Chapter 2226 Peter Seterin Ves took his assistant mech designers and students on an extensive tour through Xiphard Base. The sights were eye opening to those who never interacted with pirates and only knew them from the drama broadcasts on the galactic net. They were a lot less impressive if you looked at them up close. Especially that now that they had been stripped of their weapons and thrown into improvised cages and put under gunpoint, the dangerous air around them had dissipated. Supreme Lord Roda had died, killed by his own men. The loss of such a major pillar to their organization had caused every other Crona Lord to feel as if they had reached the end of their long and exciting ride. The tour group visited many important-looking sites, each of which kept Xiphard Base alive. From power generation, waste treatment, air filtration, mineral processing and so on, the mech designers gained a greater impression of the Crona Lords. More and more, the sights they had seen disabused them of the notion that pirates were technical illiterates who carelessly abused their stolen machines until they broke. In fact the Crona Lords or their slaves did a decent job at maintaining their equipment. Certainly, their standards were fairly low, but that was mostly by necessity as the pirates did not have access to a robust supply network. Too often, Ves saw signs of jury-rigged solutions and inadequate repairs resulting from a lack of materials or technical expertise. The sight both pleased and disappointed him. The Crona Lords obviously held themselves to a higher standard, but they were ultimately limited in what they could do. It was a sign of what humanity was like when they became disconnected from the galactic civilization that supported their entire race. One of the more interesting parts of the tour was to witness the interrogation of the senior officers, those the Larkinsons managed to capture alive at least. It turned out that Lucky had been a little too effective in clawing out the throats of every notable Crona Lord that held authority. Their elaborate uniforms decked with bones and other trophies had made it very easy to distinguish them from low-ranking pirates. Ves reminded himself not to wear any clothing that was too fancy in hostile space. He briefly looked down at himself and was pleased that his hazard suit did not look that different from the others despite its higher quality. In any case, when they entered a security center that the Larkinsons had taken over, everyone split up and curiously observed the former leaders as they underwent interrogation. In one interrogation room, a pair of Black Cats draped themselves over the restrained form of a pirate officer. "What are those women doing...?" "They are extracting information." Ves said before grabbing the shoulders of the Larkinson seeds and pulling them away. He brought them to another cell where a more normal interrogator from the Larkinson Clan talked to a captive. This time, Ves noticed that the man being interrogated appeared to be a slave. After spending some time in Xiphard Base, Ves had learned how to distinguish the Crona Lords from their forced labor. According to the various clues he derived from the man’s appearance, the slave appeared to be some sort of senior technical supervisor. In other words, he was in charge of servicing and maintaining the large machines that kept Xiphard Base running. A man like that probably knew the base from inside out. Ves grew interested in chatting with the slave. He impulsively entered the interrogation room, startling the interrogator. "Patriarch Larkinson! I was not expecting your arrival here!" The eyes of the slave widened as he gazed at the hazard-suited form of the leader of the ones who doomed the Crona Lords. Ves waved his arm. "Please step aside. I’d like to have a talk with this fellow." "Very well." The clansman obediently rose from the seat and made way. Maikel and Zanthar stayed in place, unsure where they should go. They soon decided to just stay put and listen to the discussion. Once Ves sat down next to the table, he calmly faced the slave. Due to the transparent visor of his helmet, their eyes met each other. Soon enough, the slave grew a bit discomfited. The identity of the Larkinson clan patriarch along with the demeanor he exuded loomed heavily on the slave who formerly took orders from the Crona Lords. "What.. what do you wish to know?" "Let’s start with something simple. Do you have blood on your hands?" "No! Never! I am a slave! I did not join the Crona Lords out of a willingness to get exploited. If I was still working back in civilized space, I would have earned a nice salary and lived a stable life." Ves raised his eyebrow. "The condition of your body is quite good for a slave." "That’s because the Crona Lords need someone like me. If you have walked through this base, then you know how reliant they are on people who know machines and know how to fix them. There aren’t any schools in the Nyxian Gap and their attempts to train their own engineers.. hasn’t always gone right." "Uh huh. So they feed you with better rations and outfit you with pretty decent clothing." The senior base engineer looked upset. "I’m not a pirate! I don’t deny that I enjoyed a position of privilege, but that is only in comparison to my fellow slaves. I.. I had to play by the rules in order to survive. The Crona Lords can be very harsh on those who offer resistance." If Ves was in the man’s position, he might have opted to make the same choice, so he did not begrudge the slave too much. His circumstances were very bad and striving to survive under a pirate regime always entailed desperate measures. "What’s your name?" "Peter Seterin." "Where do you come from?" "I am a Reinaldan citizen." "How did you end up in the hands of the Crona Lords?" "I used to be a passenger aboard a liner that was heading from the Reinald Republic to the Sentinel Kingdom. I wanted to get away from Reinald and Sentinel looked like an attractive option. I never realized that accepting a