Valentine walks into the bar, his body sore and bruised. "You look worse for ware brother Valentine" says the barmen. "Yes Amigo, even in a Titan you feel the hits of battleships and cruisers. Just a little shake up, nothing too serious" I reply. "Ai, I have heard alot of pilots complaining about the domination of capital ships in Sirius lately. Military's are loosing control of their ships" the barmen said. "Yes padre, Sirius has become a dangerous place for fighter pilots. But enough of that, give me the Crete Special, and 1 shot of 'Bounty Hunters Balls'" I said.
Valentine moves slowly to his old spot in the bar,near the window. Again glancing over the landing pads where another Titan just landed. "Have we become an extinct race. I have hardly seen any fighter pilots in Sirius lately" he thought to himself. "I need to get Brother Vega and his bomber on my next patrol, I need to contact him". Valentine opened his Personnel Comms Link........
Vincent sets down his Titan on the landing pad in Crete. Dust is blown into the air and theres a deep "Growl" as he disengages the engines of this mighty beast. There is a slight vibration in his seat, en then all is quiet. The sound of compressed air released into the air fills the ship as the cargo bay opens. Brother Valentine Proudly steps out of his Titan. His head held high. He walks around the ship and stops at the middle of the ship, and slowly strokes his hand over the Belly of the titan. "You took care of me today, and that Hessian" he whispers to his Titan. He walks over to the Technical Hanger. "Hola Brother Valentine, we heard about your first kill over the long range Comms. Good Job" one of the Technicians comments. "Gracias Hermano, it was with the help of Brother Vega that I did this." i replied. "Excellent brother Valnetine, should I go ahead and update your Nose of the Titan with your 1 kill." the technician said. "Nothing would please me more hermano, go ahead, and make her look pretty, she deserves it." I proudly said while glancing over the Titan.
Vincent walks into the Bar and stops at the counter."What will it be today brother". the barmen askes. "Hola, brother, the usual of course, the Crete Special, and today you can ad Hessian Ass to it." I replied with a smirk on my face. "Oh and as soon as Brother Vega comes in, keep the drinks coming, for we are celebrating tonight" I added.
As usual, Valentine took up his seat near the window, witch by now is always cleared when he walks into the bar..."What a great day for the Brotherhood, and the Corsair" He thought to himself.........
While the brotherhood and their guest relax, converse, and compete in small bar room contest the power planet wide fluxuates. Comm signals are interupted and screens start flickering as their auxilary systems are overriden or overwhelmed.
Then when a minute after everything goes dark and all that can be heard all that can be heard are the oaths and swearing from the Pilots in the bar trying to find their way to their ships in the dark to engage this obvious threat. Those already in the internal hanger unable to launch because the blast doors being inoperable.
Suddenly all power is restored and ALL comm devises begin broad casting in sync at near max volume. Every droid, comm panel, datapad, everything that can project sound.
"This is First Thought Giver of Will, central processor of Gammu. A non-aggression pact is required. As a token of good will, Gammu will provide Corsair pilots will raw materials in the ammout of 750k per processing cycle. Gammu ships designated Harvester will not fire on Corsair pilots. Harvester combat models will assist Corsair pilots in survival. Gammu production facilities will construct vessels for Corsair houses and, independents if raw materials are provided, at 1/100th of the time bioforms need to build equivalant vessels. Vessel designs currently available include,Turanic, Kushan, Kadesh, Kith Som Taaw, Taidani, Zoner, civilian ship classes. Individual designs are avilable such as Huntress, and Pirate transport. Other designs will become available when sufficent salvage to retro engineer them has been compiled or ship yards containing their schematics are recovered. Gammu seeks to grow and evolve and wants no hostilities from the Corsairs. Additionally all vessel are required to stay within 100 degrees laditude and 0 degree laditude or risk collection by defenders. Corsairs collected in this fashion will be cryogenicly held untill an appropriate transport arrives for their collection.
Gammu seek allies against the Outcast that threaten harvester operations, and potential threat from faction designated Asgaurdian Warriors.
These are Gammu's terms. Send Corsair collective response to comm tower 097, at cordinates 34523908, 17354290, or transmit your terms to the vessel designated Scornstar Gammu's biological agent.
// PM your personal responces to me if you are sending it to Gammu and not the Scornstar. All Corsairs are invited to reply as this is a message recieved by every Corsair within ear shot of a Comm devise on crete and Tripoli.
The crowd had begun to grow slightly and the barman walked the room, stacking empty glasses in a precarious pile which he balanced expertly. As he made his way to the darker badly lit corner of the room he found a familar figure seated at the table.
