And to think, even for a second, that I actually had two whole weeks of celebratory drunkenness planned on Curacao. Not like it's the first time some self-centered piece of a whore has ruined my vacation time though, but this one is just all on my nerves. There I am, packing up and thinking I can finally catch an actual break, and not even out of Alpha yet, I get that ugly waste of breasts yapping away about how the future of Nacion is at stake and I should do their job for them again and save the day, bla bla. The whole place just went to hell after Jameson left, and how is it even possible that every single sod taking the wheel after him has been nothing but a royal pain in the ass?
Turns out, that spineless pretty-boy of Perez asking me to risk my ass to get them Gladie prints was not enough and now this Casta wants me to sweep the whole sector for some Pennybrooke persona who didn't show up for some date she had with Casta. Can't blame her much, since Casta is repulsive at best, but she ruined my vacation, so she'll get no love from me when I find her. I remember running into her ship once or twice, she apparently flies some research ship around the place, and is one of those scientist-types who always yap about random load of bull like how "astonishingly magnificent" the stars are and whatnot. I bet she's one of those under-attractive middle-aged over-weight women with a face that even glasses can't make one bit appealing, and here I am, having to chase the nutbag around the place cause she's probably "just lost track of time" sitting on the bridge staring at some star that died some million years ago while sucking on a family-sized tube of synth paste that would normally be enough to feed ten fully grown adults but she sucks dry in one sitting.
All that aside though, Casta has hell of a timing, I give her that much. She managed to catch me at the right 5 minutes window I get every afternoon when I'm bored to death and would say yes to pretty much anything that can fill my time. If she had sent me that damn message any other hour of the day, I would've shoved a massive "No" in her face and watched her hug her knees in a corner and cry her brains out like Chenzo did back when he had his dirty hands on the wheel. Her good timing did cost me though. Now instead of taking the Taus hole tomorrow morning and heading to Bretonia, I'll have to go snoop around the Casts backyard cause the only clue that whore of a Casta gave me was that the Pennybrooke persona was already in the region and simply "making herself comfortable"... Comfortable my ass.
Under normal circumstances, Katherine would be very comfortable in her current position.
The RV-Pennybrooke was gliding silently through the Kiribati asteroid field, at the edge of Sirius. It was a location most people would feel lonely and nervous in, but to Katherine it felt like home.
On this occasion however, she was apprehensive, unable to take in the stunning scenery of the Omicron Delta system, her eyes glued to her scanner's readout. The last encounter with the Order had been uncomfortable at best, and she was glad she had left when she did.
Apparently, they didn't have orders to shoot her on sight yet, but they had definitely been following her. She still wasn't sure how she'd managed to elude them in the foreboding Zeta nebulae, but in any case it seemed prudent to leave the far Omicrons. And preferably through the southern route, there was no need to stir up the hive any more.
Thinking back, she smiled to herself. They had noticed her call, and had come to accept her offering.
Volkov was so eager, almost too eager. Hopefully he had the ambition to bring their plan to fruition. It was a small success that she could report to Angie, but she had no doubt heard of it already.
Time would tell if Volkov would be suited.
Frowning, she wondered what that Order agent had wanted of her. She hadn't really decided on whether or not to pursue this contact of theirs in Liberty. Perhaps there was something useful to gain from it, but it sounded very suspicious indeed. Perhaps it was simply a way to get her in a certain place.
For now though, it would surely be best to leave the area. Perhaps even visit the place she used to call home, although the thought of it was uncomfortable. The Omegas seemed like a reasonable starting point.
As she mulled her options, Freeport 11 finally came into visual range. A place so remote attracted an interesting crowd, in a way she sympathized with. Still, she didn't plan on lingering. A brief check-up, perhaps a snack, and she would set course for Kappa.
