Author's note: Hello everyone!
This is a fanfic story set in the universe of the game Star Citizen, and written under my Star Citizen name, Nekxyu. I posted it on the official SC forums a while ago, but things happened in RL and I forgot about it. Just recently it got shared as a part of the official developer post Fan Spotlight: Fan Fiction Volume 2, even though it was technically abandoned. This rather flattering event prompted me to revisit the story and commit more thoroughly to continuing and finishing it in a somewhat timely manner. As part of that effort, I'm posting it here, where people can more easily subscribe to updates and the reading format is more pleasant.
Progress on the new chapters can be followed on twitter dot com slash nekxyu, should you so wish. Readers of my in-progress Naruto fanfic In Fire Forged who should happen by here, have no worries; this story is second in priority and will only see progress as long as In Fire Forged is on schedule.
On another note, the following two chapters were written quite a while ago and without extensive beta review, and have not yet seen editing with everything I've since learned in mind. Rest assured that a lot of it will be fixed with future updates.
This story is rated M for language, graphic violence and mild sexual themes.
Readers should be cautioned that the story may turn fairly dark further in and does not pull its punches. Listing the trigger warnings that don't apply might be easier than listing the ones that do.
That being said, enjoy reading!
Chapter One - No Such Thing As Rock Bottom
UEEN Tribunal Logs
Case #83629
Verdict in court-martial of Lieutenant Commander Tara Watanabe, temporary Commanding Officer, Squadron 211, Wing 7
Kilian System
MacArthur Orbital Navy HQ
Courtroom Three
21st December, 2942
Transcript beginning 9:11 AM, ending 9:18 AM
"The prisoner will face the court.
"Lieutenant Commander Watanabe, you have been tried by court-martial on the specifications named against you. Are you prepared to hear its verdict?"
"I am."
"On the first specification of the charges, that on the 23rd of November you did order your wing in pursuit of Ivan Dascombe's ship into the planetary atmosphere of Keene and into the ambush that followed, and in so doing consciously disobeyed orders to the contrary, this court, by unanimous vote, finds you guilty as charged.
"On the second specification of the charges, that your actions did expose other units in your wing to severe damage and casualties, this court, by unanimous vote, finds you guilty as charged.
"On the third specification of the charges, that you did open fire on Ivan Dascombe's ship in a crowded metropolitan area without due cause, this court, by vote of four to two, finds you not guilty.
"On the fourth specification of the charges, that you did attempt to murder Ivan Dascombe in cold blood and had to be forcibly restrained from doing so by your wing-mates, this court, by vote of four to two, finds you not guilty.
"In considering which penalty attaches to the crimes of which you stand convicted, this court has taken into account the testimonies in your favor of Admiral Zhao Hayfield, Lieutenant Lars Karkaroff, Lieutenant Charles DeLaney, Lieutenant Junior Grade Alice Jensen and Chief Petty Officer Bellatrix Polotskij.
"It is therefore the opinion of this court, by a vote of four to two, that the deaths one day prior of your Wing CO, Captain Bruce Montgomery, and his second-in-command Commander Alexei Gregorovitch, constitute extenuating circumstances.
"In view of this, it is the ruling of this court, by a vote of four to two, that the accused, Lieutenant Commander Tara Watanabe, shall be stripped of her Navy pension and savings, as well as all rank, rights, privileges and prerogatives as Lieutenant Commander in the UEEN save her Citizenship, and dishonorably dismissed as unfit for duty in our Navy, judgment to be executed within one day of this hour.
"This court stands adjourned."
Tara Watanabe stared mutely out of the window of the public hover shuttle as it lifted off from the spaceport at New Austin and settled into the appropriate west-bound traffic plane. No money to spare for a personal cab. Not now.
At least, she reflected sourly, they had let her keep her Citizenship.
Fat lot of good that will do me now.
Beneath the shuttle, the industry and bustle of Terra's third largest city stretched out as far as the eye reached. Huge, yes, but not compared to Prime or Quasi. The sight was exactly as she remembered.
The short trip by public shuttle afforded her far too little time in which to prepare herself.
