The Repo Men Cometh

I'm not known for being a gambler.  Risk taker, yes.  When the reward is sufficient to justify the risk, I'll take a chance.  It comes with the territory.  But not so much of a gambler for gambling's sake.  Sometimes though, I'll make a small bet.  Something for the fun of it, where the amusement value is far greater, win or lose, than the resource value of the bet.

Like making a bet with Cory that x0x0's hired guns would be able to recover the Cruiser, where the General was fairly sure it would actually be an Alliance unit that recovered the ship.  She wasn't willing to specify that it would be one of her units that did it, because that would be cheating.  Just that it would be the Alliance, and not a Mercenary unit, that took the cruiser back from Cerberus.

The stakes?  Our next face to face would be over a nice brunch, loser picks up the tab.

Sure, a nice brunch could cost a month's wages for a dirt farmer on the Rim.  But we weren't dirt farmers.

I'd honestly thought the unit x0x0 hired to recover the cruiser on Blue Sun's behalf would be up to the task.  My personal feelings on Cerberus Security aside, there were units out there bigger and better equipped and available for hire.  Not to mention specialists on just that sort of operation.  It just took the financial resources to do it, which was not something Blue Sun lacked.

Exactly why that operation fell through I was still sussing out.  Something about an emergency reassignment that was important enough to invoke the "something came up" clause in their contract with Blue Sun.  The reason was there, should I bother to look for it.  Regardless.  They backed out, which left the Alliance in the position of sending in their own teams to accomplish the exact same mission.

The results were inevitable either way.  Whether the hired guns did it.  Whether the Alliance did it with a small team.  Whether the Alliance used an entire assault company.  Whether the Alliance stood off and destroyed the ship with heavy weapons from another Cruiser.  The results would be the same.  Cerberus would give up the ship.  The only variable would be the number of casualties and how much was spent on the operation.

Now, personally, I would have sent an infiltration team over to jack the controls, lock out the Mercs, and then just let the Alliance come get their boat.  Whether I went myself or not was open to debate.  I'd done similar operations in the past.  In fact, I'd done more clandestine boardings than I cared to remember, but I didn't really have a stake in this.  This was strictly Alliance business.  Sort of.

I did have to hand it to the team they sent though.  I'd been prepared long in advance for this, regardless of who actually executed it.  Jacked feeds and small recon drones in place to observe the action.  The operation was surprisingly well executed, though I was surprised at how Cerberus treated the one Alliance trooper they managed to capture.

Hint: Mercenary units that openly threaten to torture, kill, or maim, captives, can find their hard earned reputations seriously tarnished.

Hint:  Mercenary units that actually carry out threats to torture, kill, or maim, captives, can find they have been blacklisted and subsequent contracts are very, very, hard to acquire.

Such was what it was.  I'd filed a recommendation before that the Alliance seriously consider refusing to tender any further contracts with Cerberus.  Now, after getting confirmation they'd abused one of the captives, I took it to the next step.

Sure, people could ignore the blacklisting.  Cerberus might even try and appeal it to the Guild.  But it was filed now through official channels.  They would almost certainly still find work, but their actions had consequences and they'd be dealing with the fallout from these actions for some time to come.

Maybe Uncle Sobi should have gone up and tried to talk them out.

Would probably have been much less expensive for all involved.

Action, reaction
The consequences should hurt
Lesson learned too late