ASSIMILATION

HOSTILE TAKEOVER OF CHEMICALS GIANT
“Textbook shock-and-awe” says Mercenary captain

By Bjorn Mbutu

YESTERDAY, the chemicals firm HeinCo Ltd was assimilated by agricultural giant Steadman and Kirk, in a two-hour long engagement that left a reported total of four-hundred and twelve dead, and more than thrice that amount wounded.
Steadman and Kirk were reportedly motivated by the prospect of acquiring the patents to the chemical Syunol recently-developed by HeinCo, which can be used to substantially increase the nutritional value of organic substances (exact statistics may be found at their website). Steadman and Kirk had entered negotiations with HeinCo to purchase the patents two weeks ago; but their efforts were thwarted on the 22nd, when HeinCo declared that AgriNation Ltd had approached them with a more lucrative offer. The sale was to take effect on the 24th - today.
Steadman and Kirk, unwilling to let Syunol fall into the hands of their competitor, voted to order a strike at HeinCo's headquarters in Berlin, with the objective of forcing the chemical company to merge with them before the sale could be finalised. This operation was to be carried out by the mercenary company Pacification Assets and Specialists Ltd (PASL).
The attack was launched yesterday, at 10 AM. While this may appear to be odd timing, as the majority of HeinCo's staff and security personnel would be present at the compound, PASL's CEO, Morgan Tile felt it was a good course of action.
“I chose a morning attack precisely because they would all be there, you see,” he later disclosed to The Report “That includes the board of directors. The board would be scared [wit]less by the lightning-speed of the attack, and the high kill-ratio I calculated we would initially achieve, and they would surrender for fear of losing their lives.”
And that is precisely what happened; the security forces at HeinCo (supplied by Trigger-Happy Inc.) were taken completely by surprise by the speed and co-ordination of the assault, and close to two hundred defenders were killed in the confusion of the first hour. While Pacification Assets and Specialists' kill-ratio started off at an admirable 6:1, their performance began to wane as the second hour passed; however, HeinCo's board of directors was sufficiently rattled by that time to surrender all their assets to Steadman and Kirk, making the operation, in Tile's own words, “a pretty good showing.”
He further commented: “We did so very well at first because of the element of surprise; but if the battle had gone on for two more hours or so, we'd have lost. We just hadn't come equipped for a protracted fight, and Trigger-Happy's men outnumbered us heavily. Thankfully, HeinCo's management never realised that. It was textbook shock-and-awe.”
A member of HeinCo's board of directors later disclosed that they had requested help from AgriNation Ltd, but no aid had come. This was later confirmed in a press release by AgriNation: they had indeed received the distress call, and would have helped but for the fact that their own security forces were supplied by PASL, who point-blank refused to get into a fight with their own men.
"A bit of dirty fighting there," File admitted. "We anticipated that AgriNation would want to come to HeinCo's recue, but our defence contracts explicitly state that a client cannot issue us an order that would hinder us in performing our duties to another client. So there was no danger from that quarter."
AgriNation has since terminated PASL's contract and has switched to Deimos' Spear for their security needs.
This will be the third high-profile assimilation of a firm this month, but this was without a doubt the most controversial. PASL's exploitation of loopholes has led to the Board of Corporate Ethics being called upon to revise the entire area of defence contract law. Meanwhile, PASL stock has risen in value by 17% since yesterday.
Steadman and Kirk have called a press conference at their offices later this evening.

The above article has been shortened to save space; if you are interested in reading the original, unabridged version of the story, you will find it at www.theworldreport.net, along with more exposition, live footage, exclusive interviews with experts, full-length articles on the parties involved, and much, much more!

- Published in The World Report, April 24th, 2053