Of all the unexpected I've been through these past few months, hacking into Outcast records would've been the last on my guess list. Not like I had any other option though, Casta was clear on how much she wanted to keep the whole thing as quiet as possible, so it wasn't like I could just walk into the bar and ask around to see if anyone's seen some random research ship pass through the system any time recent. What's the saying? Somethin-somethin' calls for drastic measures or something? That. I admit, asking Casta to pull the records for me would've been simpler, but with the attitude that woman has, no way that was going to happen. Ask her for a quick hand and she'd react as if you've asked her for a head. No, not that type of head. I obviously meant the type you chop off and put on a silver platter.
Anyways... Turns out them Casts don't keep their less-important records that well-protected. Long as you have access to at least one of their channels, you can tunnel your way through their whole system like that vintage arcade game they had on Freeport 2 back in the day. Whatever it was called. It was some funny looking thing digging around in mud and the whole point of the game was to avoid runnin' into monsters and collect some chests and whatnot. It wasn't even a good game, boring as hell, dunno why I brought it up. Now, where was I? Right. The Cast records. Did I mention I was checking them on Puertollano by the way? Doesn't matter. I was sayin', turns out that Pennybrooke ship was last seen jumping in from Taus, but no logs of the damn thing ever jumping out. That can only mean two things - The miserable waste of time is either still flying around somewhere in the Cast space, or has moved deeper into the Omicrons.
This whole thing was nothing but a damn waste of time from the get go, and it's highly unlikely I would've missed a ship that obvious in the past while I've been around Cast space. A research ship is either just some idiot in a small freighter or somethin' just sight-seeing with the delusion that he's doing actual research, or a ship large enough to easily notice even from a fair distance, so I doubt anything useful would come out of sweeping the whole place, since if the ship was already around, I would've ran into it at least once. Maybe I should head to Ruiz, see if the idiotta took the Sigmas route out.
Seems I'm not gonna make it to at least the last couple of days of that villa I leased on Curacao after all. Turns out not only that Pennybrooke did take this route out, but also was intending on headed straight to the other corner of Omicrons. Casta should've refunded me for that waste of lease when she first send me that transmission about Pennybrooke, though, admittedly that would've been way too creepy even for Casta, since she didn't even know about my vacation plans, and even if she did, she had no right to do, so better yet that she didn't, or even if she did, pretended she didn't.
There I was hoping to get a quiet couple of weeks on Curacao, just to be ruined by whoever this Pennybrooke is, then here I was hoping to take this new Rapier of mine on a test flight while looking for her, again to be ruined by whyever this Pennybrooke decided to skip town. That damn woman's been nothing but ruin of plans and misery so far, but then again, they never are. If taking a trip to the other end of the world is such a casual thing for her to do, then tailing her is gonna be a bigger pain in the ass than I hoped for, and plus, I'm gonna need a bigger ship. Roc of mine is a fine bird for sure, and I'm known for doing a lot of crazy stuff with it, but "suicidal" isn't part of my resume and never will be. The last time I took the Roc to Omicrons was enough of a pain to make me hate the place and all those radiations and clouds and Nomads.
... Nomads. She must've went to that Freeport in Delta then. Where else would a researcher-slash-scientist be interested in when it comes to Omicrons? I'm gonna need a bigger ship, one I can actually stretch my legs in, and one that doesn't attract so much attention. My week's been gettin' worse and worse so far, but maybe I can get some fun out of the whole thing. Dunno about you, but sounds to me like it's about time I buy one of those new CTE boats I've had my eye on for a while.
Turns out my guess wasn't that off. FP9 seems to have some scan logs of that ship passing by, but no logs of the ship actually docking to resupply or anything, so she must've been in hell of a hurry. Fascinating how easy slipping the right amount of credits into the right pocket makes your life. The Omicrons being the edge of the world, she'd have nowhere else to go than the Freeport in Delta. A little corner of hell that place is. I'm just hoping that insane woman isn't planing on flying farther away from colonized space like those Zoner lunatics, cause that'd mean she'll eventually venture into Iota and then finding her won't need any luck anymore, but a miracle. Alive, that is.
