"I said 'moreso than archaeology or religion'," Ngawai replies tersely. "I'd rather deal with people than ten-thousand-year-old junk, and back then I thought rules were how things got done. But I started to like it when offenders didn't just give up at the first sight of a drone. I learned that rules and laws only work as long as people let them. At the end of the day, laws are just words. You're better off knowing who owes who a favor, which people are supplying what the others want, how far a given person'll go to get what they want. Those laws aren't in the Cortex, but they're all you need to know out here."
Semo looks up at Arketta from his position on the floor. "I know what you mean. Unfortunately, this was my fault; curiosity got the best of me and I didn't really think it through. I screwed up, and we might well have died as a result."
Looking over at the gear, then back, Semo considers for a moment. "Well, we don't have that kind of gear with us. Probably could be made just as easily with your tech, but we're not familiar with your tech or where to get access to it. If you have suggestions on how we can go about that, I'm sure the Captain would be interested in hearing them."
Davis nods. "Well, we're out here because, as you've guessed, we're from what you call Narsai, and what we call Earth. We just recently discovered, or more correctly, rediscovered gateway technology. During our first expedition, the Imperial forces attacked us unprovoked once they realized where we are from, and then attempted to invade through the gateway. We repelled them, but not before they sent a message back with an image of our night sky." His face hardens as he looks at Ngawai. "We were told that Earth is going to be invaded, our cities destroyed and our families sold as slaves. So, basically, we're here to stop that from happening."
He pauses for a second, thinking of what to say next and about why he's out here. "Why be a Apprehender? Someone with your skills, you could have done any number of things that paid better. Why not join the criminals and scum instead of keeping on trying to put them away?"
Luis double-checks their course, finds it fine, and leaves the bridge for the barracks. He steps in just as Arketta mentions that she doesn't want to die for nothing, and he gets an involuntary mental flash to the grisly work he has to do to secure Taylor's remains. He shuts his eyes, shakes his head, and takes a breath, then sits quickly onto one of the makeshift bunks. Semo's followup comes just as Luis' attention returns to the world outside of his head. He jumps on it, eager for something else to focus on. "The real problem is getting the information on how to do it, I think. I don't know exactly how they make those things," he points to the AT-4s, "just how to shoot 'em. Might be able to reverse-engineer them, but it'd probably mean disasembling at least one of the remaining ones. Bullets might be a little easier, I guess. Max might have some ideas."
Shrugging off some of his gear, Luis unzips a side posket of his pack and pulls out a rather worn pack of playing cards. He shuffles them once, then looks around, holding the deck up. "Anyone up to a game?"
"I've seen my share of friends die, for good reasons and shitty ones. Glad you made it though."
Angel looks at the guns and shrugs.
"As far as I'm concerned, they're complex pieces of machinery that explode in a predictable fashion. How that happens is not so much my forte. Bullets could be easier though, I know they're not *that* hard to make."
The talk of ammunition settles into idle chat around a cargo bay poker game. There are quite a few "practice hands" while Arketta learns that no, 'four reds' is not necessarily a good hand. She's not that good at bluffing either. Still, her mood lightens considerably as Luis, Angel, and Semo do their part in making her feel at home.
Arketta feels that whoever you're meeting on Aikoro should be able to get the chemicals and metals to manufacture more ammunition. Not only ammo - if the rebels/cultists/whoever had undetectable weapons, the Imperium would be playing catch-up for once in what is probably a very long time.
---
With the Morningstar on course and with several hours left to go, Max sets up in the ship's original barracks and unpacks his Turai armor. The steady rumble of hand-held power tools vibrates the decks on the upper level as Max starts dissecting his captured gear. With the helmet feed running through his laptop, Max attempts to figure out what exactly makes the Imperial armor broadcast as "friendly" to Imperial weapons. The suit runs a layer of embedded ECM to block just that type of attack, however, and it takes Max several hours of cutting, fixing, and jury-rigging different components before he determines that the IFF is at least partially set up at the "company" level. He knows the suits track the wearer's vitals, and they can pulse back a "this guy's dead, turn off the IFF so the bad guys don't use him as a shield" signal. Theoretically, it should be possible to engineer a dummy broadcast to shut down a live Turai's IFF and make him vulnerable to friendly fire. Max isn't happy with that, however - he wants the whole shebang.
