Tenth Circle:
Created By: Alexander Cole Page 6 of 6
Apologies for the delay. I've been working on this section for weeks and here on the 5th of January at 1:42 in the morning is the best I could come up with.
An unlikely Ally
Clarissa's Log: "As missions go, this one was easy. A bit too easy in my opinion. Call it paranoia, a trick knee, or just a fucked up psych profile, something about the entire thing stinks worse than a skunk with B.O. (not that they actually smell but the analogy works…) To put it bluntly it feels staged… and unless I play my cards right my act may be cut short permanently….
Clarissa had written the thoughts down hours ago but the memory of the mission still swirled through her mind. She remembered with grim satisfaction the look on Barristo's face as she had pulled the trigger, had watched as the pulse of energy simultaneously tunneled and burn through the cranium as the body flew backward, arms wind-milling as if he had been attempting to ward off death as it sped toward him.
She remembered the bitter cold which had wrapped around her with an almost inhuman speed, somehow managing to penetrate the layers of fabric which comprised her cold suit despite the thermal field generator clipped to her belt.
The wonders of modern electronics… she mused with a snort
Her mind flickered back to the visage of the cat who had removed her much prized middle finger. Ordinarily Clarissa would have found the irony in this small gesture uproariously funny. Course… Irony is a fickle thing. She's a bitch in a way… Clarissa raised the hand to eye level peering at it, her tail swishing in mild interest as she reclined on the bed.
"What to do, what to do…" She sighed aloud, staring up at the ceiling which was somehow covered with grime despite it's perpendicular relationship to the floor. Upon arriving in the upper atmosphere of Hypoxia the two ships had vectored away from the planet at high speed, aiming to put as much distance between themselves and the burning wreckage of the convoy as possible. Clarissa was still attempting to figure out what idiot had planned the damn operation in the first place, the armaments had been pitifully light in her opinion, all it would have taken to take out the convoy was one or two sweeping passes with the Valkeryie's rear cannon batteries and the entire force would have been reeling
To put it bluntly there had been no need for the 'blind drop' (as Zachary had so eloquently put it ) in the first place, simply drop a few carpet bombs on the 'base'; which really had been nothing more of an outpost in Clarissa's opinion, the damn place only had a class 1 security field and 13 lightly armed guards.
Of course she had held her tongue while the German Shepherd had dropped the credits into her hand, somehow she thought he wouldn't take too kindly to her giving him tactical advice on her very first mission.
Damn military brats…damn this boredom…
Clarissa jumped up and finally decided she'd had enough. Enough sitting around, contemplating matters which had long since passed out of her field of consciousnesses, enough twiddling her thumbs. It was time for action!
She was already in the lift on her way to the docking port which would allow her to cross into the other craft when the part of her brain which served to generate sarcasm decided to relate the obvious, that A: Moving from one ship to another was not at all likely to relive her sense of boredom, and B: Boredom follows Artic foxes like the plague.
Of course she was in the Malarkey's hangar bay by the time the last word of the thought had flitted across her consciousness. Figures…might as well explore a bit anyway... The hangar bay lights were set to half illumination perhaps to reflect the fact that it was 1100 hrs by the digital clock above the far door, or more likely to conserve power.
The vixen's feet carried her across the hangar bay floor, into the elevator and presently she arrived on the Malarkey's bridge. The room was almost completely dark and seemed to be deserted. Not that she had expected to see anyone on the bridge at this late hour but it had been worth a try. A series of viewports at the far end of the chamber admitted a soft cheery glow from the surrounding stars, and the control panels glittered fiercely, their multicolored lights playing across the ceiling in a distorted swirl reminiscent of a Rorschach test.
"Just so you know the controls are locked." Clarissa jumped and stumbled backward into the chair of a nearby station in surprise. The voice had come from the captain's chair which she had assumed to be empty. Zachary dressed in a pair of tan shorts and a muscle shirt swiveled around to stare balefully at her before turning around once again to observe the stars flitting past.
She recovered quickly and dropped down a small step to join him. "What are you doing up at this ungodly hour?" "Same could be said for you."
"I asked first."
Zachary's eyes lit in a triumphant grin as he said, "I'm higher ranking than you."
Clarissa's eyes lost their playful air and she said, "I was…bored."
The German Shepherd nodded slowly, a little unsettled by the sudden change in Clarissa's mood.
"I need to ask you a question, and regardless of your views on the audacity of said question I will require an answer."
"That depends upon the question you pose to me."
Zachary rolled his eyes and continued. "I saw the way you killed that lizard on Hypoxia at the end of the mission…Barristo you said? " Clarissa nodded curtly. "There was…a death back on the station…something involving a ferret and a delayed drug payment. You were the one sent to collect?"
Clarissa nodded again and asked, "How did you know about Arixa-"
"I know many things."
There was silence as Clarissa fumed momentarily and then waved a hand for him to continue. "What I want to know is, how did a simple mission like that end up requiring the involvement of the Draxel Coalition's Outer rim finance officer?"
Clarissa had risen by this time and was leaning against the far wall, clenching and unclenching her right fist in an attempt to keep her anger in check. He's treating me like a fucking ROOKIE, like some scared little girl who can't pull her own freaking weight when the time comes…" Her thought patterns ran in this direction for several minutes and so it was a surprise when she felt his hand on her shoulder.
