[-]
Meia watched as Ranma's composure cracked a few times as they prepared breakfast. She thought back the previous days events. Something had seemed off about Ranma's interest last night. For all the invitations she had thrown out, she had seemed unsettled. Meia's mind was drawn back to the wounds she had tried to ask Ranma about last night. Everytime she had tried to ask about them Ranma had distracted her or tried to avoid the subject, and she had settled for just trying to soothe her.
Maybe she could broach it again. "Someone attacked you didn't they?"
Ranma paused from preparing the potato she was cutting. "I could have taken them, if they hadn't brought that assault suit." She said defensively. After a moment her gaze moved to staring at the cutting board and Meia slowly moved in and held her from behind. She felt a slight tremor go through Ranma's frame.
"What is it you people want from me? Why was she trying to take my clothes off?" Ranma looked at her imploringly, her voice breaking. "At least when you do stuff like that you seem to actually care about me."
"I do." Meia stated, trying to soothe and comfort her.
"Then why?" Ranma demanded. "I could tell they wanted to hurt me, so what were they trying to do?!" The last came with a quiver that ran through Ranma's entire frame. While Ranma was hiding it well Meia could feel how unsettled she was.
Meia put the pieces together and it almost felt like she was the one who the blow had been struck against. Whoever the women who did this were they had tried to ruin her girlfriend, and had struck a blow against what they had shared. Meia struggled to keep her fury and indignation under control. Her girlfriend wasn't the target of her rage, and she wasn't going to blow up on her because she couldn't keep her emotions in check. That however didn't leave her in a good place to answer the question.
No, she wanted to find the people responsible and cram them into an airlock. Then she would drop the air pressure so they would feel like they couldn't breathe until they passed out. Then she would repressurize the air lock and wake them up so she could do it again, and again until...
"You want to avenge me." The voice cut into her thoughts, and Meia realized that Ranma was looking at her with an odd look that seemed halfway between being touched and like she was ready to tell her she need not bother. She also realized she was holding Ranma far too tight and backed off a little bit. There was a slight shift in Ranma's posture as she pushed harder against her in response, and Meia adjusted her grip again realizing Ranma wanted her that close.
Meia expected her girlfriend to tell her not to bother, but instead she saw a twinkle in Ranma's eye that made her glad she wasn't the intended target. "I was planning something, but if you want in..." She let the sentence hang suggestively. Meia made a mental note to never piss her girlfriend off, and especially not to back her into a corner. The casual way that Ranma handled the knife in her hand really didn't help. Her own rage quenched as she realized they were crossing the line.
"Ranma, don't." Meia felt her girlfriend sigh as the energy seemed to drain out of her.
"You know what the worst part is? There's a whole ship of you, and you're the only one I don't have to watch my back with." Ranma just rested in her arms for a moment, before looking back and grinning at her. "Well maybe I do." The way she was fondly looking at her said something rather different, as Meia felt her girlfriend relax against her.
[-]
Parfet drummed her fingers as she prepared breakfast for herself. She knew she shouldn't. She had even explained the issue to Ranma that due to it being over a century since the software running her Deck had been maintained by Tarak that the frankly draconian security measures on it were effectively useless. Only to find out that Ranma not only already knew that, but knew ways that such access could be abused that she had never even considered were possible and would have been happy to remain ignorant about. What she had not known, and Parfet had forgotten to tell her was that her particular model of Deck had a command signal which would force the wireless on without her knowledge. It was one of the measures that the Deck had been designed with.
She had seen the way that Meia and Ranma had been looking at each other, and been struggling with the desire to jack in to Ranma's sensory feed all night. She knew it was wrong and that had won out in the end, but she wanted to feel like that with someone. Her recordings had all become too familiar, and the hosting services for streaming feeds were now hundreds if not thousands of lightyears away.
A little voice kept telling her it wouldn't hurt anyone. It wasn't like she was going to mess with anything, just pull the output feed. If she did that though, could she really stop herself given she wouldn't be kept in a proper container, and there wouldn't be a proper firewall to stop her? She had the documentation afterall.
