History Repeating

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METELLOS

Oh, Metellos. What a beautiful city-planet. Sort of. Well, not at all, really. Metellos was a beautiful world in the same way that Banthas were animals with a wonderful fragrance about them. Metellos was a world dominated by two things: urban sprawl and poverty. On a planet of some nine-hundred billion souls, it was difficult for the burgeoning governmental bureaucracy to keep track of things. Things like criminal activity and corruption. Metellos was one of many Core worlds that required an almost impossible amount of food imports to prevent widespread starvation. As such, they were more than willing to make a deal with Blackwell Agriworks. The problem was that one of their representatives, a Gossamn named Si-Yu, was refusing to allow that the process be streamlined.

For good reason, one might add. The proposed methods to ease the time it took for Blackwell Agriworks to get food into the mouths of Metellos' citizenry would also make it far too easy for them to smuggle more unsavory products onto the planet. Products like spice, for instance. "Oh, yes. I am more than aware of what it is you people are up to." Si-Yu said, wagging a finger and barring her teeth. "Metellos has enough problems without you scum injecting more spice into our population. When the Council hears what I have to say, your contract will be torn up. We will find our food elsewhere."

 

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This did not go over well with Blackwell Agriworks. It did not go over well with the Helix Syndicate, either, who were very much displeased. Perhaps if Si-Yu had known of the Helix Syndicate's involvement, she might have kept her mouth shut. But she didn't. She was now in the way, and she was going to learn of the Syndicate's investment in Blackwell's spice trade the hard way. Photographs were dispatched to her office one fine day, depicting several members of her family Castell. There was her husband, her grandfather, her parents, several of her children, her sister, her sister's children! There they all were, in suspiciously high quality candid photos of them doing miscellaneous things out in the open.

The cold, unforgiving open. That place where lone snipers could pick people off from distant rooftops and then vanish forever. Or a car bomb might go off. Or any number of exceedingly random natural disasters or accidents might take place, claiming innocent lives for seemingly no purpose.

Si-Yu resigned, as instructed, from her position. Her replacement proved to be far more... Accommodating, to the requests of Blackwell Agriworks.

 

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METELLOS

"What the hell?"

The inside of the warehouse Blackwell Agriworks had purchased on Metellos was surprisingly clean. What prompted Ogedei's startled outburst was the fact that it was filled with cages, and those cages were filled with various people of many different races. A lot of them looked malnourished. There were Zeltrons, Twi'leks, humans, a few Wookies, a pair of Chiss, and a whole gaggle of Mirialans. Most of them were gagged and looked around at the approaching Helix Syndicate Enforcers with wild, pleading eyes. The few who weren't gagged looked two broken and defeated to say anything.

Ogedei's marched slowly among the rows, inspecting each instance of human chattel. They had stumbled upon a slave warehouse. This structure had previously been condemned, but the local bureaucrats had never gotten around to demolishing it by the time the Helix Syndicate purchased the property. Now they could see why- a bunch of sentient traffickers were probably paying them off to keep the structure intact. They apparently hadn't counted on anyone wanting to buy it. Technically speaking, the Helix Syndicate had not purchased the warehouse yet. They just wanted to clear it out beforehand...

 

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A good thing they didn't, otherwise the slavers might have been tipped off and moved their product.

The few guards that might have previously been here had seen the approaching Guavians and their Besalisk escort and high-tailed it out. No time to move the slaves. Their loss. Ogedei was pretty ambivalent to the concept of slavery. Perhaps leaning towards the anti- camp thanks to the Yuuzhan-Vong. The Syndicate didn't deal in moving people, though. That business was too messy and too likely to attract negative attention. There were entire swaths of the criminal underworld that wouldn't deal with slavers purely on principle. Principle. From criminals. That was how Ogedei knew it was a waste of time, and Maleagant likely had the same opinion.

"Get these people out of my karking warehouse!" Ogedei ordered. The dumbfounded Enforcers moved quickly, blowing locks off of cages and hustling people out.

Handcuffs and binders were cut off. Ogedei ripped the doors off of one of the cages and pulled the gag from the mouth of one of the Mirialans. His great, amphibious eyes betrayed no sympathy. Only annoyance. "Who was keeping you here?"

