Privateer's Commission 2 -ch 3-

Chapter 3

No sooner than Ralph and Winnie walked back aboard the ship and the ramp fully closed behind them, than Winnie took off. Leaving at a swift walk straight back to what was more than likely her personal compartment, she didn’t hesitate, look back, or even seem to be aware of her surroundings.

Winnie had participated, asked questions, and generally been an active participant in the conversation with the admiral. There’d been several points that she’d asked questions of the Mirkil Admiral that’d helped hone in his own questions.

“Thank you, Winnie. I needed you there,” Ralph called toward her retreating back. “You were my weapons officer and then some, Lady Armory.”

Winnie didn’t nod her head.

Didn’t respond.

In fact it was almost as if she didn’t hear him at all.

She marched on, vanishing down the hall quickly.

“Well. She didn’t look upset. Or mad,” came Delilah’s voice from the dinning room area. “Just… spooked. As if she hadn’t expected how it all went.

“So I have to wonder, did it go well, or is her reaction just to her own situation. If you don’t mind sharing?”

Ralph clicked his tongue as his head swung to the side to lay eyes on the once upon a time bounty hunter.

Delilah was sat at the table over what looked to be a salad. A very similar salad to the type that Marionette ate almost exclusively.

Which, now that I think about it, Liseth and Winnie were eating as well.

The hell is going on with them?

It’s like Rio brain washed them.

Dressed in casual wear that could be summed up as ‘t-shirt and jeans’ she looked quite comfortable and at ease. It didn’t quite hide the fact that her figure was better than Winnie’s, but less than Marionette’s.

Delilah was actually taller than Ralph was though which made her all the more impressive with how she matched up to Winnie and Marionette who were both quite a bit shorter.

Her short blonde hair, buzzed on the left side, flipped over to the right side, hung just past the level of her eyes was the same as it ever was. She seemed particularly enamored with her hair style and kept it that way.

The tattoos on her neck, shoulders, as well as on her arms, were still there. When he’d asked her about them she’d told him she decided to keep them for now since she wasn’t going back into bounty hunting for a time.

Dark blue eyes were locked on him and she was watching him with a small smile.

“Pretty sure it’s just her dealing with her own demons, Delilah,” Ralph said and went over to sit down with her at the table. “Does Rio make you guys all eat salad or something? I’ve never made a comment about any of you and what you eat I swear.”

Delilah choked on what she’d been chewing, snorted, then swallowed. She let out a soft laugh and dabbed at her mouth with a napkin.

“No. She’s not forcing us. She just has a really good salad dressing she puts together that goes really well on saald and has a lot of flavor. It’s really really good,” Delilah confessed with a shake of her head. “Though it is nice to see all the weight that I couldn’t get rid of just flying off me now that I follow Marionette’s routine.”

“Yes. Yes, I… Winnie was complaining about becoming too fit earlier,” Ralph admitted, then cleared his throat. “The deal the Mirkil Space Command gave us was quite good. They want us on convoy duty to start, but also not.

“They more or less told me I’d be operating however I saw fit if I didn’t agree with the convoy orders. Though they really want us to pose for some photos and poster work. They want to turn us into the poster children for the Space Command that the Mirkil Defense Force has with Cavalier Hesh.”

“Yeah, that guy is everywhere in their media,” Delilah confirmed as she resumed eating her salad. “Somehow they have a lot of footage of him. I’d almost think it was staged, but a lot of it is really nasty footage. Bad resolution, bad quality, and sometimes him doing things that you can’t show on a broadcast.

“But… anyways… convoy duty, huh. This is what you want to do though? You don’t want to go back and fight for the Blood of Calesat? They were more than willing to give us another contract. I’d bet they’d pay just as good as Mirkil, wouldn’t they?”

“They would. They would. But… they also had a lot of restrictions on how they wanted us to fight,” Ralph began, looking at the table between them. He’d thought on this a lot as he listened to the Admiral speak. “The Mirkil Space Command… you know what I’m just calling them the MSC, fucking stupid ass name. Whatever. The MCD is just telling us to be Privateers. No limits. No expectations. Spoils and salvage on anything we catch or destroy. Whether we take on the role of convoy escorts, ancient navy submariner tactics, or go full battleship in deep space.