The thing about a Deck was that it effectively replaced the brain stem via a sophisticated shunt. All I/O went through the Deck, and the better the Deck the better its ability to handle that I/O in addition to the things people normally thought of related to the computer interface side of things. As a result when someone equipped with a Deck wanted to move their arm it had to go through the Deck, and thus in effect it was the Deck that actually controlled your body. Your brain was just a terminal that interfaced with the Deck to allow normal functioning.
Normally that link took priority over everything, but if you had documentation that allowed you to get deeper access you could effectively take over. Not that wireless links were designed to handle the necessary bandwidth to body jack in the way the media played it up. You could do enough though.
To do such a thing was a perversion of something she cherished. There was software that allowed for a pair of lovers to become closer via direct port access. It had seemed so magical the first time she had used it, but it had made it hurt so much more when things had broken down.
No, she shouldn't. It was too easy too go too far.
[-]
Parfet spotted Ranma when she walked into the cafeteria for lunch, only to pause as she noticed that Meia wasn't with her. Instead Ranma was alone at a booth in the corner. She started to turn away towards her own normal lonely corner of the cafeteria, but her feet found their way to Ranma's booth. Slipping in next to her Parfet realized she had feelings towards the Tarak Woman she really shouldn't have. Just like she had started spending way too much time around that doctor from Tarak recently. It was so hard to find someone she could really talk to.
For her part Ranma looked at her cautiously, but didn't object to her presence. Remembering her decision earlier, Parfet started by launching into an explanation that she had decided to go forward with refurbishing and upgrading the Vanguards. As she started getting into the technical details Ranma looked at her, clearly startled and looking at her in a different light. Parfet paused, uncertain if she had lost her as so often occurred, only for Ranma to intelligently respond to the technical details she had been talking about.
Parfet caught herself looking fondly at Ranma's back, as she left. Parfet looked down at her tray and covered her face with her hands. She knew she shouldn't be feeling like this.
[-]
Ranma whistled happily. Parfet had suddenly taken a real interest in refurbishing the Vanguards for some reason. They would have proper shield systems, sensor packages, and everything. She didn't really understand what had changed. She had tried to be professional with her requests, and make her case but the woman had just flatly dismissed it before. What she did know was that it was best to try to cultivate that, especially given she was in charge of maintenance. The last thing you wanted was the maintenance chief to be pissed off at you. It was far better to try to stay in their good graces.
If he was back on Tarak he would have just bought some beer, but these women were weird about these things. Meia had flat out told her no when she had suggested buying Parfet a bottle of wine. Apparently it meant something special for the Women of Mejere and you just didn't gift alcohol and hang out having fun while getting drunk. Meia had really laid into her when she had suggested that. Honestly. Sometimes these women seemed to be so stuffy. Why was she so concerned about something like that?
She would just have to find something else to butter the maintenance chief up with.
[-]
Parfet looked through the files on the model of Tarak Deck that Ranma was using again, telling herself she was just doing the responsible thing and doing the necessary back research. Afterall it was a security risk to have someone running around with a compromised Deck. As she expected a closer analysis of the files revealed that no one had ever attempted to reverse engineer the kernel, or even done the groundwork to come up with the frameworks to adapt Mejere software to it. Patching the operating system simply wasn't a possibility, even if hadn't been loaded with kill switches and system wipe protocols.
Replacing or upgrading a Deck was dicey at the best of times, even when they were designed with that in mind. The research papers and autopsies made it clear this one hadn't been. There were a few theories on how to do it in the notes, but she hadn't come across a case where they had successfully done it. Further research had indicated that everytime a Tarak facility had been hit where people had been equipped with these things hadn't ended well.
In most cases the Deck had wiped itself leaving the body to die with nothing to coordinate it. In a few cases they'd been fast enough to get the victims on life support, but the brain damage from the Deck dropping had either left them vegetables or meant they had died shortly thereafter from complications. While a few of those had, had their Decks swapped successfully with all the brain damage the subjects had previously taken it was hard to say how successful the operation had been. As critically important as reestablishing basic organ control functionality was, you couldn't really call the operation a success if it left the person a prisoner in their own bodies. There were a lot of hopeful notes about potentially saving one of the victims, but no record of where they had actually managed to do so.
