Redemption (Rated T) - A Pirate/Fleet RP

[Rider]

[glow=red,2,300]Leraye rubbed his wrists. "You really believe those were necessary?"

No free reserves of magical energy, and no one seemed to be picking a fight with anyone else. This was not his moment.

"Very well," he said to the High Warmaster. "Beam me up."

---

Leraye was a little disappointed to learn that he would have to walk to the ship, as there was no "beaming" outside regular teleportation. However, as soon as they entered the ship, a fight broke out.

"We ought to kill them," Schzain said. "Slaughter them for what they've done."

"We have what we came here for," Kyvr said. "Besides, we can't win a battle now. We need the element of surprise to be on our side again."

More voices chimed in. "We should make war planetside. Make them know what a demon truly is."

"We should gather more forces, perhaps make allies of some of the other non-human races."

"Are you trying to get us all killed?"

Weapons were being drawn. Looks were being exchanged. They were just waiting for someone to make the first move.

Schzain went for her dagger, the one that was infused with magical energy, but couldn't find it. She cursed loudly. One of the demons took this as his cue. There was a flash of steel. Kyvr ran to Schzain's side, even though he knew he couldn't reach her in time. Leraye drew Schzain's dagger.

There was a flash of brilliant purple light. A flower of magical energy blossomed in the deep black skies. Each petal was being sucked in towards the center. It was enveloping the entire demon fleet.

Before long, all that was left were a few tin-can vessels and Leraye, who cradled a new purple gem in his hands. And soon, Leraye was gone too. The abandoned vessels cast a long shadow over the lunar wasteland.

The albatross on Cyborg's neck burned with an angry flame for a moment, then stopped.

The moving Moon went up the sky,
And no where did abide :
Softly she was going up,
And a star or two beside--

Her beams bemocked the sultry main,
Like April hoar-frost spread ;
But where the ship's huge shadow lay,
The charméd water burnt alway
A still and awful red.[/glow]

[Cyborg]

" That's it? Really? I know this is a little different than the last one I was at, since there's no making out. Though Fraze and Hunty might be starting that anytime now, with the cheesey romance lines and all." Cyborg said fake-coughing awkwardly. "AAAAA!" he shouted as he clutched his neck. Is was burning, like the hottest fire was set onto that one spot, and no where else. And then just as fast as it came, it left. What was that? And what was that 'tattoo' he had now? " Keng, Fraze. If it won't be much trouble, I think we have a mystery on our hands. Not who stole the cookies from the cookie jar, we don't need the Mystery Machine or Scooby-Doo. Since I was revived, I've noticed this 'tattoo' on my neck." cyborg stated using finger quotes when he said tattoo. " But, now recently it's been causing immense burning pain on my neck. What really strikes me as odd, is how perfectly shaped it is to look like an albatross. What's the significance of that? Do you think there's any way of getting rid of it?" he asked.

[Huntress]

Hunty eyed the demons with a roughly equal mixture of caution and boredom. This could go all possible ways of wrong - but they knew this from the start, did they not? Ever since they'd taken that offer for that blasted gem back when the big war started. Ever since they'd gotten mixed in this. Now they'd pretty much ran out of options, and could only wait and see what would happen next.

She watched Leraye getting handed over in an absentminded sort of way. This was it, then. The demon slipped away again. And it was slightly disappointing that she felt more 'good riddance' rather than 'oh noes'. She'd had enough goose-chase for now.

Her gaze followed Leraye as he was led away. On her shoulder, she could feel Bloody Mary stand, or rather squat to attention, ready to react should anything happen. She was vaguely aware of Fraze showing up at her side again as Leraye was teleported away. So far so nice... but they still might pull something at the last minute.

"Look around you." Oh, she had. She hadn't liked the idea of coming so far from home, but now that she was out here, this vast infinity of opportunities actually felt... rather familiar, tugging at her sleeve much like the call of the high seas. "I thought I would never see a more beautiful sight, but..."

-huzzawhat?

If the demons had tried anything funny at that point, both Hunty and Bloody Mary would've missed it. The new info took a moment to process, and at about that point Hunty pretty much decided that words don't do that scene justice so she did the next best thing.



((Nosrsly, I figured I'm way better off drawing this than trying to describe it x3 I am more of an artist than a writer and this show has been lacking in imagery.))

"Awright, hombre," Bloody Mary growled in his finest long-tirade-coming-up voice, although he did keep it down, "it's mostly been your own luck that I owe you a couple favors and we've been getting along fine so far-"

"Bloody Mary." Hunty's voice was heavy with strained patience. She also wished that she could curse her blood circulation straight down to the netherhells.

"-there's a time and place for everything, 'specially diplomacy-"

"Bloody Mary..."

