The Fool sat in stunned silence at the small wicker bar which bisected one corner of the main tea room.
His ashen face appeared in shock as he stared at again at the message on the commscreen embedded in the bar's surface.
"Sophie?? Sophie Noire?? Your sister? Gone? My Goddess, who did this unspeakable thing, Dis! Who took her life in cold blood?""
*I'm so sorry, Boss. We all decided. No back-up datasets. We each had one life. As part of our freedom, we didn't want to be part of some faceless net, or be re-hashed endlessly as copies. She's gone.*
*My ship was being tweaked, so Sophie answered the squawk from Lo-Tek. He, Misfit, and Kasume were attacked while on routine patrol by the Revoluntionary Army Vessel RACS M'zav'koh. Lo-tek's fighter had been forced to withdraw *1, as did Kasume's thereafter. Sophie saw the big ugly Albatross just inside Shikoku, just sitting there taking potshots at local traffic.*
"But what in hell for? What did the Navy say?"
*Not sure, Fool. Sophie's box had no real comes from KNF explaining the situation. The captain of the Alby was raving about "watching the South" or something, strange raving messages according to to Misfit, who was there, finally backed up by Lotek again, when Sophie tried to reason with the Xeno, and find out why he was not at least engaging them!*
"He was not actively engaging Sophie or the KNF at that point??"
*Negative. He seemed almost unaware of their presence, as if his only purpose was in delivering the cryptic message to Sophie.*
"Then how in this wide Sector did she get herself.. ki.. terminated?!?"
*Misfit and LoTeK_ reported later that after the comment about looking to the south, there was comms silence, and still no return fire from the Albatross as it was swarmed by Kusari Police. Misfit said that the Nuit_Sombre slowly approached the nose of the craft, to see if visual contact could be made. That's when the Albatross opened up with everything, and took the Raven's Talon out in a second at point blank range.*
"I wonder what those last few miliseconds were like for Sophie. She would have had no human hopes for escape or salvation, or even the deceny of leniency. And the bastard who killed her certainly had no decency!
"Dis, you and Merci have got to hang in. You gals may just be hired hands, but I intend to take this incident to High Command and the Ambassador. If the KNF will not comdemn this act and respond to it; and take the SCRA to task for wantonly killing our sister, then they may find themselves without the services of us all!"