To: Gunda Riehl

[Enkidu]

Alster Unioners

Sender: Adrian Hahn

Tacname: Capricorn

Positional group: Volenteer Flight Voararbeiter, Systems operations

Location: Leipheim Base, Munich

Branchgroup: Unioners

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Riehl is obviously missing. Gunda Riehl is many things, but the bearded, pudgy, thirty-something Unionist with the energetic poise and the focused eyes on the screen, is distinctly not her. His eyes - they're tracking all over the camera. As if they are obsessively refusing to sit still.

He's obviously nervous. It barely shows anywhere else but his voice.

---

Oy'! Hey Kyle, whassup? Yeah, call it a matter of the palladium fact I do remember that conversation, mate. I've pulled Sister Gunda's logs up.... and presto.

I'm Adrian, by the by. Adrian Hahn.

And yeah, you're right. I'm not Gunda Riehl, Sir. However, she did leave me this text file message, which I believe is for you, right? Uhm, maybe this will make sense to you:

"I did owe you more than the shake you got out of me. Uh, look - Rheinland here is broilin' like a gallic escargot and it doesn't pay well to be sluggish. I might be screwing up my mollusc metaphors. Maybe that's appropriate. They've re-arranged my head."

So, uh.

Listen, on her next rotation out of here, Riehl is getting reassigned back to Hamburg. Heinrich's expeditionary forces and half of the Coalition's Varyag squadron - and just to ice it off in time for my outta' season birthday bash - She she would have been running flight instructor pips for a whole brace of new young idealistic meatheads from Rheinland's various gutters, drains, and sewers - so if you take the 'Daw to Vierlande we'll all be able to crack several asteroids with one mass driver and she well be able to work on your home-build during her recovery hours. Sounds kinda' fun, really. Like a holiday.

So, right, skipping past the awkward bits, she's been injured - and I'm not sure if I can tell you why. It's not as if Unioner keep secrets or anything, and I doubt we'd be punished if we did - but, erh. We don't have all the answers ourselves yet.

Sadly, that means she can't take your call.

Say, um. You're a worldly Edge-worlds type. You know any doctors who specialise in saving people from probable death who got caught in a mindlink with a dying alien super-organism, did ya'? Didn't think so. Right, I'm a crazy person.



Look, this comm is gonna' get flagged and I'm going to have to haul it up to my over-director and probably the Garenite Exingency. We'd better switch subjects. Still - if there's anyone you'd know who to call, for a common friend... I'd call that favour. One field-snagger to another.

Cruisers. Well, that's something I can talk to you about without diving into riddles. We pump out hels for export, all the time. Problem is - the price shoots up whenever Rheinland starts to get unstable as our recruitment figures double and we end up with more cells to protect. There's a big lead-time on modular cruiser construction, even with our boys working round the clock to -our- production quotas - you can only build so much ship for so many people, so to speak, right?

So here's deal that'll get your beard in a twist. We'll sell the Voltaics cruisers, for credits, about one hundred and sixty million a pop. That will cover the purchase for anybody who might be listening in, or watching us negotiate, right?

Good thing Junkers keep secrets as well as us Unioners like to talk out of our mouths, huh?

You say you've got Tarancon now? Well, that's good. We've heard legends about the trove of debris you've got out there. I bet producing your own arms in that quagmire up there is a short-road to getting you strapped into an Order, or Core, torture device for the rest of time. We'll do that for you. Tell us what your men need and we'll sell them over, and train you, too, at discounted rates.

See, what we need is a backchannel to all that good old data and equipment drifting around their in that grave of monsters. We can't get to it ourselves - it's outside of our jurisdiction, mandate, whatever. But sure as Rheinland is as corrupt as a treasure galleon full of shipworm, our homeland is full of fences for that vital Xenobyote and counter-Xenobyote intel. All those order and core records, parts, top-of-the-line systems... they'd go flooding into Unioner systems, next gen' designs, bespoke products for our clients - you name it, Kyle. Best part about it - it's all legit - putting that shady, shadowtech to an honest, out-there, useful purpose. Well, maybe not a totally nonviolent purpose. We're Unioners, sure, not all of it will go to space habitats and manufacturing plants one hundred percent of the time - but that's the beauty of it. The more you buy from us, the more of that booty you sell to us, the more what you buy from us improves.

Believe me, we're the best shipwrights in the sector. If those tight-suits put it to one use, we'll think of a hundred for the same hardware. Think of Kemwer Munitions - those energy field attenuators would make for killer secure transmission relays, long range sensors, nano-level metalworking, you name it. It's an open secret too that we've got an ex-Core hull snooping around with us - some replacement non-essential guideparts would be real useful for keeping that bucket voidproof.

Oh, and if you're talking about the Sirene?

Guess the people who told you are the Lane Hackers. They've been using the ship as a chance to stir up trouble and lie their way into claiming a bigger slice of the Rheinland-Liberty blackmarket. Boring. Between you and me? They can kiss my fat arsch'.

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THE SYNDIC LEAGUES
(A co-operative of Rheinland's outlawed trade unions, determined to take the underworld for themselves.)

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