Thicker Than Blood: Chapter Ten

Just now...

The blond Caldari woman glared at the semi-holo. 'I know it was your people, you swine. We checked the wreckage of his pod; the neural scan transmitter had been tampered with, preventing his clone from being revived. The backup scan he had done that morning is mysteriously missing, and everyone who could possibly know anything has apparently developed selective amnesia. Was that really necessary?'

'Mlle Mbaari, I do not have to explain anything to you. If anything, it is you who needs to explain your deviation from the duties you were hired to perform.'

'I--'

Isaar's heavy features settled into a piercing scowl. 'Your errors have been compensated for, and you have been paid precisely the amount that was agreed upon. I hereby expect no further contact from you until such time as you might be requested to do so.' The transmission cut abruptly, and Sati leaned forward, resting her elbows on the desktop and massaging her temples wearily.

After a minute, she tapped in a command. When the request was granted, she sighed and said, 'It's done. Wake him up anytime.'

Miska T'onik smiled broadly through the hologram. 'Thank you very much, Ms Mbaari. Your service to the Rocketeers has been commendable. Your use of the mercenaries your opposite number attempted to hire was an excellent touch, though it might have been better had you told us what to expect. Jackal's record has been cleared.'

'Comms records needed to reflect a surprise attack. I have nothing to apologise for.' She did feel a twinge of guilt for her manipulation of the Rocketeers, though the scout had been a willing participant once she explained the plan. 'Well, if you'll let me get my things, I can be on my way--'

'What we now need from you, my dear,' the Khanid interrupted, 'is to forget about your young man. Unless you want me to be informing him of whom you were really working for? The Gallentean Admiralty is only the tip of your very dark, political iceberg, young lady, and just think how hurt he would be to learn you were playing him against three sides.'

'You paid me to keep him safe! His family paid me to keep him safe! What more do you want?'

The scar-twisted smile widened. 'I think fifty million should be sufficient to buy my silence. Your obvious affection for him is the only reason I do not ask more.'

Sati's clenched fist slammed on the desktop; if it hurt, she was too incensed to react. 'You scum-sucking bottom-feeder! I ought to have known...'

'Fifty. Million. Yes? And we shall pass the message on that, for his safety, you must keep your distance. Because that is the way of it, is it not? Do not think we would allow you so close to the corporation, knowing who else pays you.'

Her teeth gritted loudly as she entered the transfer request. The older man was right. She had hoped it wouldn't come to this... it had been too much to hope for with the Rocketeer director's weird information network so close. 'You will regret this, T'onik.'

'Oh, I am certain. But as long as you do not threaten what the Rocketeers have going... as we all are too aware, the autonomy of capsuleers is under constant threat from the larger governments who would dearly love to own us, yes? That would be as much ill to yourself as to the rest of us. Blood may be thicker than water, but in our world, ISK is thicker than blood.'

'Save your preaching, fedo-breath.' Sati slapped her hand on the end button, and the Kahnid's smug grin faded from sight.

Breathing deeply, Sati got up and crossed to the small kitchenette to prepare a cup of tea, willing the red rage to cool so that she could think clearly. It was, she had to admit, partially her fault: she had mixed work and emotional needs.

The process of preparing her tea helped the flames of her ire to simmer down to an icy calmness. That the Amarrian had found out her own web of connections was frustrating, but two could play the I Know What You Did game. She called up the dossier she'd kept in a hidden, encrypted file. Miska T'onik, formerly Admiral Etrian Lyritha, might harbour few regrets about his nature, but there were sure to be those who would find a use for his whereabouts, and his Sani Sabik background.

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Cold darkness surrounded me, and it took a moment, or maybe an eternity, to realise it wasn't actually cold or dark. It was a total absence of everything. The realisation frightened me, and I jerked in panic. Something -- was it my hand? my foot? -- struck an unyielding surface that resonated around me with a hollow thud. Light blinded me, and I thrashed through the heavy air...

Not air. Fluid. I was sunk in a bath of viscous turquoise liquid... Vat fluid?

Fumbling with limbs that felt weak and unused, I reached forward and touched the smooth surface in front of me, a slick featureless wall curved 260 degrees around me. The back of the tube was a wall of machinery and tubes connected to the various sockets in my spine. An upright vat... I remembered the tour Miska had given me of the carrier he'd just purchased, the corporate cloning bay designed specially to fit within the confines of a capital ship.

Something suddenly pressed against the outside of the tube, a dark shape taht resolved itself into someone's open palm. My eyes were having trouble focussing, or maybe it was the effect of the fluid and the curve of the glass. Following the hand and the arm attached to it, I finally made out the face of someone familiar... Flaschmann, his dark features creased in a grin.

Seeing my eyes focus on him, my CEO tilted his head to his right. I squinted, forced my body to work for me. There was someone standing beside him, small and red-haired, and as lovely as I remembered. I reached out and pressed my hand to the glass, and she touched the surface on her side, a smile spreading across her face. My sister nodded to me, then jerked her head towards a rectangle of dim amber light behind her -- a door? -- and said something that made Flasch nod. She blew me a kiss and headed out as someone in a medical uniform appeared and tapped the glass to get my attention.

The clone-bay tech pointed downwards, indicating the bars that had extruded from the perforated surface below me. I reached down, gripped the handles and tried to force my legs to extend as the fluid began to drain out. One final breath and then I was choking and hacking fluid from my lungs as air filled the space around me, hanging limply from the grip-bars as my body discovered that it was meant to breathe oxygen. Hands on my shoulders, under my arms, something warm and soft wrapped around me as people helped me to stand up. I raised one shaking hand to wipe the goo from my eyes, still coughing amniotic fluid.

'Easy, mate, we got you.' Flasch was the one with his arm around my shoulders, guiding me towards a bench beside the wall.

'How--' My question was interrupted by a horrid coughing fit that doubled me over. Flasch's large hand thumped heavily between my shoulder-blades.

'It's been a week. We got confirmation an hour ago that the people who wanted you removed believe the job's been done. Your lady-friend was behind the mercenaries that attacked us, and she paid Jackal to mislead us. He went back after the attack and picked up your neural scan block. Brave boy.'

I leaned forward with my elbows on my knees, letting my head hang as a wave of dizziness hit me. Sati had...

He rubbed my back through the towel, helping the blood flow. 'You're lucky to have a girl like that, Jack... Val... what do we call you now, anyway?'

Another cough wracked me, but it seemed the last of the amniotic fluid was out of my lungs. 'Tor,' I choked, randomly picking one of the false IDs we'd built earlier. 'Is she...?'

Flasch sighed heavily and mimicked my pose, his expression unhappy. 'She's not here. She told Miska she's being watched, and that it would be best for you if she not be seen around the Rocketeers at all til the incident has been swept under the rug entirely.'

My eyes closed tightly. Not at all what I wanted to hear, but it made a regrettable amount of sense. I breathed deeply, feeling the bite of clone-bay chemicals in my nose, and raised my head. 'When did Shae get here?'

'Yesterday morning, and she's already got half the boys falling over their own feet to impress her.'

I chuckled, smiling despite myself. 'She's good at that, mostly because she doesn't realise she's doing it.'

Flasch patted my shoulder again. 'She's waiting until you're showered and dressed.' He pointed to a door off to one side. 'In there.'

Rising and pulling the towel around myself along with what dignity I could salvage, I managed to make it to the dressing-room without staggering. It was good to be back.

Thicker Than Blood: Chapter Nine

One week ago...

The station was pleasant at this time of the evening, he thought, though it gave him fewer faces to get lost among. The dimmed lights gave the interior a dreamlike quality, and the smaller numbers of people allowed the soft hums of the machinery that formed the heartbeat of the structure to come through.

He strolled casually through the station, a common maintenance manager on his late-night rounds, confident and unassuming. The security officer he was paying off had signalled five minutes ago, and Neron had an hour to do his work undisturbed.

This appeared to be the final window he would have to fulfill his contract; the mark's corporation was giving every sign of making ready to pull out of the area any day now, and they'd been cagey about the location of their new base. Thankfully, the tech who'd been working unexpectedly late the last time seemed to have forgotten about the incident.

He'd been annoyed when the first attempt had failed. The mercenaries who'd been hired to ambush the convoy two weeks earlier had mysteriously vanished, and attempts to contact them had turned up empty offices and abandoned dead-drops. It was as if they'd been consumed by the Void. If the target had noticed the tampering that would have left him vulnerable, there'd been no sign of it.

The service techs might have simply written it off as faulty equipment and repaired the damage.

He had no idea what the target had done to warrant his removal -- permanent removal, no easy task when a target could be revived minutes later using neural backup copies. Neron didn't care; he wasn't being paid so well to ask questions, particularly since knowing the answers might get him in unnecessary trouble. That was the nature of the beast: knowing too much could be as dangerous as knowing too little, a complex game of poker where even the dealer was unknown.

He let himself into the hangar, made a show of checking offices and gathering forgotten refuse to tip down the disposal unit in case anyone had lingered late. When he was certain the place was deserted, he retrieved a datapad from his pocket and issued a command. A few minutes later, a response came back, and he unlocked the door for his assistant. The man knew starship systems nearly as well as Neron understood the system they served, and they set to work on the Taranis left on the main pad. It was the sole hull remaining in the hangar; everything else had been moved out by the target's corporation.

'Third time and all that, eh?'

Neron nodded, carefully picking his way through the computer system, erasing all signs of their access.

'Your credits are good enough, mate. Pleasure doing business with you.'

Neron took a few minutes longer to finish wiping the records before following the tech out, stopping short at the sight of the security detail waiting for him, stun-sticks at the ready. With a resigned sigh, he showed his hands empty and raised them to shoulder height as two men moved forward to give him a pat-down and secure his hands behind him.

The tech lay unconscious in the back of the waiting transport hover, a bruise slowly colouring on the side of his jaw evidence that he'd resisted more than was wise.

