During the annual tour of the 4 major houses regarding their fuel needs for the coming year, having successfully negotiated new prices with 3 of the houses, liberty alone are the only ones not agreeable to the new price structure. After many hours of talks with the new minister of commerce for liberty, I have persuaded her to carry on with the new proposals for the coming year, with the promise of a review of prices the year after. I have now completed the deal. They offered me the Key to New York, I think as an underhanded bribe. I politely refused, saying that I had to return to Sigma 59 as soon as possible, as I made my way to the take off pad I was approached by a high ranking liberty officer, who presented me with a liberty gun boat, when I asked him what happened to my ship he said that one of his engineers had spotted a major default on the hull that would take some time in the shipyards to repair, and liberty high command decided to gift the GMG with this gun boat. As flying around sirius these days was becoming more and more dangerous, with the upsurge of pirates and rouge factions building bigger fleets. Again I could see that this was a thinly veiled attempt at another bribe, to ensure their price fixing on fuel. On boarding and talking to the first officer he had been in communication with GMG council, and they have accepted the gun boat, and that although it is still flying Liberty colours we were to use it in the mean time. A slot has been made for it to have a refit as soon as possible at Yukawa shipyards and we are just awaiting conformation from Kusari.
To-day the liberty pilot returned my stinger fighter with a written report on the hull repairs and some new opitical chips that were fitted, I thanked him and informed him that the CEO of the GMG would like to see him, I escorted him to the outer office and offered him some refreshment and informed him about his reservation on the luxury liner hawaii, where he was to reside for the next day or two, his eyes lit up and he told me this was the first time he had ever had such accomodation, as a lowly flight officer it was usualy the barracks for him. The chimes announced that the CEO would see him now, we entered the office and sat down at the cocktail bar, we both declined drinks and he was informed that the gift of the liberty gun boat was to be returned, with thanks for the use of it to return me to the Sigma's, and that it would be ready soon. I did not question the decision and was informed that we were keeping our contracts with Kusari for our defence ships, apperantly the liberty navy are decomissioning the gun boats in favour of the assault crafts, and our sources in liberty also told us that there are no more parts and spares to be had should anything go wrong with them. The pilot was told that liberty had been informed of his piloting the boat back, and his orders were in the bridge safe. I escorted him from the office to where the shuttle was waiting to take him to hawaii and bid him farewell and a safe return.
