Adrianna Ricardo Angela Della Francesca took one last look around the cockpit.
Viewpanels stowed....check.
Keyboards locked down...check.
All system shut down....check.
All chairs returned to their upright positions.....double check.
WIth a final sigh she carefully laid the white sheets over the rows of consoles before turning off the overhead lights and locking up the ship.
Her precious Gladiator would sit here, in the dry docks aboard Leon base, for months to come, and as sad as it was to ground such a bird, where she went, a more ...discrete ... ship was needed.
With a pronounced frown, she examined her new ride.
The rickety Eagle was definitely old, judging from the visible rust and wear on the exterior.
She was simply glad it would only have to hold her over untill Freeport 5, where an asset awaited her with a properly ID'ed and IFF'ed transport for the final leg to Freeport 9.
All possible efforts had been made to hide the source of the transport, and unless the Zoners aboard FP9 had multiple inside agents in Corsair Intelligence, the story would hold up.
As for even the possibility of outside agents in ACIO....well...
ACIO had learned much from the secret societies of Old Earth
Half the agents were blood related, and the other half bonded by marriage ties and childhood friendships.
Of course, with any other group of Corsairs this would present problems, but the Francesca family was very accepting of outsiders, much more so than others.
Hell, they practically married into the Bretonia network, starting with the union of Lynn Lundrovos and Giovanni Francesca fifty years ago.
Such thoughts brought up others in Adrianna's mind, much more painful ones, reminding her of her duty now.
The Colonel had been her mentor, instituting her into the Society after the death of his mentor at her hands.
Now she would perform the same for him.
Triplechecking the Trader IFF and Freelancer IFF of the Eagle, she slowly settled in to the pilot's chair before turning over the engines, undocking and blazing a trail for Freeport 5.
gone four years, first day back: Zoners still getting shot in Theta :|
James Francesca took one last look around his cockpit.
Everything was stowed for full combat ops.
He turned over the engines of his Barghest, slowly drifting downwards towards the bright lights of the Cambridge system.
It was going to be tricky.
Not only did he have to provoke enough attention to get the BPA to initiate a sector-wide manhunt, he also had to have them issue an all-points APB to the Guild.
He had already contacted agent AF-Trader, and set up a former employment record with Francesca Shipping and Security, so that was taken care of.
Of course, he also had to survive, and make it safely to Rostock to submit his application to the Core.
Course, only one way any of this was going to happen.
Smiling, he warmed up his cannons and screamed across the comm frequencies, in a bloodcurdling Corsair warcry as he dove towards a transport convoy.
"YAELAELALEALELAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!"
gone four years, first day back: Zoners still getting shot in Theta :|
Ezio Della Francesca took one last look out the viewpanel, framing the Zoner fleet in the square of light.
He had no doubt what the purpose of such a fleet would be, and this required precautions.
He had gotten to know Coen a bit, and assumed Coen would have a similar plan to his own. Best to keep that under control.
He looked back at his work, and pressing enter, sent the transmission, a pencil beam through the Kappa jumphole to a relay right outside.
It was a fairly simple plan, as these things went. He would undock from here, meet an asset in the Napo cloud for a very special delivery, and then dock aboard Freeport 9.
He had no doubt that even the resources and assets he could muster would be outmatched, but then, the idea wasn't to get into a shooting fight.
He would dock alongside the Omicroner representative's ships, making sure to have a straight line from the airlock to an intercept point.
In the event of a serious breach of security, fifty highly trained operatives with full combat gear and enough automatic robotic weaponry and force barriers to hold off a division would deploy into the airlock corridor, sealing the Omicroners inside their ships, intercepting the Omicroner representative and securing a path straight from the conference room.
it was dangerous, no doubt, but hopefully, unneeded.
Besides, the fusion bomb aboard would really ruin the Niners' day.
gone four years, first day back: Zoners still getting shot in Theta :|