The Treaty of Nine

[Vito]

Cadiz’s kitchen

Tony stumbled into the kitchen with a half naked girl supporting him. He stopped in the door and just stared at Vito, before tumbling over and landing face down on the floor. He reached into the inner pocket of his long leather coat and handed Vito a small piece of paper. “The message came from a Zoner named Xa... Xavi... Triton, his name is Triton. It was relayed here from the Council Chambers so I guess its pretty important, si? ” the sailor said while trying to reaching for the rum bottle on the table. Vito read the invitation sent to him by a Xavier Triton, a zoner he knew well.

“Finally, they came to their senses. Where the hell is Berny?” His sailor answered: “He was refilling his beer Canisters the last time I saw him”. “Damn drunkard. Tell him to fuel his Correo and meet me in the main dock. Make sure you put two cases of Espi’s best rum on his ship and let me know when he’s ready”. “Si senor” Tony said, staggering his way to the door where the half naked girl was waiting. He latched onto her shoulder and they stumbled their way down the hallway. “Oh and Tony, you bastard. Stay the hell away from my rum, its my god damn rum you drunk fool” Vito yelled, his voice echoed through the corridors. “Ay..e aye hombre!!” Tony’s rusty drunken voice thundered through the corridors.

The Sailor came back after two and half an hour holding a bottle. “He’ll be ready within an hour” he said and left the room singing. “Tony, you moron, what took you so long?” Vito asked; he was getting rather fed up now, this hadn’t been much of a good day and Tony wasn’t making it any better. “The lady wanted some attention, can’t ignore a damsel in distress” Tony replied with a silly smirk on his face as he tumbled down the corridors once more.

Cadiz’s main dock, two hours later

“Where are we going? Oh, do you want some beer, amigo?” Berny asked and ordered the dock master to open the hatch. “Freeport Nine hermano. And real men drink rum, when are you going to learn that?” Berny mumbled something and then yelled in the comms: “Wake up you worm! We are leaving, so if you don’t want to spend the rest of the day installing new doors open them right now”. The inner blast-doors opened and he fired up the ship’s engines. Moments later the fast and heavily armored Correo flew out of the the second lock and made its way through the asteroids, heading for a place both of them knew well.

Omega 41, somewhere between the Omega 5 and Omicron Theta jump holes

The ship’s radar, a custom, tuned down version of the ones used on capital ships but lacking the fancy targeting systems that take most of the space in a warship's sensors array, displayed a warning message: “Hessian transponders. 2 ships. Odin Class. 11 clicks and closing”. “I prepared something for them just before we left”. Berny ejected some trash cans containing hessian limbs and heads near the Omega 11 jump hole for their enemies to find. “That will boost their morale for sure” the Buccaneer laughed. Then he increased power to the engines. “Damn I love this ship! I knew all that hard work that went into installing this scanner on this baby will pay off”

Freeport Nine’s dock number 3, a few hours later

“Hey, look at that Starflier! Isn’t that the one who flew in range our Raba in Sigma 19 last month and tipped those two Kishiro transports about our position?” Berny checked his logs. “Yes, that’s the one. Want me to land on top of it?”. “Sure, our lady can handle it. Power up the shields and crush it. Just make sure it looks like an accident and if anyone asks you say that you’re drunk”. Vito reached for a unopened bottle of rum, “Just in case someone asks for some blood samples” Vito said with a evil grin. “Lets get this over with. Just crash the damn thing and lets head for the Conference Room. Take those cases of rum with you”

Freeport Nine’s Conference room, a few minutes later

As soon as he entered the room Berny replaced the water cans with rum bottles on corsair side. “There, now we can negotiate. If you want some help yourselves” he said and pointed at the second case. “No offense amigos, but we need something with more of a kick then plain water” Berny said in a calm fashion. The situation was tense and both of them knew that irritating the zoners at this point could ruin the entire conference.

“You might want to send someone to Dock 3, senor Triton. That place needs some cleaning, I think we landed on something” Vito sat down and looked at the two zoners already in the room: “Now what? Where is everybody else?”

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The Corsair Trade Company

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