--------------------------------

I had wanted to be there when they caught the guys who'd been messing with my hulls. Security Chief Parulis would hear none of it: I was untrained, and stars forbid a capsuleer be injured on her watch. Sati had taken an almost perverse pleasure in exposing Neron Euvidar and his connections, and the dirty security officer had been identified and taken in an hour before he'd been meant to loop the security systems. A long list of people were being located and brought in for questioning; Parulis had suggested that only a handful would know anything of any worth.

I was permitted to watch from the monitor room while the operation went on. It almost seemed too easy; why would an agent be anywhere near where they were meant to break in?

'Because the best plans are the simplest ones. Fewer loose ends to slip out of your control.' Sati put her arm around my waist. 'Speaking of simple plans, time to make you disappear, sweetie.'

We'd spent the last week building a handful of imaginary Rocketeers pilots, any one of whom could have been mistaken for me. All that was left was for me to slip behind one of the masks, rejoin the Blackball Rocketeers in Cloud Ring, and slowly fade 'Madjack Rackham' into digitised ether. Valar Tiann remained a semi-artificial construct under the Navy's care, and might eventually be reported lost in the line of fire, which was fine as far as I was concerned. The people who mattered knew the truth and that was enough.

-------------------------------------------------------------

'So what do we call you now, man?' Flasch asked as we completed our final undock procedures from Stacmon V-M9 station.

'Dunno, I've not decided yet. I'll figure it out once we get there, I suppose. Which route are we taking?'

'Same as the first time. Skies ought to be clear, we won't need scouts til we hit nullsec, anyway.'

I rolled the Taranis a couple times, enjoying how light she felt, like a feather drifting on the ions. Miska was so right about inties. Flasch laughed at my antics.

'Feels good to leave that crap behind ya, huh?'

'You have no idea.'

'Right, we got everyone? Drop an X in fleet channel when you're all out.'

I entered my confirmation along with the twenty or so others who were all that remained of the Rocketeers in Stacmon. Everything else had been moved out via blockade runner or jump-freighter. Offices closed this morning, with a last poke around the corp hangars for any bits of gear that might have been overlooked. Each ship was hauling some communal goods, mostly ammunition, alongside our standard spare rounds. I had two foundling Hammerhead drones and a handful of missiles in cargo, Flasch's Ruppy was playing hauler for a load of battleship-sized hybrid antimatter rounds. Sati was remaining behind to sweep my trail clear, and then...

Well, I didn't know. It was scary and exciting at the same time.

'Alright boys and girls, align to Covryn, prepare for fleet-warp.'

The scattering of mismatched vessels surged forward, hitched, then shot towards our exit gate at six AU per second, flashing past the sun in instants. I wondered if I'd ever get tired of that feeling, and hoped I never would.

'Covryn is clear, heading for ex'.'

'Everyone jump, align to the out gate.'

We were almost there -- only a few jumps from home -- when it happened. Jackal called the next system clear, but when space reappeared around us, we were in the middle of a massive bubbled camp.

Flasch cursed. 'Jackal, what the fuck?!' But the scout had disappeared from the fleet, and we huddled in the temporary security of our post-jump cloaks while Flasch thought fast. My mind whirled with a moment of panic.

'Shit. Shit. Right. That's a lot of bubbles. We're not fighting this, there are too many people here, who the fuck are these guys? When I say “go”, burn hard for the nearest edge and warp to the rendezvous as soon as you're clear. Just scatter, give them too many targets to focus on. Right, go, go now!'

I angled my ship down, aiming for the lower edge of the warp disruption field, and kicked in the microwarp drive. The incerceptor punched through the edge of the sphere just as another appeared around me. 'Fuck! What...?' A Sabre-class interdictor had been orbiting the bubble, and I found my ship slowed to a crawl by a half-dozen stasis webs.

'Flasch, this is Jack, I don't think I'm gonna make this one. You guys go on ahead, I'll see you at the far end.'

I gritted my teeth as I watched my shields and armour melt away. This wasn't exactly how I'd imagined things going. Flasch's voice cut through the cacophony of cannon-fire. 'There's something funny going on here, Jack. Nobody else was targeted. I'm sending word to Miska to impound Jackal's gear til we figure out what the fuck he's playing at.'

At my command, the alarm to evacuate the ship blared through the interceptor's cramped confines. I had only a minimal three-man crew on this run, but that would be three too many to lose. The gate rescue crews would scoop them and take care of them til corporate recovery could make a pickup.

The hull disintegrated, and they started nibbling on my pod. An alarm went off in my head and I winced in pain. A diagnostic query confirmed the worst: we'd missed the tampering on the capsule's transmitter.

It seemed I wasn't getting out of it, after all.

The capsule's minimal defences redlined, and the shriek of pod fluid venting into space was the last thing I heard.

Final Chapter

Thicker Than Blood: Chapter Eight

Two weeks ago...

Modifying a ship was far from an easy process, even for the smallest of them. Especially the smallest, in fact, since the modifications had to be fitted precisely within the already compact design. Rigs were expensive off the market, only marginally cheaper if the pilot built them from bits salvaged from wrecks. There was a thriving market in salvage where no questions were asked about the parts' origins, and none were answered. Once assembled, the modifications had to be permanently affixed to the ship's inner workings, which could only take so much tinkering before they called quits.

Which was how Valar came to find himself up to his elbows in delicate electronics and nanogel insulation in the guts of his latest acquisition, a Taranis-class interceptor. Small, quick, and capable of a frightening amount of damage for its size, Miska had recommended the ship to Val when he'd commented that he wanted to try something new.

'The turrets, you rig for damage, or the engine for speed. Inties are fun to fly.' Miska had demonstrated teh capabilities of his Malediction in a 1v1 fight to structure with Flaschmann's Rupture-class cruiser; both ships had peaked structural damage at the same time, but the pilots agreed the Malediction would have won.

When the rigs for the turrets arrived, Val insisted on getting his hands dirty alongside his crew. 'Not that I don't trust you guys to do it right,' he'd laughed, 'I just want to get to know her better.' On a personal level, Val felt it was important to develop a connection to his ships, and that he couldn't truly call them his without helping with the work. It was a mindset which had concerned his commanding officers in the Navy, but more than one of his new corp-mates sympathised and were more than happy to discuss experimental fits of which the navies would certainly never approved and which worked far better than one might think. Rather than allowing their superiors to tell them what to fit, the independent capsuleers Val had met knew their ships and their capabilities, and fitted to play towards their individual strengths.

Working on the ship personally also helped to narrow the gap between captain and crew. They chatted amiably as they worked, teasing Val about what he had to endure, physically, as a pilot.

'... I mean, really, all those wires, man. I dunno how you do it.' Jial Amsen was a cheerfully irreverent technician from Gallente Prime, fair hair still growing out of the drunken buzz-cut his friends had inflicted on him the month before. At that moment, he was flat on his back on an antigrav prop beneath a console.

Val grinned as he helped Resja manoeuvre a flexible turret stabiliser panel down through the console's top hatch until Jial could catch its lower edge and wire it in place. 'After the first few times, you don't really think about it.'

'I don't really want to think about it now, and I'm not a pilot!'

Resja d'An, a Stacmon native, pulled a face at Jial through the open console. 'You fixate on that a bit; you got a fetish you wanna tell us about?'

'Only where you're concerned, baby.'

The dusky-skinned Intaki tech wiped sweat from her forehead, leaving a streak of murky nanogel across her face. 'In your dreams, you mean.'

'Funny you should mention that, cuz last night- ow!'

'Oh, sorry. Could you hand my spanner back up?'

Suppressing laughter, Val dropped down and fired up the console when Resja signalled the panel was in place. The turret maintenance bay was cramped, with barely enough space to pass among the machinery surrounding the mounting, and he had to be careful not to trip over Jial's feet or the tools littering the walkway. 'That's green, close her up and let's get the system meshed.'

Jial closed up the underside panel and slid himself from under the console. 'That reminds me, Cap'. Did that guy manage to find you last night?'

Frowning, Val glanced up. 'What guy?'

'I finished off a bit late on the port-dorsal turret last night. I was just logging the checks for the night when this guy showed up in the hangar, said he was from the Scope doing a series on the effects of capsuleer piracy. Said he wanted to ask some questions about your sister and that you'd told him to meet you here.'

Val straightened, running a hand back through his hair. 'I have no idea. This is the first I've heard of it...'

'You got a sister, Captain?' Resja asked.

'Well, yeah, but-'

'I'd like to know why you didn't tell us you're related to a pirate. That's like something out of the holos! You have any idea how cool that is? It she hot?' Jial had that gleam in his eye he usually got when talking about his weekend conquests. Val shook his head.

'Whoa, time out. I don't just tell people that for a reason, you know.'

'Yeh, lackwit. The word "retribution" mean anything to you?' Resja punched Jial lightly on the arm.

'That's a type of Amarr ship, right?'

The machinery around them hummed to life, the timer making a rhythmic pip sound as it counted down to full system readiness. The capsuleer leaned back against a readout panel. 'Yes, my sister's a pirate. No, I've not seen her in a year. No, I don't discuss it because I don't want people pointing fingers at me in effigy of the illusory evil forces who took their stuff and their ISK. And how the hell did this reporter guy get past the security into the hangar? Someone leave the door open again?'

The two techs looked at each other. Then Jial said, 'That's a really good question.'

-------------------------

'Well,' Hangar Security Manager Parulis said with a shrug, 'I don't know what to tell you, Pilot. There's no sign the hangar entry was forced at all. The only thing to do, really, is go back through the camera footage and see if there's anything dodgy.'

'Can you do that, then? Please?' Val added as he saw the expression on the woman's face.

She sighed and looked at him, the lines around her eyes pinching with thought. 'It's that important to you.'

