22. Return of a Queen

The summons had been unmistakable. Yoda had been in the middle of cleaning his Koi tank when the house computer flashed all screens and pinged the sound speaker system. Torn from the chore he had chosen as his own personal piece of tranquillity, he sighed and accepted the signal. It was simple, a line of text that merely said "meet me in docking bay B at your convenience". Yoda grinned at the message and dropped the cleaning utensil into the bucket he had used for the detritus in the pond, wiped his hands on his pants and walked out of the door headed for the docking bay. He didn't meet anyone on the way, not that he expected to at this hour. Someone would be manning the tactical operations cell; he actually smiled as he remembered that he had put Physhi on that task for the next couple of weeks, and someone would be flying security but the rest of CLM would be lying in their hammocks.... or would be blind drunk, which was always an option.

He entered the floodlit docking bay and immediately spotted his summoner near a very battered Marauder that looked like it was something like a year overdue on a paint job. If he didn't already know by now, the flaming red hair, stumped blouse and second-skin tight pants were all dead give-aways. She was bent slightly over a crate, rummaging around the insides looking for something.

"Red, been a while."

She righted herself and turned towards him; a flash of pearly white and a rush of pheromones assaulted him and he grinned despite of himself.

"Sure has greenie. You missed me."

"It doesn't work on me, you know that. But I did actually."

Mystic blinked once and the pheromones stopped assaulting him.

"So, as far as I can figure, we have a new pact with someone called KAOS, some group named APIG has sued us for, lemme see, ah, six crates of Verasi Champagne along with damages to a ship and we are down one pilot? Or are there other things that I missed?"

Yoda nodded in the direction of the smashed Axia Wraith in TGFT green colours and obscene graffiti that was lying on a significant pile of coolant crates. The armour plates had been torn halfway off and all chainglass windows had holes in them from different types of handguns. A crude drawing of something that resembled a giant rocket with a person sitting across it almost looked like someone Mystic knew. She twisted her neck and blushed when she realised what the drawing was off and with whom.

"Oh my; that is almost art. Sharingan?"

Yoda nodded and pointed at the shark teeth equipped porcupine inserted where normally stuff was supposed to exit.

"Although that was Retractile's idea."

"And he was on the APIG deal and the missing pilot as well?"

"Well Red, technically Azumi is not missing. She is just absent without leave. Said something about cleaning some stuff back in Tani-land. I'm expecting her back any time soon. But yeah, he was sorta."

"I really should promote him I reckon. That will put some restraints on him. I trust you will clean the mess up and we'll return to normal now I am back?"

"I'll expect it to happen pretty automatically when the crew hears that you are back Red."

Mystic grabbed the synth-leather bag she had been rummaging for, hefted it onto her back and started walking into the station, yoda joining her.

"I am sure you are right greenie. And when you have the time for it I would like to hear some more about why Azumi felt she had to leave.”

Yoda nodded again to the not-quite suggestion. It was not up for discussion whether or not he wanted to tell and they both knew that.

“Now, lets talk about this new thing I mmmmh, acquired in Nyrius from a slightly inebriated member of a not-named trade guild...

###

The pale green walls of the emergency ward were just the perfect shade of bile, which didn't really help to lift Cat's mood. The three cracked knuckles of her left hand slowly healed in the bone-welder while the male nurse chatted incessantly about some apparently hot gossip that had hit the station like a firestorm. Cat really couldn't care less, she was much too angry with herself for forgetting to disengage the battle-mode of her brainpal while she trained close quarter battle and then smashing her own hand while she couldn't feel the pain. A summons arrived in her brainpal and she noted the headline without engaging the main functions. Meeting in thirty minutes; just about enough time for her knuckles to heal and if she hurried, a quick shower and a change of uniform. If only the nurse would get a brain haemorrhage or something that would make him shut up and allow her to concentrate.