She got off close to her mother's home. Not the old one she recalled from her childhood, but the new one they'd moved to later, after the accident.
She'd lugged her duffel bag up on her shoulder - containing a few sets of clothes and assorted memorabilia; all she had to show for almost ten years of naval service - when someone came running up from behind her.
"Damn, Tara!" her brother Kevin called and came to a halt. "Almost didn't recognize you, with that hair."
Tara reached up and touched her short-cropped black hair. She shrugged, a little defensively. "It's more practical that way."
Kevin grinned smartly. "Always the practical person, you. It looks good, though. You look good."
You'd have to look long and far for a lie more blatant than that, but Tara was too tired to call him on it. She studied her little brother closer. He was a few days unshaven, his blond hair was frazzled and unkempt, his green-blue eyes were slightly red and he smelled of alcohol.
So no changes there, I see. Wonderful. Been drinking away the spare change again, Kev? Or was it the stims? Or the Neon?
She sighed wearily and glanced about them. "What are you doing here, Kevin?"
"Receiving my elder sister, of course!" Kevin looked nervous; unsure whether he should give her a handshake or try to hug her. She resolved his dilemma by shoving her duffel bag at him.
"Come on." She strode off.
He followed after. "Bad day?"
"Try month," she grumbled.
He winced. "Yeah, I can see why that would be."
She raised an eyebrow at him, dryly. "Can you now."
"Well, I didn't hear much," Kevin admitted, "but it sounds like you got fired or something."
Tara snorted. "You don't get fired from the Navy. I was discharged." Dishonorably.
"So what's the difference?"
Not one you'd care about.
"It's about the same, I guess," she sighed. Then she glanced curiously at him. "How'd you even know I would be here?"
Kevin shrugged lightly. "Kid told me. She heard from mom, I guess. She's back in the wheelie. This new nerve treatment thing they're trying is being hard on her, not that she'd let it show. You know how the crippled old woman is."
"Yeah," Tara acknowledged. "I know."
"But yeah," Kevin continued, "I thought I'd pop down and do the welcome thing since mom's not doing so well right now."
"So thoughtful of you to catch me alone…" Tara muttered under her breath, unable to help herself. She wondered when it was coming.
"What's that?" Kevin asked, not having quite caught her mutter.
"Oh, nothing," she said. "How's the little ginger explosion?" Her niece Alexis would be what, nine, now? Gods, but time really did fly.
"Good," he said, smiling. "She's doing good in her Equivalency classes." He shook his head. "Smart little bugger, brain like a sponge. I even got her in a decent small-sized class, only about sixty in it. The teacher is supposed to be pretty good. All the right certs and such."
"And her mother?"
His smile froze. "We're… still not talking. I think the bitch lives down by Quasi somewhere. Found a fellow fundamentalist to coop up with, spawning fresh, brainwashed little baby minions by the dozen."
"I see." Tara was not surprised. That had been a doomed pairing from the beginning, a real recipe for disaster. She'd told him so. But hey, the girl had been pretty. Couldn't blame him for that.
Men. She almost snorted. Almost.
And not using contraceptives… she had yelled at Kevin for that, she recalled, after she found out. But it had been too late by then. Kevin had only found out about the pregnancy after he got out of jail, and the lucky mom had been one of those silly anti-abortion purists so she hadn't done anything about it either. The following court case… had not been pretty. Or cheap.
It was amazing that Alexis was turning out so well in the end. Tara freely admitted to doting shamelessly on her favorite and only niece. Never having had kids herself…
You know, she thought. Thirty-one is not even close to too late for that.
Then why do I feel so old…?
She shivered and shook her head to clear that thought firmly. Yeah. Because she didn't already have enough problems as it was. They entered a small pedestrian concourse built into the side of a huge, circular apartment building. Mother's was on the far side of the building; about a five minute walk.
It looked fancy on the outside. On the inside, not so much. Windows lined the side of the street, offering a fairly decent view out over the sunny outskirts of New Austin. It was all very suburban.
Kevin swallowed. "Say, Tara," he began.
Oh, great, here we go. Bring it on.
"Yeah?" she asked.
"You're not making fat stacks any more, are you?"
Bullseye.
