Council of the Corsair Elders

[majkp]

Pedro Maniaco let Gentle leave the room, there was no point in holding him back. Pedro had a reason for staying silent for so long. He thought if he let those two cowboys blow off some steam, things might get better and he was also hoping for final handshake. But it seemed more difficult and only the well known healing abilities of time could help now..

They had to move on to far more important matters, so Pedro stood up and made a calming gesture at Ares.

"Brothers, I was hoping for a different beginning of this meeting, but let's leave the current personal issues between brothers Ares and Gentle and let's move on. You all probably know I wouldn't invite you to this Council, to this room to solve some past bar-fights."

He cleared his throat and continued.

"First of all, I'd like to be sure that you all have the same insight on the Mercenary issue. These people should neither be trusted nor hired and therefore they shouldn't be let to fly freely in Corsair Zones of Interest."

Pedro looked in their faces, and when he saw most of them nodding he continued further.

"And now, the most important matter. Brothers, in the recent past, we have all been busy defending our home, Omicron Gamma, some of us were obtaining food and suplies for Gamma by pirating traders passing Omegas, attacking military targets in Bretonia, we have beem persuading traders close to Corsairs to smuggle Alien Artifacts into the systems of enemy houses, and we have been recruiting and training new recruits. It seems that Gamma has once again become a safer place as we are growing stronger."

"But the food shortages continue, and our people suffer. We have two options. We can double our effort and continue what have been doing until now, or we move deeper into enemy territory. I obviously wouldn't be organizing this council to assure you all that we do great and we should continue the current way."

Some of the present Elders seemed surprised, while some others were starting to smile as if they liked the way Maniaco was thinking and so he moved on a bit further.

"Okay, now we have another two options, thew first one is Bretonia. We have our base Cadiz in the nearby system which could be used as a base for all our forces. But as I said before, we have been attacking Bretonia quite frequently and I think we should move onto another target, a very rich one, with advanced industry and lots of busy traderoutes."

Each time Maniaco was close to the term 'piracy' he noticed a slight disagreement on Ares' face. But that was nothing new, both Corsairs and the revolution army members had different insight on weakening enemy houses. Corsair way was based on piracy while the SCRA strictly refused it. But they had to tolerate it if they wanted Corsairs to perform joint operations with them.

So far noone stopped Maniaco and he continued:
"Rheinland. Their military is one of the strongest ones but imagine the income after we succesfully raid the Ring nearby Planet New Berlin. Imagine their mood when we force their military to retreat. Imagine the fear that will spread into other parts of Sirius when we attack them. So, here's the plan."

Pedro clicked something in his pocket, and the lights in the room dimmed out. There appeared a map of Sirius. The flashing cursor moved onto the Sigma-13 system which enlarged over the whole screen.


"I was doing a small secret research in the area. There is a research station in the Sigma 17 system but it's neither suitable to support large group of vessels nor can we persuade Cryer Pharmaceuticals to cooperate with us. But there is a Junker base in Sigma 13, not far from the New Berlin jumphole, the Yanagi Depot. It's known that Junkers preserve neutrality in the Outcasts vs. Corsairs war but when I spoke of a large attack on Rheinland they were willing to help."

"Well, under one condition. They want constant shipments of the scrap metal mined from the Tenereife Asteroid Field, surrounding the Tripoli shipyard. They said it's rich of some composite they need for building larger ships. So I say, if shipping some junk there from Omicron Gamma enables us hide a large attacking group in the clouds of Sigma 13 and use Yanagi Depot as a temporary base, so why not? We could hire RepEx Shipping to help us with the deliveries and use their escorting services or escort their transport ourselves. On the way back they could bring some food back to Gamma."

"I am sorry that my speech was so long, but as I see noone is sleeping yet and you all seem rather excited. What I want of each of you now is to say what you do or don't like and what other suggestions you might have."

Pedro sat down, and drank the whole glass of beer at once.