'Unknown individuals have been tampering with my ships. This wouldn't be the first time someone's got into my hangar.'

The older woman's hand smacked heavily on the desktop, making both capsuleer and technician start. 'And you never came here before?' She stared at him, incredulous.

'Well, um...' Val rubbed the back of his head awkwardly. 'It... was a security risk. We kept it within the corp directors because we didn't know who might be bought off...'

'I could have been bought off and you're asking me to show you the camera records from your hangar.' The Security Manager sighed, pinching the bridge of her nose. 'When will pilots learn that it's not always them against the world? Come on. Can one of you identify the man if you see him on the footage?'

'I can,' Jial answered. The tech looked more than a little intimidated to have been dragged up to the security offices, but Val had insisted he wouldn't be in trouble.

Parulis led them down a short hallway and through a couple of secured checkpoints to a room which was walled with flat 2-D panel monitors. The centre of the room displayed a wire-frame hologram of the station, bright green points highlighting the sections being shown on the monitors. She crossed to a control panel. 'Which hangar, Pilot, and what time was this?'

'1012-A at... Jial? About oh-one-hundred?'

'A bit before. Um, start from half-twelve, maybe.'

The monitors cleared to black for an instant before showing multiple views from within and without the hangar; the hologram display showed bright spots only around the hangar location. Parulis skimmed through fourty-five minutes of footage quickly, Jial paying close attention to the screens.

Standing behind them, Val frowned -- the cameras were still and nothing moved within the fisheye framing.

'Are you certain this is the right time?' the security chief asked.

Jial was shaking his head. 'I was definitely there, why doesn't the recording show me working?'

'Since when have you ever done any work?' Val said distractedly. 'Go back a bit, I thought I saw something. Keep going... There! You can just see Jial in the corner of that screen.'

'Huh.' Parulis ran the recording back and forward a couple times. 'Should be able to see him fully in this monitor and this one. So someone's fiddled with the system.' She sighed, looking tired. 'I hate when they do that.'

'What?' The two men stared at the security chief as she crouched down, levered a disguised hatch from the wall beneath the control panels, and made some adjustments to the wiring inside.

'There have been enough wars in Stacmon that people have circumvented the cameras before. I had backups installed a while ago.' The monitors flickered a moment and the bright spots on the hologram winked out. 'It's totally independent of the main system, records to a seperate buffer.'

Folding his arms, Val asked, 'What makes you think it's safe to tell us this?'

The security chief threw a toothy grin over her shoulder. 'It has an additional security system wired in.'

'Couldn't you put that security on the main camera system?'

'It'd violate health and safety regs. I trust that because I'm using this to help you, you won't go reporting it.'

'What additional security system?'

Parulis cracked a laugh and stood. 'Now let's see who was sneaking around.'

It didn't take long to spot the man, a slender, generic-looking Gallente, entering the hangar with what appeared to be wholly legitimate access codes. He moved as if he had every right to be there.

'I'm going to assume, Pilot, that you didn't give this guy any access codes. Let's get a rep on him.'

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Sati was at her desk working when Val finally got back to their quarters.

'Hey sweetie.'

'Heya.' He kissed her on the cheek. 'What's that?'

'Oh, someone wants me to compile a list of their competitor's market activities. Boring stuff. Funny, though, their competitor asked me to do the same thing last week. How's the Taranis?'

'Coming together. Look, Sati, um...'

She turned in her seat to look up at him. 'What's up?'

Wordlessly, Val handed her the datapad Parulis had loaded the search results onto. Sati was silent as she scanned the information, but her lips pressed tightly together and her expression grew more severe.

'What is this?'

'He was in my hangar last night. His Scope background checks out but it looks kinda thin.'

'He's not from the Scope, that's why. He's a free agent, like me, but he's not as... discerning, shall we say.'

Val leaned against the front edge of the desk. 'He was in there the night before the moving op, too. Let some random guy in. We found evidence of more tampering on ships I've not used recently, too.'

'Brilliant. Have you told your CEO?'

He nodded. 'We have an idea of how to deal with this, but we need your help. You up for it?'

The Caldari woman smiled but there was little humour in her eyes. 'Absolutely. What do you need?'

Chapter Nine

Thicker Than Blood: Chapter Seven

Three weeks ago...

Reflected sunlight dazzled from the clouds blanketing the planet below and bounced playfully from the metal skin and green-glazed domes of the Gallente station parked above one of the small moons. A corona of ships and maintainence drones flitted about the vast structure, nurturing and sustaining it.

As if on cue, a number of ships jetted forth from the station exit, a fleet of all sizes and types from gnatlike frigates to lumbering battleships, slow-moving industrial haulers and their faster blockade-runner counterparts. More and more emerged, forming up in a cloud in front of the station.

Plugged in at the helm of his Ishkur, Valar checked the load of liquid ozone in his cargo for the fifth time. The Blackball Rocketeers had recently negotiated a Non-Aggression Pact with a larger alliance which held territory in a quiet corner of null-security space, in exchange for two systems the corporation could use for construction and mining bases. At the meeting the week before, they had set in motion preparations for moving in, and Val hadn't slept well at all knowing that today he would be providing the cynosural field the corp's only jump-freighter would use to bring in the fuel for the six towers contained within their phalanx of transports and haulers.

It was a tense operation: the haulers were particularly vulnerable, and their contents would be a fantastic prize for an opportunistic pirate. The Rocketeeers' entire complement of combat pilots had turned out to provide security.

Flaschmann's voice cut through the murmur of pilots' voices. 'Everyone clear comms, align to planet three. Embryn, Jackal, go on ahead and check out Covryn; Emmy, continue into Cumemare.'

The two forward scouts vanished under covert-ops cloaks as they cleared the crush of traffic and warped off. The rest of the fleet surged as Flasch's warp caught them, driving the convoy towards a safe-spot bookmark between planets.

'Fleet align to Covryn. Scouts, report.'

'Covryn is clear.'

'Cume gate, Cov is clear. Jumping.'

It was the largest non-military operation Val had ever been part of, and the level of discipline surprised him. Everyone seemed to understand their roles; there was little in the way of confirmational chatter. If the convoy came under attack, the smaller ships would webify the haulers, reducing their warp times to safespots which had already been made in the week beforehand in each system along the route; each industrial ship was equipped with a cloaking device to keep the convoy safe from probing eyes should the combat fleet be forced to fall back.

As the primary cyno pilot, Val was expected to avoid combat if at all possible and to warp to a secondary safespot which had been made for ships without cloaks. One of the haulers carried enough liquid ozone and a cyno-gen for another ship to fill his role if necessary, but that would rely upon having a place to dock -- either a ship maintainance array should one of the towers be erected successfully, or at the nearest station.

The few jumps through lowsec were uneventful; the Rocketeers' scouts had checked the area out and identified a day and time during which that part of space was quiet. It was the long run deep into nullsec which had everyone on-edge. Once the convoy reached the NAP territory, they would be guarded by the guns of their new allies, but the twenty or so jumps between were wholly unprotected and potentially hostile. Secondary and even tertiary routes had been painstakingly plotted in the eventuality of the convoy being compromised.

'TXW is clear and empty. Continuing to 5-F.'

Nervously Val ran a system-prep, then paused. Opening comms to his assault frigate's small support crew, he subvocalised, 'Mims, run a manual turret check for me, would you? I'm getting some dodgy readings, I think they may not be connected properly.'

'That's not possible...' Miriam paused. 'Sir, the fittings haven't been touched since the Firestorm was fitted.'

'I know. Can you check it please?'

His commander sighed. 'Voids forbid you make us work, here.'

Val chuckled. 'It's what I pay you for.'

The fleet materialised on the far side of the gate; haulers aligned ponderously and warped, the combat ships trailing momentarily before their greater warp-speeds flung them ahead of their charges.

'Captain Rackham... sir, you were right.' Mims looked worried in the small video-feed projected onto Val's retinas. 'The connections to the turrets have been tampered with sometime since the last systems check two days ago. It's.... it looks deliberate, so that cursory checks would show them functioning perfectly.'

Feeling a chill steal through him, Valar asked, 'Have you checked the cyno-gen?'

'Yeah, it's fine. We added it this morning, there was no chance for someone to...' She stared into the feed, eyes unfocussed and momentarily lost in thought. 'Is someone trying to get you killed, sir?'

'Hell if I know. Run a full system diagnostic. I'm changing the maintainence queue effective immediately, I want connection checks twice daily, when you first come on-duty and before you log for the night. Any discrepancies you find, leave them untouched until I can get a look at them.' Unnoticed within the enclosed capsule, his perceptions expanded to those of the ship he commanded, Val's brow furrowed. 'Something's not right here.'

'Gotcha'

Putting ship comms on hold, Val sent a request for a private word with Flasch off-comms. A text-box popped up in his HUD.

[Sup, Jack?]

[My turrets have been tampered with. We're running checks right now, but I'm out of any fights.]

There was a long pause as Flasch coordinated with the scouts and sent the fleet toward the next gate.

[Sry, duty calls. Hope all goes well, stick with the convoy if we get into trouble. Once we get a tower set up, dock and we'll check things out. Don't let your crew fix anything.]

[We can't, anyway, don't have the equipment for it.]

Val skimmed the report Mims had just logged from the diagnostic.

[Looks like it's turrets and MWD out, everything else is sound.]

[All you need for now. We'll check it out.]

[Thanks.]

They closed convo and Val concentrated on staying with the fleet, tucking his worries away for later, his father's warning that he'd made himself a target cycling through his head.

-------------------------

When Sati answered comms, she was scowling fiercely, traces of frustrated tears smeared acoss her face. Her expression lightened when she saw who it was on the other end. 'Hey sweetheart.'

'Hey you. What's got you upset?' Val curled up in his desk chair, clasping his arms around his knees and focussing on his lover's image in the video feed. Sati rarely cried, or even showed distress; ordinarily she took the good and the bad in stride.

