Metsker Steel Works
Outskirts of Misrata, Flint
August 5, 2558
The peaceful sight of Misrata vanished as the R-220 vulture shuttle weaved through the clear airspace over the sprawling metropolis. Inside the cool air conditioned cabin, Ryan Weld nervously shifted around. He had preferred that he met and discussed terms with Metsker's head in the highrise above Misrata. Instead, the reply message insisted that they met at the location of the largest steel works outside the city.
During the end of the Human-Covenant War, Flint was under protest to break ties to the UNSC in hopes of avoiding the Covenant's wrath. Begrudgingly, they obliged, giving Flint independence in 2542.
Weld had developed a fear of flying in small aircraft for years after crisscrossing several rebel territories in small ships to avoid UNSC patrols. He would have decided to take a car despite awareness of Misrata's infamous road safety records. He gladly accepted when the Metsker director offered to fly him in via his personal civilian version of the vulture gunship. Reserved to only whoever could afford the multimillion dollar shuttle, it could carry a healthy amount of passengers and cargo, being stripped of its weapons. Special ones could act as personal transports for colonial governors with added armor to protect against anyone who happened to dislike their policies and own a gun at the same time.
He stared out the plastasteel window, watching the paradise of a jungle start to fall away into several highways that extended to the unseen skyscrapers of Misrata. It was hard to imagine that Flint had such a rush to modernize their economy now no longer in the union of the UNSC. Misrata was the capital of Flint and its second largest city after Cainepolis on the continent's other side. Now after being separate from the UNSC for sixteen years, the metropolis was laden with poverty, gridlocked traffic, crime and corruption. Today happened to be a relatively clear day over the city, Misrata's smog was well known. Later, Weld would find out that the UNSC's knowledge of the colony's instability was bad enough to send nearly seven hundred military advisors in Misrata and another thousand in Cainepolis to train the Colony's Republic of Flint military to fight their war against insurgent groups in the rural areas.
The pilot brought the vulture down to a lower altitude and Weld sighed, now the oasis out of sight. He looked forward, with his jaws nearly gaped at the enormous size of downtown Misrata. At least a hundred and fifty skyscrapers seemed to disappear in the low hanging clouds. All around it were smaller buildings that tried to compare themselves, but the effort was futile. Craft flew around like flies hanging out at an animal carcass.
As the vulture now headed west to the outskirts, Weld now saw a totally different sight that made even the toxic air city look pleasant to look at. A massive fleet of ships lay in irregular formations. The derelicts were all shadows of their former selves. Most of the dead vessels were freighters, although there were commuter ships and others of every description. Even a scrapped UNSC corvette was inside, much less corroded than the civilian ones around her.
Further inside the yards, Weld finally got to marvel at the entire operation that Metsker was doing. Not only were they creating steel, but also most of it was from shipbreaking. The ships being torn up had small armies of workers that resembled ants. Flashes of light could be seen as the men cut, hacked, tore and basically took apart the ship until what remained of her were metal beams and sheets ready to go to the economic booms of the Outer Colonies.
Finally, with the aid of a ground crewman, the vulture settled onto the landing pad. The pilot set the engines to idle and opened the side hatch that extended into stairs. He handed Weld off to a driver of a sedan who had arrived a minute earlier to retrieve him. The driver looked a little surprised that he did not have a suitcase, Weld did not want to be in Misrata a second longer than necessary and he had his briefcase with him. His luggage for the trip was in the hotel that he booked the night at. Once the sedan's tires started rolling, the vulture took to the skies again, heading towards downtown. It had taken a while for his hearing to come back to him, but when it did, he was assaulted with rattling, screeching and clanking that seemed to permeate even his inner thoughts. In front were four enclosed buildings, one of which a horrible shrieking noise emitted from. Weld found his teeth gritting hard and was relieved when the driver handed him some ear protectors. Gratefully flipping them on his head, it did little to help, but he could clear his eyes of tears. To his amusement, the workers on the ships didn't even pause at the noise. Some weren't even wearing any ear protectors.
