Cooperate, Survive - The Tale of Styria Cooperative.

[Enkidu]

Riehl held up a three fingered gesture that translated directly into "hold that thought. I need to adult for a moment".

She grimaced at Namazu, clapping the Kusarian on the arm. "Yeah. That tripped me out too. They're storing the antimatter warheads in old water containers as they take them to the station. I was about to risk asking the crew chiefs to start jerry-rigging open those fricking alien ex-GRN Gallic warheads that the Corse brought in. The best part about the water containers? They're not even fake. They're actually jamming the warhead casings in with the pottable water tanks. I guess antimatter isn't gonna' spread radiation into the actual drinkables and it's all contained in the mag tube keeping it away from anything fluid, but still. Talk about a fricking waterbomb."

Riehl inhaled. With so many people aboard, most of whom weren't wired up into the intranet that was already struggling with the load, not to mention the odd Coalition EWAR intrusion, even the usually excellent flow of information was starting to run into the cold, hard limiting factor of the brain-to-electrochemical barrier. There was only so much you could teach to so many people when every hour brought in a new set of tactics.

"Namazu, meet... Leonie, right. Yeah, it's Leonie. Nice name. She's here to help - a volunteer, like you, I guess. " Riehl cut through the inevitable initial inter-house, inter-lives distrust with all the closure she could give it, breathing cigarette ash. She takes a sidelong look at the Daumann employee. "It's alright. We're not totally out of the loop about what gets peddled on CNS. You're here to bat for us? Nobody's going to rob you or throw you out an airlock for your execs' being just a wealthier brand of slaver. I kinda' respect you for not pissing off, actually." She shrugs. It made sense to Riehl a Direktor was extorting someone, somewhere in the corporate pecking order. As far as it went for her, the scared, middle-class woman with the searching eyes was a spyglass into the so-called 'real world' that they were supposedly fighting and dying for. It was good - healthy - for the citizens to be freaks and the freakish normal, and seeing Leonie freak in a place Riehl was probably going to have to die to protect was good for her morale. She was, in a single bolt, fascinating Riehl. The chance to see her kind without the pretence of 'your money, that we'd prefer, or your life, which we can't do anything with and will probably get us in prison', getting in the way. They were all on the firing range, here. If they didn't cooperate, they'd all be shot meat.

---

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

Information | Recruitment | Message Dump |
Feedback | Diplomatic channel

(Links pending redevelopment).