"Nope," she confirmed sourly.
"That's not good…" he muttered to himself, rather redundantly. "Not good at all."
"Nope," she confirmed again. "So there's just the civilian savings account I set up. We'll have a few months until that goes dry to do something for mom."
Her brother chuckled in a very brittle, nervous way. "Err, yeah, hey, big sis… about that…"
She stopped walking in the middle of the concourse and felt suddenly very cold, despite the heat. She narrowed her eyes at him. He never called her that unless something was extremely wrong and she had to fix it for him.
"No…" she began. You didn't. Not on top of all this.
"I… kinda blew that account wide open a ways back," he admitted. "I had a debt with these people, you know, the kind you don't wanna mess with…" he trailed off.
Tara blinked. "How did you even get into that account?"
"Uh…" he hesitated, looking down at his feet and fidgeting visibly. "Mom, eh… well. I asked… her."
Tara couldn't stop the glare of disgust she sent his way. "Kevin, you idiot." Mother, you idiot.
He shrunk visibly under her gaze. "But sis… I had no cho—" He stopped when he saw her expression.
She held up her hand. "No. I… I don't want to hear about it." She breathed in. Out. In. Out. Okay, calm, good. No panic. "Just tell me how much is left."
He shrunk even further.
"Kevin…" she growled warningly.
"Nothing," he admitted weakly. "It's all gone. And I, err… still owe them. A bit. Sort of."
Tara leaned against the nearby wall, closed her eyes and rubbed her face tiredly. She felt dizzy, and a little sick. This just got better and better.
"Sis…?" Kevin ventured cautiously after a small while.
She pinched her nose and demanded, "What?!"
"Well, what are we gonna do to pay for mom's treatment, man?" he asked.
She opened her eyes and snarled at him. "How the fuck am I supposed to know? What do you expect me to do, huh, when you always just go ahead and screw things up anyway?"
His lip twitched, betraying anger for the first time. "That's not fair."
"Life's not fair," she snapped. "Deal with it."
This outburst made him subside, for a while. Meanwhile, Tara thought furiously, and came up empty. Their credit was non-existent; they could take no loans that were big enough. Their cash-flow was equally non-existent.
She had no ship, so she couldn't fly freelance and try to earn cash that way, and no company was going to hire her for security or running cargo with a dishonorable discharge hanging over her head, Citizenship or no. At least not without very good recommendations or contacts, where she, again, came up short.
"You're always the one with the solutions," he insisted quietly. "You'll figure it out. You always do."
"I know…" she muttered quietly. "I know."
She pushed tiredly off of the wall and picked up her duffel bag where Kevin had dropped it. She set her jaw firmly and found herself clenching her fist.
"Don't worry, Kev," she said quietly, not looking at him. "I'll figure something out."
Somehow.
The day seemed a lot less sunny now.
Kevin abandoned her just outside mom's apartment, pleading that he had to go pick up Alexis from a sleepover at a friend's place. He refused to let his daughter travel the city alone.
"Oh, don't worry, Tara darling," her mom said immediately after Tara had carefully hugged the frail woman in her wheelchair and admitted the situation. "I'm sure you'll figure it all out."
Thank you, mom, for the unbiased vote of confidence, Tara thought bitterly.
The problem with mother was that she was always too pleased to even have her children around to ever think about herself or blame anyone for anything. Tara had always thought the scatter-brained woman was far too easy-going on everyone around her.
"You were always such a smart, stubborn girl," her mother went on, gushing. "Just like Alexis! You get it from Aral, you know. My looks, his brains, I always said." She shook her head in fond reminiscence of her deceased husband.
Where-as her little brother had probably gotten the reverse end of that deal, Tara thought dryly.
"You're blond, mom," she pointed out wearily, like she always did when this point came out. It was one of their traditional greeting rituals. "And short. And your eyes are green, not brown."
"Well, yes, yes," her mother in turn waved this point away with her functional arm, as she always did. "But the beauty up there is all mine." She sounded as if she was quite proud of this personal achievement.
"And how is the writing going?" Tara asked, seeking some diversion.
