Chapter 10 - The Family Business
In This Edition of Fornax:
'The Maestros Are *Always* On Top' - Pictorial & Interview With Biotic Ball Champion Tyra T'Sanis.
Who Really Directed The Waterfall Scene? - The Inside Story of the Making of 'Blasto: The Hunt For Saren'!
Dr. Solus Advises - Sex & Cerberus Agents: How To Discreetly Check Your Partner *Everywhere* For Surveillance Bugs!
Indentured Servitude Contracts For Club Dancing - Are They The Right Career Path For You?
Quarian Striptease Sensation Miss Vah'Vah vas Voom! - Pictorial & Interview
Khalisah Bint Sinan al-Jilani put her hands underneath the cafe table and, after checking to see if anyone else was looking in her direction, answered the ping on her omni-tool. "Yes, Mr. Massani?" she whispered.
"He's coming yer way now, Miss al-Jilani. I'm about 95% percent certain he is packing," the veteran mercenary declared through the crackle of com line static. "I have a clear shot at the chair opposite ya in case he tries anything, but the civilians milling about in there keep stepping into the shot..."
The human journalist froze in place, her eyes scanning across the coffee shop. The other customers were a mixture of different species, none appearing to be anything other than workaday types enjoying a mid-afternoon drink. "Mr. Massani, under no circumstances are you to risk injuring any civilians, is that clear?" she muttered while trying to keep her face expressionless.
The mercenary grunted an "uh-huh" over the com line. "Glad to hear it. I was about to say that if 'e pulls that gun on ya and I don't have a clear line of sight on 'im, then I'll have to refund yer advance to yer next of kin, 'cause I don't want to take the risk either. Hell, even if my line a' sight remains clear this is one tough goddamn shot fer a guy with no depth perception. Next time, chose a cafe with better vantage spots." The mercenary cleared his throat and added, "All that being the case, my professional recommendation is to haul yer arse outta there right now 'cause I can't guarantee yer protection. Ya got about 10 seconds to make up yer mind before he strolls in."
Khalisah's response was immediate. "No. I'm staying. I am not passing up an opportunity to get an inside source on the production that's this good," she declared. "He could still be legitimate. If not... I'm going to bet that Aria T'Loak isn't as recklessly brazen as that other asari gangster, Jona Sederis, and won't try to have me assassinated in public."
Massani gave another grunt. "Ya got grit, Miss al-Jilani. Alright, but leave this com line open. I'll mute it on my end and re-locate to a table on the opposite side of the cafe. If I send ya a blue flash, that means "get up and leave as quick as ya like." A red flash means "drop to the floor." We understood?"
"Understood," the reporter replied. "Here he comes."
A tall, well-built human male with short blonde hair and an aw-shucks grin walked inside the cafe. Upon spotting al-Jilani, he waved at her and began confidently striding towards her table.
"Wow! This is amazing! Been a major fan of your reporting for years, ma'am! And here we are getting a drink together!" he exclaimed as he extended his hand. They shook and he dropped into the seat opposite the reporter, his grin now even wider. "I swear, sometimes I feel like the luckiest sonuvabitch in the galaxy!" He turned and shouted to the nearest waitress, a turian woman, "Hey, sweetie-bird! Whatever earth beer you got and another round of whatever the bravest, baddest reporter here on the Citadel is having!"
Khalisah keenly looked over the person seated in front of her. He definitely resembled the picture had he sent earlier, but that didn't mean much. Her eyes settled on the conspicuous bulge under his left armpit. "Mr. Reddick-" she began.
"Lyle. Just call me 'Lyle,'" he declared.
"Lyle," continued the reporter, "Are you carrying a gun in your pocket right now?"
"No! I'm just happy to see you!" he laughed and slapped a hand down on the table. Reddick then saw the tense, suspicious expression on Khalisah's face and stopped laughing. His own expression became apologetic. "I'm sorry, ma'am. Honestly thought that was a set-up for a joke just then. Yes, in point of fact I do have a pistol on me at the moment. Old habit. When you grow up in the Terminus Systems, you never go anywhere without one. I can see where it would be a little unnerving for somebody who lives here on the Citadel. Don't worry, though, I won't hold it against you," Lyle laughed.
Khalisah responded with a slight smile. In her head she was trying to determine whether Lyle was merely putting on a performance intended to make her think he was an unsophisticated rube from the galaxy's frontier or the real thing. She decided it was probably the latter. He was attracting too much attention to be somebody acting undercover. Then again...
"Something else I hope you won't hold against me: may I see your studio ID?" she asked.
"Of course! Got it right here," Lyle declared. He began reaching across his chest to his left, his right hand moving in the direction of his pistol. He saw Khalisah tense up again. Lyle paused to flash her another grin. He slowed his arm, reached into a pocket inside his jacket and pulled out an ID tag. He placed it on the table then pushed it towards her with a flourish.
Khalisah picked it up and examined it. It certainly looked like the tags she saw on the crew for the Blasto production. 'Lyle Reddick, special effects director,' it read. Khalisah scanned further down and saw it included the date it was issued. "Did you just get this yesterday?" she asked.
