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Interstellar Flight (Mr. M & missedstations)

On a small planet like Pyrrhia, it was remarkably easy to just avoid the spaceport. How? By walking around the side of the building and slipping past the unguarded fence gate. The settlement was large enough for trade, but couldn't really be called a city. Still, near the port there was a business section of town, and that included little cafes, and so they found their way to an under-used teahouse, where Taggart tossed some of Ilena's silver trade coins to some kids to get them to vacate the most tactically defensible booth in the place, where they sat and discussed the situation. File-sharing between her bracers and his HALO took place with maximum encryption (limited only by his system; hers was capable of much more) and served to illustrate the points she was explaining. Finally, he sat back, reviewing the last of the holographic displays, and sighed. He looked around before leaning toward her, voice dropping low and soft.

"You're absolutely right, it doesn't look good. Drugs are one thing, but if that is sentient trafficking going on, that's illegal under just about every charter there is. Admittedly, out on the Rim, some of the planets aren't technically Confederated, and so they kind of look the other way on certain things, but even still, he's a Confederacy citizen, and chargeable. Unless... he's relying on your connections and influence to get him clear, just as he must have been relying on it to avoid customs checks. If he wasn't involved in it before he met you, your marriage made a perfect cover for him." And, he thought, protection that good would have been sufficient motivation for a lot of people to pursue a marriage in the first place, and keep up a charade for years on end. The advantages would have been too good not to do it.

He waved a hand, dismissing the thought. "But regardless, something like that doesn't just happen randomly, you need some major grease to move actual people, or the kind of other cargoes he's been carrying, if your interpretations are correct. He's not small-time. That means one of the bigger syndicates out here, maybe someone with tendrils all the way to the CW. The Jade Ring, the Nebula Gang, maybe even one of the yakuza. Certainly large enough to be at risk if something like this came to light."

"Something happened to your husband, and if it wasn't an accident, it was a result of his dealings. And even if they had nothing to do with it, you asking around after him seems to them like a risk of exposure. So they have to find some way of dealing with you so you don't uncover specifics that could endanger them. You've been spreading the cash around, and making no secret of your social status, so even if they don't know who you are, exactly, they know they can't buy you off. So they're trying to scare you off now, which means we're getting closer to... something. Whatever the case, it's more important to them. And if scaring you off doesn't work, the next steps they take are going to be more... permanent."

He looked at her steadily. "These people... they're not civilized, in the sense that you think of it. They are utterly pragmatic, and what gets in their way is dealt with in the simplest and most efficient manner available. As such, your status and influence is entirely immaterial to them. Your money may have some effect, but compared to the danger of being caught doing... whatever it is they're hiding, even money may not be a factor. It all depends on how big it is, how dangerous for them to get caught. And we can't know that until we find out, and by then it's too late to get clear."

He shook his head. "I'm sure you weren't expecting to find this sort of thing when you went looking, but now that you know, what is it you want to do?"
 
'If he has been using my name and influence for that, then...' She tapped her nails on the table in a regular rhythm, almost like a drumbeat. 'I, for one, want to kill him if he is still alive.' There was a thoroughly evil glint in her eye. Ilena was mortally offended that someone had dared to use her family influence for that. And how could she have been so blind?

'I do not think that it could have been an accident. Accidents are usually noted and investigated. The Lanterna simply disappeared. I wonder if I should call my uncle...' She was overall against that particular idea, but it would doubtless make things incredibly easy. Only thing she was sure she couldn't quite take would be being a laughing stock. 'This is a stain on my family's reputation. We do not do such sordid things.' Most people would snort to hear her say that. 'And we are not to be treated so lightly...'

'My family, they do not care what happened to James, but what happens to me and more importantly my name, that is important. I either need to sort this myself, or call in someone willing to do it for me. But that means I will have to admit to my family the magnitude of the error I have made... I think I am far too proud for that.'

She took a sip of her tea. 'But my problem is, with how much I know, I cannot leave it alone. It may all get back to me and ruin my reputation...' Ilena trailed off. 'I have tried to keep out of these things all my life, but it looks like now I may need a crash course. What is your advice?'
 
He nodded as she spoke, realizing she was thinking out loud as much as informing him. He was not the least surprised that she had an uncle that would be able to swim the same waters as whoever was warning them off. Every big rich family has to have someone. This was why he kept his face carefully composed when she mentioned a stain on her family's reputation; this was another trait of large Aristo families, the reputation of which was only as pure as money could buy.

When she asked his advice, he sighed. "All right, so you want to find James, regardless. But you want to save face with the family, and preserve your reputation, both for yourself and your relatives. I can back you up militarily, but quite frankly? I don't have the skills to suss out the secret dealings, here. I'm not in a crime syndicate. I've been hired by some, perhaps, but always under layers of deniability, so it didn't really matter. I'm a soldier, not a skulker; I have a head on my shoulders, but this isn't my arena." He looked at her directly and took a quick sip of his tea, as well. "Luckily, I got a guy for that."

"In my business, you get a lot of contracts through agents, or fixers as they're called on the street. They fix up the right people with the right jobs, the right equipment, and so forth. They are known for knowing what they shouldn't know, and keeping their mouths shut for the most part. I have working relationships with a number of such agents throughout the human sphere of influence, but of the ones that deal in shadier subject matter, I only trust a very few, and they're not exactly close at hand."

