I Get the Gist.

Well, maybe there's a god above
But all I've ever learned from love
Was how to shoot somebody who outdrew you
It's not a cry that you hear at night
It's not somebody who's seen the light
It's a cold and it's a broken hallelujah.
Leonard Cohen - Hallelujah

I moved back into Balginia after setting up a jump clone in Gusandall, I felt the urge to see some action again. The Cartel's still strong as ever, and the tribes still can't figure out who's winning the galactic pissing contest. I decided I was going to put a few warships down, so I headed to my old agent, Alfroren Karsteinn.

"Hey, Hallan,"Alfroren said as I walked up, "Last time I saw you was on the news for blowing up somebody in one of the belts,"

"What in the hell are you talking about Karsteinn?" One less miner usually didn't reach the level of system wide news.

"Apparently," He offered as he handed me a datapad, "The owner was the son of one of the Cartel's commanders,"

I looked down at the image on the datapad, the face matched the frozen corpse I had back in my cargo holds. "I killed somebody trying to go straight," I said while holding my forhead.

"Don't sweat it, if you weren't an amoral monster, you wouldn't be good at your job,"

"You're not helping,"

"Maybe this will cheer ya up then, I've got a job for you. Real nice one, lots of explosions. Got a Cartel patrol making it's way through the system. Kill them all and get back to me as soon as you can," He smiled and turned back to his computer station.

I muttered as I dialed up the info on the datapad.

"Try not to kill any miners while you're out," He said as I walked away.

I headed into my hangar and eyeballed my Drake. It always strikes me as such a sleek ship. The damn thing's kitted out with all sorts of gadgets and gizmos to help it recharge it's shields. I climbed inside and walked it's empty halls towards the pod. I went up the ladder, jumped into the pod, sat down, and leaned my head back against the neural shunt. The rest would happen automatically for me. Suddenly I could see the outside of my ship.

I gave the commands to undock, and slipped into the cold. I activated my warpdrive and headed towards the last known location of the Cartel patrol.

I wasn't out of warp more than three seconds before the first one targeted me. I returned the favor and banked hard to the right as the first volley of missiles came in hard and fast. They struck the port side of my shields as I kicked my engines on full blast and burned for the targets. The first Gistii Haunter exploded in a cloud of evaporating metal. I had the time to take a count of my targets, twenty four to one. Not bad odds really. Make that twenty three.

As the Shatterer shattered, a Crusher came into range and began to hammer away with it's missiles as well. My shields were still holding steady at eighty-four percent. I got off another volley of Scourge missiles just before it happened.

My overview lit up, and a massive fleet of Angel Cartel ships warped in. I aligned to warp back to the station and kept chucking missiles at my targets. One of the Vipers caught up to me and threw on a webifier and warp scrambler. As my speed slowed to a crawl I launched a full compliment of Warrior IIs and tossed them against the Viper. Suddenly my ship was rocked by a Paradise cruise missile.

A freakin' Saint, they brought a freakin' Saint. I focused all my missiles on the Viper, but his massive speed beat most of them. The drones were still tearing him apart, but the other two vipers wear gaining on me, not to mention the cruise missiles and heavy missiles the rest of the fleet was throwing. Then, very quietly my drones did their job and the viper exploded, I called them back in and gave the command to warp to the station. The next few moments were a bit scary as the ship struggled to enter warp. Then I was gone, and the battle faded into the background.

I docked at the station and climbed out of my pod. I walked out of my ship and into my personal hangar to hear a beeping coming from my office. I opened the door and sat down. There was a message on my vid mail.

"We're not done,"