Gateway Comm System: OPEN
To: All Personel
From: Alisdair Buchanan, Trafalgar
Subject: Trade Report
Greetings, All!
Had an...interesting experience yesterday. I had brought boron from Manhattan to take to LD-14, and was in the trade lane from the NL JG to Planet Leeds, when the TL was disrupted and I was stopped by pirates, namely - and this is the kicker - two Hessians and a Hacker. I immediately demanded to know what Hessians were doing pirating in Leeds, but the response - containing a rather alarming shortage of vowels and consonants where they were supposed to be - was dismissive. One of the Hessians demanded 2 mil. I asked again about their strange presence, and they began a countdown. As it neared zero, I explained that if they could give me a good reason, I'd possibly pay more than they asked. They could provide no good reason and reiterated their demand. I said I'd pay only the Hacker (since he was the only one whose presence made any sense), to which they agreed. I proceeded to pay 200K rather than 2 mil, just to see how they would react (I figured missing a zero in my transfer could easily be attributed to the stress of the situation, if they asked). The response from the less than bright Hacker: "Good, now leave!" Alrighty, then...
Approaching LD-14, I commented publicly to the Hessians on the unreliability of their Hacker counterpart, the latter who proceeded to argue that I had paid the 2 mil. I told him to check again, and I heard nothing further. Shortly, I also noticed the Hessians were making their way back to Rheinland.