2.0 Literary Adventure.

<div id="i4c-draggable-container" style="position: fixed; z-index: 1499; width: 0px; height: 0px;"><div data-reactroot="" class="resolved" style="all: initial;"></div></div>"What's in the Bag?" The jackbooted thug asks as I stand at the checkpoint.

I pass it over.

"Brocures, Alexander Action Archeology, are expanding into adventure tourism. Me and my team offer a variety of top class training and ecucational tours of the subterranian history of this wonderfull world. Prices start at ten thousand credits for a single person and they can bring back all the loot they can carry."

"You honestly expect someon to pay that for a scavanger pretending to be a proper business." the stormie mutters through ihis vocaliser as he sorts through the messenger bag.

"I have an appointment with Second Lieutenant Terra under Captain Labort." I mention innocently.

Coruscant.

50 by 35, Topside, Imperial Garrison.

Month 4 Day 21

The Stormie starts, looking up at me and giving me another once over.

I'm unarmed of course, quite aside from the fact that this place has hot and cold stormies on tap it's be fifteen types of mind numbing stupid for me to start shit while I'm here.

Thus apart from the small gold, silver and durasteel trinket around my neck the only thing I have is a scavengers duster full of pockets to look the part and my messenger bag full of 'Action Tourism Opportunities' because i'll be fucked if i don't come out of the business at least a little bit ahead.

"Nothing in those holsters?" The stomie asks curiously.

"I need to look up to the job private. I sell an experience, no one would trust me if I didn't look like I could provide the goods." I say, with a small respectful bow.

"Huh." he grunts, the soldier presses a hand to his helmet as he calls it in.

"Your escourt will be here shortly. Wait." the soldier says, passing my bag back with more force than strictly necessary. I take it with a smile and wait quietly.

Now I'm not a particularly confident person. Shock I know.

But there is a way to behave around these people. it's pretty much the same way as a tradesman on a work site. You are here to do a thing, you do the thing as quickly and efficiently as possible and make it as easy as possible for others who's job it is to help you.

That means having your papers in order, addressing people accurately by rank and looking precisely as everyone else expects you to look.

I have something of a reputation as a Daring Treasure Hunter.

I'm not.

Just in case you were wondering.

I'm a chicken every bit as much as those birds I had for lunch last week and I've got a few dozen kilos of OH&S forms to prove it.

But magic makes treasure hunting easy, far easier than it should be. I'm sure my clients imagine tales of derring do scampering through abandoned corridors and defeating killer robots and/or giant monsters. What actually happens Is I wait behind a few locked doors while anything nasty finds somewhere else to be and then I just walk in and loot everything even close to what I'm looking for.

If necessary I use affordably priced gas grenades to drive the occupants out while I loot.

Less action, more patience.

Not real glamorous by any measure.

The customer doesn't have to know that of course. All I have ot do is give each item a blurb, ownership history and the like and a bit of loot turns form a bit of junk into a valuable historical artifact.

Boom! Money.

I finish my musing as I hear the stomping of jackboots. A pair of Stormies, their rifles held accross their chest as they march up.

"Come with us, The captain's waiting."

----------------------------------------------------

"Hello Alexander good to see you again."

"It's good to be here Captain, It's good to be here." I take a seat at the briefing table.

he captain is his usual self, all stiff upper lip and impeccable moustache. Looking the part as best he can I'd say.

The man isn't particularly old, a little bit older than I am but not much. He's still got a full head of black hair and a neatly trimmed moustache to give the real Kriegsmarine feel. He's wearing the traditional coat of an imperial officer as opposed to the dress jacket he was wearing when he hired me.

His grey eyes glint coldly with authority.

"I have prepared a couple of options, expeditions I was planning to make alone in search of a few bits and pieces." I say, pulling the sheaves of paperlike plastic from my bag, printing on this planet is rather expensive, wood pulp is actually pretty rare here with the shipping costs and physical media is not particularly popular. But my career before this has ingrained a certain regard for the printed word, it's so much easier to mark it up rather than use the bulky computer systems which are so popular in this place.

"Each of these locations have been scouted, mainly on other expeditions of mine and I just didn't quite make it to the expected locations due to weight constraints so I can give you a brief appraisal of what I'm expecting to find and the threats I'm expecting to face down there."

"These look excellent Alexander," The captain mutters, staring down his nose at the document in front of him. "I just can't help but notice that this one is for just a single person other than yourself."

"Myself and my assistant Sir. She has small hands, good for looting."

"Quite, However I simply cannot let The lieutenant go alone who knows what would happen to him."

"Captain with due respect I can...." The lieutenant almost sneers.

"Quiet Terra, I am well aware of your ability as well as the caliber of the threats in. What is this? Sublevel G, I barely even knew that was a thing. I believe that at least a section of troopers will be necessary to ensure your sefety." The captain commands.

"Uhhh. I don't think that is a good idea Captain. Most of the creatures in the depths are well outside the ability of even a prepared squad to reliably defeat." I say carefully.

"Nonsense, you just need to bring better weapons." The Captain says.

I share a look with the lieutenant and he does nothing but scowl at me.

The lieutenant is young, easily five years years or more than I am, he's also tall and slim, both of the officers are tall but Terra lacks the slight paunch of his commanding officer. Unlike his mentor he's got blond hair which I can't help but think came directly out of nazi recruitment poster and has high cheekbones and a relatively gaunt equestrian face.

His eyes are piercing blue which puts me in mind of nothing more than a self important blowhard who thinks that they're baddass as fuck and ice cold.

Wanker.

"Alright, More gun, always an applicable solution." I say. "Well, I suppose all that's left is to pick expedition you're looking for. The young lady? What type of gift would she prefer?"

"I... Lady Genevieve is a fine and delicate woman." Terra says with an expression which is close to awe.

"She isn't, Young Miss Torin is a member of his Excellencies inquisition. Quite a capable young woman, She has little to no want for the finery of her peers rather she finds satisfaction in more practical things."

I smile the smile of a man already dead. Oh well, might as well grab a shovel and keep digging.

"Ah. Well, does she have a habit of reading or a thirst for knowledge."

"The Lady Genevieve is a student of the classics, her knowledge of the written word is beyond compare." Terra says wistfully.

Sweet fuck, he's gone and fallen in love with an edgelord.

Edgelady actually I suppose.

"Ah well. If you will flip to page thirty seven I believe you will find the ideal expedition. Over on Forty five by thirty two I was exploring an old apartment building from almost four thousand years ago referencing a Jedi Temple Ban on the memoirs of Atton Rand, apparently a few people had been reading a little too deeply into them. Well, that ban predates the apartment I was looking into by a good two or three years but in the ground floor of said building there was a small memorial to a passenger vessel crash from some five years before near that location. I broke out some seismic sensors and I located the crash site, a cruiser class vessel came down and the wreckage was so bad that it's final resting place became a junkyard, then a landfill and then, less than a decade after it's landing, the place was filled in and used as foundations for the next level of city."

"What does this mean to me?" Terra says scathingly and I can't help but grin.

"Well, Atton Rand was a rouge and a scavenger, but more importantly he spent a good deal of his life as one of Darth Revan's greatest Jedi Hunters. His autobiography was banned because, well, it got rather technical in places. After they lost the dozenth padawan the Jedi temple decided it would be better if the text was forgotten."

"Well," The captain says, approvingly.

"That, She would love that wouldn't she?" Terra asks nervously, the ice cold glare melting way to the look of a lovesick puppy.

"I believe she would."

"Cool, Let's talk about price." I say with a self assured, but slightly panicked, smile.

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