Given the nature of the reports, Parfet was surprised there was no genetic match in the Mejere databases for the Red Shoulder. Why else install something like that? She had tried for a longshot, and made some time to get around to cracking the Tarak personnel database she had stored in an isolated drive when rebuilding the ship's operating systems. As expected there was no genetic match, or match for any personnel with a female genetic profile in the Tarak database. Trying to see if there were other abnormalities in the data, she ran quite a few analysis algorithms and the only things that consistently showed themselves to be out of place was that Hibiki Tokai shouldn't have even been on the Ikazuhi, and the only entry for the infamous Red Shoulder was a dark haired man. The thought of running some algorithms through the video feeds to try to find the Red Shoulder of record occurred to her, but she decided to stop for the day.
BC had asked her to come up with additional security measures. They had been monitoring FTL communications traffic from what appeared to be a nearby trade hub for a few weeks now while they had been straightening the ship out, and the Captain was thinking about investigating it.
[-]
BC resisted the urge to sigh. The way that conversations about who was with who got around this ship was ridiculous. She really wished the Captain would just put a ban on all of it. The sheer amount of crying and drama that resulted from all of it was frankly ridiculous.
Apparently Parfet was acting weird, and the trend in the rumors was that she had taken an interest in Lieutenant Commander Saotome. BC knew better than try to interrogate one of her staff on where they had heard that at this point. It was easier, more accurate, and resulted in less drama to just use data analysis tools on their social media than trying to do the legwork. A few algorithms revealed that apparently it had started with a few pictures of them sitting together in the lunch room. Typical.
She had been talking with the Captain about the trade hub they had been picking up signal traffic from. Chances were good they would have some of the supplies they were starting to run low on, and more importantly get some intelligence on what was going on in this region of space. She had already made a point to ask Parfet to come up with some things to discourage boarders, and counter impounding attempts. If she was lucky half of them would work as intended, and the other half would cause them sufficient pause to effectively work as intended.
[-]
Parfet paused from reading a trashy love novel as the door rang. Wondering who would bother to visit her at such an hour she walked over to the door, and mentally toggled the viewer. Projected before her eyes was the image of a familiar red haired woman she had been thinking way too much about recently. Her mind ran away with a variety of possibilities for the visit, which her recent reading material wasn't helping. Obviously she wasn't here to do that.
Parfet quickly raced around her room trying to tidy things up, before racing to toggle the door open when it looked like her guest might be losing interest. Ranma looked at her with a perplexed expression as the door slid open. "Is it a bad time? I can come back later."
"No, no. It's fine, come in." Parfet tried to assure her.
Ranma shrugged and walked in to her room, before stopping in front of her as the door slid closed leaving them alone. "I wanted to apologize for the way I've acted towards you. I know I've not been the best shipmate, and I want to apologize for that." She bowed her head slightly. "I also wanted to thank you for yesterday, but Meia didn't have any idea what you would like."
Parfet reflected that she had read way too many stories where an offer like that had led places recently. She hadn't really expected to be thanked, let alone be approached about compensation. Saving Ranma had just been the right thing to do, there was no need for thanks. She single handedly kept this ship running, and no one really ever thanked her for it. Someone just thanking her for doing what anyone should have done just felt weird.
"Is something wrong?" Ranma asked her with her head turned slightly to the side.
"No, no it's just that I..." Parfet scrambled to come up with something that didn't revolve around this stupid crush. "I wasn't expecting you to make such an offer." She finished lamely. She found it difficult to meet Ranma's eyes. She almost jumped when she felt a hand grip her shoulder, and give it a comforting squeeze.
"There is something troubling you." Ranma said calmly with evident concern in her voice. Parfet felt butterflies rising in her stomach. It had been far too long since she had, had someone care about her. Even if she knew this wasn't going to go anywhere, she couldn't control her feelings.