"I say this because my advice is to call off the search as we have been doing it now. James is found, he's just not found by us. Somebody knows where he is or what happened to him, and if they did their job anywhere near competently, we're not going to find out what by the methods we've been using. In my game, it's called an evolving mission objective. We pursued it one way until we found out something new, and now we pursue the new lead. And the way we do that in unfamiliar territory is by hiring a guide."

He leaned in close again, glancing around the tea room. "We'll jump back to some of the contacts I have in mind, sound them out. We can't predict what we'll do after that until we can determine what sort of information we can get. But that's not wasted time because, based on today, I need to train you a little bit." He shook his head. "A professional bodyguard would probably frown on that; you're the one to be kept safe, and getting into a fight is the last thing you ought to be doing. But I'm a soldier by trade, and there's only one of me, and we're going into unknown and very likely deadly situations. I'd rather have a rookie at my back than dead weight, if it comes to it. It's part of my job to make sure it doesn't, but we found out today that I can't always predict all eventualities."

"If you're willing," he said quietly, looking straight into her eyes, "I will teach you how to shoot and how to keep your head down. I'll teach you anything you want to know if it'll be useful to our mission. Because if you really want to follow this through, I have a sneaking suspicion that we're both going to have to draw on unexpected skills." He paused, and exhaled softly. "How's that for advice, ma'am?"
 
For some reason, she trusted this man. Most people would think her insane to have let him take her around the Rim, following obscure leads and entrusting both her life and her money with him. Lesser men would probably have robbed her. She listened thoughtfully, taking more sips of her tea. Some cheap infusion from a nearby system. It wasn't that unpleasant tasting: a light spicy taste.

'I see. I understand... This is not my world either. I can do little than to follow your advice. I have no problem with how long things will take: my business on the Jewel is a constant source of income, and takes very little maintenance. I can take as long as necessary to finish this.'

It was, undeniably, important to her. Pride was a matter of life and death in her social circle. To lose hers would mean that she would find it difficult to appear in public for at least a few years. Not that she appeared in public much, but it would be decidedly irritating to not have the option at all. And that man... She really wanted to show him that hell really hath no fury like a woman scorned. Whatever he had done to earn the anger of whatever idiot had paid those mercenaries, he would regret wronging her more, she vowed. For perhaps the first time in her life, she decided that what she felt did not particularly matter: only her honour did, if you can call it that.

'I am willing,' Ilena replied. 'I dislike being... Useless.' She looked forward to it, she realised. She tried to tell herself that it was because it would be a valuable life skill, but she just wanted to shoot things.

'If we shall be doing this together... Are there any upgrades that you may wish to make to your or the Tears's weaponry?' A different sort of shopping, but it would be nice to try that out too. It was sad to admit, but the trip was no longer just about her fun.
 
"Nothing here; this planet is nice enough to visit, but I wouldn't want to have technological upgrades done here. But since you offer, I'll have to consider if there's anything mission-specific; I wouldn't want to take advantage. Thank you, though."

Not too long later, the Tears lifted away, arrowing away from the planet. In the cockpit, Taggart trained most of the sensors behind them, scanning on all frequencies to make sure they weren't being followed. They weren't following the Lanterna's trail any longer, so whoever was worried about them ought to lose track of them. He didn't relax until they vanished into the Long Jump, and were safe in jump space. Then he sighed and turned to Ilena.

"All right. The Tears has extended jump capability; we can make it all the way to Adar's Gap in just two major jumps. We reorient at the layover point, and that'll lose anyone who might possibly have tracked us to there. So we're safe from pursuit. I'd send Lewellyn a message, but we'll beat it there. We'll just have to see what can be seen when we get there. It's not your uncle, but at least it's private."

He rubbed his hand over his shaved-smooth head, and smiled gently. "So we've got many days of dead time to fill. So, why don't you show me whatever weapon you packed? I'm almost certain you brought something along, I'd like to see what you've got."
 
Ilena had joined him in the cockpit as usual. To her, almost every lift-off and landing was still entertaining, though she was not quite sure she would ask anyone for flight controls anytime soon. This time she was a little more tense, so she didn't enjoy it as much as usually did. Really, the trip was no fun at all now.

'If uncle Nikolai found out what I was doing...' She smiled a little. 'He would be furious I never called him.' Her charming uncle who used to give her sweets when she was little with the same hand that he signed death sentences with. It had never mattered to her: those had been people she did not know.

When she was too old for sweets and toys, he had naturally switched to items of various lethality. It was truly unfortunate, in his view, if a young woman existed who did not have the tools necessary to cause death and mayhem. He had eventually sent her every single weapon in existence, before he decided it was best to just hire her some very competent bodyguards. Before that particular day, Ilena had absolutely no interest in any of that.

'Ah, just a pistol.' One that had come with the note: at least keep this on you. While she had packed it, it had somehow ended up at the bottom of her suitcase... She got up to go find it.
 
While she disappeared into her room to hunt up the pistol, Taggart locked down the cockpit controls for the jump and wandered out to the commons. After a moment, he ducked back to the armory and pulled a pistol, holster, and gear belt, along with a training magazine, while he muttered the authorizations to load his client's biometrics into the gun. He was back in the common area and unfolding two seats at the large table by the time Ilena came back out. He held a chair for her and accepted the small, ladylike pistol as he took his own seat.

