The bureaucratic inertia of the Republic of Liberty, coupled with far more pressing threats in the Insurgency, allowed a small pirate nest to flourish, with the help of a gang of smugglers in the employ of Cryer Pharmaceuticals. The Cryer captains serving as the “face” of the operation were more than happy to falsify a few work orders and Interspace policy claims to allow for Novi Plant to provide them with off the books services, especially on their next equally off the books trip to Sparta.

The pirates themselves? With their new thin veneer of legitimacy, they realised they could make more going “straight” as a middleman for fine Omicron and Gallic goods. A sweetheart deal with the Cryer captains would see industrial Helium delivered cheaply, and “accidentally” finding its way to the sales floors. Other corporate captains would pay a visit, and some would even have lookouts ready to bid on “lots” from when the odd actual pirate would bring home some loot. The pirates being a gang of unaffiliated opportunists, it wasn’t long before Maltese freighter jockeys seeking a new port of call would quickly come to an arrangement. The expected friction between the corporate captains and the Maltese foot-soldiers completely failed to materialize, as Novi’s administration had quickly broken deliveries into “shifts”, ostensibly to keep the heat from the law off, but actually to prevent such incidents from taking place. Novi was a wicked place, debase and corrupt. It served all comers, so long as they paid.

Fontana to the East, and Rochester to the North would continue to be the preferred ports of call for most, but Novi would scrape by on bootleg firearms (popular with pirate gangs) and the aforementioned cheap helium (popular with House and Outworlder industrial concerns), as well as being a decent enough fence for piratical transports (popular with everyone except Interspace claim agents).