Interstellar Flight (Mr. M & missedstations)

((New! You can compare this extremely rough sketch (which nonetheless includes the cockpit chairs and the large table in the common room) with this text description to get a more accurate picture of the limited space that is the Fox's Tears. Efficiency of space, at a sacrifice of room to take a walk. Ah, well.))

Of course she was going to use actual water – it was far more relaxing that way. Sure, ultrasonics worked pretty well, but they would never beat the luxury of water running down her skin. Ilena always thought better with water. At home, she always took long baths, and she was rather starting to miss her bathroom. Her garden and her bath – the only things she missed.

She could think now. The mess she had got herself in – and it was definitely her fault that she did – had led her in interesting directions. To be involved in the slave trade made her furious, even if it was by proxy. Her family had done illegal things, of course, but it was different when Aristos were murdering other Aristos. But getting other people involved, that was different. And it was not just that difference, but if someone like her, without any specialities in investigation, could find the trail of evidence, others could too. She needed to erase a part of it, at least.

Ilena also supposed that she should consider herself a widow now, although she was in no mood at all to wear mourning clothes. She was, in fact, furious that someone could have led her around by the nose by that. Even if they found James alive, she would just make completely sure she was definitely a widow. She was quite certain of that.

Quite suddenly, her constant reliance on her bodyguards is something that she no longer wanted. She would take up Taggart's offer of training as best she could. Once she had thought that not doing her own dirty work was a virtue. Maybe it would be better to do everything herself. It wasn't surprising that she spent an indecently long time in the shower, and went to bed relatively late.

The next few days were active. Taggart set up with the computer for some targeting exercises. He also gradually increased the gravity from Jewel-standard up by 2% intervals toward Standard. And he planned the entertainments carefully; not too depressing, yet all trying to illustrate something he wanted to teach her. From "Shoot 'Em Up" to "My Love Is Antarean," he made sure they all had something to impress upon his trainee.

Target shooting was fairly simple. He collapsed the main table and all the chairs, making the common room one large open space, and set Ilena up at one end with her training pistol, and had the computer set up holographic targets of various sizes at the other. The computer was able to track where the light beam from the pistol hit, so it could tell the accuracy of each shot. As she got better, the targets got smaller. And then they started moving, slowly at first, and then with random course changes. Since she spent most of her days on such exercises, her accuracy improved swiftly.

Taggart also taught her about gun maintenance, which was pretty simple, as Ilena was a quick study. He also discussed ammunition, ranging from simple cartridges such as had been used for centuries up through the self-contained ammunition he used to the energy weapons. Taggart preferred not to deal with spent brass casings; they cluttered up the place, left trackable evidence, and caused jams and burns. Most also required an atmosphere to fire. He preferred bullets that left nothing behind, no case or residue, and carried their own combustibles, so they could be used in vacuum and underwater. Like all but the most basic of modern firearms, all his guns were electrically fired, the trigger activating a switch that sent a pulse of electricity to ignite each bullet. The basic physics of firearms still held true, though; the explosion of each cartridge propelled the bullet out of the gun, and drove the slide back to both kill some of the recoil and ratchet the next bullet from the magazine into firing position. He believed using such ammo gave him the flexibility to operate in any environment, like an energy weapon, yet allowed him the freedom to choose the widest variety of weaponry, as most of the guns produced by humans still relied on the ancient technology of slinging lead around. He went over this with her so that she would know what to expect if she ever had to use any of his weapons with live ammunition.

He also went over gun safety; not that "Pulp Fiction" wasn't a warning to not idly point your pistol at anyone, but the lesson could not be stressed enough. Once her basic target accuracy was trained up, he intended to work with her on movement and awareness, how to go through a space with your gun safely at the ready, and so forth. Again, the ship's holographic projectors would be able to provide some preliminary training on that. But he was looking forward to when they could land and he could find an opportunity to let her practice with live ammunition.

Which is why, some days later, he was pleased enough to be dropping into the gravity well at Adar's Gap. "I think you won't mind this planet too much; it's not exactly a cultural center, but it is very much a trading and communications way-station, and you can find just about everything here. In fact, most of the stuff that gets shipped from the CW to the Jewel would come through here on its way. Not passengers, of course, but freight. So once we make our contacts, it might be relaxing to look around a bit. I'm sure the confines of this hull are getting to you after such a long couple of jumps."

Ilena decided to learn, and she did so in the same single-minded way that she learned every other skill she had ever thought she needed. If your lifespan was effectively infinite, you could afford to just concentrate on one thing at the time. Opportunities were rarely entirely missed, there always would be a time to pay full attention to other things later. So she could easily spend her entire day shooting targets without getting too bored. She would never make a sniper, and she generally hit a target somewhere although not the place that she was meant to.

