And more story.... could do with some editing over the 'interview' part of it. It doesn't read quite right.
UBA came out of a discussion elsewhere. And there is a reason the KS are hitting them.... it's a little consolation prize for Maico
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--m(^0^)m-- Wot, no sig?
Quote:She stared at the screen.
“It’s official. That’s the lowest click-through rate in ten years,”
She tried to say that in a celebratory tone... a mockering of her un-success, but it just fell flat.The graph onscreen sucked all the fun out of it in green and red tones. There was a nice big spike after the announcement as people rushed to her website to catch the video, hot off her camera.
Frantic machinegunned F5 keypresses kept the clickthrough rate high for a few minutes, right until it dropped clean off the cliff as the word got out that one of her rivals had gotten the scoop.
“And there it stays, right in the bottom of the pit.” She glared at the camera. “And you know the worst thing? If I’d brought this one in, it would’ve been triple the Genaros story, easy,”
The camera lens offered no sympathy. She blew a tired sigh through her lips
“And still I have to follow the trail, I’ve put too much into this story to stop now.” She paused. “What a dangerous thought that is.”
She clicked back off her advertisers webpage, switching over to her monthly planner.
“In a week’s time I have to be on 36 Atalante to meet Benjamin Rhodes. Three days after that, Grunthal on Mars for Lenneth Sylvan. I’m hoping Ben will be able to give me something on the Lancer, but I doubt it. Lenneth may be my best bet. Leader of the Engel Gruppe, she’ll either remember training them, or she’ll at least be able to tell me who. And whomever that is, maybe they’ll know.”
She switched back to the newsgroup.
“Okay. This one’s a weird one. The Patrol are investigating reports of the Knight Sabers raiding a few belter ships in the Belt.”
“Really? That’s a bit out of character”
“Yeah. It’s confirmed. No casualties but it was them. It’s on ISN.”
Maico cringed.
“That’s weird. Don’t they normally come to the rescue? Maybe it’s a Red Eye’s type scenario. Someone trying blacken the name”
“Remember, numb-nuts, they’re mercenaries first. They work for the highest bidder. They’re tigers... and no matter how cute and cuddly or friendly they might seem they’re still tigers and they will turn if it suits them,”
Maico felt herself begin to bristle just a little.
“There has to be something behind that. They don’t attack innocents...”
“Well, there’re no reports of casualties but.... Well, check this news report out,”
Maico clicked on the file.
The plastic face of Constance Gardner erupted onto her screen, chased by shining captions that demanded answers from the viewer. Just what are the Knight Sabers really? Protectors or predators in disguise?
Constance stood before the camera. “Some people have been calling them heroes. Some people call them vigilantes. But to some out in the main belt, they’re something far more sinister. James Mason, President of the United Belt Alliance had this to say.”
The feed cut to a man in a well-pressed suit. He was clean shaven with oddly beady eyes that gleamed in the camera lights. He wore the smug, self-satisfied smile of a man in power, and certain in the power.
“.... these women are far more dangerous than anyone gives them credit for. We’ve instructed our members to treat them as hostiles, and defend themselves accordingly.”
“How so?” Constance gave him the opening to speak.
“They’ve repeatedly frustrated our ability to provide security of living to independent operators and settlements. They fail to understand that we are quite capable of defending ourselves and, quite frankly, we’re not interested in their help”
“And how do you defend yourselves otherwise, Mr Mason?”
“Each settlement in the Alliance pays a subscription, which goes towards funding the provision of a private security service. The subscription provides for spacecraft and training. It provides for a rapid reaction force capable of responding within the hour to any distress call.”
An image of Constance holding the mic toward Mason, a feigned look of interest on her face.
“They’re actions actively encourage colonies to leave the Alliance, leaving them open to attack. And by refusing to pay their subscriptions, these mercenaries further endanger those communities remaining within the alliance who can no longer support the security service by themselves. “
Constance nodded. Keep going Mason, this is gold.
