Hell of a lot has happened, I hardly know where to start. We're finally out of Delve, for one thing. No more fedos either. I didn't ask too many questions, since Akrad and Anjell got the job done. That's good enough for me, and if we have more antimatter on requisition than normal, well, it's hardly a bit compared to how much Silver uses most days anyway. The smell is starting to clear out too, thank the ancestors. After this, I've had teams go through the new ships with a fine toothed comb. The Hurricanes in particular. Luckily our new operations station is Impro, and the Jove run a pretty tidy place. Not that I have anything against a little grunge here and there, but I might scream if I have to smell another fedo in the next week or two.
Before we left Delve, aside from the fedos, managed to take care of at least a couple of other things as well. Tests came back on the remains we found near the fedo-infested illicit supply cache. Crewman Atemer Ishugur, formerly of the Republic Navy. Brutor, Tallinir clan, from somewhere around Hek. We hired him last time we were in the Republic, he was one of the survivors from the
Utopian Guardian who stayed on after she was destroyed. Now, gets trickier. We still aren't sure what killed him, though Medical has mentioned some suspicious bruising on some bones, there was't much soft tissue by the time we got the fedos off him. We have confirmed - at least from what we could find after the fedos - that he was the one building the supply cache. There was some, small, traceable evidence recovered. Finally, we managed to check his accounts. 20000 isk in one of them. Now, Silver pays well, yeah, but not that well. Something else was going on. Why was he stockpiling the items? We are still conducting a full inventory to see what all might have been hidden, but so far it looks like mostly food, which doesn't make a lot of sense. Plus, he didn't have the access to jigger the sensors that helped hide what he was doing. All of which means a headache for me. Still need to figure out why, and need to figure out if we have had a security breach from the outside, or if someone else - with more access - has been bought too. Still, it is progress I guess.
In good news, we got the crew that were disappearing at the blooder station back. Reintroduced limited leave while we were still on-station in Delve, and had NCOs keep an eye on the crew, and always in groups, with a description of the woman from the previous incidents. Same bitch showed up a day or two later, tried to work her charms on one of the Petty Officers from down in engineering. Now, analysis indicated most of the crew we were losing were low ranking, but had special skills. We had a volunteer, Gunnery Sergeant Demen Jadat - guy is actually a cyberknight back in Khanid, honest to god nobleman, though here he is just a gunny - to act like a reactor tech, slapped a engineering uniform on him with Chief Petty Officer all over his collar, and ran him down to the bar. He went along with the woman. We had a tracker on him just in case, since we figured they had been drugging our people. Plan was he goes, comes back the next day, and tells us what happened. Being a cyberknight he is engineered to metabolize most drugs pretty quickly apparently. Anyway, we monitor where they take him, and he strolls back the next day, and get this - goes straight to his quarters to start packing up his shit! Well, we grab him, ask him a few questions, he just seems confused. So we toss him in medical. They test for drugs, everything, don't find anything except traces of a sedative, worn off since last night for sure. Do a scan, and find a Transcrannial Microcontroller. I mean, hell, who'da thought? We're supposed to be the ones sticking the implants into people, aren't we?
Long story short, we have our people look at it, I even called Silver down, since he's a bit of an expert in that kinda stuff. Once we get all the info we can out of it, we re-program it to not do anything except sit there and look like it is still working. Then we send Jadat back in, with a tactical squad for backup. Want our dear little blooders to think everything is just fine. So Jadat strolls back in, bag over his shoulder, like he hasn't got a care in the world. Pair of big brass ones on that boy. Anyway, strolls back to where the chip was telling him to meet up with his new friends, they grab him, herd him along. They put him in a holding area way down in the maintenance area of the station. He starts a ruckus on the inside, the tac squad blows down the front door, and spirits spit on my soul if most of the missing crew weren't in there with him. All looking a bit blank and livestock-like with the chips still working on them, but alive and well. Killed most of the blooders, though we grabbed a couple to interrogate. Had a squad hit the place where the tracker said they had taken Jadat the night before too, they found a rigged up implant surgery suite, and grabbed a couple of doctors. Gets a bit weird there, apparently one of the doctors is a known Cartel associate. Important thing is we got our people back.
Turns out the whole thing was a slaving operation. Shanghai crew, put the TCMC in to keep them obedient. Have them go back to their ship and pick up all their stuff so it just looks like a desertion, and sell them to the highest bidder. Well trained crew can bring a bit on that market apparently, and most times need something like a TCMC anyway, when you are looking to buy instead of lease. Very slick, at least if they had spread it out a little and not hit the same crew - my crew - so many times. Found some other poor saps in there too of course, and yanked their chips as well. Strange that so many of them were ours, but we did have one of the bigger compliments at the station I guess. Glad to be out of there, gave me the creeps following Jadat around the guts of that station, pretty sure I wouldn't have been able to do what he did.
