LWDD-5

==Chapter 5 Lest we drown in the darkness...==
by Cannonshop
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2769 - Deep out-system - Kowloon, Rim Worlds Republic
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There are things you can get on the black market, and things you have to either do without, or make for yourself.
The Rim Worlders had ignored the Belter community in the Kowloon system during the conquest war, and the Beltas had treated the subjugation of Kowloon as not their affair at first.
But then they witnessed the atrocities, and the Rim Worlds started taxing them, and the Folk who passed through began to truly influence the culture of Kowloon's belts.
There are things you can't buy, but you can make, or salvage.
Like the colony ships that delivered not only Kowloon's settlers, but most of the settlers in nearby 'normal' systems.  Ships too obsolete to serve, left forgotten and cannibalized made for a decent basis.  You don't need more than a five light year drive to hop from the outer Oort of the Kowloon system to a transitory point.
Under their noses, then, this branch of the Kowloonese people had been the lifeline for the people on the world below, smuggling political prisoners out, and goods in.
In 2768, the Kowloon belts are almost a separate society from the people living 'in the dirt' under the direct boot of the Rim Worlds Republic.
But they're changing that.
There are things you can't buy-but you can make it, and Sithers-deen is making it in the form of Aerospace fighters and small craft, weapons and pilots.
The light weight SB-27 isn't the powerhouse that the RWR's Vulcan class heavy fighters are. It's an obsolete machine, so outdated that there are private owners in the inner sphere who fly them as 'tribute flight' aircraft.
But the design is long out of copyright or patents, and spare parts, modification elements and aftermarkets are rich with compatible parts that are cheap enough that even non-governments can buy them.
The proof is that if you throw enough light, fast interceptors at a flight of Vulcans, the Vulcans will die, and if you drop enough guided bombs at a dropship, it will stop being a ship.
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