Parfet felt the other woman envelope her in a hug, and felt her cheeks burning. Did she know? Was she actually interested? But it was wrong, Ranma was already in a relationship with Meia. Was Ranma choosing her over Meia?
"Meia said your people do this a lot to comfort each other." Ranma said hesitantly, seemingly unaware of the connotations of such a gesture.
Parfet wrapped her arms around the other woman, and buried her face in Ranma's shoulder to hide her blush. At least she could have this. She could feel the awkward way Ranma was holding her, even as she wanted it to be something more. After a few minutes she calmed down enough to not utterly embarrass herself and pulled away.
"Thank you." Parfet stated while adjusting her glasses. Her mind unbidden started coming up with plans to steal this curvy redhead from Meia. She knew she shouldn't. She knew the beauty in front of her didn't, and probably wouldn't, love her back.
"Do your people really do this?" Ranma asked hesitantly.
Parfet blinked. "Do what?" What was she talking about?
"Hug each other." Ranma said looking a little uncomfortable, and showing a hint of a cute side while retaining that regal bearing of hers.
Parfet wasn't sure how to respond to the question as it wasn't something she had ever really thought about before. "Well we don't just randomly go up and hug people." She said thoughtfully. "I guess we do it with people we feel comfortable with." Although it was always hard to figure out whether you just had an affectionate friend, or someone who was actually interested in you. She had, had a few incidents where she had misinterpreted things like another woman holding her hand as meaning more than it did.
"I see." Ranma responded. "So was there something I could do for you?"
"Could we talk again?" Parfet requested.
[-]
Meia swung by to pick Ranma up from Parfet's quarters. She hadn't been happy with her girlfriend's insistence on trying to use herself as bait. At least she had taken a laser ring with her, and made sure that they had figured out and tested communications protocols before she had left for the day. She understood why her girlfriend had done it, but she had been worrying about her all day. It was nice that she had chosen to end the day somewhere relatively safe.
She pressed the beeper, and Parfet's voice filtered back that she should come in and she toggled the door. Revealing that Parfet was animatedly talking to her girlfriend about something. The two of them were seated around a small table, and sitting way too close together and getting along way too well. Parfet noticed the withering look she was sending in her direction, and the conversation quickly died. Meia suppressed the urge to throttle her. Picking up a chair she put it between the two of them, and resisted the urge to openly glare at Parfet.
"Good evening, Ranma." She said pleasantly.
Ranma was looking at her as if she had grown a second head. "Meia, what's with you? Did Parfet do something? She finally agreed to upgrade the Vanguards."
Meia resisted the urge to growl at her. She took a moment to regain her composure as she realized she was crossing the line. She had seen the fond way that Parfet had been looking at her girlfriend, and now her girlfriend was defending this interloper! Meia slowly opened her fists and forced herself to relax.
"I'll talk with you about it later." Meia said tersely, while encouraging her girlfriend out the door.
Ranma looked at her, clearly perplexed but not put off as they entered the hallway. Meia decided it was better to go ahead and explain herself. "Parfet's attracted to you." Meia tried to explain.
Ranma cocked her head to the side, if anything looking more perplexed as she patiently listened to her.
"I don't want her to come between us." Meia tried to further clarify, at a loss how to have this conversation.
Ranma slipped an arm around her waist. "You keep telling me how we're meant for each other."
"Well... yeah." Meia conceded grudgingly, unsure where her girlfriend was going with this.
"So why are you getting so worked up?" Ranma asked with a tone of genuine curiosity.
Because that was only something stories came up with to make things seem nicer then they were. She had learned that lesson the hard way. Just because you had feelings for someone didn't mean it was going to work out. She had, had girlfriends stolen from her before and plenty of nasty break ups. "Because I don't want to lose you." Meia tried to explain, frustration starting to creep into her voice.
Ranma cuddled up to her. "Well if you think she's not going to maintain my fighter properly I can keep flying with you." She responded with a playful innocence that Meia could only envy.
Meia sighed dramatically. "If you insist." She felt the tension draining out of her. It was hard to stay mad when Ranma was doting on her. Still she made a mental note that she needed to watch Parfet.
