The Dire and Ever Circling Wolves Pt. 1
01 Feb 2018Sloan4prez
I just had an interesting conversation with CMDR Pieguy1177. Funny, the things you get to learn about your colleagues, when you spend some time shooting pool with them instead of dodging multicannon bullets... As it turns out, the tragic events from a few weeks ago which lead to the untimely death of Pieguy and his wife Charolette's infant son was not at all what it had seemed. Christ, It was such a chaotic time for the regiment!
This all took place at the height of our campaign to rid Diabak of Fidenef Alliance and I guess that the combat focus allowed for this to all happen right under our noses. I'm still astonished at Pie and Charolette's unwavering composure throughout this whole ordeal...
As we settle around the wonky bar table, I can see Charolette nervously folding a napkin as she begins:
- "Nasty pieces of work that call themselves 'The Seventh Sons of Salvatrucha'."
- "Merc scumbag commandos operating under some kind of ancient 20th century Earth gang code which they believe themselves to be descendants of, led by a psychopath CMDR named 'Crom'."
- "The kind of swine that'll carry out anybody's filthy bidding for the promise of a few bars of shiny metal."
The whole medical emergency thing had been a complete fabrication. Ryan's evac to Serebrov Station Memorial Pediatric Hall,
the raider attack on the medic ship that had resulted in the infant's tragic death?
- "All lies. At this point, I'm not even sure who it was that Tim, (Pieguy's trusted friend and mechanic) had spoken to over the comms."
He says as he snatches away the napkin his wife had been fidgeting with for the last few minutes.
- "Though Serebrov Memorial have confirmed that they do have a Dr. Tobias on staff, this person was neither on duty at the time when Ryan was taken, nor exists there any record of an evac having been ordered out of Bridges Survey that night."
In the absence of facts, it's impossible to know for sure what the intentions behind all of this were but the theory that requires the least amount of fist mashing for the puzzle pieces to fit goes something like this:
Presumably, this Crom would have been hired by Fidenef Alliance who would have orchestrated this hoax in an effort to demoralize and weaken the LSR's resolve in our assault against them. As much as it pains me to admit it, I find myself a bit surprised by the decency displayed by Fidenef as it seems that actually going through with infanticide would have been far simpler to implement and equally as effective.
It is not the kind of mercy I would have shown them. The devil hath a bleeding heart, I guess...
Unfortunately for The Seventh Sons of Salvatrucha, that decency must have found it's limit because it seems that they have been left with little recourse but to barter with the kid's life as a means of compensation, with their employer cowed in a corner, licking at it's wounds.
- "300T of unmarked, freshly refined Painite for the boy's life."
The ransom, to be delivered by a third party at a pre-arranged location - an abandoned shipyard on Fidenef 3 b.
An FSD wake imprint of Pieguy's ship, The Nirvash has been obtained and any detection of this wake signature within the drop-off system is to result in the immediate jettisoning of the hostage into the vacuum of space.
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I can smell that bullshit all the way from Fidenef and these boys are fanning the fumes. We have to prepare this carefully because there's no way we're getting away with this without a fight. There's a rumour flying around the bubble that this Crom character regularly flies a torpedo boat FDL that has racked up several Corvette kills and I'm not looking to become another decal on his hull.
But I also don't negotiate with scum, neither does Pieguy.
- "We ride for Fidenef when Diabak dawns over Bridges."
As I make my way to the bar to settle the tab, I glance back towards the couple and see Charolette stuffing the folded napkin under the short leg of the wonky table.