The Late Show: Retired LSF on hidden pirate bases

[Nicole Hunter]

- ...and today my next guest is retired LSF officer who we will know only under his alias 'John'. Hello John, and welcome in The Late Show with Kate Levinsky. Thank you for accepting my invitation!
- Thank you for inviting me, Kate.
- John, can you tell us what you were doing for the LSF?
- Only in general. I was a chief tactical officer responsible for formulation and evaluation of daily mission assignments in my section. We were specializing in operations aimed at fighting piracy in Liberty.
- You mean The Liberty Rogues and The Lane Hackers?
- Yes, primarily those two groups.

- Just recently we have heard about their successful attack on a large wing of Exile military fighters in the Independent Worlds. After each such incident the public opinion is buzzing with one question. Why the piracy problem in Liberty has not yet been resolved after so many years? It is almost a common knowledge that these Liberty Rogues have this base... this hideout in New York...
- Buffalo.
- Yes, Buffalo. Tell us why our Navy has not yet sent there a fleet to wipe it once and for all? What stops us from doing it?

John took a deep breath and then exhaled silently.

- Physics. Mostly.
- Beg your pardon? Can you explain?
- Criminals pick dense asteroid fields to build their bases for a good reason. The Badlands have roughly only about 150 billion miles in diameter, but The Barrier ice field in Magellan has almost over 100 trillion...
- So they are just too big to be properly searched?

John noded.

- During last 800 years we scanned barely fraction of percent of the Badlands. But that's just the top of the iceberg. With its average density of around half percent for each 500 miles of the Badlands you effectively get one mile thick wall of solid rock often composed of a heavy metal core.
- Oh my god!
- Precisely. Strongest Ageira transmitters cannot penetrate the Badlands past its very surface, making any navigation without a dense network of relay beacons virtually impossible.
- So how Liberty Rogues can find their own base there?
- Of course they have their own network of passive beacons, perimeter patrols and regularly changed navigational codes. So when one of their own gets close enough, he can be guided home.
- So why our best agents do not infiltrate ranks of Liberty Rogues and rat them out to the Navy?

John laughed for a second.

- We did! Many of times, actually. It is relatively easy to infiltrate the Liberty Rogues as they are not too picky.
- So why Buffalo is not yet under siege?
- Unfortunately, we learned it painfully that these criminals can form an organized fighting force. Several years ago LPI base Red Deer Station in Alberta was destroyed in a sudden attack of Liberty Rogues and Lane Hackers. Imagine what would happen if we sent a strike force into deep Badlands to destroy Buffalo?
- The Rogues would fight back?
- Asteroid fields such as Badlands are like a dense tropical jungle. Small group of guerrilla fighters can slow down a march of an army...
- ...buying Rouges enough time to evacuate or even move their base?
- Precisely! And everything would start over. According to our military records in the past only 7% of such operations resulted in the destruction of an enemy base always at a cost of serious causalities. Also there were two dreadful operations when at the "leaked out" location we found a decoy station and a well prepared ambush which forced the Liberty Navy to withdraw.
- So you no longer try to destroy their bases?
- Nothing is achieved this way. The pirates would scatter and then regroup to start a new base in another location at best, at worst we would lose too many lives and resources. Currently we believe that infiltration and limited control gives us better results than a series of failed attempts at total extermination. Our long term goal is to focus on the cause rather than the results...

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The Lane Hackers
"Making the corporate weenies cry, so our kids can live in a free and just galaxy."
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