"The writing is going fine, dear," her mother pointed out edgily. "It's the selling part that's not going well." She shook her head sorely. "People these days; no taste, I tell you."
Mother had been a fashion model and moderately famous actress, before the hover car accident which had robbed her of most of her motor abilities and killed father. Now she was a budding romance writer. Or so she had insisted for the past ten years. Tara had yet to see any particular talent in the field emerge. Evidently, the audience agreed with her.
Tara sighed. "Whatever you say, mom."
Kevin made it home with Alexis an hour after that. By then, Tara was already hiding on the cramped balcony with a cup of tea, checking job listings on the net and making calls. She'd gotten two hasty rejections, and a number of half-promises and we'll-think-about-its that she knew better than to expect to come through. She supposed that set the trend. No company that paid well enough for her needs would take her. No surprises there.
Alexis was thrilled to see her aunt home from the Navy, and started peppering her worshipfully with questions about everything military. Tara, with feigned reluctance, put aside her evidently futile job-search for the night and devoted herself to playing along with the kid.
Kevin cooked a mean pasta carbonara. Mom gushed alongside Alexis, caught up by her granddaughter's infectious enthusiasm. Like pea and pot, those two, except Alexis sounded smarter. Tara tolerated the onslaught with forced good humor.
When she crashed on the couch that evening (the guest bed was broken), she almost felt mellow. Almost. Perhaps it was the three - no, four? - glasses of cheap wine she'd managed to drink. Bad habit to get into, that. If tempting. But she wasn't Kevin. Or dad.
No drinking.
But the dark quiet of the apartment offered time to brood. It was early in the morning when she finally slept.
The following days, Tara met only with further failure. The public parts of her naval record were proving to be highly condemnatory. Forget all about the ten years of loyal service. Forget all about the multiple commendations. Forget all about the medals, for exceptional competence and for being wounded in the line of duty. Forget all about the early promotions.
All they saw was the end of it. That disaster and the court-martial that followed. Unfit for command. Unfit for duty. Dishonorably discharged. Enough to make any responsible exec flee in terror.
One evening, a week later, Kevin found her cooped up on the balcony, spreadsheets and graphs and price listings laid out before her, her face scrounged up in thought.
"Woah," he said. "What's all that?"
"An exercise in futility," she admitted wearily. "I'm not cut out for finance. Unless the orange juice market actually does boom in two months, in which case, shoot me."
"Okay," he agreed blithely. "I'll see if I remember." He eyed her over. "You look tired. Are you sleeping enough?"
She looked briefly away. I don't want to sleep. Not with dreams like that.
"I sleep fine," she said in a brittle tone of voice, pretending to look over the mess she'd made on the table. She gave up, leaned back in her chair and rubbed her eyes, before glancing up and shooting Kevin a morose glance. He was fidgeting nervously. Kevin almost always fidgeted nervously, of course, but today was different. His fidgeting had purpose. She could tell.
She sighed. "Now what, Kevin?"
"I have an idea," he said.
Tara froze, craned her head and squinted up at him. He looked, if possible, more scraggly than usual. A little pale. Twitchy, nervous as if he expected a shadow to jump out at him at any moment.
"An idea," she repeated. "For what?"
"Making money."
She blinked, and glanced out over the balcony quickly, just to be sure. Okay, no flying pigs in the morning traffic. Good. The sky was in roughly the correct place. Good. Nobody was running around screaming about the end of the world. All good.
"Uhmm…" Tara deferred, slightly stunned for a moment. "Okay. Shoot."
"You remember those guys I told you I owed money? Well—" he forged on before she could even reply "—they apparently, uh, heard about you, somehow—" been telling stories, have you, Kevin? "—and they sort of came to me with an, uh, offer."
Oh, it's not his idea. The universe promptly righted itself.
"Yes…?" she ventured cautiously. She did not like the sound of this.
He shrunk a little and twisted his hands in a knot. His voice became tiny. "It's, um… a smuggling run. They need a credible pilot and with you being a Citizen, you know…"
Her hand twitched. It was, on reflection, too bad that the law didn't allow you to strangle errant family members.
"A smuggling run, Kevin?!" she hissed under her breath so mother didn't hear inside. "Are you insane?!"
