Ava returned to her quarters on Ouray, deciding to pick a few things up before leaving. She grabbed a jacket off the wall, and turning, noticed the lit communicator left on her desk. She swiped it up into her hand, and listened to the message. 'Change of plans then? Alright.' Already walking towards the hanger, Rattler left a simple message to Lance, "On it."
Rattler then sent a message through longer range communications, this one heading to Ames. "This is Rattler, Xeno Alliance Royal, I need that bomber we left there cleaned. No, not with soap, clear any bugs, tracking devices, whatever you find off of it, and do it by the time I get there. Just don't touch the computer. Yeah, you'll get paid. Rattler out.
After walking a few more minutes, her path down to the hanger was complete. She climbed into her Talon, and set a course for Nome, where the Liberty was moored. Ava hoped a trader would pop in so she could have some fun on the way.
"Yeah, of course we are interested in any information you want to give us. But no, we're not trying to crack your avionics to get nav data" He smiles slightly. "We will check if the LSF tech guys didn't plant anything unusual there. Then we'll bring your ship here - to Ouray." The communicator he left on table started to buzz. Ronnie picked it up, pushed a few buttons and after a second, he wrote a short message: Ava, don't touch the computer!. "Thanks for letting know about the computer. But I guess Ava figured on her own what to touch and what to leave alone." Ronnie was pretty sure that Rattler thought about it herself. But he was also wondering if the auto-erasing system is true or is it just some Sonya's bluff to maintain the status quo... "Allright, Sonya... I hope you don't mind...? We all know what we've met here for. You're screwed in Liberty. We can help you in keeping low profile. You're not a type that can be discouraged by some adversity. I'm sure you want to finish what you started - cut off the LSF's head. We might have different plans on what to do with it later, but I'm sure we can figure it out. You need people and firepower. We need an insider and informations."
Ronnie emptied another glass of the booze. Apparently, he got used to drink a lot. He inhales strongly and continues. "I can imagine only two situations that made you meet with us. Either you're more desperate than I thought or you have some kind of plan." He looked right in her eyes and lifted his eyebrow making it obvious it's more of a question than a statement.
Jonathon sits back as he drinks his coffee, with a calm feeling that everything is being handled in the best manner possible.. but as he listens to Lancehead's remark about information, he knows he should respond...
"Miss Mosby, while I know any information your ship holds would be beneficial to us, I am sure some type of mutual understanding will be of much more usefull nature. So, If my word holds any weight with you, I can assure you, your ship will remain untampered with."
Jonathon then stands up and says, "I will be but a moment, I need to speak with the bartender...."
Sonya was waiting the whole time for this dance to start and she expected it since the first meeting with Lancehead. She knew the Xenos would be interesting in any information she could give them and yet they were smart enough not to rip anything apart just to possibly get close to those databases.
Focusing Ronnie with her eyes turning into slits she began talking again.
"Being the former head of the internal affairs branch gave me some liberties within the LSF. One was to get a private crew for my vessels and I made sure they are more loyal to me than the rest of the agency. I didn't liked to be monitored by the LSF because that was my job, I was the one monitoring everybody else."
Letting the situation pass a second she grabbed the glass and drained it in one shot. Strangely she became used to the booze served at this place. It wasn't that adulterated stuff one usually got served in Liberty pubs.
"I know you're interested in any data that might become beneficial for you and I'm willing to share as much as I can with a pure conscience. But I need you to understand that some of this stuff might not be up to date since I figured out a lot of things have changed since I was tossed out. I can't guarantee that flight plans are still used to perform daily business and I figured out that the agency already had changed her frequencies."
Those facts she mentioned were nothing but the truth and she hoped that her hosts would not question that at any time. While she was placing the glass back on the table she leaned against the chair back and reopened her eyes. Since her arrival the situation in the bar calmed down a lot, those suspicious looks she got in the beginning turned into disinterest. "Well, to comply to this mutual agreement that Mister Jones mentioned... There's an assault cruiser in the service of the agency. All of the crew are handpicked by me and they are still loyal to the heart. Maybe this might become useful to you in the future?"