"Access computer," he said quietly, absorbed in his examination.

"Yes, Captain?"

"Little brighter lights, right here; work levels, actually." The illumination just at their end of the table brightened immediately from the companionable casual levels to a clearer, more intense brilliance. He turned the pistol over in his hands a couple of times, his brows climbing higher on his forehead.

"Okay, wow. This is... well, it's an electropulse pistol, newer model, which means ounce for ounce, it's probably one of the best personal weapons available. It's an energy weapon, which means you can recharge it from any modern power source. I'd have to access it's onboard to find out specific statistics, but these things usually have microlayer batteries, which means dozens, if not hundreds, of full-power shots. It uses a laser to both help you aim and create a beam-path for an electroplasma charge, which you can set anywhere from shock-like-a-taser level to blow-a-smoking-hole level. I'd guess it's invisible to scanners, tempest-hardened, and vacuum-rated. Given the size, I'd say it's fairly short-range, but you've got no cause to be a sniper. The grip looks contoured; I'll bet it's molded to your personal grip, and I wouldn't be surprised if it had recognition sensors so that only your biometrics would let it fire." He reverently handed the pistol back. "You've got the best pistol on the ship, ma'am." He grinned. "I wouldn't mind if you loaded up my biometrics into there for now, just in case I have to borrow it, but that is the gun you should be taking with you whenever we leave the Tears from now on."

"But!" he said, holding up a finger, and smiling slightly. "That's not the gun you'll be training with." He reached for the items he'd pulled out of the armory. "If you want to take notes, start your recordings now. There's a number of things we're going to work on, but one of the first we can do right here in the Tears is work on your accuracy and general pistol familiarity. We'll work on it so you can aim, fire, and hit a target with a natural ease and speed, all from basic familiarity. We'll work with a number of guns, including your personal one, but for initial training I'm going to have you use this one." He pulled it from the holster and presented it to her, letting her pick it up and feel the weight of it.

"This is one of the most common and most reliable pistols in existence. You may recognize the basic design from a number of the movies we've watched: it's essentially based on the Colt M1911, which has been around for hundreds of years. It's heavy, but it should be, because a weapon is an important thing, and it ought to feel as dangerous as it is." He let her hold it and test it in her grip.

"Now, that is an actual firing weapon. If we put bullets in it, it could kill. Which is why instead, we're going to use this." He held up the training magazine. "Now, if this were an operative magazine, it would be filled with bullets. But this is a training magazine. Instead of bullets, it's weighted like a full mag, but it's got a little lasing unit right up here that moves into the chamber when the magazine is inserted." He borrowed the pistol back and slipped the magazine in with a tight little click. "When you squeeze the trigger on it now, instead of sending a bullet down the barrel, it'll send a beam of light, like so." He aimed the pistol at the wall, and fired. A spot of light flashed on the door of the locker there, and the gun's slide ratcheted sharply with a hissing clack. "The training magazine uses compressed air to drive the slide, that's the part at the top that slides back and forth. If these were real bullets, I'd have fired one into the wall and the mechanical action of the slide would have stripped a fresh one off the magazine and gotten it ready to fire. It's important that you get used to the action, so you won't be surprised when it happens with live ammo."

He showed her the side of the pistol and pointed out a small switch. "This is the safety. I already authorized you with the gun's onboard, so it'll accept your commands; you've got a thought discriminator, so you can control it mentally, or verbally, or with your thumb, like this," he demonstrated. "When it's engaged, the trigger will not move. When its off, you can see the little red telltale here, and it glows very slightly in the dark, and the gun is live and ready to fire."

He handed the pistol back to her, and slid the holster and belt over to her as well. "What I want you to do for the rest of the day is get used to wearing and using it. I want you to strap on the belt and just go about your daily activities with the weight of that thing on your hip. I want you to pull it out at random points and just shoot at walls, that sort of thing. Try flicking the safety off and on with your thumb, your voice, your brain. Play around with it, be a kid with it, pretend to be the tough gunslinger, get all that out of your system. Later I'll tell you about ammo, about the mechanics of it, about proper gun safety, how to hold it, how to move with it, all that. For right now, though, let's start small."

He sighed and leaned back. "And that's it. I don't know about you, but it's been a stressful day for me. We still have some of that icewine we picked up on Heaven's Fall, or I have some not-too-terrible whiskey stashed somewhere in my quarters. Care to join me for a drink?"
 
'Well, my uncle has a sideline in, ah... Conflict management is what he likes to call it.' Everyone else knew that it was actually being paid for murder and mayhem. It was okay, the universe was big enough for there to be a permanent demand for such professionals. 'I guess he does know what he is doing.'

It was only a moment's work for her bracers to interact with the gun, and then the ship to load up Taggart's biometric as a permitted user for her pistol. Of course Nikolai had protected it from tampering: she had to confirm twice that she was sure that she wanted to do that. The actual specifications of the gun meant nothing to her. She put it away and accepted the Colt from Taggart.

Pretend to be the tough gunslinger? She didn't even do that when she was little. Ilena had always been the mastermind, sending minions to do her will and making the big plans in her fortresses. To imagine herself as a solitary agent in a harsh world went against her grain almost entirely. Maybe she should have played more violent video games as a child. Admittedly she was going to have at least some fun shooting at walls. She could skip the learning process entirely, she supposed, if she had some implants done... But she wasn't quite ready to throw that to the wind.

