The bar on Freeport 5 has never been the busiest of bars. Buried deep in the middle of an asteroid showered in constant radiation, it doesn't get many visitors, but those that do come by are often in desperate need of its services. The current bartender, Harry, has had a long history of keeping the peace between the various factions at odds and ends with each other while they are patrons in his bar, but thats not to say there never been trouble. This particular night started like many another, a quiet stream of tired and sullen drinkers minding their own business, till the next patron, a Corsair evidently, entered the bar. "Ola' Senor!", he exclaims, leaning on the bar brazenly,"Think you could set aside a few bottles of Rum, and a meeting room for me? I have some important business to discuss with an amigo who'll be along shortly"
"Yeah, sure buddy." Harry reaches under the counter and pulls out a keycard, "Here, that'll get you into Room 7, down the corridor there and take a left."
"Gracias amigo- don't forget that Rum either." replies the Corsair as he swaggers off to find the meeting room.
Harry nods, "It'll be along shortly. You go get settled in." He turns to the cabinet behind him and starts rummaging through the bottles. "Hey Jeff," he calls for his waitstaff on this shift, "Think you can grab some bottles of Rum from storage? We're about dry here."
"Sure thing boss, back in a jiffy." Harry then turns back around and grabs a rag, polishing the nearest glass while waiting on the next customer.
Arbeitsdirektors had made a point, since the assassination of Abendroth a generation ago, to make themselves as inconspicuous as possible. Garen had hung over the Union, spectral, simply because the majority of Unioners didn’t know his face. The internal struggles of the Liga – several bodies, struggling to become symbiotes, required risk. It had meant constant rotations between planet and space, in a comfortable human trafficking. Speeches and meetings were conducted, at the most dangerous proximity, between overclocked transport shields and the thickest armour plates that black money could weld.
He rubbed his face. The rigours of solar radiation and an apathy towards taking his longevity drugs had worn the thickness out of what once had been a stubble that he’d revelled in chipping away. Perhaps it would survive a shave, but it would be… new.
He’d branded himself as a egalitarian hawk, that was what he was known for, like it or not. It was a fiction. There still needed to be something older than the millions of bickering cells that comprised the ‘Liga.
Frei unzipped his jacket; it was a thick, dark green breast-pocketed windcheater that a LWB man likely owned at some point before it was fed up the chain. He wondered what the original owner would have done to the clothes if he knew who Corin was going to parlay with.
His PDA flashed his cornea. It was time. He suspected the Corsairs didn’t pay as much value to punctuality as showmanship and output. Frei knew he couldn’t promise either – no bluster was for sale today. He finished his bier – a functional alcohol that wasn’t bitter enough to pass for the real thing, and wiped the residue from his moustache. He tipped, to the tune of three and a half credits.
“Danke Freund.” He nodded to the Libertonian Rheinlandic barman with the Sugarland tells india-inked across his neck and wrist.
“Tja”.There was no postponing inevitability. He realised that life and death excited him, as did the very real possibility that he was going to spend the rest of his short life as a Corsair hostage. If he did, he’d go down as a fool – the Direktor who wandered off without his security detail. He should have fabricated a cover narrative. Yet again, Corin knew he wasn’t competent at cowardice. It wasn’t so much that it wasn’t a well he’d wanted to pull from, he just didn’t know where the entrance was.
Room seven.Stenciled in Bretonian, and, obliquely, Kusarian; hundreds of light years from the faintest wisp of the crow. Here we go.
He realised then that he should have skipped the beer. On the table in front of the Elder was the waft of uncorked rum. He'd be mixing spirits and hops; the fast road to either a headache or a sprint to the head. The brotherhood were old masters at intimidation tactics. Perhaps that was the idea.
THE SYNDIC LEAGUES
(A co-operative of Rheinland's Shipping Unions, retired from a life of piracy.)
Leaning back in his chair, feet up on the table, Alexander looks up at Frei as he enters the room. "Buenos dias, old man. I hear you want to trade some artifacts, si?", he starts, sitting up in his chair."Take a seat amigo, and lets see what you can offer the Empire today." As he finishes the greeting, he places his blaster- a worn yet well maintained pistol of Libertonian design, on the table.
