Vignette:Another day at the port
Another day at the port
- Free Port City of Pakoura
August 17th, 1858
“LUNCH!”
The welcomed command by his shift manager echoed in the port. It was a warm, sunny Sunday in Pakoura, the first in the whole month of Ridder’s overseas posting. “At this rate the company is gonna make double the budgeted money. Every ship in the area has been rerouting here the past few weeks. Tensions have been high in the other coastal cities”. Heigner, one of Ridder’s co-workers, had a knack for understanding geo-politics and economic implications of it. He often tried to talk to his fellows about current events, but his attempts were unsuccessful. Despite that, no one could deny that the port was overrun by ships. They had been working basically all day and night for the past two weeks, just loading and unloading, counting, taking inventory.
“Still no chance to go to a nice beach or take a stroll in town?” Ridder asked no one in particular. “Not really. We still got 2 ships to do before midnight, then we might wanna get some sleep in for once”. Replied Matthas, the shift manager. “Also, I've been hearing some stuff about police making chaos in the city center, near the Theykan embassy. We barely know the language, and sure as hell nobody here knows Ringeriker but that one weird dock manager”. Aleo, the dock manager in question, was a Keumonie dock manager, the only one to know Ringeriker in the port, which led them to often having to work with him, to their annoyance, as he had a habit of being very annoying and extremely rude in his demeanor. They arrived at the open-air canteen. Ringeriker workers had the first lunch shift, 12 o’ clock, which was a luxury which many other overseas companies were jealous of, especially KiKi ones, which notoriously had the latest lunch shift at 3.
The brief moment of peace that lunch provided was interrupted by shouting. Two docks over, a group Theykan workers were arguing with men in uniform. They were not Pakoura policemen, as they had different clothing and carried long rifles and swords. “Hey what the fuck are you doing?” shouted Heigner at someone behind them. They all turned around, to see another group of men in the same uniform and carrying the same rifles starting to take and read their loading charts and inventory lists. Matthas ran towards them, screaming about wanting an explanation. Three of the men raised their rifles at him, shouting in a language they didn’t know. One of the men, who was the shortest but also clearly the one in charge, pulled out a piece of paper and started reading in a solemn tone. As the man was reading in the same unknown language, Ridder and a co-worker, as instructed in case of emergency, tried to take possession of all of their work documents. While everyone’s attention was directed at the speaker, Ridder made a run for a bunch of inventory lists which were the most important to take, and then to dispose of. At their briefings, no reason was given as the reason why these were to be destroyed in case of emergency. One of the armed men noticed his movement and started chasing him, ultimately tackling him before he could reach the archive.
A scuffle ensued: Ridder’s co-workers tried to separate him and the tackler, while the other uniforms tried to stop them. Aleo started running from his office to the dock, shouting in both Ringeriker and in the unknown language. Nearby Pakouran workers also intervened to separate the Ringerikers from the uniformed men. “STOP IT. These are Shenewan soldiers!” shouted Aleo. The Ringerikers looked at him, confused. Then he talked in the other language to the alleged soldiers, and they bickered for a while. Meanwhile, both soldiers and workers tried to patch their bloody noses or were trying to find lost teeth. In the commotion, nobody noticed that Heigner was standing next to a smoking pile of ashes. “So, these men are Shenewan Imperial Soldiers, and they have taken control of the city, including the port in which we are standing”. “What does that mean?” asked Ridder, still bleeding heavily from his lips and brows. “That we are no longer in the Free Port City of Pakoura. We are now in Shenewa”