"-things have been complicated enough and anyway as far as common sense goes you two should so not-"

"Marik."

The meepit shut up. Real name was heavy cavalry. It was pretty much the final warning before squish-and-Sev. He did however opt for some general grumbling as he turned his focus back at the demonic spaceships, just in case something was still about to go wrong.

Hunty sighed, rubbed her forehead, and all of a sudden realized that she didn't actually have anything to say. She settled for a sheepish smile. Was the least she could do, anyway.

"We need to talk," she said, casting a sideways glance at the rest of the gang, a glance that bore a heavy load of 'oh, you so did not hear anything, come on, just try me'. "Alone."

"Ah-huh," Bloody Mary said disapprovingly, sounding much like a very small and blue mother-in-law.

"Look," Hunty said, "this needs to get talked out, you can't argue that... 'sides, we did come here for a reason, if you remember."

There was a small pause, one of those knowing pauses that exchanged private information between the captain and her, as it were, external conscious-drive... then the meepit seemed to settle a little.

"Just you watch it," he said, in a voice that didn't have too high hopes, and then Cyborg piped up. With the overall mood both Hunty and Bloody Mary were in, it was a convenient reason to turn and fry him in their collective stares.

"What really strikes me as odd, is how perfectly shaped it is to look like an albatross. What's the significance of that? Do you think there's any way of getting rid of it?"

"Oh, I could think of a few ways," Hunty said dryly, patting the dagger fastened to her belt.

"It's mostly done with lasers, to my knowledge," Bloody Mary remembered. He was now eyeballing Fraze. The meepit didn't look that unfriendly any more, but had a general air of trying to reach some kind of a decision.

"That so? Well, I saw plenty of those back there. In fact, we should probably get back inside, it looks like there's nothing more coming from our demonic buddies up there and even if there is, it'd probably be easier to deal with it indoors."

[Cyborg]

" Well, I don't know if lasers would work. It seems magic, so lasers might not do anything. So now that the demon thing's all over. Keng I would like to talk to you, and like Hunty and Fraze want, alone. No Spacefleeters listening in, that goes for pirates and rodents too." Cyborg said.

[Kengplant]

Keng had yet to return from her floaty expedition in space... plus she was reluctant to put away her new toy. She kept it up in a hover, swaying back and forth, impressed by it's control and total silence... speaking of silence... "Uh... one sec Cy. Guys, those ships aren't moving..." Keng noted, letting her ship fall back into a steady hover. "I don't think they can see me, I'm going in for a closer look."

A few smooth clicks later and Keng found herself peering through a main deck window to see that no one was there. Not a soul, or whatever it was demons possesed in their strange shells. Weapons were left on the floor, and.. was that an abbandoned slice of chocolate cake? Hmm... looked like triple fudge too, and Keng was pretty sure she recognized the bakery symbol from Tabloid Town when she zoomed in with her camera. "Dang. I don't see how even a demon could leave chocolate cake like THAT sitting around half finished. And it's not just the cake either. Looks from here like someone was half-way through a systems check. This is weird... Lemme see if I can find the scanners on this shiny spoon. SARSS team, check the other ships."

"Same story here Cmdo."
"They all look like empty hulls to me."

Came the replies.

"Right." acknowledged Keng, "and the scanner isn't picking up any sort of life forms. Guys, I hate to be the bad knews soo.. how was it again that Leraye made the first gem?" she asked, dreading the answer she was pretty sure she already knew.

[Amneiger]

"He...took a bunch of people and somehow turned them into a gem," Amneiger finally replied to Keng's question. "You said that you didn't find any lifeforms at all? Not even Leraye?" It was more of a statement then a question, and Amneiger took a moment to think about it.

"He'll be back," he finally concluded. "He's come here looking for power at least twice, and has gotten it at least twice. No reason for him not to come back to try to get some more if he wants to. He'd probably be a bit more careful next time as well. Did we figure out what kind of visual spectrums he showed up on? Infrared, ultraviolet, anything like that?" Amneiger took another moment to wonder what kind of gem Leraye had now. Last time he had used ordinary mortals; how would his, uh, choice of materials affect his new gem?

He couldn't really think of any way to know.

[Fraze]

That--
He should have expected that reaction. He needed to learn when to keep his mouth shut. As the two of them argued, he continued to look upward--to hide his mortification, now. There, just visible, was the demon fleet. And...something happened. It looked like some sort of teleport system, but nothing moved. His suit captured the video.

"We need to talk. Alone."