Corin grinned affably. As telegraphed as he could, he slipped his handcannon out of a hefty hip holster that was slightly too large for the gun. He handed the pistol forwards, butt-first, and laid it down at right angles to the table's meridian. A bulky, ironsighted Kessler antique that would have been worth tens of thousands if not for the various Unioner cut-downs and aftermarket modifications. It wasn't pointing at anyone. It wasn't pointing away either.
“It is a buyer's market.” Corin pressed himself against the chair, wrists flat against the edge.
“We're your way in and out of the Rhein. There has been demand for Alien artifacts since before the war. Rheinland was the first house to publically conduct research on alien ruins in, and beyond, our borders. There is demand, yet there is also fear. The Nomad War soured the Rheinland underworld, as did the Omega conflict and the dependence the Hessians have pushed onto the Rheinland counter-culture." Corin ploughed in directly. The Corsair was direct - it made sense only to be direct in return.
"Your empire is under change. Your relations with the Gallic Royal Crown may feed Crete in the coming Sirius. But your economy is dependent upon the sale of artefacts. It is what has made your families rich. Piracy has been the tool, but it is the artefact trade which gave Crete the funds to build your fleets, and the resources to send them across the sector. The Corsairs are an ambitious people. You have been an ambitious people since planetfall, since you took the Schiller for yourselves. You have always struck above. Now, you are striking above by aiding in the final days of one of the founding houses. Your enemies will try to bring you down, through your trade dependencies. Your empire has always relied from what it can gain from others. Be it through profit or through theft. Everyone, from the Outcasts to the Junkers, will try to cut the artifact trade out. It is Crete's sole export, and an economy cannot survive if it simply takes alone. It would make you vulnerable. You have a high-value commodity which is valued from all fields from the various sciences to Sirian high art. Gallia is always pushing for Sirian marvels. There is the potential for a crown market for Artefacts even greater than the Libertonian one."
Corin leaned back in his chair, lacing his palms, and fixed the elder sidelong.
"You have a service you need to sell. You need a partner who will not offer demands upon you, but will let the Empire persue it's own objectives. The Unioners do not interfere with others unless it impacts ourselves - and we have done everything we can to weather the sea change. No matter which side breaks through in the Gallic War, we will still be here. Your people are moving to change history, rather than survive it. To do so, you need people who are willing to embrace change. We are. We are a Socialist movement unafraid to act independently of Volvograd. We are an individualist cause who understands discretion. And we have motivation. The Hessians boarded our stations as an act of economic calculation. They wanted to bias us. Instead, we have secured an operational border above the omega zones. Everything above Dresden is fair game. We can sell your artefacts discreetly. rapidly, and in bulk. In return, we have vital shipbuilding supplies that your own engineers and design teams can break into ships for the New London front. Your Empire can weather this war richer, not poorer, for it. The Union has moved fast to secure new trade links with Gallia, both in the over and underworlds, before the Hessians have. Now that Rheinland and Gallia share a border, the Unioners straddle this border with our Davos base, beyond the Zurich-Cologne connection. We offer you a route to Gallia that undercuts your regional rivals. We have trade links with the Hogosha that allow us to run goods over the Sigma warzones without attracting Navy attention. The Hogosha themselves have partnered with us on a Trade Station expansion in Munich. It waits for Aluminum ore and for Xeno Relics. The first can be sold in Gallia by Corsair traders, and the second in Liberty by Unioner middle-men. We still have the ties that the Corsair co-operation with Gallia will force you to break, one way or the other. We can make your enemies money pay for your war."
Corin falls serious, his gaze level, tracing up from the Elder's boots.
"I will say it again; It is a buyers market, Elder. With respect, Crete does not have any other options to get your stones over the Rheinland Liberty Border. Freelancers cannot transport in sufficient bulk, and we have all the pre-existing infrastructure, right from the Xi border all the way to the Liberty Border. We have been running these goods for centuries. In pragmatism, look at the distance between Unioner and Corsair assets. We stand to be the empire's closest friends in territory alone. Xi is but a hair away from Unioner core operations, and Crete beyond. "
Corin broke the link, pressing his own boot up against the table, in the solidarity of diplomats.
"Apart from the money, the Union has an interest in seeing the various socialist factions of Sirius think for themselves, rather than follow the Premier out of the nearest airlock if the demanded it. Diverse revolutions are a better future for Sirius, both above and below the law, than one front lead by a monopoly. A strong Crete keeps the Premier in check. What your people have done for the independence of Canaria is proof enough. The Union stands to profit by letting the Empire complete its objectives - cash and resources in hand, and staying out of the empire's way."