Her ears flattened against the back of her head as she spoke, "That two timing bastard fed my records to her, I don't know how he did it…but he's paid in spades." His eyes bore into her's for a long moment and then a patronizing sigh exploded from his chest. "WHAT?!" She exploded her jaw muscles quivering as she clamped down on the insult that had queued up directly behind the first shouted word.
Zachary forced himself not to respond in kind to this display of open hostility, she was on edge, who wouldn't be at (he checked his watch) a quarter after midnight. "You began your career in the inner rim worlds correct?"
"Yes I did." She spat. "What's that got to do with anything?"
"Mercenary work on the inner and outer rim systems is like night and day. In the wealthy inner world section they've got rules and regulations, you meet a contract manager, send them your files, they review them either they hire you or they don't; what matters is that they're obligated by the Contract Regulation Agency to keep those records private, or to destroy them if they are of no further use.
The electronic records are marked with a 'flag' and if they spread the records around you're legally free to kill them or to wait for the CRA to come after them. The Outer rim has no CRA monitoring stations out there because the agency's too damn scared to sink any funds into a station which is likely to be attacked in the first year…huge liability risk you see."
Clarissa closed her eyes momentarily and groaned. "Shhhhhhhhhit!"
"I walked right into her palm…"
"Here you always use aliases, never give real information, and the only things they'll know are what you tell them. You just didn't know…and now you've just gone from the frying pan into the fire."
"Thanks for adding another shoe in case the first 1500 don't decide to drop…" Zachary continued, "The cat mentioned something about your father and a debt he owed them…I'd guess your dad was involved in big business of some sort?"
For the first time since he'd seen her a note of pride crept into her voice. "Hell…Big doesn't even begin to describe it. Ever heard of Solax energy crystals?" The dog frowned and then his eyes lit up. "Yes…actually yes I have, Solax crystals are used for fusion generators in space stations all around the galaxy right? Terribly expensive though."
"My father was the first…the first to find one, and recognize it's potential use for regulation of the matter stream and output carrier waves in modern fusion reactors. He'd always told me that he'd had to defend himself with an old human model revolver." She stopped momentarily as the memories began frothing like bubbles toward the surface.
"We were wealthy once…and proud. Hell I was actually a happy teen at one time, on the athletics department at my boarding school, did marksmanship…"
"But he never told you the real truth did he. Didn't want his beautiful daughter to think that he'd ever needed an equivalent of the human Mafiosi to get started. He didn't want to lose you."
"No…he didn't. The rest of the family-and we're a big group; they'd known. They didn't act any different around me but…I'd heard a good number of angry holo link conversations late at night. I'd hacked his feeds out of curiosity. Nothing specific was ever mentioned but…they were scared. They didn't trust him, and he was quite forgetful when it came to paying off debts. And by the time they'd stopped sending agents requesting payments…it was too late… The last package they sent was a fuel air bomb."
"Christ." Zachary swore. "And I'll bet that they transferred the debt over to you."
"I could have paid the debt off then despite the size-if I'd been able to access my dad's funds but they're restricted access until I hit my 30's…"
Zachary had flopped back into the chair by this time and Clarissa had drawn her knees up to her chin, her bone white hands locked around her ankles in a characteristic defensive gesture.
"The cat mentioned something about your 'previous attempts' at paying off his debt. What-" He stopped as she had suddenly stood up, her eyes blazing with renewed fury, directed not at him but at something or someone far back in her history. Suddenly she sighed heavily, shoulders slumping, and the years seemed to show themselves upon her frame, the sheer weight of those experiences and memories crushing down upon her.
"I can't tell you." The words came out in a sharp bark of pain and he saw her hand almost unconsciously glide toward her abdomen as if she had been directed to show 'where it hurts' by a gynecologist.
"I just-I-I…" She stopped and looked at him, tears shimmering in her eyes. He nodded, feeling a lump developing in his throat. She would tell him when she was ready.
After a moment she continued in a noticeably more level tone, "Do you know anything about the feline?"
"She's quite feared in this part of the galaxy and her power base extends into the heart of the Inner Ring system, that's where all finances are kept. All she is, is a glorified accountant who wields power mercilessly. Course these are rumors but-."
"Thanks."
He stopped. "You've given me more than you know." The look she sent him was fleeting but he thought he saw a glint of; (if it had been nothing else) respect glimmering in the back of her irises.
Zachary rose and began making his way toward the door, sleep beckoned with it's promise of a better tomorrow. "Remember…1500 tomorrow afternoon. Undock then." Her hand grasped his shoulder with surprising strength. "What we said…it is not to leave this room." He turned to face her, and for a moment found himself devoid of all the witticisms that normally bubbled to life at moments like these.
"I'm trusting you, Zachary." "Alright. I understand." He said a little throatily, unsettled by the danger held within the vixen's gaze. God help me if I talk.
As the elevator deposited Clarissa onto the hangar level for the last time that night, she wished for the umpteenth time that this…all of it had been a dream. This life, the ships, the bodies, all had been some brutal nightmare which she'd wake from presently.
"But of course" the sardonic segment of her brain offered as she flopped upon her bed, "It's never a dream when we want it to be."
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Created By: Alexander ColePage 6 of 6