Lyle shrugged. "Well, yeah. That's when they hired me. It seems there was a sudden opening for an effects director, so I sent in a resume yesterday morning. By the evening I was their newest hire."
The reporter slumped in her chair and pushed the ID back across the table. "I was hoping you could tell me about what is going inside the production, but if you only got the job yesterday then you obviously haven't been able to observe much." From the corner of her eye she saw Massani enter the cafe. He took a spot at the far side of the room and began watching Khalisah's table.
Lyle shrugged and put his hands up. "No, but I can send you tips now that I am working there. It would be a real honor, too. Helping out with your reporting, I mean." The turian waitress arrived with a beer for Reddick and refreshed Khalisah's coffee. "Thank you, sweetie-bird," Lyle announced. The turian's mandibles flared and she gave him a sideways glance but said nothing. Khalisah guessed it was because the turian knew that "bird" was often used by humans to describe her species in a derogatory way, though Lyle didn't appear to say it with any intended malice.
Khalisah relaxed a bit and took a sip of her coffee. With Massani in the cafe and a growing certainty that Lyle was what he claimed to be, she began to feel safe again. It was somewhat deflating to learn she wouldn't be getting any information out of Lyle in this meeting, but she was at least cultivating an inside source. That alone made it worth the time and trouble. She needed to know more, however. "How did you even know to reach out to me?" she asked.
Her interview subject took a long swig of his beer, giving an approving "Ah!" once he finished. "The alien producers made a point of saying that you had been snooping around the set and that communicating with you in any way was grounds for getting booted out right quick. No pay, no nothing. So, I thought, 'Lyle, it sounds like Miss al-Jilani needs your help.' So here I am."
"You're not worried about getting caught and losing the job?" Khalisah inquired.
Lyle flashed another aw-shucks grin, then took a second swig of his beer. "As my pop likes to say, 'Sometimes it's better to beg for forgiveness than to ask for permission.' By that I mean sometimes breaking the rules is worth whatever consequences you'll face. Plus, who knows? You might even be able to wiggle your way outta facing the consequences at all." Lyle leaned back a bit in his chair. "If I do get fired, it's not that big a deal. Didn't really expect to get the job in the first place. To be perfectly honest, I'm not exactly qualified to do it."
Khalisah arched a single brow. "What do you mean?"
Lyle took his third swig of beer. "I have never worked on a vid before. Or a serial. Or any other kind of entertainment."
Even after having personally witnessed 6th Dimension Vids' lax standards, Khalisah was dumbfounded by this revelation. "How did you get the job at all then?"
"Gotta be that the studio's really hard up," Lyle replied. "I was told they had an asari who had done special effects for them for, like, forever. She up and quit for some reason a few months back and they've struggled ever since to replace her full-time. They had a contract with an elcor for this vid but he got badly injured in an accident and ain't coming back. After what happened to the elcor, the few others here on the Citadel with the right resumes told the studio, 'No fucking way!' Meanwhile, shooting is supposed to start in a few days. So when I told them I'd never done a vid before but I did have experience with munitions, they said, 'Welcome aboard, Special Effects Director Lyle Reddick!'"
That did seem about right, Khalisah thought. She had gone to Huerta Memorial Hospital in the hopes of interviewing the elcor but was told his doctors weren't allowing any visitors. If his injuries were that bad then it was no wonder that this human was the best replacement the studio could find. "Where did you get your skills? Are you ex-Alliance Navy?"
Lyle shook his head. "Nah. Nothing like that. I was taught how to set charges by my pop when I joined the family business. Taught me well, too. I am as good as any navy specialist."
With no small amount of trepidation, Khalisah asked, "What is your family's business?"
Lyle rolled up the left sleeve of his shirt to reveal a tattoo of a warship with the name 'Queen Anne's Revenge' printed underneath it. "We're privateers. This is our main ship," he casually explained. "The Terminus Systems have been a tough place to conduct business, but we've done pretty well for ourselves. My specialty is blowing open hatches, opening sealed containers and ensuring the aliens' ships are good and scuttled when we're done. Real good at it too, if I do say so myself. Anybody can set up a big enough charge to wreck shit but opening a container without damaging the contents inside is something else entirely," he continued, a glint in his eye. "Things have really been on the upswing for us lately ever since Cerberus kicked that T'Loak bitch out of Omega. Aliens can't use that station anymore to off-load their gains, so a lot of them have moved out of the system. Which means less competition for us. We're expanding our operations, in fact."
Khalisah stared at Lyle for a moment before replying, "You're pirates."
For the first time since sitting down, Lyle's smile faded somewhat. "We prefer the term 'privateers,' Miss al-Jilani."
He finished off his beer and called out to the turian waitress for another. As he did that, Khalisah glanced down at her omni-tool and saw Massani, who was eavesdropping on the conversation, had given her the signal for 'get out as quick as you can.' She looked across the room at her bodyguard and saw he was sitting on the edge of his chair, his body all coiled tension. Khalisah's mind raced as the anxiety and fear she had felt at the beginning of the meeting came flooding back. Part of her wanted to follow Massani's advice but her curiosity overpowered that.
