A Pirate in Distress - Part 4

Tomoe's hands trembled while she scrubbed them frantically under her bathroom's running faucet. The blood she washed off gave the water a diluted, rusty colour. She took a deep breath and stared at her own reflection in the mirror. 'Control yourself!' the young corporate executive ordered herself.

She was the last citizen alive of Garuda Enterprises management and she had a score to settle, no matter how much it made her want to retch. All of the small Ishukone subsidiary had been lost when the Forge Princess and her convoy was destroyed by the Stormchasers all those years ago. What was left of the freight company's assets after liquidation, Tomoe had dedicated to rescue the last thing she had left: Her corporation's honour.

Bounty hunters, agents and spies she had paid to track down the leaders of the Stormchasers. One by one they had been found and killed, by herself. Just as she would now finally kill Keram Themas, the last of the pirates who had taken away her corporate family, her livelihood, her very place in society.

Her neocom chimed and she answered quickly. There was business to be done and nothing shall distract her from her goals. That was the Civire way. 'Speak.' she commanded briskly when she recognized the commcode of her last remaining personal bodyguard.

'Executive.' the deep rumble of the powerful Brutor greeted her. 'The ship of an Amarrian representative has hailed us. He wishes to speak with you.' The Minmatar was too much of a mercenary to be concerned with the idealistic struggles of his people, but still the revulsion was audible in Tharessar's voice. 'He claims to be a Lictor of the Ministry of Internal Order.' the man added.

'Tell him that Keram Themas is mine and send him away!' Tomoe ordered her bodyguard and moved to disconnect.

The Matari caught her a second before she did. 'He does not want Themas. He is offering a substantial sum for information the pirate is supposed to have.'

'Always the mercenary.' Tomoe thought. She could need liquid assets though. It could not hurt to hear the Amarrian's offer. If he came from such a high position there might be an opportunity for further negotiation. Maybe even a trade commission in Amarr space. Enough to build Garuda Enterprises back up if she played it right.

'Allow them to dock with us. I will meet him in the boardroom at the top of the hour. Tell him he has five minutes to convince me.' She trusted that her Minmatar guard would take special pleasure in making the Amarr government official wait.

Then Tomoe disconnected and began to make herself presentable for what could be the most promising business meeting she had conducted in a long time.

***

'Uooti na'jakka!' Kassina cursed as she failed to bypass the interface of the docking computer database for the fourth time.

Alira reclined in the single chair of the small dockyard maintenance station they had commandeered, with her legs up on a dormant console, and sighed.

'What?!' the armour-clad Deteis woman growled over her shoulder after slamming her fist onto the operations desk she was working on. Optronic cables and elements glowed from the opening she had cut into the workstation's console.

Alira shrugged with her hands folded behind the back of her head. 'Well, seems you might not be so good with computers is all.' she smugly commented and looked up at the low ceiling of the small room. Then she dropped her legs to the ground and smiled sweetly at the Caldari woman with narrowed eyes. A smile flavoured with a strong dose of sarcasm. 'Maybe some Matari geek could help you?' she offered.

Kassina Vikkonen rose to her full height and looked down at the Sebiestor engineer coldly. 'I could force you to help.' she threatened.

Alira looked up at her unimpressed. 'What? How? By breaking my fingers so I can't work on those optronics anymore?' she wondered 'Or by beating me until I am half dead and certainly unable to operate a computer?' she leaned back again in her chair. 'Do your worst.' she waved the threat away with a casual gesture.

Inwardly Alira was afraid of that powerfully built Caldari warrior, but somehow the fear had made her feel all light headed. 'That is how Keram must be dealing with it' she thought and felt a strange pang inside of her when she thought of the uncouth auburn haired Amarr outlaw and his wolfish grin.

Kassina grimaced and put her fists against her hips. 'Alright, speak. What do you want?' she asked.

Alira leapt from her seat and grinned at the taller woman. 'Now we are talking business.' she inclined her head to one side and pointed at the Deteis woman's neck. 'I see you are a capsuleer.' she opened. 'What kind of ship do you fly?'

Quirking a brow Alira ventured a guess 'You're a fighter, so I guess a Drake.' the other woman looked unimpressed.

'A Ferox maybe?' Kassina fixed her with an annoyed pale-eyed stare.

'Maybe not quite your style.' Alira waved it away casually and looked the short haired blond directly into her icy eyes. 'I am offering you a Tengu strategic cruiser. According to your specifications. Right off the assembly line tomorrow.' she said, emphasizing her words for effect.

The Caldari woman's face remained an implacable facade, but she replied 'And in return you want what?'

