The grubby Elder took a pill out of his pocket and dropped it in the glass of water beside him. The water started to bubble, and before it stopped, the Corsair took the full swig and wiped his mouth off. He took a moment to burp, and regained his composure.
"You must understand that conscious' are different for every man, woman, and organization. While your conscious is clear, mine is somewhat less so. The MOX fuel the independents used up is currently being raided from Bretonia. I've had to divert several wings of fighters from our fronts in Omega 5 and Dublin. The Benitez and OPG are following suit, but it's inevitable that someone is going to get captured or killed. What am I going to tell the families of those pilots then, hm? 'I'm sorry Mrs. Ruiz, your son died raiding MOX from Bretonia because one of our Independent Capital ship captains thought it best to launch and defend Crete from a couple of fighters."
"You shouldn't misunderstand my intentions, I don't want this Council to be a rubber-stamp committee to deem who can and can not captain his own ship. What I do want is all of our Captains to read the news everyday. Obey the orders of the person in charge, even when they have to get into a fighter, they need to do it, or lose their right to captain. And if they don't like it? Join the brothers and sisters putting their lives on the line everyday on the front lines instead of parking in front of Crete."
The, now refreshed looking, Corsair strolled down to the wall of paintings, where he hung the picture of Pedro Maniaco. He had a Gaian painter friend make him the painting for quite a bit of money, and Juan always thought it inspired something in himself.
"The thirteen saloons that had lined the one street of Seney had not left a trace. The foundations of the Mansion House hotel stuck up above the ground. The stone was chipped and split by the fire. It was all that was left of the town of Seney. Even the surface had been burned off the ground.
Nick looked at the burned-over stretch of hillside, where he had expected to find the scattered houses of the town and then walked down the railroad track to the bridge over the river. The river was there."