Fraze took a step back. "No, Bloody Mary's right. I'm sorry. I shouldn't have said anything."
During this time, Keng's running commentary had been piping in over his suit's comm. Apparently, the demon fleet was empty. "Something's happened to the demon fleet," he said quickly. "I need to take a look." He took a long leap--easier, due to low gravity--and landed on one of the new mecha/ship deals. He couldn't get out of the moon's gravitational pull under his own power, but once he was far enough away he could glide over to inspect the ships.
More reports coming in of empty ships.
"I caught something on camera, just before Comdo. Keng's discovery." With that, he piped the footage of the fleet to all necessary comm links.

Once this was done, he just had to wait to get to the ships.
A voice spoke in his head. Unbidden, but easily recognizable. It was his voice. So, you're running away again?
Shut up. I don't want to talk to you right now.
You know that won't work.
It was worth a try.
Do you love this girl?

Ah, that's what this monologue would be about. He was afraid of that.

You're me, you should know. Unless it was a rhetorical question. Why would you ask yourself a rhetorical question?
Didn't you just do the same?
...Point.
I'll ask again. Do you love this girl?
It's not worth finding out.
Oh, this'll be good. Why not?
Too risky.
What, you've done it before?
You know I have. And it's never worked out. It's better to save both parties the heartache.
How many times before has it "not worked out?"
Once or twice.
And why should this be any different?
Exactly.
One or two times is nowhere near enough to indicate a statistically significant correlation.
This isn't statistics. You can't be that rational about it.
So you just get to wallow in your self pity.
You got it.
All right. Go on, what other reasons?
Too different. She's a pirate, I'm Spacefleet. No, not even Spacefleet. I'm the guy who showed up from some way-distant interstellar coalition because they wanted to get rid of me. Swept under the metaphorical bureaucratic carpet.
Opposites attract. Why should this be a problem?
Oh, don't give me that. You shouldn't rely on trite little phrases.
Fine. I'll concede that point to you. Keep going. Why else?
She's got her whole life ahead of her. If I try to influence her, it'll be unfair.
You've already influenced her.
I know. I regret it. I should never have done it. And I'm trying to fix it.
By running away?
Yes. By letting her make her own decision without any involvement on my part.
If she decides no?
Then nothing is lost.
Except your heart.
I don't care about my heart breaking. I care about other people's. Hers.
And once again, you get to wallow in self pity. What if she says yes?
Then I hope that she'll tell me.
Ah, that's the trick though.
What is?

Fraze was, indeed, sensing a trick approaching.

You'll have run so far away, she'll never be able to find you again. Your heart breaks, and so does hers.

That--
He should have expected that argument.

There's no point in running away, you know that full well.
But--I want to.
Now we're getting somewhere. Why?
It's the only way I know. I see a problem and I run away from it.
No. That's a lie and you know it. You approach problems head-on.
Some of them.
Some of them. Which ones?
The ones that don't involve people. When people enter into the equation, the problems become more difficult to control, and the consequences for failure are much greater.
So it's people you're running away from.
Yes. I did it once, and it was the worst thing I've ever done. But it's the only way I know how to do this now.
Then learn a new way.
How?!

Fraze realized he spoke this final word out loud. The suit did not register it as being directed to any comm channel, so did not broadcast it.

Try it. Scare yourself. Break through this fear. It might just work.
I'll think about it.
You'd better, but you don't have much time.

By now, Fraze and his ride were nearing the ships. He let go. With a thought, microthin wings of energy extended from the skinsuit, between his shoulder blades. They were silvered on one side, gaining propulsion from the light, and clear on the other side to help with camouflage. Like this, he maneuvered among the small city of tin cans. "Yup, all empty over here. I think we need to run that footage by some mages first to see if our suspicions are right. But I agree with Amnei--it looks like our demon made another gem. I should have given him a plasma bolt when I had the chance. The last sentence was muttered, but nonetheless sounded clearly across the comm system.

[Rider]

[glow=red,2,300]"What really strikes me as odd, is how perfectly shaped it is to look like an albatross. What's the significance of that? Do you think there's any way of getting rid of it?"

Rider, being superstitious out the wazoo, was rapidly growing impatient. "No good has come of you being here, Cyborg. The pirates have come across nothing but trouble because of you!"

And the ships stopped moving. "And speak of the devil... or demons anyway. Oh crud, they know we're here."

The Fleet looked like they were talking through their magical doo-hickeys again. They did not look happy. Pieces began slowly clicking together in Rider's little brain. "Unless... Kat, are you getting any readings off those ships?"

She pointedly ignored Bloody Mary. There was no need to get the adorable WMD pointed at her face. [/glow]

[Huntress]

"No, Bloody Mary's right. I'm sorry. I shouldn't have said anything."