The rise in gravity did not bother her at all. Her biological modification did mean that she could adjust quickly to significant differences in environment, but she did appreciate the gradual rise. Admittedly, she had far more problems with sudden falls in gravity – she had chosen not to eliminate the classical human reaction of throwing up. It often served a useful biological purpose, after all!

Alone in her room, she practised something she suspected Taggart would laugh at her for doing – she spent some time in front of her mirror practising the looking dangerous and capable of anything thing. The best she could do was her business-face, where she simply chose to reveal as little emotion as possible. It was close enough, right? She felt like a little girl doing it. She was being ridiculous – she should not be having fun doing this!

Ilena had to admit that firearms were far more interesting than she had ever thought before, and she was very much looking forward to firing live ammunition. She practically bounced into the cockpit after all.

'I do look forward to stretching my legs.' Or just stretching without hitting something. 'Who are we going to see first?'

"On this world lives Lewellyn. She's mostly here for the communications network; the orbital datastores route information from this whole section of the galaxy to the Central Worlds. It's like she's living right on top of a data junction box. Which suits her just fine, as she largely works through data and communications. I've only seen her the once, and it was here. But she listens to money, and I've had enough dealings with her to believe she wouldn't flip on us. Provided she gets paid, that is. And, with the comm connections, you'll have full use of your accounts."

He coasted down through the clouds, pretty as you please. Adar's Gap wasn't too geologically active, which meant few mountains; the prominent land features were rolling plains, some rocky patches, and forests. Not precisely thrilling, to most, but pleasant enough, and it made coming in for a landing simple. There really wasn't much to recommend the place, except for its location as a nexus, and because of that, it thrived. There were a few settlements, some colonists, but mostly it was here to serve its purpose for transporting goods and information. The cities were all business, not for tourism and only marginally for recreation. But that's what they needed right now.

"We'll contact her, meet with her, get her to find what she can. While she's doing that... we'll go out for some practice."

Who didn't listen to money? Ilena had never met anyone who could not be bought off. 'I do not think we will have a problem with her then,' she said with a smile, leaning back into the copilot's chair. Disturbingly, it was starting to feel like her chair... Huh. Interesting.

'I should like to change my marital status while we are there,' Ilena said while fiddling awkwardly with one of her bracers. 'I think I am a widow now, no?' She didn't really seek his agreement, more stating the question with its rather obvious answer. It didn't really matter if her name appeared once briefly on a place like Adar's Gap... And she just didn't like the idea of still being listed as married to that bastard.

Some practice she did look forward to though: no doubt it would be fun to finally, actually fire a gun properly and actually it something. It would probably ease some of the bad feeling – violence may not solve everything, but it sure helped sometimes.

He glanced back at her; the pilot's chair was forward and center in the cockpit, and while that made it ideal for focusing on the piloting, it rather sucked for conversations. "Well, if you want, you can contact just about anyplace from the ground stations here. Direct line to the data transit satellites overhead. Put in a call to your lawyers or your legal AI or whatever, give them the authorization. I imagine you'd be a free woman by dinnertime. It's just after midday, local time, incidentally."

"You might be a widow. Certainly, if you're not, you ought to divorce him, I think. But you know that better than I." Local port authority permissions popped up in his field of vision, and he changed course for the docking berth they'd assigned him. Refueling, resupply, no repairs necessary. "Once we touch down, I'll link us all in to the local network. I've already got my message to Lewellyn prepared; I'll have to link to send it, anyway."

He didn't foresee any difficulties with meeting; she was moderately paranoid, as anyone who dealt with sensitive secrets should be, but he was in good standing with her, and he was bringing her new business, anyway. It would have been smoother to use the connection that brought him and Ilena together, but that was a corporate-focused agent, and not as likely to be able to dig around in the underbelly of society like Lewellyn could when she had to. It was all a question of criminal contacts and trustworthiness, and the more of one, the less of the other. Lewellyn, he felt he had enough of a personal relationship with to swing the difference, though. If not, it was another long stretch in jump space to the next most trustworthy name on his list.

'Divorce might be embarrassing. It would look like I made a mistake!' she said with a laugh. Sure, it was easy and relatively cheap to do it these days, but some old stigmas still remained, especially in families like hers. Of course there was her pride too. 'He has been missing long enough to be presumed dead, so I might as well.'

