Jean gripped the documents tightly, walking as fast as he could to the bridge, anxious to leave the royalist capital. Monsieur Naville, a banker who had business at Sarcelles, had cut him a good deal for a Lucullus Liner.

You will be transporting people Jean, not wildlife. Although I couldn't care less for the lives of a few thousand Council refugees, I do believe that if you are going to move them to Sirius, you better do it with a suitable ship. It's a long way my friend. You know that better than I.

The man was a wealthy swine to his working class eyes, and every word he spitted out of his shaved face was a challenge Jean had to endure not to smack him good.

Besides that, this one is pretty resilent. When you find yourself in trouble, and you will, it will give you a chance to at least defend yourself.

He was right there. It was going to get rough frequently, and it would not be like before, when all that was at risk was his own life and a bunch of supplies. He would be in charge of the secure transportation of hundreds of civilians, whole families loyal to The Council who were forced to leave their homes and seek refugee within Sirius. He would be responsible for the lives of thousands, so failure was not an option.

As he got closer to the bridge, he washed off these thoughts from his mind and started thinking about his place in the ship. Back when he flied the sluggish Pachyderme train, it was him and a handful of technichians roaming the skies. Now that he had become a Liner Captain, he gave orders to dozens of men and women, each and every one eager to support the cause.

These were not soldiers though. Intelligence had suggested that no armed personnel was included among the crew, so if the ship was ever aprehended by the royalist forces, it would be able to claim to be fulfilling a humanitarian mission. This was in part good news for Jean, since he was not military himself. He did carry a sidearm though, and it was the only weapon on board the recently baptized La Soiree, which would recieve it's proper tagging and callsign as soon as they entered deep space and got out of the police patrols' reach.

Sailor, turn the jamming sequence to intermitent mode so we can send them the coded message.

La Soiree had arrived to Maine twelve hours ago, and had been evading patrols all the way from the secret jumphole to Evron Base. It was full of munitions, each and every passenger seat covered in boxes of bullets of different calibre and arguable quality, all purchased in the black market. That was the most dangerous part of the voyage. If the royalists found them carrying all that, there would be no 'humanitarian mission claim' to save them. The surrealist scene of a passenger Liner full of warfare would probably buy them a lifetime in Bastille.

Operator, make a pause between every bit of the message you code away, and don't take two pauses of the same length. We have to avoid their computers to detect a pattern.

There wasn't even a message. Just the confirmation that more than nineteen hundred seats were available, just sitting in space nearby the station, ready for those who had been longing a getaway ever since they found themselves exiled from their own home. They needed to act fast though, or else they would attract unwelcome attention.

We got a response Sir. Said the Communications Array Operator. Wing Fraternite - 25 clicks east.

They are sending a patrol wing to escort us? That's odd, they never mix our operations with patrols...

Suddenly a red light turned on on the Broadcasting Console and the Operator turned towards Jean.

Sir, a distress call is coming from that direction! But it's streaming in through regular channels...

Do not respond it yet Operator! If it's them, and no matter what kind of trouble they are into, they will let the call die at the third beep, and send it over again afterwards.

As if the events were waiting for Jean to conjure them, the call ended after the third beep, and resumed some seconds later.

Answer that call Operator, it's them, and they are out of range to call Evron themselves. They rely on us!

The Operator pushed some buttons and let the call in.

This is a message to [C]-CLT-La.Soiree *** indistinguishable sounds *** tell Evron to execute maneuver 50 a.s.a.p. please!

Copied Wing Fraternite, we're moving and re-transmitting as we speak.

Jean made some gestures to his crew and they quickly set emergency course straight to Evron, while the Operator transmitted the message. After recieving confirmation from Evron, he switched off all transmissions and the Engineers powered down all functions to circa zero. The base was one of The Council's best kept secrets, so they had to take the most strict precautions.

A few minutes later they crossed an Obstinate Cruiser and a Perilous Gunboat, escorted by two wings of snubcraft, which were headed to the patrol's location.

They are calling the heavy cavalry...

The hour that followed was the longest in every crew member's life. They couldn't see more than five metres away from the ship, they had no news about the skirmish, and none from Evron either. They gathered in the bridge and each told a story he or she knew about the war. This seemed to cheer them up a bit, so Jean encouraged it and spoke out a couple of his own anecdotes. When they arrived, they almost crash because of the size of the base compared to that of the ship, and the scarce visibility. Nevertheless they managed to moor and soon Jean was walking down the stairs to the hangar's main floor.

What he found when he was able to observe the vast volume of the hangar, was hundreds of people clapping and shouting in joy, not only for seeing Jean, his crew, and La Soiree there, but also because the speakers were broadcasting good news about the battle that had taken place. It seemed some lone Corse had learned the path the patrol used, and waited for them, asking money in order to keep the secret of their presence in the system. As the protocol stated for these cases, the blackmailers had to be dealt with on the spot. The help of the strike force, though, was what enabled this, because the patrol wing was barely managing to prevent the Corse ships from escaping.

Soon, all those joyful people would be gifted with a new life. Elsewhere, but free.

As I said Captain Eustache, Liberty is a much better place for these people to start over than whatever hole you pretend to dump them in around the Taus. Remember, all the patch of space between 23 and 31 is Gallia's war frontline, so removing these families from war zone to place them on another is just making them go all over the pain and the stress again.

Jean was fed up of having to deal with shady characters, and this freelancer, who had jumped in at Salbris Brigand Base in Orleanais was not a better person than that Naville banker from Ile de France. He was supposed to arrange accommodation for all refugees on board of La Soiree within Liberty, but Jean had his own doubts about this idea. Something inside him urged him to take them all to Tolouse anyways.

The trip had started almost one week ago, after the little incident with the Corse was cleared out, and they had made a quick stop at that Brigand station to refuel and let this businessman and his light fighter in.

Now, there's two ways of doing this. I can arrange your people to be taken in by the Liberty Rogues, but of course this means they will live a life among the bandits and criminals. There is also Planet Pittsburgh to pick, which already recieved many refugees from the Bretonnian battlefront at Leeds, and is ready to let them in without much hassle. Here they would all become proper Liberty citizens after some time, but they would probably end up working in the planet industries and mines.

The Captain of La Soiree listened carefully to every word. Orders from high command were to try to accommodate the refugees somewhere in Sirius were they would be safe after all, so it was better to pay attention to every detail before making a choice.

Captain Eustache, the only other option I can think of is asking all Zoner communities around Liberty to see if they would be able to take these civilians in, but I doubt it will be possible, and even if it is, it would mean that they would all end up at distant locations from each other. Families splitting, friends who won't see each other again, and all those things which would make a mother cry.

Jean did not appreciate cynism, and the tone of the freelancer was starting to sound that way. Nevertheless, he was right about handing the refugees to the Zoners. And a life among pirates wasn't at all what he had in mind for them, so he made his choice.

Alright sir. I made my mind already. We'll take them to Planet Pittsburgh in the New York system. Life there as pictured by you sounds hard, but at least it's honest and distant from trouble. It will be heaven to all these gentlefolk after what they have been through.

The freelancer smiled in a way that made Jean feel uneasy. Just as if he had closed a very good deal. All philanthropic looks seemed lost now, and sparks of greed could be read in his eyes. Of course, The Council was paying him handsomely for the help, so Jean disregarded his suspicions and decided to let go of him as soon as possible, to let him reach Liberty in time for the preparations.

We have a deal. I'll meet you in orbit of Planet Pittsburgh in four weeks.