Now Hunty really smiled, in a kind of oh-come-on-now way. Even Bloody Mary's eyes softened considerably, mostly because this counted as Sensible Thinking in his book. He still poked Fraze in the back with one of his nearly physical meepitstares as the guy flew off, then turned to look up at Hunty.

"Your face is an open book, girl," he said.

Hunty's expression turned stony. "Look-"

"Look, I'm not doing this to be mean," the meepit said, settling down on her shoulder. "I'm just doing what I always do. Looking for the best way - no, okay, bad wording. Looking at the big picture then, because you keep forgetting to. The guy himself ain't half bad, has his head screwed on right," with Bloody Mary that was practically awarding a Nobel prize, "but you two got some gloriously bad timing, s'what I'm saying. You're a criminal with a six hundred thousand shiny reward on your head down there," he nodded at what was currently 'up there', the planet looming over the moon, "in the headquarters of an organization responsible for dealing with criminals, completely at their mercy, relying only on diplomatic relations which are little more than a narrow tightrope attached to convenience. You can't afford getting your head messed with in a situation like this. Any other time and place, by all means, you're free to make your own mistakes and if he ends up hurting you, I'll just rip some of his bits off."

Hunty remembered a little too late that meepits weren't exactly the grudgekeeping sort.

"But," Bloody Mary continued, "right now you're a figurehead, see? Your mistakes can hurt everyone, and ripping your bits off wouldn't mend them."

"Glad to hear that," Hunty said dryly. "And by mistakes you mean-"

"Humans tend to make a lot of mistakes in these questions," the meepit said vaguely in the general tone of a species that, thank goodness, doesn't have to deal with any of that and generally makes do with sniffing, fighting other males and showing off. "Like I said, your problem. But if you get reduced to a fluffy puddle of sap working entirely on emotions here in the middle of this political munbojumbo then your credibility as your crew's captain and a political force to be reckoned with goes straight down the drain and pretty much the only way to make it work in your advantage would be to do what Rane and Kienne did- oh sure, now she stares in horror. The Weewoo wouldn't be a bad place for raising kids, y'know. Saves a fortune on cradles."

"You really have no scruples, eh?" Hunty asked, sagging. Bloody Mary was hard to argue with, mostly because he was too right too often. But nonetheless.

"Left it in my other coat," the meepit said cheerfully. "Well, thankfully this here seems to be more or less over without too much collateral, so all we really have to do is get out of here without further damage and take a long break from politics. Except you guys still- eh, give me a minute here, otherwise I'll have to repeat myself later on."

The skinsuit slid over his head again. Physically, Bloody Mary hated the thing, it was like moving in a very small and flexible cage: no matter how light and comfy it was, it was still there. But mentally, it wasn't all that hard to deal with. The meepit had discovered that it worked without significant problems when he thought at it hard and he was good at wording brief orders, meepits don't really listen to anyone who rambles too much. He got on a connection with Fraze.

"As I was saying," he said without any further warnings, "yeah, you do need to talk this out. Otherwise we'll get sulking and daydreaming and general not-paying-attention for the next couple months."

Hunty moaned. "I don't daydream."

"Oh yes, sure," said the meepit. "There we are in the middle of the Big Blue, standing at the wheel keeping a steady course, nothing much to do, mind goes to wander, lots of what-ifs come up, attention goes on a vacation, and before you know it, bam, split on a rock and we'll go down with an exciting soundtrack and eleven Oscars which frankly don't sound like much of a consolation. Akay, what's the stand up there?"

His skinsuit would quite possibly have pouted if it'd been able to. Instead, it dropped the general info of the recent communication on him. The meepit skimmed through it.

"Oh," he said.

"Oh what?" Hunty asked. Bloody Mary told her. The captain paused.

"We should've seen this coming," she said. "Why didn't we see this coming? I have the excuse of having been reduced to a fluffy puddle of sap working entirely on emotions, what's yours?"

"I was too busy making sure you didn't do anything too stupid while reduced to said puddle," the meepit retorted, grinning. "Guess we were lucky he didn't do it to us. If this means that the demons won't sneak back to blow the entire place up, good riddance."

[Kengplant]

"Ok, get a few salvage crews over here Amnieger, and tell them to try not to move anything too much. I want these ships given a full crime scene investigation to make sure we're not missing anything here then get them cleaned up and returned to their owners: if they're still alive. If no owner can be found then we've got salvage rights. I suspect the demons may have cut one or two people down or even brought some of the pilots with them. SARSS team hang out until we can get some guard ships patrolling around these girls. I've got some people I think I should be meeting up with." When Keng had finished delivering her orders she turned her own ship around and headed for the landing bay.

-----------

Meanwhile Back in the Lab.