Her legal advisers had already recommended to that particular course of action, virtually as soon as James had disappeared, in fact. It might have been a simpler course of action to do that in the first place. 'If we subsequently find that I have been mistaken, then I can always correct the situation, I suppose. There are plenty of ways of doing so. I am afraid that like all women, I have a remarkably vicious streak. The old adage is very right: hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.'

'Maybe when I am a free woman, we should drink to it after, hm? Know any good bars down here?' After all business was concluded, of course. The fact was, she never actually loved James as much as she should. She was amused by him, she enjoyed spending time with him, she had loved waking up in bed with him, she even considered having his children! But it had really been for her benefit and now it was all ruined and she was angry.

He nodded at her logic; in her world, that would make sense, for reasons he could imagine and probably many he had no idea about. So he didn't have any reason to object. He also grinned a little at her admission of her vicious streak. He wasn't sure it was just a female thing, as much as something common to all humans, but the women he'd known had certainly all had the capability to be cruel when they felt it necessary. It's just what counted as "necessary" varied so widely...

"I'd love to join you for a drink, but I'm afraid I don't know this planet very well; the only times I've been here, I was all business. But I'm sure we can hunt something up." He eased in over some large warehouse-style buildings that ringed the berthing tower, and slid through the wide doors in the side of the structure, spinning the Tears gently so her nose faced out and her ramp would face the main exit. With a creak of landing gear, the vessel settled onto the plated, reinforced floor.

"And we're down. Cycling ship systems down, bringing local connections up." Automated recharging and refueling lines trundled out from the walls, responding to the Tears' beckoning signals. The computer system meshed with the local wireless, and greater capacity was enabled when the physical datacables came in. "All right. Time to do what business you need to do. Then we wait for results."

His part of that was easy; he simply sent his message while he was unbuckling his safety straps. Then he stretched and cracked his fingers. Adar's Gap had some neat features, or so he'd read (he wasn't kidding about his last trips being all business), but he wouldn't get to show her any of them until they left the city for some target practice. The tough part would be waiting until Lewellyn checked him out, calculated the risk factor, and set up a place she felt safe to meet in. That would be a little stressful, as not knowing and waiting was always stressful.

“I should probably do my business off-ship, don’t exactly fancy one of my relatives wondering why I am travelling on something like this.” She wasn’t being dismissive, it was just something that would provide months of gossip. Appearing on far-away planets was far less unusual than her choice of travelling companions.

“I’ll go get my coat.” And gun(s) she supposed too. She was starting to be tempted to give them cutesy names and call them her babies.

She appeared outside the ship in a surprisingly short time, for a woman, in her usual floor length coat, which was surprisingly good at hiding bumps from concealed weapons. When she bought it, she had only considered the effects on her figure: the light reflecting technology smoothed everything out. Not that she quite needed it, but vanity was one of her weaknesses.

“Well, let’s go.” First to hire a private terminal for a couple of hours to do her paperwork – it took nowhere near that long to authorise the changes to her identity. Instantaneous communication was wonderful, wasn’t it? It was just sad that the technology was as of yet too unwieldy to use on ships.

Marital status: Single, widowed.

What a lovely line. Oh, god, was she really getting that old? Rejuvenation technology was all fine, but human females were still born with a limited number of eggs in their ovaries. When she was home, she would have to have an assessment of her fertility. While it was currently suspended, it was one of the most fragile organ systems, and the hardest to maintain. She would need to either have children naturally soon, or put her eggs on ice. Damnit. Cheery thoughts.

“You got a message from Lewellyn yet?” She asked Taggart, coming out of the booth and putting her gloves back on.

He had been waiting patiently outside the booth, examining the passerby and imagining what he'd do if any of them were hostiles. He was still getting used to the bodyguarding gig; it was a different mindset, a different philosophy of action than he was accustomed to, and he was trying to develop the skills on the fly. Once something started to happen, he would be fine, he knew, it was the cruicial steps between attack and reaction that had him worried.

She came out and asked him about Lewellyn, and he turned and opened his mouth to say "not yet," but he laid eyes on her and the thought came, unbidden, to his mind: this is the first time you've looked at her and seen a single woman.

It's true he had rather liked her from the beginning, and over the weeks of travel had spent the majority of his waking hours with her. Despite their wide differences in background and basic reactions (his instincts were informed by a completely different set of life experiences than hers were), he felt like he'd been getting to know her reasonably well. But that was a married Ilena, a woman who was untouchable in more ways than just their class differences (and that very marriage was evidence that class differences weren't such a barrier in her case). And now... the equation was altered, with a few bytes of data, but it was nevertheless official, and he was as startled as anyone to suddenly discover that it made a difference of some sort.