“They don’t care. At all. They just want us out there helping to do anything possible in their war effort.

“Though that did bleed into our pay. It’s very basic and standard pay that barely covers our day to day operation with just a smidge extra. Most of our actual pay would need to be gotten through kills, salvage, and spoils.”

“So… actual Privateer work. That’s kind of nice,” Delilah agreed. Ralph didn’t find it surprising in the least that the ex-bounty hunter understood what he was talking about. “Were you thinking of going full dark-space ship fighting? Sword, board, and explode?”

“I genuinely was. We’ve got the right ship for it and realistically, we’re better prepared for that kind of fighting,” confirmed Ralph with a grin. “That and Marionette wouldn’t have to work as hard with rearming the weapons. Though, we’ll still need a pilot. We got a Doc, lost our pilot.”

Delilah grutned at that, then blew out a breath.

“I got a message from Eun. I tried to ask in a roundabout way how she felt about going back to the Calesat military,” Delilah murmured, looking up from her salad, her fork held aloft above it. “It was a rather simple and short reply. She was glad for the opportunity. That was it. I think she’s rather angry that we didn’t immediately re-contract with the Calesat.

“I think she’s deep in the ideology and culture of her people. I don’t think she’d be immediately willing to drop her own notions of honor and victory easily.”

In other words, trying to hire her on as a pilot for this would’ve made her annoyed.

On top of that, it’s unlikely she’d ever be truly willing to leave behind the Calesat.

For all intents and purposes, I’ll have to just assume Eun isn’t willing to join us and that’s that.

“Know any pilots?” Ralph asked instead, grinning at Delilah.

“I mean… I actually do,” she answered with what looked like a sneer. As if she were angry at herself for leading into this conversation and having an answer. She shook her head, looked down to her salad and stabbed the fork into it with some force.

Turning the forkful to her mouth she stuffed it into her mouth and began chewing angrily, as if it would somehow prevent her from answering what would almost certainly be a follow up question.

“Uhm, great. Think you could reach out to them? I’d be looking for someone used to doing deep space plots. Not afraid to do the dark courses between bouyes and planets,” inquired Ralph. “Also, I was thinking that we could use Xas’ ship as a refuel and rearm position.

“Oh, before I forget, Mirkil offered me official Privateer paperwork for their household. Just in case the Confed decided to get shitty about something in the middle of this war. Now I have… four… Privateer commissions. One more and I could make a poker hand out of them.”

Delilah snorted at that, as if his words made her even more annoyed. She chewed, sighed, swallowed, and nodded her head.

“I’ll reach out to the ones I know personally. There’s three in particular that I think would do really well. One… one especially,” Delilah answered, not really explaining her annoyance or her anger. Ralph wasn’t going to ask her about it right now either.

“Thanks, Delilah. You’re amazing. My Lady Toll,” Ralph offered instead, grinning at her.

Delilah blinked, watching him, then smiled back at her.

“Wanna watch a movie tonight? We didn’t finish that trilogy we’d gotten into when we were waiting to catch Mike Vannah,” she asked, her eyes watching him.

“Uh… sure, why not. After dinner?” Ralph agreed with a dip of his head. He didn’t mind watching a movie with Delilah at all. With any luck, Marionette would be willing to watch it with them. “Before we change the subject too far though, that’s more or less the deal we were offered by the Admiral. I haven’t signed yet as I wanted to talk to all of you. Would you want to read it privately?”

“No, it’s fine,” answered Delilah with a quick shake of her head. “I’ll just go along with it if you think it’s fine. Though, did you manage to get me droids? Drones? I need both of them. Both for Xas and myself.”

“Yes!” Xas said from nearby. “I do have needs you realize. Haha. You can’t satisfy me like you do Marionette, so you’ll need to get me to swoon to my knees with gifts!

