You are drinking in a small run down
bar in the Regina “down” port, which is a not so fancy way to talk about planet
side port facilities as opposed to the orbital station. The date is 001 – 1105, and as
Imperial reckoning goes, stands for the first day of the year 1105. It has been one thousand, one hundred
and 5 years plus a single day since the founding of the Third Imperium and only
a year since you were drummed out of the Regina Port Security Service.
Gerald, the aging barkeep and owner of
“Skittered” your favorite watering hole approaches “Lt. Blair, you want another
drink?”
Nodding your agreement, he quickly
pours a tumbler of dark amber liquid. You
may have always heard that belters (asteroid miners) like this drink. It tastes like whiskey and ferments
well in zero-G. Just try not to think
too hard about what substance the fermentation originates.
As you tip your glass up and start to
drink, a short portly man in a business suite sits down next to you. He smells like he comes out of one of
the corporate buildings that encircle the Down Port. People who work in the filter air of the big
buildings have a smell to them, or maybe is a lack of the smell all the rest of
us out here have. Rumor has it
that corporate types don’t like the natural Regina atmosphere, so they heavily
condition and treat the filtered air inside their buildings. Making sure to keep a positive
atmosphere pressure inside, thus keeping out that pesky agricultural taint that
follows you everywhere on Regina.
Regina is the capital of the Regina
sub-sector in the Spinward Marches Sector. Regina is only 25 sub-sectors away
from Capitol, the center of civilization and the ruling seat of the Third
Empire of Man, and at Jump 3 that means you are only a few months from
Capitol. Regina is classified according
to the UWP (universal world profile) as a A788899-C. What that means is that it has a
mighty fine space port, modern shipyards, is an agricultural planet, with a
good bit of law to protect everyone. At least that’s what the Governor and
his minions always say on the news vids.
The portly corporate type turns towards you, looks you
up and down and states quietly “I hear you are the man to talk to about finding
hard to get pieces of data?”