How strange it was to hold the gun in her hands, let alone to to put the belt around her waist. The weight felt so... Strange. No doubt she would get used to it. Everything in life was a matter of practice.

'Let's go with the whiskey. I feel so terribly Wild West, carrying this. I do not think I will ever be Clint Eastwood though.'
 
"Oh, no, not Eastwood. You'll have to stop shaving for... oh, at least a month for that!" he called back over his shoulder as he disappeared into his cabin. He unfolded one of the spare bunks, took the bottle from it's strapped-in place, and carried it out to the galley for a couple of glasses. As he hoisted his two fingers of amber fluid, he nodded to Ilena. "To finding the truth."

After they'd taken their first sips, he sighed. "This stuff, I picked up on a little planet just after a major op. We had just done a flash-burn of some isolated facility, some kind of corporate warfare thing, they happen all the time out on the Rim, and we'd been released from contract, and I walked into this little liquor shop, had about six of their own stills running in the back, different liquor dripping out of each. I bought a few of each, and this whiskey was the best of the lot. That's why I've been saving this last bit for special occasions." He suddenly pointed across the chamber from them both. "Oh, look! A target! Quick! Shoot it!"

He grinned after she reacted. "Well, since you mentioned old Clint, I think we ought to delve into one of his classics tonight. I also want you to pay attention to how they face off with each other, how they use silence and what words they use to intimidate each other. Not that your response wasn't technically accurate, it was. But you have to understand, for a group of folks who basically kill people for a living? Politeness is not high on their list of priorities, and letters... not really the way they communicate so much. Those guys, they're more like... well, they're more like these guys we're about to see. So just... consider that as part of your training, as well. It's like learning another language, except they don't make a Takashi-Berlitz course for it. You did good by having the presence of mind to say anything, and the... the cognitive dissonance of it, that helped us. But it won't always, so it might be good for you to get a feel for how it really goes." He looked up at the ceiling. "Access computer!"

"Yes, Captain?"

"Show us Unforgiven, please."

He took another sip, and settled in. This movie wasn't a romp, it wasn't easy, but it was more true than many war movies, in many ways. He hoped she'd see some of that. They could both use a bit more seriousness about this whole business.
 
'Maybe you should stop shaving! You'd look better with hair!' she called back to him, pulling off her gloves.

She raised her own glass. 'To not dying in the process.' She did like whiskey, and as she sipped this one she was pleasantly surprised. 'You do have good taste in liquor,' she added.

As he told her to shoot though, she almost dropped her glass. Lucky she was ambidextrous, really. (A tiny modification of the brain structure at birth, done almost routinely by her family.) She put the glass down with one hand, and took the gun with the other. It was easiest to get the safety off using her mind, of course, but the shot could only have been miles wide. 'This is so much harder than it looks...' she muttered afterwards, putting the gun back in its holster and picking up the glass again.

Hm. She considered what he said. 'What would you have said in my place?' she asked, crossing hr arms and watching the movie load.

'Oh, you know how we talked about ikki vines the first night on the ship? I forgot to say it then... But if you smell the same as them they won't attack you unless you attack them first. Might be useful if you ever find yourself with a bunch of them again. Cut one and put the juice on your clothes. Not on the skin though, it's an irritant.' Who said that her research had never been of use to anyone?
 
He had chuckled at her suggestion he stop shaving, and smiled and nodded graciously when she complimented his taste in liquor. When she fired at the wall, he nodded. "Yes, any kid who plays guns growing up, they tend to be a little surprised when they find out how heavy a gun actually is. But you'll get used to it. That's the point of this exercise, after all."

~~~

"What would I have said? Well, there's a value in silence, actually. Just looking tough and staring back and not blinking can be a strong enough statement. But other than that, you have to weight your words to suit the audience. A group like that, keeping it short and curt and dismissive was the point, and my little comment about taking the kiddies to the zoo was intended to undercut the confidence of the thugs, letting them know what I thought of them. So I would have said... what I said," he finished, feeling lame about it. Perhaps he could blame it on the alcohol.

~~~

He watched the explanatory text scroll up the screen as the movie started, and listened to Ilena speak about the ikki vines. "Good to know," he said in a soft voice, already starting to move into the film's mindspace.

After the film wound down, the revenge done and Bill Munny back on his farm, Taggart sighed. It was an affecting movie for him, in part because he wondered if he'd ever become someone as lost and as remorseful as Munny, after his career wound down. "You can watch all the Siverados and Spaghetti Westerns and the complete works of Nomi Rofarrssen, but I would imagine that fast draws and shoot-outs in the middle of the street weren't the rule: I'd tend to think it was more like this. Rough, brutal, and vicious, when it got down to it." He looked at her. "I hope we're not headed for this kind of resolution, but we should be prepared."
 
It was quite a different experience to watch such a movie for educational, rather than entertainment, reasons. 'Hm, I hope not.' But there was no real conviction either way in her voice. She was wondering what it would be really like to kill someone. Of course she had read people's reactions to it, description of soldiers' times in war, but she wanted to know how she would feel if she watched someone die by her hand. It was almost a scientific interest. Actually holding a gun, it's weight, the feel of the recoil: it all made her wonder how civilised she really was.