"I'm sorry." The driver said from the front seat. "We are very used to it."
"To what?"
"That was the enormous ship saw." He said as they loped through highway traffic before getting off at a ill fated ramp next to the closest of the large quartet of hangars.
The driver handed Weld to another worker, who gave him a hard hat to help protect his head along with the ear guards. Once they entered a small metal chamber inside the large building, he flipped a switch. The elevator was illuminated by the spinning orange light on top as it ascended to the top of the hangar. While the view wasn't as impressive as flying in, Ryan was still amazed at the scale of Metsker's operation. The hangar was nearly as long as the eye could see, with machines of every shape and size alongside the edges, all designed to break or cut through metal.
One object dominated the very center, the ship saw. What could be seen of the blade towered several heights over the two workers tending to the massive rigid edge. No doubt that was the origin of the horrendous noise earlier.
The doors streamed in a beam of light as the worker directed him across the catwalk to meet the director. He was not there yet, so Weld took some time to look at the ship, an old tanker that was built in the 2500s being brought in by a score of winch cables and tow aircraft.
"You must be Ryan Weld." A voice called from his right. The former Insurrectionist turned around.
The Metsker Steel Works director was just as his dossier had said. However much more was to him than what met the eye. Karl Bruce, born under a different name had raised himself from an Outer Colony slum apartment. He had used his hulk size and intimidation for black market deals and did not have his first legit job until being twenty four when he purchased interest in an Eridanus import/export company supplying the rebellion around TREBUCHET, when the UNSC launched a massive operation to eradicate the rebels once and for all. It was then when he realized that the Eridanus rebels were bound to lose their holdout against the UNSC imperialists in 2513. He had then shifted his interests to secure export rights to export timber, titanium, steel and concrete to Reach, Eridanus II, New Corsica and Epsilon Eridani IV. He had purchased his own fleet of ships to haul his goods to the colonies, among four of the fastest growing.
Nearly every operation of business that Bruce had gone into had an illegal angle to it. When the UNSC had triumphed against the Eridanus Separatists, he had constructed the CAA building with inadequate materials, which was subsequently blown by sympathizers in retaliation. Another accident occurred on Eridanus II when his freighter's cargo of wood and composite material detonated after being offloaded and paid for. So as long as his wealth continued growing, Karl Bruce did not give any thought to how or where his wealth originated.
"You have quite an impressive facility here." Weld spoke, still taking it in, trying to avoid Bruce's snake eyed stare.
"It's the only one like it on this side of the galaxy." He laughed, a hearty roar, "The new ship saw was installed two years ago. The saw's metal is the strongest industrial grade, but even advanced titanium carbon steel will wear out."
"So how many ships can you cut with the saw before it wears out?"
"About ten." Bruce replied, reaching for a cigarette and lighting it. Weld didn't tell him it was in front of a no smoking sign, but the director didn't seem to care. "We have a technician that replaces the saw, he's known as the dentist."
Weld got the joke, but made no effort for any humor out of it.
"It was a brilliant investment. Now we can dissect a ship in two days instead of a week. Multiple clumsy workers off my hands, value of steel going up, price of scrap ships going down, it pays itself off. Very expensive in the short run, but quite profitable as it goes on."
The Klaxxon resonated as the saw began slowly spooling up. Bruce and Weld snapped their ear protectors on as a pair of hydraulic pressers clamped the tanker. The worker manning the saw controls off to the right at the middle catwalk guided a stick. When the saw reached its required speed, the man shifted it forward. The quickly rotating teeth then began biting with tremendous force into the keel. The sound bounced throughout the entire room as the blade began to glow a dull red from the friction. Two other workers fired streams of water onto the spinning blade to prevent it from overheating. The cool water instantly went into vapor, shrouding the area in a dense steam and a horrible smell of burned metal filled the air.