Secretly she was asking herself if the mentioned LABC still would be commanded by those she picked for the job. Leroy never fully trusted her and if he was on a move to tear down everything she once established going to replace ship crews didn't seem that devious to her.
Yet on her run from the LSF the captain of the Jester still was the same when she still was in office.
Ronnie was listening to Sonya carefully. He wasn't surprised really. The girl sitting across the table seemed dangerous to him since he first contacted her by neural net. Pulling out a battlecruiser right out of her pocket was something he was expecting. Kind of. But a battlecruiser isn't exactly the type of ship xenos would use. And Ronnie wasn't sure if it makes any sense. Yeah, it could deal some serious damage to whoever they would attack with it. But it would get destroyed by Liberty Navy very fast. Mhm... maybe the Order could help about it? They have that cloaking technology, they use it on Osiris class which is even bigger than libertonian battlecruisers...
But still... one shouldn't use a flamethrower to light a cigarette. "Battlecruiser, huh? That's quite a ship. But what would we do with it? You surely know that using it against any Liberty assets would make all the Navy hunt for it. I'd give it twenty four hours of life at most after that... And unless we'd extract the crew somehow, they'd all die probably..."
He filled up Sonya's glass and - as there was almost no booze left in the bottle - he emptied it in one shot. He looked around for the bartender but couldn't find him. I hope Ava will come soon and bring a bottle with her... he thought. "So let's leave the cruiser where it is now. And let's focus on our targets. I know we both want to cut the LSF's head off. And it's not an easy task. I'm sure Leroy won't risk hanging around in a guardian... Capturing him, even killing him, will be really difficult. We could try to do it - by deception - and it's where your cruiser could come in handy. But the question is - what then? If we will risk many lives to achieve it, I wouldn't like it if he was replaced with another cheap, corrupted bitch as him. Do you have anyone that could replace him?"
Ronnie leaned back inhaling with the cigar smoke and exhausting a large, blue, aromatic cloud.
He was pretty sure that Sonya knows she can't take over the LSF. Mhm... does she...?
Ava walked slowly into the Ouray bar, scanning the tables within. Everything had gone as it had been planned, and the bomber was clean. Supposedly, at least. Spotting the table with Lance and what she thought was the LSF agent that had defected, she started walking towards them. Rattler realized the bottle was empty, and did a quick turn to where to bartender was, cleaning a few glasses. "One shot glass, and Mother's Finest." The bartender set down his glass, and reached under the table. "Try not to let the agent over there pass out, hmm?" Word must have spread pretty fast then, Ava thought to herself. She walked over to Lance's table and filled her own glass up, then filled Lance's, before sliding the bottle neatly to the middle of the table. She sat down where no other shot glasses were, and looked over to the ex-LSF agent. After a second or two of sizing her up, Ava nodded. "I'm Rattler. Guess you're the LSF agent? Before waiting for an answer, she glanced at Lancehead.
"Liberty has been moored, I did what you asked. I want to know what's in the bomber though..." Ava picked up her glass, and began swirling the liquid a bit. "Who knows what we would find in there? Well, I suppose you would, but still." After staring into Mother's Finest a bit longer, she downs all her glass, and shakes her head a bit after. While she liked lighter drinks, you'd be crazy to say she still couldn't take the bars signature one. "Anyways, I'll need a bit of filling in on whats going on. Skim it all over."
Her face uncovered a smile as Ronnie was talking, did he really believe she haven't thought about the Navy chasing a battlecruiser that's being used against Liberty? Either he was underestimating her badly or with every scar in his face he lost at least a quarter of his brain.
Crossing her arms in front of her chest she began talking again. "I'm not quite sure if you think that I'm nothing but stupid of course the Navy and the LSF would be all over the place if somebody would send a LABC against their forces."
Her hand went through her hair as she paused for a second. Somebody new was heading to the table and she wanted to get a closer look on that woman. It seemed to be the one Lancehead was talking to earlier about her Li-117 and eventually she found out it was that person.