Six seconds to the time she had been summoned for, she entered the briefing room in a crisp violet uniform with gold trimmings and KAOS written in gold letters on the left chest. Apparently she was the only one that had either received the standard issue uniform or the others had just chosen to ignore it completely. She killed her comment and ignored the assorted more or less dirty flight suits, uniforms, dinner dresses, pre-wormhole bomber jackets and even a toga. Silia smiled at Cat and started the presentation.

"We have two items we need to cover today. First and most important, we have just received a mission from Ahriman that will take all of our time and resources for the next couple of months at least. A detailed plan has been uploaded to your private assistants and those files will be released to you when we are finished here."

Cat checked and found two files from Silia in her brainpal. One locked and one named READ ME, URGENT. She opened the second one and absorbed the information without reading it.

"Now, I expect you all to fulfil your individual missions to the letter. It is extremely important that you report back if you cannot reach your goals or the entire plan will fail. The second matter is a welcome of our newest member of KAOS. Again, you have each been sent a file that I expect you to have understood but since it can mess everything up spectacularly I'll just cover the basics. The new member is called William Cutting, a former Itani elite pilot. He has suffered some psychological damage and is now being treated by Ahriman. Do not under any circumstances ask him about his past, understood?"

The pilots all nodded assent. Silia beamed a smile at them and seated herself on the table's edge.

"Good, I'll release your separate files now. If you have any questions, I'll remain here and we can take it in the adjacent secure room. If your plans don't make sense on a personal level, be assured that Ahriman is perfectly aware of your capabilities and as such has given you the task that he expects you to fulfil to the maximum."

Cat accessed the now available file and frowned. She was going to deliver 15000 crates of coolant to an account in Pyronis, 15000 crates of consumer robotics to Helios and 15000 crates of textiles to Betheshee. She looked at the other pilots who were likewise puzzled at the orders and then at Silia who was smiling.

"Any questions regarding the missions? Anyone that cannot fulfil it?"

None came forth.

"Good, I'll then introduce William Cutting to you all."

A broad-shouldered man entered the room, slightly dragging his feet and hands immobile against his sides. He had a drawn haggard look about him and eyes that gazed out towards something that only he could see but the underlying strength and power was unmistakable. Cat was about to smile at the man when he spoke.

"Greeetings pilots. I am looking forward to killing with you."

A chill ran down her spine as she recognised the voice, the voice that haunted her dreams and that she had almost allowed herself to forget. She couldn't quite couple the voice to the man and opened the file she had received earlier. The information and the implicit consequences of it made her almost physically sick and she longed to get away from the briefing room and out to her ship, get away from the voice. Thankfully Silia closed the meeting and Cat ran to the solitude of her ship.

Shadoen, I hope this has answered what happened to William after the last story:)

The story continues in The Stag Party and yadayada

Awesome :)
Thanks!

Epilogue

The slowly spinning pair of roids outside of Epsilon Hold turned as they had for the last million years on a 45 and a 189-degree angle respective to where the central mass of the Epsilon roid field was located. Coincidentally, where the station had been constructed around and inside the dense Ferric core of a proto-planet that was never going to assemble. The dense roid field posed some navigational dangers to the cargo ships that frequented the station, which the many pockmarks on the nearest roid bore evidence to but to a small light fighter such as Azumi's it was not a problem. Still, a pilot needed to be active and awake to safely traverse the distance from the emergence point to the docking bay, something that she couldn't claim to be after flying all the way from Eo in one go. She was hailed at the NFZ by a lone CLM guard she had never heard of before.

"Unknown pilot this is CLM security. State your business or face the consequences."

Azumi grinned and almost sent a spitefull reply to see what would happen but restrained herself. She sent the required CLM access codes and didn't bother to respond.

The guard closed, turbo flaring and targeting radar beeping.

"Last time unknown pilot. State business here."

She almost hit herself on the forehead. Off course they would not recognise her CLM codes as they were almost two months outdated.