It wasn't as if she had never seen anyone die. Once, one of her bodyguards was killed by a sniper, and once she had watched one of her lab assistants ripped apart by one of her more vicious specimens. But she had never been the direct cause of anyone's death. And maybe, just maybe, her well-hidden vicious streak would like to be.

And it was funny to think that when they started this journey she would have had no idea what he was talking about at all: she was far more familiar with movie history than the average person these days.

'Something more cheerful next time, please,' Ilena said, stretching out. She rather felt like something nice and romantic after all the heavy thoughts.

'What are you going to do when you are done with this... work?' She meant at the end of his career, rather than the end of this particular job. She couldn't even imagine the end of her career. Medical treatments virtually assured her immortality. To age would be a choice for her.
 
"Definitely something cheerier. Got to break up the mood sometimes." He grinned and got up for the galley. "Care for something? I'm thinking hot cocoa, myself. Something relaxing as we head toward bedtime..."

He got the materials ready while he thought about her question. "I take it you mean ultimately done, not just this gig." He sighed. "Well, ultimately, all I want to do is be able to live my life and do what I feel like doing, without anybody telling me what that is. I mean, there's good bosses," and he nodded in her direction, smiling, "and bad bosses," and here he turned away as his face contorted in a reflexive grimace, thinking of some of the things he'd been asked to do, or tricked into doing, because of bad bosses.

With his back to her, tapping the ingredients into a drinking bulb for heating, he continued. "When that happens and what I do with it depends on a lot of factors. If I manage to make the fees, I'd enjoy a rejuve, I suppose, when I'm old enough. I just need to live until then, and have the cash on hand."

He paused, and looked over his shoulder back at her. "I suppose I already do live halfway like I want. I have the freedom to choose my gigs, decide where I want to go at the end of each. But I'm not yet at the place where I can afford not to work for long stretches and just follow my interests."

The hot cocoa finished up, and he crossed back over to her. "I suppose a woman in your position can afford as many rejuves as she wants, unless you develop telomere rejection. So, what, you don't ever intend to retire from this, do something else for a while? I'd think you could let somebody else manage your business and live off the stock dividends, if you had a mind to."
 
'Oh, no thank you.' She wanted the taste of the whiskey she h ad sipped through to movie to stay with her as long as possible. Curious. A possibly incredibly dangerous day had left her rather... content. One had to admit, adrenalin was great fun. It wasn't a wonder many of her kind enjoyed ever more dangerous endeavours as they got older.

'For many in my position, life is a series of... pet projects?' she mused to Taggart. 'I whould get very bored, should I retire, I think. I can only imagine myself changing career somewhat. I have the luxury of always being able to do what I enjoy. When I was younger, I used to do nothing at all, just go to parties and flirt with significantly older men.' Few people could imagine her doing that now.

'But it got dull. I think a person needs work to be able to be happy. It is much easier to get up if I know I have a meeting with such-and-such than if I know I need to somehow spend the hours of the day amusing myself.' Taggart probably didn't know what she meant.

It was actually a surprise to most people that she wasn't as spoilt as she could have been. She had made a work ethic for herself on her own, when she could have lived forever without lifting a finger, on the money of her father or a rich husband. It wasn't hard to pick up one of the latter, and the former would most likely always be there, eternally tolerant for all her misdemeanours. Some parents were like that.

'Though I do not think I have as much choice as you think. This, for me, is a rather extraordinary situation. People know I am... you know.' She hated the word Aristo. 'But they do not know who I am. When people do, I am watched. I am subject of gossip columns when I am on my home planet!' It was simply too much effort to pay them all off. 'It is irritating. They are not concerned with what I think or what I want, but whether my behaviour fits in whatever they consider the norm, whether my clothes are fashionable enough...'
 
When she spoke of how she needed work to be happy, he nodded thoughtfully. Once she spoke of the paparazzi, and their obsession with celebrities and Aristos and the like, he chuckled. "Oh, if they only knew something of the real you. See, I think the more people knew about the real you, or should I say the relaxed, private you, the more they'd actually like you. The blipsites, they're just marketing to the people who want to know about celebrities, and the very rich are celebrities. I think most of those folks just want to see what it's like to be wealthy, and the others kind of what to see the famous screw up, make mistakes... show they're human."

"But you, you're already human. I knew from the first day that you weren't one of those spoiled CW rich kids. Sure, you're accustomed to your wealth, you grew up with it, but you're not afraid of actual work when it's necessary. You don't think it's beneath you."

"You remember that girl back on Murron Dur? Helping her mom run the sales tent? I commented about her to you at the time because ... well, I was sure you weren't one of those overprivileged folks who was born on third base but honestly thinks they hit the triple. And you confirmed it. And that's what's important; not that you regret your wealth, but that you're conscious of your fortune, if that makes any sense. There's a difference in there, somewhere. You don't think you've got some ineffable superiority just because you were born to a given family. You've got power and wealth and advantage because of it, but you don't think you're innately better than most everybody just because of your bloodline."

"Some folks are hungry to know that about you. Others want to be you, or in your place, at least, so they read about you to imagine that. Others kind of hope you're going to fail so they can feel like they're not screw-ups; they may or may not be, but that's not the point. None of 'em seem to realize that you're just human." He thought suddenly about her implants and surgical modifications. "Well, mostly. Heh."