"It pays well!" he insisted. "I swear. It'll clear my debt, float us for years."
Years.
Tara sat back, and closed her mouth again. "Just… what kind of smuggling run is this?"
And where do I report it?
He shrugged. "I dunno. I got the impression it was some hazmat stuff. Or maybe drugs. They give you a ship. You pick the stuff up from MacArthur, ship it to… somewhere else."
Tara closed her eyes and breathed deeply. One-two-three-four-five-six-seven-eight-nine-ten.
"Let me get this straight…" she began. "I just got dishonorably discharged from the UEEN. I am hanging onto my Citizenship by the barest of flimsy threads. Because of the money you blew on your stupid druggie problems mom has about what, two months to live in without treatment? And you, to fix your own mess, wants me to fly a fucking load of illegal goods out from under the nose hairs of the Navy I just got kicked out of!?"
Kevin winced at her words, but apparently bore them. "Well…" he admitted. "Yeah… that's kind of it."
"No," she said flatly. "I refuse."
"Tara," he said. "You don't know these people."
"No, and I don't want to. Deal with your own goddamn problems for once."
"Sis, I mean… they… they know about Alexis."
One-two-three-four-five—oh, who am I kidding…?
Tara pinched her nose. "You are not serious. Oh, please, tell me you are not serious. I do not believe this." She sighed and sat back. "You're being blackmailed on Alexis' life."
Mutely, he nodded.
Not mom's life, of course, Tara thought acerbically. They'd know that if they knew about me. Mom is practically dead already anyway.
"Have you considered going to the police?" she asked. "It's the kind of thing they do."
He shook his head. "I'm not gonna sic the cops on an interstellar cartel, Tara. I'd be dead in a day. Or you would be. Or Alexis."
Oh, a cartel. Just brilliant. Wonderful. Fantastic.
"The Advocacy," Tara said, trying another angle. "What about the Advocacy?"
"Same thing."
She shot him an exasperated look. "There is such a thing as witness protection."
Kevin sighed. "And what about mom, then? You think witness protection will pay for her? Not for small low-level fish like the ones I know."
"Right," Tara muttered, conceding that point.
Was there really anything to think over? It sounded like Kevin's greatest and probably only competence, namely gross incompetence, was rearing its ugly head yet again. You had to give him, it was rare to see people who could so reliably and thoroughly screw up.
"Well," she said finally. "It seems like you've covered every possible angle, doesn't it?"
She stood up. "Make the call. Set up a meeting or whatever they do. I'm gonna go get a drink."
"You mean you're going to do it?" Kevin shot her a slightly confused look, as if he honestly hadn't been expecting that. "But…"
She left without another word, slamming the door to the balcony.
But what, little brother? You expected me to magic yet another solution to our problems out of my ass? Sorry, but I'm out of magic pixie dust today.
This latest of family disasters was promising to be the worst of all. And she, gods help her, was going to have to try and fix it.
The meeting, when it happened, went down in broad daylight in the local mall, just around the corner of the Kel-To Constore. Kevin, in one of his odd displays of low chivalry, bought them both the signature Kel-To Hydro-Froz fizzy drinks.
They sat down at an outside table in the agreed-upon café and sipped slowly. Tara mercilessly stared down the waiter's vapid protests about bringing in drinks from elsewhere.
She had expected a meeting like this to take place in gloomy back alleys at night or deserted, drafty warehouses with defective lighting. She'd mentally steeled herself for the alleys and the warehouses. Now she felt way off-balance. This… mundanely regular way of doing it was all very unexpected, and not at all as dramatic as she'd been led to believe.
I've been lied to.
She supposed the holovids didn't actually portray the criminal world as it really was. She squirmed a bit, sipped her chilled drink, and tried not to be too obvious about glancing around for the people they were supposed to meet.
At least they didn't have to wait long. This time, Tara was only half disappointed. Two men sat down at their table.
One looked like a regular stodgy family dad; a light coat over a rather heavy corpus and the beginnings of a double chin only lightly stubbled over.
