"No gringo, those bastards scrapped the whole thing! Sure it still flies, but weapon systems and the powercore is fried! I mean, how are we supposed to fly back home without our asses gettin nailed?"
The stranger at the bar was saying to the bartender. It wasn't unusual for the regular type of drunkards to come here and start shouting, but this one was completely sober. People had learned to ignore all the shouts in the bar, but very few had also learned that if someone sober is shouting, there might be some business involved. It was old Ben's usual activity, to just sit at the bar and try to sell his salvaged guns to random strangers, but not many liked doing business with him, because most of the guns he sold were total scrap. Well, maybe he wasn't a really good Junker after all!
"I mean... Look at them! Shooting a single gunship with 2 Dreadnoughts, a cruiser and 4 freaking bombers? What kind of a place is this?" Ben kept listening to the man who was talking in a rather loud voice and aggressive tone. Even without turning around to have a look at the one talking, Ben could easily tell from the accent that it was an Outcast. 'Dente's not da best ship to fly round Libarty anyways!' Ben thought to himself.
"And even that son of a witch piece of Rogue in Barghest didn't help us! Pah, and I thought Liberty's a good place to roam around!" Ben shook his head with a chuckle as he heard the stranger say. The Outcast was new to Liberty, and Ben knew that, and he was left there with a Tridente that wasn't worth much more than a piece of flying scrap with nonfunctional weapon system and a fried powercore... Ben's best bet of the day, he was sure.
"Well, we managed to shake em off of our tail and get here, but how we're gonna get back home, only spirits know. Pass me a drink gringo..." As the Outcast said, Ben turned around and finally looked at the man a few stools away. He didn't look that old, but he already had a notable amount of white hair on his head and a scar on his face. Definite appearance of a combatant, Ben could tell. The small cardamine-mask near his nose made it obvious that he was an Outcast, if it wasn't already obvious from the accent.
"Oy mate! come 'ere." The old Junker finally spoke up. The Outcast - who was clearly confused - stood up after looking around himself to make sure he was the one who Ben just addressed and then walked toward him. "What do -you- want now?" The Outcast said in a rude tone, but Ben knew one thing - If there's a business, there needs to be manners for it to work, even if the business is not a 'clean' one so to speak. "Well... I heard somethin' bout you an' your bunch havin' some trouble with da ship, aye? Not like ah' was listetnin or anythin, you were justa bit too loud!" Ben said with a chuckle, and watched the Outcast as he raised an eyebrow and replied, "Si?".
"Well, I think ah have somethin' for you, if yer interested..!" Ben said as he stood up and walked toward the door, without waiting to see if the Outcast would follow, only because he knew he definitely would!
"Toglimi quei bastardi di dosso, maledizione!" Antonio shouted as he rushed to other end of the bridge, checking component status on the mainframe. The ship was taking heavy hits, and the only thing they all wanted was to get out of there in one piece. Scanners were buzzing with hostile targets all over the place, and the readings clearly showed two battleships, a cruiser and some bombers on their ship. If it wasn't for the armor upgrade they had installed on their ship, they would've been dead already.
Who would've thought coming to Liberty just because they'd heard pirating there has a higher profit would end like this? The atmosphere on the bridge was tense, and all four men, each sitting at one of the consoles were too stressed they couldn't think fast enough to react according to the situation. Gino, who was behind the navigation console was the most stressed, although he was doing his best to dodge the incoming fire, there was only one thing he kept repeating in a low voice - "Siamo morti...". Every single one of them always said they're the best in what they do, but it was only under stress that one could actually judge their skills.
Running around the bridge hopelessly, Antonio was thinking of a solution to at least get some of the larger ships off their back. So, looking at the Nav-map, he noticed a large debris field to their right. Marking the field on the console, he shouted at Gino accross the bridge, "Possiamo seminarli laggiù!!" and it didn't take long for the ship to do a complete turn and head towards the closeby field on full speed.
Although under stress, Antonio's decision turned out to be the right move, as the larger ships were unable to pursue them inside the field, and the rookie bombers weren't much of a threat for a running gunship inside a debris field. As soon as they were sure the capital ships are not following, Antonio turned to Marcell with a nervous smirk and said, "Falli fuori!" and watched the sonar view displayed on the main monitor of the bridge as bright bolts of particle chained at the Navy bombers.
