*pushed aside roughly by armed guards*

Mutters under breathe….
“I always get my story”

*Looking around Tom notices a ventilation duct*

“That’ll do nicely.”

*Climbs up the ladder into the duct and slides through to the medical wing. Upon locating Kork’s room, he begins listening intently*

“Hehehehe, they’ll never know what hit em. Those pirates are going to be hunted down so bad, hehehehe; we might never have to work again.”

“But Mr.Kork, what if someone finds out?”

“Finds out what? The pirates are going to die. No one cares about them, and once everyone hears this story they’ll be out for blood, pirate blood.”

“Yes but sir, err, what you did isn’t entirely legal.”

“Well no ones going to find out about this are they?”

“No, Sir”

*Tom sits confused and trying to figure this out when he sees Kork get up and exit the room. Anxious to get the whole story Tom starts moving and exits the ventilation shaft in the hall. He follows C.Kork out into the docking bay where Kork then jumps into a Devilfish and begins preflight checks.*

Tom: muttering to himself.
“Where’s he going..?”

*Tom then proceeds to jump into the cargo hold of Kork’s Devilfish and feels the ship lift off the ground and exit the base.*

“Ok, here we go. I wonder if he’s got any stuff in his hold…”

*Tom pulls out his flashlight and searches the hold…he finds an interesting info disk that tells him Kork’s schedule for the next week. Under today’s heading, it reads: Go to RHB1 for the transaction.*

“Well that’s an interesting note…”

*All of a sudden, the ship starts slowing down and Tom feels the weight of gravity back in him.*

“I guess we’re at RHB1…what’s that noise…?”

*Tom stealthfully exits the hold and witnesses a man give Kork a disk that Kork examines quickly and heads back to his ship. However, before Tom can reenter the bay the ship starts up and exits the hanger.*

“Uh, Oh.”

*Tom quickly dove for cover as he watched the ship depart. He found a place behind a stack of boxes where he could observe the bay safely. He saw the man who had given Kork the disk exit up a ladder, so Tom scurries across the bay’s floor and climbed up the ladder after him. When he reached the top, he noticed he was in a long corridor. He checked both ways and saw two men walking towards him. Tom ducked down and listened.

“The colonel paid that bounty hunter too much, wait till Westfalen hears about this.”

Rheinlanders! What was C. Kork doing fraternizing with the likes of them, Tom thought to himself. This has treachery written all over it.

*Once the men had passed, Tom stealthily followed them until they emerged into a large conference room. He quickly ducked out of sight and observed the scene unfold.

That must be the Colonel; Tom thought when he saw the large man sitting at the head of the table.

The Colonel stood up and started speaking, “Congratulations, our attempts to destroy the pirates’ presence are nearing completion. As expected, the public is both terrified and angered by the attack on Mr.Kork. Therefore, soon the Rheinland high command will be ordering an all-out offensive on against pirates on all fronts and they will be asking Liberty, Bretonia, and Kusari to do the same. Soon all major criminal factions will be reduced to dust.”

*The Colonel continued for a few minutes but Tom had heard enough. This story was hot, and unless he acted fast, a terrible deed might be done. For, while Tom had no great love of for pirates, he had a ravenous appetite for juicy stories. All he needed now was some evidence. Once the Colonel finished all the gathered men dispersed into the hall. Soon Tom was the only one left, so he sneaked out from behind the boxes and made his way over to a computer terminal.

Let us see if there is any info on this, Tom thought. Ah hah, what is this, Rheinland high command orders, and transaction reports to a mister C. Kork. I got you now.

*Tom downloads the files onto his own data disk and heads back towards the docking bay. He is happy to find the corridor and bay are both empty. He quickly spots a fully loaded falcon and exits the bay.

Hmmm, lets see where we are, Tom thought while surveying his computers neural net. Sigma 17 that is an interesting place for a Rheinland base. Well, lets see, Planet Kurile is the nearest base so I might as well head there, maybe Shinra will have some stories I could work on.

*Tom sets his course for Planet Kurile and cruises away. He quickly reaches it and docks his vessel. Once on the planet he sets up his story and conveys it to SNS headquarters, on Freeport 4. After he finishes with his work, he heads to the bar, run by Shinra, to get a few drinks before he hits the sack. Once he enters the bar he notices a couple of Turks, the elite Shinra security, cornering a man named the Pope, who was shouting about Holy Wars and Heathens, when all of a sudden the Pope jumps out of the window with two other men close behind. A disgruntled looking executive watches the Pope then turns and talks to the crowd.

“Alright folks nothing to see here, everybody clear out. Ah Mr. Homely,” he said turning to Tom, “I read your recent article on Rheinland, very interesting. Would you like to join me in my office for a drink? We have a spot open for a reporter in the upcoming Shinra-Hartmoore merger, I think you’re the guy.”