Yet another story bit. These scenes are tough. Trying to drip feed information without making it too obvious/un-obvious.... and to keep Maico guessing and following up her guesses.
--m(^0^)m-- Wot, no sig?
Quote:It has to be a quirk.________________________________
That was the only natural conclusion.
Maico’d just been witness to Anika Daini wolfing down an entire bag of cakes. An entire bag of sugary sweet treats, slathered with cream and painted with icing. It was a solid bag of diabetes that had made her nauseous after three.
A three course dinner, all of them dessert.
“How long before we get to Frigga?”
“21637 seconds, approximately,” Anika smiled at her. Curious? Or maybe, she wasn’t a biomod at all., Maico thought.
“So what brings you out to Frigga anyway, Maico?”
“I’m chasing up a story about the United Belt Alliance.” Well, not technically a lie, Maico told herself.
Anika’s expression flattened a little, “Oh...” For a moment, it seemed like she wanted to say more, but
“Have you had any dealings with them,”
Anika’s face went sour, like she’d suddenly sucked on a bitter lemon, “Twice. But they leave us alone after Ford broke their manager’s jaw the last time,”
Maico’s eyes widened, “Really?”
The sun came back out as Anika’s smile returned. Her body seemed to inflate with pride “Yup! Right after we got raided for the second time, they showed up demanding we join up, or we’d be on our own again. Ford punched him and told him where to go,”
She giggled. Maico found it hard not to smile.
“Did they threaten you?”
“No, not really,” said Anika. “Not much more than your average anti-virus program tells you Bad Things will happen if you don’t pay for the next version. They said we’d be defenseless against another bigger raid, but we held the attack off pretty good all by ourselves.”
“But of course.” Maico demurred.
“Ford calls them the Fenspace equivelant of ‘Ambulance Chasers’, whatever those are,”
Fenkinder. Biomod. Or AI herself? Hopefully the image from the JMC offices would be good enough for Ryan to run a comparison. She wouldn’t call the two-seater cockpit cramped - with the luxury cabin option selected the A Wing went straight through ‘cramped sportscar’ and became wonderfully snug and soft ‘grand tourer’ - but it made it hard to get decent footage. At least the sound deadening kept her audio from being ruined.
The seats were soft and plush. There was carpeting on the floor. The frame rails around the windows were padded. All of it was meticulously cleaned and maintained.
There was something about being snuggled up in a small little ship that was so obviously loved to bits by it’s owner that made her feel perfectly safe and secure. It was like wearing a favourite slipper.
I could use a ship like this, she mused. That’s what I’ll do when I finish this story, I’ll put a downpayment on my own little cruiser.
It’d even pay for itself, what with not having to beg for a lift everywhere, or getting caught short while important things happened on the other side of the ‘verse. i’ll just bring this score in and I’m done.
“Could you tell me about the attacks?” Maico enquired.
“The first one happened before I moved to Frigga. It was only Ford, Kotono, Daryl and Jet but it wasn’t a big attack so it was easy enough to fend off.” A pause. “Or so they told me, I really don’t know for sure,”
“And the second?”
She heard Anika groan just a little. “That was much bigger. Because we had this big BNF out renting the training centre, and we thought it was an assassination attempt at the time but...”
Anika stopped, dead, like her words had fallen from a great height, built up the momentum of the sentence, then slammed to a stop straight into the dirt.
“What happened?” Maico pressed her.
“I’m not sure I should really talk about it...” Anika demurred, “Secrets about how we organise our defences and the like.”
“I won’t record it,” Maico told her, clicking her headset off with a touch from her fingertips against her temple. “I promise,”
She just wanted a few hints on questions to put to Jet Jaguar, or Ford. What exactly was meant to follow the ‘but’?
“Alright,” Anika took a long, deep breath. “Well, we were running through an example training exercise, showing how everything worked, when our net-facing systems came under attack. I got it under control quickly, but there were five incoming transports, and two escorts coming towards us. Jet assumed it was an assassination because we had our BNF customer.”
