1 Nov 3302: The Meeting
03 Nov 2016Pitchzer0
I hate hangovers.I hate the way I wake up the next morning, and my mouth tastes like I had tried licking the hull of my ship clean the night before.
Don't ask.
Last thing I remember is someone throwing a party popper ( that is spacer talk for flashbang grenade ) and someone hitting me with what felt like a giant 300 lb gorilla. I started spurring myself to consciousness. Two things immediately stuck out in my mind. One, I wasn't in my quarters. How did I know? Well that leads into reason # 2. This room smelled way too clean. I caught a whiff of floral scents and highly scrubbed air. If I was on ship or in my usual quarters, the air has a slight metallic tang to it. This room, smelled way too processed. I decided to crack open my left eye to survey where I was.
Mistake.
Piercing beams of white light assaulted my eyeball, sending a fresh headache to replace the one that had just died down. I decided to try and sit up.
"Ahh, I see our guest has finally decided to join us." I didn't recognize the voice. But it was definitely female.
I finally got both eyes slightly cracked and took a look around the room. Everything was white. It took my eyes a minute to adjust, I started making out shapes. I was sitting in a rather large chair, facing the transparent desktop of a woman sitting in a white chair. She seemed to be reading two datapads on her desk. I glanced to my left, there was the door, flanked on either side by two bodyguards in crisp uniforms. One of them looked familiar to me, I seem to remember him as the gorilla that hit me earlier. He looked at me with a smug grin on his face. I decided to repay the favor if the opportunity were ever to arise.
I returned my attention to the woman in front of me, and to her left was my good friend Prissy Bastard. With his right arm in a sling. I must have did more damage than I thought. Yay me.
I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. When I opened them again, the woman behind the desk locked eyes with mine. Time for the show to begin.
"You have been unconscious for a short time, CMDR. Can I get you anything?" Her diction was damn near perfect, she was definitely not from around here. Her accent had a slight twinge to it. Not from Achenar, but she was close to it. I wasn't messing with some lower tier bureaucrat here. I was going to have to watch myself.
"Scotch." My mouth was dry. I really wanted water, but I had a headache. So I figured what the hell.
She gave me a curious look, but looked over at Prissy Bastard, who couldn't hide the distasteful look from his face, and gave him a slight nod. It must have stung his pride to be pouring a drink for the man that tried to rip his arm out of socket earlier. Oh well, he will get over it.
"I hope that Cubeo Gold will suffice. It is one of my favorite libations, reminds me of my home." I noticed Prissy Bastard poured two snifters, he returned from the small bar area and placed hers in front of her on the desk. He then turned to me, and with an even greater look of displeasure on his face, handed me mine. I gave him the biggest grin I could, and even said thank you. He returned to her side.
I took a sip from my glass. It was nowhere near the smokey palette of Old Sol, but it will do. The woman behind the desk looked on with amusement while I reconciled whether or not I liked the drink.
"I see you are a man that can appreciate a fine beverage, I know your preference is Old Sol. I like to think that Cubeo Gold is an acquired taste, but you seem to have the palette to appreciate it."
The fog of my headache was starting to lift. How did she know I like Old Sol? I was beginning to wonder what those two datapads had on them. She took a sip from her drink, allowed it to linger a second before she swallowed it down. She set her glass down and walked around to the front of the desk to stand before me.
"Do excuse my manners CMDR! I have not properly introduced myself! I am Governor Giuliana Fletcher of the Vesuvit Patron's Principles. And this is my aide, Kinman Pestage. You two have already made acquaintances I believe." Prissy Bastard glared from across the room, I just tipped my glass at him. She turned and reached back to her desk to grab one of the datapads.
I took another sip from my drink. I know what was coming next.
"And you are CMDR Rand Durell, aka Pitchzer0, aka Zero. My my, CMDR. You have been a busy man. I see according to your Pilot's Federation dossier, you participated in the reclamation of Kremainn from House Grembo. You also delivered foodstuffs to Ambika system to end the famine there."
I looked up over the rim of the glass as I prepared to take another sip. "I like to keep busy, doing the same thing over and over again gets boring."