Now the route is a pickle. As torn as I am about taking a detour through Gamma on my way to Delta and saying 'Ola to some lovely hospitable Corsairs who have every right to be mad at me and want me skinned alive if they find out about the whole Gladiator mess, I can't afford to lose any time and have to get back on that Pennybrooke's tail, otherwise finding her would become even more of a pain. Maybe I should wait till this whole mess is done and over with, then send an "anonymous tip" to them Sair elders about the whole Gladie thing and take my Gamma detour on the way back. That ought to be fun, to say the least. Zoners aren't the most reliable of bunchs, but if the logs that fella gave me are accurate, I'm only two days behind the Pennybrooke, that means if she even as much as stops for a drink on the Delta Freeport I'll manage to catch up.
Actually, thinkin about it... What the hell am I saying? That thirty year-old queen of virginity is a scientist type. Why the hell would she stop for a drink? The extent of the "fun" they ever experience is when and if they end up in a lab accident and the medics pump some sedative drugs into their system. With all the brains those people claim to have, their inability to perceive the meaning of "life" makes me sad. She probably doesn't even know how to 'make herself happy', and instead does some freaky crap like stickin' electrodes into her own brain and givin' herself a chain of orgasms whenever she feels the need once in a blue moon, or if ever.
Of all the weird load of bull I've been through in these past months, this one got to top them all. Turns out I'm not the only one doing 101st's wet work, and also not the only one on this Pennybrooke's tail, and on top of that, not the only one doing 101st's wet work which is the waste of time tailing of this Pennybrooke. On my way to Delta some complete randomer somehow found my channel and started asking about the Pennybrooke, and I hate it when I'm not the only one who knows more than they should. This one was quite interesting though, a complete randomer but a LSF nonetheless, and a really, really, really desperate LSF at that.
He's not the first Liberty hound I've seen who decides to abandon ship and for once do something at least somewhat useful. Willows was one of this same boring typical type before he met Doc, after all, so the surprising part wasn't the randomer being a LSF, but rather, the randomer being so desperate. Through the whole talk, he sounded like someone's got a gun shoved in him somewhere and will pull the trigger unless he finds this Pennybrooke. He pretended he didn't know me at all, but it was obvious that he knew more than enough about who I was and what I was doing in the neighborhood, and unless that mouthy Zoner on FP9 had talked, someone in Casta's insider circle must've slipped tongue. A job's a job though, and long as them randomers don't interfere or slow me down, I don't mind them hanging around.
A job being a job, and the benefit of it bein' a trophy I can later nail to a wall, it becomes even better of a job if I get two trophies and two nails with that one hammer I've got, which is why I decided to do that randomer a favor and actually listen to what he had to say, cause he claimed he has influence in Liberty so he could repay me with something worth my time in return. Turns out he didn't have any interest in that Pennybrooke as a person, but rather wanted some of the Liquid Cardie she's apparently carrying around, and if that's really the case, this Pennybrooke might not be some random scientist type after all, and actually someone somewhat worth tracking down. Though, why in the hell would 101st need some outsider to track another outsider just to get their hands on Liquid Cardie? The good doctor had an impressive stash of that crap in his private lab, so unless that junkie of Willows ended up shoot it all up, it should still be there... Or unless, of course, they don't even know about Doc's stash of Liquid Cardie, and even though highly unlikely, if that's the case I'll have some sniffing around to do when I get back to Alpha. Shouldn't be that hard now that I've got my own little private corner on Malta.
Though her Ahoudori was equipped and stocked for months of travel without resupplying, Katherine decided to make a last stop at Freeport 9 before finally leaving the Omicrons.
The emerald backdrop of the Edge Nebula had a cool, soothing effect that she intended to savor before diving through the fiery Omegas.
It was intriguing how colours affected us, she mused, tilting her glass to let it catch Theta's star light. She had always found herself partial to the shorter half of the visible light spectrum, and the associated virtues of temperance, patience, and cunning, over the fervor, impulsiveness and straightforwardness the longer half symbolized.
Surely on a basic level at least, this symbolism went back to evolutionary associations with water and darkness, versus fire and light?
