#5 by Carnifex

Cravic’s Cobra flew through the dense smoggy atmosphere of Planet Pittsburgh, decelerating as it came closer to the landing platform. Pittsburgh was the industrial centre of the New York system. It’s position deep in the Pittsburgh debris field off the heavily used tradelanes made it the best place for Cravic to gauge what the situation was like in the rest of liberty without being seen. Landing on the busy platform he headed straight for the bar, like so many other pilots do after a long day in space. Buying a drink he looked around and wondered who would be best to get some rumours out of. He dare not talk to the bartender as he’d still be here to give him away if someone picked up his trail and followed him to Pittsburgh, pilots could be gone for months on shipping runs and be nearly impossible to contact which made them the safer option.
Seeing a Bowex freighter captain sitting with one of his shipmates he decided to sit near them and listen in on their conversation.
“...and they charge less as well,” said the Bowex captain, “If it continues at this rate USM will end up owning the rights to every speck of value in Bretonia as well as Liberty.” The shipmate nodded his agreement with a grave look on his face.
“BMM can’t keep up with them and USM don’t need a shipping firm to do their moving for them so we get the worst of a raw deal,” finished the captain with an air of discontent.
“Is it really getting that bad in Bretonia?” asked Cravic leaning closer, “I knew their eyes were bigger than their Motherloads in Liberty but Bretonia as well?”
“You had better believe it,” said the captain, eager for a fresh audience, “For a while there they were having trouble distributing cargo outside of Bretonia, the war against Kusari and Rheinland was keeping them away from their best clients,” he started to lower his voice as if this was confidential, “but since Liberty stopped hostilities and Rheinland distanced itself from Kusari, what with their unprecedented losses to the Outcasts, USM has been off like a shot!”
Cravic widened his eyes a tiny bit and not entirely to act as he was expected to. Most of this was in fact news to him. “Why do you think Liberty didn’t take the opportunity to seize as much of Shikoku as possible? Why let the fight with Rheinland go so easily a second time?”
“Where have you been mate?!” exclaimed the captain, “Those Outcasts didn’t just defeat the Kusari Empire, they flattened them. With so many losses to attrition in the Independent systems and the blitz style attack Kusari could barely hold its own. None of the other houses wanted to make any move that might make them next.”

Carnifex, having gathered more information, headed back to his ship; it wasn’t good to stay too long in the one spot even if Planet Pittsburgh hadn’t been the industrial sewerage pipe that it was. So Liberty had wanted the war over quickly and cleanly. That was a horrible reason to kill off one of your best admirals. Cravic suspected that it wasn’t anyone in Liberty that had actually wanted him dead but someone who had bought out some LSF lackeys who had ‘loyal’ officers under them who were looking for advancement. None the less Cravic wanted to disappear for a while and started thinking of places that didn’t ask questions.

#4 by Carnifex

Cravic pushed his new Cobra fighter to the maximum engine output it could manage partly to put it through its paces and partly because he was trying to make it through the Detroit Debris Field as fast as possible. He himself had led patrols in this field to find Rogue smugglers before the war took him to Colorado and now those same patrols were the ones he was working to avoid. Bits and pieces of eight centuries of wasteful expansion and development zipped silently by out the cockpit window, stark, cold, dead metal.
Cravic kept an eye on his sensors waiting to see if he would be spotted. Even with his civilian IFF tag any Liberty patrol would view him as suspect being this far from the trade lanes and it would also attract the attention of the criminal element looking to loot a passer by.
His destination, Pittsburgh. Going directly there would have been suicide for someone in his situation. The Battleship Missouri kept an eye on all the traffic going through the section of New York near Zone 21, both on and off the tradelanes, and he couldn’t afford to be spotted.

#3 by Carnifex

The quick trip to Beaumont turned out much easier then crossing Hudson, luckily Arch had given Cravic a few tips on how to disable a transponder (somehow unsurprisingly). After gently setting his damaged ship down on Beaumont Cravic quickly extricated himself from it and made his way to where Arch and Reiko had set down their transport. As he walked he removed his Navy combat jacket and discarded it on the ground. This in conjunction with his complete disregard for the confused Junkers scattered about the landing bay seemed to make those watching pause as though uncertain of their safety. Some skittered away like rats.

The loading ramp of the Arch’s transport lowered just as Cravic arrived at its foot, Arch stood at its top looking quite undaunted by this unprecedented situation.
“Now that we can’t be overheard through our coms will you please tell me why I’ve risked my neck bringing you here?” Arch requested.
Cravic walked up the ramp and just as he passed by Arch and started glancing around the hold he said, “I’m dead, that’s why.”
Arch’s day wasn’t turning out how he had wanted it to.
“There was an assassination attempt on me, by the LPI,” he continued, “A double agent has reported to them by now that I’m dead. I’m going to use that to my advantage and lie low for a while and then find out who tried to put a knife in my back and why.” By this point Cravic was absent-mindedly going through the cargo on Arch’s ship which unnerved the Junker immensely and just as he moved over to the admiral’s side to object Cravic pulled a rather large gun from out of a hidden crate. The junker hesitated for a moment and looked quite surprised as Cravic hoisted the gun and slung it over his shoulder with purpose. For an instant Cravic fancied that Arch looked as though he hadn’t known that the guns had been there.
“Umm...” said Arch still trying to grasp what was happening, this was not how he had known the admiral to behave.
Cravic handed him a piece of paper, on it were scrawled a few numbers and letters that Arch looked at dubiously. “That is all the information needed for a good Lane Hacker to access the money on my Navy neural net, half of which would be more than enough to pay for the new civilian ship that you are about to buy for me.” Cravic said this as though he was making an insurance claim of some sort. “Not to mention lots of rum,” he added disdainfully “You can have my old ship for your troubles of course, I’ll have to take a few of the guns off it though.”

