Ties that Bind 6: Best Laid Plans
13 Nov 2017Tarm Wallunga
13th November, 3303Deciat 6a – Farseer, Inc.
What a week. Drinking, smoking, eating – have I mentioned how the food here is delicious after eating the same half dozen or so meals for MONTHS? And holy Christ, actual running water! Why in the hell did I ever have the idea of traversing the damn galaxy when I could have just stayed right where I was and enjoyed these finer things in life?
I digress. We’re about to leave. The first couple days I spent back “home” were spent discussing things. Don’t ask what kind of things – you know what Johnny and I and the others talked about. Validation of what I had suspected ever since Hermes first threw that tidbit my way. I try not to think about it – my dad, murdering (or ordering the murder of) my mother – but I can’t help it. When I do, the rage boils, and to use that term, honestly, doesn’t do what I truly feel any damn bit of justice, whatsoever. According to Hermes, whose information seems to be just about as good as anything else, I suppose, it was all a calculated plan to get me back home so that dear old dad could start the final phase of “grooming me” for the “chair”. But that doesn’t make any sense – dad’s never had any real love for me. Never expressed, so far as I can remember, anything about me one day taking over WallCorp, and frankly, I’m not sure I ever really wanted it. Sure, the Galactic Pathways project was my idea, my undertaking that I had hoped would help the company expand into Colonia and perhaps even beyond. Course, dad shot that shit down – no feedback to the idea, let alone any sort of support once I was under way tends to do that to a man’s confidence.
But it still doesn’t make any sense. How does killing my mother get me to come home when I’m literally halfway across the galaxy? I mean, aside from having me come home for the funeral, I suppose, but that’s just plain impractical considering how far out I was at the time. It would have been about a month to get back home, and that’s before taking into account any one of a billion things that could have gone wrong.
Make it worse – I have to wonder what his true agenda is. First, he kills my mother, supposedly to bring me back home. But then send multiple ships out to catch me and kill me as I cross the Core? Months apart, perhaps, though maybe more like weeks – who knows with this weeks’ worth of illicit substances raiding my brain. Either way, whatever dad’s thinking, his brain-pan is seriously stewed.
We have a plan, though. At least, a half-ass plan, which, of course, is better than zero-plan. I’ve done zero-plan ops before – they usually don’t turn out well. Not without a metric shit-ton of luck and a few well-placed shots. But the plan is simple – kind of a get in, shoot shit up, and get out, plan. I don’t expect it to work, frankly, and I just might end up a greasy red smear along the way – hell all of us might, really – but it’s a plan.
Luther’s got the hook up on the goods. Weapons, intelligence, security access that even I didn’t have. Sigurd will fly us in, drop us on the roof and then bounce out before he gets shot down. That’s assuming, of course, we even get to within spitting distance of WallCorp Tower. Assuming we even get that far, Johnny, Britta, Sigurd and I punch a hole into the wall and shoot anything with a heartbeat until we get to my dad’s office. Sure, they’ll see us coming miles away, but once we get boots on... whatever that shit on the rooftop is, they can only speculate. Knowing dear ol’ dad, though, he’ll have a hidey hole and a hundred power armored shit-stains with high velocity flechette guns between us.
But that’s where Luther’s exemplary talents – and contacts – come into play. Supersonic bullets with some stupid dense-as-diamonds-in-a-black-hole tip, and they punch through capital ship armor like its ass wipe. Whatever dad puts up between me and the answers I need to make sense of all this, we’re gonna chew it up.
We’re leaving soon, I know that much. One last night in …whatever this place is. Deciat Bar? Farseer, Inc. drinks and eats? Space-Dairy Queen? You’d think that with as much cash as I’ve dropped here and all the things I’ve consumed here, I’d remember the name of this place. Nope, just so many steps, turn, step some more, turn again, wave at a door-man and then party like its 3299. Whatever, one more night in this place, try to take it easy on the amount of drinks I imbibe since we’re up kinda early and heading out tomorrow. Wayfarer isn’t my primary ride when shit’s about to get weird so I’ll have to get back into Night Razor. Now that ship….man, that’s a nice ship. Pull damn near 450m/s on a burst, spin on a dime piece and still put four multi’s in your face, too.
The drinks flow, the O burns steady, the night fades. We’re up far too late for a morning jaunt through witchspace but, well what can you do once the time goes by. It’s not like you can just get that shit back. I stumble through the hallways of Farseer, Inc., somehow manage to find my dinky little rent-a-hovel. As the door slips open my toe nudges a box. Blurry eyed I look down to see what this new obstacle to getting into my bed and crashing for the night might be.
Small box, a handful of centimeters on any given side. Cardboard? Really? Oh – reinforced cardboard. No markings on the box, just a simple lid holding whatever’s inside in a simple box. Confused, slightly curious I pop the top off.
Inside is a silver ring with a dark face, something some high schooler would wear in recognition of whatever year they get to be confronted by the full fury of adulthood. Triple triangle and diamond logo. Very familiar. I pull the ring out, and there’s only one person that could have owned this ring; I never got one, never had one given to me. It has to be my fathers. But why in the blue bloody friggin’ hell would he send me his ring?? I turn the stupid thing over in my fingers a few times, pondering to the limited extent that I can ponder anything, given my present state of delinquent inebriation. I toss the box aside, care even less about it than I would the skid mark I leave on the landing pad. But then the flutter of something small and white catches my eye, and I see a piece of paper fall from the still open box and flop onto the deck. Weary and wary I stoop over to see what this new thing of attention grabbing apparatuses might be.
Tarm,
Welcome home, son.
I look forward to seeing you again.
H.
Goddamnit! God damn him. God damn him and all those stupid….
Lividity doesn’t begin to describe how I feel. The ring gets shoved into a pocket, the doors to my rental shoved open (as much as hydraulically controlled doors might be shoved, anyway) and I stalk out the door.
This could change quite a bit about our plans.