"This could be tricky. In order for this to work we need to bring the moon and the NTWF back to the timeline of the rest of the Universe as it is now a few hours behind. Doing so would mean that we will also have to be careful to only send those of you from the future, back to the future."

"Will we need a Delorian for that?" asked the two Commander Kreegans.

"Pardon?" asked Ra-sorral.

"Nevermind."

"Anyways, I don't believe we're in any danger of the bike choosing to manipulate time again, at least not at the same moment or in the same way as before. That original moment has already passed us. I believe that this is the same bike as the other: you'll notice that there is still only one bike here. It would seem that the bike is as capable of determining it's own place in time just as well as the rest of us. The curious thing is that it also chose to send only living creatures of the variety you would classify as animals back in time, your plant life is unaffected. It is an amazing device. Dr, Billy, may I see your freeze ray?"

"It uhh, needs work. It takes a few seconds to warm up."

"That's quite alright. Hmm.. an interesting design. For freezing small pockets. Now, my people have ways of determining who's from what time period. What we're going to have to do is create a loop in time. That is those who are from the current timeline must be sent back to the time those from the altered time line arrived in. I think the simplest way to do this will be to amplify the power of Dr Billy's freeze ray to freeze those from the altered timeline while the rest are sent back in time. This could take a while to prepare, and I would suggest we warn the station first. If everyone is in agreement to try this."

[Fraze]

"As I was saying," a familiar meepitvoice spoke in Fraze's ear. "Yeah, you do need to talk this out. Otherwise we'll get sulking and daydreaming and general not-paying-attention for the next couple months."
He screened out the rest of the quibbling between the two. He was getting rather good at filtering all that out.
He sighed. A sigh of resignation? Relief? He wasn't quite sure. "All right," he responded. The sigh was audible in his voice. "I'll be back soon."

"I don't know if he could have used us in the first place," Fraze answered Amneiger. "The first gem had an army trapped in it. I always thought it was their fighting that powered the thing. We weren't preparing for war, but maybe the demons were, and that's why he used them." Fraze had no proof to back this up and no reason to believe it was true. But it sounded new agey and metaphysical, which were the same two adjectives he would have used to describe magic in general. "In which case, he might have inadvertently averted an attack on us. Out of the metaphorical frying pan and into the proverbial fire."

With this, he turned back toward the moon. He didn't have to make many adjustments to his path, as he was nearly directly above the 'Fleet. He always got a rush when he did this, even though it was a bit unnecessary.

He fell.

He wasn't incredibly high up--in the upper atmosphere, he could easily see Spacefleet spread out over the moon's surface, but this was still quite a distance. But nonetheless, he fell. Faster and faster. The ground was rushing up at him. He recalled some species of aliens that believed a great god in the shape of a whale fell to their planet, and as it did, gave the Ground its name and tried to become its friend.
When he was a bit less than a kilometer from the surface, he unfurled the skinsuit's wings. They tugged at him as he decelerated, and he glided the rest of the way to the surface. He landed a short distance from Hunty and company, jogging the rest of the way.

"I'm back."

((Tiiiiiiime skiiiiiiiiip!))

When Fraze had returned to the station, he put in for leave. He had a few weeks' worth saved up. He asked for three days.

((Hunty, I'm leaving the where, when, and what up to you.))

[Huntress]

((Copout xD))

"And no dilly-dallying," Bloody Mary warned. He was sitting in the middle of the floor somewhere in the hallway of the Fleet, surrounded by the rest of the dark blue gang, and counting them. They'd assured him that everyone was present, but no sensible leader buys that without making sure in person. The rest of the crew had been granted permission to look around the place and buy souvenirs or something, provided they didn't do anything to explode the relations between the two guilds at the last moment.

"No eavesdropping," Hunty warned back with a grimace. The meepit stuck his tongue out at her and the door slid shut.

It was a conference room of some sort, mostly furnished with a big table and a number of chairs. There was also a huge window that overlooked the moon's surface and the vast expanse of stars above it. It was the perfect scene for delivering an Evil Overlord Speech while looking out of that window... come to think of it, the space station did include one of the aforementioned overlords, didn't it? Heck, she'd fought that overlord not that long ago, hadn't she?

Bugger. She really hadn't thought this through. Coming to a space station millions of miles away from home in the middle of airless void, a place she'd known to contain one rather out-of-whack Commander and one extremely out-of-whack temporal bike of a Horseman, not to mention loads of zap-zappy equipment - and she was only armed with a crossbow and a gang of meepits. And what for? To keep an eye on a traitor who probably deserved everything that was coming to him, to steal a book to pay for their ride, something that was unheard of in piratey regions to start with, and to play diplomats on a board she wasn't familiar with and with dice she'd never held before. This had easily been the stupidest thing she'd done in her career, come to think of it.

