The sun was starting its low decent into evening when Ben returned to the Cabin. He carried a bag over his shoulder full of plants and herbs that he had found and knew from past experience that blended together with some of the meat he caught yesterday would make a very fine meal indeed.
"Im back" he called out, dumping the bag and his blaster rifle onto one of the benches on the porch and collapsing into a chair beside them.
"Hello my brave Hunter" a voice spoke out from nearby. Zarita came round the corner of the Cabin and approaching him, leaned over and kissed him on the forehead. She sat beside him "Find anything?"
Ben nodded to the bag and smiled "Now... i know you know all this already, but you wait until i cook that little lot up with what i caught yesterday, you're going to love eating it, not just the memory of eating it."
She smiled at him and he noticed she seemed slightly distracted. "Whats wrong?" he asked. She looked away briefly and then looked back "Nothing" she said" At least, nothing major, ive.... I've been practicing trying to... get a handle on what my body does now.... "
Laowai sat up, "So that's what you've been doing today, how has it gone?"
Zarita nodded, "I have something i want to show you" She said.
Without waiting, she looked down on the ground in front of the cabin where a bundle of firewood was stacked neatly, staring at it, and willing herself to visualize what she wanted, but not actually think about what she wanted she willed the timbers to....
One by one, the logs started lifting themselves into the air, moving slowly but purposefully, unstacking themselves and then restacking themselves in an entirely different pattern, laying criss-crossed as if someone were building a pyre.
"By Crete......." Laowai exclaimed, he looked at his wife who was staring with glazed eyes at the wood "Zarita...." he said, and yet her eyes didn't move and within them he thought he could see a gleam, they seemed to start to want to glow, to change from their white and colored Irises of their human shape into something... reflective and opaque.
He put his hand on hers and she snapped back to wakefulness, turning to him she smiled nervously. "You... learned that today?" Ben asked.
She smiled and nodded "well, kind of, Ive.. done it before, just not with that much control, but i want to be in control, i don't want to be like i was last night, i want to own this, i don't want it to own me."
As she spoke there was a dull thud and the last of the logs dropped into place onto what was now a perfectly formed square pyre of timbers.
She was looking at him as if somehow seeking approval. What he had witnessed was at once both amazing, and frightening, the sheer possibilities of what Zarita was capable of defied thought, how was someone supposed to respond to what he had just witnessed? Yet, this was his doing, the fact that she was able to do this was because of him.
A smile crossed his face and he felt her immediatly relax, "No... its good" he said, "You're right, you need to be able to control this.. but..."
He looked at the logs again and then back at her "You have to be careful, you have to keep this between us, keep focused, dont show it where you dont need to, no one can know of what you are."
"I know" she said "Ive known that since i left Tangier, no one will, dont worry."
She laid her head against his shoulder and put his arm around him, giggling she said "Would you like to carry the vegetables into the house or do you want me to move them from here?"
The metallic banging of the docking clamps echoed across the docking bay as the Xibanya Nuren touched down within Tripoli station and the great docking bay doors sealed shut.
Waiting beside the bay in a quarantined chamber, in hazmat suits and brandishing anti-grav containment clamps and units was a Containment team of personell, alerted earlier to the presence of Nomad material taken on the voyage into Omicron Minor. The room they were in was off limits to all save those who worked in the unit and were donned in the appropriate garments, no chances were taken. Tripoli had long been the collection point for any and all Nomad related matter that the Corsairs salvaged after battles, and there was much of it.
As such, the facility was state of the art, there had not been a containment breach since its inception and the crew were not about to let their shift be the first.
The Nuren was anchored into place and a Siren wailed across the bay. The containment chamber doors opened and the containment team dashed across the bay to beneath the Cruiser where a large metal container was being lowered from a chamber in its hold. Positioning their anti-grav lifts beneath it, the crew used their communicators to guide the Nuren engineers as they lowered it down. The container was shielded, and this was vital. Corsair research had revealed that while the threat of an active breach was low with most of the superflous material collected from Nomad craft when they were destroyed, they were unable to rule out a threat entirely. All containment units were shielded, combat tested and able to withstand a great deal of damage, from impact and even weapons fire.
As the container was lowered it was powered directly from the core of the Nuren herself, however, once the container was secured on the grav lifts, the containment crew connected it to their own power source before signalling to the Nuren's crew that it was safe to disconnect. Verbally and visually checking all systems were operating normally, the crew moved the unit back into the containment chamber, the doors were sealed behind them and the whole lot, container and crew were taken down to a lower level by a lift for the specimins to be processed. During this whole process, none save the containment crew were allowed into the landing bay and the Crew of any ships docking were required to wait until an all clear was given.
For most Corsairs, they would never even see the captured material, and those that did, this stage was the last they would hear of them.
It did not however, end there. The most intact specimins were dealt with by Corsair researchers, while the weaker or damaged types were destroyed.