The other looked faintly business-like, wearing a very non-descript but neat suit over what looked like a powerful build. He was perfectly shaven and had a certain sharpness to his gaze. Of the two, Tara marked him as the probable leader, and, if there was to be any danger, the indisputable future source of it.
He glanced around the small café and muttered something that sounded like 'how quaint', and set a suitcase down by his side. His movements were sure and fluid. He didn't strike Tara as the archetypal low-level 'cartel meat' they'd been expecting either.
Kevin confirmed her suspicions by looking weirdly at the man in the suit and asking of the other, "Hey David, where did Tio go?"
"Elsewhere," the fattish man, apparently David, said gruffly.
"Tio has other business," the man in the suit put in smoothly, in a pleasant tone of voice. David sank back as he continued. "I'll be taking care of things in his stead now. Please, call me Lucien."
A waiter appeared, having spotted the newcomers. Lucien looked up at him and smiled lightly. "Ah, yes, what do they serve in a place like this? Do you have Irish?"
"Irish Coffee?" the waiter replied. "Sure."
The corner of Lucien's lip twitched - with amusement or indignation, Tara was not sure. "Really now? A cup of that, then."
He looked aside. "And you, David? What can I get for you? My treat."
David shifted nervously, shook his head and grumbled something in the negative.
"A shame," Lucien said, and glanced back to the waiter. "That would be all."
The waiter promptly decamped, and returned two minutes later with the order. Lucien accepted the cup, sipped, and grimaced. "Ugh!" he remarked cheerfully and shook his head at the waiter's retreating back. "No tip there, I fear."
Tara finally placed the accent. "You're from Earth."
Charles DeLaney from her wing had been from New York. Are you back there on medical leave now, Del, after I got your leg blown off?
Lucien held up both hands. "Guilty as charged." His eyes gleamed with faint amusement. "How perceptive of you."
When Tara said nothing, he put down his hands flat on the table, tapped his index fingers briefly, and went on. "We all know why we are here, of course." He nodded at Tara. "This beautiful and undoubtedly talented young lady has deigned to look favorably on mine and my associates' business proposition."
Tara choked on her Hydro-Froz. That… is certainly one way to describe it. If you're insane.
Lucien tilted his head slightly in concern. "Are you quite alright?"
Kevin patted her uselessly on the back. "Yeah," she managed to wheeze. She cleared her throat, and checked that there was nobody else within earshot of their table. "Perfectly fine. Just tell me what the cargo is. I need to know first, or there can't be a deal."
Lucien smiled in a faintly lupine way, and Tara felt her hair stand up. She consciously kept herself from swallowing. There was more warmth in liquid nitrogen than there was in that smile. This man was dangerous.
Did interstellar cartels have executives? And if so, was this what they were like?
Please, Kevin, she begged silently. Don't say anything stupid.
"Ahh, a straight to business type," Lucien purred. "Tut tut, I adore that. Very well. The cargo consists of biological samples of great interest to me and mine."
Tara licked dry lips. "What kinds of biological samples?"
"I'm afraid their exact nature is not mine to tell," Lucien demurred. "But we do anticipate that they will prove to be of great value in our future dealings." He tilted his head faintly at her. "Does that answer satisfy you?"
No. "Sure."
"Wonderful." He tapped the suitcase by his side. "In here you will find a suitable amount of cash to lease a Constellation in your own name. On Wednesday, January 2nd, you will land at a specific location just outside Quasi to pick up some initial cargo." Again, he patted the suitcase. "The coordinates are in here."
A fairly large cargo, then, Tara thought grimly. The Constellation was one of the larger ships technically crewable by one person out there, and a newer model. At least it'd be comfortable. She'd seen one, once. Well, impounded one, on her first rookie cruise. The captain had been a smuggler and they'd caught him red-handed. Not a good precedent, now she thought about it.
Lucien sipped his Irish Coffee and grimaced again, before continuing.
"Thus, you have four days until then to get your affairs in order. After the stop in Quasi, it's on to the MacArthur orbitals to pick up the cargo, and then towards a dead drop in Drengin; some colony system on the outskirts of nowhere."
Tara was having a very, very bad feeling about all this. She sighed wearily. No choice. "Okay. What initial cargo?"