There Cravic stood, the ex-admiral of the Liberty Navy. To a trained eye, changed because of it; as though being deprived of his rank and almost his life had in a way strengthened him and focused his will. Arch, had he thought about it more might have suspected that it would not be without detriment.
Instead his mind turned to more pressing matters of money and salvage. The tempest of information over, Arch’s expression slowly grew brighter as he realised his day might not turn out as bad after all.

#2 by Arch

Arch's Armored Transport was leaving Dawson Base as Cravic's ship exited the jump hole. The ships scanner almost immediately detected the damaged Liberty fighter. Reiko flipped on the ships internal comm system.

"Arch, dose the Admiral know were here?"

"What? No only you me and the Rouges we were doing business with know were here. Why?"

"Because he just poped out of the Bearing jump hole, and is heading this way."

There's a crashing sound of the comm's as Arch scrambles to hide the illegal weapons they had just purchased.

"Ok ok I'm on my way."

Arch enters the bridge and sits down in his captains chair squirming around a little before propping his feet up on the console bumping the scanner with his foot which conveniently opened the scanner on the main view screen. "Well I couldn't do that again if I tried."

Reiko roles her eyes. "It looks like his ship is heavily damaged, and theirs a wing of Rouges moving to intercept. Your not going to like this but I think we should help him."

"Your right I don't. For two reasons, One if we help him theirs a good chance these Rouges will start shooting at us. Two if they don't blow us up I doubt very much the Admiral could over look that rather large shipment of weapons in our hold. I don't think the sheets I stole off your bed and threw over them is going to fool him."

"Well you better do something soon."

Arch groans and turns on the come to a private channel with Cravic. "Admiral I'll try and wave off the Rouges but I can't make any promises, head toward my ship and lets hope the eject still works just in case. If you can get close enough we can pick you up before they realize you ejected." Arch then switches over to a channel to the Rouge wing commander. "Don't fire, we salvaged the ship in the Bering system. The pilot is a Junker takeing it to Beaumont."

"Then why dose it still have a Navy transponder? And don't tell me you forgot I know your no rookie scavenger Arch."

Arch holds the comm and looks at Reiko. "An intelligent Rouge? That just ruined my day."

The Rouge comes over the comm again. "I might be willing to over look the ship for a small contribution." Arch turns the comm back on. "Yeah? How small."

"Well considering the ships transponder identifies the pilot as the Liberty Admiral it won't really be all that small. I have a family to feed after all."

"Yeah, and I'm the Queen of Bretonia. Cut the crap how much?"

"Haha, oh 20 million and me and my boys here don't know anything about any Liberty ship."

"Fine, I'm transferring the credits now."

"Out of curiosity, what dose a Junker like you want with that Liberty scum bag anyways?"

"Do you like rum pilot?"

"Yeah, but whats that got to do with anything?"

"If you wish to continue receiving shipments from Beaumont you'll take your credits and forget you ever saw that ship."

"What ship?"

The comm cuts out. Reiko sighs and powers down the ships turrets. "Their heading back toward Dawson." Arch opens a channel with Cravic again. "Your lucky I respect you, any other law man and I'd a left you to em. Now this had better be good." Reiko buts in. "Don't listen to him hes just grumpy because that Rouge was smarter then he hoped."

"Get off my comm Reiko. Well clearly somethings gone wrong or you'd have taken that pile of scrap to the Mississippi for repairs....... You can follow us to Beaumont, we'll be meeting up with a Junker wing once we hit Texas so we wont be bothered. Once we get there I suspect you've got quite a story to tell."

#1 by Carnifex

Cravic was quick to slip away as best he could into the blur of debris and gas that was Nuremburg. Whoever those pilots really were they seemed to know who Janson was and whatever their agenda it was not his harm. Appearing out of the debris like that would seem to suggest that they were extremely familiar with the system; and knowing Janson by name... these were mysteries that Cravic no longer had much time to think about. He was a dead man after all.

The LPI agent would report the deaths of both Cravic and Janson with the regretable loss of all other members of the assassination squad and the combat damage from the assassins, indistinguishable from that of the targets, would back up his claim. Now it was time for Cravic to do what Janson had done and disappear. First port of call would be one of his contacts inside Liberty, someone he could trust; the border regions of Rhienland and the Sigma systems where not a place for an ex-Liberty Admiral to find refuge.

Reaching the Bering system Cravic was almost disappointed in having to leave the relative cover of the scrap. Knowing that the Texas jump gate would be watched he made for the distant side of the sector on the other side of the large yellow star that was the centre of Bering. In his left peripheral vision he saw Freeport 2 glinting in the distance reflecting the light scattered among the rocks. As he approached his target sector he was, for perhaps the first time, thankful for criminal movement reports. The Hudson jump hole slowly drew into sensor range and Cravic sped right into it, eager to leave Bering behind for fear that he might still be expected there if the news of his 'death' hadn't been recieved yet.