"CLM pilot Azumi inbound from Sedina. Busines..."

She smiled at the thought.

"I am returning home."

There was a small delay before the guard responded and drifted slowly back to the previous position.

"Roger, welcome back Az. Relaying signal from HQ: Yoda wants you at his quarters at the first opportune moment."

Azumi grimaced and responded with a double click on her mike. She was in no doubt that there would be hell to pay when she docked after she had run away for that long without saying anything. It had been necessary however. Spotting the twin row of arrows, she steered the small fighter into the docking bay and disengaged the engine. Home.

###

Splendid in green, gold and red, the Behemoth class heavy trade vessel propelled itself on a metre long jet of hard radiation on the fastest route towards the wormhole, top and dorsal turrets scanning for enemy ships while the escort fighters enveloped the convoy of which it was a member. The starboard engine stuttered slightly due to some impurities in the fuel and William chose to target that particular point with his heavy gatling turret. The twin set of flares would thunder from the launchers that were located on each side of the fuselage of his trusty Centaur Mk III and impact within half a second around the defence turret of the moth tearing the armour plates off and smash the entire ship out of course, exposing the flanks to another set of follow-up flares that would bury themselves inside the moth before detonating and reduce the former cargo ship to an expanding ball of scrap metal, trade goods and human waste. William depressed his triggers and made a swooshing sound with his mouth at the same time.

The anti-climatic result was inevitable since William had his weapons release switch set to safe and no weapons had been triggered. The Behemoth thundered on blissfully unaware of the dangers lurking merely metres behind it. Soon, very soon William would be allowed to smash the opulent self-righteous traders to bits as he so longed for. But for now he would have to ride escort for the sake of his guild. For the sake of his master. Finding it hard to control the wrath and pain that welled up inside of him like the bile residue of a hard night out he reached for and found the one item that allowed him to keep what little remained of his true self. He dragged the by now pitted and dull blade of his straight razor across the piece of metal that at some time had been a part of the fuselage of a Valkyrie but was now welded tight to the left side of the cockpit. The multitude of scratches that had been dug up to one centimetre into the armour almost covered the light blue paint that had been background for the nametag of which only the first letter, a black and ornate J could be read. He would take out vengeance upon them when the time was right.

The splendid green, gold and red ships traversed the wormhole one by one with William following dutifully. The wolf shepherding the sheep.

###

The rescue pod cocoon itself was the product of centuries of trial and error and was about as safe as possible without rendering the pilot unconscious. The first generation cocoons had simply injected a quick working sleep toxin and let the pilots sleep through the recovery. Too many pilots had, however, been lost to minor technical faults that were easily fixed by the pilot and thus the second-generation cocoon had allowed the pilot to stay conscious. Then they lost a lot of pilots to inexplicable causes such as the cocoon being opened from the inside in deep vacuum and found that claustrophobia was the main culprit. Generation four (generation three was quickly discontinued due to some rather nasty errors) allowed the pilot to be conscious but semi-asleep. The cocoon tried to re-create the amount and quality of light that was found inside a mother's womb and it seemed that a good combination had been found. This type of rescue pod had been in service for around three hundred years and was the standard rescue pod available for regular citizens.

It was also the setting for the recurrent nightmare that haunted Cat every night. The soft red glow held no promise of motherly warmth and safety for her. It guaranteed the terrors of helplessness in face of a nameless killer that would haunt her no matter what happened. The soft warning chimes of a radar lock, the shrill note of warning when she was targeted and the shivering until harsh positron death hammered through her shivering body and woke her in pain, sweat and tears.