[-]
Meia was surprised that Ranma had made a point to request they rewatch a film that hadn't really stood out to her. It was a buddy action film involving some kind of absurd conspiracy with space aliens. It had been a fun little flick that hadn't taken itself too seriously, but she didn't see why Ranma would request that of all things.
As she started it up Ranma slipped her hand into hers, and Meia was distracted by Ranma beaming at her. The impression that Ranma had picked out this one in particular for some reason intensified. Turning back to the film she noticed that the protagonists kind of resembled them. They had red and blue hair, although the characters hair color was switched. Despite the way the jacket she usually wore accented her chest, her bust had never been that big.
Meia glanced over. Her current girlfriend was much better endowed than her. She still hadn't gotten her hands on them, but was looking forward to it. Ranma looked at her in surprise, with a hint of uncertainty, as Meia wrapped an arm around Ranma's waist. Ranma dodged her attempt at kiss as she started to lean in leading Meia to suppress a spike of frustration.
"Meia." Ranma drew out her name in a warning tone. "Let's watch the movie."
"You know you like it." Meia responded suggestively.
Ranma just stared at her, and after a moment Meia reluctantly returned to watching the film. "Don't sulk." Ranma chided her while leaning on her shoulder.
Meia turned to give her a piece of her mind only to be intercepted with a kiss. Ranma'a approach was awkward, and Meia could feel she wasn't fully committing to it, but the way she was blushing was so cute as she broke the kiss. "There. Now can we enjoy the movie?" Ranma asked defensively while turning to hide her blush.
Meia paused feeling bad about the way she had been acting. After all the things that had happened recently she wasn't acting the way she normally would. She kissed Ranma on the top of the head, and apologized. Ranma wrapped an arm around her and gave her a little squeeze. Meia's attention was drawn to the screen as an action scene started.
[-]
Ranma was feeling pleasantly buzzed as she laid against Meia's shoulder feeling oddly warm and tingly. Something about Meia herself just made her feel so warm, and she just wanted to crawl into her arms as weird as the urge was. Meia had been up for getting drunk and having some fun with a marathon of action movies. It wasn't quite like back on Tarak, there wasn't even any beer. Meia had insisted on picking out some kind of weird fruity sweet wine that tasted more like juice than something to get drunk on rather than a more manly beverage. It had gotten her buzzed though so she wasn't complaining. It wasn't like it had tasted bad, just weird for something that was supposed to be alcoholic.
Her attention kept wandering from the movies to the women next to her, who kept noticing. Ranma still couldn't make sense of this desire to be close to her. It was so strong, and yet she couldn't make any sense of where it was coming from or why she felt this way. Meia's spiel about how their hearts were calling each other seemed to fit, but it was just so weird she had a hard time believing it and there was something more. She kept having really weird urges that didn't seem to have anything to do with just being physically close. Why would she want to stare at Meia's butt of all things? That had to be the most bizzare thing ever.
Maybe Meia wasn't entirely okay with it either? It would be nice they could just be together like before. No staring at people's butts, and other things... Why would she even want to look at that? Sure Meia seemed to be good about cleaning up after she did her business, but come on. It was her butt of all things. And yet she still found herself staring at it with weird feelings she couldn't seem to control welling up that made it hard to look away. Meia had even noticed, and wiggled her butt at her in response a few times which had just made it worse.
She glanced up at the women next to her. What was it that made her feel like this with Meia? She hadn't felt anything like this when she had touched Parfet, so it wasn't some drug that these women produced. There was something about Meia in particular that drew her in, and made her feel this way.
Ranma realized she was crawling into Meia's lap, and starting to go for a kiss. She stopped herself before their lips made contact, but couldn't bring herself to pull away. Meia giggled and held her close. "Why don't we sleep together tonight?" Meia suggested.
Ranma couldn't bring herself to leave for the comfort of her own bed. Avoiding getting lost in Meia's blue eyes was hard enough. She mentally sighed as she realized there was no escape. Those weird feelings seemed to only intensify as she settled in and found her attention again being drawn to Meia's lips. Well one kiss wouldn't hurt.
