“Captain Soren,” Carter Yates said, his voice barely above a gravelly growl as he looked across our gathered crew in the Vagabond’s conference room, “You did not have the authority to retrieve the blackbox from that shuttle, and I demand you turn that over to Elite Hardworks immediately.”

“Mister Yates…” Soren tisked softly as he shook his head at the CEO. “Under the Terran Union Salvager’s Rights Declaration, Page 451, Section J, Subsection A, any materials relating to information regarding the hull loss of a vessel under 500 tons are considered public material. The courts have decided this to mean that we don’t need your permission to collect the blackboxes, so long as we make them public.”

“But you haven’t done that yet.” Mr. Yates replied, still glaring daggers at Soren as he spoke. Even the two other executives in the boardroom with us, Mr. Hedgeworth and Mr. Ryans were seemingly uncomfortable with the zeal in which their CEO was going off at our captain. 

“Not yet. We wanted to give you a chance to see the data privately before we release it.” Soren said slowly, his smile growing ever sharper. I knew he was revelling in this. He always loved this kind of power fantasy in stories, and living them out in the game was a dream come true. 

I stepped a little closer to Lea, my ears pinned back despite my best efforts to keep a straight face. I was still feeling nervous with the CEO. He reminded me too much of the times when Dad came home, however rare that was. 

“You want to extort us.” Yates ground out, standing abruptly with clenched fists. Both myself and Troy put our hands on our weapons, and he backed down a little. 

“Alex, would you please play camera E4 from the shuttle’s logs?” Soren said, ignoring the executive’s blatant intimidation tactic. 

“Yes, Captain.” Alex replied, tapping on his tablet. 

The large screen in the conference room lit up as video from one of the destroyed shuttle’s external cameras. The data had been saved in real time to the blackbox, showing the inside of the maintenance bay on the asteroid station. A young mechanic was crawling on top of the shuttle in question, and it was easy enough to spot him place a small black shaped charge on top of the shuttle. A moment later, he spray painted the box in the same colour as the rest of the shuttle’s hull. After, it just looked like a component that belonged to anyone not familiar with the Scout 55 and its variants. 

When we’d gone over the blackbox data earlier, Nitra had confirmed that the player there was actually an employee of Dethhead as well. It didn’t really help her case with the rest of the crew trusting her, but it helped solidify our case against the executives since she was willing to testify that Elite was the one who had hired Dethhead in the first place. 

The view on the screen changed. This was from a different camera, post detonation of the charge. It showed the void of space for a moment before a carefully concealed, black painted stealth shuttle seemed to form out of the void itself. Panels opened in the front, and two manipulator arms connected to the shuttle wreckage as it began to push the shuttle wreckage to where we found it. The two asteroids gradually slid into frame around the sides of the shuttle as the stealth ship detached and vanished into the void once again. 

As the videos continued on, CEO Carter Yates went paler and paler as the evidence he had intended to destroy was laid out plainly in front of him. As they came to an end, Soren grinned wider. 

“This doesn’t prove anything.” Yates said slowly. “All we see is one of our employees placing something on the shuttle, and another unknown ship pushing it somewhere. Nothing connects us to this.” 

“That’s true,” Soren agreed, nodding slowly as he let the CEO talk. “However… You may want to tell that to said employee.” 

The screen changed again, showing the brig of the Vagabond this time. Inside was the young mechanic, sitting in a prisoner’s jumpsuit that Soren had ensured was provided for the video. Leaning on the wall across from him in the cell was Nitra, also in the same jumpsuit. 

“So, they figured you out too, huh?” The synth woman sighed, looking over the man. 

“Yeah. Apparently the explosive wasn’t powerful enough and didn’t destroy the blackbox like it was supposed to.” The mechanic shrugged. “Whatever. Do you know what they are going to do to us?”

“Well, Deathhead has disavowed us. I overheard some of the crew talking about just turning me over to the Union to deal with, so probably that.” Nitra lied, keeping the charade up of being a prisoner like him still. 

“Ugh. Whatever, at least it’s a decent grinding zone. Maybe we can get some levels out of it and get off early for good behaviour?” The mechanic groaned, leaning back on the sole bed in the room. “This contract with Elite was just garbage from the start.” 

The video pauses, and Soren was positively beaming at this point. “We have him on tape confessing to working for you, as well as a written confession we obtained when we proved to him we knew. On top of that…” 

Alex taps his tablet again, bringing up the shuttle’s emergency ID certification. It laid out all the basic information regarding the shuttle’s systems, the dimensions, and a layout of the electrical and hydraulic systems. But what Alex highlighted for the benefit of the CEO and the other execs was the variant card, and the ship’s serial number. 