'Oh.' She wiped at her cheek with the heel of her hand. 'That bastard agent... I turned down the last mission he offered me, and when I went in today he acted like we've not been working together for the last year. That--' she used a Caldari word Val didn't know, but he was certain it was offensive '--he was smirking as he suggested I didn't have the standings to work for him. He wiped my records! And he sat there and he smiled at me because he knows I can't do anything about it!'

She raged for a little longer, while Val made sympathetic noises and wished he was back in Stacmon to hold her. After a bit, Sati slumped back in her chair with a sigh.

'I'm sorry... you called, and here I am venting...'

'Hey, are you kidding? I'd rather you tell me about stuff instead of pretending everything's perfect, you know.'

The smile that crossed her face made his heart melt. 'You're sweet, Jack. How'd the move go?'

'Oh, the move was great.' Val shifted position in his seat; neither he nor his sister had ever been comfortable in standard chairs. 'We got the towers in and up safely. Cyno nearly worked the first time but somebody spotted the freighter at the station and it had to dock. A gang camped it for a couple hours before they got bored and left. At least we had more than enough liquid ozone for a second cyno field.'

Sati cheered up at that. 'That's great! How's the area look?'

'Quiet. There's an ice belt in the other system out here, it's.... wow. Just amazing. You should see it! The miners are really happy.'

The Caldari woman chuckled. 'I bet.' She looked at Val a moment, then said, 'What's up, Jack?'

'I can't hide anything from you, can I?' Valar shook his head. 'Somebody messed with my ship, probably last night after I turned in.'

'What?!' Sati looked alarmed.

'Nothing serious, but we're checking on it. The connections to my blasters and emm-dubbleyu-dee were snipped rather precisely. We've checked it and it's being fixed.'

He could practically see the thoughts processing behind Sati's eyes as she stared into the distance. 'Really... That would have to be deliberate, if the startup check didn't see it immediately. Have you checked with your hangar crew?'

'I will do once I get home. We'll be out here a few more days getting settled in, probably a week.'

Sati pouted a little. 'I miss you already. Don't be too long...'

'I promise.' Vai smiled softly. 'I'll be back before you know it.'

'Alright, Jack, I should let you go, huh? I love you.' She kissed the tips of her fingers and pressed them to the screen at her end of the feed; Val responded in kind.

'I love you, too.'

Next Chapter

Thicker Than Blood: Chapter Six

Four weeks ago...

The Sunburst was Flaschmann's pet project, a bar for capsuleers burrowed in the depths of the station the Blackball Rocketeers based from in Stacmon. The layout was station-basic -- an extended, bowed rectangle with the entrance positioned roughly at the midpoint of the inner curve -- but Flasch had installed raised and lowered floors, domed niches and curtain-walling to break up the monotony, with varied levels of gold-hued lighting promoting social activity or intimacy in different areas.

The walls had been plastered and painted a deep cinnabar, giving the room the feel of being planetside rather than suspended in stationary orbit above a moon. Lurking beneath gold-leafed industrial metalwork arches strung with tiny lights to the right of the door, the bar snaked along the inner curve of the room, its far end tailing off in a semicircular island projecting into the space; at the opposite end of the room, a stage had been set up, raised high enough above the main floor to preclude audience intervention, and lit so that the display could be viewed from the furthest reaches of the bar. Thin wisps of smoke pungent with substances both legal and illicit drifted throughout the space; the smell of spiced, roasted meats hung redolent in the air near the door to the kitchen at the back.

Val paused in the entry, breathing in deeply, then relaxed, feeling the torpor of a lazy visit home dropping away like a shed skin. Momentarily entranced by the sinuous curves of the two dancers on the stage moving in time to the music, he didn't at first notice the man who had entered the bar behind him; now the other jogged his elbow and repeated, 'Jack?'

He started and turned in surprise, then grinned. 'Miska. How's it going?'

The older Amarrian nodded. 'Not bad, not bad. You seemed a bit... absorbed,' he commented, a mischievous smile crinkling the corners of his eyes as he gestured towards the stage. 'One might think you hadn't been planetside on a Gallente world for a few days.'

Val shrugged. 'There's a big difference between training and natural talent. It looks so much better when it's not flawless.'

The men appreciated the display a moment more, then Miska tilted his head towards the bar. 'Join me for a drink?'

They claimed a table in a niche along the outer curve of the room and Miska lit a cigarette from the candle in the centre, inhaling and sighing out an aromatic plume as he relaxed into his chair. 'Rough day. Nearly lost my ship twice. Damned Serpentis don't know when to give up, I think, sometimes. So how was your trip? Where did you go?'

Val sipped his drink. 'I was back visiting my dad... only meant it to be a few hours, then back into space, but he insisted I stay longer. It was good to be back for a bit, but I felt well out of place. It was weird.'

The older man grinned on a mouthful of smoke. 'You've come a long way in the last month and a half, Jack. Fresh out of the Navy, you were. Would it have felt like home then?'

Giving it some thought, Val frowned. 'Maybe. Maybe I just thought that was what home felt like.' He shook his head: it was getting far too philosophical for his comfort.

The Amarrian rested his elbow on the table, holding his cigarette at eye-level, and watched smoke curl from its end. 'In life, there are many stages. We do not remain always who we think we are. Seven years ago, I served the Emperor faithfully. I had a wife, children. Honour.' A regretful smile crossed his face; it was gone so quickly Val wondered if he'd imagined it.

'What... what happened?'

Miska gave a laugh and drew on his cigarette. 'I am as you see me. New name, new life.' He gestured to the thick scarring which pulled down the outer corner of his right eye and tugged his upper lip into what could almost be mistaken for a sneer. 'I even have a new face.' The older man looked amused, but it was clear he had nothing more to say about it.

Val looked down thoughtfully, his youthful face pinching into a frown; he went so still he scarcely seemed to breathe. Miska looked at him curiously. 'I changed my name,' he murmured, finally, 'but it wasn't enough.'

'Pardon?'

Glancing up from his drink, the younger man explained, 'I'm in trouble. Maybe. Because of who I'm related to, not something I've done. Dad's... semi-important, and some people wish he wasn't.'

'You left the Navy to escape that?' Miska sipped his drink absently, paying more attention to Val's words than to what was in his cup.

Val shook his head. 'I left because I was asked to, to do... something. Didn't stop to wonder why at the time, it just seemed to make sense.'

The Amarrian quirked his unscarred eyebrow. 'I see.'

'They've been after my sister, too... that's what they wanted me to do, to find her for them. I think she's safe for now... I'd've heard about it if they caught her. I'm afraid if I contact her at all now, if I pop that... safety bubble... they'll try to use her.'

Miska's other eyebrow rose to join the first. 'Oh?'

The Gallente took a moment to collect his thoughts. 'While I was there, Dad was preparing for a major vote, something to do with surveillance oversight and citizen tracking. It's a big issue, really, um... what's the word...?'

'Divisive?' Miska supplied.

'Well, it is that, definitely. Dad would be well against the proposal, and he's pretty much a crux-point on the issue.'

'I thought the Federation was wholly democratic?'

Val shrugged and ran his fingers back through his hair. 'It's a security issue, so the council members are elected by the people, then they handle everything internally. If an issue hits a fifty-fifty snag, it goes to a public referendum.'

'And the people would hardly accept a policy which invades their privacy,' the older man finished. 'I see. That's what your father wants to happen, yes? And it's fairly obvious where the other council members are voting, then?'

'Not really; there are a few other moderates who are sitting on the fence, they're also being bullied.' Val sighed and leaned back in his chair, staring up at the amber glass of the lamp drifting suspended in its own antigrav field above the table. 'It's pretty ugly with infighting. Gallente politics is hardly as straightforward as it likes to say it is. Politicians seem to have shorter life spans, for no apparent reason. Especially if they're outspoken and radical.' Like Dad, he didn't add, but the thought was clear on his face.

The Amarrian looked surprised. 'So no people for the people, then?'

'People for their own people, more like.' The younger man looked tired. 'Sir, can I ask a favour of you?'

Miska shrugged. 'You can ask anything. Whether I agree depends on what you ask.'

'It's nothing principle-violating. My Dad said something, that I'm too trusting to be caught in this sort of mess. Can you tell me if there's something... anything... glaringly obvious that I seem to be missing? Anything that seems wrong? Can.. I trust you?' Val asked, knowing he was verging on offending the proud Amarrian.

Miska went quiet for a while as they finished their drinks, his eyes narrowed thoughtfully but focussed on nothing in particular. At last he said, 'I can do that. May I first suggest you find a new agent to work with? Anyone under Gallente orders could easily set you up. There's a Minmatar office in the system here you can talk to.'

The younger man nodded. 'I was considering that. Thanks, sir.'

The older man smiled and stubbed out the remains of his cigarette in the dish provided; the charred paper and leaf residue disintegrated to nothing on the corrosive surface. 'Talk to Flasch about standings if you need them. Corp meeting soon. You coming?'

Val nodded and rose to follow him out towards the bank of lifts in the concourse; the dancers blew kisses as they passed.

As they waited for a car to arrive, Miska seemed to come to a decision. Turning to Val, the older man said, 'Did you never think the political things might be why your sister left the Navy?'

The Gallente's jaw dropped. 'I'm sorry... how do you...'

'She was based here a while with her mercenary friends. You look a bit like her. To find out why you looked familiar, Jack, was not hard.' Miska looked serious. 'You're right. Changing your name, it was not enough. In the corp, you can trust the directors. We are mercenary, but we look after our own. Some newer members, maybe not so much. If you think there's trouble, talk to one of us.'

A lift car arrived, the door sliding open silently. After a moment's hesitation, Val followed the older man in, feeling somehow both more secure and painfully exposed.

Next Chapter

Thicker Than Blood: Chapter Five

Five weeks ago...

