Finding Barrett
18 Oct 2023Danzra Le Clerc
Went back to Vectera to discover they'd had another Crimson Fleet attack. They took Barrett and Heller. I'm starting to think this Barrett is a pretty resourceful guy, he was able to transmit coordinates for his own rescue. Lin's contract was up so we took her along. Between coordinates and scanning, we found the ship, wrecked, and a wounded Heller. We got him to the ship and handed him off to Lin to patch up while Sarah calculated the next jump to the new coordinates Heller had been sent from the re-captured Barrett. This led us to another Crimson Fleet base, which fortunately for Barrett but unfortunately for me, was headed by one Matsura The Grim, a friend of my fathers, or at least he had been at one time.
We were able to pay the ransom on Barrett, out of Constellation insurance funds, but Matsura guaranteed he'd be telling Le Clerc (my father) that I was hanging out with Constellation. Seems there's more recent pictures of me taken by an agent of his floating about so good old dad knows what I look like all grown up and passed the pictures around.
We're heading back to the Lodge now, Lin, Heller and Barrett in tow. I suppose I can't avoid it now. I'm going to have tell them about my baggage and ready myself for heading out for a new job when they've heard it all. I can't expect my past to be a complication for them. Having Barrett in their group is probably as much shenanigans as they're willing to handle.
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Log addendum: Walter was full of eye rolls and huffing and puffing that they had enough on their hands with Barrett's rascalities, they didn't need a Barrett 2.0. I expected that. What I didn't expect is that Barrett and Sam Coe both had my back. Barrett, okay I can probably see that, but Sam, he's got a more famous ancestor than I do, and way more recent than my 16th century ancestor. He argued that it's not fair to make me pay for a parent's mistakes. Walter argued back that it didn't matter who made the mistakes, it was the results that would bring trouble.
Anyway, they let me stay on, and financially it's a win because I get to keep whatever I "acquire" on the side while doing any missions, as Sarajh says, "just as long as you don't bring UC Security to our door."
Speaking of Sam Coe, Yea, I'm sure I made myself look stupid. I just couldn't just stop staring at how blue his eyes are. He said something about getting to know family and that the Constellation crew are like family or something and I've no idea what all he said or in what context but I did catch Cora saying "please, there are children present." That snapped me out of swimming in those pools of blue.
His daughter follows me around more than anyone else, likely just because I'm new, or maybe because we both have read the same books and I let her borrow the more recent ones I had still in my bag I brought from my Vectera locker. I don't mind it really, I really enjoy it, having a chatter box around keeps my mind out of my problems with my past.
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New Day : I've got some downtime now before I'm sent on another mission, and considering the embarrassment of flying around the kitchen door this morning just to bounce right off of Blue-Eyes' chest, I'm gonna spend this morning taking a walk around this New Atlantis place while it's still shiny and new to me.
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Spent the day running around New Atlantis with Barrett, helped a few people out. It was nice getting to talk to the guy that put me on this path with Constellation without bullets flying at us. All in all, a pretty good day. Also of note, New Atlantis may be shiny on the outside, but inside underneath the streets, in the Well, there's a lot of poverty, like Ebbside. Thing is, in Neon, we don't sweep it under the rugs, we acknowledge everyone is poor except for the tourists partying it up at the Astral Lounge. Besides that, half of the Neon poor are of their own making because they waste away their paychecks on Aurora. Here in New Atlantis, people in the Well are just poor born and raised and none of the shiny people above the streets are reaching out a hand to help.
Humanity is so fucked up.
P.S. Sgt Yumi? More like Sgt YUMMY!