Carnifex sat in his cockpit, blacked out and silent, all of his systems in ‘silent’ running mode to avoid easy sensor detection. The only light still operating on his console flashed on and off lazily, illuminating in a dim blue the thick haze of cardamine that swirled through the air in swirling patterns that reminded Carni of the dark matter clouds smeared through the surrounding system. The cardamine had been bought from a trader who was the official dealer of cardamine on Deshima and who had obtained it right from the growing source on Planet Kyushu, or so he had said. Carnifex wasn’t convinced that the growth of cardamine grass on Kyushu was as rampant as the trader had suggested. But that didn’t matter, cardamine was cardamine.
Suddenly, through the haze, Carnifex spotted what he was waiting for. A freelance pilot judging from the IFF, the ship was a small freighter that had just dropped out of the trade lane nearby. Any pilot headed away from Liberty was a potential nomad infection threat and would bring in good money from the Blood Empire if they were dealt with and even more if they were bought back alive for ‘study and questioning’.
Turning on his quiet systems Carnifex flew toward the slow vessel as it moved in the direction of the next trade lane and powered up his coms. “Reppu Bend is a nastily lonely place for a single freelancer...”
Having returned to Deshima with a prisoner and received his payment Carnifex decided to become better acquainted with recent events and checked the League HQ information centre. The Order were still making a mess of Liberty and pushing Lane Hackers to pirate in Shikoku more and more and there were still no jobs against the LWB to speak of. Carnifex was more interested in internal matters.
A few League pilots had been sent to scout out bases further afield then Kusari and to start gathering information. The one on the Hawaii sent back some promising reports about targets in the Corsairs and he was also pleased to note that several were making good progress toward or into the other houses where he hoped that the best options for a few ‘unfortunate accidents’ would present themselves. In more ways than one this process reminded Carni of when he’d been a Lane Hacker himself; fixing prices for commodities on New London and making trade lanes fail at just the right distance from the nearest station, all from the safety of Mactan.
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