THE SYNDIC LEAGUES
(A co-operative of Rheinland's Shipping Unions, retired from a life of piracy.)
Alexander nods as Frei goes on his monologue. "A lot of what you say, economically, is true. Yet there are a few resources in even more demand than our very own Artifacts- Trust. Loyalty. Honor. Decisiveness.", he starts, motioning in broad strokes with his hand as he speaks. "To know that your amigo has your back, and won't leave you surrounded by enemies. That is what we want, to know that we won't be let down by the unioners again, like we were at Krefield.", His expression souring briefly at the mention of that base. "Well, that and a few other things, that we'll be elaborating on shortly enough. But first, we must wait on-" Then, a knock at the door, "Ah, our third member of this meeting, just in time" Alexander leans back in his chair, a grin starting to appear on his face.
The Direktor nodded. The Corsair was to-the-point and without deception, just as he thought he would. Of course, he was testing him. Testing the Unioners.
“If I pledged, you, the Empire, loyalty now...” Corin slowspoke. He knew he couldn't miss the mark here. The Direktor usually co-opted honesty, but it was difficult to parse if the Elder would listen to his words as man at his side or a knife to his back. “You would not believe me. You would be right."
“We will never be loyal. We are not loyal men. Not to outsiders. Loyalty is for brothers. And Crete is not our brother if we choose our own survival over that of Crete's people, which is what we did during the Krefeld massacre. I won't hide from the truth. I won't disrespect the Empire, or the dead, or the decisions that we made. A brother would ensure that nothing of the kind could ever happen, let alone again, but this is where we are at, now." He held the elder's focus.
"I would rather my people are to yours that you would not need to ask this question of us. That the answer would be obvious to us all. For if you need to ask if we are trustworthy then you already know the truth."
He softened his face. He uncorked the rum, inhaling the deep, echoing scent of the spirits. Blacker than the interstellar void.
"We were sick. Weak. They struck us in our weakness. They saw our attentions focused in Bering and decided to come for us whilst we were split apart. We're Unioners. We cannot be split apart. But a loud, fast-talking man can bulldoze the stars. The Hessians have made a business of talking fast. "
"They are masters at deception. At the perception of power. They are a collection of bitter men with weapons cobbled together from old industrial machines. Machines that once produced, that now destroy. They unmade themselves. I believe that the Hessians could not have taken Krefeld. I believe they would have died trying. At the time. we didn't know this. The Union was trying to anticipate threats with such paranoia that we threatened ourselves. "
He took a swig of the rum. Bitter, rosewood sweetness filled his mouth, the sugar pacifying the roof of his mouth.
"They made us think in states and territory. Their language. It's not a language we know. It's not a language we will learn. Our beliefs are in our strength as a people. That many individuals will band together for the common good. That adversity makes strong men capable and weak men strong. That we are not a chain, defined by weakest links, but a cable, of many wires. Like you say, decisiveness. They took our decisiveness. They made us think like them, by their logic. And to a Unioner a Hessian's mind is insane. You can't shape people, be the overworld or under, by conquest. Only a insecure man believes that to be true. Look at Dresden - it's a deadzone. Even the Bundschuh's halfhearted trial run of a Shipyard can't bring industry back to the Star. "
"I believe that the Hessians will try to strike the Union again. A month at the outside. We will not be blind. It only takes the one child in the crowd to call out the truth. The empress is wearing no clothes. Up is up, down is down, the Coalition is a relic, the Hessian war machine is a rusted spring, socialism is defined by speaking truth to power not towing a goose-step, and the bond of the Unioners and the Corsairs is as strong as it ever was, and you, elder, are my brother."
He downed his rum with the devotion of a man with thirty less years of life.
We outpower them in ways that they cannot begin to imagine. In Rheinland, we outnumber them. Our equipment exceeds them. They will cluck about their supercilliousness as the twisted remains of the hubris they call wolfsburg shipyard shatters into the Weisbaden sand. They are divided between the entire Omegas, Bretonia, and Rheinland. Our forces are focused and refreshed."
"For this time - this time, we are Unity. They know not what they do."
THE SYNDIC LEAGUES
(A co-operative of Rheinland's Shipping Unions, retired from a life of piracy.)