Discontinuation
04 Oct 2020Prochaska
Zoe had finally found the time to fly to Mars High in Sol when news of the death of Harold Duval's assassination and the stations attacked by the NMLA arrived. The thought of Aisling Duval tightened her throat. She could understand only too well how the princess must have felt about the sudden loss of her father.Without further ado, Zoe left Mars gain to intervene in the conflict in Eurybia. The decision to fight against the Blue Mafia on the side of the Keltim Empire League was quickly made. Criminals who support terrorists and murderers must be brought to justice. None of this bunch could plead innocence anyway. The fact that an organization like the Blue Mafia spoke of defending freedom in its appeal to its supporters made Zoe furious.
When she thought of pirates, she always immediately thought of Julie Price and how they had met. It was late August 3304, and Zoe had just left for Sagittarius A* on her own. She flew through Omega Sector VE-Q b5-15, on her way to the Omega Mining Operation, and it seemed to her that she had never seen so many sinister figures in one place before. She therefore decided to hire a copilot on the base. While filing through the job applications, Julie caught her attention because she was a woman; Zoe would not have wanted to make the long flight with an unknown man, especially someone who was hanging out in such a scary place. And in Julies short resume there was something about her training with the FIA, and since she knew Roger, she associated reliability with people who had worked with federal agencies. Zoe pressed the connect button on her wristcom.
After Zoe introduced herself and gave a brief account of her background - parents entrepreneurs from Mars, Zoe's studies, then her time as a self-employed pilot, now a permanent position at UC and on her first expedition of her own - Julie was annoyed already. "Spoiled rich girl who doesn't know what to do with her time, on a great discovery tour; just great," she thought. Julie had grown up on one of the frontier worlds, and she had run away from home at 16 to escape the drunken tyrant who had once been her father, sometime before in the distant past. "And at 16, you started working for the FIA? What exactly did you do there after your training," Zoe asked, and when the answer came that she had been a transport pilot in the logistics department, Zoe smiled and said "pretty much the same thing I'm doing now at UC". Just like you, sure, little one, Julie thought sarcastically. Then, of course, came the question of why, why did you quit there so soon after finishing your training and give up such a secure job? Normally Julie had made up a smooth story for this question in job interviews, but now the truth burst out of her. "Because my little son had been kidnapped by pirates, and I wanted to search for him. You don't have the opportunity to do that at the FIA if you're just shuttling containers back and forth between port A and B." Then Julie waited for the affected face and the sighed 'I'm so sorry for you', and then she would end this silly conversation with an enraged comment. But the expected did not happen, instead Zoe replied: "I can understand that. When I was 15, my parents disappeared, and I've been searching for the what and why ever since."
Julie had a raging anger in her about the mess that life had thrown at her over the years, which she would have loved to let run free. But not now and not here she suddenly thought, and at the end of the conversation the two agreed on a consideration period so as not to rush the decision; but actually at this point they had both already decided to do the tour together.
Later on the flight, they had plenty of time, and Julie added more details to her story. What Zoe particularly remembered was the one sentence that her little son had probably been kidnapped to be taken into slavery because, as Julie had added with a fossilized expression on her face: "That I would never have been able to pay any ransom at all must have been clear to them from the beginning." Julie was aware that her search was almost hopeless, but stopping had never been an option for her.
Since then, when Zoe heard the word pirate anywhere, this episode was always her first association.
What made less sense to Zoe was the rest of the Empire's call. That Liz Ryder may have been involved in the transaction with the NMLA may have been possible. But why did the Empire want her to continue her business after the battle? And work together with her afterwards? Something didn't fit together at that point. Did the IISS know more about the background of the attacks than was published on GalNet?
But answers to these questions would be found in due course. Now there were more important things to do.