“Or do I need to order a sex-bot body after all to get you to treat me like you do the others? I could order one from the corridor. I could try to protect the others from your sword like Marionette does, haha, you bastard.”

Rolling his eyes, Ralph shook his head with a chuckle.

“Yes, I got you droids Xas, you nasty thing,” Ralph muttered and looked over to the display where Xas’s Dashi avatar waas. “Mirkil security droids, logistics droids, and service droids. Twenty of each. As well as parts for a hundred more of each. Your ship is going to be full of droid and drone junk. Because I did get Delilah all her drone needs taken care of as well.

“I told the Admiral it’d make our work a lot easier to have those things. He didn’t give a damn and just requisitioned it from some backwater garrison I imagine.”

“Haha, hooray! I’m glad to hear that I don’t have to buy a sex bot to get your attention,” Xas said. Her avatar giving him a thumbs up. Followed promptly by an okay sign with one sign, the other hand moving the index finger in and out o fit. “I guess I have to buy a sex bot to get stuff in the future instead. Should I buy a short one or a tall one? Liseth and Delilah are tall, Marionette and Winnie are short. Should I be the middle one, haha. This is fun.”

“Xas,” Delilah murmured, her brows moving toward one another with the single exclamation. “Are you being serious right now?”

“I mean, why not?” Xas asked, sounding deeply amused. “Haha, why shouldn’t I? Ralph’s an attractive man. I could easily buy a sex-bot chassis, get it rigged up the way I wanted, then just seduce him.

“What’s so hard about it? I’ve been watching him, I think I could make that happen easily enough.”

Ralph hadn’t heard Xas talk with that tone of voice since he’d heard her joking about blowing up a corridor station. Elaborate plans about putting bombs into multiple trash cans and having them all go off at the same time later on.

I wonder what’s got Xas so riled up that she’s taking a joke that far.

“You a bit wound up, Xas?” Ralph asked intuitively. “What’s up?”

“Oh, haha, ah… was it that obvious? Oh my,” Xas said, sounding rather flustered now. “Yes. Yes, I’m wound tight. You’re right. I found who raided my shop, killed me so to speak, and took all my things. A lot of the hardware they stole from me started booting up.

“All the backdoors I put in opened up again. I guess I’m just a bit angry right now. Oopsie?”

Xas’ avatar made a fist and lightly thunked herself in the head while making a confused face and sticking her tongue out to the side. It looked rather cartoonish to him.

“And you’re bringing up buying a sex-bot to get me to go blow up the people who robbed you,” Ralph said, seeing the connection now for what it was. “This is… why exactly were you making that kind of conclusion?”

“Haha, because you give Marionette everything she wants, but often say no to everyone else. My assumption is because it’s that she shares a bed with you and you dote on her,” Xas explained, her avatar shrugging.

Genius with weapons and black market shit, she is.

A moron when it comes to human interactions and how things work, most definitely.

“— give it to me regular in my sex-bot body, I could get you to do what I wanted, haha. Should I make it a Dashi? I’m leaning toward a Dashi,” Xas continued, sounding just as strange and confusing as ever.

“Idiot,” teased Ralph with a grin. “Just put together where the hell it is and who has it and we’ll see what we can do. No promises but I’ll take it into deep consideration. Fair?

“Now, with that said, I’m sure you’ve received a copy of the contract by now Xas? The Admira said he’d send it over.”

“I… yes? Yes! It’s most certainly here,” Xas confirmed. “It was sent over earlier. I just didn’t notice it. Should I forward it to everyone?”

“Yes… please,” confirmed Ralph, checking a sigh, and leaving things as they were. Xas was doing better as the ship-board AI, but still struggled often.

Xas avatar made a pained face, looking off to the side, and then literally walking out of frame like she didn’t want to be seen. Leaving Ralph and Delilah by themselves.

A second later and Delilah’s phone, which was off to the side of the table, pinged.

“Think everyone will agree?” Delilah asked.

“Mmhmm. Oh, I also got them to make everyone Mirkil citizens,” Ralph added. “More insurance. More security.”

