BARD PAPER: DANI9003

the Souk

by Peter Gray

Headquarters: Uramid/Antra and Rroerruerz/Antra

Overview: Founded in 1149. The Souk is the most professional and widest ranging of the two free trader collectives. It also has the biggest ships and the best crews. To feed such an enormous machine, its crews range over a huge area of space, including frequent forays into Tuglikki and Provence. This has led to both great wealth and controversy for numerous members of the "company", especially in light of rumored illegalities on the part of many of its members. The Souk is not entirely free of its RQS stepmother, indeed many of its operations mix legitimate trade with military and intelligence operations of various kinds and scope.

Organisational Data: The Souk is organised like a modern corporation. Indeed most of its founding personnel were Passing from the Regency, or former RQS who brought a more formal bureaucratic structure to its upper management. The top rungs of the company are overseen by an actual board of directors that meet monthly on Uramid to overlook the books, set short term goals and address recent problems. Many of these are also ex

RQS, an anomaly never really explained by local subsector brass. Many board members and upper managers have seemed to profit greatly from their employment, even though the group's charter limits the amount of compensation granted to them by normal operations. Rumors of smuggling and unsupervised trade has dogged the Souk for about thirty years now, though inspections by the RQS inspector general has not uncovered any evidence of wrongdoing.

Individual ship captains are independent, but are considered owner

operator contractors under long term committment in return for investment credits and other commercial benefits agreed upon in employment contracts. Ship captains are obligated to follow fixed schedules and fulfill their contracted quotas; how they accomplish these goals is left to their individual discretion. Because of a shortage of trained personnel in the Antra wilds, most of these are former RQS and Navy crews who sign up for well paid, if not lucrative, five year terms.

Otherwise the company is very formalised, possessing a crossconnected network hiearchy of individual bases on the worlds it serves, each manned by a group of factors, their security details, and support personnel. Each base is a virtual starport in of itself, though many lack the minimum safety equipment that would get them a minimum 'E' rating. The main factors are found on Rroerruerz, as are the main transhipment facilities. The company is currently leading the negotiations for operating the new starport on Bangwe, as it hopes to build a base closer to the reopened frontier.

Ships

Mercantile

2x4000 ton Halls of Montezuma Transports

RMS Juan de Fuca

RMS Juan de Baptiste

1x1800 ton Leviathan Merchant Cruiser

RMS Carthaginian

2x800 ton Darusha Heavy Liners

RMS Yankee Trader

RMS Rebel Raider

3x600 ton Stellar Subsidized Liners

RMS Pooka

RMS Leperchaun

RMS Siaobhan

1x300 ton Odyssey Advance Scout

RMS Broken Nose (ex Insurgent Inquisitor)

2x200 ton Improved Alexandria Merchants

RMS Mychal

RMS Sugardrop

3x200 ton Far Traders

RMS Home Stretch

RMS Temerity

RMS Yukon Joe

5x100 ton Suleiman Scouts

RMS Fulton Sheen

RMS Carie Battle

RMS Robert Fuller

RMS William Graham

RMS James Swaggert

Military

1x800 ton Mercenary Cruiser

SNS Santiago de Matamoros

3x400 ton Gazelle Escorts

SNS Lucky Charm

SNS Shadowcat

SNS Tenderfoot

6x250 ton Selene Corvettes

SNS Noble Cartwright (ex Bonanza)

SNS Industrious Baker

SNS Gallant Chandler

SNS Frugal Sutler

SNS Fiery Blacksmith

SNS Friendly Carpenter

Trading Range: The Souk has the largest territory of any free trader collective so far encountered. It largely is centered in Lamas and Antra, but also ranges over much of Millions, has bases at Aerverllol (Tuglikki 2336), Othaksukh (Tuglikki 2436), Thaengzar (Tuglikki 2737) Tuen (Tuglikki 2839) and Okhthalloe (Tuglikki 2937) to coreward, and Lighoz (Provence 335) and Ofo

Nebus (Corridor 0106) to trailing.

Cargos: The Souk is so called for its ability to piece together freight loads from a wide range of goods and sources. Its ships carry a very eclectic mix of goods and passengers collected over a dozen different worlds at a time, all either travelling to or from the Regency frontier rather than between different worlds. The smaller traders operate for indefinite periods along secondary routes, acting as feeders for the larger ships on the main Rroerruerz to Uramid route. By some accounts these are sometimes involuntary affairs as overzealous captains will use every means possible to "recruit" passengers or cargos to meet their quotas. The Selene and Gazelle class vessels are used for unofficial cargos, namely RQS and intel personnel en route to deep listening posts or infiltration missions of importance to the Regency of Deneb.