Captain Acrebo's Treasure

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Captain Vince Acrebo was a tugboat skipper at the Bdakra Shipyard, a minor outlying station for storage and ship-wrecking. A civilian, Acrebo worked for the Foundation during the late Fifth Age (A.Y. 5725). He is most famous for masterminding the most valuable heist in history, and secondarily famous for getting just four years of rehabilitation for his crimes.

Theft

Acrebo stole seventeen capital-class warships from the Foundation's Ghost Fleet. While various efforts have been made to place an exact price tag on the warships, the Foundation's official statement is that the number is incalculable. The warships were considered within their prime at the time of the theft, and while in long-term mothball storage, it was thought that they would definitely return to service.

In total, Acrebo absconded with six battle ships, four carriers, two battle cruisers, and four dreadnoughts. A sizeable attack force, if re-fitted and restored to full operational readiness. In addition, sources close to the Foundation have confirmed that the derelicts were in a state of "soft" mothballing, and had not been stripped of all fittings and accoutrements. An undisclosed cache of torpedoes and missiles in the N1 and N1.5 designations are known to be on board. It is likely the heavy weapons, though partially dismantled, could be made operational with relatively little effort.

An undisclosed and unverified source has claimed that nova weapons may be on board, but this statement has been harshly contradicted by the Foundation. There is supporting evidence; in the pre-N2 era, it was common for flagships and some dreadnoughts to carry Nova weapons in case very heavy fire support was required.

What makes Acrebo's crime especially curious, however, is his method: he apparently had no plans to retrieve and sell the ships himself. Rather, he used his tug to take the ships under tow, getting them on to a course to take them outside of the solar system - then abandoned the ships to proceed on their own.

Treasure

It is possible that with sufficient knowledge of the fleet's exact speed and heading, they could be intercepted in inter-stellar space and retrieved. Another possibility, and the one hinted at by Acrebo, is that within the next few centuries, the ships will pass close to an inhabited star system. The theory holds that his plan was never to retrieve the vessels himself, but rather to pass on the secret to his descendants, who would one day be able to capture the ships as open salvage and become rich, long after any charges lapsed.

This plan was somewhat hampered by Acrebo having died childless.

Sentencing

Despite the value of the goods stolen, the courts were surprisingly lenient. This is owed mostly to Acrebo having been found insane, or rather quite mentally unstable. Still, his crime was non-violent, and with no ability to retrieve the war ships, the danger was considered minimal.