Sati had said that the first step lay in finding out who could possibly object to Dad being on the Security Council. My mission had come through the Navy, the seals were confirmed official, which meant at least one member of the Admiralty was complicit. Commodore Isaar either was, as well, or had been lied to skillfully.

There was only one person I knew I could trust to give me a straight answer.

Still working under my assumed Global ID as Madjack Rackham, a name I was slowly coming to identify with more than my actual name, I arranged an appointment to speak with Counsellor Tiann. It took a few days, but I finally managed to obtain an hour with my own father at his office in Lesith on Athinard V. I begged a day off from my CEO, flew out to the Sisters of EVE station over Athinard IV and took a mass-transit shuttle to planet five, figuring that a capsuleer actually landing planetside would cause much more of a stir than one coming in with the spacegoing plebes.

Once planetside in the spaceport city of Reims, I hopped the public transport monorail, to be whisked north though the five hundred kilometres of frozen marshlands to Lesith. With my relative wealth, I could have reserved a first-class cabin with cushy chairs, complimentary drinks and GalNet access terminals; but I wasn't in the mood. I paid a meagre sum for Standard class and spent the trip propped against a narrow shelf of a 'seat' along the wall in the entryway to one of the carriages, sharing my leg-room with a pile of other passengers' baggage on the overfilled train. It was somehow comforting, I thought as I huddled in my heavy leather jacket, to be just another citizen. The overpriced rail network coffee was sharp and acidic, but hot enough to warm my hands through the insulated paper cup.

From the monorail terminal, I transferred to the public tram service, clinging for dear life to a grip bolted into the ceiling as the rattletrap car sped a drunkard's path between the aging, graffittied buildings. Decaying stonework and brutalist steel-and-glass, decorated with the diamond-dust of a recent snowfall, flashed past the fogged windows.

The building my father kept his office in was one of the tallest buildings in the city, and one of the most recent, though it predated me by a good twenty years. A garden dome arched above its otherwise bland façade, all the corners smoothed into organic ripples and long windows peering sleepily from behind patinaed copper bars that only looked decorative.

The receptionist nodded distractedly as I presented my appointment chit. 'You'll have to pass through the security checkpoint like everyone else, sir,' he said in a bored tone that dripped with a lack of sympathy for any objections I might have. Not that I had any. I relieved my pockets of loose items -- notepad, wallet, ID -- and set them aside for an officer to check, pressed my hands on the contact points and watched laser light play over my body as they scanned me down.

The capsuleer hardware showed up bright as daylight on the scan; I didn't even have to see the monitors, it was all in the way the woman at the controls straightened in shock and the flurry of sudden activity behind the bulletproof glass. A uniformed man bustled out and hurried over as I accepted my things back from the bewildered officer at the gate.

'I'm terribly sorry, sir, we had no idea you were a pilot.' The way he said it made my job sound as important as a foreign ambassador's. I suppose in a way, that was what I'd become: capsuleers transcended borders and factional allegiances. Despite that, there were some utterly filthy scoundrels out there, and if people had any inkling what many capsuleers did for a living, they might not be so quick to offer their trust.

I waved him off before his simpering could get on my nerves. 'I'm here on personal business. If you could show me the way to the lifts?' He wanted to arrange an escort, which I declined as politely as I could, and soon I found myself in the executive lift's posh, brass-mirrored box on my way to the upper floors.

I'd always wondered if the execs got better elevator music. The answer was 'no'.

Dad's personal secretary looked up with her bland, generic greeting smile as I entered the lobby; her expression changed to stunned amazement as recognition set in.

I grinned. 'Hey Marisa. Dad's in?'

'Um,' she stuttered, half-rising from her chair. 'He is, but he's got an appointment shortly-'

'I know, it's cool. It's with me.'

Her pretty face looked confused; I'd had an awful crush on her when Dad first hired her, and she still looked hot. She brushed a fallen lock of chestnut hair out of her eyes with a long-fingered hand; her nail varnish was metallic green today. 'Oh, um, okay. He's been in all morning.'

'Thanks.' I couldn't resist giving her a wink as a I passed; she blushed cutely.

Dad gave a gruff reply when I knocked at the door; he was putting on a good show of being busy, but as soon as he saw me he leaped up and embraced me, kissing me on the cheeks.

'Valar! Dog's bollocks, boy, what are you doing here?' He held me at arm's length and looked me over, taking in the changes I'd made to my appearance. 'You're this Jack Rackham who asked to see me today, aren't you?'

He'd put on weight since I'd last seen him, at my graduation from the academy, and there was a bit more grey in his hair than I remembered. I nodded. 'It's great to see you, but I think I'm under surveillance. I thought it would be best to use a different name.'

Dad squinted at me. 'You're looking good. But what's all this, now?'

'Do you know somewhere we can talk in private?'

He pursed his lips and frowned, then said, 'Feel like taking a walk?'

We ended up in a rock-garden on a lower section of the roof from the greenhouse. It had started snowing again, very lightly, and what was on the ground already nearly obscured the rippled patterns raked into the pebbles; the small fountain in one corner had been turned off and drained for the season. We waded through the snow, hands in our pockets and breath steaming from our lips.

'What's going on, Val?' Dad always cut right to the point; a devastating attribute if you were twelve and trying to avoid homework, but refreshing now. Of everyone I knew, he was all too aware that people were people no matter their status or occupation, a cynical mindset my sister shared.

'I need to know why you're paying to have Shae brought home.'

Dad stopped and cocked his head at me. 'I'm what, now?'

An ironic smile twisted my mouth. 'No, huh?'

Brushing snow from the head and shoulders of a graceful Jin-Mei sculpture, he said, with a touch of regret, 'Your sister is entirely her own person, Val. What she does with her life is up to her. Who am I to try to control that? Even if she chooses a life of crime and piracy, I can only hope she comports herself with the dignity and honour I tried to teach you two.' Dad looked up at me, a sorrowful expression on his face. 'I regret my initial reaction to her announcement that she was leaving the Navy, since it only hit that rebellious trigger she got from your mother. I wish she would talk to me again. But having her brought home would only see her tried and executed. I would never do that.'

I pulled my notepad out and inserted the data chip I'd concealed in one of the jacks in the back of my skull, calling its contents onto the page. 'This wasn't you, then?'

Dad read the text, then read it again, his eyes narrowing. It was a transcript of an audio conversation, ostensibly between himself and the last bounty hunter who'd been hired to locate Shae. Sati had acquired the copy at the cost of a few million ISK and not a little hardcore database cracking. There'd been other communiques like it, but this was the most in-depth of the lot; the hunter had apparently been the particular, moralistic type, and the person using our father's name had clearly done a close study of his style and attitude. The voice I'd heard was nearly perfect. There'd been something in that conversation, though, which had struck me as being out of place. Dad's darkening expression confirmed my suspicion that it was an act of deception played at the hunter's expense.

'Where did you find this, Val?'

'A friend found it--'

His finger shot up, interrupting me. 'I didn't ask who, I asked where,' Dad said, aiming that finger at me, still focussed on the notepad in his other hand.

'Well, it was--' I stopped. 'I don't know. A database somewhere she broke open.'

A grim smile played around Dad's mouth without fully appearing. 'A database. Who leaves a record like that lying around in a networked database? Who's this gentleman I'm supposedly talking to, the one who located your sister?'

I shook my head, feeling the cold bite my exposed skin. 'Some mercenary. He's not been located since the last communication in the record; Commodore Isaar said they suspect Shae killed him.'

That arched Dad's left eyebrow. 'I wouldn't say she's not the type. She can be vicious if pressed too far.'

Like father, like daughter. 'The audio recordings are attached to the text files if you want to give a listen--'

Dad scoffed and passed the notepad back. 'I assume it will be someone speaking through a filter based on recordings of my voice which anyone might have obtained. That recording was left there to be found, but I can't possibly think why.' He gave me a narrow look. 'You do realise that by accepting their 'mission' and leaving the Navy you have made yourself as much a pawn as your sister? There are no commanding officers to get in the way; anyone close to you can be bought.'

The chill I felt was no longer just from the winter air.

Frowning, Dad leaned on the high balustrade, looking out over the city as the snow fell. 'I have an idea who it might be. Someone in Federal Intelligence.' He tossed me a wry grin. 'I was elected because of my proposed policies towards Caldari immigrants living on Gallente soil. There was an attempt to discredit me when someone there did a little digging and discovered Grandma Airenn was Caldari, but it just made me more popular with the Moderate vote. I doubt they sleep well with me on the Security Council.'

I looked down at my feet and attempted to tap the caked snow off my boots. 'So what should I do?'

'Is that the only copy of that recording?'

'No, there are a couple others. You want this one?'

He nodded. 'In that case, yes. Val, are you absolutely certain you can trust this friend who did the cracking for you?' he asked as I handed the chip over.

I gave it a moment's thought, then nodded. 'Yes. It's what she does for a living.'

'Right.' Dad still looked sceptical. 'Make certain you have more than one friend out there, Val. You really are too trusting to be getting caught up in these types of political machinations. Get in touch with your sister. You know you can trust her to back you up.'

A laugh forced its way out of me. 'Heavens help the neighbours' kids if they beat up on her favourite punching-bag, huh?' Dad punched me on the shoulder lightly, grinning, but there was a touch of iron in his smile.

'The neighbours' kids will be throwing worse than snowballs if they suspect that I can't be controlled through my children. I know they tried through your mother: she called and ranted at me for a couple hours about keeping the government out of her life since it ruined our marriage. I hope she gave them as much of an earful.' He sighed and wrapped his arm around my shoulders. 'Come on, let's get some lunch and talk about the more pleasant things in life. As long as you're here we might as well have a good visit.'

Next Chapter

Thicker Than Blood: Chapter Four

Six weeks ago...