With conditioning, she would undoubtedly be able to-
"Ma'am? Anything else?"
Her eyes slowly refocused on the bar around her, and the bartender leaning towards here with a slightly worried look on his face. She put on a wry smile.
"That'll be all."
* * *
Cambridge. Though it was Katherine's home system, she couldn't help but feel slightly uncomfortable as she approached the lane network from the Omega-5 jump hole.
Traveling in the southern Omegas, though dangerous at times, was so much more.....dynamic, she thought. Flying on your own engine power was both more flexible and consistent than using lanes, it just felt smoother.
The RV was at home in deep space, where she monitored engine and life support readouts, not her alignment towards a lane.
She had noticed how increasingly paranoid she had become flying in house space.
Returning there and facing it would surely be productive towards retaining her ability to function as a normal person. She had considered stopping by home, but it didn't seem like a wise choice; there would be too much to deal with at this time.
No, perhaps the best way to approach this was to hide in plain sight - being alone in a crowd was akin to being alone with no others.
Though she already knew she didn't really intend to do so, contacting that Order operative was a viable reason to head to Liberty. And of course, there were old contacts, seeing those would surely temperate her thoughts.
* * *
People that spend all their lives in space have no concept of the scale of planets, Katherine thought. They associate a planet with what it's mostly known for, because they only visit a few tiny dots. But actually, almost every planet had almost everything to offer.
She was sitting in the cafeteria of Mallerton Labs, a Los Angeles wind tunnel and climate control research and testing facility. Her internship here had been five years ago, but she had fond memories of the place. The southeastern cafeteria window handle was still missing its little protective cover, but the view outside over the mountains was as spectacular as ever.
"....so they call it an 'Atmospheric Observation & Management Facility', but it's really just a weather station. Maybe a glorified weather station. But that's the sort of place you'd like, right?
I, uh.....you said you've been out there, so I thought of that. I don't even know if the position is still open, I just-.... Katherine?"
"I'm listening, Dora. A job on Kurile, at a newly installed weather station. Assistant Head Meteorologist.
I haven't really been keeping myself up to date after I finished my studies, if I'm honest. Really don't know if I'd be up to that now."
She smiled apologetically. "You're right about me liking the place, though. I'll....try to look into that."
Though it didn't seem like her old lab partner recognized it, Katherine was sincere about looking into it. Yes, a place like Kurile was perfect. Very small population, but big enough that people don't all know each other. And, more importantly, the location was ideal, so close to the source. It would be a dark enclave just beyond the grasp of civilization. If it could be established as a-
A brilliant burst of sunlight to her cockpit after breaking through the cloud layer interrupted her train of thought. Within seconds, her surroundings became dark again, as Los Angeles' atmosphere thinned out.
She couldn't remember if she had said good bye or not.
It is said that once upon a time people believed the Earth was flat. It is also said that once upon a time a few centuries after that earlier once upon a time, the future generation of those same people believed Earth is actually not flat but is center of the universe and everything revolves around it. Now, skip another few centuries and the once upon a time we reach is the once upon a time that people came to believe it is the sun that is the center of the universe. Yet another once upon a time a few centuries after that, people realized even sun is not the center of the universe and everything revolves around one thing or another, and their belief for that one thing or another kept changing over the centuries. Well, I guess the primitive human being was just horribly narrow-minded, cause the fact is - Center of the universe is every bar on every Freeport in edge worlds, cause no matter what or who you're looking for, you'll find it there.
After wasting a couple of good weeks in space and ending up with nothing worth a damn, I figured I can dig up how that whore of a lab-geek looked like and start looking around in the two Freeports in the region. Turns out I was right about her not bein' much of a pleasure for the eyes, but I have to admit, she turned out to be at least a couple of hundreds of pounds lighter than what I expected her to be. On top of it all, it also turned out that I had been running into her over and over for past few days in the corridors but didn't realize it was her... Wonder who should I blame this one on. Not my fault for sure, cause seriously... Since when did researcher and scientist-types started using makeup? That looks so wrong it should be listed under the top 10 disguises in human history, right below Trojan Horse. What kind of a sick bastard would genetically modify himself to look like a horse is beyond me though.
