Much Ado About Nothing

        “Phrasing!” -- Sterling Archer

        [ Good Moooooorning, Jerma! ]

        “Gods, every day!”

        [ Somebody has to keep the spirits up. And since you’re useless before your second coffee, and our war targets are hiding, the task falls to me. And you’re welcome! ]

        “Speaking of our targets, looks like we only have our usual station sitters again.”

        [ Yep, I see them. Plenty of other people seem to have moved into their slots though. I haven’t seem these before. … What do you think, shall we suggest to our exalted leader to add these to our targets? ]

        “We could, but what would that bring? They’d just dock up like the current bunch. Upper belt is clear.”

        [ And I almost have the signatures. You know, while I knew that it would be like this, I am still disappointed. ]

        “That our targets don’t come out, roll over, and let us shoot them?”

        [ You know what I mean - that they aren’t even trying! Push us around a little, see how we operate, what our patterns are. Bait us with a juicy Exhumer and then drop a Blackbird on us, while the drones take care of the rest. … Two relic sites, I’ll go and make tacticals. ]

        “Well, that’s industrialists for you, kitten. Ark Combat did briefly try to find our weak time zones, but gave up as well. … Planet VII belts has some lonely miners. I wonder if we can move to Plan B on the last day.”

        [ Wouldn’t that be nice! Wasn’t Ark Combat trying to talk you into dropping the war? ]

        “The very same. Convoed me, tried to butter me up with compliments, calling me sexy”

        [ Well, you are cute when you have umbilicals sprouting from your connectors! ]

        “Shush! Anyway, he then went into the spiel that they haven’t bothered anyone, and didn’t want to fight, and what it’d take to drop the war.”

        [ Right, I remember! The 500M offer - which I still think was cheap. ]

        “Planet VI belts are empty… Obviously, I wasn’t cheap enough. He left in a huff, saying that he’d go to bed now, and we wouldn’t see them in space for the duration war.”

        [ Which is partly what this is all about. And nice of him to tell you which timezone he operates in. … Tacticals are in corp bookmarks. ]

        “Yeah. Maybe I should make it up to him afterwards. Find him, if they return to the area, have a nice chat, give him some, ehrm, ‘special attention’.”

        [ ‘Special Attention’, I like the sound of that! Can I join? Can I join? ]

        “A Menage-a-Trois? There’s an idea… but he might be scared away. …aaand the other belts are empty as well.”

        [ Just tell him there’ll be fireworks and he’ll be happy to come. … You know, we should go for drinks later, have some fun hours while our targets aren’t watching. ]

        “I’d be up for that! Any specific place you have in mind?”

        [ Nah. I prefer the leave-the-elevator-and-follow-the-noises method. I’m sure we’re going to find someplace suitably epic. ]

        “Very well - I shall put myself into your capable hands then!”

        [ You’ll love it! … and first one to see the next war target gets the first rounds free. ]

        “You’re on!”