The coffee sitting in the mug at his elbow had gone stone cold; Valar hadn't touched it in over an hour. He was absorbed in compiling the data he'd collected over the past month and a half. Many people had recalled his sister, some fondly, some with a touch of annoyance or disgust. Only one, a scary-looking Sebiestor with a sepulchral complexion under his black facial markings, had any clue where she might have disappeared to with her corp.

'You should maybe try Amarr space? She said something about a move to Genesis, I think.'

'Genesis...' he muttered. Val pulled up the map, his previously-used settings for system populations casting a golden glow on his face. Life away from the strict military regimen had thinned him a bit, and he'd experimented by growing a short goatee. Val had allowed his hair to grow in order to present a less military appearance; the total effect was one of a rogueish charm that women seemed to find appealing, a realisation which bemused him. Changing the map settings to system security, he focussed the hologram on the Genesis region.

'You're still up?'

Sati's voice, unexpected, caused Val to start. He turned his chair on its pivot to face her and stretched, hearing his shoulders and spine flex with a series of pops. 'Yeah.'

She stood silhouetted against the dim light from the sitting-room, leaning against the doorjamb. Her dressing-gown was secured loosely and revealed a delectable flash of skin from throat to waist. The Caldari woman had surprised him by staying after that first night, and the words Your place or mine were often the first he heard after leaving his pod for the evening. Val had long since lost his wartime wariness of her background: she was just another person, albeit one who was sexy as hell and could drive him crazy.

'You're a machine, Jack. This obsession can't be good for you.'

He shook his head. 'It's not an obsession. I need to find her.'

'Well, why don't you just bloody call her, then? I've been trying to figure you out from the start, Jack, and that's one thing that makes no sense. If your cousin or whatever is as nice as everyone says, there's no reason she'd refuse to talk to you.' Sati crossed the small room, picked up his coffee-cup and sniffed experimentally, wrinkling her nose.

'It's not that easy, she's killed everyone else who went looking for her and disappeared right afterwards. I don't want to spook her.'

'It is that easy, Jack.' Sati put the mug down hard in exasperation, sloshing a little tepid liquid over the edge onto the desktop. 'Who gave you the idea this is the only way to go about this? Someone's put you up to it, and you're just heading further down a road that leads nowhere. Who's made you do this?'

'I-' Looking up, Val saw her lips pressed into a thin, angry line; her eyes met his with all the warmth of a glacier, and just as immovable. He sagged. 'The Navy. They want her brought in.'

'The Navy.' Her tone was frosty. 'What the fuck are they holding over you?'

He looked away, staring through the holographic star-map. 'They don't trust me enough to offer a better command while my sister is running around playing pirate.'

Sati slapped him.

'I don't believe you. I thought you were better than this.'

His face stung, but he resisted rubbing the place where she'd struck him.

'Look at you! A better command? You're going to trade your sister's life for a better command from the people who will destroy her? They'll torture her for information, then publicly execute her as a warning to other pirates; if you believed the soft lies they fed you about mercy, you're a bigger fool than you look right now.

'And as for a better command? How much better can you get than what you have here? You can afford to buy a battlecruiser of your own! No waiting for somebody to tell you you're worthy of it. Personally, I'd say you aren't, but that couldn't stop you if you wanted it.'

There was little Valar could do but bear the brunt of her ire: she was right.

'The only thing holding you back right now is yourself, and I hope that's because somewhere in the back of that pretty, empty head, you recognise that you're being an idiot. I can't believe you're such a tool,' she sighed, suddenly sounding tired and sad. Val glanced up again, the mark of her hand still hot on his face. She looked close to tears.

'What-?'

'Somebody's using you, Valar. That is your name, yes? I looked Shae's background up, but... the face in your profile isn't yours.'

'Yeah,' he muttered, 'they changed it.'

Sati sighed, then sat on the edge of the desk, pulling her robe around herself. 'So somebody's got to a lot of trouble to send you out here... why? Who's pulling your strings, my dear puppet?'

He shook his head. 'How do you figure that?'

'The Navy never takes pilots back once they've left, Valar. No official military does; the closest you could get is joining one of the militias. Anyway, do you really want to go back, after all you've known out here?'

Val looked thoughtful. 'I don't... I haven't really thought that far ahead. I don't know, anymore.'

She reached over and stroked his hair. 'I thought as much. They didn't expressly say they'd take you back, did they?'

Frowning, he leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. 'No... I asked and they said if I failed, it would be because-' Val stopped, a horrible realisation dawning.

'You'd be dead?' Sati finished. 'Strong choice of words there, don't you think? No specific rewards for handing your sister in for a jumper trial, and termination if you don't. Why do they want your sister so badly? They never actively stir themselves to discipline outlaws unless one is sitting right in front of them with his pants down.'

Valar rubbed the back of his neck. 'Our father's involved... they said it was part his request that Shae be found.'

Sati snapped her fingers. 'Your father, what's he up to?'

Gerard Tiann was a minor functionary who'd risen from blue-collar worker to government official through determination and the sacrifice of his family life. The prestige of having both children become capsuleers in the Navy had given him a recent boost to the position of...

'He's on the Security Council.'

A grim smile spread across the Caldari woman's face. 'Sounds to me that someone doesn't like him there. This isn't about you or Shae. Imagine what it would do to him if his daughter was revealed in a public trial to be an outlaw? Even if you managed to salvage some honour from it, your father's credibility would be lost. Quite a dirty family secret, your Shae.'

Val finally allowed himself to massage his burning cheek. 'What a fucking mess. And I walked right into it.'

'You're too naieve, sweetie.' Her voice was gentle, and her smile had softened; she leaned over and kissed his forehead. 'So what now, Valar Tiann?'

The young man's eyes narrowed as he looked at the three-dimensional projection of Genesis slowly turning in the air above the desk.

'My name's Jack. And I'm tired of being played. Let's find out what's really going on.'

Next Chapter

Thicker Than Blood: Chapter Three

Eight weeks ago...

She's not down here. She was in Syndicate for a while, joined another corp and moved into Placid. Her current corp cleared out of nullsec not too long ago, maybe a month, and left for parts unknown. I went into the lowsec system where her old corpmates had an office, and they were happy to talk to me when I started asking questions. Their enemies were happy to destroy my Ishkur on my way out.

I'd never been pod-killed before, for all the hulls I've lost. Raw terror, frustration bordering on a blind, red rage at my own helplessness and their lack of compassion. Not pirates -- there were no ransom demands issued, not even a comment in the Local comms; I was nothing more than a neutral target of opportunity. Just pounce, pop, pod, while they tanked the sentry guns. And it hurt, worse than anything I've known before: the most intense, stabbing headache ripping through behind my eyes in the instant before I woke up in a cloning bay on the edge of Empire space.

I didn't even know who I was, at first. How awful would it be if the transfer failed, sometime? I felt sick, afterward, physically ill from having to adjust to a new body which didn't quite feel like it belonged to me. It was so much worse than emerging from the pod after a long trip; like wearing a shirt that's just a size too small. These muscles had never been used, and moving awoke a complaint in every joint, leaving me leaning on the tech's shoulder and dribbling vat-fluid over his blue coverall. He was nice about it, at least; I guess he'd be used to it.

The corp reimbursed my ship, leaving me enough from insurance and my own funds to replace the modules. I thought this was awfully generous of them, until Sati pointed out how little an Ishkur costs compared to her Raven, and said it was just as well I'd stayed with smaller hulls, since modules for larger ships cost more, too.

It's been an eye-opening experience, the life of a semi-independant capsuleer. Yes, there's a CEO and directors I answer to, but I can choose when to be active, and for how long, what to fly that day and where. There's rarely any corp-wide activities; I time in for the day, do some work for an agent or go hunting Serpentis, log my earnings and deduct the corp's percentage at the end. It leaves me asking 'why bother?', but there's a bit of protection from being able to call on people for support, and the corp tax goes towards things the group needs. I had a hard time adjusting, at first; the lack of structure left me feeling like a loose cog until Flaschmann, one of the wing commanders, sat me down for a heart-to-heart over a pint which became several -- nobody warned me not to match a Brutor drink for drink -- and explained that if I wanted to be an effective pilot, I would have to take initiative.

Initiative is a scary word. It means you alone are responsible for yourself and the safety of your crew. There's nobody else to blame when everything goes tits-up; you can't use the excuse that you were only following orders. But since then, my reflexes have got faster, and I've been testing new loadouts against willing corpmates' hulls. They have advice to offer from their experience, and I listen, but at the end of the day it's only me making the decisions.

Flasch decided it was time to introduce me to a new aspect of the corp the other day: capsuleer combat. It's as different from the Serpentis-baiting I'd been doing as ocean-swimming is from an indoor pool, and the guys cheerfully tossed me in the deep end on a fast roaming op deep into Syndicate. The ultimate targets, I discovered, were the corp whose pilots had podded me the week before. I was scared. Serpentis don't have access to capsule technology and the enhancements it affords. The targets had been flying for years and had the benefits of experience and further training.

'Jack, if you don't start hitting back at the people who attack you, you'll be a target the rest of your career.'

That was Miska T'onik, a Khanid with a heavy accent and a ravaged face that showed he'd been through hell and back, genetic damage caused from being caught by one too many Titans in deep-nullsec conquests. If there was one person whose respect I wanted to earn, it was Miska -- the man suffered no fools and dealt levelly with everyone, even the people he disliked.

So, heart hammering, palms feeling sweaty despite the surrounding fluid in the pod, I sent my assault frigate plunging after them, the fleet of thirty small ships forming up around me as we warped. The feeling I got from that was nearly enough to make me forget my fear; it wasn't the first time I'd been in a gang-warp, but there was something different about it, this time. It felt good.

The scout running ahead of us in her covert-ops ship reported back that the nullsec entry was camped. 'Phobos, Falcon, Manticore, Ishtar, Claw,' Embryn called off. 'They're on the ball, Claw nearly decloaked me.'