"You know, what you really need to do is take control of the flow of information. It's a basic tactic: if someone's doing something you don't like, you could beat 'em to the punch, steal their thunder, take their power away. Like, these paparazzi keep dogging your trail, reporting about what you do, what you wear, etc. I'd say scoop 'em. Give the people what they want before anyone else, but in a way you can control. Hell, make a membership feedsite, make a little personal money off the people who want to pry into your life. On the surface, not that much different from the personality shows some fluffy-headed rich kids get launched for themselves as ego projects, but it's the substance that would be different."

He paused, then shrugged and spread his hands, the still-steaming drink bulb leaving a trail of chocolate-scent in the air. "That's just what occurred to me. Sorry, I'm rambling yet again." He grinned, knowing she must have been used to it by now.
 
'Hm... What opinion other people have on me is of no interest to me, unless it damages my business reputation. Commentary on my fashion sense is yet to do that. Last article I read about myself told me that my wardrobe is lacking in colour and that I have boring shoes. I grew out of that years ago. To disseminate that sort of information about myself seems ridiculous...'

'On the other hand, to promote my political views seems irresponsible. I do so somewhat on Jewel, since I did heavily invest in the infrastructure and I have an interest in that being a stable society... But to advertise myself more widely would be only to invite another sort of vulture. Petitioners, lobbies, foundations looking for someone to advertise their goals, my own family. I would prefer to keep out of the public sphere, and do any work for society I wish to perform... Privately.'

She paused, thinking of how best to explain. 'I suppose you would not understand, since, ah, you do not belong to a clan. But I seem to, and my family is very old fashioned in many ways. While we can largely create whatever scandal we like without any repercussions, it is generally accepted that we are to express neutral views when it comes to political issues, or to agree with my father. To not present a unified front seems a weakness, and we would not wish outsiders to be able to take advantage of that.'

'While I enjoy my distance from my relatives, I am aware what name it is I bear, and I must be able to behave accordingly. It is important to maintain our strength should we wish to retain our position in society.'

She was indeed the daughter of the patriarch of the Kostukova family: their family tree was deeply convoluted, to the point that Taggart had probably not put her exact position together. It was a credit to her that she was not more widely known. This was perhaps a side that Taggart might not like so much.

'If I wish to enter the political arena, I would probably need to murder my father first, and then win the ensuing power struggle.' And she was perfectly serious on that point. When most of her kind could be largely immortal, getting one's inheritance needed dirtier tricks. Some even challenged people to see whether they could murder them. Once you spent enough time alive, death sometimes became a game.
 
He blinked at her a few times, absorbing all she had to say. "All right... clearly I'm unfamiliar with the various specifics of your family's interactions. That might be best, actually; I think I'm out of my depth, at least for now." He could conceive of possibly learning the ins and outs of dealing within an Aristo family, but he couldn't fathom why he'd need to learn it, what use it would serve, so he decided to just set the concern aside.

"But you know, I'm not really talking about what you care about. You had seemed annoyed by the media attention, I just thought if it bugged you so much, you could do something about it. Make use of the interest in you to make a tiny profit and alleviate any intrusive pressure. It would be up to you whether that would be political or social or simply business -- what better way to promote a clothing line, for example, then tell the people who are interested in you what designers you are wearing. But, in the end, it's only an idea, and if you're accustomed to coping with the reporters and investigators already, then you've got no need to try and cut them off at the knees, so to speak."

He shrugged. "I just had the tactical insight, is all. I have them all the time, about all sorts of things. I hear how business culture is in another upswing of thinking about the metaphor of business as war, and I can tell you, that breaks down pretty fast when you get into the details. But tactics are often similar, if you can find the right touch-points, and from what you'd initially said, it seemed like a 'control the resource so you have influence over how it's distributed' sort of problem." He smiled. "See, that sort of thing is easy. It's how to maneuver a hostile merger that I might have more difficulty with, given I don't know the terrain or types of weapons used." He paused, thinking. "Unless it's a really, really hostile merger."
 
‘Your lack of familiarity is actually quite charming,’ she said, laughing. Of course she would never actually murder her father… She wasn’t at the stage of her life when trying to take over the galaxy was her aim in life. ‘Getting ahead in my family is often a dirty business. It is why I moved myself to Jewel and rely on my own wealth. My brother and I were father’s favourites, and our position was… Enviable? I did not wish to play the power games.’ They were very polite power games, which nevertheless occasionally ended in a murder or two.

‘My business is in mining, and it can stay there. I suppose I could pay some silly journalist to write stupid things about me all day, if I really felt like it…’ She seemed to consider the idea. ‘But things like marrying James? Ah, it is better that never got out too far.’ A couple of magazines had reported she had married a nobody; one even got his name wrong.

‘I haven’t yet had to negotiate any hostile takeovers,’ she mused. ‘I generally abuse the opportunities no one else wants to touch.’ She paused. ‘Well. I did once or twice ask uncle Nikolai to get rid of a problem or two once. Industrial sabotage and so on. I am good at appearances, Malachi. I am best when it comes to negotiation, but if that fails I am at a loss. I need to call someone else to clear up the mess.’
 
