After embracing with Trueno briefly, Valeria responded. "Si, hermano. Senor Lancehead is right here." Then she remained quiet as Trueno introduced himself to the foreign guest. It would seem that Valeria or the other corsairs present did not mind Crete's heat, they seemed used to it, and (at least in Valeria's case) enjoying it.
As Trueno beckoned to follow into shelter from the heat, Valeria nodded. "Muy bien, hermano. I bet you are curious to hear how senor Lancehead and I met from another point of view, but those are best spoken of inside with el refreshing drink, I think."
Trueno turns around to get off the landing pad and into Myrtos Villa, his brothers locking Lanchead in between them, eying him closely.
Inside the villa the temperature immediatly drops and there is no dust biting eyes or lungs. The floors and walls are made of bright marble and and are richly decorated with art pieces, some clearly from Corsair artisans, some from house artisans. It is apparent that showing wealth is quite acceptable on Crete. Without taking a break or turning around Trueno explains: " Myrtos Villa, our ancient home, our honored halls - Corsair history has been made here so tread lightly for only familia, amigos and socios have been allowed here..." after a small second of akward silence he goes on: "... from Valerias report i take it you are comfortable with talks in cantinas,si? Coincidentially we have a fine one here....and there we can find out what actually brought you here senor! "
After silently moving down two more heavily adorned hallways the group enters a small cantina that looks rather comfortable and cozy in terms of decoration and ambience. The tables mostly are in small alcoves and are made from thick hardwood, and the walls are not marble but "regular" tapestry spiked with what seems to be ship remains and memorabilia from who knows where.
No one is here, but a table in the middle of the small room is prepared with some glasses and some bottles - faint music is audible in the background. " Take a seat."
*A new tall man with dark eyes and a long jacket over his shoulder walks into the cantina*
Hola,
"I hope I am not too late for dinner? I am kinda hungry... "
*His eyes aimed at Trueno and his finger points at him*
"Ahh. Amigo Trueno why did you call me? I was about to shake some Hessian heads as you called me. I hope everything is alright? "
Anso sits down to one of seats unasked.
*He draws a long breath*
"Myrtos... I forgot how wonderful our home is. I should stay here more often. But well, lets talk about business, shall we? I bet you got a job for me? "
"Hermano, buenos dias- we just arrived and i guess it is not dinner time yet. But as you are back from hunting down those ragtag Hessian dogs, you might be the perfect hermano to explain waht we usually do wiht those who interfere with our trades, might be a bueno conversation starter,si?"
He smirks at Lanchead -still waiting for him to sit down.
Lancehead moves to sit down, suddenly screwing his facial expression into something rather odd. He grasps at his chest with his mouth open, collapsing shortly thereafter. He'd had a heart attack.
----
"What in the hell am I doing all the way out here, again?" Pygmy sighs, shaking his head. Piloting the Retribution, really the only safe vessel to take on such long distances, he briefly looked away from the controls and shouted behind him "SUSAAAAAANNN! BRING ME MY COFFEE, WOMAN!" He shakes his head once more, muttering to himself "I don't even know why I keep that woman around, lousy secretary AND coffee minion."
A few minutes pass of him waiting for his coffee whilst thinking various negative thoughts to himself about the scenery and hatred of lands outside of Liberty and he still does not receive his coffee. He frowns, sighing and grips the wheel hard. Seeing an approaching smaller sized asteroid, he grunts and slams the controls to collide straight into the side of it. The shields deflect it, but a loud audible boom is heard and the ship shakes violently.
A scraggly haired tall woman comes running up the flight deck screaming in a high pitched voice for a dramatically long period of time, until she notices the ship actually isn't going to explode. She glances at Pygmy's empty coffee cup, turning nearly red with fury and stomps up to grab it. She takes it in hand, retreating and later returning with it filled. Pygmy takes it, grinning widely at her and sips rather noisily.
Soon enough, he begins to see Crete in the distance. Evidently, Crete saw him too flying a Liberty gunboat. Erratically, weapons platforms erupt with gunfire and Pygmy swears rather colorfully and puts the ship into evasive maneuvers. Weapons fire flashes by, occasionally hitting the shield with a dull thunk. Soon enough, they actually realized this was not a Liberty Navy warship majorly p'd off due to artifacts flowing into Liberty and coming to smite them. The weapons fire abruptly halted, and Pygmy exhaled for the first time since they opened up.
"And people say WE shoot everything that moves." He sighs loudly in relief, requesting docking permissions. A painfully long near-hour long conversation ensues, but eventually he's allowed to land. Entering the planets atmosphere safely, he follows the instructions Lancehead gave him and lands at the specified coordinates. Stepping out from his ship as the ramp loudly hisses air due to pressure being released, he glances around.
Onlookers would see a short man, standing around 5 foot 2 inches holding a coffee cup. The man appears to be utterly caked in engine oil and various other things you probably don't want to know about. Taking a look around, he sighs and withdraws a metal flask from his back pocket. He pops it open and pours a generous amount of clear liquid into his coffee, swigging it around and spraying liquid droplets on pretty much everything in a four foot radius.
