I know you, Ciguru

[Crunklejaw]

While the heavy thud of Hui Mines’ landing clamps tested my acceleration straps, I thumbed through a couple’a trade channels and let my mind wander. Ciguru, whatta place. Most of these days see me breeze through systems and stations like I got somewhere to be. Truth is, there ain’t nowhere’s got any charm for me. Well, ‘cept for Ciguru, that is. Most flyers’re like me, some with more brains, some with less, driftin’ from sale to sale, deal to deal, no care for the hustle ‘n drama of the folks seeding the systems like flies on a dung heap. But Ciguru? Who could resist? Now I’m all for the little guy, independent systems be few an’ far between, this deep in fed territory. But... ...a mon-ar-kee, really? In this day an’ age? And under the leash of a republic? No less. Wrapped up in an industrial state? Permittin’ in-fightin’ inna civil war with a petty band of no-good thugs? That ain’t a government. That’s a sit-com. And, hell, we ain’t even at the good bit. All of that? All of that’s happening in and around a single lonely, beat-up mining station without the civilised common decency of gravity. You see, Ciguru’s no big old empire, it’s no alliance o’ unified ideals. It’s just a couple’a spoilt industrialists with delusions-of-grandeur in a cramped metal box floating around the gorram motherload of metal ore. Delusions that have made me a wealthy man in my own right. You wanna know the trick to it? Scrap. Simple scrap metal. When I first laid eyes on Ciguru, I was looking through the glass of an ole second-hand Sidey too bust t’function. Ciguru gave me my first leg up, so to speak. With it bein’ such a little place and all, they offer strangers contracts you just wouldn’t see in fed orbit. Ore ‘n scrap, scrap ‘n ore. That’s the way you make ends meet in Ciguru. Well, time went by, and I just, I just couldn’ keep away from that pretty little argumentative box they call Hui. I guess, in a way, I’m still a purveyor of scrap metal. It’s just that the scrap metal I’ve got restin’ in my hold right now used’t be a pair of Ciguru Monarchy Anacondas and a handfulla Pythons. Well, who’s gonna let a lil thing like ethics get in the way of makin’ a dime? My old man was a good man. Y’know, he never said the same of me. I guess he was right.