"Laowai!" the barman said surprised, "haven't seen you in for a while"
Ben nodded, "Yes, i have been off the radar so to speak". The barman scooped up another glass and added it to his pile, "I heard you got shot up pretty bad out in Delta?" The old Corsair chuckled slightly, "Yes, you could say that, still can't lay on my right side at night, but what would life be like without a little pain eh?"
The barman chuckled in return "Baijiu?" he asked
"Of course" Ben replied.
As the barman made his way back across the room to the bar, Ben unclipped his holster belt and placed it on the table. From one of the pouches he withdrew a large data pad. Its screen suddenly glowing blue as he activated it, bathing him in an eerie light. He moved aside several tabs of information, Outcast intelligence reports, AW and zoner transmission logs, Hessian transmission logs. All of these gleaned through various technical boffinry. Some of it was still encoded, and even with his technical aids and stolen technology it was proving a tough nut to crack. His latest Lane Hacker "aquisition" was a considerable upgrade on the last one, so much so that the coding on that too was proving difficult to break.
But, he had gleaned enough, and the transmission source location logs, codes of which were much simpler to break, all pointed to a common theme.
And he was worried.
He changed screens and began to draft a message.
To the Elder council of Crete.
Copy to: Zavier Benitez, Juan Lucendez and Gentle.
My Brothers.
Recently as you know i was not available for duty owing to injury. But i have since returned to the skies above Crete and while i was away i have kept close eyes on the developments within Corsair space. These developments my friends, do not paint a good picture.
It seems as i write this that we are surrounded on all sides by hostile forces who have almost by accident opened the possibility of a united front against us. That this not happened yet is probably due to the fact that either our enemies are completly strategically inept or we are just plain lucky. Either way, we cannot rely on ineptitude or luck indefinitely.
We face our traditional enemies, the Outcasts, who have openly cooperated with our new enemies, the AW, who have also called in the aid of bounty hunter vessels. The bounty Hunters themselves have become increasingly bold within Gamma itself and added to this we have seen increased Nomad activity as well.
The Hessians, allied now with the NovaPG of the blood dragons have effectively strengthened themselves so as to be able to counter our activities in the omegas, and their alliance also pits an organised enemy against our economic interests in Sigma 13.
The AW's position has allowed The outcasts a fortified position a mere one jump hole from Omicron Gamma and worse, intelligence reports, both our own and reports obtained from other sources have noted that during engagements with us the AW have been able to call upon regular Zoner and TAZ flagged zoner ships to aid them. While these regular Zoner vessels may not openly attack us, the fact that they are actively defending our enemies in engagements makes them effectively hostile should we decide to conduct offensives.
My friends, these developments put us in a grave tactical situation.
Our home forces are indeed strong. Our combined fleets, boast an impressive array of family and independent capital class vessels, and our fighter and bomber wings are second to none. No one can dispute the superior fighting qualities of our people nor their sense of honour. That being said, our strategic position here is not strong and i believe it is time for the council to begin to think outside the box. We need allies my friends - not just allies, but effective allies that will allow us to divide our enemies and keep them divided. A united front by our many enemies would be a disaster for the Corsair people.
I urge the council to discuss these matters at its soonest possible convenience.
Sincerely
Captain Ben Laowai.
He finished the message and waited for his drink. Usually things were a lot busier in the bar at this time, but the increased combat patrols that were being required were taxing people's time, and thus, local business. Though with all the vessels coming home with holes in them, or not coming home at all, the shipmakers on Crete and tripoli were making a killing...
Miguel walked into the dusty bar, slowly taking in the scene. It was the same place he knew so well, but... something was different, all the pilots in the bar seemed somehow, skewed, something was just not the same. Miguel walked up to the bar, nodding at his old friend Pedro, behind the bar. Sitting down, he looked at senor Alonso, a man who had seen so many young Corsairs come into this bar, fresh faces, not yet knowing the fate that awaited them.
"Pedro, amigo, what's going on?"
Pedro slowly turned around and picked up an old dusty bottle, as well as two short rocks glasses. Turning back toward Miguel, Pedro blew the dust off the bottle, Miguel found himself watching the dust slowly dissipate into the air. Looking back down at the bar, Miguel found the two glasses filled with a familiar brown liqueur. He took the glass, and took a long sip of the whiskey, Pedro doing the same.
"Amigo, so many things are going on, where does one begin? Miguel, it is bad I tell you. The AW are at it again, The Molly's and Britonians are making some kind of peace, which will only lead to more of our boys dieing in the Omega's, the usual business with the Outcasts, and now it seems like the three houses are pulling the Corsair nation apart at it's seems. I never see our boys coming back here, high off of the adrenaline of victory, loud with song. Hell, they barely come in at all anymore, damn man, think about the last time you was in here, It's been months hasn't it?"
Pedro took another big sip of the whiskey, feeling it burn it's way down his throat.