There are more than a few live-fire tests in the Morningstar's crew quarters. Max has to take a break while castoff heat recycles through the ship, so he works on the programming. Eventually he pumps his hands in the air when his test beamer fails to fire. He's got the signal - at least for that weapon and that now-battered suit of armor.
It'll be touch and go in a real fight, but after many hours of painful research, Max thinks he's got a hand-vox that should shut down a Turai's weapons. They'll think everything is friendly, at least until it's overridden by the commanding officer. To that end, Max has got a tuner running on his Toughbook. Luis is probably the only one on the ship who would get it, but the best way to explain it is like the Borg shields from Star Trek but in reverse. Max has got to adapt his signal on the fly in order to maintain the friendly IFF bomb, but in theory it can be done.
With luck, and more raw components, Max could refine the jammer into a floating drone or something that could be worn on the body.
---
"Seems reasonable," Ngawai says in reply to Davis' explanation of the Earthlings' mission.
"You mean why be like the fucks that killed my partner?" Ngawai gets agitated here. "No, I was bringing justice to people who thought they could run and hide. It wasn't till I met Harlon that I learned that was a suicide run. He turned me on to the money side of it. There are always going to be offenders, and there are more Apprehenders, Khiraba, whatever, they're there to take my place if I get pulped. He said 'take the hard ones for your conscience, then take the easy ones so you can keep takin' the hard ones'. We hooked up with Talia, and that was a long easy job that left us free to just take down who we needed to."
Before Davis can follow up on that, Ngawai goes back to his 'war with the Imperium' info. "Look. I don't have a problem with you fighting for your world. You gotta do it smarter, though. What were you doing wasting Kansat on Botane? Your team's marked for death and you don't even know if the Keepers know where Narsai is yet."
Davis leans back, then stiffens up, put a detached, professional tone on his voice. "We were getting squeezed by some corrupt Kansat when we were trying to get to a business deal to raise some lats, selling some next-to-useless weapons from Earth, and it went south. They were going to take half our goods because we didn't have proper papers, and that would have left us flat broke and shit out of luck, both in terms of money and our chances in getting out of the meeting alive. So given two bad choices, we made the one that got us screwed less. We tried to be reasonable, but they didn't give us a choice. We're still unknown, so it's not like we can drop the 'Do you know who we are' card and get away with it. It was a bad situation, both because we had to kill the Kansat, even though they were corrupt, and the unnecessary attention it attracted."
He pauses for a second, then continues. "So Harlon's the one who convinced you to stop bringing the bad guys to justice, to stop fighting the good fight? I apologize for having to talk about him, but you two seemed like more than just coworkers. The fact that you recognized him even with all the lights out is pretty telling. What was he like?"
Luis nods at Arketta's coments. "Yeah, sounds like these guys have been taking it in the shorts a long time. It'd be nice to have something to give 'em to turn the tables." He looks his hand over (a pair of sevens and junk), comments, and then discards two of the junk cards. "Dealer takes two," he notes. (He's been dealing the whole time so as to not introduce another layer of complexity.) He looks at his two draws, and mentally berates himself. It's still junk, but if he'd discarded the six and kept the ten, he'd have had two pair instead of just the pair he started out with. Doing his best to keep the annoyance off his face, he looks back to Arketta. "So, what made you decide to join the Turai? Patriotism? Family tradition? Nothing better to do?"
Davis sees the callous mask Ngawai's been wearing since she was captured crack just a little bit. The flash of anger in her eyes, the way she tenses up - he had guessed Ngawai and Harlon weren't just coworkers and she confirms it without saying a word. Judging from her reaction now, and her reaction to losing her partner back in Kansat, there's a strong possiblity Ngawai forgives about as well as Frank Castle.
"Harlon ... was... practical. We never stopped taking bounties, we just realized we weren't getting younger. Slow down, find another way to keep the lats coming in, and live longer. Harlon was a crude barbarian who never fought fair. He's why I'm still alive, and I guess you could say he's why I sawed a good chunk out of those polymer cuffs back in the crashers using some of that shrapnel I palmed in the airlock."