She circled back around the desk to her chair, placing the first datapad down, she picked up the second.
"Clear the room. The CMDR and I have a matter to discuss." Prissy Bastard hastily left the room, followed by the bodyguards, I distinctly heard the door lock shut behind them. Governor Fletcher took the seat behind the desk again, with the second pad directly in front of her. She looked at it, and looked back at me.
"I have a problem, more like a riddle, and I believe you can help me."
I took another sip.
"You see, I did a background check on you before this meeting, and as of 15 years ago, Rand Durell did not exist. While you were incapacitated in my care, I had an Imperial physician run a biometric scan on you." She tapped an icon on her datapad that opened a holographic display that hovered over her desktop.
"Imagine my astonishment, when your scan produced this record for a fugitive wanted by the Empire."
And there it was. My past I had spent years and kylies running from, hovering in front of my eyes on a holographic display. The Governor sat forward in her chair, crossing her arms and resting her elbows on the table. My eyes locked with hers. She had me. But I wasn't locked up in a cell somewhere, which meant that this wasn't an interrogation, but a negotiation. She needed something from me. Might as well nibble the bait on the hook.
"Rand McCullough is dead."
"Well I must be a necromancer, because according to this scan, he is sitting right across the table from me. And he looks to be in great health for a dead man." Her gaze never shifted, I don't think she even blinked.
"What do you want from me."
"I will give credit to your Pilot's Federation dossier, it did mention that you are not one for games. So I will get to the point. I am in need of someone with your skills."
"Lady, if you wanted to hire me for a job, you could have contacted me during regular business hours, and without the theatrics."
I sat the now empty glass on the side table next to my chair. Her eyes were still trained on me, but her posture in the chair relaxed slightly.
"I am sorry for my aide's lack of discretion. His exuberance is at some times ill advised. I had hoped he would contact you in a less disruptive manner."
She touched the datapad again, a star chart replaced the medical scan. It showed a small system, with a single planetary outpost.
"As you know, Vesuvit Patron's Principles have wrestled away control of Vesuvit from the anarchists and have taken control of not only Suri Gateway, but the other outposts in this system. There are, shall we say, undesirables that I need to relocate to maintain the peace here."
"I don't smuggle slaves lady. That's just bad karma."
"These are not slaves. They are prisoners of war, terrorists, and rebels that will be taken to a secure facility that is listed on the starchart to.."
"..be sold into slavery or imprisoned on some mining colony in the deep never never." She gave me a sharp glare, I don't think she likes my ad-libbing.
I took a good look at the star chart. The system wasn't very far, less than 12 kylies. Hell, I have run logistics to that place before! I did always wonder why some little podunk outpost needed so many supplies. But back to the matter at hand.
"So I do this job for you, what is in it for me?"
"You will be paid your standard fee, of course. And, as an act of goodwill, I will make Rand McCullough's death in the Empire legal, and any and all medical scans I took while you were incapacitated will be destroyed. If you decided to decline, what I feel is a very generous offer, you instead will become a passenger instead of the pilot."
So much for a refusal. She took my silence as confirmation.
"Well, I guess I should go now and prep my ship..."
"Your ship will not be needed. In fact, until you have successfully completed this contract, your Python has been grounded indefinitely by flight control for space port violations. I have procured a T-9 Heavy for you to use. I would advise you to hire a crew, but they must not know of our arrangement." Her attention then changed from me back to her work. The star chart display vanished, to be replaced with various spreadsheets. Clearly I was dismissed.
I stood up and started making my way to door.
"One last thing CMDR. If you attempt to run, I will release all the data I currently have on you to every bounty hunter in the bubble, with a bounty so high you will never get a chance to rest."
I kept facing the door.
"You know what they say about karma?"
"Really CMDR. I did not take you as the type that believed in superstitions. 'You get back double what you send out' is childish nonsense."
"I wasn't thinking that at all. What they say about karma is.."
I looked over my shoulder, back towards her desk as she touched an icon on her desktop that unlocked the door and it hissed open in front of me.
"..its a bitch."
I stepped through the door and it hissed shut.