Pangs

Waiting for the Marauders to arrive at the ambush spot can take such a long time. Alicia sits up from her bed. Her rest is rarely restful. Just memories. Rarely are they good ones. Being awake and waiting was sometimes slightly better. Less painful, but longer. Everything is longer when she’s conscious. The ship they are expecting shouldn’t be showing up until tomorrow, but marauders rarely keep to tight schedules. Which meant everyone on the Lone Wolf had to be ready to act on an hour’s notice.

Alicia stares at herself for a moment, then goes to head towards the bridge. Partway there, she runs into Paul, heading back to his bunk. “You good?” he asks.

“No,” she replies, “Waiting is frustrating.”

“Don’t bug Les too much, ‘kay? I need my beauty sleep and I don’t want you to ruin that for me,” Paul tells his boss.

“Fine,” Alicia sighs out, shaking her head, “But just for that, I’m not going to let you kill anyone in cold blood during this job.” Paul groans as he continues into the dorms. Alicia turns around and starts heading for the gym instead. Because, like it or not, Paul is right. This wait is stressful for everyone, and she doesn’t need to bring her hunger and pain for violence making everyone other than Leslie feel more anxious.

Heading into the locker room for the gym, Alicia strips down and gets into her workout gear. She takes a moment to look at what remains of her scars. Worn away by time and cosmetic surgeries, and yet, there they were. And there they would always be. She walks into the gym. Only Kate is in, relaxing on one of the benches by the weights, reading a book. “Gregor left a few minutes ago,” she tells Alicia, who shrugs. After all, she was here to blow off steam, not talk with her team.

“Warming up,” the massive monster says instead of replying. “Afterwards, interested in a spar?”

Kate laughs as Alicia steps up onto the treadmill and begins to run. The engineer adds an answer, “Not now, but you can ask again after your little jog. I might be bored, frustrated, or desperate enough.” A smile breaks on the monster’s face.

Alicia is nearly done with the running portion of her warmups when the intercom comes on. “Welcome party fer people I don’ like much,” Captain Leslie Thomas says.

Kate looks up at the monster running on the treadmill. “Guessing that’s for you, Alicia,” she says.

Alicia hops off the treadmill. Stupid timings. “Are you going to be alright here all alone, Katie?” she asks with a smirk.

“Probably hit the Canteen,” she replies, smirking right back. “Gregor’ll be there right about now.”

“No he won’t,” Alicia replies, pulling up her comm unit. “Gregor, get geared up. Friendlies at the gate Cap wants us to scare and I’m being mean to Kate.”

There is a grunt in reply. Alicia, on the other hand, doesn’t bother to change. She traces her fingers along the scars. They are scarier than any uniform she could put on. Because they tell anyone looking at her who she is. What she is. She can feel the pain as she traces the lines across the neck. Shaking her head to pull herself out of it, she hurries across the ship towards the shuttle bay.

Captain Leslie Thomas is waiting for her. “Really, ya didn’t want to change into somethin’ more intimidating?” he asks as Alicia enters the bay.

“Which of the people that we don’t like is it, oh Captain, ser?” she replies, mocking him by saluting.

“Just fer that, I ain’t telling ya.” Then after a moment, he adds, “You alone, or’d ya call someone in with ya?”

As though on cue, the strange, cloaked and raggedy form of Gregor drops down onto a crate, his tattered outfit spilling out and down it. He drops to the ground beside them and gives Alicia a silent nod. The pair of them made the five-foot eleven, mustachioed former linebacker that is their captain look downright tiny.

A shuttle pulls to a stop in their bay, expertly piloted. Then the hatch opens. And as soon as the trio within step out, Alicia can see why Leslie had been looking for any excuse not to tell her who they were meeting with. Paul’s whatever they were to one another, Wilson “Wills” Williamson leads the way, followed by Ex-Commodore Selina Hellers and Ryan Luck.

Wills looks across the bay, disappointed. Probably because Paul is missing. Not his fault they called on the Lone Wolf during Paul’s nap time. Ryan smiles, a heavy repeater resting across his shoulders. “Alicia,” he says with a nod, “Been a minute.”

Alicia smiles back at him. “Maybe even two. Still a shit shot?” she asks.

Ryan laughs. “That doesn’t matter so much, as long as you fire in the right direction for long enough.” Luck clearly had not changed since they’d been working for the Service together. Good for him, Alicia supposes.

Hellers makes eye contact with Alicia and Alicia holds the gaze. There can be a lot said in a shared look, but this look didn’t say anything. In fact, it is quite the opposite, it was a gaze of silence. Then, pointedly, Hellers turns to Captain Thomas. “So Les,” she says, trying her best to fully ignore Alicia’s presence, “Sorry about this but I didn’t want any record.”

“I know. Ya like bein’ a pain in my rear far too much to talk over the airwaves like a normal person,” Captain Thomas replies.

Hellers shakes her head. Wills takes the silence as an opportunity to interject, asking Gregor, “So, how’s Paul doing?”

“Sleeping,” Gregor answers coldly, staring. Wills waits for any sort of elaboration, but none comes. It’s one of the many things she appreciates about the big, scary man. He isn’t one for using any more words than strictly necessary.

Ryan shakes his head. “Sorry, big guy, you can just ignore Wills. He gets this way sometimes.”

Gregor looks at the former marine, sizing him up. “Gregor,” he says, nodding his tattered hood.

“Ryan Luck,” Ryan replies, “Currently a Freeporter, former Service Marine. Used to serve with Alicia, back when I was a kid.”