She hadn't slept properly for around two months now, not since the new member had arrived in KAOS. Not since she had heard his voice that was so very similar to the pilot she had encountered in Itani space. She had tried to talk to Silia about it but had just been given some anti-depressants and sleep pills that her brainpal could just as easily synthesize. She had tried using them the first week or so until she had the first flashback while flying coolant crates for her guild given mission. She had woken with a strike force outside her cockpit window and her Behemoth crashed halfway into the docking mantle. She realised that she would rather have the nightmares than risk another flashback and had stopped using the medicine. She had tried burying herself in close quarter combat training but found that sooner or later even her exhaustion was no shield against her own mind. She had tried asking Ahriman but he had not been around since the operation had started. And Asteroth was nowhere to be found. She felt lonely again. Actually, she felt abandoned.

###

Tufan ran his fingers through the long almost whispery thin beard that sprouted from his chin repeatedly as he focused on the screen in front of him. Hideously complicated with trade routes running to and fro in multitudes of colours denominating the different traders and the ranking that they would follow in order to maximise the profits of TGFT, it took almost all of his concentration to make any sense of it. He smiled a crooked smile as the picture slowly merged with his plan, or rather the plan he had been given. This would surely work if only he could get the data out in a day or so. He sensed a figure in the screen’s reflection and stopped midway on his chin beard. A hand came down on the side of the terminal, the arm clad in an immaculate green sleeve; a smell of Ole Spice emanated like the heat of a hearth in deep winter, comforting and inspiring trust, the deep voice of councillor Waldoze boomed from his enormous chest.

“Planning immense profits there lad?”

Tufan smiled despite the anxiety he really felt inside.

“Aye, I am thinking of a route from Odia to Pyronis.”

The giant chuckled and pointed with a stubby finger at the screen, smearing it with his fingertip.

“If I were you lad, I’d take the route from Bractus instead. Ah know that it is another system but they are quite a lot cheaper than the bastards of Odia. Quick in, buy 100.000 crates and move them fast. Whamo, mega-credits.”

Tufan couldn’t help smiling even wider; Waldoze had that effect on most people.

“Surely that takes a lot of credits to set up, more than I have surely.”

“Ha, get a loan in the guild bank. I’ll vouch for you myself my friend.”

Tufan turned and looked at the broad faced man that was towering over him, a contagious grin on his face.

“Deal effendi. I shall take the loan out tonight and be on my way tomorrow morning.”

“That’s a true merchant speaking. You can always pay one in the Priggly Pear, okay?”

With those words Waldoze winked at Tufan and turned towards the exit. Tufans started stroking his chin beard again as he took a data-dump to his secure storage. Almost as an afterthought he asked for and was granted a loan of 38 million UIT credits that he immediately transferred to his non-traceable cred stick. It was like stealing candy from children. Tufan, aka Asteroth walked to his room to send the information he had just stolen to his master. Truly one of the biggest robberies of all time was about to take place and it was all is doing.

ohey, you updated.
nice stuff, as usual.

nice to see you hadnt dropped this thread hope to read more soon

Very good, as always. Looking forward to more.

First class storytelling. A few more like this and I'd suggest you work this into a publishable form.

Long term I would like to see a serious "Excellent storytelling inspired by VO " section added to the VO site so that material of this quality could be accessed and read almost in the form of a set of edited short stories without trawling through the RP forum.

Ecka

Thanks all. It means a ton that someone actually reads it and even more, that they like it. Now, the tale kinda stops here 'cause the story continues in one of the earlier I wrote. Doesn't mean that it is the last story however. Something is bound to pop up.

Thanks for another fun read.

Is this the prelude to "Rose by any other name"?
awesome stories, all three of them.

I would have posted sooner, but I've been terribly busy as of late.

As always, Whytee, your writing skills are exceptional. You certainly know how to weave an intricate story. I especially admire your skill at establishing events through multiple viewpoints; it gives a great sense of perspective.

Anyway, I hope to see your next great endeavor soon. The exploits of your characters never fail to capture my interest.

TehRunner:

Actually, it is the prelude to The Stag Party:

http://www.vendetta-online.com/x/msgboard/7/19006

and that one is the real prelude to A Rose by any Other Name...

Thanks for the kind words vIsitor :)