Musings [Escher]

[Thexare]

"Six ships isn't a coincidence, it's a pattern."

"So what do you want us to do about it?"

"Hm... We don't yet have anything incriminating on the LSF-"

"Enough. Stop right there. You always do this, you always fall back on screwing someone over. Put an end to this. Put an end to them."

"Not that simple. Criminals are good at escaping, especially obviously coordinated efforts. And they are vindictive."

"You'd know."

"Exactly. Now, that rules out a direct assault. If we can give the Hackers something that we don't actually care about, however..."

"Why the LSF? Why not Ageira or IND?"

"While I don't like any of them, Ageira and IND are useful to us. They bring money and jobs to the Natio. Intelligence agencies are dangerous, and the LSF is one of the worst. I'd rather work for the Buro, if politics aligned differently."

"Yes, stamping out dissent does seem to be right up your alley."

"As I said, if things were different; I didn't just mean Gallia, Kelly. My work has always involved keeping tabs on LSF activity, and they've just been getting worse. There are pre-Exodus parallels I could draw, but the model doesn't line up perfectly."

"So do we have a plan at all?"

"Plans never survive. We have an angle. We need to keep playing Liberty's criminals to minimize further problems... and administer swift executions to those who fail to get the point. Given our dealings with Ageira, hostility from the Hackers will probably be unavoidable... but the modern Xenos seem willing to work with some foreigners. An idea..."