She shot a sideways glance at Fraze, then gave a quiet 'bwah', rubbed her forehead, and landed in one of the chairs. There was a reason, fair enough. Bloody Mary had been right. When had she managed to get her head messed up like that? It was pretty much impossible to tell in retrospect.

'hwell, here it was now, and she intended to sort it out.

"It generally pays to assume that they eavesdrop anyway," she said, lifting her feet on the table. It'd been a long day on her feet, not even counting the bike-induced jetlag. "That's the thing with meepits. I can trust them with my life, or a fortune in gold, or our last water supplies, but I can't trust them with an order. They always do what they think is best, and the problem there is, whatever they do usually turns out to be best, so I can't even argue with 'em in that sense..."

She gave Fraze one of her drilling-through-skulls looks. "Or rather, they do what's right. Not necessarily the same as what's best. And vice versa. 'fcourse, I'm a pirate. We're not good at metaphysics. We just do whatever seems to be a good idea at the time and keep going until karma catches up with us, and then we just go 'uh, parley?' and wiggle out of it by any means necessary to do something else that looks like a good idea. Whereas you guys up here - surrounded by all this space and all those opportunities - restrict yourselves behind all those regulations and rules and numbered laws and orders and whatever else. Tell me... do you actually like having all those rules and regulations and... right things around, or have you ever thought of just letting 'em go hang?"

[Fraze]

This was a rather familiar room. Right there, that's where the Commander had slammed Fraze into the wall. There was where he gave his speech about going to the planet and liberating the noble demons or some such. Now it was a private councilroom. Go figure.

"Tell me... do you actually like having all those rules and regulations and... right things around, or have you ever thought of just letting 'em go hang?"

"Have I ever told you how I came to this station?" Fraze asked in response. Knowing the answer was no, he continued. "I'm not from the NTWF. I'm from an area in...oh, that vicinity." He pointed to an area of the sky and drew small circles around it with his finger. "I joined their space forces. I was lured in by the whole See The Universe! spiel. Out of curiosity, I signed up for their special ops program. I was your typical Shows Great Promise. I rose quickly through the ranks. My first eight or ten missions went off flawlessly. To this day, I've only failed one.

"It would be narratively fitting to say that it was the most important mission of my career, but that wouldn't be true. I was given double duty as bodyguard and general observer to this science team in space. That's where I first got the silver suit, so I could float around their station. Y'see, I don't know if that'll make any sense to you, but they were making a weapon out of a black hole. Think of...oh..."
He paused here, trying to figure out both how much he could say and how much he could make Hunty understand.

"Think of a bomb. An enormous bomb, one that could obliterate the NTWF like a clod of dirt thrown at the ground. That would be a firecracker in comparison to the thing these people were making. They were scientists, their intentions were ultimately good, but they were so driven by the hope of discovery that they didn't realize the magnitude of what they were doing. I was to watch to make sure nothing went wrong, to protect them in case they were discovered, and--as a last resort--to seal this bomb away if something should happen.
"Of course, as is narratively fitting, something happened. Just a few hours before they finished making this thing--a singularity sphere, they called it--there was a critical malfunction aboard the station. I had gotten to know these people over the past month or so. They were my friends, I had come to share their hopes and excitement. But I was given the order that, if something should go wrong, I should first collect the weapon and then do what I could to save the team. I had to follow these orders. I got the weapon safe and secure, but I didn't have time to help the team. They died begging for my help. That ringing never really left my ears.
"I followed my orders perfectly that day. I did everything I was supposed to, but the thing still went wrong. I admit, if I hadn't followed those orders, the result could have been amazingly worse. The thing could have exploded. If that happened, it would have reduced everything within 5 AU to dust and atomic vapor, and everything within a light-year to variably-sized rubble. The most bitter irony, though--the way my orders were worded, I had to keep the thing with me until a safe way to detonate it could be found."
Fraze inadvertently rubbed the lump on his left shoulder, where a certain box--really a link between two universes--resided. He looked out the window again. He wondered for a second why the stars were twinkling oddly, before realizing there were tears in his eyes.