“But it wasn’t an assassination?” Maico probed.
“Well....um.... I... “ Maico seemed to go into spinlock. “They were mercenaries. Fifty of them, including about ten shock troops in battle armour,”
“Mercenaries? So they were hired?”
“Yeah, and told that they were raiding a mine. Somebody wanted to attack us, and it was just luck we had... company,”
“Who wanted to attack you?”
Anika went quiet.
“You’ll have to ask Jet,” she said, after long moments considering.
“But of course,” Maico breathed. “What happened, with the attack?”
“We shot down a transport, and disabled an escort, then ran out of live missiles. We evacuated the living quarters, and got everyone down to the mines, and we started arming our customers with live Ammo. The Zwilniks broke in through apartment windows, like we expected, and started to spread out. They planned to get the computer systems, the control room, the mayors house, and the generators.”
“So they knew what they were doing?”
“Yeah.” Anika nodded, “That’s why we thought it was an assassination at first; they knew their stuff. Jet left the control room, and I had to coordinate with our guests and get everything working. Ford and Daryl rigged the powerhouse, and Kotono was trying to seperate out the non-fighters and get them to the landing bay. What we did to beat them was a hammer and anvil. Jet and her students were the hammer, and our guests were the anvil. Once they realised they weren’t attacking a lightly defended mine, the merc’ fleet retreated, leaving their friends behind to die fighting, or get arrested.”
“And what happened to them?”
“The survivors were handed over to the patrol,”
Again, Anika was obviously picking her words very carefully. Maico quickly jotted down a note to do a quick check for any Patrol or GJ reports.”
“Where they hired by the UBA?”
Another silence.
“....We couldn’t prove it,” Anika mumbled. She seemed to shrink into the pilot’s seat, dissolving down into herself. Maico could hear the girl’s breathing quicken just a little bit.”
A motive for the Sabers attacking the UBA then? But of course... this makes sense. If Jet controls the Sabers, she could set them on the UBA.
“So why did you suspect them?”
Maico kept her voice flat as a Martian desert, but inside she was fizzing. She was ready to pop with the excitement of it. Another little piece to the puzzle. Another step. More information to fuel more tough questions with more answers that’d make one firecracker of a story that would feed her for a year. This was so Woodward and Bernstein!
“Uh... well. Two days after the raid we were cleaning up when two of their managers show up pushing membership,” Anika giggled, “Ford knocked one out when they wouldn’t leave and Good riddance too!” For a moment, her voice seemed to ring off the cabin windows. “And it wasn’t the first time. They did it after the first raid too...”
Ambulance chasers. Or something more sinister?
“Thank you Anika, that helps a lot,”
Maico was true to her word. She hadn’t recorded a word. She’s made a few notes leading into questions for Jet.... but nothing Anika
“No problem!” the operator chirruped. “Just don’t tell anyone I told you,” she added in a small voice,
Maico smiled at her. “Don’t worry, it’s just between you and me,”
“Thanks,” Anika breathed. Her shoulders dropped in relief and she snuggled herself into the Pilot’s seat.
“Just one more thing,” Maico said.
“Oh?” Anika’s eyebrow rose.
Be casual, Maico
“What do you think about the Knight Sabers?”
The little “eep” that came from her mouth told Maico everything she needed to know. This.... this was the place. This was the heart of the matter.
“I’ve heard they’re fighting the UBA for some reasons,” she answered, the words pilling out of her mouth.
Okay. Time to try this again.
“Do you think they’re trying to eliminate the competition?” Maico asked, absolutely straightfaced. Anika hissed, a sharp breath rushing through her teeth. Maico could feel the air grow could as the sun went in. “Or maybe they’ve just been hired by Greenwood for a mission,”
“Or maybe they’re just trying to do some good out here,” added Anika, quietly. She stared out at the stars.
Bingo! Maico took her headset off, and set about fixing her pink hair. They were going a quarter turn around the belt; this was going to be a long one.
She fell asleep against the window frame a few minutes later.
--m(^0^)m-- Wot, no sig?