Anyways... With all the time she made me waste, I wasn't even one bit surprised when I found out she's already planing on heading out. Since I had no time to catch her on the station, my only option was to waste even more time on her and tail her to see where she's headed. There's of course no denying that I was hoping she'd take one route or another to more civilized space, cause I was sick and tired of this little corner of hell and wanted to be back to somewhere, anywhere, that one can actually buy a half-decent drink in a bar, rather than these flower expensive bottles of piss they try to sell you here in Omicrons.
So I've got this online text-based encyclopedia sitting in front of me which defines "boredom" as "an emotional state experienced when an individual is left without anything in particular to do, and not interested in their surroundings", which frankly, is like the most useless definition possible. These people writing these things should use their brains every once in a while, just for a change. If they had used even half a brain when writing this crap, they could've easily come up with a clearer and way more useful definition. Somethin' like "an emotional state which results in an individual having nothing better to do than actually looking this damn word up". I mean, seriously, why would anyone in their sane mind actually open an encyclopedia and search for "boredom" if they're not bored to death already?
It's been two days now I've been on tailing Pennybrooke, but that funny-lookin' fella called Einstein would argue that it's relatively been about at least a couple of awfully long and boring months, which it sure feels like. This useless piece of scientist with disturbing quantities of makeup on top takes literally forever to move her arse. It's like she hasn't been in house space in so long, she's forgotten how to use lanes, or she's paranoid about them, or something. It takes her like half an hour just to align with the ring and another half an hour to actually dock with it. Thank Lord and rest of them deities of the old Earth that how fast she goes through the lane is not up to her, else I'm betting that part would've taken her a couple of hours at the very least.
On an unrelated note, who would name their deity after a Hessian bomber? That just sounds stupid. It's not even a good bomber, so I was kinda confused when that guy with funny beard and awful accent was going on and on about the mighty Thor blabla a couple of years back in Omegas. I mean, yea he wasn't talking about the bomber, but did he really expect me to realize that? It wasn't until after I accidentally ran into a site about these stories some ancient sea pirate type people who called themselves "Nurse" wrote that I realized he wasn't talking about the bomber, which reminds me, what kind of pirates would call themselves Nurse? Was it supposed to be some sort of disguise or something? Like... "Nurse ship approaching! Had blesseth our wounded the mighty pubic hair of Thor!" "Bwahaha 2 loafs of bread or die!"
Moving back to the subject of Pennybrooke... Who in their sane mind would take the Magellan route instead of the Cortez route? Cortez has Curacao, which has bars and clubs, which have high-class hookers, whom don't have herpes unlike the ones back on Freeport 9. Blame Corsairs. All Magellan has is ice clouds and a Freeport that isn't even Zoner. It's like a bomber that doesn't even have a SNAC, which basically means it's not a Freeport. Though, speaking of sanity, if this is the way this Pennybrooke always flies, she clearly has none, so the question of sanity-slash-Curacao is a tad null. The damn... err... wow, seems I just ran out of words to insult her... The damn whatever flew through the whole Bretland from Cambridge to Manchester without making a single stop, and there I was hoping she'd make a stop on a friendly ground and I'll manage to catch her off guard, but here she is flying me to Liberty.
Can't even remember the last time I've been around this hellhole. Even their space smells like bacon and donuts. And they've got this Police ship which is so tiny it's even hard to see, let alone hit. I mean, it's so tiny even Kusari is pissed about it. Go figure. For some odd reason though, this absolute waste of time I've been tailing since god knows when, seems to be actually going to dock on Los Angeles. I mean, I'm not complaining but this piece of whore has been flying like her plan is to fall off the other edge of Sirius before stopping. Speaking of Los Angeles, they call it "City of angels", which is a tad weird cause there's not an actual city there called Los Angeles, it's just the name of the planet. So they're either nuts or they mean the space port, in which case they have absolutely no taste at all.