"The higher-ups still needed a scapegoat. They couldn't officially do anything to me because I hadn't done anything wrong. So they shooed me away as best they could. For one mission after another, I was far away from everyone and everything for weeks, sometimes months, at a time. Floating through the void of space with nothing but my own thoughts and whatever books and activities I had downloaded beforehand, while the higher-ups tried to find a more permanent way to hide me away. At that point, I didn't really care. In fact, I wanted to be alone. Lessened the guilt. After a couple years of the top brass not knowing what to do with me, I finally decided to help them and applied for an exchange program. Gleeful, they sent me to the most remote, backward, tail-end-of-nowhere space program they could find, and that's how I ended up here. That was the best choice I've ever made, and it came about ultimately from the worst.
"Long way of answering your question. Yes, sometimes I do just want to screw the rules and orders and forms signed in triplicate with blood and sealed with your soul and just become some chaotic neutral vigilante roaming the stars. But I know the rules exist for a reason. Following the rules caused the thing I regret more than anything else in my life, but I know that neither I nor anything in a one light-year radius of somewhere way out there would be here now if I hadn't followed those rules. I'm trying to redeem myself now--in my own eyes. But most of the time, I can only do that by following the rules. Of course, it's not something I'm very good at. I have an unfortunate--or perhaps fortunate depending on your perspective--tendency to bend the rules to suit both my own needs and the situation at hand. That's kinda how Spacefleet got involved in the whole mess a few months back. Usually, I trust my own judgment over the orders I'm given. Usually. There are some things that are too important for me to give any independent thought. Of course, there are also things that are too important for me not to give any independent thought."

"You speak of the vastness of space. It is more vast and empty than the human mind can possibly imagine. A light-year, you know the length of that? Not many people do, even up here. Imagine traveling all the way around your planet's equator. Imagine traveling around it two hundred and thirty-six million times, and you've almost traveled one light-year. It's about 3 light years from here to the nearest star, 100,000 light-years from one end of this galaxy to the other, and 2.5 million light-years to the nearest neighboring galaxy. And these galaxies? Imagine two motes of dust, nearly bumping into each other, in a room three miles wide. That's how large they are compared to the observable universe.
"In total, I've spent nearly two years of my life in this emptiness--and not always from inside a ship, no. I've spent months speeding through space in that suit, sometimes jumping in the little box to get food or just to have something solid to land on. All these travels, and I've never been more than three hundred light-years from where I was born. Chained freedom, that's what it is. You're all too familiar with that, I'm sure. It's a romantic notion to think that, if those chains weren't there, I could drift as far and wide as I pleased. But enough of the romanticism--this stuff requires money, supplies. Things I don't have, and things very few people have. If you're just one person, or a handful of people, you simply can't go much beyond civilization, or your supplies will run out. Larger vessels, though, with fifty people or more? You can fit a hydroponics station on them, they'll produce their own food. But again, those are expensive, so none but the very rich are able to own those privately. If you want to go on one of those and explore the universe, you'll need to join some organization--governmental or otherwise--and follow their rules. Scavenging or attacking passing ships isn't feasible, either--if you're more than around 100 light-years of any planet--and that's several weeks' travel time for most ships--you can easily go years without passing within scanning range of another ship. Even piracy would be limited to what you might call the coastal waters, no sailing through the emptiness of space away from everything and everyone.
"It's not only difficult to be a true renegade, it's nigh impossible. The closest you could reasonably hope to get would be to go to some colonial world at the edge of the human sphere of influence. Maybe set up a bar and serve drinks to the tired people whose greatest hope is that the as-of-yet unnamed planet will become affluent by the time their great-grandchildren start having kids. To Boldly Go Where No Man Has Gone Before, someone once said. Split infinitive aside, it's impossible without the help of whatever Institution is in power.
"This world, the one you come from, the one I've served for not quite a year now. It's beautiful, isn't it? Grand and gorgeous and magical. Most people have never heard of it, those who have think it's just a quaint outpost. A first-world country, if you will, but one with practically nothing to contribute to the interstellar society. This entire place could vanish from existence, and the people back where I'm from would barely bat an eye and mark me as 'killed in the line of duty.' If that. I wouldn't be surprised if they destroyed all records of my service the moment I arrived here. Yet, I'm happier here, at this pimple on the tail-end of nowhere, than I've ever been before."

Fraze paused. He was thirsty from talking for so long, so he got a cup of water from a dispenser in the wall.

"And you. Do you ever want a bit more structure? I know, sounds stupid at first. But really. You're always on the run, you've always got people chasing you. Does it ever get tiring, always sleeping with one eye open?"

[Huntress]

"You're always on the run, you've always got people chasing you. Does it ever get tiring, always sleeping with one eye open?"

Hunty had listened to the entire monologue with a general air of curiosity and confusion, trying to imagine all those worlds, all those distances Fraze was talking about. It wasn't all that hard, actually. There were parallels, difficult as they may have been to spot for anyone who couldn't look for them.

She'd also spent the last minutes balancing the chair on its back legs. Now it landed on all fours with a thump as she smiled.