“Well, that’s your right, to call someone in. And it’s only smart; there are a variety of messes that individuals have trouble cleaning on their own. That’s why you have professionals. Hell, looked at from your uncle’s perspective, that’s why his job exists. Or mine, for that matter, although… I have a feeling I prefer my battles to be a bit more straightforward and stand-up, so to speak, than your uncle needs. He seems like an all-around adaptable problem-solving kind of guy, whereas that includes some areas I’m not wholly skilled at.” Or comfortable with, he had to admit. It’s not that tactics like assassination weren’t acceptable on a commando op, that sort of thing, but there were distinctions in his mind, and targets he didn’t consider acceptable for his brand of violence. Maybe it was the distinction between “warrior” and “killer:” all warriors knew how to kill, but not all killers were really warriors.

“Well, anyway. You certainly do have stresses in your life that not everyone even considers. But then again, you also don’t have to worry about things that nearly everybody else in the universe does. Where your next meal is coming from, for example. But then again, most poor people don’t have to worry about their siblings murdering them for a bigger share of the inheritance, or whatever the motives are. I suppose it’s a trade-off.” He knew he was getting reflective, meditative, musing out loud about subjects that, frankly, weren’t really his business, and which she could possibly take offense over. So he shook off his woolgathering mood and smiled at her again.

“Still some time before it’s sensible to turn in. What would you care to do? Besides shoot at the walls some more, naturally…”
 
'In the beginning, it is always a game. Of prestige, reputation. Often we attempt first to humiliate each other in public, damage reputations... Anything is permitted. Usually, it doesn't take much for people to back down. It depends how much someone thinks they have to lose. Sometimes it does go too far, and assassins are hired, guns bought. It is why I have so many bodyguards. There have been two attempts at my life, both by my own kind. Ordinary people often seem to think we fear them and do not wish to have contact. Usually we fear each other more. But we choose to live in a harsh world. With all our wealth, we created it, because enough of us thought it would be fun. What does that tell you about human nature?' Her smile was a little wry.

She touched the gun at her side. 'This makes me wonder whether I am any better. I may think about these things...' She took the gun and pointed it at Taggart, as if for emphasis. 'How hard would it be to kill someone? It is the first thing I wondered, and I wondered whether I would enjoy it in the same way that I enjoy my victories in the boardroom?'

'Ah... Heavy thoughts.' She put the gun down. Then to change the mood entirely, she actually made an inappropriate joke: 'Well, if you had a bigger ship, I would propose we ran around the ship naked...' It just signified how uncomfortable she was with their earlier theme.
 
"Well, you know, I spend a lot of time on this ship alone," he said solemnly. "And you'd be surprised how many sharp corners there are that you don't notice when you're clothed, for some reason." He cracked a grin, and then got sober again. "Ah, you're all right. Thinking about this kind of stuff is totally normal in this kind of situation. We're humans; we're hardwired in our backbrain to enjoy the rush of adrenaline, the thrill of life-or-death conflicts. Whether it's hunting the saber-tooth or cracking and flushing an enemy bunker on the side of an asteroid, it's something we've all got within us."

"That's why in the rush of the moment, it's not hard to kill at all. Survival imperatives, or protection. Kill the other before he kills you or your loved ones. That's never a problem, and only occasionally does it have lingering after-effects. It's when you have time to think and plan that it becomes more of a difficulty." He looked at her steadily. "There's a part in us that enjoys the kill. Particularly if it's justified. The problem is when you let that part take over. Or when you stop listening to the other part, the part that recognizes that taking a person's life is taking something no one can give back again."

Well, in the CW, with synapse-reading technology and cloned replacements and memory recordings, even death wasn't permanent for the sufficiently wealthy and properly prepared. But out on the Rim, just about everyplace was too far from the right gear, and only a select few could afford the procedure. Oh, Ilena's sort could spring for such a thing and only barely notice the dent in her finances, until the next quarter's profits filled it in, but she was a rarity this far out.

"The problem isn't killing, actually. Every creature that ever evolved was some kind of stupendous badass just to survive, just to outcompete every other creature that was trying to get the same resources. Killing is what happens throughout the universe at all levels of life. The hard part is being human, which means getting past all that." He cracked a grin again. "But you know that already. You're one of the most civilized people to ever grace the Tears, so you're well aware of what it takes to get past the simple biological imperatives, right? So don't worry about it. If it ever comes to that, you'll be ready. I just... honestly hope it doesn't."

He tilted his head at her. "Do you want to see something else? Maybe a light comedy, or a monster movie? Something to cleanse the palate after all this seriousness?"
 
Ilena knew that her uncle was a cold blooded murderer – she knew that he had chosen his profession because he enjoyed it. He enjoyed the challenge and the kill, and he enjoyed the power he had over others' lives. And Ilena knew that she had the same genes, and that she had received the same basic education. She wondered. She knew the theory of how to kill someone permanently. Destroy their physical form, and then go looking for the backups and ensure that they are deleted. Maybe she had never been interested, but one heard those things in her family.

Had he just told her that it is fine to enjoy the kill? That was interesting. She knew that the conventional morality was that murder was unacceptable. Not that conventional morality was something that Aristos allowed to tie them. Ilena had never really considered that in depth. There had never been any need before. It was fascinating, to come on this journey and discover an entirely different side to herself.

'Perhaps not tonight,' she said, pocketing her gloves and returning the gun to the holster. 'I would like to spend some time alone.'

