Report of Sharyl, Hilfer System (Aboard Shinkiro)
We came in at the far edge of Hilfer space, at Tiria, the outer iceball with seas of liquid methane. There we refuelled and lay quiet. When a pair of haulers came to drink the same seas, we struck. It was hard work – they had teeth enough – but we prevailed. We took 18 tons of common electronics and 11 tons of advanced manufactures. That was good prize, though we had too few men: the weapons and training to win a fight, but barely enough to prevent a fight. Had the freighter crew been fools enough, they might have tried to fight us.
Three days later we felt we knew enough and burned in towards Hilfer’s Highport. After six days in the dark of space, we found a subsidised freighter, soft and fat with cargo. We cut away a classic ground car worth two hundred thousand, seized 50 tons of uncommon ore, and took 45,000 in hard, Imperium credits from the ship’s safe. The highport made no answer. No challenge, no sirens, no fleet rising. Only silence. Hilfer still lies weak, wounded, scarred since Drinax burned it. I looked down and saw the broken lands, the deserts where once there had been fields. I thought: here is soil that cries out for stronger ownership to heal it. But no one comes: not yet.
After, we turned back outwards, seven days to Sesqui, another iceball. We topped our tanks there and scouted. We saw a mining installation. At Sesqui-2, the moon, we counted jump-flashes – several ships, running dark, too far to follow. A flotilla, perhaps. Were they closer then we might have sought glorious battle.
Our holds full with plunder, we returned. Fencing the prizes will bring fair coin, I am told, but the details of money are lost on me, for counting coins and accounting for their journeys is the work of our females. Still, this was honest pirate work: if those from whom we took prizes were stronger, they would not deserve to forfeit them to us. This is undeniable.
We did not take the 400-ton liner that crossed our sight. Too well-defended, too great a risk for too few boarders. Honour is not found in feeding one’s men heedlessly and greedily to plasma fire.
Final note: three mercenary cruisers were seen in-system. One refuelled near highport, one jumped out, one burned out toward Tiria, and one remained docked. With the system crawling with mercenaries, Rog and Vas judged it wise to lie quiet until the rendezvous. I agreed. Empty glory is not worth a ship’s loss.
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