“This,” Lea took up the explanation, “Is your motive. As you can see, this was a Scout 55A variant personnel and cargo shuttle. This model was recalled years ago, for safety reasons. You should only be operating the 55E variant, which you claimed this was. We now have proof you lied and can offer further evidence to support that your entire supposed fleet of 55Es were all marked incorrectly. This means that you were lying on your insurance documents, violating several clauses in your policies.”

The room fell silent, both of the supporting executives looking up at their CEO as he worked his jaw. His eyes were glued to Soren, who sat there with a cheshire grin splitting his face. 

“How much?” Yates asked, his voice a quiet whisper.

“Delete your accounts.” Soren replied, his voice equally soft as the grin began to fall off his face. “Delete your accounts, start from nothing. That’s the start of what you can do.” He continued, slowly rising to his feet in turn. “After that, you can start panhandling on the streets of the cities. Begging for mercy and salvation.”

“What!?” Ryans said, standing in surprise as his eyebrows shot up his forehead. “That’s ridiculous, the Union would only sentence us to labour!”

“I don’t care.” Soren replied, staring right back at the slightly younger executive. “There’s nothing you can give me that I want. There is nothing in this galaxy that will make me care for your sorry asses. Alex, make it public.” Their corporate death sentence was given, Soren never breaking eye contact.

“Yes Captain,” Alex said, at the same time Ryans tried to leap across the table with a “NO!” to try and stop him. 

Troy reacted first, simply drawing his pistol and putting a low-velocity hollow point round into the executive’s face. The corpse went limp across the middle of the table, blood pooling around his head. 

Alex set his tablet on the table in stride. “Done, Captain. It has been posted on multiple forums, official complaints have been sent, and we have received confirmation of receipt.”

“Thank you, Alex.” Soren said as he turned away. “Get this filth off my ship. We’ll leave it to the Union enforcement teams to clean this station up.” 

“How’d it go?” Nitra asked me as she slipped into the seat across from mine in the galley. She’d been hanging out with the prisoner until the meeting was done. We didn’t want either of them trying anything until the information was published. 

“It uh… It went fine…” I replied, feeling a blush already forming. The loose smile Nitra was wearing was causing so many weird feelings in my heart, and she could absolutely tell the effect she was having on me. 

“Oh yeah? I heard someone got shot. Did you do that?” The synthetic woman teased, leaning forwards, her elbows on the table and holding her chin in her hand. 

“N-no!” I replied with a yelp, ears flicking back against my skull as I looked at her with wide eyes. “Troy shot one of the executives when he lunged at Alex…”

“Damn, that’s hardcore.” Nitra whistled. 

“I… I guess?” I said slowly. “It was all too loud for me.” 

“That’s alright.” Nitra nodded. “You are a pilot, regardless. Shooting people isn’t really in your job description on a ship like this.”

“Yeah, well… I used to do a lot of it.” I said quietly, mind wandering back to my previous character. Thinking about the amount of ship kills I got as a combat pilot. About how much I’d disassociated from my own body, real and virtual, at the time. Even when I’d been in that hyper focused state during the flight out to the ruined shuttle, it was more like everything had felt so much more vivid and present. Even including my own body. My very female body. It was incredible, even if the emotions from it only came after I’d had time to decompress. The stress of the situation held back those emotions until I was safe, but now…

I didn’t notice Nitra getting up and sliding into the chair next to me. I only came back to reality as she put her arm around me. I should’ve pulled away, everyone on the crew kept saying to keep my distance from the synth. But as she quietly held me, I felt safe. I leaned against her, resting my head against her shoulder. 

“You look like someone with a lot on their mind. I’m not going to ask, but…” Nitra took a deep breath. “I used to be like that too. So many things moving around in my head. I just… Player to player, putting aside everything… If you need someone just to sit with you, I’m happy to.”

I gulped slightly, nodding. I barely knew this woman. She’d tried to kill me once already, barely two days ago. It was only due to sheer luck and a bit of EVA experience that had saved me. But now… Her warm synthetic arm around my back, her soft voice in my ear… It brought such a relaxing feeling. Like I could set aside my worries for just a moment and let myself relax completely. 

I took a slow breath. Maybe I was just touch starved. I wasn’t sure how to process what I was feeling right now, but I just wanted to-

Pain flared through my head, searing hot and burning through my skull. I vaguely heard Nitra’s concerned voice call out to me, the pain washing the words away in a torrent of lava coursing through the veins in my head and neck. Then, I was gone.

MaeveWerepuppy

Bam! Another chapter, closing of this small arc of the story! Time to see what Aunt Lori and her minions have been up to! 

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