As the all clear siren sounded, the Xibanya Nuren's landing platform began to decend from beneath her in a cloud of steam and a clanking of metal. Her crew, eager to disembark and enjoy the patronage of one of Omicron Gamma's largest and most cosmipolitan (as cosmipolitan as a Corsair facility could be) of drinking establishments. Tripoli shipyard, apart from containing the most secure Xenomorph containment facilties in this part of the Empire, was also the main trading hub in Omicron Gamma. There were always new faces and new people for the crew to meet, enjoy and potentially dupe out of their valuables.
Among the eager crew flooding out of the ship strode Ben Laowai and his Lieutenant, Phillip Alberto. "There's no doubt then Senor?" Phillip asked. Ben shook his head, the Order vessels had intended to prevent them returning to Gamma, weapons had been brandished, it had looked like it was going to get ugly.
"That pilot was either painfully green, niave or ill informed, or the Nomad story was just a pretext, either way, short of shooting at us, i know where they stand."
He handed Alberto a data pad, "Thats the new codes for the Outsider, i want you to take her out to Yaren for a while, keep an eye on movements and report in regularly."
Alberto took the pad slipped it into his flight jacket "And if it comes to shooting Senor?" he asked.
Ben sighed. This entire situation was a disgrace, and yet he could not dispute the facts. His reports from the TBH had all been confirmed by recent actions. The Order had revealed themselves to be untrustworthy and honourless to the highest degree, it could not be countenanced nor would it be.
However, it did leave him with some regret. He had had good working relationships with members of the Order command over the years. These men he knew to be principled and honour driven and he had no doubt that had they still maintained their places within the command structure, the current state of affairs would not have eventuated.
"You may defend yourself" Ben answered eventually "but dont initiate anything..." he paused, and scratching his beard added "I want you to make note of who is coming in and out of sensor range... no doubt they'll be updating their patrols now to replace the ones we're familiar with."
"Go" he said, "No doubt the crew will be eager to drink with you."
Alberto nodded "And you Capitan?" he asked.
Laowai look about him and looking at nothing; "No,... there will be a mountain of business to attend to over this and i should speak with the other Elders..."
He smiled, and patted the younger man on the shoulder.
She piloted the CT-6000 Eagle deftly out of the docking gates controls and banked widely outwards and in an arc. Gracefully flying in a wide turn over Crete's capital city she headed quickly towards a large hangar complex with which she was very familiar, and where she knew her brother would be.
Isabel would never usually call unannounced this way, and definitely not this early in the morning, but her brother had been hard to get a hold of recently and had seemed more evasive than usual. However, this was not the reason for her visit, and what she had discovered was big enough to warrant the unscheduled barge in. Ben hated it when people did that, but in this case he would just have to deal with it, she knew this would be something he would want to look through himself.
She banked over the hangar complex she was looking for and then, thrusting the engines down arced the craft downwards, her nose up and approaching parallel to the landing pad, seemingly coming down too fast and yet she expertly skimmed the ship on the grav-landing beam without so much as a bump. Not waiting for the canopy to be fully opened she leapt out of the ship and strode briskly through the swirling dust kicked up by her landing to the hangar door. It would be locked, it always was, her brother was nothing short of paranoid at the best of times, yet he had given her an override code on a pad to use in case of an emergency and the multiple dead locks disengaged, trip beams disarmed and shields deactivated as she keyed in this very code.
"Ben!" She called out as she crossed the dimly lit cavernous interior of the hangar, heading towards the mezzanine on the other side where she knew he would be sleeping. " Ben, its Isabel, Get up! This is important!!" She skipped across the room and leapt up the steps, reaching the mezzanine she pushed open the door to find her brother stumbling across the room fumbling with trying to put on a shirt.
"Isabel!!" he said startled, "what in the name of"... She cut him off; "I know I know, its early and I didn't tell you I was coming..." She rummaged around in pack for the data pad she had brought from Hokkaido, finding it she pulled it out and held it out to him... "but this couldn't wait, I had to come, Ive got information about....."
It was then she noticed that, far from being angry at her, and even looking at the pad her brother was closing a curtain to his sleeping chamber and tidying.. tidying clothes. Clothes that weren't his
"Wait..." She said, slightly dumbfounded. Her brother tossed a bundle of garments into a container near the far wall "Dammit!!" he said, "What have I told you about showing up unnano...."
"Wait....." Isabel smirked she raised an eyebrow and looking towards the now drawn curtain to the bedchamber, "are you...?"
Her brother was trying to be angry, and yet he seemed genuinely caught out and very uncomfortable. She repressed the urge to laugh and was about to try and say something funny when the curtain drew aside and a young woman stepped out slowly, looking first at Isabel, then to Ben and then back again. She approached shyly and held out her hand, "You... Must be Isabel..." she said. Isabel took the offered hand and shook it, more than a little amused now, "Ben??" she said, shaking the much younger girls hand and looking at her brother quizzically. "Who is this girl?" The young woman looked a little unsure and was about to answer when Ben moved beside her and protectively placed his arm on her shoulder.
"Wait" he said in a tone that Isabel thought she had never heard her brother use before. "I wanted to tell you in my own time" he began.
"Tell me what?" Isabel said, her curiosity now more than a little peaked.
Her brother continued, " Isabel: This is Zarita..." he paused and then added... "My Wife."
