The mood in the bar was pretty low, with Hortan almost carried to his room and Plissken roaming somewhere in the station panicked. Surbius walked into the bar and directly over to Waldoze who was brooding on his chair.
"Care to explain Waldoze?"
"Huh? Explain what? I mean, who had imagined that Hort would drop like that and that Plissken would bolt like rabbit?"
"I can deduce that the party didn't quite go as planned. But that is not why I am here. I think the code word is Melody?"
Waldoze emptied his drink and got another one before answering.
"Yeah, well, what can I say? I was framed, ripped, cheated. I have asked Gramps for help."
"I know, and that is why I am here. You have been subjected to a very vicious scam and you aren't the first. Seems that the company Lector, Lecter and Shard has been making a lot of these cases against rich UIT traders, and these have more often than not been ripped off for half their assets."
"Fuck me! So Melody was just in it for the money?"
"No, well I don't know. As far as we can see she was approached after the break-up by LL&S who convinced her that she was to gain millions of credits for nothing. And at the same time get back at you."
Waldoze's head reddened considerably. As a matter of fact he became about as red in his face as Hortan usually did but Waldoze was red in the face with rage.
"Just tell me where I have to go and get them Surb."
"You don't get it do you Waldoze? They have all rights on their side. You screwed up, you are going to pay to these shady characters unless we can find some legal mumbo jumbo that can save you. As I see it the only chance you have is if Gramps stumble over a mistake they have made."
Surbius nodded to Ecka and walked out again. Waldoze looked angrily into his drink. All this and just because he wanted to cheer up a pair of mates. And he had even liked the girl. He sighed deep and emptied his new drink making a face as the fiery liquid tormented his innards. Not even the drink was good tonight. Buzz leaned close to Waldoze almost hitting him with the horns.
"Couldn't help hearing what ole Surbie had to say. There is another way mate. And you know what I am talking about."
Buzz waggled his eyebrows up and down, making him look absolutely stupid because the horns moved with the brow in a circular pattern.
"If this is another of your harebrained schemes I don't want any part of it Buzz. You usually end up with messing things up even worse than they are in the first place."
"Thank you for the vote of confidence Dozer but I really have the golden idea this time. And the only ones hurt are the lying thieving bastards from LL&S."
Waldoze nodded to the barkeep for more drinks and when they arrived pushed one to Buzz.
"Go on, I am listening."
###
The dead Connie was as god a place as any to meet when you wanted to avoid attention. Not many knew of its location deep in Latos space and it was only due to random chance that Red Tide had found it. He had been pursuing an Ineubis courier vessel to find an opportune time to snatch its valuable cargo and sell the highly valuable drug prototype to the opposing faction when he encountered an Ion Storm that covered much of Latos. Deciding that now would be as good a time as ever, he attacked the courier and just as he killed the ship he was beset upon by several Orne guardian bots. He twisted his ship the best he had learned and managed to kill them all getting some damage to his own jump engine in return. He scooped up the data pad the courier ship had been freighting and started boosting for the storm exit. When he arrived at the exit he found out that the damage he had taken would preclude him from jumping out of the storm, the higher energies inside the storm was enough to dampen what little power he could focus into the jump engine. Resigning himself to hours of endless boredom as he would have to wait for the storm to pass, he started making a three dimensional spiral search pattern outwards. After three days of intense boredom with the highlight of he day consisting of eating the synthetic glue that the Warthog dispensed from the life support kit, his radar bleeped. A large contact, the drifting Connie. The entire drive section had been ripped off and the ship was left for dead with no power or air. Red held on to the Connie and within a day the storm had dissipated allowing him to make an emergency jump to a station, taking the location with him. The members of KAOS had since used a lot of time reinstalling air and power and used the hulk as a secret deep space hide-out.
Ahriman moved his EC-107 slowly to his docking ring and mated the ships. Wearing his usual flowing robes he walked purposefully into the Connie and headed straight for the briefing room in the old weapons section to port. As he entered the room a low mumbling stopped as full attention was focused on him. He turned his front to the members of KAOS and started speaking in that peculiar fashion like if his mouth and throat were not used to forming words.
"Rumours of my death have been vastly overstated. Little do they know, we are Legion."