Flasch cackled. 'We'll rape them. Squad one, primary the Phobos; Squad two, the Falcon is yours. Squad three gets the Ishtar; pop his drones first, if you please. Emmy, they got backup in there?'

'It's just them.'

'Jump-jump, everyone in!'

The interdictor on the far side lit up a swirling blue sphere of drive-scrambling pulses as the gate flared. They couldn't have missed the insane spike on the Local channel, however.

'Drop cloaks, hit 'em before they run!' Flasch barked.

My jump-cloak dropped, and I'd never felt so naked. I powered towards the Phobos and dropped into a tight orbit, opening up with the blasters as a cloud of drones swamped the field and a swarm of interceptors detatched from the main group and buzzed the recon ship. I was shaking hard, nearly in siezure.

The campers hadn't been ready for a thirty-frigate fleet. The interceptor jumped out and the stealth bomber disappeared -- cloaked or warped, I couldn't tell -- while the larger ships melted under the assault. The Ishtar made it to the gate and jumped, venting fire and vapour; the Phobos and Falcon died and we were through into nullsec. The Falcon pilot lost his pod

Lower Syndicate... echoed. There was virtually no one down here other than the Serpentis and the capsuleers who fought them for the resources. Save a distant blip on the scans, we were the only ones there. It was a long way down into the area our targets inhabited. A long way. The only others we encountered were single pilots moving fast to get out of our way.

I was in a state which would probably have been similar to that of any pilots picking up our frigate swarm on longrange scans, suffering from a perpetual adrenalin surge which the nutrients being pumped into my body couldn't ease. It was nearly painful and I had a vague sense that I was curled up tightly within my pod, quaking hard. A text message from the capsule tech popped up in my HUD, saying he was growing concerned with my elevated breathing and was boosting the oxygen mix. It was mostly a rodent-in-traffic reaction, anticipation of being run over by something so much bigger than myself that there would be no point in fighting it. I had no idea what to expect down here.

A private chatbox opened -- Flasch dropping a text-based query.

[How u doin jack?]

[Scared shitless.]

[Rlx. Ur in a frig in a load of other frigs. No 1 will notice u unless u do sumthin rly dumb.]

[Is that last part tht worries me.]

[0.0 safer than hisec, jack. Fllow instructs ul b fine. Rmbr ur down here in combat ship n combat fleet. Ppl will engage but we got ur back. Jus do wut ur trained 4.]

The scout's transmission cut through the casual banter on the comms. 'Check-check. Target contact, got a twenty-man gang toward ZVN gate in PVH.' She rattled off a list of shiptypes from frigs to battleships.

'They grow 'em big down here,' someone commented.

'Who are they, Emmy?' Flasch asked.

'Third-parties, red to the guys we're after. I'm getting a lot of Local smack from them.'

'Noobs in our way. Hang on.' There was a moment of tense silence while we huddled in our safespot, the only beacons of life in a dead system.

'Right, come back here, we're going to loop around through EZA. There's a few people in there, so watch yourself.'

'Roger that.' Comms had gone dead silent. 'Embryn here, part of that gang's already on my exit gate.'

'Can you get through?'

'I live for running gatecamps.' A moment later she laughed. 'They didn't like me getting past them. You should move before they get in here.'

'Roger that, scout us around, darlin'.'

Syndicate was clear until we hit PC9. 'Fifty-seven in Local, looks like something big is going on. In space... Tempest, Geddon, Mega-Mega, Domi, Maelstrom... Thanatos. Revelation. They're duking it out on a station. No reds.'

'Are the gates clear?'

'Yep?'

'Right, get to the next system.' We raced through without stopping, conscious that any waiting would give someone time to notice us and rally a gang. An empty system later, we were on top of our targets.

'Squad three get in there, set up bubbles, look like you mean business. Everyone else spread out around the gate here, go to optimal.' Flaschmann anchored a large warp-disruption bubble in the centre of the gate as the bait squad jumped through. The bubbles were a risk, since they couldn't be removed quickly. I set my Ishkur to orbit the gate just beyond the range of the disruption field so I wouldn't be trapped.

'Embryn here, they've spotted the bait.'

'What've they got?'

'Eight... ten, eleven. Couple inties, hacs... Eris, they have a 'dictor. Dominix, Astarte.'

'Oooh that's going to be nasty. Anyone packing ECM?'

There was a small chorus of 'drones' and 'I'm in a Kitsune' before Embryn's voice cut across the comms again. 'They have a Falcon, Falcon just undocked. Damnation. Fuuuuuck... I don't think we can take this.'

'All that for ten frigates, goddamn. Democratic vote: who wants to give it a shot and who'd rather try a different approach some other time?'

This was a new experience for me: the FC asking the gang's opinions about a potential engagement. By that point I would have cut and run if a can happened to bump me, so I remained silent.

'We'll just be one fantastic LOL-mail if we try it, Flasch,' Miska said.

'I hear that. Anyone else?'

'We've got enough jammers to swamp out the recon-'

'But not the command ships. Squad three, get back in here. Leave the bubbles if you have to.'

'Falcon on the gate, two hundred off,' the Squad Three commander reported. 'Desh, wake up, get back on the gate-- shit. His system's offlined.' The fleet channel count had already dropped by one as the pilot's ship went dead and emergency-warped away.

'He'll have the sense to restore comms before bringing full power back online. Get back here. Emmy, you stay there, prep to scout Desh back. Jackal, you're the fastest, scout us out the pipe. Destination is broadcast, we'll dock up in M2.'

We retreated quickly and docked up, blending into the masses of people in the station there. It was rather anticlimactic, for all the stress and how worked-up I'd got.

'Big gang coming up the pipe,' Flasch broadcast openly once we were safe. 'If you're going to fight, we can assist.' The response was a general laconic yawn from the local pilots and someone replied, 'Tell us something new.'

So we sat in the station, waiting for the heat to die down. Deshpati and his crew got his systems working again after a coolant failure of some sort and Embryn brought him out safely. We waited for an hour, chilling out in a bar with cups of coffee and tea to hand -- still on duty, and Flasch swore he'd pod anyone who undocked drunk.

I survived my first encounter with nullsec feeling like I'd been sucker-punched in the back. Glancing around the bar on our way back to the hangars, I wondered if Shae had ever spent time in here; her old corporation had offices in the station, so it seemed likely. How had she been able to stand Lower Syndicate? It was a hellish place, and I was happy to finally see the Reblier gate and Empire space.

Next Chapter

Thicker Than Blood: Chapter Two

Nine weeks ago...

'I hear you're looking for someone.'

Valar glanced up from his notepad. The station bar was quiet and rather empty at this time of the afternoon, and he'd chosen an out-of-the-way table to do his work at. His pint sat at his elbow, empty with a sticky film of dried foam at the bottom.

She was tall enough to be at eye-level had he been standing, a trim Deteis in a dark jumpsuit, straw-blond hair pulled back in gamine bunches just below her ears and an equally gamine sparkle in her brown eyes.

Carefully setting the swirling passive-use animation active, he put the notepad down and sat back in his chair. 'I am, yes. How would you happen to know?'

The Caldari woman clasped her hands in front of her. 'You asked with one of the agents here; he contracted me to help. My connections are good.'

Val's eyebrows arched. 'Did he. And you are...?' He stood and offered his hand as he spoke.

'Sati. Satitha Mbaari, Perkone. My agent gave your Global ID as Madjack Rackham, but that can't be your real name, surely.' Her grip was firm without crushing -- she was trying neither to impress him nor put him off -- and she dropped casually into the other chair as Val resumed his seat.

'It's how people know me. You can call me Jack.' He'd changed his Global as so many pilots did upon leaving their training services. His sister was one of the few who had continued to work under their birth-name, much to his detriment.

'Jack. Very well.' Sati produced her own notepad, switched it on and scrawled something with the stylus. 'If you can give me what you know of this person, I can get started tonight, probably have more info for you by tomorrow morning.'

Val squinted at her, then rubbed the corners of his eyes tiredly, wincing as a finger pressed too hard over the fresh tattoo that marked his cheekbone. His new corporation, the Blackball Rocketeers, were a mixed bag of combat pilots and industrialists, and the few friends he'd made among them had encouraged the facial markings. 'Her Global is Shae Tiann. Twenty-six years old, former Gallente Navy Special Forces. Worked as a mercenary from early September last year, went pirate and outlaw a few months later. She was based in Arzi, in Kor-Azor, for a while, then moved down here into A-ZLHX. Disappeared a little over a month ago.'

Sati was scribbling furiously. 'That's like... half the info you should have. You got precise dates? Corp names, alliance names? Known associates?'

Taken aback, Val stuttered for a moment, then said, 'I can mail you the list-'

The woman responded by unreeling a thin fibreoptic cable from the side of her notepad and twirling it between her fingers so the end waved wildly. 'Secure connection, your pad to mine. No sense wasting airwaves, eh?'

'Oh. Right.' He plugged the jack into his notepad and transferred a copy-paste of the base file, removing the Navy identifiers. Sati, despite her relaxed attitude, was all business, and it threw Valar off a bit. He caught himself watching her as she worked. There was a cute scattering of freckles across her nose and cheeks, interrupted by the green-gold plate of an implanted marking which curved under her left eye. If she was wearing makeup, he couldn't see it. And something else....

'You're a pilot, aren't you?' he asked, before he could stop himself.

She nodded, not taking her eyes from the page. 'I fly for Federal Intelligence, it's why your agent called me in.'

Blinking, he said, 'You work for- the Gallente Navy?' He'd narrowly avoided saying 'us', and kicked himself mentally whilst breathing a sigh of relief that he'd not slipped.