Isabel stopped shaking the girls hand immediately and looked stunned. "Your wife!?" She stared at the girl, who couldn't have been a day over 25 years of age, if that.... "You got married?! ...And you didn't tell me?!" Ben looked genuinely squeamish.
"Well its just, it was complicated and..."
"Complicated..?" Isabel said, "How complicated is it to send a comm signal?!"
Ben shook his head, "its not that, it wasn't that kind of ceremony or wedding, I wanted to tell you after things had settled down here."
Isabel nodded slowly still eying the younger woman strangely, "riiiiiggght" she said this is all very amusing and... weird she thought to herself, but it could wait, there were other things do deal with for now.
"Look... Whatever, we can talk about it later, for now... I have something I need to show you its Ive got some information about..."
She paused and looked at Zarita, " No offense meant dear... but could my brother and I have a moment?"
"Of course!" Zarita said, smiling slightly. She moved towards the door, then pausing, turned and addressed Isabel directly: " You dont know me Isabel, and have no cause to think of me beyond any of the other young playthings that Corsair elders are so rumored to be fond of...."
"And yet, this is not how it is with my husband, your brother. I know him, and through him, I know you. You have his same sense of strength and determination and his sense of loyalty, I hope you can find it to allow us to know each other as well, You are my sister now after all ....I would like to be friends."
She smiled again and left the room, treading lightly and silently down the stairs to the hangar below. Isabel turned round to her brother: "OK.. What is with that girl?!"
Laowai shook his head. " I did mean to tell you but its been complicated here, but..this is an honorable marriage, and you should know she is genuine in everything she just said."
"Right...." Isabel said, "I was going to say... young".
She passed him the data pad. "Anyway, this actually can wait; I came here because of this."
Ben took the pad and set it beside his work terminal on the other side of the room, he pulled up a chair and Isabel did the same. "What is it?" he said. The terminal booted up and quickly interfaced itself with the pad. "Computer.." Isabel spoke up, " open up file Inari 1, code locked Zhang 11b."
The screen flickered and several documents filled the screen. Ben leaned in and it was then he noticed the Golden Chrysanthemum watermark on the corner of one of the leading documents.
"What is this..?" he turned sharply... "This has GC markings, how did you...?"
Isabel interrupted him: "Yes its GC, its about Mum.."
Laowai turned back to the screen and looked shocked "Mum?" he said, "How?... where...? where did you get this?"
And yet he found he had to look, so much about their mothers life had been an unknown to them, especially this part, the part that they both knew existed but never spoke of, the part that Ben knew of only 2 other people that knew of it: His sister, and by benefit of their connection and joining over the years.. Zarita.
Their mother had been taken from the Golden Chrysanthemums by their father, weaned off Cardamine and brought to Crete, no one save their father knowing just who she was and who she had been.
Yet here it was.
The file was dated almost forty years earlier, each page bearing the mark of the GC in its upper left hand corner. His mind was filled with questions and yet he found himself reading silently, Isabel for her part, sat and waited.
G.C. Personnel File
Name: Zhang Lei.
D.O.B: 15 March 745 A.S.
Place of Birth: Tianshan, Riben Province New Tokyo.
Next of Kin: Zhang HuiZhong.
Rank: Lieutenant.
Current Assignment: 12th tactical wing. 4th platoon spec op.
Lt.Zhang has demonstrated efficiency in her tactical training with emphasis on unarmed and bladed combat, recommended that she be graded at trainer level for 6th platoon (see . *****). Her performance of her duty has been exemplary thus far and she has proved herself a capable and motivated soldier.
Current: M.I.A 763 A.S. (append report Sa41a)
Ben quickly opened the documents attached to the first page and continued reading:
GC COMMENDATION FILE 11213:
For Personal Heroism, Honorable conduct and selfless gallantry in the service of her Comrades Lt. Zhang Lei is awarded the Bronze Lotus for Bravery. Let this conduct be a testament to her character and an example to all in our struggle for freedom.
.The shuttlecraft crash docked after taking fire from the attacking Corsair forces. Several of her crew were still trapped and unable to escape the craft which was now leaking fuel and on fire which posed a considerable danger to the rest of the ship. Lt. Zhang ran to the craft and, ignoring the heat managed to drag the remainder of the crew to safety. She then returned to the bay and began to combat the growing fire in the hangar, leading a fire crew to extinguish the flames. It is the opinion of this officer that had Lt Zhang not acted in such a manner, the crew of the shuttle would have most surely perished and had the fires on the shuttle not been contained it would have almost certainly exploded and taken the rest of us with it
FILE Sa41a:
LT ZHANG LEI. MISSING IN ACTION:
Report reads:
we had successfully breached and boarded the target vessel, however upon entering the main cargo bay found ourselves under heavy enemy fire from several positions on the overhanging gangway and from the far corridors. 2nd squad, and 4th squad were ordered to the left and right flanks respectively, 1st squad remained at the bridgehead and provided covering fire. Sgt Makora 2nd squad was hit almost immediately and 2nd squad found itself pinned on the far side of the initial breach point. Lt Zhang and 4th squad reached the right corridor and neutralized the enemy forces located there. I then ordered Lt Zhang to take her squad up to the second level via the corridor and attempt to nuetralise the enemy forces overhead.
