For the desk of Fleet Admiral David Hale.

[Bazza]

A package delivered by express post arrives at Admiral Hale's desk, hand delivered by one of the workers handling the operations of the office surroundings. The padded envelope has more of the familiar yellow privacy stickers haphazardly plastered across it. Even more of them reside inside the package across a small cardboard box, containing a video recording written to what most consider a completely obsolete technology - the DVD.

The disc when played presents the interior of a small, cramped and disorganised room not unlike those of the barracks of a large capital vessel. Mismatched household furniture including a two-tier bunk bed jury-rigged to the walls and floor with screws and bolts fill out the tiny quarters, a small porthole on the far wall offering a preview of the space outside. The passage of asteroids indicate the craft is moving, albeit at a slow pace - to avoid striking one of the many boulders surrounding it.

The camera at first appears to be floating across the room, recording its passage from floor to ceiling indicating the current environment lacks any mode of gravity, artificial or otherwise.

The sounds of laughter can be heard from behind the camera before it is abruptly grabbed by an unknown entity, shaking the recorded picture violently before refocusing it on Evangeline, who has taken up residence in mid air upon the roof of the room.

She is observed to be wearing a ragged, torn pair of cargo pants and loose-fitting, olive coloured tee-shirt which has been knotted up around her back. Her hair has been tied into a ponytail, which has been stuffed down the back of her shirt.

She seems disinterested in the camera at first, instead focusing on the view outside the porthole window. A voice from behind the camera speaks up, the accent and speech pattern hinting at a Kusarian girl.

Hey.... Evangeline! It's recording.

Evangeline quickly refocuses her gaze to the lens and offers it an unexpectedly warm, pleasant smile.

Permanent? I assume by that you mean "me out of Liberty, alive or dead".

I have no intention of leaving Liberty. I like it here. It's also rather easy, even for someone like me, to fall off the edge of the map. The underbelly is rather extensive, as I'm sure you're aware. I only make myself apparent when I feel the need to.

If it were up to me, honestly, I'd go back to being a harmless little Junker. But you know people tend to hold grudges. So all I can do is keep my guard up. That is why I need the cruiser.

It's the very reason the bounty exists, after all. People by chance stumbled into me "on the street" and took action. Something that isn't going to change no matter how hard either of us try.

Anyway. Putting all that aside.

Are you aware of planet Wichita in the Kansas system? High orbit thereof shall be my preferred meeting point. It is far enough away from, well, everything, that it can be considered neutral territory.

The vessel you will be interacting with be unarmed but also expendable. I may be blonde but I'm not stupid.

Whether you choose to come unarmed or not is up to you. I won't demand that you do. Having the Admiral of the Navy out so far from home might cause the locals to try their luck at a pot-shot or two and that wouldn't suit either of our objectives.

As for the time.

Obviously you need to fly all the way out there, as do I. Adding to the fact we operate on differing time schedules...

Evangeline pauses to think for a moment, her face scrunching up as she attempts to calculate the differences in time between herself and Hale.

Going by Universal Mean Time, how does 8:00am on Sunday the 2nd of January sound? Obviously being new years' one is going to have many commitments to other areas of life. And you know, Remus isn't going to come to any harm in that kind of time frame. He is being given food and water and is not being subjected to any actual torture, putting harmless annoyance aside.

If that's no good then perhaps either the Saturday or Sunday after?

Anyway. Those are my conditions.

I really should get going. One of my goons is having a sook about something outside.

The recording ends, switching to a brilliant blue screen akin to that of a computer's setup display. The video does not cease playing however, and after a brief lapse the paralysing, utterly unmistakable and undeniable sounds of a woman engaged in, and greatly enjoying, sexual intercourse stream over the blank blue window.

It becomes apparent the users of the recording device have not only re-used old discs but are also not entirely educated in the correct use of it.

The video continues playing until it is switched off.

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