Ilena got up gracefully. The conversation was over quite suddenly. Sure, her room was tiny but she had spent so much time in Taggart's company lately. She did not think that distractions would serve her mind best at this moment. 'I need to think for a while.'
 
"As you wish, ma'am," he said solemnly. "Just don't think too much about all this serious stuff. Overthinking it leads to either freezing up out of fear of what will happen when you pull the trigger on someone, or worse, looking forward to enjoying it. You don't want to get obsessive about something that, hopefully, won't even be an issue." He stood and bowed a little to her as she left for her cabin.

Not that he really thought they'd get through this without some sort of armed conflict. Not unless she called off the search early, which would have been fine with him, but she wasn't the type to do that. She wasn't the time to freeze up, either; he was more worried that she'd get a taste for it, and then he didn't know what she'd do, with her money and resources and intelligence.

Taggart wasn't afraid of killing; he could do it without batting an eye, if he saw the need. He could have wiped out the mercenaries on Pyrrhia in a long eyeblink and a torrent of lead, and not given them any more thought than yesterday's breakfast, but that didn't mean he thought of all life that way, or took any particular pleasure in it. He took nothing from it, not even the visceral thrill of having survived; that was the point and product of all his combat experience. Dealing out death was occasionally necessary, but never something you wanted to do. It was risky and messy and you couldn't predict the side-effects, so it was tactically better to avoid it when possible. It's just that so often in his career, it wasn't possible to avoid it.

He ducked into his cabin to grab his shower kit, and in the head, opted for a real water shower for a change, letting the hot water pound the last of the adrenaline-stress from his shoulders and back from the morning's close call. While he stood in the steam, he considered. He had no idea how many people were dead at his hand. If you counted the side effects of demolitions and crew casualties on vessels in space, it was very possibly approaching four digits. And yet he slept like a baby, barring the very occasional stress-induced post-traumatic nightmare. He thought that was because he never viewed it as something to savor or something to regret. He hadn't been kidding about the two extremes: he'd seen both, soldiers so wracked with remorse that they had to give up fighting altogether, and soldiers that grew to love it, grew to seek out killing, find new ways to inflict pain and death. Was a time or two he'd had to put a soldier down who'd grown so fetishistic about death as to become a liability and a danger to the public at large. Discretely, of course, as a matter of friendly fire. But intentional. And for good reason, so he didn't think about or ponder those killings any more than any others; they had been as necessary as the rest.

By the time he finally stepped out of the shower, feeling relaxed and tired and half-boiled and in somewhat of a somber mood, he was at the point where he just hoped Ilena wouldn't take any undue risks in her self-defense, and that included taking the time for murder.
 
Ilena didn't really try to think too much. She spent quite a while shooting at the wall and the various items in her room, trying to get used to the recoil. Everything in it was so close range that it was no judgement of any accuracy, but she was getting used to the feel of the gun at least. Maybe she did not entirely look forward to murder, but she did look forward to trying to do a bit of shooting with real bullets.

Then she played a game on one of her bracers, for a while, because the ship had told her that the shower was in use. She undressed ridiculously slowly while waiting. It really wasn't hard to undress slowly: most aristos wore a ridiculous amount of clothes. Ilena was not the worst, but after her gloves and her coat, she wore a shirt, a jacket, a skirt, an underskirt, a corset that provided some protection from knives and a lighter calibre of bullets, and flattened her breasts in the currently fashionable shape, underwear, stockings. Naturally, all of it was as lightweight as possible, containing as many pockets as possible. She could probably hide an armoury in all that she wore. Really it was probably best if Taggart was unfamiliar with her fashions.

When the ship told her that the the shower was off, she pulled on a light robe and slippers. (She had bought slippers with her! Most people would die of laughter at that point.) Passing him in the corridor she said lightly: 'You look like an Earth lobster. Must say, not a great look!'
 
As usual, he wore a thick, long-sleeved robe; between that and his usual shipsuits, he managed to keep his skin nearly as concealed as she did. "A little heat is good for you, opens up the pores." The corner of his mouth quirked up in a half-grin. "Don't worry, plenty of hot water left, or all the ultrasonics you could care for, whichever's your pleasure. If you'll excuse me..." He sketched another little bow, and ducked into his cabin. He closed the hatch and engaged privacy procedures.

It was only then he slipped out of his robe and moved to the personal facilities to brush his teeth. Gazing in the mirror, he idly traced a finger along one of the pale old ridges of scar tissue along his pectoral. Much of his body was criss-crossed with such souvenirs of a life lived violently; every old mark was a story, a memory. The treatments existed to repair them all, to erase them entirely... but it was extraneous. His funds were best used elsewhere, on things less frivolous. And besides, every scar was a memento.

He didn't mind his scars. But he was entirely aware that Ilena's standards were different. To a great degree, she dealt with appearance as an integral part of her daily life. And his knowledge of that made him self-conscious. That's why she'd never seen him in short sleeves, much less shirtless. He had no intention of flaunting his scars for her, either. Not that he would have any reason to do so; that would be entirely unprofessional, to say the least. But it was troublesome that the thought even occurred to him. He needed better self-control than that. He sighed and spit into his fold-away basin.

"Access computer."

"Yes, captain?"

"Music please; something soothing. Play me to sleep, maestro," he murmured as he unfolded his accustomed bunk and climbed in. Tomorrow was going to be more training. It ought to be interesting.
 
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