1st squad suppressed enough of the fire from the right overhang for 2nd squad to regroup and move back towards the breach, however as they moved back Corsair infantry appeared from the right corridor and we, both 1st and 2nd squads found ourselves unable to advance. During this engagement, pvts Sato, Michima and Narika were killed, Lt Tohama 2nd squad was also wounded. With the situation becoming increasingly untenable I ordered all forces to move back to the boarding pods, however Lt Zhang reported that 4th squad was pinned in the stairwell between the right corridor and the overhead levels and were unable to move, she reported that they were attempting to move back and that was when we lost comms. We held the position as long as prudent however after sustaining further casualties were forced to move back to the pods. I contacted Maj. Nakajima who ordered a general withdrawal from the position. I could still see blaster flashes from the general position of 4th squad and it is my opinion that at the time of withdrawal they were still in combat
The story arc following Zhang Lei and Raul Dominguez can be found here.
Zarita awoke again. It was dark and she turned her head slightly to see her husband, Ben Laowai asleep, his back to her and oblivious to the world. She woke often, but if it were mere insomnia that a human chemical could correct she would take them. She had tried once, they had no effect.
But there were times when as she slept she felt as if she were awake and when she was awake, she felt as if she were asleep.
An object, however insignificant might take on some importance all out of proportion as she stared at it, she would become aware of its size, its shape, what it might be to envelope the object, be the object. Her body would tremble, the sensations in her limbs, in her chest would begin'¦ she would shake herself; force her eyes to look elsewhere, her mind to stray.
Sometimes the object would shatter, sometimes it would react as if crushed in a vice, slowly and silently impacting on itself. Sometimes she would find it in her hand - or what she made to be her hand ' as if she had called it, and it had obeyed. Other times, it would do nothing; she would move away and ignore the moment where she had been, for a second, outside herself.
There was a noise; she had first heard it when she took control of this body. The sound would come and go, it was indefinable, like standing just outside a city on a hill overlooking the lights, the strange, ambient sound that hung over so many souls as they moved about, slept, fought, ate, loved and died. Other times it would be louder, like a breeze picking up speed and blowing past your ear as you walked outside. Sometimes the noise would begin to coalesce into something clearer, as it had in her dreams before, she would block her ears, tell it to be quiet, cover her head, tell it to go away, she would scream at it, scream when she was dreaming or sometimes, when she felt hands upon her shoulders, find she was screaming and awake.
One time she woke up downstairs in the great hangar, the cockpit of her Titan that her husband had restored for her open, her arm, still formed as an arm gripping the boarding rail on the outside of the fuselage, the rest of her, pressed against the hull on the top of a gangplank, her legs'¦. They were not legs, not until she willed them to be again. She had begun to cry - she had no idea how she had gotten there. She had called out to him, sobbing and crying and he had found her. He carried her back upstairs to the bed; he had not heard her leave. Because she hadn't left in a way he could have felt or heard'¦. Nothing had been disturbed, no sheets turned, no door unlocked, and yet, left she had.
Moments of clarity, she found, like some form of sponge, she absorbed the impressions, words, sometimes emotions and even - she wasn't sure - thoughts of people she encountered. She would recite things, know things, knowledge would come that she knew she did not know. At first it had just been that of her husband, the legacy of the powerful sharing and connection that they had formed with the alien technology, but as time wore on, it came from other sources, she did not know where. If it were new, if it were something she had read, forgotten and then spouted out again unknowingly.
And she read, she read everything, everything she could - it was like a hunger, like a need to eat or the powerful craving for nicotine that tobacco addicts faced, she needed input, her body seemed to crave something: books, text, data, conversations, news reels, streaming comm. traffic, declassified intelligence reports, her husband's emotions, those of his pilots, the data readout of the hangars central processor'¦. She would hold a conversation with Ben, or assist in ship repairs while simultaneously reading, scanning, watching one, two sometimes three other sources of information. Some of the younger pilots who would come to the Hangar for intelligence reports or payment after raids had taken to calling her 'La senora Libro' - the book lady.
Yet for all this there were moments where she could not recall the most basic of facts. Information that she knew she had read, knew was in her somewhere, KNEW it, like the proverbial word at the end of your tongue and it would not come out, she would close her eyes, or what she formed as eyes, squint, concentrate, try to almost physically dig it out but nothing would come. This would make her angry, frustrated, but quickly she learned that her anger could spiral out of control, like a floodgate once opened it did not easily close again. A number of times she had lost her temper and almost flown into a rage, screaming in frustrating and shattering anything breakable within a few feet of where she was sitting. The first time this had happened she had been outside the mountain cabin and it had only been windows, she hadn't told her husband how it happened, the next time was in the study in the hangar and all the terminals had needed to be replaced, he knew then that something was up and she had told him. Since then, she concentrated hard on managing the anger that as time wore on seemed to be increasingly simmering beneath the surface waiting to come out'¦.
