The Betrayal of Emilio Torres

[chavez]

Teresa walked in the Boozer's Lounge, the most exciting saloon in the Corsair Universe, stopped and looked around.

Pedro Alonso, the bartender, immediately turned himself to the coffee machine when he spotted her. Her recent appearance rapidly raised the consumption of coffee among the rest of the corsairs and he already had to raise the monthly coffee beans orders (the finest brand directly from Waverly LLC, Grand Canaria) three times.

Teresa finally saw a familiar face and went to that table. Emilio Torres was so deeply in his thoughts, that he didn't notice her. He was holding his beer and stared into it. His face still wore the signs of bashing, and rough treatment. She remembered he was unconscious when they delivered him back to Crete after the rescue operation.

"I didn't kill him purposely, you know?", she said.

He jerked himself and looked at her, probably wondering how was she able to guess his thoughts. However he remained silent and so she continued: "I usually don't miss when I do these things, but just before the killing shot I changed my mind. I had two good reasons for it. One, I wanted him to suffer and one has to live to be able to suffer. Two, every corsair has the right to avenge himself if he's able to. This task is yours unless you ask someone else to do it for you but frankly, you'd loose my respect if you did that."

His face looked less clouded now, but still he didn't say a word.

The bartender brought Teresa her favorite triple espresso and she sat down and asked: "So are you still angry with what I have done?".

Torres smiled and said: "After what have you just said? Not any more, Teresa, not any more. But you must have a unique ability to find out what's happening in one's mind, maybe because you're a woman. I always though I am able to hide my feelings from others."

Teresa clapped her hands and raised her eyes to the ceiling: "Thank you, gods, he doesn't hate me any more. About time..."

He stopped her: "Hate you?! I never hated you, it's just I never have been revenged by a woman before.". They both started to laugh, then he asked: "You know what? No one ever told me how I was rescued yet. I just heard a lot of members of the Brotherhood, Benitez as well as independent corsairs participated in that operation and I wonder how it happened."

Teresa had a drink of her espresso and started to tell the story...

***

Two weeks ago...

Teresa was running for her life. Half the Rheinland Police fleet was behind her, however her hacked reputation and fake ID disabled her pursuers to find out who she was. She was listening to their channel and she smiled after she heard they still think she's a man. When she was planning the assasination, she always tried to avoid the CCTV holo-cameras, however she never really was sure she didn't miss one. The day might come and there might be an enormous bounty on her head placed all over Sirius.

The followers were still 5 to 10K behind when she reached the first trade lane leading to Frankfurt jump gate. At the last moment before she docked it she released a nuclear mine. Her most favorite running trick. By the time the mine exploded, she was already in the safe range, flying at very high speed, while the mad followers saw the trade lane being disrupted right in front of their eyes. It always worked. While she was laughing she continued to Munich system. She carefully slipped through all the areas usually patrolled by both Rheinland Military and Police and she finally managed it to the meeting point with the Brotherhood.

She was waiting for 10 minutes when she finally saw Elders Montoya, Costello and Yanez from the Brotherhood and Don Carlos from the Benitez himself, all flying their Titans.



Her Centurion was following them in the autopilot formation mode and she flew next to it, docked with the emergency air lock and left the Arrow, after she set the auto-destruct timer to 5 mins. They all entered the cruise speed and headed to the Halle Jump Hole.



Everything was following the simple plan. There was a second group of fighters and a corsair transport on the other side of the system, stationed on a secret place. The Elbe_Transport was engaged immediately after they jumped into Munich. Corsair group used their surprise and managed to destroy some of it's escorts. The Rheinland Police pilots fought well but they were outnumbered and to save their lives they decided to cooperate. The pilot of Elbe_Transport was forced to fly to the secret location and had to hand over Torres to the corsair transport (named Seraph's Vault, piloted by another Elder Lucendez).



After Torres was secured, the first group stayed in the system and attacked random Police and military targets to pull their attention from the escaping transport group (the second one) which used the way through Omegas to Omicron Gamma. The condition of brother Torres was uncertain, he was severely wounded and he even fell unconscious during the transfer. Teresa decided to stay with the transport group. Later she heard that the poor pilot of Elbe_Transport took the failure of his mission personally and he committed suicide.



After they got to Planet Crete, Seraph's Vault docked immediately and Torres was transferred to emergency.



All corsairs who took part in the rescue did their jobs flawlessly, and thanks to their effort, Torres' life was saved.

***

Teresa finished and she switched off her comm pad which she used to show Torres some of the recordings from various corsair ships and looked in his face. He was moved, after he saw so many corsairs' effort to rescue him.

"You know, since that...thing with my father, Pedro Maniaco, most of the corsairs who knew him would do anything to save any Corsair. No one is ever going to be left behind again, even if he or she asked the others to." and she gently clapped his shoulder with her hand.

"So tell me, Emilio, what are your future plans, now? I guess that cunning rat still needs to be finished. Do you need a hand?", she smiled at him.

---

If I die, I forgive you, father. If I live we shall see.....Teresa Chavez