Alira inclined her head again and smiled disarmingly. 'Nothing more than you want.' she answered and folded her arms in front of her chest. 'You said nobody is going to take in Keram Themas except you. And you will.' suddenly Alira's narrow features turned deadly earnest. 'Only I get to decide who you deliver him to.'

Kassina's face became overcast with an expression that was even more unyielding than her usual glacial mien. 'I want two fully approved Pilot License Extensions with it.' she declared rather than offer it for negotiation.

Alira smiled again but her green eyes remained hard as emeralds 'You shall have them.'

For a moment the two women were just looking at each other. One tall, armoured, broadly built, with short, almost-white hair and equally pale eyes. The other one a lithe, androgynous figure with fiery red locks and pale green irises, dressed in tight shirt, a heavy sleeveless utility jacket, boots and working trousers.

'Deal.' the Caldari finally announced and stretched out her hand.

'Deal!' Alira confirmed and joined hands with Kassina. The neocoms on their wrists exchanged coded signatures and sealed an agreement between the two capsuleers.

Kassina drew her hand back and pointed at the console 'Now get me every ship out of that database that belongs to an unaffiliated Caldari corporation and has left the station in the last two hours.'

Alira got to work.

***

Keram knew that clinically he was already dead. The wrenching spasm that had coursed through his flayed and ruined body had told him that his heart was at it's last beats. Unmistakably, despite the excruciation he had undergone, it announced the end of his life. For the short time his brain still clung to consciousness he marveled at the experience.

He had died so many times before, in his capsule aboard a ship, but in those moments you never really got to experience death up until the very end. The remapping happens before that, and you wake up to a new body. The cloning services advertised that no capsuleer will ever have to experience the sensation of dying, that they will switch seamlessly from one state of being to another. It never quite worked like that, but still, it was not like actual death. Not like he had felt it now.

But they had brought him back, connected a medical stabilizer unit to his body, and made him suffer through more. The machine kept his heart beating, fed him blood which he could lose again through his multiple wounds and kept his nervous system stimulated enough for him to feel pain. He could not even completely lose consciousness or sleep. but he hallucinated as his neurons fired randomly in drug induced frenzy.

He was back on Alira's ship laughing in his quarters. An old friend had found him on the fluid router networks and they were talking about dead people.

'... and then I found this guy in the CONCORD registry. You wont believe it Keram. He is a survivor of one of your earlier kills' said Arrio 'Airhead' Kasozu, one of the few from the old Stormchaser crowd who remained alive and well.

'He wrote this public piece on what it means to be a capsuleer.' the fine featured Achura pirate continued. 'All righteous and such. Here I'll send it, you have to read it. I laughed so hard I almost choked on the drink I was having.' the Caldari chuckled as he transferred the link.

'Damn, the poor boy might even want to seek me out for revenge.' Keram joked with his old mate as he read the piece by the young Gallente capsuleer full of misguided ideals and ridiculous overconfidence.

The memory took Keram's wandering mind further back in time, to the day he got expelled from the capsuleer program of the Imperial Academy.

'Again you have failed me.' his father had berated him out on the University Plaza of Dam-Torsad, the capital city of the Amarr Empire 'You, my only son. Our family could have been raised to Holder status, maybe we could have gotten a court commission for your sister, but your despicable behaviour has cost us that future.'

Keram shrugged. 'They want me to fly idiotic training missions in a simple frigate while the hangar is full of better ships I can already fly. So I took one to prove it.' He remembered the offended looks of the passers-by as he spat on the ground. 'I am a capsuleer now, not someone's slaver dog.'

He had always hated slaver dogs. Vile stinking beasts with no will of their own. Viciousness without reason. Mere instruments of their masters. For him they represented everything he hated about the hypocritical straightjacket of Amarr society.

Somewhere beneath all the pain that filled his world, Keram still remembered the hard slap his father had given him at that moment. Somehow it had hurt more that everything he experienced during his recent ordeal. 'You stole Imperial property!' Keram's father had shouted at him. 'Have you got any idea how much it cost me in bribes to let you get away with a simple expulsion?'

Keram had stood there for a second as his cheek burned, helpless rage seething inside of him. When it sought it's release he had clenched his hand into a fist and struck his own father so hard that the old man was flung to the ground by the blow.

When the security guards had come to drag him off, Keram had screamed at his father. How he couldn't care less about the family's status, the court, his sister, the Empire even God. 'You all think you are so high and mighty, but you are just as imprisoned here as your slaves!' he had shouted and struggled before the guards finally incapacitated him with an electric stunner.

His father's bribes had not gotten him out of the re-education institute, but at least that experience had prepared him well for situations like the one he was in now.