[-]
Meia felt something warm lying on top of her. Cracking an eye open and glancing down she noticed Ranma was curled up in her arms looking way too cute in the form fitting casual clothes she had helped pick out for her. Memories of the previous night came filtering back as she ran a hand through her girlfriend's hair. Ranma had been very warm and affectionate with her, and it had all been so very sweet. Ranma stirred and sleepily looked up at her, before snuggling back in with a content smile. Meia gently petted Ranma's back, enjoying the closeness.
Ranma kissed her gently on the cheek, and Meia responded by kissing her on the forehead.. Grinning she leaned in nuzzled her girlfriend's neck. "Meia?" Ranma asked looking at her in surprise.
Meia soothed her, and nuzzled her again feeling her girlfriend squirm a little in response. She pulled back, and went back to just soothing her as she watched Ranma try to make sense of her feelings. Grinning as an idea occurred to her, Meia rolled Ranma off her.
"You smell. Why don't you take a shower?" Ranma looked put out as she looked at her from her side of the bed, but made her way over to the shower. Meia let her grin break forth after Ranma closed the door.
[-]
Meia tried to suppress her grin as she patiently waited while browsing through some choice reading materials. She had made sure to modify the preferences so when she "forgot" to put it away her girlfriend would find the electronic book open on her tablet, and of course curiosity would get the better of her. It was a brilliant plan.
She managed to keep from beaming at her girlfriend as she exited the bathroom, but Ranma's posture was suspicious as she passed her. Ranma knew something was up.
[-]
Meia exited the shower to find Ranma intently reading the contents of her tablet, her cheeks trying assume the same shade as her hair, and a towel still being the only thing that was preserving her modesty. She quietly made her way over to the bed and slid in next to her. Ranma jumped as she wrapped an arm around around her girlfriend's waist and settled her head on Ranma's shoulder.
"What you reading?" She asked innocently. Ranma stared at her and opened and closed her mouth as her blush deepened even further. Meia pulled her into a kiss, and felt Ranma start to melt in her arms as her desires got the better of her.
Meia pulled back and giggled as she looked at Ranma playfully. Ranma looked conflicted as she looked between her, and the tablet that has now been discarded to the side. She could see the desire in Ranma's face. She leaned in a little bit and looked at her expectantly. Ranma looked conflicted, but after a moment leaned in and kissed her. It was still a light kiss, but compared to her girlfriend's previous kisses it was a very passionate kiss. Abandoning the plan she hugged Ranma as she burst out giggling, a minor miscalculation leading to her knocking Ranma over in the process so she was laying on top of her.
Meia kissed Ranma on the cheek, and lightly nuzzled her. "You smell a lot better. I really like your shampoo." She quipped before snuggling in.
"Well you suggested it." Ranma responded defensively, an ever so slight quiver in her voice. She had. Her girlfriend had just been content to use the cheapest stuff the commissary sold, which Meia hadn't appreciated the smell of, and nixed Ranma from using. She had ended up helping her pick one out, as Ranma had just been absolutely lost on the entire notion of scented soaps and shampoos. Cuddling had been a nicer experience since.
Ranma squirmed a little under her and Meia kissed her forehead. "So was it as bad as you thought?"
Ranma looked confused for a moment, and then followed her eyes as she glanced at the tablet laying off to the side. "It's weird." Ranma said reluctantly after a moment.
Meia smiled and rolled off her, laying next to her girlfriend. "Why don't we get you one of those smaller tablets tomorrow? I have some suggestions." She looked over and smiled at her companion.
Ranma glanced over at her, and quickly glanced at the ceiling before looking back. She opened and closed her mouth a few times, sometimes saying a word or a few syllables and then stopping. Meia slipped her hand into her girlfriend's. "It's okay." She reassured her. "It's normal to be curious about it."
"Thanks." Ranma said quietly, while looking elsewhere. Meia smiled, it didn't hurt that the towels had come undone some time during their antics giving her a lovely view.