Between the split second when he realized this and the next split second when he tried to recover his professional detachment and composure, which had been easy to maintain up until now but suddenly was slippery as a vergill slug, his HALO bleeped and threw a telltale up into his field of vision.

"Actually, we just did." He blink-selected the message and read it. "She wants to meet soon, and not far away. That's a pretty good indication that she's already got us under surveillance somehow. Which would be bad if we were up to something, but since we're being straightforward, it's actually to our advantage." He called up a local map and selected directions to be projected into his field of vision as necessary. Then he proffered his arm to her. "Would milady care to accompany me?"

***

Adar's Gap was a company world, really, though it wasn't owned by any one company. Myriad shippers and communications businesses made use of the planet as a way station and orbital data relay, and while no one corporate culture prevailed, the all-business nature of the world was reflected in the city. It was a fairly drab walk through the town, nothing of the art and personality of a more organically developed society or colony. It was... serviceable. And that was all it needed to be.

They were expected at the small, working-being's lunch counter, and ushered in the back through the kitchen into a small storage room, lined with cans. After the door shut behind them, another small door opened in the far side, where the lights were warmer. And it was in there, on the far side of a small conference table, that Lewellyn sat, a narrow, dark-colored, severe woman. Her skin was ebony, as was her hair and her eyes. She wore a black business suit so conservative it was nearly Spartan; Ilena's tastes would never have gone so unflattering, but it was of a similar quality as she would have purchased for herself. Her gaze was sharp and narrow, as well, as she sized up Taggart and Ilena as they entered, and then she stood and bowed in the formal manner and gestured to the two chairs in front of them.

"Please, have a seat," she said evenly, her voice soft but clear. "Taggart, I see you've branched out into civilian work. Ms. Kostukova, I'm honored to have an individual of your stature coming to me for business." As she sat, one of her eyebrows arched. "May I ask what business precisely you're interested in?"

It wasn't so nearly as dramatic for Ilena. She hadn't seen her husband for over a month, and simply, finding out about his crimes had roused her ill-will. She was used to thinking about herself In her mind, a bit of intimidation, a corpse here or there – that was fine, it was how her family sometimes did business. But those were generally actions between largely consenting individuals, who knew what they were getting involved with... (Hopefully.) Slave trade was an an entirely different thing. There wasn't even a way to pretend it was legal. And that was not to be assumed that she allowed what happened to to the trafficked people. Kidnapping a random stranger and selling them was so far removed from hiring a hitman to off an idiot that didn't know to get out of the way.

She finished buttoning her gloves while he had his little emotional epiphany. She had loosened them to allow the machinery to take a blood sample for identification. Not only did it have her particular DNA, but also the specific amounts of chemicals in her blood as correlated to her confidential medical profile. It was not a foolproof system, but reasonably secure. Her modified biology was difficult to copy by anyone who did not know exactly what was done. (One day, she would really like to test it in a place better than going into her plants' habitats unsuited. Though of course, if she fancied traipsing about real jungles she would have to get rid of her long skirts.)

“Ah, excellent.” A smooth schedule for today so far. Ilena preferred to be busy during the time she was off the ship, even if it was just with a shopping trip. “Of course, Monsieur!” she said lightly, taking his arm as had become her habit.

When they arrived, Ilena bowed back slightly, and just as formally. One was always as least as polite as the host – she was well versed in etiquette, and she was probably dealing with someone along her own calibre, a person she thought she could measure better than she could Taggat.

“Thank you.” Well, she was surprised that her name was known, but it was not entirely unexpected... She hadn't been so subtle as for someone whose business was information not to know. She knew full well that she had taken insufficient precautions. “I suppose Taggart can explain... It all leaves a bad taste in my mouth still.”

Without looking at Ilena, Taggart nodded. "We're in a position that requires services of your caliber, Lewellyn. We're looking for someone, and we have some indication of foul play, and we need information on precisely what's happening. We need someone who is comfortable with corporate concerns, but has knowledge of criminal enterprises, as well."

The dark woman interrupted his recitation in a pleasantly bored tone. "I'm sure she hasn't hired you to tell me my own qualifications. Let me see if I can save some time. The same newsfeeds and public records that let me positively identify Ms. Kostukova also inform me that her free-trader husband hasn't returned home on his regular schedule; it's been long enough to engender some worry, so odds are you were out looking for him."

