Diary of Hannibal von Rothenburg

[Cawdor]

- 25.03.816

• When I ventured through omega-5 today in order to cross it in direction Gamma, I came across a rather positive surprise. One may expect everything in the Omegas that can go wrong to go wrong. But what happened there was enriching in both experience and stock.
  Just after I undocked from Cardiz, I took notice of a deeps space exploring vessel which I scanned out of habit rather than clear intentions. To my delight I found out that its captain, apart from many scientific and industrial instruments, was in fact transporting a wide number of different men, women and prisoners. Slaves, Civilian Pilots, Scientists, Hackers. I didn't waste a thought about his weird affiliations and motivations as a Hacker venturing around Corsair space but came straight to the point. His Crew.
  It's what I love about the Edgeworlds: If someone has humans aboard, he won't hesitate to sell them to you. Friend or foe, guest or prisoner - any captain out here would sell anyone without second guessing him self.
  After a razer short negotiation phase, we settled on 25000 Credits for two slaves, three of his scientists and a Civilian Pilot.
  Even though his expedition seemed to depend on the Scientists, he didn't hesitate to sell them to me for the right price. But it were these damn hacker pilots he wouldn't let go of. I even offered him one million (!) in credits for them, but he wouldn't let go! Zats just unbelievable! I still don't have a single lane hacker in my collection. They are really hard to come by without having to shoot at them at first. And I hate eating flesh I had to conquer in a fire flight. When the prey dies, its tensed muscles make the meat chewy and the adrenaline creates a bitter taste on top of it. Corsairs call me picky but they aren't exactly known for long pondering over what to eat next anyway.
  It was my persistence that made the captain grow suspicious about my intentions. He started to ask questions about what I would need that "crew" for and if my bomber's cargo hold had proper life support. I decided to leave those hackers be and rather head home to my dromedary on Kreuzberg since the transfer of these people already stimulated my appetite and this captain started to annoy me.
  While I actually wanted to use those slaves to help me with the butchering, I remembered that someone forced to do such complicated and artistic work would only mess up the tasty parts with wrong cuts and spilled body fluids. So I flushed them out when I was half way zrough omega-11. It was actually a rather good Idea to get the atmosphere out of my hold as greatly helped to conserve the rest of my cargo. Plus I'm really not into killing in person. Its just plainly annoying and I always had problems to understand the behavior of these irrational criminals. Why would one want to kill a man and then not even take his flesh? Its a waste of important resources, no less. One who doesn't appreciate food, does not deserve the appreciation of others. He only deserve to become food. My food.
  Anyway, when I came home, I took a quick look in what I got my self there and I was actually quite satisfied: The Scientists were, as expected, not very muscular but their flesh seemed yet juicy and soft. The Civilian Pilot (his clothing seemed to be Bretonian - no idea how he ended up in this guy's hold), who was quite fat, had plenty of muscles. Perfect for some steaming and a classic hotpot.
  Since I felt like I was starving by the time I was done, I didn't waste any time and hung all of them up their feet and cut their throats to get rid of the blood. I grew impatient and just went ahead and cut off a half of one of the scientists calfs to flambe it right away on my little emergency cooking set that I keep in the butchering room for ... well - emergencies. It was only then that I realized that the woman I was about to eat from must have given birth to a child less than a year ago! What a fortunate coincidence! I haven't had human creme brulee in forever!
  

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