Lucien smirked. "That would be me. I shall be accompanying you on this trip to, ahh, assist."
Tara felt her skin turn slightly clammy at the thought of weeks on end cooped up in the same ship as this man, even one as big as a Constellation. And what, pray tell, did he expect himself and this… apparently 'beautiful young lady' to spend the time with on board?
She firmly quenched that disgusting thought. She didn't do cowardice. If she could survive a bombing run without covering fire on a Vanduul carrier fleet, she could damn well survive this. The trick, she'd learned, wasn't not to be scared, which was flatly impossible, but to bring the brown pants and ignore the terrified voice screaming sanity in your ear. If he tried anything, she'd just have to… deal with it. Preferably with suitable amounts of violence.
She wet her lips, about to answer, when—
"If you're coming with the ship, why not just fly it yourself and save Tara the trouble?" Kevin asked in an indignant tone of voice.
Tara silently swore to herself. Of all the people to be cursed with, why, oh, why, was I given Kevin…?
Lucien regarded Kevin with faint surprise, as if he only now noticed his existence as anything but bland wallpaper. He frowned faintly, as if he considered Kevin to be merely some unnecessarily distasteful appendage of Tara's.
But he didn't do anything. He just stared at Kevin for that brief moment, head slightly atilt in cool inquiry, during which time Kevin paled and shrunk down in his chair, murmuring some unheard apology.
Lucien ran his hands down his suit, straightening it out, and put them back flat on the table. "My piloting skills, alas, are lacking in nature," he told Kevin affably, though his tone indicated that he simply considered such things as being beneath him.
Tara breathed faint relief.
"And your sister's name on the lease registry will be useful given her former military pedigree," Lucien continued, "even though it saw such an…" he smiled briefly "…unfortunate end. And Citizenship opens so many doors otherwise closed. A set of advantages which, sadly, I lack."
So he's not a Citizen, Tara thought, surprised. I wouldn't have guessed that.
"And yet you're still coming?" she asked.
"I do feel the need to ride herd on you," he replied easily. "And make sure nothing… untoward happens en route."
I bet. Tara suppressed a shiver. "And what will you be doing in Quasi these next four days?"
Lucien smirked. "Sightseeing. I hear it's the most terrific tourist destination."
He stood up, and David promptly followed suit. Tara blinked. She had almost forgotten the presence of the other man.
Lucien waved a finger at her. "Do remember, my dear, that from the moment I leave and make my calls, we are on a schedule. Delays will be completely unacceptable. And I shouldn't need to remind you of the distasteful consequences of failure, now do I? No? Well then."
He patted his suit. "I do believe this concludes our present encounter." He turned around and looked back over his shoulder. "I shall see you in four days. A pleasant day to you, Miss Watanabe."
They left behind the suitcase, the nearly untouched coffee, and the bill.
My, how gentlemanly of you, Lucien.
Tara stared after them, still trying to absorb the conversation. Had she misstepped anywhere, done anything wrong? She sat back and crossed her arms, ignoring the melted remains of her Hydro-Froz while she thought furiously.
This didn't feel like 'just' a regular smuggling run. And not because it wasn't like in the holovids, but because this part was exactly like in the holovids. Something was off.
Shit. Her skin crawled and she felt almost physically sick. This was just getting worse and worse. She could feel a headache coming, and had to quench the impulse to order a drink. She didn't drink. That was Kevin's thing.
Hi, mom! she thought flippantly. I'm a hardcore criminal now, apparently! I sure hope you appreciate this…
Still… there were no sirens or flashing lights, and nobody seemed to be trying to arrest her yet. Perhaps she would get out of this alive, somehow. And even more miraculously, with the cash at the end of it. One could hope.
"That man… wasn't low-level, I think," Kevin muttered from her side.
"No…" Tara shook her head slowly. "I don't think he was either."
"So who was he, d'you think?" Kevin asked.
Tara stared at the back of Lucien as he disappeared around a corner.
"Bad news."
And trouble… big trouble.
CHAPTER END
As a general rule, reviews make authors happy. As a specific rule, reviews make me ecstatic. Click that button. Write those words on your mind. You know you want to.