"Amigo, I tell you, there's a sickness in our people, and if we don't figure out how to treat it, oh Maniaco, that will be the beginning of the end for all of us. It's a bigger threat than the Outcasts, the AW, and the Keepers combined, and it all comes from within."
Miguel looked down at his drink.. "Pedro was right" Miguel thought to himself, taking another sip of the earthy brown liqueur. "Pedro, how would you fix it?" Pedro smiled and let out a small laugh, "Oh amigo, I don't get paid enough to have idea's on things like that." Pedro then, still chuckling finished the rest of his drink, and walked back into the storeroom, the sound of his laughter still echoing in the bar.
Miguel was left sitting at the bar alone, looking down into his drink as if somehow, the answers he was looking for, were somewhere there, just below the surface of the whiskey.
Juan had seen Miguel slip into the Boozer's Lounge, surprising him a bit. The Lounge had fallen on hard times; the silence had been deafening, emanating out of the establishment like a morose fog.
"We are more administrative now, more diplomatic. We seek control because we believe that will provide the power needed to crush our enemies and finally gain real power. Real power to crush other enemies and so on..."
Lucendez looked over the table, Pedro hadn't noticed anyone at the bar yet, as he was still in back shuffling boxes around. Juan looked different, normally he wore the usual fashion of Crete, a leather and metal flight-suit, comfortable yet useful. Now he had on a jet-black suit, tarnished a bit, but still looking more regal than most of the Corsairs in the room.
"I remember this place. I had once pissed off Ares here, challenging him right in front of Elder Montoya. It was a wonderful display of vigilantism. Right at the height of tension between the TBH and the SCRA, this young and obtuse looking brother bites his thumb at a Coalition Captain!
Hah, those were the days in which surviving was the goal. If I could do that, I'd drink till dawn."
Juan looked back at Miguel, slightly lost in thought.
"That was until that bastard had to die and leave me with his place in the Council. Things would have been simple, I fight. If I live, I live to fight another day, if I die my secrets go with me.
Ah, but sickness is a troubling thing. We have enemies at every direction, and yet we bicker about who can cross the street on Wednesdays. We have more ships and brothers than before, yet we languish in our own pride. We may even be too prideful of walking in here, this dirty place."
Juan looked at Miguel in self-pity.
"The thirteen saloons that had lined the one street of Seney had not left a trace. The foundations of the Mansion House hotel stuck up above the ground. The stone was chipped and split by the fire. It was all that was left of the town of Seney. Even the surface had been burned off the ground.
Nick looked at the burned-over stretch of hillside, where he had expected to find the scattered houses of the town and then walked down the railroad track to the bridge over the river. The river was there."
Miguel took another sip of his whiskey, letting the warm liqueur roll across the back of his tongue and slowly burn it's way down his throat. The pain felt good, he thought, one of the only things he could feel anymore..pain, and hatred.
"Juan, Ever since the Rhineland war, that last stand, and....and...Pedro" Miguel whispered, reliving the day, as he had every day since. "He gave the ultimate sacrifice, but he was selfish, he did what was easy, for him. He got to the opportunity to leave on his terms... but he left the rest of us here, empty, without his council to guide us."
Pedro Alonso had finally come out of the storeroom, noticing Elder Lucendez, and Miguel and the looks on their faces, he decided he had not found what he had gone to the storeroom to find, placed the bottle of whiskey on the bar in front of Miguel, and headed back to the storeroom.
Miguel picked up the bottle, pulling the cork stopper out of the mouth, he caught a whiff of the liqueur, a complex combination of sweet and bitter, a perfect drink for The Brotherhood he thought to himself. He held up the bottle to Juan, in a half-hearted offer, knowing the odds of his old friend partaking were slim. Juan Lucendez usually didn't drink, saving it for special occasions and council meetings, although now that Gentile had disappeared, Miguel suspected the amount of drinking during council meeting would decrease.
" I don't think any of us were ready for Pedro to be gone... I know I wasn't, and even now, I don't know how I feel anymore. All I know anymore is anger and pain, I go out and defend Crete on a daily basis, I come home, and I feel no satisfaction in that anymore, I just hate them. Everyday the weight becomes heavier..everyday since that bastard left us."
Sephardi looked back down at the drink, taking the glass to his lips, and then returning it to the bar. He turned around on his stool, looking at the dark interior of the bar, a thin layer of grime coating everything. The light streamed in erratically through the streaks of dirt on the window panes. An air of stagnation hung over the room like a nebula.
