Counciling

I have been running full tilt too long. I need a bit of time to myself. I begin my morning routine. Getting out of my room, I walk down the hall and out of my fortress-mansion. Then, it’s time to walk. Every morning, when my world doesn’t need me, I take an hour to walk the streets of town. My body wants me to run, to burn off the energy, to lean on my other half, but that’s just another remnant of my past trying to control me. It’s hard to stop a habit entirely, so when I awaken feeling that urge instead of trying and failing to do nothing, I simply take a walk. As I do, my people see me and come chat. Never much, never longer than a few words back and forth. But it’s vital to the goal of this. To remind me that, even though they’re my people, they’re also people with their own lives, their own goals. I remember that most days, during the calm. But when the intensity rises, it gets easier and easier to forget the more the nPC helps me. The more the electricity surges through my soul. Whatever is left of it, anyways.

After thirty minutes of walking, the electricity is still surging, wanting more, but the instinct drilled into me for so long is more than capable of overpowering that feeling. I head back to my mansion and settle into a bath. I use the time to think about the coming meeting. Plan for what is going to be needed to be said, and more importantly, what isn’t.

Four times in as many weeks, the Marauders have been silly enough to come into my home. Well, my system. Unfortunately, only one of the seven ships that came by was worth keeping. Most of them are super boring, unfortunately. I did get a carrier, so that’s useful to the normies in our forces if a real battle ever happens. Means technically I got four ships, but the fighters barely count on their own. None of them could stand up on their own in a real battle. The Service, for their part, haven’t tried to invade my system, so my pontificating and messages worked. Or, more likely, Spitzypoo is busy with this Insurgency that the Marauders say isn’t one, so the muckity-mucks in the company are waiting for this to be over to get Al’s input. Which means, Thommy needs to be focused on our vulnerabilities so we can compensate once things come to a head.

But, I have a bigger issue at the moment. There’s a big war going on, and we’re going to be pulled into it. Most likely by either the Service, asking for help in exchange for freedom, or by one of my dipshit old allies, who know we can count on each other for help. Which means we need to scout out the battlelines, figure out how whatever is happening is going to happen. Taking a breath, I push down my addiction. I doubt I will be able to resist once the fighting starts back up, but for the moment, we don’t need one another, and having it around can prove problematic. I close my eyes and follow the lines of the veins, initiating the internal computer’s shutdown sequence. Though, technically, shutdown wouldn’t be the right term. It never really fully turns off. More like falls into a deep sleep, until it is reawoken by the rage. Relaxing in the bath makes it much easier to resist the pull.

Then, reopening my eyes in the silence, I take another deep breath and get up. Drying myself off the old fashioned way, I pull on an old, makeshift uniform and head to the meeting. As I walk through the halls faster than my previous walk, I furrow my brow. Less because I’m actually upset, but more because I don’t want to hold up the meeting and people don’t bug me when I look grumpy. Something about being terrified. Opening the double doors into the back of the mansion, I enter my command center.

Captain Phillips looks at me as I enter. He is in the room, one of five waiting for me. My council of leaderly people. “More trouble?” he asks.

“Not really, but kind of,” I admit. Looking at the monster tactic’s expert, I remind him, “You’ve already got stuff to focus your attention on, but I figured you’d want to be in on this meeting.”

“What is this about?” governor Julien Lacroix asks. He is the newly elected governor, head of the other branch of the government of our little home. The guy that makes sure things in our paradise run smoothly enough. The governorship is a three year position that, since we became independent, has basically alternated between him and his long-term ex-situationship Kylee Umber. Whoever is in charge at the moment comes to our meetings, and the other undoubtedly hears about it in among their angry pillowtalk.

“This is not an Insurgency that’s going on,” I say.

Captain Guillia Iordache looks up, curious. She’s upgraded from a wheelchair to crutches to a cane. From her progress, I’d guess she’s going to be back from the broken leg in a matter of weeks. “Are you getting us involved?” she asks. It’s clear why she’s curious. Her group specifically came here to avoid the conflict.

“Not directly, and hopefully not at all,” I admit, adding, “But there are many people that might draw us into the fight without my intention.”

C’pt’n Larry Barrett, why he chooses to pronounce it and have his men pronounce it for him without any vowels is beyond my comprehension, but I respect his bad choices, shakes his head. “The squad’s good to go, sure, but they’re not going to love it if we don’t have a clear path to our goals.” He’s more clever in the moment than he is in the strategy room, but he needs to know what the plan is if he’s going to improvise a better move in the heat of things.

“Which is why we’re having this meeting,” I remind him of his place, as the newest member of our group. Well, technically Julien is newer to everyone else here, but I’ve known him since I first got here, so it’s different.

Commander Lena Wu, who technically captains my bombard, shakes her head. “Who and on what side?” she asks, getting right to the point.

Thom answers before me. “I’m assuming either the service, actively lying to us, or one of the others.”