She lay there and stared at the ceiling. Lifting her arm up above her it caught a moonbeam streaming through a crack in the curtain, she relaxed her arm and allowed it to loosen its shape slightly... the light caught the tissues of her arm as they moved, the blue lines that began to form under the surface of her "skin" began to dance up and down and around her arm, looking darker in the moonlight as her arm lost coherence and became semi-transparent.
The light looked pretty as it passed through her. She had done this before, tricks with moonbeams. This part of her form didn't frighten her so much when she felt she could control it. The light passed through her shifting forearm and she smiled. She remembered, years ago as a little girl the nights on Tangier. Cold nights where her father had taken her far from the colony and out into the forests. She had always stared up at the clouds in the night sky, silver and white when captured by the moonlight against the star scape... her shimmering, shifting arm reminded her somehow of those clouds.
"Oh father".... she thought... "I have wandered so far from home..."
She had run. Moved like she had not moved before...
The book lady had only wanted to speak, to ask as she always did. Always thinking and asking, trying to fill the incessant need she always had to know. It was a Reaper she had met that day. She had heard of them, she knew what her husband knew of course, which was surprisingly, like much Corsair intelligence on this mysterious group, not a whole lot. She had spoken to him, asked questions - it had seemed interesting.
Constantly she had to remind herself to manually tell her mouth to stop speaking as she began to incessantly spout memories appearing in her mind like some form of human printer. “It unsettles people” the lady who lived across the way from the Hangar had told her one day, as she was mindlessly running off botanical facts about the woman’s vegetable patch and acidic levels in the soil.
She had no intention of boarding the station. She had never been on Freeport 9, though she had always wanted to visit a Freeport, she had heard of the many kinds of people that went there and it intrigued her. She had been conversing with the reaper when a pair of Outcast Tridents appeared and engaged her. Her Titan had reacted, engaged in auto evade as she desperately sought to regain control and get to safety, the closest port of call had been the Freeport’s crash dock, and so land she had. The Zoner techs had told her that the damage was slight and she could leave within the hour… so unable to resist her curiosity she had seconded herself outside the dock in an alcove cantina, hiding in the shadows, she had people watched.
She hadn’t been foolish; she didn’t know what scanning equipment was on board. She had hidden herself, well, more accurately she had altered her appearance, her interaction with light and her focus so she would be both seen… and not. This was an accidental discovery that her and Ben had made some time ago, in the transition state of forms, between form and new form, there was almost another state, a third state, physical but not, there but not there. Laowai had wondered if the fully formed Nomads were able to exist in that state permanently - which Zarita had not been able to do - they didn’t know, but what they did know was that when Zarita allowed herself to fluctuate between these states she was very difficult to focus on, or more practically, see with scanners and imaging technology with any clarity. Anyone looking at her in shadows with the naked eye, would see a woman, but details would be such that they would be unclear and it would be written off as a trick of the light, or more specifically,a trick of the shadow.
But the Reaper - Nephilim - he had called himself was unlike any being that Zarita, or anyone she had experienced; including her husband, had met face to face. She had no knowledge of his skills, or his ability to discern what to most was not discernible. He had found her on the station and they continued to converse. Zarita made sure to stay out of the light, but she had felt amplified light wave detection frequencies on her skin within moments and realized that the Reaper was scanning her. She concentrated hard on staying out-of phase. But he was difficult to read, in fact, she couldn’t read him at all. In the months since she had taken control of this body she had grown used to the surface reading and feeling of the people she encountered, the “other” level of knowing that she had of people that was in addition to the visual, the audible….. The reaper had none of that. In fact he was like a hole in space, an armored hole in space in the shape of a man, an-unreadable armored shape that was not shifting it's gaze from her. For a brief moment she glanced at him, wondering if it were possible to make herself read impressions from him, she couldn't, and it didn't matter anyway, whatever the Reaper was was like an anti-magnet. Whereas most people were a warm center that gave impressions more or less regularly, this one was almost repelling whatever it was her body did to read people as it did.
She had begun to feel afraid. She had been reckless and she hadn't realised it. And then, after she had seen his eyes, strange coloured eyes of a kind she had not seen before, he had said…. “And what of your unhuman qualities now that you have seen mine?”
The panic had hit her like a wave at sea and it took all her self control not to reach out with her mind and send the Reaper hurtling across the room. She evaded, looked for an opening, anything that would allow her to shift, to move at the speeds she knew where she could not be seen by any normal person. But this was not a normal person, and knowing that he had encountered something unusual, something unexplained and something very un-Corsair-like, the Reaper sat calmly and held his gaze. He wasn't going anywhere, she had piqued his interest.
“I’m… I’m not sure what….” She had stuttered.
She squirmed and shifted uncomfortably. Then, suddenly she saw a chance. A waiter behind the Reaper stooped to pick up a tray of drinks near a power terminal that had been left slightly ajar. She reached out with her thoughts and gripped the man’s ankle. He screamed awkwardly and tripped, the glasses spilling their contents across the open panel, causing all the lights behind the bar in the alcove to explode with a synchronized “POP”!, plunging the room into almost darkness. As soon as this happened she focused on the lights in the corridor behind her, the one that led back to her ship, she surged them all simultaneously and they too exploded with almost precision timing alongside their bar-side counterparts. As calmly as she could, not knowing how distracted -if at all - the Reaper had been, she got off the chair and walked briskly away down the corridor, moving only slightly faster than a normal human would, wanting to get out of there, but not wanting to completely obey her body's instinct to alter its form, its movement and move faster than human eyes could ever see.