Her sharp eyes flicked to Ilena. "You could have done a whole lot worse than Taggart. I've only set him up with military-style jobs, but he's a rock-solid soldier with excellent operational creativity and interpersonal skills. But he's not a tracker, and neither are you. I suppose you didn't want to draw the kind of attention that going to a straight-up detective would have done, and so you did the best you could under the circumstances, and you chose well within those parameters. But I'm glad you two realized when you were out of your depth and came to a professional."

She looked back over at Taggart, never really moving her head. "James Kostukova was a reasonably small-time independent trader before marrying his largest contractor. Then his runs became more ambitious and consequently more profitable. As you have pointed out, I do have some connections to criminal enterprises, and my information indicates that he was connected with at least two separate syndicates, using his connections and influence to facilitate his smuggling." Another eye-flick to Ilena. "I'm sorry. Nobody needs to hear that about their loved ones, but I'm afraid it's true."

Back to Taggart. "Since you haven't stopped or corrected me, I'll take that as confirmation of my analysis. Given the correlation, I will venture to guess that you suspect Mr. Kostukova's disappearance has something to do with his more unsavory activities. It's a natural assumption. And you've come to me for... what? Confirmation?"

Taggart glanced over at Ilena, then met Lewelleyn's eyes. "We are still looking for James Kostukova. We were met on Pyrrhia by a group of thugs warning us off the trail. They didn't identify who was paying their fees, but it seems one of the syndicates had a hand in his disappearance, and given that, it seemed like following his declared flight plan was going to be unfruitful. At some point, we were either going to be lied to or maybe he deviated from the plan to drop off some contraband cargo or something. Point is, we weren't going to find him that way, and we were just going to make people more nervous."

He leaned forward. "So we came to look for someone who could send us in the right direction. I'm hoping you're the person who can identify who was involved with his disappearance, and can give us a lead on where to go to find him or his ship."

Lewellyn leaned back in her chair, face impassive, eyes flicking between the two of them. "Interesting. All that effort for a man..." she paused, then looked more directly at Ilena. "For a man that LegalNet has just formally registered as the ex-Mr. Kostukova. Are you certain you want to go for the whole tracking him down routine? I could just give you confirmation, and you could head back home. Do you really need to see it through?"

"Also... if whoever it is has disappeared a whole freighter, it's bound to be someone significant. That'll take some digging, and that's not cheap. Not that you can't afford it, but you're also not one to spend your resources unnecessarily. So... how important is it that you lay eyes on the man himself?"

While Taggart and Lewellyn talked, Ilena idly fanned herself – more to do something with her hands than because the temperature did not suit her. Like it was mysterious to Lewellyn as to why Taggart recited her qualifications, it was mysterious to Ilena why Lewellyn recited her husband's misdemeanours.

'Well, of course. I like to see things through to the end.' She folded the fan and tapped her thigh with it. 'I do not like the possibility of my mistakes coming back to haunt me.'

It was a simple enough reply – rational, and calculating. But she had more emotional reasons than that, and she would be damned if she was going to show her feelings to someone like Lewellyn. This was business, not marriage counselling. She met Lewellyn's eyes, just as impassive.

'Confirmation? I am sure that if someone can make a ship disappear, they can easy fake that sort of thing too. I will admit that I have some inappropriate interest in who exactly does that sort of thing... And that, if I was considering the safety of my life, I should leave it. But I also know that if I simply leave this... It will irritate me for at least the next decade. And it may have the possibility of damaging my reputation should details come to light at a later time. Not only that, but whoever did it, considering what we think James was involved on, someone may have some very good blackmail material on me.'

'So I would say... Very important.'

Lewellyn nodded her dark head, once. “I had to ask. I don’t do work like this without clear informed consent.” She flicked her eyes between the two of them. “I’ll get started. It’ll take some time. Why don’t you two occupy yourselves around town; I know how to get in touch with you when I have something for you.” She stood, and Taggart, knowing a cue when he saw one, stood as well.

“We’ll be looking forward to your call,” he said, bowing as she bowed to both of them.