lucrative job in the latter would lead me to travel on a ship that was waylaid by pirates." "Were you captured by the Crona Lords?" "No. It was some other band called the Zero G Devils. They’re quite small, though I didn’t see them that way back then. The Zero G Devils raided multiple middle-tier passenger ships, always managing to kidnap thousands of people, many of them who have paid a lot for their tickets. Mine was already taken care of by my new employer." After that, the Zero G Devils sorted out their captives. The attractive ones were sent out first. The pirates then transferred the skilled ones like Peter to a more discrete pirate ship, which carried the prisoners all the way to the Nyxian Gap, where pirate groups paid well to obtain some useful slaves. Hearing that someone travelling rather deep in civilized space had suddenly been kidnapped before being trafficked to the Nyxian Gap astounded Ves and his students. This sounded like an elaborate and sophisticated operation that must have been active for many years! Rather than waiting to hijack some engineers and skilled personnel from the ships entering the Nyxian Gap, the pirates evidently didn’t have enough. They had to import them from civilized space! "Well, it’s quite a stroke of bad luck that your ride got hijacked." Ves remarked. "These are the perils of traveling through space. If I was in your shoes, I would have stayed in Reinald." Peter smiled ruefully. "You think I don’t remind myself of that every day?" "So tell me about all of the equipment that the Crona Lords wanted you to service." As Peter Seterin explained what his typical day of work involved and what kind of vital base equipment he needed to fix, Ves and the Larkinson seeds listened closely. What was interesting was that the Crona Lords kept promoting Peter while affording him more privileges. He gained the right to order around his fellow slaves. He no longer had to live in a cramped cell with other slaves but instead moved to a more respectable apartment where he could sleep in the comfort of his own space. He started to earn some Kavenit coins which he mostly spent on bribing his Crona Lord supervisors in order to get into their good books. In a sense, Peter got what he wanted when he originally left the Reinald Republic. He experienced a change in scenery and gained new employment. His boss just happened to be Crona Lords instead of Sentinels. Some time passed as Ves began to listen to the various details that Peter revealed about the various systems that supported the base. The Larkinson seeds slowly grew bored. They weren’t very interested in how the ventilation systems kept the air fresh. What did this have to do with mechs? At some point, a change occurred. The interrogator quietly approached Ves and transferred some files to his comm. Ves smiled. "Thank you." He accessed the new files and skimmed them over. His smile grew wider, causing Peter Seterin to grow uncertain. Only a minute passed before Ves was done. "Well Peter, it seems you have been truthful. You are truly an unwilling captive the Crona Lords had bought from a trafficker. The original logs of your transfer are still in their database." "Ah. I didn’t lie, sir." "That’s true, but there are more ways to deceive people than telling falsehoods." Ves chuckled. "Lying by omission is also a lie, don’t you know?" "What.. what are you talking about?" "Let me show you something." Ves projected one of the files transferred to his comm. The footage that appeared over the table showed an angled view from a hidden security monitor into some sort of rarely-visited supply room. The footage just happened to show Peter and two of his fellow slaves he held authority over pushing a teenage boy against a wall. "Mr. Seterin! I’m sorry! I thought I did a good job! It’s not my fault the water pump malfunctioned!" Peter, who appeared much more aggressive in the footage, stepped forward and punched the young slave in the belly. "Agh!" "You little rat! When the Crona Lords dumped you into my lap, I didn’t expect you to be able to repair a power reactor, but at least I thought you were capable enough to clean the insides of a water pump!" "This was the first time I came across a water pump. I didn’t know what to do!" "No excuses, boy! You caused a lot of trouble for our masters!" Peter launched another punch! "Now, let me show you what happens to slaves like you who forget your place." The Peter in the footage then proceeded to remove his coat, slide down his pants and remove his underlayer vacsuit. His two subordinates did the same to the teenagar. Maikel and Zanthar looked incredulous and horrified at the security footage. As for the slave strapped to his chair, his face exhibited full-blown panic! Before the footage could go any further, Ves swiped his hand, causing the scene to disappear before it could turn lurid. "I.." Peter bent his head in defeat. There was no way to deny what he had done. "I was.. frustrated. All of the slaves were. We don’t have access to a lot of women." Ves calmly crossed his arms. "According to the laws and conventions of the Common Fleet Alliance and the Mech Trade Association, any human who engages in crimes against humanity under the auspices of a recognized pirate organization has forfeited his rights and identity in human space. As an individual who has gone beyond aiding and abetting the activities of pirates by partaking in some of their crimes, you have met the legal standard of an interstellar pirate. Do you have any objections to this statement?" "I’m not a pirate!" Peter insisted! "I’m a slave! I never wanted this!" "I don’t care. I’m only interested whether I have to treat you like a human being or not. Luckily, I don’t have to." Ves grinned. "Wh-what are you planning to do to me?" Peter shook. "Why, helping you atone for your crimes, pirate." With those ominous words, Ves rose from the chair and moved to leave the room. "I will see you later, Peter." Ves teasingly said. "I can promise you that I will make sure that you are able to contribute to science."