So she had run, moved like she had not moved before, in a state both human, and not.
Laowai sat hunched over his desk in the room on the mezzanine inside his hangar complex home. The single light was assisted in its onerous task of lighting the darkened room by the faint glow of a data pad, its soft blue and white light reflecting off his face as he read over the texts scrolling across its surface.
He scowled and shook his head, action reports and action reports, then letters after letters.
"Still working?" a voice spoke quietly from the dark behind him.
He turned his head a little startled, Zarita was sitting on the couch across the other side of the room, leaning forward a little and watching him. Laowai exhaled loudly, "Zarita!... you startled me... i didn't hear you come in?"
She shook her head, "No, i didn't want to disturb you, you looked pretty lost in whatever it was you were doing..."
He exhaled again and growled, leaning back in his chair he rubbed his forehead and pinched between his eyes in frustration and tiredness. "It's these action reports... Too many idiots with too much money equipping themselves with the biggest and largest ships they can, sucking up crew from all over Crete who dont have the money or sense to realise they're working for a Captain that doesn't have a clue how to command because he's just stepped out of his Trials.... and then I get the letters from the families of those who have been killed.. wanting to know who to blame, who to kill, who pays what..... uuurrghhhh"......
He groaned again and looked up... 'Anyway, its fine.. there's just been a....."
He paused. Zarita wasn't looking at him now but instead down at the table, biting her lower lip with her upper teeth and looking...
"Whats wrong?" Laowai asked... he knew that look, that was the troubled look.
"Something....., something happened today" She said.
He cocked his head and sat up, "What happened?" he rose from the chair and moved over next to her sitting on the couch.
"You remember i said I was going to take the ship out... to fly, you know, see the sun and well.. you know.."
Laowai nodded, "well... yes... what happened?". He sometimes missed the way they had used to be able to communicate, instantly and completely through the crystal chamber with nothing hidden and without words. But while she was gaining more and more control over her form Zarita still hadn't managed to convey complex thoughts, emotions, images and experiences in their entirety as they once had without making him almost pass out. They hadn't tried for sometime but in these moments he missed it.
"Well... I didn't just stay above Crete, i went out further...."
A crease made its way across Laowai's brow, "Further... what do you mean, Further across the system?"
Zarita looked at him, at once looking like a child who has done something wrong but also looking genuinely worried. "no, to a completely different system..."
Ben sat back, surprised to say the least that she had taken that kind of risk and at once worried "Another system? you're kidding right?"
She shook her head, but the look of fear on her face tempered his anger at her recklessness, it was completely disproportionate to what she was telling him. "Where did you go?" he asked, calming himself.
***Freeport 9***
Her thoughts appeared in his mind.
"Freeport 9???" he said aloud... his hands flew to the side of his head in disbelief "oh by Crete Zarita why would you even do that??"
She sat back slightly defensively, "Well... i just wanted to see it, I mean, You know how I am, I... just wanted to..."
In a state of shocked disbelief Laowai stared at his now silent wife... anger rose within him at the magnitude of her risk, What could have happened out there? There are bounty Hunters in the Malvada cloud... worse, there are NOMADS in the Malvada cloud.. What would have happened had she encountered them? Would they have sensed her for what she was? Could they have harmed her? And what if she had been harmed? . As these and a thousand other panicked scenarios entered his mind at a thousand miles a second he found himself speechless and simply staring at her.
She looked sheepishly at him, a look of concern and remorse on her face and try as he might that look smothered the anger within him. He couldn't stay angry at her, he'd never been able to... he shook his head again.
***There's more***
"What?" he said, calming down.
And then... she retold the story of her meeting with the Reaper on Freeport 9, how she had tried to hide herself and of how he had suspected something of her nature and then of how she had ran, ran all the way back to Crete and then, after passing through docking clearance she had parked her Titan far out in the hills to be alone, calm herself and work up the courage to come and tell him what had happened.
There was a long silence at the end of her story. Laowai stood up, standing in the middle of the room with his hands on his hips looking at the wall but not looking at the wall, looking through it, his mind a race and at the same time his mind seemingly empty.
"This...." he said... pausing for what seemed to Zarita an age... "this will need to be watched..."
" Watched? what.....I....I'm sorry Ben" she said "I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to land on the Freeport! I really didn't it just... there were those ships and, the ship it just....."
"I know" he said, turning slightly to look at her, "I believe you...".
He considered things rapidly. This was potentially dangerous but at the same time not a complete disaster. The Reaper had only intimated its suspicion of her nature, it was doubtful he knew what she actually was.... she had hidden herself, and whats more, it was a Reaper..... not exactly someone they were likely to run into in the course of their everyday lives..... these things could be... handled.
"Watched... yes" he turned around and sat back down. She looked at him expectantly and he went on. "I'll need to find out a little more about this Reaper and we'll need to watch the situation..."