There's a snap as she twists and pulls at the flexcuffs, bringing her hands back around in front of her. Ngawai remains seated, however, and adds, "But please, continue."
Davis figures he's making progress - she hasn't leapt for his throat, but he feels the Harlon issue is not resolved. Ngawai went Charles Bronson on a bunch of smugglers for killing her Kansatai partner - what kind of grudge is she harboring for Harlon's death?
---
"I have three diamonds," Arketta says, proudly showing her 3, 4, and 8 of that bejeweled suit. She sees Luis subtly shake his head and looks back. "Um, I have... oh. Two threes," she adds sheepishly. "As for my service, It was indeed a tradition for my family. All the women have served the Emperor as best they can. My mother was Turai, was a Samal before she met my father. My mother's sister is Kansatai, my mother's mother was Fleet, and this goes all the way back to the Sheen purge and, as far as I know, back to Hedion's colonization. My father and his fathers have tended Hedion's solar beacons for generations. My family has always been meek, industrious men paired with adventurous women. The Quis clan has been small - beamer wounds can sterilize you unless the kauka shines true - but my immediate family's been lucky for the most part. What of your families and your service?"
Davis smiles. "A nice trick, and I thank you for choosing not to stick it in my throat. I'll have to take that with me when I leave, of course, but for now, hold onto it, and I'll remove your leg restrains then as well."
He shifts in his seat slightly. "I understand the desire to do so, you two were certainly close, and I apologize for what happened to him. I've been in many situations where I am working with people who would normally be my enemies, and I've found that we very often have more in common with each other than one would think. Harlon sounds somewhat similar to myself, and had we met under different circumstances, all three of us might have worked well together. Unfortunately, that's not how things turned out, and you have to remember that we did not ambush you like the criminal scum that killed your Kansat partner. You were the aggressors, and we merely defended ourselves. As a matter of fact, Harlon shot and killed one of our men before we even knew he was there. If Semo hadn't mentioned to us what happened in the hangar, we would have been caught completely unaware and slaughtered, just like what happened partner and you on Sambasan."
He pauses for a second to let that last line linger, then looks Ngawai right in the eyes. For the first time in a while, Davis opens up and puts every bit of his real emotions on the line. "You need to know that we would not kill anyone unless we absolutely had to, a philosophy that I'm sure you can appreciate. We're fighting the Imperium, the people who have threatened us with slavery and annihilation. Not Harlon and certainly not you, Ngawai. We're fighting to stop Earth, our homeworld, from becoming another Bashakra. You know the difference between what's right and what's wrong as well as anyone could, and you used to be willing to fight and die to stop those who would do evil. You, of all people, should understand why we're doing what we're doing, not because of some belief or worship of some far off homeworld that none of you have ever seen, but because we're trying to stop something that is evil and wrong from destroying everything we know."
He leans back after that outburst, and takes a deep breath. "Are you thirsty? I'm thirsty." He stands up. "Give me the shrapnel, I'll cut your restraints, and we'll both take a break and get something to drink. Unless you have another question before we go?"
"I have three diamonds," Arketta says, proudly showing her 3, 4, and 8 of that bejeweled suit. She sees Luis subtly shake his head and looks back. "Um, I have... oh. Two threes," she adds sheepishly. "As for my service, It was indeed a tradition for my family. All the women have served the Emperor as best they can. My mother was Turai, was a Samal before she met my father. My mother's sister is Kansatai, my mother's mother was Fleet, and this goes all the way back to the Sheen purge and, as far as I know, back to Hedion's colonization. My father and his fathers have tended Hedion's solar beacons for generations. My family has always been meek, industrious men paired with adventurous women. The Quis clan has been small - beamer wounds can sterilize you unless the kauka shines true - but my immediate family's been lucky for the most part. What of your families and your service?"