"LPI," she responded to Rattler. "Hell no, even if I worked for the republic I wasn't contracted by a corporation. I always liked to think for myself. Yet I'm the one whose bomber you probably were searching for some gizmos. Don't think you found some, right?"
Her view fell back to Lancehead who seemed to be thinking about something.
"Well, speaking of somebody who might be capable to steer the agency back to something that does not poses a threat to the republic and the people itself I know somebody who would be perfect. But by now it's not the time to think about successors, right?"
Ronnie was glad to hear that Rattler took care of everything as ordered. Damn good subordinate she is.
Her mistake about Mosby's previous employer was understandable. She didn't know much - only some rumors. But Sonya's harsh reaction to that was somewhat interesting. It seems that not only the xenos find LPI a bunch of mindless corporate thugs. "Well, isn't it? Do you think I'll risk lives of my men to overthrow the current LSF leadership just to let you put some of your buddies in that place? Without even asking who would that be? No, I will not. There are many important things that we'd have to discuss before we try to make it happen. And your candidate is one of those things. But yes, if you want to change the subject for now, maybe we should start some business. We offer you the relative safety of our base. We can extend this offer by access to some of our other bases. Maybe it's time for you to give something in return?"
Sonya moved a little bit towards the table and lay her arms on it, her eyes were straight on Ronnie as he finished talking. "Actually the candidate I have in mind isn't a buddy, he's nothing but a former superior to me. Yet he's intelligent and he also questioned orders given by Leroy."
It still seemed that her host didn't catch up all the way, she wasn't here to get revenge on the LSF or Leroy himself. She was here on the behalf of the republic.
Getting Leroy of the grid could be done alone, she wouldn't need the help of the Xenos or anybody else. "But well, let's talk about the business and not what may come. You're interested in information I can give you..."
Her right arm slowly moved towards her leg trying to locate one of the pockets on the side. Anybody who wouldn't have seen her gun which was still on the table might have taken this for an attempt to shot the gang who was gathering here. As she opened the pocket she grabbed a little computer tablet and put it on the table.
"I guess that'll be a nice start. On this," she said while pushing the tablet over to Ronnie, "you'll find a list of all LSF vessels that were in service back when I had access to the database, flight plans, patrol routes and the location of the LSF facilities. I'm assuming you already might know some of this stuff but I guess there's still interesting things you haven't heard of before."
She pushed the little device towards Lancehead and watched his facial expressions closely as he began to read. Would he be pleased with what she just shared or would this just increase the amount of information he tried to get from her? "The first tab will show you a list of the vessels, the second one is for the coordinates of LSF stations, their name and purpose, tab three will show you the flight plans, schedules and routes. I guess you already can see what tab four is about. The other ones are not active and there's nothing in the associated memory banks."
Even if Sonya knew this might be suicide she included the path trough Zone-21 and the activation sequence codes for the Alaska Jumo Gate. A little extra were the details about the prototype recon cruiser which still was in Grise Fjord Shipyards dry dock but could become active within days if the R&DA might try to push it.
"Take your time to read it, it's quite interesting I guess as some of this stuff isn't even known to the Liberty Navy. Not to mention the LPI pricks, they still think the world ends at Zone-21."
At the other side of the bar a man notices his friends talking with the woman who is a stranger to him.
He slowly makes way to the people and nods.
''Yo Rattler , Lance , 'sup?
So I return from a two day's flight and this is how I'm welcomed?
Who's the broad? never seen her round here before...''
Without waiting for an answer he continues his monologue. ''Pardon me for speaking my mind , but I don't trust ya.
Is that the smell of Kusari perfume , or corruption surrounding your pretty behind?
What the hell is going on here Lance, we don't need bourgeois like her around here do we? ''
He then pulls out a empty chair and takes seat on the table, resting his feet on the chair.
As he lights his smoke , a sweet intense smell surrounds the table.
He then extends his hand out to Sonya. ''Call me Canebreak, bet you know the name already.''