The Guard fights a war, and you're silent. For months, years. Even have the audacity to move in a fleet, fighting for our enemy, I might add, without as much as a courtesy call. But when you spot a shiny, you sure are quick to remember your little friends in the west. Kinda makes me wish Beltran was still around. He was a stellar guy, you know. But I digress.

Lucky for you, we've decided we have kept you waiting long enough. Also lucky for you, a deal like this isn't off the table. Yet. But you're right, it won't be as easy as exchanging shirts after a match. There will be a few catches to it. Mostly meant to make up for some... Moral losses the Guard has suffered due to your misconduct.

With that out of the way, I'll just get to the issues. The training, obviously, is a must have. I'm fairly sure your Praefects don't have the same hardware stuffed into the bridge as the Essedarius. Nor do I expect them to be anywhere near as tight and cramped as Caliburns. I'm sure we can both round up some crews and make a small exchange, have your amigos train ours and vice versa. But that's for when the deal is set and the ships are building.

Now, patching up. Suffice to say a "Fixing a starship with scrap for dummies." tutorial is all the knowledge you'll need. We made sure the ships are as simplistic and reliable as humanly possible.

Lastly, well... Permanent? I fail to see any other way this could possibly work. We fork over a Caliburn hull, you fork over a Praefect hull, and everyone's happy. No timetables or payments to worry about.

Now. For the catch. I trust you remember that one time we asked you to return the favour. With the tech and all. But then Buonocore happened and nothing came out of it. We'd like to restart that deal. Once that's done, we can proceed to exchanging the big toys properly.

Sounds good?

Alright. I'll not press the subject any further. Not really feeling like ruining all this for a few snarky comments.

In any case, you can be sure that your bare hands will not be necessary. Both of the proposals are agreeable on our end, and we're already rounding up a team to be assigned to Tripoli. Mostly Watchers, but I expect an Emerald or two to wiggle their way into the roster. The channel itself will be handled by the Emeralds in a few days. They have more know-how on this stuff than we do. We'll have our engineering team help hook up the systems once they're settled down on Tripoli.

As for the dinner... It'd be a pleasure, but the war is keeping me busy. Maybe during some calmer times.