"Very impressive." Weld repeated once the saw powered down and retracted, turning back to Bruce.
"So is the sophistication of things. Anyway, what is it that your banker friends wanted to discuss with me?"
"Can we do it in your office?"
"Of course." Bruce led the way back to the elevator, where they descended down and headed to the cluster of corporate buildings in front. Unlike the hangar that Weld had just toured, the other three massive buildings and their ramps were absent of any activity. Other than a few older F99 drones, there weren't even any ships stored.
They entered the tallest building and waited for the elevator to stop at the top floor. Inside provided a much cooler contrast to the warm humid air that had Weld sweating despite being only five minutes outside. Bruce offered a drink which he declined, opting for some bottled water instead. The director's office was pristine with models of some of his favorite scrapped ships as well as pictures with local Flint celebrities. Bruce had taken some rum and was already on his second bottle by the time Weld opened his case and presented the documents.
"These are our projected demands for next year. Is it possible for you to meet them?"
Bruce put aside the halfway done rum and studied the pages. "Another thousand by next week? You're increasing?"
"It's disease season, we expect the worst to explode."
"Okay." For the next hour they discussed how the plan was put into motion. When he had finished, Weld was certain that Bruce knew what they had wanted out of him in exchange for his share. He bid his goodbye before Bruce arranged a car to escort Weld back to the hotel. While inside, Weld verified on his datapad of his three flights that would start the next day to get back to his base for a report before returning back to Flint.
Bruce's secretary informed him that Weld had left his compound. He nodded, dismissing her and heading back down to the ground level. This time, he walked towards the second hangar, giving a slight wave of his hand to the unseen eye on the top. Had Weld looked further up when he saw the hangars, he would have made out a single skirmisher sniper keeping the crosshairs of his beam rifle trained on the back of his head. The hand gesture told the sniper that he was alone and not posing a threat.
Opening a side door to the large closed hangar, Bruce slipped inside. The vast room was dimly lit, since the ship inside was complete. Taking a very short time to construct parts and then assemble the craft in secrecy, the three other hangars held what Bruce never showed to anyone except his recipients and his hired guns. Only highly seasoned workers were allowed to enter the perimeters and less than two hundred had been involved in the construction of the project. The sensitive nature of his work was only truly known by his partner, skirmisher pirate lord Nex Fel and his sons and daughters.
Nex Fel had been on the bridge of the ship when Bruce delivered his data. He was currently in contact with his son Jor. Jor Fel was the head of Nex's main pirate groups.
"Father, we haven't heard from the Righteous or the Dubious Repose for nearly two days. Both of their shipmasters should have at least checked in by now." Jor started out with the situation following a brief exchange in pleasantries.
"Who was the one leading the two?"
"On this trip it was Ceb."
Nex was not one to be easily nervous, however the loss of one of his best still set him on edge. Ceb had originally preyed on Jiralhanae controlled Unggoy breeding ships. He was known to be reckless, charging headfirst, but knew when to retreat. The pirate lord kept a tight boundary on his interests, if Ceb failed to check in for at least two days, he had to expect the worst.
"My son, there are others eager to fill his position. In the meantime, tell the groups to keep a sharp eye out for any mention of a thwarted attack in the region he was operating at." Anyone who would have beaten Ceb and his crew would want to tell about it.
"No such reports have been released."
"Understood. Karl Bruce had just met with Ryan Weld. Their list of requirements is just what I had expected."
"Does Bruce know the scope of our plan?" Jor's tone had a hint of concern in his voice.
"No and neither does Renaud and his slave Weld."
"Very well." He sounded very pleased. "Your men's loyalty is absolute. Weld and his imperialists will never know what hit them. Soon humans will know who the true pirates are. They will be destroyed before they realize it."
"Excellent Jor. Remember that you can continue to get berries from a dying plant, but none from a dead one. Weld, Renaud and their group shall suffer, but we will devastate them enough to feast for a long time to come."
Another mystery ship!? What's next!?
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