"Mierda." a moment after lancehead dropped into his chair, Trueno checked his life signs. "The Libertonian is one dead gringo. Akward."
Trueno ordered his staff to get the body into a cooling coffin, then rushed off to the meeting with the hopefully still alive senor Brisbane. "Award. Mierda" - while Trueno was not truly sure if the Xeno would have lived through the day anyways he definatly did want to go through proper etiquette to thank him for saving his Hermana hide....before confronting him with a list of lost artifact smugglers ship that have stumbled into the Xenos. That will have to wait then...
----------------- Days later-------------
The defense grid was activated. Unknown intruder, gunboat class vessel. At least the defense commander had the sense to check up on it instead of shooting the ship down instantly. So...it seems the Xenos do come looking for their lost hermano...this will be interesting! Trueno authorised the ship for landing at the Europa spaceport in the high security area for more than fishy smugglers, then he rushed off to the place,too. A security squad has been alerted and posted around the dock, the stationary defenses were ready to clean house.
As the battered ship landed, Trueno was watching from under a sun roof,it was an exceptionally hot and dusty day. With Pigmy exiting the gunboat, Trueno snorted at the sight "how comes e rich house fools all walk around like space hobos with all the riches at their hands? Well then, at least "dangerous" is something else" with another sigh, he stepped out in the sun, followed by his entourage to form a half circle around the ships exit.
The soldatos were in full armor, seemingly untouched by the heat, guns raised halfways, rather nonchalantly. Trueno was dressed in his official uniform, fully adorned and armed,of course.
"Welcome to Crete and buenos dias senor....I am Trueno Benitez and your welcome committee. What brings us the honor of your visit Senor..uhmm..." Trueno pulls this off without smirking or irony and even adds a small bow.
Pygmy glances around at the half circle of gathered troops and grunts, glancing over at the one greeting him. Unfortunate that they actually need this deal, he'd prefer not to deal with foreigners at all. Times are tough, so he'd suck up his displeasure and put on his best, yet slightly grim, smile.
"Afternoon, uh, senor. Name's Pygmy, tossed my old one aside a long time ago." He glances around, shrugging at him as if there's nothing more he can think of to say at that moment. Pausing, he continues. "Lancehead assured me ya lot wouldn't be shootin' him, an' it seems we haven't gotten any comms back from 'im recently. He drunk an' festerin' in some corner or what?" Blinking, he realizes he forgot to state the proper formalities. "Oh, ahm. Pygmy, Supreme Commander of the Xeno Alliance. Death Adder has had some.. circumstances complicatin' his position so I've taken over and whatnot." He nods, offering a rather half-effort bow but manages to give the man a convincing grin.
Trueno takes a second to ponder a reply, then offers his hand to greet Pigmy properly, dryly adding: " Seems you Libertonians have a hang for dying then, follow me Senor, we need to talk. I have a meeting room prepared here at the spaceport, you might want some refreshments after all."
He turns to leave, then remembering something "Ah, by the way- are you alone here? If you have companions with you they might accompany us...they shouldn't stray around here alone, Crete is sometimes a bit rough to newcomers and we don't want anyone to get lost, si?"
Trueno and his group of soldatos is ready to leave, waiting for Pigmy an his possible company.
Pygmy nods, shaking his hand then frowning at the comment he adds afterwards. He glances at him, as if calculating exactly what is worth saying and what is not. Sighing, he nods. "Lead the way."
He moves to follow, stopping when he pauses to ask his question. Pygmy lets out a deep chuckle, wiping under his eyes a bit and doing nothing more than spreading even more engine oil around. He shakes his head, grinning "Just got ole' Susan with me, an' the shoot'n crew. Ain't my problem if they get into trouble." He pauses, adding "I think they'd want to get into trouble, anyway."
He nods as if in confirmation to his previously mentioned statement, and follows him once more.
Unsurprisingly, half the squad stays at teh ship, trying to peek inside here and there while Trueno leads Pigmy inside the spaceport. Here, the air is climated and not as dusty and dry outside, it is a tad rugged but functional. There is surveillance everywhere and it doesn't look like the VIP welcome section at all.
No matter what, the small group reaches the top of one of the Hangars watchtowers and a small meeting room. The room has an open glassfront with a view on the open air artifact market outside the spaceport, busy as always - and it offers a circular sofa with a table and a holo projector. Of course, no table is complete without a bottle of rum and a handfull of glasses.
The guards line the room and Trueno offers Pigmy to take a seat. " Bueno, here we are senor Pigmy. take a seat and take a glass of Corsair hospitality. Now....we should talk about why you came here. Or why senor Lancehead came here. To my understanding your group helped mi hermana out of a whim of fate and invitations were made for proper thanks..."
He pauses a bit, trying to find proper words "Now i have a probelema - i tried to give my appreciation to senor Lancehead in full formallity before discussing some not so pleasant issues...but then he dropped dead.
WITHOUT outside influence that is- he couldn't even get the basic hospitality i deserved. Now with that said- i hope we can return your hermano to his familia, it is embarassing for mine to have guests dying in our ancestral home"
Without much waiting he takes a seat and strats pouring some glasses, offering one to Pigmy
" Well then, on those who have gone and on a brighter future!""
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