I nod, clarifying, “Not Spitzy, he’s the worst, says I’m unprofessional. But Zhihao, even though he’s a freelancer, currently does most of his work for Lux, so they might try if they even know about this place.”

“Lux does,” Larry confirms, “My guy Xander has a contact close to the feeds. Only one who doesn’t know about us in theory is Astro. Well, and there isn’t evidence Hadrian knows, but they’re hadrian, so…” he trails off, leaving the implicit of course the spy company knows the info that everyone else knows.

I nod in thanks. “Then there’s Frank. I think Franks moved fully over to working for a Freeport after the station assault incident, but he’s too scared of himself to ask for help. Probably. Quinn is on a rock in the middle of nowhere in outer space, so he won’t ask. But Alicia might as well, though she’d never try to bring us into battle.”

“What do you mean?” asks Julien, genuinely curious. He only knows about us monsters through me, and so any time I talk about my old traumabonded buddies, he’s all about it.

“She and I don’t really work well together. When I’m active, in combat, I can get a tad reckless about following plans and sticking to our objectives. I mean, you guys have experienced it.” They all nod, with Alexis chuckling. I continue, “She’s on a pirate crew skirting the legal lines of the Freeports now, so they really care about things like not doing wanton murder and not destroying ships and possibly valuable cargo.”

“But destroying ships is like your favorite activity,” Larry jokes.

Thommy shakes his head. “Don’t be silly. Her favorite activity is maintaining this place’s independence. Then comes punching things. Then comes destroying ships,” he jokes.

They all chuckle as I shake my head, a smile across my face. “Fine. Point is, if she contacts us, it’ll just be to use this system as a staging point of some kind. But the Service or Zhihao might try to get us to join in the actual fight, either the big man asking me for a favor and me dragging one of you dopes with me as transport.”

“Probably me,” Alexis groans, knowing I like the comfort of my bombard’s chambers.

I nod, then continue, “Or the Service offering some sort of blanket amnesty for our participation.”

“Which will almost certainly be a lie, but might buy us time after the war, especially if we help some of them survive,” Captain Phillips adds.

Julien nods. “We need our freeport trade to survive. I don’t think we accept the service’s offer, even if it’s legit and in writing.”

Commander Wu nods. “If you’re concerned, and her large friend reaches out, we can scrub our IDs and sigs on the bombard to make sure the freeports can’t confirm it is us. They might suspect, but that’ll just have them put some tariffs on things, not a full trade embargo.”

Julien smiles and nods. “The people would appreciate that.”

“I’ll have Hal get to work on that right away, after we break,” Alexis replies.

“And Alicia. Do we impose any restrictions?”

“Think she’d go for a secondary jump pattern? Doesn’t matter where as long as it isn’t here,” Captain Phillips asks.

I shrug. “It’ll depend on her captain, but I suspect so.”

“That should be enough. And maybe can we do an in person deal?”

“Is that necessary, or do you just want to see if she remembers you, too?” I ask, with an evil smirk.

He gives me back an even more wicked smirk. “A bit of that, but neither. I want you to steal their info on what’s going on. I’d ask the same with Zhihao but he would almost certainly just send a message to avoid getting attacked while getting here.”

I shake my head. “I hate you,” I say. But he’s right. They would have a more clear picture of the galaxy than we could.

“If that’s really the only reason,” Larry begins to reply, “There are other ways to do that. Not as, um, let’s say savory, but should probably be mentioned all the same.”

I shake my head. “We need to, but we can’t make more enemies. Know any relatively safe marauder ports you could swing by?”

Larry smiles. “D’fine safe,” he half-jokes. There really is no such thing as a safe marauder port.

“Out of the way from where we think things are going to pop off. Remember, some of your crew who surrendered didn’t want to join us in calling this place home,” I say.

“So you’re thinking, we drop them off then have someone snoop around for info?” he asks. He frowns. “Port Everton is the safest, given where it’s situated, but they won’t have any good info. They’d’ve started to turtle and bulk the moment there was even rumors of an insurgency. The Lysken Bases would be a good bet, assuming they haven’t relocated yet, but I would probably need to reach out before visiting. Then there’s Wit’s End, which we could go to and get info from easily enough, but is only safe if Hadrian hasn’t told the others about their existence, which, given the paranoia at play, is a fifty-fifty shot.”

If they die the same month they’re dropped off, that defeats the purpose. I need them talking with people, helping keep people out of my business, and serving as a pleasant reminder to my people that they chose this and can leave anytime, in theory. But at the same time, we need the information. And I would prefer not tipping my hand too much. Which to sacrifice, I muse. I furrow my brow. “Reach out to Lysken, nothing about the info, but as much as you want about the dropoff.” Turning to Julien, I ask, “You think Terrence will be okay with a journey?”

“If it means helping our cause,” Julien replies, “Most definitely.”