Rumors Of My Death Have Been Statistically Regressing
08 Jun 2021User319792
"Did we get into a fight last night?" Coral still looked groggy as she wiped her eyes and squinted back at me. She'd always been a heavy sleeper and after I woke up I grabbed her by the foot and dragged her out of Ovid and into one of her Keystones. She made it cleanly enough through Ovid's interior and even managed to make it cleanly down to the landing pad but her pjs got caught on Keystone's lift and she slammed her head on the bottom two steps before settling into a smooth glide into her captain's quarters. She looked surprisingly peaceful, with her hair undone and with her head hanging half-way out of the door of her captain's quarters as I left. "uh... yeah," I looked away, "you started yelling at me about how you'd need to replace the boards in all of my ships unless I gave you the authorization to go in and perform a full system-reboot and reprogramming remotely and I wasn't having any of that so we started scrapping." I looked away again, and coughed down a laugh. I don't know why I said that. I wrote down the authorization codes in her book almost as soon as I got to Chelomey. There's no way she'd forget that I did so. She looked down and to the left,
"Yeah... I guess I remember that..." I cut her off immediately, and mentioned that the man in the black suit was still super pissed. I'd immediately went right back into Galileo after making sure Coral was safe and sound and made my way toward Ts'ao Tach, arriving safely before getting interdicted and immediately taken out by a pilot in a FAS. The man in the black suit was not happy.
"So we have nothing?" He broke his gaze from my eyes when I told him the board had been in a lock-box on Galileo and that there wasn't much of a chance that it made it out of the ship after I ejected. He said nothing else before handing me a set of orders and walked off Galileo onto the landing pad at Malchiodi Plant, where he'd been waiting for Galileo but only found me in the hangar waiting on my insurance replacement. Looking down at his feet as he walked away, he mumbled,
"Check with Coral. Maybe she can find it in the new ship. Finish up your orders first and we'll plan out a new approach to getting me the board."
"So can you pull the code remotely while I'm piloting or not, Coral?" Her head was bowed and she looked down and around like she was lost before nodding.
"I can try. Just get back over here ASAP."
"I have some orders I've got to run through. That should give you some time to check through it, right?" She nodded with her head still bowed before lifting her chin to look at me. "Are you sure you want to fly without pulling the boards first?"
"I'm sure it'll be fine. I made it all the way to Statue of Liberty from ETA Carina before you walked me through it the last time." She nodded again before shutting off the comms. Within minutes she was in, filtering through the boards and before I'd even launched from Malchiodi she sent me a holofac request,
"Its either gone or its in a new place. Get over here ASAP."
"I'm supposed to-" She cut me off and nodded quickly
"shhtshthsht... Just get here ASAP," we locked eyes again before she continued, "get here safely and quietly."
I was exhausted by the time I landed at Chelomey. Coral didn't bother saying a word and pushed right past me as I stepped out of Galileo. I hopped straight into Ovid to bide my time. Her lips were pursed and she avoided my gaze when she boarded Ovid,
"Uh... So," she paused for a lot longer than I expected, "uh... it either is or it isn't in this board." She held up a small green panel about the size of my open hand.
"It... wait, what?" I could feel my eyebrows scrunch up, and made an effort to intentionally relax them before continuing,
"Is it on here or not?" She continued to avert her gaze and her eyes darted back and forth, only glancing above my waist to look over at the Pilot's Federation symbol on my shoulder once or twice.
"Well," she paused again for quite some time, still avoiding my gaze like the plague, "whatever it is that's on there, its not the thing that I found on my ship before and its not anything that I've found before that. So... either it is or it isn't and dad's over at Mackenzie Relay and he wants you there pronto." I was a little shocked. I've never docked at Mackenzie Relay, but its orbiting the Imperial Palace on Emerald in the Cemiess system. I'd thought I had a bit of a lead on what the man in the black suit was up to, but now I hadn't the slightest clue.
"You coming with?" Coral looked at me, without looking away, for the first time since I'd returned.
"To Mackenzie Relay?" She looked away again, squinting at the panel in my hand, before looking back at me.
"OK. I'll ride shotgun." I stared back at her, expressionless.
"What does that mean? "
"Haven't the slightest idea, but I know people used to say that. I saw it in an old holo."
Her eyes grew wide as we entered Mackenzie Relay and we sat in the hangar waiting for the man in the black suit, who looked at us both as we walked to the quarterdeck together before nodding us toward the captains lounge and shutting the lift.
