To: Administrators of Novi Plant

[Artifacticals]

Data Packet Delivery Successful
Sender: 'Slick' Daniel
Encryption: Enabled
Subject: Lane Hackers and Friends

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Hey man. The reason our base is looking so awful is because Derrial that clown decided to go to his bosses and show he was cutting costs on what their balance sheet says is a secure factory by suspending supply shipments and letting the debris just fly right on in. We know she's a wreck and it just breaks my heart every time I'm told my baby isn't getting the bits she needs, because industrial waste isn't a substitute for quality materials, Derrial. I'm willing to invest something out of my own pocket to keep this place afloat. I can't tell Derrial anywhere there's going to be a permanent record of it, he's the bureaucratic meatshield keeping Liberty's military from making this place look like the rest of the Detroit Field, and if there's any sniff of this in his inbox, we'll have steady streams of LSF agents kicking the door down and looking for those exotic goodies you've been kind enough to choose us to deliver to, as well as probably serve several outstanding warrants to some of the people crashing here.

And now, I turn over the steno to my very good friend, a hell of a guy and one of the finest moonshiners this side of the Hood, thThank you, Slick. They call me "Mayor" Jackson and I'm who you could call the chief pirate around here. Well, I'm not really a pirate anymore, I retired here with some of the old crew and set up shop, handle the day to day needs of the workers and any guests we might have aboard, keep the brawls to an acceptable level, that sort of thing. We have a few odd pirate gangs still running around bringing home some prizes they want to offload in a hurry, for funds they want to blow on their preferred delights in just as much a hurry, but the thin veneer of legality thanks to some corporate captains looking for a little excitement, forged work orders (and attendant Interspace policy claims) means we can get away with so much more than we deserve to. So now I'm the glorified middleman to our lovely bazaar you have toured. If you got a friend who needs to make fast introductions to people in low places, I'm more than willing to give you a room. They'll run the gamut of hired guns, smugglers, and the odd freighter pilot, as you have undoubtedly already seen.

On legal documents, thank you, Slick, I don't pretend to understand, we're an outpost of Cryer to engage in high-security manufacturing of specialized equipment, and by "high-security", I mean the old wag "security through obscurity", near enough a more well-documented Cryer factory to avoid raising red flags. Some of Derrial's finest work, that was. All we have to do is actually produce the aforementioned kit, and their suits are more than happy to continue ripping money from each other's grasping claws for their own little empires. We look too valuable to cut, even though Derrial's accomplished that by suspending supply deliveries to cut costs for the- you already told him? Don't look at me, I just got here. Wait this thing is still going. Hold on.

Welcome to the party. Everything in the future is going to be routed directly to Slick and me, so don't worry, we got you. And ignore that last bit, the way this thing works, the data is input once, so we try to do this in a quiet room with no distractions. This thing can pick up on tones and inflections but can't handle a little cross-talk, I wish we could just use the regular equipment, it's so much easier. Hold on. Send. Send. Yeah, I gotta

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Data Packet Terminates

"You're an idiot."
"Shaddup. I think we got what we wanted to across. You'd really blow something out of your own pocket for this?"
"I can only imagine Derrial trying to take up a collection from all the nice boys we have aboard."
"They'd hang us from the nearest Broadsword."
"My point exactly."