“I wouldn’t be so certain about that if I were you,” Lewellyn quipped, but she almost barely cracked a smile as the door audibly clicked open behind the two of them.

~~~
Outside again, Taggart looked at the sunny sky. “Well, we’ve got a goodly time till evening. I think our options are have that celebratory drink you mentioned before, or to get in some live-ammo target practice. If we try to do both, I’d suggest the drinking comes second, for obvious reasons.” He looked at her and winked. It was a little weird for him on the inside, but he couldn’t very well stop joking around with her. It would pass, this feeling of strangeness now that his brain had unaccountably started viewing her differently; he just had to get adjusted to it, and one good way to do that was to focus on work.

That’s why they were soon speeding out of the city in a rented gravcar, with the back seat loaded with gun cases and several bags of a tough-shelled local fruit, not entirely unlike a coconut, called a turtlemelon. They were apparently delicious, but they also had an integral rigidity similar to a human skull. It seemed like it would be a useful method to drive home the point of how powerful live ammo could be.

“So, going into the wilderness for recreation for the first time on this trip,” he said over the whine of the engines. “I’m sorry it has to be on a relatively low-key world like Adar’s Gap. Still, what do you think?”

“Nooo! Really?” she joked in response to his suggestion about drinking. She'd taken far more than alcohol in her life, and she knew how much any drug, legal or illegal, altered mental states. When she had been a socialite, she had tried almost every designer drugs. But she had the funds to fix any damage, and none of those occasions had involved anything actually dangerous.

Adar's Gap was one one of the many planets barely colonised, and barely terraformed. No one had bothered much with vegetation, so while the air was breathable, most of the plants were a thorny kind of low scrub, surviving on the rare rain, and cracking rock to get at the earth far below. Rock, most of this world. It was why it was so easy to build on – needed so little digging, just laser cut the foundations and tell machines to set prefab walls. The wilderness was little better than the city.

“Oh, I suppose. It's better than the Jewel! You can't even go outside there!” She sighed, starring out at the vaguely purplish sky. It was its usual colour here, and strangely beautiful for such a dull brown world.

“My mother's favourite world was Inara, ever been there? Oh, that's terrible. Ice planet, outside you can get little pools of liquid oxygen. She was studying microbiology there, but for me, it set the rock bottom. Nothing is worse than spending a few years there,” she said with a laugh. Mostly scientists lived there, and a small miner community. Plenty of good ore below the surface, but there

“This is far away enough from the city, right?” she asked, pointing at a flat rocky outcrop they could land on. The rest of the landscape around was all sharper slopes, and some of the scrub was taller there, a little more interesting.

"Liquid oxygen? That's, what, a hundred ninety, two hundred below?" He whistled. "No, that's a bit out of my comfort range, I'm afraid." He craned his neck and looked at the outcrop she indicated. "That looks about right. Let me bring it around..."

As soon as they landed, Taggart hopped out and grabbed the sack of turtlemelons, casting about for a good place to set up a target range. He found a low, semi-flat boulder overlooking a deep rocky valley; nothing to bounce a bullet off, nothing to get accidentally hit behind them. "Good enough," he said, and started to set up a row of melons.

He left the sack out there, for when he had to reset the targets. Heading back to the car, he called back to her "Okay, start unloading some of the guns from the back. I brought a selection, and live ammo for each. And you've got your two. So let's get 'em set up, and get you some practice!"

He knew she'd be semi-ready for the kick, due to the practice magazine, but the dynamics of a bullet in flight were a little bit different from a light beam. And he'd brought some long arms and a variety of other guns, so she could try them out, get used to whatever she might have to pick up in the field, if it ever came to that. Preparation counts, he'd always thought. Plus, he kind of thought she'd be into it, and from the looks of her reaction as he was coming up, he wasn't far wrong.

“The actual base was a mile below the surface. I think the theory was that it was a habitable world once... Knocked off orbit by a collision with a comet or something like that... Worst time of my life! I like biology, but one cell organisms are horrifically boring, even when it turns out that their interaction with human chemistry is as a flesh eating bacterium...” Ah, the wonders of space exploration. There was always an equal chance of encountering beauty or horror.

“I think all the members of my family must be insane.” Such a strange tendency they all had to travel to the extreme limits of habitable space. No wonder her family had left such a mark on the history of space exploration. “She thought it was fascinating, and had her arm chopped off. I couldn't take it any longer and left with the next supply ship,” Ilena finished with a laugh.

She unloaded some of the crates, but avoided the heaviest of them. Strength was, and never would be one of her attributes. “Looks like you brought me an entire armoury to play with...” It was still a game to her, and was probably going to be until she had to shoot someone in the face, but she didn't see that one coming in any foreseeable future.

Taggart shook his head as she spoke of her childhood. "I used to think I had it difficult being a military brat, moving from base to base across the galaxy, but yeah, that tops it, I think," he said grinning.