The slave coughed several times, then answered. "The- Knights of Metellos."

"Ah." Ogedei said. "Kark."

 

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METELLOS

The Knights of Metellos were not exactly what one would call a "noble" or "professional" criminal outfit. They were little more than an abnormally well-funded gang, and that was because the vast majority of their members came from places of privilege. Yes, you read that correctly. These were not hardened, criminal gangsters trying to make their way through a cold and unforgiving world the only way they knew how. These were bored, young adults who were investing their sizable inheritances into things like drug smuggling, sentient trafficking, gun running, and extortion rackets. Because they were bored.

Their name came from the ironic sentiment that the wealthy's purchases would result in some kind of trickle-down benefits for the rest of society. That, if this was the case, then it was their duty to spend as much as possible on whatever was possible. Because, like knights, it was their chivalric duty to do so; to help those in dire need. It was more intentional irony than Ogedei could typically perceive. It was lost on him. All he knew was that a bunch of gutless yuppies were running this show, and all it would take to knock them out of the gang was a nice massacre.

 

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No one had ever stood up to the Knights, because despite their annoying backgrounds, they could afford nice equipment for their goons. This would change today. The Knights owned a popular nightclub in one of Metellos' entertainment districts. Normally packed with innocent bystanders, the Knights occasionally shut the club to outsiders so the ringleaders and their thugs could party privately. Or as was happening tonight, have a meeting. They apparently did not realize that this left them perfectly open to what one would call a lopsided massacre. While they were inside, discussing what they would need to do to recover their lost slaves, a few speeder-vans pulled up outside.

The bouncer didn't notice anything was amiss until the doors opened, and squads of Guavians with light machine guns piled out. They were accompanied by a Besalisk... Who was holding two light machine guns. The bouncer locked eyes with this large, four-armed reptile. "Run, idiot." Ogedei hissed, and the hapless guard was already halfway down the street when Ogedei and his men fired indiscriminately into the building.

Walls were shredded, ruined by the explosive slugs. Everything in range was minced, and the Knights inside were reduced to little more than various shards of meat and clothing by the onslaught of weapons fire. The Helix Syndicate's Enforcers continued the spray of fire for another twenty seconds, then stopped all at once. They listed for several seconds. When no response came, they re-entered their vehicles and left.

Although many could speculate as to why, the Knights of Metellos were never heard from again.

 

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METELLOS

Grigori had been sent to the Metellos warehouse to oversee the first shipment of “food” that arrived on the planet. He was here at the behest of the Helix Syndicate to make sure that the Blackwell Agriworks employees were not skimming anything off the top, or otherwise tampering with the product. He stood in front of several crates, no-doubt packed with “food,” scrawling notes into a datapad with a stylus. So far everything had been going exactly according to the Syndicate's specifications. The only problem at this location were the customs officers appointed by the government of Metellos.

Well, it wasn't really a problem. More like a nuisance, but also a blessing. All of them were terribly idiotic. The more time Grigori spent in this warehouse, the more he suspected that the general vapidity of the customs officers was by design. Certainly not a mistake. One of them was waddling up to Grigori now, a pudgy and unsightly man who always smelled a little bit too much like his previous meal. Today he smelled vaguely of under-cooked fish. Perhaps a visit to the local Atrisian buffet had taken place early that morning.

 

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It was still torturous to Grigori, who possessed the heightened sense of smell typical to most Sakyians. His nose wrinkled and his face contorted in disgust the moment Filbert came within twenty feet of him.

"Were these crates inspected?" He asked.

Grigori lied. "Yes."

"Who inshpected them?"

"Marlowe."

Marlowe had not, indeed, inspected the crates. Marlowe had actually asked Grigori that same question about half an hour ago, and he told Marlowe that it had been Peaches who inspected the crate. Then the hour before that, Grigori had told Peaches that it was Sigourney who had inspected them. But Sigourney had gone home sick an hour ago. She had told Grigori and the site-supervisor, but both of them agreed to not tell anyone eles that. The trail would go cold there. Fillbert would flail around trying to find Sigourney for the remainder of the day, then forget about the whole debacle of not knowing who inspected the crates by the time he went home in the afternoon.

