Sirius Corp's convincing PR had once sparked hopes of supplying the corporation with much needed resources in construction but the miners had not accounted what resource that would turn out to be. The overflowing shipping lanes were not for the transport or sale of ores and ice but a much more distasteful commodity; flesh and bone, meat for the grinder of building these outposts and a budding market back in the bubble. A cartel had supplanted itself in place of the miners that originally founded the place. Little sign of Sirius Corp could be found bar the odd plain clothed rep taking orders of slaves on the QT and very hush hush.
The stark reality was chilling as thousands of slaves from what must be neighbouring systems as yet uncharted were herded onto ships constantly day and night. The motivation for pilots was obvious; billionaires were made here on more than one occasion, with pilots boasting of taking dozens of contracts and filling their births with poor slaves who would never again know freedom. Many had made multiple "runs" to the bubble and seemed unphased by their actions.
I intended to leave as fast as I could but much like watching two ships crash at high speed time slowed down and I couldn't pull away from the horror of it all. Exhausted after two days of sleeping rough amongst the stars, I decided to lay low in the hangar, one eye open incase anyone took a liking to my ship. Nightmares of slaves screaming out for aid woke me in the early morning, blended like a kaleidoscope with the faces of the disenfranchised souls of Almagest and Takurua.
Things started to drop into place. How many had started out here lured with the hopes of a new life in the Terraforming business? How many more plucked from their beds as they slept? How many ended up hundreds of light years away in the bubble, dying in some toxic mine or Imperial labour camp? Tired and cranky I made my leave swiftly with an empty birth. Unable to "save" them and certainly unwilling to entertain the slavers offers to fill my ship I headed to Ceo's in double time.