[-]
The station was of a common spherical "star fort" design. Traditional space stations were made of a collection of modules, but groups with sufficient resources to build large stations from the ground up tended to prefer spherical designs. The development of gravplates had eliminated the need for rotating sections, and thus hub stations only remained in use by the oldest of the colonies. With the problem of creating artificial gravity simplified designs tended to favor spheroids, which could be more efficiently protected from space debris.
Nodules protruded from the surface of this station at regular intervals. The probe sensors weren't good enough this far out to positively identify the purpose of the nodules, but the traffic indicated they were probably some combination of docking stations and weapon emplacements. Given the size of the station it was probably protected by meters of advanced armor, in addition to the powerful shielding the sensor systems were reading.
BC looked up from the probe sensor readings, and looked at those surrounding the holotank. They had sent in probes to gather information a few light-minutes out from the source of the signals. So far everything appeared to check out. A variety of ships including several that clearly weren't military vessels had docked with the station, and a variety of programs were being broadcast by it that were clearly intended for tourists. To all appearances it was simply a large trading hub with extensive resorts.
"I really like this one." Jura spoke up. BC turned hoping that Jura had something to contribute. "Don't you think so Barnette?" And was disappointed as they were clearly engrossed in looking through the promotional materials.
Deciding it would to easier to just ignore them than try to reprimand them she turned towards Meia. "What do you think?"
"I think we should send in a shuttle with a small crew to check things out and see about acquiring some supplies. That way we're not exposing the entire ship to danger." Meia responded.
"If they seize us though, a small crew is going to have a harder time escaping and the remaining crew will be put at a disadvantage trying to rescue them." Ranma pointed out.
"So the question is which are we more willing to risk. A few people or the entire ship?" Gascogne noted.
"We could just try contacting them." Belvedere pointed out.
"That doesn't really change anything. If they're going to try to impound us telling them we're here just gives them more time to figure out how to do it." Gascogne commented. "If they're a free trade station then there's no risk associated with sending in a shuttle."
Mejere "free traders" usually operated small tramp freighters, and were usually viewed as one step away from being smugglers. It was a well known secret that you could get pretty much anything on the stations that were controlled by the Free Trade Guilds. While the major trading firms handled most of the bulk cargo there was enough legitimate, and illegitimate, business to keep the free traders in business. Their Shimakaze had actually officially been registered as a free trader, and they had used their Guild contacts to help fence most of the loot that wasn't acquired under an official Letter of Marque, and sometime the loot that was if they could get a higher price. Legitimate free trading wasn't anywhere near as profitable as pirating though, and most of those who had signed up for this crew were in it for the money.
They had all heard the stories. Tales about other civilizations that a far ranging free trader had run into, that a friend of a friend had known. It made a certain kind of sense that there would be other colonies and free trade stations elsewhere, but BC was glad she wasn't the only one who recognized that there were potential complications. The realities of free trading were usually a lot more complicated than the stories made it out to be. There was of course the additional complication that due this station not having diplomatic ties and trade agreements with Mejere, there was no way to utilize the substantial wealth they had tied up in secured Mejere accounts.
"I'll go."
BC turned to Lieutenant Commander Saotome. She hadn't expected her to volunteer. Not because it wasn't in her character to do so, but given how the crew had been treating her it hardly seemed justified. If she fell most of the crew would celebrate her passing rather than mourn it.
"I'll go with her." Meia speaking up was expected.
"I'll go too." Parfet wasn't.
BC looked at them for a moment. The three of them not only were some of her top officers, but the ones who would be the hardest to replace. Her first instinct was to advise the Captain against it. Magno however preferred to have options, and always made a point to challenge her to come up with something else or figure out how to make a bad option viable. Knowing that BC went ahead and debated the options on how to make it work.
The fundamental issue was that if there was trouble there was a good chance someone was going to get hurt, which meant she needed to pad the group with some people she could afford to get hurt and would be useful in a fight. Plus they would need to be willing to go on this mission without too much fuss. She glanced over at the resident gun nut and her girlfriend who were still engrossed in the advertizements. They would do.
[-]