[center][h3]Zohra[/h3][/center]
[hr]

Sitting attentively in the front of the makeshift briefing room, Zohra absorbed the briefing and rapid fire questions from her new comrades in arms with a carefully cultivated stoicism that she felt more than warranted given her present circumstances. She had few options without a BattleMech. Risks, even great ones, were now nothing more than necessaries.

Pirates were no great surprise. The FRR was in a precocious position. Pirates would no doubt seek to take advantage of the fledgling republic. The natural tendencies of these interstellar scoundrels would have to be checked. She could sympathize with those unwilling to harm surrendering pirates, but convention and the law was clear concerning the matter. Pirates were afforded none of the judicial protection offered soldiers and mercenaries operating within the scope of the law. To engage in piracy in all most all nations of the Inner Sphere meant forfeiting one's life if one were to be captured. The noose or a firing squad following a brief trial was what waited. All civilians knew this, all soldiers knew this, all mercenaries knew this, and assuredly all pirates knew this. It was why pirates, in her limited experience, fought with such blind fanaticism, victory or death was all that remained for the poor wretches.

Her new colleagues represented a diverse constellation, if appearance and accents were anything to go by. She was not unfamiliar with such company. Tempers were cool enough. Jibes were not so cutting so as to be truly offensive. Not yet at any rate. There would no doubt be tension when rounds and missiles started flying, but such was the way of things. She was pleased at the majority of questions, not that her opinion carried any particular weight, but she sensed an unanticipated current of professionalism coursing beneath the predictably crusty layer of mercenary bravado that was exhaled into the room.

"We should strike quickly and true," Zohra added with a smile and nod at the last speaker. He looked like the sort who might know how to play a guitar, a thought that pleased her greatly, wishful as such hopes might be. Even at a distance she could smell the alcohol emanating from the space he had occupied. Zohra concluded with great confidence that he was just the kind of mercenary that would polish off a case of the Hefeweizen brew that she had found the Steiners were so fond of drinking in one sitting. At least when the petty [i]social generals[/i]weren't busy sipping glasses of wine filled to brim with vintages far too expensive for her own much less refined palette.

"What pirates lack in endurance they often make up for in tenacity and a remarkable propensity for creative violence. We should not overstay our unexpected welcome or allow ourselves to be drawn into a lengthy battle."