OSI Corporate Offices(InRP)

[DarthBindo]

As Holliday swept towards the door, Ezio jumped from his seat, as if to follow, but the powerful *thud* from outside set him.
He stood, still contemplating the door and the pictures he held, as he listened to Duncan, each word setting his shoulders as if he was made of stone.
When Stow finished, he spoke softly and harshly, as a cougar prowling through the brush.
"You hold no illusions, do you?
You think this is all some chess move in a great game, some scheme or plot by which to gain more power or influence? You think us petty, mewling children, like you Zoners, like the Houses Governments, like all the rest of you soft greenworlders?
This is not about any goddamn politics, or ideals, it is about SURVIVAL at the very basest level!"
Ezio turned sharply in a military fashion, the soft smoulder plastered on his face proving Holliday's rage infectious.
"For 700 years my people have hungered. For 700 years my people have suffered from radiation, and famine, and sickness, on the sun-blasted plains and in the jagged mountains of Crete, all our might and technology powerless, futile against the raw power of a bloated, dying sun and the dead, salt earth at our feet.
And so, when we had a chance, we struck out. For four hundred years we have taken what we need to survive by force, for there is no other means by which to acquire it.
We had no choice but to murder and pillage our way to power, and then YOU! You lot find .....this!"
He grew animated, gesturing in tune to his words.
"This planet, this rich, vibrant garden, this Paradise, could feed the Empire, could feed a dozen empires. No more hunger. No more threat of famine. No more worrying about whether the piracy quotas will be met, or if enough rice from Samura will make it through, or if the Coalition will intercept the shipments we buy to make up the shortfall each quarter.
You have this beautiful, luscious emerald jewel, that my people envy, and that such weak men as you who have never known such suffering as we, do not deserve.
And you want us to leave it?
You have the food that to my people is life itself, a planet by which to secure our future, and is to you but another commodity to be bought and sold, and you want us to leave, leave so that you can have some ....freedom?
You want freedom?
Freedom from responsibility? Freedom from family? From duty? from honour?
Your pathetic freedom is naught but a temple to your own greed, a synagogue devoid of purpose in which the moneychangers and the prostitutes go about their business while the rabbi drones on, preaching to an audience who has long since stopped listening.
I mean, your "freedom" and neutrality kill more surely than any weapon. Every missile and ship you sell, every frigate you repair, every ship you let moor splashing just a little bit more red on your stations.
Where do you think we get the credits to pay for your food?
Every coin we have ever paid you with is covered in blood, gallons of it rushing in from the walls, splashing, covering everything with a dark, sickly sweet red and leaving the stench of death on everything it touches."
Ezio took on a mocking tone as he drew a coin from his pocket.
"Buenos DIAS!, senor, I would like to buy a meal per mi mama, si?
Do not worry, good senor, see, I have the money, here, I took this from a trader right before slaughtered his crew and tortured his wife to death. Of course, I still had to threaten his own life, threaten to put HIM through those tortures before he finally gave me the codes for his bank account. Some people, senor."
Ezio shrugged comically.
"Oooh, or, how about this one...ahem..... COMRADE, I must buy FROM YOU big weapons with which to purge the bourgeois Corsairs from their villages! Truly, comrade, it is a good day when I am allowed the HONOUR of mortaring the civilian population of Crete!"
All trace of humour vanished, dropping his face into a carven mask of sadness.
"These are the truths that both sides of this see, and yet still, you think you lot are all so clean in this?"
Ezio began to pace, back and forth, in front of the window.
"Think this has nothing to do with you? That we should all just pack up and leave, take our conflict somewhere else?
This isn't about politics, Stow, it's about you. It's about the planet. It's about betrayal, and treachery, and fate, and what Canaria means to the Empire, and why the Coalition is so desperate to put it forever beyond our reach.
This isn't some desperate battle between good and evil; I obviously can't and won't pretend the Empire is full of cuddly kittens and rainbows, but we don't do these things for the fun of it. We don't wage war because we enjoy it.
And the Coalition? If you think they're some heroes, come to save the day and hand out free ice cream to all the kiddies..... It was not too long ago your predesccor had to help pull nerve staples out of their entire population."
Ezio shook his head.
"The Coalition is just as bad as us; hell, most of the Coalition IS us. Far too many of my brothers have betrayed their duty to their families, to Crete, to take up arms under their banner."
He paused, contemplating carefully his next words.
"You know, I envy you Stow. You still think you do what's right. Still think you serve the light. That you are in possession of an innocent soul. That you still have a choice to do what is right.
And I am very sorry, Stow, to have to swipe that illusion from you.
No matter what side you take, no matter what opinion you hold, you no longer can choose to do the right thing. Just which particular..... flavor of wrong, which sins you think you can live with."
Ezio turned to Stow, his face finally calm and collected behind what now is obviously a clever facade.
"You can sit by, idly watching, as the Empire and the Coalition tear apart your planet in the coming war, hoping to get a fair deal from the victor in a year or two, watching all the while as city and homestead alike, as one innocent civilian after another is gunned down, marked in the books as "collateral damage".
You can take the Coalitions side, pushing back the Empire for a brief spell, and cutting us off from the food on Canaria that we so desperately need. Do you think you could live with that? Dooming an entire planet to famine and starvation, sons watching their mothers withering away, bodies piling in the streets because no one is strong enough to clear them away?
Or maybe you ally yourself with the Corsairs, complicit in your involvement with the daily horrors we perpetrate in the name of survival. The piracy, the extortion, the highway robbery, the murders."
Ezio snorted, his hand drifting up to scratch idly, nervously, at the nape of his neck.
"But I did not come here to rant, despite my temper. I came here to tell you to pick a side. Any side. Beacuse, should you stay neutral in this, Stow, Corsair and Coalition alike will take turns screwing you right where it counts."
He drifted towards the door.
"But I should be going. I have promises yet to keep, and miles to go......"
Ezio paused a moment at the door, allowing an opportunity for interjection, should Duncan wish to take it.

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gone four years, first day back: Zoners still getting shot in Theta :|