“Neat,” Delilah stated, finished her salad, then looked at Ralph for several seconds. “I’m… uhm… ah… I’ll see you later after dinner, Ralph.”

Picking up her utensils and dishware Delilah went to the sink, dropped everything off, and left. Heading straight toward the back of the ship just as Winnie had done.

“Xas, where’s Liseth and Rio?” Ralph asked after Delilah was out of earshot range. “And Winnie, too, actually.”

“Rio and Liseth are in the armory. Rio is showing Liseth how to load and what to do,” Xas said, her red-head avatar peeking in from the side of the monitor. “Liseth wants to learn about all the functions that she might be able to help with if no one needs medical assistance. Such as repairs, rearming, drones, piloting, navigation, and gunnery.

“I took the liberty of getting her information by the way. I bought it from the blackmarket dirt cheap. Her intelligence scores are either altered, or she’s been genetically tinkered with. Most of her issues stem from an unwillingness to get married or entreat with her Blood in regards to politics.”

“Genetic tinkering?” Ralph asked in surprise. That wasn’t something people did. Not for any reason.

Even AI’s going rampant was a more acceptable problem then genetic modifications.

It was something that violated every law across the Confed, the corridor, and the Bloods. Genetic modification was an absolute non-negotiable thing.

There were strict genetic filters applied to every both to comb through for any possible ‘danger’ markers. Then eliminated immediately.

“Oh yeah. I took a peek at her own tests she ran on everyone, including herself, and her genetic markers are off the charts,” Xas said in a conspiratorial whisper. “I think she saw her own genetic makeup and chose not to have kids or marry, you know. Because once her genetic offspring gets listed, people would want to look into her. Then it would go backward.”

Ralph could only nod his head at that. Then shake it.

“Alright. That’s another thing I guess I should keep my eye on,” admitted Ralph. “Wait… do Privateers have to do genetic screening or anything like that? I don’t remember anyone ever talking about that. Hell, I’m pretty sure when I looked through the birth documents there was always an ‘exception’ listed on all of them.”

“Haha, yes! Privateers do not operate under the same rules that the rest of the Confed, Corridor, or Blood space operate on,” Xas agreed. “Your Bloodline is marked out specifically and keyed as a Privateer. Though there is likely records kept on your genetic line, but then excepted out. Do you want me to look into that?”

“Yes,” Ralph confirmed, wondering now about how strange that was. He wanted to know if his genetics were actually an exception, or just deliberately overlooked. “Though, if Privateers are on an exception list, wouldn’t that assume that House nobles or others likely have exceptions?”

“They most certainly do!” confirmed Xas. “Why? It isn’t that much of a surprise. Though it likely isn’t a concern either. The genetic diversity from one-hundred or so families that are on exceptions wouldn’t change the genetic pool much.

“Once the genes made it into the more wide-spread gene pool, they’d be identified and eliminated. It’s not a matter of complete elimination, but prevention.”

“Prevention of what?” Ralph asked curiously. He’d never heard of anyone say it like that. When it came down to the genetic screening, he’d only ever heard it as a means to prevent a genetic plague that’d once wiped out all of humanity.

A far distant past that no one could trace or explain, other than a cultural memory that genetics unless properly monitored could bring about some type of bioweapon coded to genes.

“Oh wow, Delilah is sending out a bunch of communications. They’re kinda all over. Blood, Confed, even… oh… err… penal colony. That’s uhm… haha, neat!” Xas relayed. “Also, Winnie is currently having a live therapy session. I’m not listening to the communication, but I thought you should know.

“Whats our official start date on the contract with Mirkil?”

“Three months,” Ralph answered as he thought on everything he’d just heard. “Probably… probably just long enough to get a pilot and… let Winnie go through a hefty amount of therapy.”

“Haha, right? Let’s hope Marionette can keep your sword sheathed in the meantime,” Xas blurted out with a laugh. Her avatar coming out from the side of the monitor and moving to the center of it. “Did I mention I got some great photos of you and your sword drawn?”

“Ergh,” Ralph groaned and pressed a hand to his brow.