"but?" she said.
***I miss when we didn't have to use words***
The thought entered his mind and he gave a brief smile. He looked at her and raising his hand he gently stroked her cheek, "I know, i was just thinking the same thing" They sat in silence for a moment, looking at one another, the fear of the preceding moments gradually subsiding into other, gentler feelings... until Laowai broke the moment:
Lifting the vessel off she had piloted it carefully up through the layers of atmosphere, into the guiding signals of the docking rings and then gently out into space into a low orbit. Before she had left she had programmed an over-ride code into the Titans shipboard computer which linked it via Crete's communication grid to a computer terminal in the hangar on the surface. In that terminal she had programmed a command that interfaced with her Titan which would not let it leave a 5 k radius of Crete's Orbit. She felt she had to do this, her last trip could have cost her a lot, and she knew there were at least two other "journeys" she had taken of which she had no memory of leaving.
The only way to shut off the command was to go back down to the surface and enter a code manually into the terminal.
This time, she would sit and watch the sun, enjoy the feeling of warmth it gave her.... perhaps talk to some passing vessels - with restraint of course - and then head home.
"Hola!' crackled the comm system and she sat up and looked out her starboard side, a Corsair gunboat vessel sat in orbit. She could see its pilot and some of the crew vaguely through the canopy and she waved. Clicking the comm on she answered "Hello!" she said, "Thats an M24 Imperator class gunship isn't it?" she said, her mind quickly calling facts that she knew she had gleaned from someone else, probably her husband.
Before the pilot could answer a system wide comm signal broke through on an alert band. "Sails are being attacked by Hessians in Omega 41, should we help them"? Then suddenly another one, coming in almost on top of the first "I had to get out, ship has suffered heavy damage, I don't know, they probably do but...."
"Where are they?" came a third.
Zarita clicked the comm nervously... "Maybe.. um, maybe you should log into the defence net and check the wide band scanners?"
The unknown pilot's response came back over the line 'Oh... good idea, let me see if I can get that working...'
She looked out the canopy nervously, she had experienced space combat only a couple of times before and still recalled the terror of it, the feeling of claustrophobia as the space within the cockpit of her ship seemed to press in around her. She knew how to fly her ship in combat of course; she had gleaned that from her husband. But he had never been a great fighter pilot and so neither was Zarita. His strengths had always lain more in the area of organisation, planning, logistics....
'I can't... seem to locate the Sails vessels on the long range scanners' came the voice of the pilot again. Zarita clicked open the comms, 'Omega 41, check the defence net... I'm sure it will have them'. She knew, reflexively that this information was available and broadcast to Corsair vessels continually and that this could be called up by any Corsair on patrol.
'No...' came the voice again.. 'im, not getting them, there is some traffic in Theta but...'
Zarita cut him off 'No, Omega 41, here...' again without thinking she keyed in a command with inhuman speed - which made sense given that she wasn't human ' and brought up the data, she scanned it quickly and then relayed the information. 'Two sails vessels, command Sails vessel is Vito|Sails...' she shifted the screen display over quickly, 'showing at least one other HAF vessel in Omega 47 with one... 'she counted the comm signals as they came in 'two, three possible other wings, Gunboat class or less'..
The pilot answered 'oh.. right, should we go and assist them?'
At that point another ship came onto the screens, a HAF vessel with another at its wing followed by a number of independent house-less snubcraft and behind them, the slim ominous bulk of a Corsair Osiris battleship. 'Sails vessels under attack?' the HAF vessel broke into the conversation. 'We're on the way'.
The ships streaked past her at breakneck speed, firing up their cruise engines and heading towards to distant Omega 41 Jump hole.
No... wait.. Zarita thought. That's wrong, there..... There aren't that... she skimmed the data before her again quickly. There were a greater number of identified Hessian vessels registering in Omega 47 and one other vessel was a known mercenary who was on a list of hostile targets. Her husband's instincts and knowledge of protocol was almost burning in her thoughts now, she knew that the vessels in Gamma should be heading to.. 'Omega 47'.. she said to herself.
Quickly opening the comms she called to the Comms central on Crete. 'Crete Control this is Titan one five six do you confirm the Hessian signals in Omega 47 as legit out?'
The comms center on Crete replied quickly 'Titan One five six that is confirmed five Hessian signals, with at least one possibly two heavies.'
Running now on instinct Zarita switched her comms back to the rapidly disappearing HAF and independent vessels making their way across the system. 'HAF vessel , prioritize your targets to Hessian signals in Omega 47, signals are confirmed, acknowledge..'
The HAF vessel responded after a few short moments; 'Acknowledged Crete, adjusting course now, patching you into our comms, you have tactical call on the group, out'
'Wait? What?!' Zarita snapped back to reality. The HAF captain had acted completely correctly of course. An individual captains theater-wide tactical knowledge was always limited, it was a normal procedure to have a command authority or group liaison outside the combat area to update data, call responses and direct operations. However, as Zarita had done this herself without thinking, the HAF commander had mistaken her for a Controller on Crete and had patched her in as such.
