes were now in, and we scrambled to fill them out. Recruiting agencies called, and much to our surprise, more unmodified ships came on their heels a day later, leaving us scrambling even harder as they overdelivered to us before we could even get our heads on straight. The people left the ships after we sent them the Federation Credits, and they fucked off faster than we could believe. All of them seemed to understand that this was an underground delivery and wanted nothing to do with it.
To our surprise, we were also contacted by Ura's contact, who said more would be on the way soon. Something happened on his en,d and they were rushing things and then said he was giving us a service to cover their own asses. They destroyed the existence of the deliveries on their side. We were handed ownership of the ships, but on their side, they had been in a recent training accident, and new codes had been made for the ships.
It was intense, and we were now in charge of what you would call Creatively updated ships that were over sixty years old, even though they were clearly brand new. These ships were now under codes that called them sixty-year-old discarded ships sold to civilians like us. Us paying top dollar for them was the most suspicious thing, but Ura was intensely happy.
So Ura and I got moving.
A recruiting agency got us six captains, and we had no worries about them. They were not the best or most expensive, but all had solid track records and were clean. We did not have time to go out of our way and get risky people. Instead, these people were only for the Legit Ships. They would never know of the Smuggling operations we would be doing with the other ships in the future.
Then there was a problem of a lack of protection and Engineers. Our compensation package attracted one little cutie who was looking to get out of the military after a bad mission. She was a little Beebeeb, a race of smaller people. She had pink skin, and the maximum height her race could reach, which was a giant by their standards, was four feet two inches. They were typically around three feet and had two arms, two legs, and two hands, which were situated where, on a human, they would be the hips. They looked odd, but they could fit into small places. She was a little standoffish and did not talk too much in the interview, but Emily vouched for her as a friend. Emily warned us not to put her on a ship where we were smuggling, though, as the girl would rat us out.
So we sent her out in the Legitimate ships, but a day later, she convinced another little Beebeeb to join us. Another Slipstream Engineer and we started getting more attention for a great compensation package. This led us to another major issue: protection. Enyo had yet to complete the training of any of the bounty hunters, so we were lacking in protection, which is why Enyo told us just to hire some bodyguards in the meantime. Stop fretting over having the best right now and send them out with at least something that has them bringing in the Credits.
Overall, it took us a week after the delivery of the ships to get the first six out with registration and to man them. They went out with a skeleton crew, but they were all legitimate ships bringing in Federation credits into our Corporation. Ura was extremely happy with it, and her smile was bright as the First Captain made a delivery, which gave us a good hundred thousand credits for the Corporation. Ura's contacts also loved her for filling in the much-needed small emergency delivery business. Only two of the legitimate ships had engineers and no medical staff, but they had a Captain who was a pilot and a couple of bodyguards with good weapons.
To keep things safe, we required the bodyguards to have someone live at our Headquarters till their contract was up. They received a generous compensation package for that until we were ready to change the protection for Bounty Hunters.
This led to another issue that both Ura and I had expected as we finally said goodbye to the six captains. I found myself cornered by Nyahdia, which led to an awkward conversation. "So am I no longer going to be a 'aptain?" Nyahdia demanded answers from me as we took a trip away from Burvine for an emergency delivery. We would also pick up an emergency delivery to a resistance movement in the sector.
I winced and sighed, "You are going to be a captain," I said bluntly, and she hit the wall behind me and glared at me.
"Then why am I not on one of those ships you just sent out?" Nyadia demanded, and I looked at the door and at her.
We were in my crafting area. I moved past her a little, closed the bulkhead, sealed the room from unwanted ears, and looked Nyahdia in the eyes. "Because I want you for another bounty-hunting mission," I told her. "I found a bounty that I want to go for." Nyahdia frowned, and I grabbed my tablet and I pulled up the bounty that I had been looking into.
The next planet we were going to was a Forest world, and civilization was among the trees. To my surprise, it was not an elven world but a race of Humans who first colonized it, and they initially made a ton of credits on Tourism. That was until they had an uprising against the elite a hundred years later and fell into anarchy. It was only twenty years ago, that the Federation took back over the Tree Cities. That being said, they had not taken back the surface of the planet.
Now, the Rebels are on the surface and trade with the Federation, but they are also now a bastion of criminals. On the surface, there was something called Anarchy City, and the laws there were that no federation laws were there and that there was no violence inside the city. It was their trade hub.
