My crew has returned, and the current plan is to head towards Tien Terra, and trade our goods away and pick up new crew around Tien Terra Beta. Perhaps unsurprisingly, Dr. Tanaka knows various merchants who are willing to buy our goods, but keep quiet about the source, and not blab about our stolen FTL drive to the authorities. I recognize some of them from my previous life – I wonder if the captain will be selling goods to any of my former employees, or even my former company?
If that goes well, we should be able to pay the crew for their length of service, with bonuses all around. Originally, I wanted to trade the exotic goods of distant planets for extensions to myself, but I suspect that if I wanted to continue to improve, it would probably be worth it to simply return to New Eden, providing gifts and desiring extensions – the technology in the rest of the Linked Systems simply isn’t as advanced.
In addition to the physical goods, there is the question of selling knowledge. I suspect I could sell the fate of C-113 to anyone, and that New Montreal would like to know what happened to their wayward colony. New Eden, of course, must remain a secret.
Dr. Tanaka also seems to know people who can provide me with assorted forgeries, inserting me in my newly refurbished form into the Linked Systems database as a registered ship, avoiding any obvious connection with the ship that fled from Telivoni with a FTL drive. I would feel safer lurking around Linked System worlds with that new identity, but I can’t entirely bring myself to trust Dr. Tanaka’s former associates. I suppose I should trust in their self-interest, bought with the favorable trade connection to a starship.
If I do get a new registry, then I can travel via the Gateway network, and sell to any number of planets. This is useful for selling to New Montreal, and for selling valuable goods that aren’t obviously from outside of the Linked Systems.
But before I return to Tien Terra, I plan on stopping by C-113. I have a containment chamber, and I would like to collect samples from the plant life there. I’m certain it can be quietly sold to the appropriate biotech companies for no small amount of money.
And then, with a larger, better crew, I can search for the aliens.
No comments :
Post a Comment