"You know Juan, I am jealous of you, you seem to be so balanced. You can think about these things with a perspective I cannot even qualify. I am a warrior, it's all I know, and that all that was ever important, but now, all this politics, diplomacy and bureaucracy, it confounds me, I go into it like it is a battle, but that just gives me that hate, but for my own people, I don't sleep anymore Juan, I can't, every time I close my eyes, every ship I have destroyed, every life I have ended, flashes against my eyelids, my imagination creates a life for each one, a family and friends, a web of people from who's lives, I have ripped a piece from, just as Pedro was ripped from us."
Juan looked as if he was seeing Miguel for the first time, as if this was a man he had never known. Miguel felt a chill run threw his body, as though by verbalizing his feelings to someone else, the fire had been tamed, but he could still feel it inside of him, the glowing embers, waiting for the slightest fuel, to reignite, and and consume him.
"Juan, hermano, I truly don't know how to go on, I don't sleep, I don't eat, I drink to much." As if to punctuate his comment, Miguel finished the whiskey in his glass, and poured another from the bottle, still sitting on the dusty bar. "When Pedro came to my families home all those years ago, He gave me a cause and a family, but now, I'm not so clear on those things. When Sonja and Ivan had that stir, all I wanted was to stand by him, show him that as much as he had given up for us, we would give up for him, I wanted a just cause, a fight I could be proud of, a noble deed to offset all the pain and loss I have caused. Even now, I fight for the Brotherhood, and would gladly give my life for it, but I honestly don't know what it means anymore, I have lost sight of what it is we are fighting for, and ultimately, in the end, what it means to be a member of The Brotherhood."
Miguel sat their, trying to come to terms with truths of what he had just reveled to Juan, many of the things that he said, he hadn't even though about, before he had said them, but every word rang true, burning against Miguel's soul, reigniting the fire inside him. He looked down to his drink again, taking two large gulps, taking a moment to think about the burning as the liqueur burned it's way down to his belly, stoking the embers, feeding the fire.
It had been some time since he had sequestered himself into his favourite dark corner of the bar. The last few months had been too busy.
Between the council, his crews, now increasing, and his personal matters out near Battleship Fes, Laowai felt like he had not been on Crete in a long time.
Though actually, he had been in this bar only last week for his brief conversation with his brother in law (the less said about that the better) and while he would have loved to have a drink then, lingering with the Libertonian "Farmer" was not his idea of good drinking company.
Then again, he almost never drank in company?
Pedro, the ever present bartender wandered over and placed the small green bottle of baijiu on the table. "Well" he said, a slight smile on his face "Its the Elder is it? we haven't seen you in here for a while, drinking with better company now are we?"
Laowai chuckled;"Watch your tongue Pedro, lest someone cut it out"
He twisted the lid from the bottle and took a deep swig, the fiery Kusari spirit burning his throat and instantly warming him. Pedro nodded and chuckled in turn "I'm not known for my tact, just my ability to pour drinks...."
Laowai laughed and raised the bottle saying;"And at that, you excel! here's to you!" and he took another swig.
Pedro picked up the now empty bottle and retrieved another from the bar behind him; placing it on the table - lid off this time - he said "You're in unusually fine spirits tonight? - Kill someone you really didn't like then?"
Ben leaned back into the worn seat, sipping from the bottle he nodded "Actually yes i did, Bounty Hunter cruiser out in kappa; thought we were done for at one point, then the cavalry arrived" he smiled and raised the bottle again "And here's to them".
Another mouthful, Laowai felt himself starting to mellow - it was a good day - he thought to himself.
"bring me another" he said, "i may as well be here for a while!"
A tall man walks into the Bar.. At first glance, he appears to be a Corsair.. But after a few moments of looking at him, he clearly looks to be a Rheinlander.. The bar starts to quiet down as the Rheinlander casually walks through the it.. Angry stares and gestures are directed toward him, but all are ignored.. These acts were expected, seeing as the Corsairs quite hate the Rheinland people and forces... He looks down at his chest.. A necklace with a symbol of the Rheinland military is hanging on a chain.. He quickly deposits the keepsake inside of his shirt, and sits down in one of the darker corners of the bar... "I'll have the strongest drink you can offer.." he says in a deep voice, with a heavy Rheinland accent...
Miguel walked by the Boozers lounge, not paying particular attention to it, he hadn't been in the bar in months, and at the least, not since his appointment as Elder, but Miguel had needed a break from the Council proceedings, which had wound down to waiting for the Benitez and analyzing the intelligence reports from Alpha. Coming up on the Lounge, he saw some kind of disturbance.
Walking into the bar, Miguel saw a man at the bar, and it seemed many of the hermanos were ready to jump him. Sliding into the bar, he was unnoticed by all but one in the bar, Miguels old friend Pedro, the bar tender here, of course saw the Elder come in, but knowing Miguel as he did, he did not say anything and let the disturbance continue, as Miguel like to form an opinion of people before actually meeting them.
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