Gregor’s demeanor does not change. “I know,” he says coldly. Alicia smirks. She never told him, but the man can tell when someone’s trained. He needs to, so he can beat them. And when push comes to shove, she has yet to see a kind of combat training that he can’t overcome.

Hellers finally takes back control of the conversation. “We of the council had some questions about Marauder movements, if you don’t mind.”

Leslie strokes his moustache. “I don’t know a thing about any o’ tha Marauder movements,” Leslie insists, somewhere partway between a lie and a joke, “The Lone Wolf’s just a freeship transport.” Technically speaking, what they do is against the Freeports’ code of conduct, sometimes. It’s one of the reasons they tend to destroy the Marauder pirates they encounter that don’t join them and aren’t worth anything.

“Of course, el Capitan,” Hellers plays along mockingly, “And still, we were wondering if you mind us asking some questions about their movements nonetheless.”

Leslie smiles wide. “Anything for the Freeport Defense Council,” he lies. This time, however, Alicia is fairly certain Hellers doesn’t know it is a lie. After all, even though they’re questionably legal by the Freeports’ standards, they do generally keep themselves for the good of Freeport space as a whole. Alicia just knows that Leslie would never risk any of his sources among the Marauders for something as pointless as an FDC request. At least, not without significant evidence that something bad is happening.

“Surely you’ve heard about the attacks on Corporate meetings of late?” Hellers asks, “Have you heard anything about whether some Marauders are behind it?”

“Far as my limited knowledge’s concerned, yer robut’s got the marauders all paranoid. They don’t know yer robut’s yers, and they don’t know that it’s a robut, so they’re out here blaming each other and striking out at everything. No way they doing something that organized.”

Alicia frowns. Robot, she muses. Interesting. Since when did the Freeports have an artificial being that significant? But that isn’t the focus of her thoughts, isn’t what is causing her frown. She leans into her captain and whispers, “Any chance it’s a crew or two being hired by someone?” Because the fact is, you wouldn’t need a lot of crews banded together to fake an insurgency. And once that’s done well enough, a real one could arise. After all, the marauders are getting more paranoid and heavily armed, one spark of the corporations moving against them as a whole, they might start striking out in earnest.

Captain Leslie Thomas frowns, as though he had not thought of that. “That would be possible. And it’d be a problem,” he says, louder than his massive crewmate.

Hellers hears his reply. “What is it?” she asks.

Leslie nudges Alicia, and begrudgingly she answers her former friend. “It might not be anything right now, but if an interested party is hiring Marauders to strike at the corporations in an organized fashion, it’s only a matter of time before they make an organized response.” She lets the Freeport Defense Councilor figure out the rest. Hellers was good at tactics, she’d realize where Alicia was going with her train of thought.

“Less than ideal,” Hellers states, coldly as the reasonings and movements twirl about behind her eyes. After a moment she adds, “And if the FDC needs it, can we count on your support in battle, Les?”

Leslie smirks. “What could we do ta help yer grand forces? We but a humble transport.”

Hellers chuckles. “We’ll give you free license to trade your, let’s call them scavenged goods, across the Freeports. In legitimate markets.”

Leslie’s face turns serious. He’s in negotiations now, and one should never joke during negotiations. People might take it the wrong way. “And we get scavenging rights all across Freeport Space, not just in the Gray Zones.”

Hellers shakes her head. “Can’t do that, though we can give you limited rights in Freeport Space outside of any ports’ self-governed zones.” Then after a pause, she adds, “But only if you aid substantially in the efforts.”

“Define substantially,” Alicia states.

Hellers ignores the monster, so Leslie repeats her request. “And what exactly counts as substantial aid?”

“Take or destroy at least one capital ship or higher during one of our battles,” the Freeport aligned Ex-Commodore says.

Leslie looks at Alicia, who shrugs, then at Gregor, whose face is barely visible under his hood and makes no effort to communicate any feelings. Captain Thomas turns his gaze back to Hellers. “Reasonable enough,” he says, and shakes the woman’s hand, before smiling and adding the entirely unnecessary, “Though I don’t know how a lowly freetrader like us would manage such a great feat.”

Hellers laughs. “Well, Capitan, I’m sure you’ll be able to think of something.” She turns and starts to walk back into the transport shuttle. Ryan gives Gregor a nod. “Nice to meet you,” he says, then to Alicia, he adds, “And it’s good seeing you again. Don’t die, okay?”

Alicia gives him a lukewarm smile. “Not sure I can,” she offers.

Ryan laughs as he follows Selina Hellers up the ramp onto the shuttle. Selina looks back at Alicia one last time, like she wants to say something before hurrying back through the hatch and shutting it. The shuttle takes off, heading back to her ship. Gregor looks over at Leslie. “Trust them?” he asks. Alicia would almost feel offended he didn’t ask her, but then she realized he had seen that interaction between Alicia and Selina, so he knew better than to trust either of their opinions on the subject, whatever those opinions might be. Smart cookie, Gregor.

“To hold up their end o’ the bargain? Sure. Not like they can stop us from operating in non-controlled Freeport Space. ‘Bout anything else? Not far as I can spit.”

Alicia smiles, pretending to be friendly as they start to walk back into the bowels of the ship, walking up towards the bridge. “Now, oh Captain, do tell me about this vaguely referred to robot of the Freeport Defense Council.”

“I hate you,” Leslie complains as Gregor peels off to head back to eating. Then, Leslie looks around to see if anyone is within earshot before he finally acquiesces. “Well, it all started a few years ago, with a warship docking in Portus Libertorum...”