Marked Incompetent 

Hurston Security hates us. No exaggeration. It doesn’t matter where we are in Stanton — they show up, order us to halt, and demand to scan us like we’re smugglers hauling maze and human food bars. I’ve been ordered to stop in the middle of a firefight with pirates. And when I didn’t obey fast enough, those bastards tagged me with a crimestat while I was still taking rounds.

This all started when we were hired to investigate a missing Freelancer called Cinderblock. Its transponder had stopped pinging during transit, and a local station wanted confirmation. Well, it took a few hours, but we found the ship — or what was left of it. Attacked, destroyed, drifting. The only detail anyone gave us was that it had been hauling classified cargo.

We logged the evidence, and right as we were about to move on, Hurston Security dropped in. I swear they were pissed we’d beaten them to the wreck. With nothing left to scavenge and us cramping their style, they slapped us with trespassing and failure-to-comply crimestats. I swear these guys are murder hobo's... err maybe we'll call them violence inclined drifters. They just want to slap you with a CS and send you to Klescher. 

Today it wasn’t me, though — it was John. He went down to an underground facility to deliver a box. Simple job. But Hurston tagged him for trespassing and shipped him straight to Klescher. He broke out, of course, and we raced to Aberdeen to pull him out before he got cooked in the heat or starved.  We dropped an URSA at Barton Flats Aid Shelter, rolled in, and picked him up.   Good thing too, because we've been getting reports of baby Valakkar worms being spotted on Aberdeen.

We knew better than to take him to SPK. Security Post Kareah is a death trap — high alert, heavy guns, and they’ll shoot you down before you even think about touching the pad. So instead, we set course for Calliope. There’s a questionable UGF in the mountain ranges, the kind that runs on “borrowed” systems, with an open terminal perfect for scrubbing crimestats.

We landed just shy of the facility, surprised we didn’t take fire — usually those places light you up at 2 klicks out. We slipped inside and started the hack with our Tigerclaws. That’s when we heard the boom. Our ride went up in smoke outside. No accident. Someone didn’t want us to leave. Rogue security had taken this place, and to make it worse, word from our contacts came through: bounty hunters were actively tracking us.

We didn’t stop. Plugged in, cracked the systems, and wiped our names clean. Always fun to screw with the system — this time we marked the record as “charges dismissed due to mental incompetence.” If Hurston wants to harass us, might as well make them look like fools in their own logs.

The problem was that with our ride gone, we were stuck in the cold. Calliope doesn’t forgive with temps down to -160°C. Spectemus and I started hoof’n it out of range of the UGF turrets, the snow biting harder with every step. We checked back in and got confirmation — bounties removed. Small victory.

But we still needed a way off that rock. So we called in LT Jinrye. She was flying her 300i new Microtech on patrol and agreed to divert for an extract. Weather was bad and she could only set down 11 kilometers away. Sometimes you can barely see in front of your own ship in the weather we get in Stanton. Eleven klicks — almost seven miles through Calliope’s frozen hell. No choice. We strapped on our helmets and started walking. We picked up some random hadonite on the way, and Spectemus snagged a bouquet of Emperor's Bloom for LT.  She likes them, and it'll add color to her 300i.  

One foot in front of the other. That’s life in Stanton.