Taking much less damage than before, the situation was much less tense, but as Antonio walked back to the Component status monitor, he knew things won't get any better if they don't get out of there quick. Most of the turrets were nearly falling off the ship, and scan from powercore itself was showing heavy damage in various sections. But as he didn't want to add to the stress in the cabin, he rushed back to Gino, and putting a hand on his shoulder, whispered to him "Portaci fuori di qui, ora.", but seeing the worried look on Gino's face, he clearly knew what he was asking for was easier said than done.
"We're wandering too far off course, let them run for now, they wont make it far like this!" As they heard one of the Navy pilots say over short range comms, Antonio bashed his fist on cruise button and collapsed on the chair next to him without a word.
They all knew they were saved - For now -, but one thing they had to do was to repair the ship, and get back to Omicrons as soon as possible.
<div align="right]- Translation to Italian by Costin
"I swear! If these things don't work as good as you've promised, I'll come back here and rip your dirty head off!" Antonio said angrily as he transferred the cash to Ben's account. He couldn't believe he was getting ripped off by an old Junker for 15 millions. He knew for sure that eight salvaged turrets and a second-hand powercore would cost much less than that, but it was their only choice, because the only thing he and his crew wanted, was to get back to Malta as soon as possible.
When Antonio and Ben had walked down to this very same hangar a few days earlier, even from the looks of things Antonio knew he wouldn't get a top-notch gear on his ship, but all he was hoping for was something even barely functional, to get them back to Malta safely, where they could install a new powercore on the ship and get new turrets to get the ship combat-ready again. What the old Junker had to offer wasn't what he was really looking for, but seemed to be their best bet in that situation.
Although the Junker wasn't really willing to talk about the gear he was installing on their ship, it sounded like he had found a wreck of two gunboats and a fighter somewhere in the field less than a week ago and had managed to rip off some of the still-functional equipment off of it. All he said about the pieces he was selling the Outcast was that he found it in space, and managed to repair it to what he called 'As good as new', but the Outcast knew well enough that it was nothing but a lie.
"Nah, don' worry matey! These stuff ah slapped on yo ship are good as new!" Said the old Junker with a wide grin on his face, and walked away as he was tapping something on his PDA - most probably checking the credits in his account. Looking at the ship on the other end of the hangar, Antonio shook his head with a sigh and walked back to his friends to help them load up the spare food and oxygen they had bought from the dealer to the ship cargo hold.
Their trip was long, hard and tiring, but finally here there were, back in Alpha. They had the chance to even try the new weapon system on their way on a couple of unlucky defenseless transports that they happened to come across, and although surprisingly enough, the turrets seemed to be as good as the old Junker had promised, the powercore wasn't doing them any good. They had already guessed that it might have been the salvaged core from a Rogues gunship, with much less capacity compared to the ones built by Outcasts for their Gunships.
"So Amigo, why you want to keep the turrets? I can install a new set of our own turrets for you, and you know my deals are always best!" Antonio watched the familiar face of the equipment dealer on Valetta as the man talked to him. His reason for keeping the turrets was something he didn't want to discuss with the dealer, because "I like their look!" sounded stupid even to himself, but that was the truth!
The turrets weren't that great, but from what the dealer had said, they might have even been salvaged Outcast turrets, because their general design was much similar to the ones Outcasts used, but maybe through the process of salvage and repair - Antonio had guessed - the emitter section was replaced with some other turret's, or just changed manually by the old Libertonian Junker. But he didn't seem to care for any of these, as he had paid much more than he should've for those turrets, and his plan was to use them until they either fall off, or are not repairable anymore.
"Gracias amigo, but I'm kinda dry on cash right now. I paid crapload of money for these junk, so I'll have to pay Taus a visit then come back to you for those new turrets you're selling me." Antonio said with a casual tone, which made his word believable enough for the dealer, as the man replied "Si, Si... Anytime amigo, just drop by and I'll get the new turrets sorted out!" "So how long you said installing the new powercore takes?" Antonio asked as the dealer put his pen between his teeth and reached for his back pocket to grab his PDA and said through his teeth "Two days."