'I'm... no, wait, I'm not a....' Zarita stammered. 'Jumping!' came the voice of the HAF captain, cutting her off and momentarily severing the signal.
She waited a moment, gathering her wits but nervous and angry at herself. She had come out intending to sit and be quiet, yet once again the mind in this body ran on its own... she was in it this time, she knew that the HAF vessel would be calling in any moment to...
'Come in Crete, heading to Omega 47, but we have 2 Sails vessels on scanners and there are at least 3 hostiles nearby'
Zarita paused. She knew what she should do, and she knew that the HAF task force, now nominally under her guidance would not leave their present course and assist the Sails vessels without her say so. But she also knew, she was in no way authorized to do what she was considering doing. She closed her eyes; cast her thoughts to memories in her mind, images, reflexes built on years of training and experience, her husband's years of knowledge and experience. She gathered it all up in her mind, photo-realistic visions in her thoughts, lines and lines and lines of tactical data, ship protocols, battle reports, battles, protocols, her mind now acting on reflex, instinct taking over... she allowed it to, letting her control bend til the point of danger yet not crossing it. Still, were an observer to cast a glance within the confines of her cockpit they would see dancing blue lines moving across her hands and a faint blue light beginning to emanate from her eyes.
'Sails vessel this is Crete, we have a task force heading to Omega 47, however they have reported you are in contact, do you require assistance?' she said in an expressionless monotone, the way she always spoke when she was no longer in control...
As she waited for a reply her hands danced across the readout in front of her, finding hands to be not fast enough she began multi-tasking without them, dials, switches and readouts changing seemingly on their own.
'Negative Crete, we've got this' came the Sails reply.
'HAF vessel, negative on Sails, they are fine, proceed as before' she responded.
'Roger Crete, we're about to jump'
She waited, the readout in Omega 47 suddenly updated and the task force she had sent suddenly appeared and began moving towards the fray.
'HAF vessel, call it, direct forces as you see fit, keep the heavy under guard'
'Right, got it...' came the reply with the low thumping of blaster fire behind it indicating that the ship had already taken up the fight.
A Hessian signal dropped off the screen, one was down. Suddenly there was an alert from another sensor, it was relayed from Leon base and so she quickly scrolled to it. Three more Hessian vessels were on course for the Sails vessels who had managed to down one of their attackers but were now about to become dangerously outnumbered.....
Nothing had prepared him for this.
And yet, he had prepared for it. An instinct born of years of being an outsider, tempered, or more likely exaggerated by the utter madness he had undertaken to bring her back.
When the Reaper had encountered her, the warning had gone up. When she had singlehandedly taken over Corsair defence in a multi system incursion, daring to command and coordinate Corsair vessels across three systems…the danger, from a lifeform that could intuit naturally, or read deliberately had shown itself starker that it had even done so before.
“Planet Crete broadcasting network” - and something today that should impress all Corsairs, specifically those posting their never-ending complaints from the outskirts...haha! multiple Hessian vessels, including those of the larger variety were destroyed today, with special note given to an unknown pilot, we're trying to track her down but the unknown commander sat above Crete and directed fleet forces, even after central communications had gone down!.
The council of Elders has noted that they wish to congratulate this pilot on the news-net, but we seem to be dealing with a shy one! The Mystery pilot has not come forward! Oh well Hermanos, this modesty, may it last…*haha* but we all know it wont, and so mystery pilot, we'll find you and that should be very soon, and then we may all be thankful for the new pilot who stood fast for all of us!”
“Pack your things” he said. Quickly tossing random clothes and other messy items that could be considered personal. “Everything”.
“Why, what’s wrong?” Zarita exclaimed in surprise.
Laowai tossed several pads, trinkets and tools into an open shipping chest. He looked up at her. “What were you thinking?” he asked incredulously: “Coordinating a fleet action?!”
She sat down, looking crestfallen. “Oh, that… I wasn’t thinking, I… I didn’t think... It…” She paused, looking at him beggingly… He stopped packing and stared at her, his eyes asking, pleading, for an explanation that would make sense of this.
“it just happened… I, I couldn’t help it”. Her eyes turned down to the floor, she realised how much she had risked, how much danger she had just put them both in by a moments action un-thought. As much as she thought she had control, she had lost it.
Laowai shook his head and proceeded to keep packing random items into the chest… he kicked the lid shut. “You used my codes!” He dragged another chest from under the bed and tossed open its lid.
“My Codes! they will come to me now; they’ll ask me who the ‘unknown pilot’ was…”
“What am I going to say? No one else should have access to those codes! By Crete….”
Zarita lowered her gaze, he hands reaching to her mouth. “I’m…sorry Ben”, she replied meekly.
He stopped packing, again. His shoulders slumped and he looked at her. She sat slumped on the cot…he was angry, yet his temper cooled. This was more his fault than hers, he was the one who had orchestrated her situation, she had never asked for this.
He crossed the room and crouched down before her, taking her hands in his. She looked up at him, her eyes begging the question…
He kissed her hands. “its not your fault Zarita… its not….”
He paused, cradling her hands next to his lips. Taking a deep breath he looked up at her.
“But we need to leave, the risk…. “ He shook his head and looked sideways.