Luis lets out a quick sigh as he lays down his pair, "Sevens." It's enough to beat Arketta's pair, but might not hold if Angel or Semo have anything good. He takes a breath and gives his answer, "Well, my family's been living in the Northeast for generations. Dad was an engineer, Mom was an ER doctor, they got together and I grew up in this little city in New Hampshire, Franklin. I kinda followed their lead into college, then after a year or three realized I wasn't really up for it and joined up. Now, I'm not sure how much political stuff or societal stuff they gave you back when you enlisted Arketta, so let me just tell you that Earth, it's not united. Lots of cultures, lots of different nations, sometimes some big squabbles over little things, and then other times not enough fuss over the big things. America's a big player, it's been the major world leader ever since the other big superpower, the Soviet Union, collapsed, right about when I was born. Occasionally, though, our leaders make the same kinds of errors we made today, getting into things without planning too well for contingencies, and one was a war back four years ago. We invaded this country called Iraq because we thought they were developing some pretty nasty stuff, nerve gasses, bombs based off of nuclear technology, not good things. We won the early stuff, toppled the guy's government, and then....well, we really dropped the ball. Some of the citizens decided they didn't like us there and wanted things to go back to a strongman dictator or something instead the democracy we were trying to set up. There's insurgents, terrorists from other nations, it's all just one big mess. It's about the most contreversial thing going on, and it's sucked up most of our standing military available for duty. And this is what I got myself into. Wound up there, in the Captain's unit. Pretty soon after I got posted, one of the patrol convoys we were assigned to got jumped by insurgents. He takes charge, pulls us out with no losses, there's all kinds of news stories about it, because it's good news, and then a couple of days later, the transport he's in gets hit by a roadside bomb while we're headed back to base after a patrol. Rest of the tour's the same kind of story, one step forward, one step back, and when I'm due to rotate out they ask me to join up with this bunch and ship me out to Mesa Negras." He chuckles darkly, "You know, I've been thinking if having the Imperiu on our doorstep might be the thing that finally tells us to get our act together back on Earth, get all our ducks in a row and stop trying to hurt each other. I'm just thankful we were the ones to find the Gate, if some of the types we were fighting in the Mid East got their hands on it they probably would have just signed over the rights to the planet if they could get power. Not that the whole world's crazy except for the US, most of it is pretty much the same as we are, but sometimes it seems like there's always somebody in some dirtbag country who's too concerned with who killed who a thousand years ago to not kill every one of the other side's decendents they can." Luis stops, blinks, then looks around, "Sorry, I'm a medic. When I can't save a guy it gets my cynicism going."
A rather jagged piece of metal not much bigger than a Coke tab, likely a shred of a spare SCAR magazine, skitters towards Davis.
"You're right, I understand what you're doing. But what are you asking me? Do I want to join your merry band of insurgents? All what, ten of you? What kind of plan lets ten people beat... well, everyone else?"
---
"My people may have had an unfair advantage then," Arketta says after Luis finishes. "The First united the people against the Masters long ago and the Sheen war reminded the Imperium why we must stand as one. The Homeworld could have redoubled their conviction, but it appears that their lack of absolute success has cautioned against bold proclamations. I believe that when our mission is a success, when Earth has taken its rightful place at the head of the Imperium, it will usher in a golden age not seen since the days of Vidas Lam and the Great Expansion."
Hugh has been silent so far, trying to follow the poker game without getting too mixed up in it. When Luis talks about the ambush in Iraq, he unconsciously rubs his leg. Six months in traction...six months of going slowly crazy while his leg knit itself back together. He thinks back to all the kauka treatment he's gotten since the start of the mission and almost shrugs internally. You can wax philosophically about how it's not really your meat that's growing back, sure, but it beats dying or getting limbs amputated or...
He tries very hard not to think back to the things he saw in the veteran's hospital.
Arketta's mention of Earth at the top of the Empire fills him with dread. Meet the new boss, same as the old boss - no. If they bring down the Empire, they have a duty to fix it, and do it right, dammit. When they get back, they really have to consider going public with this. Could be that they'll soon be in charge of a thousand worlds without any idea on how to handle them. The scale of it all makes him dizzy, and he sits down for a minute, taking deep breaths.
The trial run on cracking the Turai IFF successful, Max takes his Toughbook and findings to Hugh...also noticing the poker game and political discussion going on.
"Now we're talking!" exclaims Max, waiting for the end of the current hand before grabbing the deck from Luis.
"New dealer. Sevens are smack, Man with the Axe!" smirks the Action Scientist, doing a one-handed shuffle followed by a snappy riffle that would make any Vegas Whale's head spin.