"Kheh. Those are the words of a guy who's spent months floating in space, sure enough. See, the thing is... how'm I gonna explain this..." The chair went backwards again as she waved her hand at the planet looming outside the window. "That place out there, yeah, it looks small when compared to the universe and everything. But when you're down there, on grass root level as it were... it doesn't show. When you're out at sea, there's no room for anything else because the sea becomes the whole world for anyone who sails it. And yes, pillaging might be tied to coastal villages, but we can't very well hang around the coasts for a longer time because they'll be alert for the next couple months. We've been on the Big Blue often enough, alone for days on end, with no other ships in sight. But the thing is, we don't think all that much." The chair landed again. "Because we're a crew, and we're constantly surviving. See, when you're in the middle of the storm and it's pouring down and some rope has just shaved the skin off your knuckles and you're hanging on to a line for dear life lest it breaks loose and the boom brings half the rigging down, well, that's not your moment to think 'so what's this all about, in general?' Even plain sailing isn't as plain as people think. There's nothing predictable out at sea. Even when everything's running smoothly, you can't tell when the wind might turn, and when the wind turns, it'll send the mainsail boom flying across the bridge, and if you're not ready, it'll lop your head clean off. Saw it happen once, before my pirate days. He was a nice lad, you know, one of those keen as mustard, full of hope types, but you just don't pay attention when you're dreaming about a heroic life out at sea, and he didn't react fast enough. S'why I'm always at the wheel myself, even after I became the captain. Don't want to see anything like that again, and it keeps me focused and alert."

The chair was creaking in protest now. Hunty let it land again. "Bottom line is, we're not being chased, not until we see sails on the horizon, and only then do we deal with it. We live in the present. We deal with the future when it comes and we don't care much about the past because it can't be changed, but the present is what makes an impact and therefore that's what matters to us." She sent Fraze another skull-drilling glance. "Mark you, I know what you mean. I've done things in the past, some what-ifs and woulda-coulda-shouldas that sometimes come back late at night before sleep and in sleep. But I can't afford to let them live with me all the time because there'll always be that mainsail boom in the present and if I let that catch me by surprise, I'll have neither a future nor a past."

The chair went creeeak again. It looked rather like the girl was mostly focused on getting the creaking just right and talking only to occupy her mouth.

"See, that's the thing about pirates. Freedom. Most people who talk about it don't get it right. They think it's freedom to have no security in the future and the freedom to live in poor hygiene and die of too much rum and the freedom to get themselves killed in any random battle or hanged for their crimes. And they might be right, 'fcourse, but that's not what it's about in essence. It's mostly freedom from yourself." creeeee-eeeak. "This chained freedom you're talking about," she raised her hand to tap her forehead, "it's up here."

The chair lost its patience and tipped over. Hunty pushed her hands against the floor and swung herself to a handstand.

"I've seen people who could sit in a prison with their minds free as a bird," she continued upside down. "You can put a man in chains but you can't chain his thoughts unless he lets them to. And," Fraze got an upside down smile, "I've seen people who could float through boundless, limitless voids with their minds caged in. Whoever designed these chairs was a genius, most of 'em smack you in the ribs when they tip over."

She got up. "Sounds to me like you have too much past and not enough present. If this was up to me, I'd presribe you a big dose of the Big Blue but, y'know, can't chain a man's mind. Or unchain it."

[Fraze]

"I'd presribe you a big dose of the Big Blue but, y'know, can't chain a man's mind. Or unchain it."
Fraze had a sudden longing to go planetside and be nowhere for a few weeks. "The chains are purely mental, you've got that right. And if that were all of it, I'd have no problem ripping them off. But those chains are attached to a very physical ball, and that's the problem. Come to think of it," he continued. "I've never really told anyone the full story, and I'll never inflict it on you again. No one wants to hear your angst, that's a lesson I've learned well. As much as it stays with me, I try not to give it much thought. But on the other hand, I've got too much that I need to do to have no plan whatsoever."

Fraze stretched. Against his will, the stretch took over and expanded itself; soon, he found himself arching far over backward. When his head was no more than a foot from the floor, he let himself drop into a backbend. Pushing forward with his hips, he lifted himself once more to a standing position and shook his limbs.

"Outlaws. That was the name given to those with only freedom as their guide." The phrase sounded almost hallowed, like a recital. "Our worlds aren't all that different, but our outlooks are. We could learn a lot from one another."

No one's gonna draw you a map. You have to walk your own path.
The voice came once more from his mind. Was that a hint?

"You know, I just might take you up on your offer. I think I saw an opening for inter-guild ambassadors somewhere."

Something nagged at his mind.
"You wanted the Gem, yes? I think that was our deal." With that, Fraze dug around in one pocket for a small, recognizable box. With a press of the thumb, he had it unlocked. Yes, right where he had left it. He vanished into the box, reappearing several seconds later. "Catch."