“Not only this, but they have deliberately attacked our spacecraft and stolen proprietary and confidential information from our computer systems on no less than five occasions. I can’t comment further, as the Space Patrol are still investigating, and we do not wish to prejudice any resulting criminal proceedings.” His voice oozed through her speakers. “However, I will say that quite a few of us feel that the Saber’s respond a little too quickly to Zwilnik raids,”
“Thank you Mister Mason. You’ve told us more than enough. I’m Constance Gardner for ISN,”
She seemed to smirk right at Maico. Across the electronic gulf and out of the monitor and right into the bedroom of her Lunar apartment, a Foxish grin.
“Take it with a pinch of salt,” she warned her camera, “But there’s a Patrol investigation going on. What possible argument could the Sabers have with the UBA?
She posed the question the the group.
“He’s just pissed off because his pet Alliance is losing money. The UBA have been putting out this sort of FUD for years. They don’t want anything to do with us because we’re so tied with Great Justice,”
“Still, it’s not like the UBA are doing anything ‘wrong’. I dunno about you, but I’m thinking the Sabers are crossing the line on this one. It’s one thing going after Zwilniks, but not ‘people you disagree with’.”
[i[“But of course, there are two sides to every story. And I would hardly call this fair and balanced. I would like to see what the Knight Sabers themselves have to say,”[/i]
“You’ve got two hopes of finding out. And one’s a diamond.”
“They’ve done a lot of good out in the Main Belt.”
“Naoko Sato did a lot of good on Crystal Paris. It doesn’t matter. Once they start going bad, it’s all the way down the slippery slope,”
Maico buried her face in her hands. “I don’t trust Mason,” she told her camera. And that told everyone everything they needed to know about him. “But I can’t discount that he might telling the truth. Or at least half of it.
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Predictably, Mason declined her request for an interview.
“Yeah, I’ll bet you don’t want to talk to someone who’ll actually make you answer a question,” The camera recorded everything. “There’s a story behind this. There’s a reason the Knight Sabers are acting against them.”
“And if they were actually hitting in force and harming people, we’d be hearing more about it. Mason’s got something to hide, and he doesn’t want people digging, So he’s trying to blacken their names.”
“Outside thought. Maybe the only reason the Sabers are fighting the UBA is his name. ‘Mason’, come on, that’s their fandom,”
“Knowing the Senshi I’d believe that right there,”
“Anyway, I got the results back from my little survey.”
“And?” Maico typed. She edged towards the screen.
“All Lancers accounted for. Each and every one. I pulled down the ship registry’s and managed to confirm most of them. The only ones I can’t actively get are the ones in use by the RR themselves but the spacecraft-spotters can account for them. Unless they’re changing paint.”
“Spacecraft spotters? What makes a person want to sit out in the cold void of space for hours at a time in the hope that a single particular spacecraft with a certain unusual set of options will swoop past,”
“The same thing that makes them post on interwave newsgroups discussing a group of hardsuited vigilantes.”
“Anyway. The only possible discrepancy I found was an accident report. Two spaceframes were wrecked in a fire in 2019 while still under construction. Both were salvaged and recycled for raw materials.“
“Ho ho, what better way to hide a black spacecraft? Two half-wrecked planes make one whole. Completely off the books, since both SINs will have been voided. Let she who has a starship without SIN cast the first stone.”
“Two Lancer airframes destroyed in a fire. I’ll have to ask Ben about them,”
““But of course, if these two wrecks are the source of the Knight Saber’s spacecraft, then at the very least that means they have the backing of the Roughriders,”
“Or may even be a part of the organisation. Remember the A-team uses similar hardware a tactics? And where better to hide a secret than in plain sight?”
“And remind me to ask him about the United Belt Alliance,”
The camera made a note of it in her planner.
“Hey, did anyone realise there’s a Sylia Stingray on Marsbase Sara yet?”
“Doesn’t she own that company that builds those Bubblegum crisis bikes for the mundane market?”
“That’s her. What do you think her connection is?”
“A lucky biomod and a fandom, probably. There are more than four Crisis-fen in Fenspace you know.”
“Maybe I’ll have a quick meeting with Sylia while I’m on Mars. Even if she has nothing to do with it, it’d still be a good idea?”
The camera didn’t give her the confirmation she wanted.
She started preparing a message to Sylia, asking for her comment.
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UBA came out of a discussion elsewhere. And there is a reason the KS are hitting them.... it's a little consolation prize for Maico
________________________________
--m(^0^)m-- Wot, no sig?