But step outside that city, and you find yourself in Law of the Jungle, and the federation decided it was not worth the death toll to liberate it and bring the law back to the surface.
Reason?
There was a fucking city of people in the trees, and if they started blowing shit up on the surface, those trees would topple, hitting parts of the city down. There was only one law in the jungle that the people stuck to on this planet when I was reading it.
NEVER CUT DOWN THE TREES.
The trees were basically Jesus Christ to the Christians. The very thought of doing damage to the trees was a taboo that would have you killed by anyone on the planet. The people on the planet were insane about their trees, and so they would typically defend them to their last breath. In fact, some of the largest trees were not even allowed to be built on and were considered holy places.
All of this led to the Bounty that I picked. I turned it around and showed it to Nyahdia.
—------------
Bounty board Quest: Wipe out the Tree Cutters
Information from a solid and reliable source has reported that the group of Terrorist Tree Cutters on the Green Goddess Planet is planning on doing something big. They have held up in a cave a hundred kilometers to the north of Anarchy City. Due to conflicts between the Federation, Anarchy City, and other groups on the planet's surface, they have put up a bounty to stop the tensions from increasing.
There are no people they wish to capture, so there will be no bonuses for captured criminals.
All people inside the designated Cave are considered criminals and are free to be killed on sight.
The leader of the Tree Cutters is Unknown. You will receive a large bonus if you find information leading to identifying the leader of their group, and an even larger one if you kill them.
Reward: 100,000 Federation Credit, Equipment rewards based on the Number killed.
—-------------------
"This is a hard bounty quest," Nyahdia said slowly, "Do they have numbers?" Nyahdia asked.
"Not solid ones again. The biggest issue is that they also don't have any bounties on these people. But additional information was added to it. Take a look," I said, pulling it up and showing it to her.
—---
Bounty board Quest Potential information update.
Time Sensitive
The information says that a large group of them will leave in 22 hours, 14 minutes, and 25 seconds to undergo an operation, and they might be susceptible to something happening during that time.
Information Reliability 8 and a half out of 10 stars.
—----
"An eight n' a half," Nyahdia said slowly and nodded. "This seems good; the reward should be massive, too, and the loot from a terrorist organization should not be small. What is the reward from the Bounty Hunter organization?" Nyahdia asked.
"They don't say much, which is the sketchiest part," I said honestly, leaning back. The Hundred Thousand Credits is a large amount of credits for an operation, but I think the secondary ones will be best. I think this will rank us up, too. I want to go up one more rank before next month." I told her honestly, and she frowned. "That and I think there will be some nice goodies there. Also, we have more ships to fill and are looking for people to fill them. I would rather have you with the Bounty hunters so you can go have fun and bounty hunt than sit in the ship till we are done."
Nyahdia still looked a little annoyed, but she looked at the bounty. "This does look like fun," She admitted. "But we will need to stop and pick up some guns before going down. We might have some firepower, but we will need something to blow them up a bit. This is an ambush; if we are to set it up, we need something to maximize confusion, which is what explosions do best."
"Okay, I was also planning to get there at least two hours early since we are already coming in for a landing soon. I was honestly about to call you in and get you to do it. Also, they gave us a recent map of the area from the trees." I told her, and I pulled it up. Nyahdia nodded.
"I will get Meemee and Emma," Nyahdia said. I smiled until she left, and then I frowned.
This was going to be a harder Mission. The Manufactory told me we had been lucky to attack when we had. I had been looking into the planet, and this was one of the few places where we were going to have a longer layover. We had to wait two days for the deliveries that were happening on this planet. That gave us time to do this Bounty without rushing around like idiots. If we took it, we would have time to set up and clean the place. I had just found this bounty when Nyahdia came to confront me, and I could tell she wanted her own ship.
The biggest reason that I kept Nyahdia around was that we were close to the tutorial end date. The ships had come in, and the Crafting I had been doing was probably the farthest I was going to get. I had gotten a couple more things while working on it, but this was my last chance to get combat traits before the tutorial finished. I had to do it, and hopefully, I will have a little time for Ura afterward before entering the main universe. I needed a final Bounty, and then I would join the Main Universe. I hoped this was everything I needed it to be.
Meemee, Emma, and Nyahdia entered, and I turned my attention to them, pulled up the map, and started talking, updating them on the mission. Then we went into the details, and I decided I was going to invest heavily into this bounty and buy things that my crew thought were needed. As soon as they were updated, we got to planning.
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