She looked up, an impish gleam in her eye. 'Just because I'm from Tasabeshi doesn't mean I'm exclusive. I've made a point of working with every intelligence service in New Eden to get the connections I need to start my own. A capsuleer-based intel corporation, without all the factional biases, eh? You're fresh out of the Navy, aren't you?' Sati grinned at his embarrassment. 'I've been out of academy a couple years; old habits take a while to fade.'

'Two years? Working for intelligence services?'

'Well, I did run pirate for a bit.' She had dimples, and she put her notepad down. 'A lot of pilots try it, at least once. Any time you profit from another pilot -- looting and salvaging their wrecks or the wrecks of others they've killed, stealing their ore, ransoming, whatever -- it's a criminal act. Me, I went into lowsec and ganked a miner or five.'

Val couldn't cover his shock. 'How could you do that? What did the miners do to you?'

Sati shrugged. 'Nothing. They were just dumb enough to make targets of themselves. It's just what I did. I have no head for the market and no patience for mining. I shot three times as many Guristas as I did haulers while I was out in the belts, tangled with some proper outlaws a time or two. You haven't known real terror til you've seen a force recon decloak forty klicks off and wipe your systems out before you can warp.'

He smiled a bit uneasily. 'I've not had that experience, yet.'

'Stay in the Syndicate a while, you will. There are some ruthless hunting alliances down here.'

'One of our miners lost his Hulk in Covryn. Station-camping carrier with smartbombs,' Valar supplied. For some reason, he felt the need to show that he at least had some experience, even if it was only second-hand.

'Oh, them? That station exit is in line with a planet, your miner could have got out if he'd kept his head. No, no, go down into nullsec. If you make it through the MHC-Harroule chokepoint, you're halfway there. Your target probably used to run that camp all the time, if she wasn't part of the gang sniping passers-by.'

The idea that his sister might have helped to blockade a system entry-point bothered Val.

'Well, CONCORD database is saying she's K.O.S,' Sati said as a green light on her notepad flashed. 'So Miss Tiann is still outlaw even after spending over two months in nullsec. Wonder why that is,' she mused, half to herself.

Valar sighed. 'Maybe I'll ask her when I find her.'

'Who is she to you? If I may ask. If it's none of my business, you can tell me to piss off.'

He sat silent for a second, debating what to say.

'Friend?' she asked, then, 'Lover?' with a quirk of a smile.

'No! No. No, she's family.' He frowned at the morphing fractal on his notepad's screen for a moment, then shook himself back to the present. 'How much will I owe you for this,' he asked, cringing inwardly in anticipation.

'Nothing. Your agent is paying me, you pay him. However...' Sati eyed him appraisingly. 'You could buy a girl a drink.'

'A d-' Val stopped: the look she was giving him was practically predatory.

Oh. Right.

'What are you having?'

Next Chapter

Thicker Than Blood: Chapter One

Three months ago...

The office was respectably-sized, synthwood-panelled walls adorned with certificates and awards, with the central display being a large original painting of a ship of the line drifting above a planet; the artist had done a superb job capturing the ice-rimed gleam of the Navy-Issue Megathron's armour. The desk was also synthwood, purpose-trained and -grown in a single piece, with computer panels and a holo-projector inset into its surface, comfortable chairs placed before and behind. The wide bay of windows behind the desk filled the curve of the fourth wall and looked out on a spectacular view of the moon and its planet beyond, broad rings glittering from reflected solar radiation. The planetary glow and the station's diffuse lighting left the room bathed in a bluish light which cast few shadows.

Facing one another across the desk, two men saluted.

'Thank you for coming, Commander. Please take a seat.'

The younger man dropped his salute crisply and sat, looking tense in his pressed uniform, the creases so sharp you could cut your hand on them. Valar was just on the short end of average height, coppery hair slicked back in the sort of style used by younger adults who want to be taken seriously by their superiors, well-built in a military-trained sort of way. The chromed gleam of capsuleer-grade neural jacks showed at the base of his skull above the high collar of his green dress jacket.

Commodore Isaar carefully placed his hands flat on the desktop in front of him, fingers spread. 'The reason I asked to see you is that I have received your request for a performance review. This is the third such request you have filed in as many months. In case you're wondering why the first two haven't been seen to, I am authorised to inform you that they were: your performance was assessed upon the initial receipt and found to be exemplary.'

As Isaar's words dropped into the space between them, Valar's face had darkened; now he ignored naval decorum and blurted, 'I've run the training courses, I've received the requisite certifications, and I've served loyally since graduating from the academy six months ago. If my performance is exemplary, why am I still commanding a transport cruiser ferrying tourists and superiors who have served half as long as I have?'

'Commander, you will remember your place, next time.' Isaar's partial Vherokior heritage had built him large for Gallente, tall and broad without excess flesh; he spoke quietly with measured tones out of trained habit, because any stronger tone tended to come across as threatening. 'The reason for your lack of advancement in the ranks is not any fault of yours; the admiralty has concerns that your ties to a known outlaw and pirate will affect your judgement.'

The younger man's lips thinned. 'So I'm being penalised for the actions of my sister? I've not seen her in over a year, nor spoken with her since she left the academy.'

Sighing heavily, the commodore said, 'I understand this, but despite speaking with them at length, the admiralty remain unconvinced. And that is why you have been stationed well within Federation borders doing menial services which would ordinarily be handled by non-capsuleer ships.'

Valar closed his eyes; a muscle in his cheek flexed as he sought to compose himself. 'Sir, I mean no insubordination, but if that is the case, why should I even bother remaining in service? I joined the Navy to defend the Federation. What I'm doing now is, to be honest, a waste of my training and capabilities.'

His superior raised his hands in a placative gesture. 'I am aware of this, Commander, as are the admiralty. However, their concerns are valid, and the decision is final.'

The younger man's posture sagged a little. At a tender twenty-three years, he had left the academy with top marks and distinction. He had hoped for more: a chance to protect and serve his people, especially in these deeply troubled times. Like his older sister, he was a fighter; unlike her, however, Val possessed a deep-seated loyalty to the Gallente Federation, and where she had left service for mercenary work and eventually more antisocial pursuits, her brother had remained. He had been decorated for his service during the Battle of Luminaire alongside so many others, but even then he had been largely overlooked by the naval hierarchy.

'Commander, I have been authorised by the admiralty to make you an offer.'

Bringing his focus back to his commander, Valar saw the older man was holding a datacard between his fingers, its bottom edge resting on the desktop. Isaar looked cagey, as if unwilling to take responsibility for what he was about to say. 'It involves great personal risk to yourself, but if you should fulfill the mission objectives, you will recover both your honour and your reliability in the eyes of the admiralty.'

Val straightened, eyes wide, paying care to both what his commanding officer was saying and how he responded. 'Risk is to be expected sir.'

'This goes well beyond the normal call of duty, Commander.' The Commodore placed the card face-up on the desk and tapped a button. A hologram of the Federal Navy's logo appeared in the air above it, followed by the insignia of the Offices of the Admiralty and the Ministry of Space and Stellar Warfare.

'In short,' Isaar said, as a blob of dense, small text scrolled upwards in the holographic field, 'they want you to pursue and bring in your sister, in the interests of seeing justice done and in part by request of your father wanting to see her safe. She will be treated fairly, with all considerations due a human being,' he added, when Valar looked alarmed, 'and a proper trial will be held. But she needs to be brought in alive. Willing, too, if you can possibly manage it. I'd make assurances for her rehabilitation and eventual release, but your sister is a criminal and has perpetrated countless acts of violence and theft against innocents. At best, she may be released under house-arrest; at worst, she will be executed.'

The young commander looked troubled. 'Is that... the only way?'

The datacard's display finished with the same official symbols it had started with. Turning it off, the commodore pushed it across to the midpoint of the desk. 'Look at it this way: if she is captured by any other Navy captain, she may easily suffer worse, and it would undoubtedly come at greater cost to the Federation than if you could successfully persuade her to turn herself in peaceably. This way, a known criminal will be brought to justice and your request for greater responsibility in the Navy will be approved.'

Valar's green eyes locked on the card. 'You mentioned personal risk.'

'Indeed.' Commodore Isaar rose and paced before the bay of windows. 'Your sister's last confirmed location was in Syndicate nullsec; before that, she narrowly evaded capture by Amarrian police in Aridia, though she lost her Helios covert-ops ship. Based on what we know of her movements in the last twelve months, we know that she has no objections against moving to new areas far afield of each other; once there, she tends to remain in one place, though she has used jump-clones in the past to move between several different bases. Finding her will not be easy; doubly so if you are seen acting on behalf of the Federation. Information will be sent to you as and when it arrives, but you will be on your own.'

Commander Valar Tiann stared agape at his commanding officer. 'I'll have to leave the Navy? And then what? Disguise myself as a pirate, sneak through Syndicate in the ranks of the Serpentis?'

The commodore was shaking his head. 'Nothing so extreme. Join an independant capsuleer corporation with a base there. Tell them the truth: you're a disgraced commander who needs a new start. No need to tell the rest. Most corporate CEOs don't care, as long as an employee can fight and take orders, and won't sabotage the corporation.'

'Can't they send someone else?'

Isaar paused, closed his eyes for a moment, then resumed his seat, leaning forward over the desk with his hands clasped before him. 'The man who last located your sister in Syndicate disappeared shortly thereafter, and she dropped from sight. Other agents hired jointly by us and your father have similarly disappeared shortly after making contact; we assume she's killed them.'

Val looked shocked. His older sister, in his memory, was a sweet, caring -- if somewhat wild and willful -- girl, creative and mischievous. That she would knowingly cause someone's death was unthinkable... and yet, the lives ended at her hands totalled in the millions.

If anything, she needed to be saved from herself.

He reached out and placed his fingertips on the datacard, but did not yet draw it to himself. 'If I fail this... will I be accepted back?'

The commodore's face set in grave lines. 'If you fail, it will be because you're dead.'

Valar Tiann nodded once, took the card, and left without another word.

Next Chapter