"Not that I'll get the chance, but I think it would be interesting to meet your family. You know what they say: if you're rich enough, you're not insane, you're eccentric. And I've always found eccentricities interesting, at least in the short term."

He helped her open up cases and crates. "Well, I did have an armory handy, so I brought out a selection. Clearly, if you're ever taking any of these into the field, you wouldn't bring the carry-cases, for the most part. But besides your pistols, I thought you might like to try out a machine gun or two, and this..." he indicated the metal case he was bringing out, "... is a sniper rifle. You ought to get some idea of how much power you can exert at a distance."

He helped her lay out her tentative selection of weapons on the boot and bonnet of the gravcar. "I figure, we stand over here, on this side, and fire across the car at the turtlemelons there. You can use the car to brace you for the rifles, and so forth." He spread his hands. "Okay, what do you want to start with?"

He was actually looking forward to her reactions. Shooting a holo-target was one thing, but it was definitely more visceral when you knew you were actually launching something at the target. And the turtlemelons would give her an idea of what each round could do to a real human head. If that wasn't a graphic education, he didn't know what was.

â??Ah, so you were a military brat? I always was jealous of anyone who didnâ??t have four bodyguards running after them thoughâ?¦â? Ilena had both a highly eclectic childhood and education. She was brought up by whoever could be bothered at the time, and her education had consisted of what she found interesting, with the occasional imposition of history from her elders, so she knew her place.

â??Interesting to meet my family? You are the first person who said that,â? she said with a laugh, surveying the selection of weapons with not a clue what to start with. â??What the hell am I going to do with a sniper rifle?â?

It really was puzzling. â??I suppose I should start with my pistol, since I am most likely to have it at handâ?¦?â? Well, at least she knew how it worked. (Then again, most weaponry worked on the basis of pointing at the target and pressing the trigger, so that was a ridiculous basis for an argument.)

Feeling decidedly foolish, she got it out and fired at the nearest turtlemelon. Not entirely unexpectedly, she missed. And did so for the next four times, but the scorch marks were getting closer to the target. While her uncleâ??s favourite gun did not have shells, it still wasnâ??t pretty when it actually hit a target on its lethal setting.

â??Ooh.â? There really wasnâ??t much left of the fruit, and what there wasâ?¦ Well, it was a little charred.



((Pulled this out of my ass, is it obvious? ))

He didn't mind being the first to find the prospect of meeting her family interesting. Besides, he was pretty sure his definition of "interesting" varied from most people's. He wasn't certain it was at all like Ilena's, but he smirked a bit, anyway.

"Hopefully, you won't end up doing anything with a sniper rifle. But I wanted to give you the opportunity to try anything you wanted. And I have to say... it is something of a rush." He nodded when she made her choice. "Yes, start with what you're likely to use."

He refrained from saying anything as she took her ranging shots. This was, after all, her first time really dealing with her energy pistol at full power. When she finally hit, though, he smiled and clapped her on the shoulder. "Good work. Not quite like the holo targets, is it? Then again, we'll likely be closer if there's any serious trouble." He took out a manual binocular unit and took a closer look. "Yeah, you really cooked it." He handed the binoculars to Ilena. "Take a good look."

He pulled out a couple of magazines for her practice gun and put them on the hood of the car. "Okay, that's good. We'll try more with that later. For now, let's do the live ammo. Just like we practiced in the Tears. Oh, and..." he grinned at her. "If you want to snap off a wisecrack, just before you shoot? That'd be classic!"

Did he just… clap her on the shoulder? Well, THAT was interesting. He was starting to feel decidedly more familiar with her, not that she minded. She preferred friends to silent guards.

She took the binoculars from him to look at the fruit. “Oh, wow.” Admittedly, shooting someone in the face wasn’t quite what she was planning, and skulls were slightly tougher than the outside skin of the fruit, but really, the effects would be generally similar. There wouldn’t be that much left. “Didn’t really think that would happen. Films make it look… Neater.”

She loaded her practice gun with a questioning ‘am I doing this right’ look at Taggart, but it felt right, and there was only a limited number of options as to how she could load it. “You have put me on the spot now – I can’t think of anything clever!”

Well, it was different from shooting at the holo targets, and even though the ‘imaginary’ ammo had a reasonably close feel as to how the real thing would be, it was strangely different. She wondered if it was psychological that the gun just felt a little heavier. The recoil was a little stronger too, so her first few shots went wide again. A waste of bullets, really.

“For fuck’s sake!” The eternal, unchanging form of human swearing! Enough attempts did lead to hitting the thing though, even if she did feel like she just wanted to pepper the whole cliff side with bullets instead of aiming properly. “Fu-“ she stopped herself. “Finally.” She picked up the binoculars again to look at the remains.