"A privateer is contracted by their government to raid enemy ships," Khalisah matter-of-factly replied. "The Systems Alliance doesn't do that. Last I had heard, neither do any of the human colonies in the Terminus Systems. Your ship's name is even taken from the ocean-going ship the 19th century pirate Blackbeard sailed, isn't it?"
Lyle shrugged. "Well, if you want to nit-pick it..." He took his second beer from the turian waitress and took a short sip. "The point is, business is doing so well that I was able to take a vacation on the Citadel. After I got here - can you believe it? - I snagged a side hustle where they'll pay me to blow shit up on a vid set! How cool is that?! Then I was told you had been poking around on the Blasto vid and that the aliens didn't like that. Also heard the rumor that you had been asking about T'Loak as well. I thought, 'Damn, I can help Miss al-Jilani give it to the aliens! This just gets better and better!'" Lyle leaned back in his chair. The expression on his face grew more somber. "A lot of other humans just don't understand how brutal the Terminus Systems can be. You learn early on that the only things the aliens respect are strength and power. If humanity is going to make it out there, it has to stick together and show them that we ain't to be messed with. My family does its part. We hit the aliens hard before they can hit us and we take what we need. We never apologize for that either. You do your part too, Miss al-Jilani. You always stand up to those aliens and never let them get away with shit. All the other reporters are cowards or blind or brain-washed or alien-lovers. But you? You get it. I don't think you know how many fans you have out there in the Terminus Systems." He paused to take another sip of his beer. "So, if you're gonna hit T'Loak while she's down, I'll help you however I can."
The pirate beamed at Khalisah. She did her best to hide the fact that she was getting sick to her stomach. As her mind tried to process all of this, she was hit by a sudden flash of recognition. She remembered why she knew the obscure historical detail that Blackbeard's ship was named the 'Queen Anne's Revenge.' That fact had been mentioned in a news story she had read a few months back.
"The Queen Anne's Revenge... That was the ship allegedly responsible for the incident with the turian ship Corvannis, wasn't it?" Khalisah asked.
Lyle smiled. "Allegedly, yes."
Khalisah's nausea began to grow. "The Corvannis was raided and then blown up while scores of turian colonists were still onboard."
Lyle's face became expressionless. "Allegedly," he replied.
"You were the one that set the charges, weren't you?" Khalisah asked, the color rapidly draining from her face.
Lyle's expression turned into a mild frown. "Only aliens were hurt. No one else. It was no worse than what the birds did to us at Shanxi, after all. We were just getting a little payback."
Khalisah stopped trying to hide her feelings of horror. He face became a mixture of shock, disgust and contempt. "You murdered more than a hundred people..." she said in a hushed voice.
The pirate shook his head. The expression on his face darkened. "No. Not 'people.' Aliens. There's a big difference." He sat forward in his chair and began tapping his finger on the table. "I don't hate 'em, mind you. Even have some aliens I'm friendly with. Heck, I just signed on to work for some. But they are not us. We humans need to stick together and make them respect us. I thought you understood this. I thought we were alike. But maybe I misjudged you."
Khalisah's nausea was counteracted by a sudden wave of seething anger building up inside her. "Yes, you misjudged me," she declared. "I don't like it either when the aliens treat us like second-class citizens. And I hate how so many of our species bow and scrape before them rather than asserting their rights and their dignity. But that's where any similarities between us ends. The truth is my weapon. And it is a damn sight more effective at getting humanity the respect it needs than a bomb." Khalisah stood up from the table and snarled, "You're nothing more than pirate scum and I'll be damned before I work with you in any way."
Lyle looked up at her, took a long swig from his second beer, and then flashed her another grin. "I saw how you twitched when I said, 'alien-lover,'" he declared. "That's it, isn't it? Didn't believe that rumor when I heard it yesterday, but I guess I know better now: the aliens turned you too." His grin faded, replaced by a sneer. "It's been real nice meeting with you, Miss al-Jilani. Real... educational."
Khalisah turned and quickly strode out of the cafe. The waitress began to call out to her, but Lyle motioned the turian over to his table. "It's alright, sweetie-bird. I'll cover her tab," he announced as he pulled out his credit chit and let the waitress charge it. "Here, a little extra for your hatchlings," he said with a wink as he approved the transaction.
"Hatchlings?! Look, human, we don't lay-" the waitress began, then stopped when she saw the size of the tip. "Spirits, thank you!" she exclaimed. Lyle shrugged, grinned slightly and left the cafe.
A few seconds after Lyle walked out, Massani strode out of the cafe and spotted Reddick walking down the thoroughfare. Massani checked his omni-tool's locator for Khalisah and learned that she was walking in the opposite direction. "You okay, Miss al-Jilani?" he asked over the com line.
"I'm fine. Just heading to my hotel room," she replied. "I'm in serious need of a shower."