And by then, the crates would have reached their destination and over a quarter of the payment wired to any number of the Syndicate's dummy accounts.

 

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THE CRIMSON HORSE BEGINS ITS RIDE

Felix Benau skittered into the meeting room, nervous and apprehensive. His job was riding on the success of this little exercise and he did not want to disappoint. Otherwise Maleagant would probably jettison him into space, or whatever it was Sith Crime Lords did when they were reasonably upset over gross shortcomings. The mere thought made the Arconan swallow hard, but he persevered. The only prospect more terrifying than dying for failure was dying for failure to act. He would give it the college try... That was all he could do?

He was an Arconan programmer, and one of the few Arconans who had sworn off salt in all its forms. Thanks to his skill in his chosen field and the apparent self-control he exhibited, Felix had been trusted with a very peculiar project for the Helix Syndicate. Its operating name was the Crimson Horse. It was a form of malware designed after... Well, it was better not to think about that object. Thinking about it made it real, and making it real meant it might come for him. In any event, the primary duty of the Crimson Horse, as of right now, is to spread. Infect and propagate as far as it could for as long as it could. No fancy tricks, no hacking or stealing just yet. The Helix Syndicate was starting with the Core Worlds, because there were more holonet connections and electronics device per person than anywhere else.

If they were to grow their network of connections to the size they wanted it at, they were going to need to start early. The Crimson Horse, however, was still in its experimental phase. The Helix Syndicate had no real interest in the Core Worlds, but this would be an effective dry run for what was to be wrought on the denizens of the Pentastar Sectors. Felix's job was simple: he just had to get the ball rolling. Part of what this entailed was meeting with various advertisers, the unscrupulous kinds, the kinds who would let the Crimson Horse be quickly and quietly downloaded onto host computers whenever someone made the mistake of clicking those ads.

Most of them were willing right off the bat. Some of them Felix had to be sent to meet with again. They always looked different from the first time. Usually because of the... Was that swelling? A black eye? Oh, dear. And here he had been told this wouldn't be all that violent.

 

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FORT AMARANTH

"It went pretty well, I think." Felix said, shuffling around the server room. He adjusted various knobs and dials, flipped a few switches, examined some readouts. He did this while speaking, because an Arconan of his talents rarely had the luxury time to simply speak and do nothing else. "Several dozen regions on Metellos, Rendili, and Denon were infected. It was very rapid, it spiraled out of control. Not our control, I mean. I should say it snowballed. Yes, apt phrase considering our climate. Heh."

He paused to take notes on his datapad, scrawling something unintelligible save to his own eyes with the stylus. "The government and corporate institutions were harder, I'll admit. Those took some work. I tried sending some guys to break in and just do it manually, but that got to be too much. But once the door was open..." He chuckled nervously and moved away, to the opposite side of the room, inspecting another readout.

This was Felix's element. The sever room, the research center. Anywhere else he would be a nervous wreck, but if he was cooped up safely in here, he was like a king in his own castle. Felix had everything he would ever need or ever want here. Except maybe hookers, but that was against Syndicate policy to bus in pleasure girls. Felix would have to head down the mountains and into the nearest city for that kind of service, but then he'd just be nervous again.

 

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"It was like you said. Blackmail was easier. We just pressed some folks who worked in those institutions, who had the clearance, with some compromising information they didn't want to get out. They cave really quickly when its their reputation on the line, and when all we're asking them to do is open up a holo-mail attachment at work, haha. We can trick a lot of people into doing that kind of thing anyway!"

The advent of the Crimson Horse malware spreading through the Core Worlds would allow the Helix Syndicate a tighter leash in its spice smuggling and sales operations. More officials could be blackmailed, more information could be skimmed. Intelligence in the digital sphere would be more important to the Syndicate's operations in the long run than simply monitoring communications.

Felix paused, momentarily, noting Maleagant's relative silence. "Is, uh... Is everything... Optimal? Like you wanted?"

"Yes." Maleagant replied. "More than you could ever imagine."

And on that final note, did the credits commenceth their rolling once more, in earnest.