If I Could Brush Her Hair With Just The Right Magnet
18 Jun 2021User319792
The message subject line read: "PSSSSSSSSSST" It contained only a single photo
It was followed up with another message, with the subject line "I look totally great in this light"
It also contained only a single photo
She did look great. I didn't remember her looking that good when we'd flown around the nebulae on the mini Raxxla scavenger hunt she made me drag her around. It wasn't so much her looks that got me to comm her after receiving the messages as the photo not just being of her hanging around a bunch of flight jockeys over at Chelomey.
"What are you doing, Coral!?" She was still in her SRV, so the holofac was a bit grainy. Her eyes darted to the right before coming to rest on me.
"What do you mean?" Her head turned slightly to the left, her eyes tracking something behind the holofac sensor. She continued, without looking toward me, "I told you I was going to do further research into INRA. I sold the rest of my ships so I could refit Keystone-"
"WHAT!? Why?" Her head jerked back in my direction and she squinted at me suspiciously.
"We're not all billionaires, Cadence." My neck disappeared under my flight suit. I'd never felt guilty about my success as a trader until that moment. When she continued, her voice remained calm but her eyes darted back and forth, up and down, left and right with a fierceness I remembered from her flight test with the man in the black suit, "It was an Imperial Eagle and a Diamondback Explorer. Keystone can handle anything I'd need from either. I didn't get a lot of engineering done, but I finally made contact with Dr. Farseer, like you suggested."
"She isn't a Doctor, Coral." She looked at me, with a look that said she was both confused and surprised.
"Really? She seemed to know a lot about Keystone, I just assumed she'd have had some special training."
"Nope. Just an explorer, Coral." She looked away and seemed to be deep in thought when I snapped into the holo sensor, "Hey! You're not at Chelomey." She looked back and me and raised her eyebrows, bugging her eyes out for a short second before smiling.
"Yeah, I wanted to test the boards in Keystone and, since I was looking into INRA, I figured I'd access the Canonn archives for some information. I think I finally heard that creepy piano music you mentioned when I was trying to take that picture of the INRA sign." I snapped at the holo sensor again and her eyes darted back toward me.
"We're both flying at the same time, Coral."
Her expression was unchanged. "So?"
I looked away from her. "So if anyone sees us they're going to wonder how it is that you or me are getting around the galaxy so fast. Even worse, they might wonder how it is that we're showing up in two different places."
She squinted at me again. "You're wasting my time with your conspiracy theories, Cadence. The information on GALNET focuses on INRA's relationship to this group called the League of Reparation, that was shown to be responsible for the murders of various descendants of high-level INRA executives and officers. Based on the information I've analyzed up to this point, this group LoR was making use of a multi-layered, encrypted comms network, which was decrypted due to the work of a unified effort by all three superpowers, leading to the group's exposure and disbanding. The leader of the group claimed to be a descendent of CMDR Jameson. Does any of this sound familiar to you, Cadence?"
Honestly, I didn't know what to say. It didn't seem all that out of the realm of possibility that something like what we'd been looking into would have occurred before. After my first trip to Sol, there wasn't much about human beings and their combined efforts at coming to power that would surprise me. "So... So are you suggesting whoever's behind whatever was on our boards might be the same group?"
Her eyebrows pinched together and her eyes widened. "What? Why would that be what comes to mind? LoR couldn't have accomplished their multiple murder spree without the help of prominent people in positions of power; at the very least, the people that were helping them had to be powerful in his or her own right. GALNET just published an article about Sirius and President Li Yong-Rui increasing its base of power, and they were linked to some mercenary groups in Meene a while back."
"You're talking crazy, again, Coral."
"I just mean that the whole situation to which we're being blinded by working with the Empire seems to be working toward a single focal point. Think about it, Cadence: a group looking for revenge, the help of powerful people, lots of dead people, a unified effort on the part of the super-powers to collect information from comms networks... are you not seeing the connection?"
I was speechless, again. My eyes darted left and right a few times as I tried to take in what she was telling me. "Coral... I'm not sure how to tell you this... but... Do you remember when we used to have to change from our pjs into our flight suits when we were in training?"
She looked at me, slightly confused. "Yeah. What does that have to do with anything?"
"Coral, we'd pull off our socks, then our trousers, then our tops, then we'd put on our tights, then the flight suits, then the gloves, then the magboots, right?"
"Yeah, so?"
I looked off-screen for a short while before scratching the back of my head. The look on Coral's face intensified as I remained silent, looking from her to my HUD repeatedly. "Do you have your magboots on, Coral?"
She looked away from me. "What? What are you talking about?"
We sat there for a while, she in confusion and I trying to coax her into the realization that I came to while sitting on one of Saturn's moons, staring into an information beacon atop what I think was a huge glacier.