*space crickets chirp*
"What? Oh, I take it we haven't made it past draw poker." says Max, dealing out five to everyone playing.
Davis kneels and picks up the shard of metal. "Even if we could turn the entire population of Earth into an army to fight the Imperium, we would still lose."
He stands back up again. "There's a book on military strategy, written thousands of years ago. It was accurate, it's still successfully used today. Usually, quoting it is horribly cliche, but I think it's appropriate here. 'Speed is the essence of war. Take advantage of the enemy's unpreparedness; travel by unexpected routes and strike him where he has taken no precautions.' Instead of facing them head on, our goal is to outmaneuver them, and strike them where they least expect it. Win a morale victory, let the people know we're out there and what the truth of what's going on is. After that, things should get a little easier."
Davis pulls out a multi-tool and cuts her leg restraints. "As for why I want you to help us? Because I know you want to. I can see it all over your face. I talked to the shipmaster on the Hunter, I know how you and Harlon met Malenko. You wanted to bust her for what she'd done, lock her away forever, but he only saw the easy money you two could make protecting that murderous bitch. It must have killed you when you started protecting her, looking the other way as she lured in child after child. Well now, I'm offering you the chance to go back to what you were doing before, to doing what you always wanted to do: taking down the scum and evil people out there. It's why you still have the scars from when you were ambushed on Sambasan, to remind yourself of that desire, and why you shot Malenko, because you finally had the chance to take her down. We need all the help we can get, Ngawai. Come with me, help us fight, and we can win."
Angel has thus far been consistently losing at Poker, and making a good show of it, although its not entirely clear if its legitimate or for show. The Deltas have known him long enough that both are possibly true - there was that one time that a good chunk of a week's pay vanished over the course of an evening...
Angel chuckles as he throws away another hand. "Your family sounds a lot like mine Arketta...my father and his father both served, while Mom stayed home and make sure the kids had three square meals and went out to door with matching shoes."
He grins the next hand. "Finally, 4 6's."
"I was in Iraq too...not a good place. It's what happens when the mighty lose their way."
The game and the conversation both swirl about the table. Semo has wired his iPod through a pair of miniature speakers so that everyone can groove along as they play.
So far, he hasn't been doing all that well, and this hand is no different. "Fold," he says, placing his hand face down and pushing them forward.
"My parents work on other peoples' farms, travelling with the seasons and jobs. They don't have much; just barely getting by, really. I joined the military mostly to get out of that life.
"The military's been pretty good to me. I've seen action here and there about our world and always come through somehow. Eventually I got picked for the exploratory mission through the gate. Man, that changed everything! Now we're just trying to ensure that our world doesn't end up a burnt cinder."
"Call." grunts Max, wishing he had a good Cuban cigar to go along with his cards.
"The military pretty much allowed me to legally indulge in experiments that would have otherwise got me banned from every science lab on the planet. Those people never could realize the potential of a man-portable supercollider. On this side of the Gate, you can pretty much pick one up from any gun store worth its salt. Sad, really. You spend your whole life bodging together working models of science fiction gadgets and then the government sends you to a place where all of it is readily available. They have a saying for this on Earth...mostly just from where I'm from. It's called Shattered Dreams. I think I'm going to take a break after this hand. Can I get anyone else a drink?"
"If you can coax something resembling orange juice from the autochef, that would be nice," Arketta requests. "We have farms and family in common then. On Hedion, the equatorial region is swathed with drone farms. The agros this ship originally carried were likely going to one of these territories. For most of its people, Hedion is cramped, loud, and exciting. The cities reach high into the atmosphere and sprawl across the higher latitudes' bedrock. For the solar engineers, like my father, and the agro farms, life is slower, more solitary, quiet."
*Luis to CIC,* Swims grunts over the intraship vox. *We approach Gate.*
---
"Give some time to think about it?" Ngawai asks Davis. "Till your next stop. It's... it's a lot to think about."
Davis nods. "Not a problem. It's a big and, I admit, very difficult decision to make, and I wouldn't want to force you into it." He opens the door. "Shall we see if we can get something edible out of that contraption in the mess?"
Admiral Duck Sauce
