3: The Corruption of Corinth

Jax found the Broker under the thinning light at the edge of the trade floor: half-hidden beneath a neon sign, tucked between a sustenance vendor and a stall selling forged permits. A place hidden deep in the seedy underbelly of the City World of Corinth. The Brokers of the Trade Guilds of Corinth had a way of commanding a space. They demanded respect through coin. The alien that stood before Jax was tall and thin, with long tentacles for arms. Its face bared no mouth, but rather a thin membrane through which it vocalized and fed.
“Captain Jax,” the broker said, taking him in with a look that Jax swore was contempt. It was hard to tell on the alien's face. “You’re coin will be well spent here.” A common Corinth saying.
Jax smiled as he always did—small, serviceable. He’d learned that expressions did most of his bargaining for him; visible temperament was a commodity. “Depends who’s paying.”
The broker’s tendrils folded across the table and produced a palm-sized tablet that blinked to life. There were numbers on the screen: routes, times, and a display of risk assessment. The broker did not flick it for show. The Broker’s eyes watched Jax’s face for a reaction.
“There’s a job,” he said. “A small one. Disruption more than destruction. We need a single Raminite supply ship to run into trouble. Nothing more.”
Jax let the offer sit in the open air. He was already adding up coin in his head before the words finished leaving the Corinth’s membrane. He had heard rumors that the Ramus were investigating Corinth after the Psiker attack on the home world. In his head, he shifted his price a decimal over.
“How many credits?” he asked.
“Name your price,” the Broker said.
That was unusual. The K’est must be in dire straits if they were willing to let him name his price. There must be a catch, Jax thought. And there it was.
“K’est is…compromised,” the broker added hesitantly. “Our info broker—So’len—was detained. Ramus intelligence has her inbound to an interrogation cell. They’ve found a data shard tying us to the Psiker invasion. They’re asking questions, and the answers could endanger the Guild and Corinth itself.”
The words were delivered as fact, and the implications rang loud as artillery. So’len was not a name Jax had known before that moment, but the idea of a Corinth info broker from the K’est Guild in a Ramus cell was dangerous. Info brokers held many secrets, and the Ramus interrogations were known for their surgical extractions of information; they did not merely ask for names. When So’len talked, and it would be when, not if, the K’est secrets would be easy pickings for the Ramus.
“Why come to me?” Jax asked, choosing to sound practical. “If you’re info broker is being interrogated, why not fix it directly? Pay for a pardon.”
The Broker glared. “Because Ramus is in an uproar. They want answers for the destruction of their home world. If So’len talks, it's over for not only us, but the rest of Corinth. If that convoy arrives as scheduled, it will deliver enough evidence to start a war between Ramus and Corinth.”
Jax knew the interrogation techniques of the Ramus too well. He had been born on Ramus, but grew up a smuggler. During one of his smuggling missions, he had been caught and sent to a Ramus interrogation chamber. He had spent years imprisoned by the Ramus before they freed him, and once they did, none of his old contacts within the Ramus criminal rings would work with him. It was the Corinth that had taken him in and given him another chance at life.
“Are you asking me to save them?” he asked.
“We’re asking you to delay a convoy,” the Broker replied. “We need to silence the asset. If So’len never reaches Ramus, we're all better off for it. If it confesses…well, you know what happens when the War Born go to war.”
The War Born of Ramus treated war as an almost ceremonial affair; their devotion to the craft was almost as religious as the Specters they protected, and once they went to war, they never surrendered. War had broken out nearly a hundred years ago between the Ramus and the Corinth. The Corinth economy was still recovering.
“So you want me to stage an accident?” Jax asked.
The Broker's voice lowered. “Subtle. Disruption. Only. Make it look like cosmic misfortune. But do it in a way that delays the convoy long enough for us to move in and sabotage it. We’ll handle the delicate work.”
So that was their game. The Guild wasn’t taking any chances with this. So’len had made the mistake of getting captured and would pay with its life. He felt a twinge of guilt, but he knew better than to push against the Broker.
“All right,” he said at last. The words were not noble, but he owed the Corinth, and coin was coin. He saw the Broker’s eyes close a little, as if it was smiling.
The Broker pushed the tablet across the table to Jax. “Here is everything you’ll need. Disrupt the warp beacon at the third moon of Pathess. Make it look like an accident. Make sure no one gets hurt. We don’t want the Ramus looking too deeply into this. We’ll handle the rest. You'll be paid…” the Broker paused. Jax wrote a large sum down on the tablet. The Broker nodded and signed. “We will also put a note in the Guild ledger about your services.”
The word ledger made Jax flinch. In Corinth, the Guild ledgers were worth more than most fortunes. To be listed favorably by a major Guild could open many doors that would otherwise be closed to most. Blacklisted and you were exiled.
He left the trade floor, the tablet in his pocket somehow heavier than the credits he was promised. The rest of the day, he spent planning with his crew. They forged documents to grant their ship access into Ramus territory, plotted the safest flight path that would steer them clear of Raminte patrols, and acquired an electron bomb that could disrupt the beacon, yet would resemble a normal power outage if investigated.
The plan went off without a problem. Jax’s team was able to plant the electron bomb during the dead hours. On cue, the electron bomb went off, disabling the beacon. The multitude of civilian ships was stranded. Unlike warships that could travel the warpways on their own, most civilian craft relied on the beacons for warp travel. Then the Corinth diverted from the plan they had given Jax.
A small force of raiders slid into position from behind one of Pathess’ moons. While they didn’t look like Corinth ships or bear the Corinth sigils, Jax knew the Corinth were responsible. Jax and his crew could only flee as the raiders sacked and burned every civilian vessel trapped by the bomb he had set off.
The messages broadcast over the main channels sent chills down Jax’s spine. Cries for help that were cut off in the flames of destruction. The Broker’s promises of minimal disruption and no casualties sat in his stomach, a lie that made him want to vomit. He had planned for misdirection, not the reaping of human life.
The Broker contacted him two Imperial days later. Its eyes glittered with satisfaction, but it kept its tone tight and professional. “It worked,” it said. “We were able to not only eliminate the threat that So’len posed but also destroy the data shard that linked us to the Psiker invasion. They got nothing from So’len. That leads us to your payment. You did me and this Guild a favor. We’ve credited your account, and you are in our files now as… a captain who understands discretion. Someone who can be trusted.”
Jax and his crew now had more coin and more jobs than they knew what to do with. Relief, however, did not come easily. The blood of the Raminite civilians that were caught in the crossfire was on his hands, and he couldn't wash it off.
He told himself he had helped save countless others by preventing a war that would have led to the butchery of billions. But all he could hear was the voices over the comms as the raiders ended the lives of the people he had helped trap.