Frei turns towards the terminal. There's a glint of passion dancing in the wily pirate's eyes.
You're the joker in the pack of cards, arn't you?
You have spent the last two years, valiantly attempting to kill me, and, when such action was unsuccessful, slandering me, attempting intimidation tactics, false witness and evidence, false testimony, inaccurate dissemination of intel, the list goes on. You know that you are doing it, I know that you are doing it - most of Sirius knows that you are doing it. I have detailed records for most of your actions, including the most henious, which I have not stated against you in public. No, we in tit-for-tat. We also believe that only so many words may be exchanged before two parties in diagreement start to lose teeth. The list of people who believe you are distilled down into realty neuralnet starlet and extremely unpopular figure in her own nation, Enma Loyola, possibly Moka, although considering that you have not trotted him out lately I believe he has likely seen that you've been attempting to use him as a prop in your own one-man show, and made his own destiny.
Now, as an intel group, your business is to know your enemies and your friends. You ascribe actions that the Unioners have taken where we have not been pliable to your aims - for example, recovering the MacKenzie spyglass by ourselves - when it was always in our territory in the first place, and never belonged to you. Or, you covetousness in our relationship with the Liberty Separatists - hard-won, and long-built. Perhaps we will bring up the sudden, miraculous disappearance of Maxwell Schilder, a man responsible the Bering civil conflict between the Seperatists and the Unioners - and a man whose goals are opposed to you, in Liberty. Freelancers are very resourceful private investigators. Perhaps we should discuss a man who I viewed as a son - Hunter Wolff, one of the finest Unioners amongst us, who, suddenly, attempted to destroy the Unioners from the inside. The Sirene's records are quite explicit as to his motivations, and who did the lying.
He is a personal cut. I viewed him as a son. Possibly the only move you have made against us that will stand up to the solar wind. You took an idealistic young man and perverted the very qualities that made him. You sacrificed a young life for your own love of credits. For that is all you appear to be, Lane Hackers. Under your guilt suits - you crave money and power, and you are prepared to go to any length to maximise your perceived influence, your ability to extort and blackmail. It is why you wrap yourselves in the clothes of the oppressor, and his language.
You can parade around the neuralnet your intransient 'meetings' held in the Tanner Belt, your claims that I am secretly running the Liberty Rogues certainly gave us a good chuckle, but you know, fullheartedly, that they are fiction, just as we do. All they did was motivate the Rogues to a common alignment and viewpoint of your trickery. In an attempt to burn us - you burnt a longstanding bridge instead.
Your ties with the Unioners is a case study in perverse incentive; an action that results in the contrary desire to those sought by the sender. For example, our list of black market shipments to Liberty are up, not down. Our relations with the Junkers are strong, not weak. Our ties with the Separatists are growing, not divided, our ties with the Rogues are close, not suspicious, our influence in Texas is empowered and growing. Now, you can make all the false PR you like - but it doesn't change the truth, does it?
Let me tell you another truth.
We have charted the Laptev corridor. Our wealth grows, the Unioner economy expands, and we are embracing new partners all the time. There are horrors out their in the darkness far more ferocious than you, Lane Hacker. Monsters that control the minds of men and still their hearts. Quantum singularities which warp and forge existence, like the sandbox of a young god. Cabals of politicians, business-brokers and generals who decide the futures of entire civilisations. Warlords who desire to burn an entire house for their own devices. They are our focus, now. They are more pressing than you.
Accept reality as it comes to you. You are not a quantum singularity, Hackers, you are men. The Lane Hackers have had no negative impact on Unioner operations in Liberty. Return to the old ways as set out by Professor Nicole Hunter, and we will take the blood penance out of the litany of transgressions that you will have to answer for.
This is not the old days. The Unioners are numerous, well-armed, and well-trained. The Laptev Corridor brings us a shortcut to your heartlands that I am sure terrifies you, and perhaps is the true reason why you have so set yourself up on the hangman's stand.
So far, we have been obliging. We have not hunted you. We have not pursued your installations. That status quo will change.
De-escalate, and we will be reasonable. The alternative is that we start de-fanging your spyglass network under a stream of neutron radiation. If you weaponise false-witness then we will rob your primary ability to spread false-witness. You want us out of Liberty? We will arrive and never leave. These are your options. You know full well that we are capable of enforcing them.
Choose as you will. Of course, the Liga expects that you will instead continue to deploy madcap schemes disguised as Machiavellianism. Perhaps you will prove me wrong, for once.
"Though the past is scarred and the future untold"
" Be the boot heavy, the vacuum cold."
"I of the Liga, do not fold" "For suits or saints or beggar's gold. Information-Recruitment-Message Dump-Feedback