He handed the binoculars to her, satisfied. "Took you a few tries, but you hit solid. You know plants, but I'm not sure if you're familiar with a turtlemelon: its density and rigidity is about right for the human head. Only difference I can see is, the skin would keep all those shards of skull more together; that melon is cracked all to hell. But yeah, that's about what you'd get." He smiled at her some more. "Good job! I was much worse my first time target-shooting." Of course, he'd been six, and barely able to wrap one hand around the gun; he'd had to hold it up with one hand and pull the trigger with the other. Still, she did better than he'd done by a long margin.

He planned on having her go through the rest of the melons with her own pistols; now that she'd gotten a feel for how to actually hit something, the other targets would go better. It was always that first step that was the most tricky, and she'd done it. At least as far as target shooting was concerned.

He'd have her finish that row, and then while he went to set up new melons, she could look over the other guns. The skills she was honing right now would be generally applicable; she could try out any that looked interesting. This was supposed to be fun, after all, and what would fun be without trying new things?

“There's too many planets in the galaxy to know every plant! And this planet has no interesting plants...” So basically she was saying that she had no idea about turtlemelons because they had no tendency to digest or poison colonists. Really, this world was excellent for colonisation. Lack of weather, no dangerous xenobiology. As a commercial centre, no doubt it would grow.

“Shall we keep one to eat?” she asked, decimating the rest of the row with her pistol. It was pretty entertaining, and far far more amusing than shooting holographic targets. Her accuracy was improving as she moved along the row: Ilena had spent a good amount of time with the training software there was on Tears, and while it was different, enough of it was the same for her to get into the swing of it pretty quickly.

She leant against the car as he went over to set up the new targets, replacing the gun at her waist. “So how do I actually use a sniper rifle?” Shouting all the way across the the distance was a little undignified, but moments earlier she had sworn in front of him. How... Inappropriate? “And how do people actually eat those things? Do they shoot them open? Hammer? Laser?”

He salvaged the majority of the two least-ruptured specimens, and carried them back to the car with him. "As I understand it," he said as he approached. "They either whack 'em real hard with a hammer, or they use these specialized little knives or saws. Probably a vibroknife would do," he said, figuring the most common powered knife, the kind that shook the lightly-serrated blade thousands of times a second, ought to handle even a tough rind in short order.

Coming around the edge of the vehicle he shrugged. "I read that it's worth the effort. Let's see..." He put the two melons down and smoothly drew a balisong, flipping it open in three swift little flips, and sliced off a dewy fragment of the orange meat. Sampling it, his eyes widened and he nodded. "Definitely worth it. Not unlike sweet-seasoned watermelon, I'd say. But more substantial, and I bet that hint of orangey flavor means it's full of vitamins. Maybe you have a more refined palate..." He offered her the knife to cut her own piece for a sample.

While she was trying that out, he decided to unlimber the sniper rifle after all. He hadn't had occasion to put it through its paces in a good long while, so a little check was warranted. He swiftly snapped it together, building an ever-longer whole out of a variety of separate pieces. While the assembled gun ran through its diagnostics, he murmured, "You fire a sniper rifle like any other weapon: point and shoot. It's just the size of it and the range of it means it has certain advantages and requirements."

When the telltales came back green, he flipped down the two bipod legs near the muzzle. "These are to help support the weight of the gun while you're aiming. The more you can rest the gun on something stable, the more accurate your shot can be, and long-distance sniper shots are all about the accuracy." He flipped up the lens covers on the sight and gave it a check. Without his HALO, he was limited to merely the computerized optics, but that was quite good enough. He leaned forward and half-lay across the bonnet of the car, resting the bipod on the far edge. He nestled the stock of the rifle against his shoulder and looked easily down the scope. "All right, pay attention to how I'm using this. Most of the time, snipers lay up in position for a long time, waiting for a good shot or waiting until they're needed, so they usually find a posture and position where they can stay for long stretches. You want to make sure the butt of the rifle is strong against your shoulder; you leave some gap, and if it kicks back when you fire, the impact could bruise or break you, so that's a general safety tip for all rifles."

"Okay, the sound isn't deafening, but it's a bit more hearty than your average pistol. In the old days, when they first invented these things, I'd be wanting you to wear headphones to protect your hearing, but these days, they got that covered." He sighted on the stem of one of the turtlemelons, seeing it huge in his lens, and squeezed off a round, severing it. He then readjusted to examine the wall of the far side of the valley, a few hundred meters further away, and found a scrub bush on the tip of an outcropping that would do sufficiently. He clipped a couple of its branches with two more shots.

"Okay," he said, rising up. "Everything checks out." He clicked the magnification on the scope down to minimal, which would still make a turtlemelon seem like it was within arm's reach, and then gestured to the weapon, which was approaching being as long as Ilena was tall. "Why don't you reach out and touch someone?"