Freeport 10 was a bustling place. Not really through any fault of its own. Outside of the occasional IMG and Outcast, Tau 37 was a backwater system. It had a tendency to wash up no-name trash, and just as fast as they came they were gone again. Then a slave revolt happened in Omicron Alpha, seeing a wave of refugees crash through the docking bays. Suppose that's why they call it a "Free" port. A lot of those refugees went on, trying to make it to Planet Yuma and the Crayter Republic. A lot stayed.

Chaos remained. Refugees were always on edge. They had a Cardamine dependency that the Outcasts were very aware of. Families with inescapable nooses around their necks, acting in the only manner they had left: fear. Scared people were violent people, scuffles, brawls, and even a shootout, fighting for food, fighting for space, fighting for the drug that controlled whether they lived or died. And one fine day, a stranger arrived.

No one dared to speak to him, but everyone saw something new in him. The station security said he was a Zoner, but he looked more like some exaggerated caricature of a Liberty Rogue. A poncho made from the hefty fur of some animal was draped across his shoulders, and he was fitted in weathered armor plates. Deep gouges told stories of old fights that he perhaps should have lost. Over all of that, a netting was attached, with jade talismans and tokens dangling. But what they saw the most was the massive handgun on his hip.

He didn't speak to anyone, but he saw something here that he hadn't seen in a while. This place reminded him of his hometown. A bunch of desperate people taking their desperation out on each other. They didn't have a Romulus or a Remus to put them in order. It wasn't his problem, it very clearly wasn't his problem, but a month later he'd already put getting into Gallia on hold.

Max had taken the job of a simple mediator for some time. A judge for the various complaints of the people, especially the remaining refugees. Originally, they simply had mistaken his detachment for stoicism, but then he got a reputation for fair and reasonable judgement. Of course, he'd been cheating to get that. He kept an artifact on him ever since he'd fled the Omicrons. It told him the future in a parable once, but more importantly, he heard voices. Usually suffering screams, but it'd pick up the feelings of crowds if there was enough nearby, too. Max knew better than to question alien artifacts, no matter how grating the screaming got.

Other incidents had happened, though. He had a reputation for justice, yes, but right next to it was a reputation for swift mercilessness. Which means the men approaching him today while his artifact whispered angry threats were angry enough to ignore that reputation. Max was hunched over at the bar, a very regular day-to-day position for him. "Somethin' on your mind?"

The leader of the group slammed the bar beside him with a small projector, which fizzled to life a copy of the announcement that was posted in the entrance to the biodomes. That leader was a man by the name of Jeffery Wane Vanderbrook, a refugee from Malta. "I'm gonna ask you once. What the hell is the meaning of this?"

Max spun his barstool around to face the man. Of course, he didn't need to read an announcement he posted, he was just freeing up his right arm in case he needed to draw his gun. "I think it means exactly what it says."

The text on the announcement scrolled back to the top.


"Not a single one of you boys felt the need to tell me that those crates weren't for defense", Max continued, meeting the angry glares with an apathetic gaze. "It's fine when other children die in the name of politics, so long as it's not your own, izzat right?"

A light scuffle occurred as Vanderbrook attempted to lunge at Max, and he was held back by his cohorts. Max didn't even twitch. "It's not politics, you self-righteous cunt! You've never been a slave, you don't know what the boot of oppression actually feels like! They deserve real freedom, and that coward administrator is selling them right back into slavery!"

The accusation came as a surprise. He forgot that he'd never told them about growing up as a generational debt-slave on Pittsburgh. Max stood up from his chair, causing a general scuttle backwards among the gathered protesters. He rested his arm on his gun in its holster, causing even Vanderbrook to shrink back a little. They remembered what happened to the "Reconquerers". "Careful, there, Jeff, you still got one daughter left. Let's not break her heart." The threat was heard loud and clear, and now that they were ready to listen, Max continued.

"What kind of freedom do you expect to sell them? I get regular cardamine shipments in so that the whole lot of you don't keel over with total organ shutdown. Outcasts upsell the hell out of me because they know that any price goes when you got no choice to buy. You ain't free. You just spread your slavery to other people."

"So, I ask again: What kind of freedom do you expect to sell them? They start an uprising on Bethlehem. They shoot and space a bunch of men, and their wives and children too. They slaughter dissenters, and take over the station. There's your bastion of Free Pennsylvania. What next?"

"Next, they take the fight to Liberty! They get the help of Phoenix and they free Erie and avenge everyone that Liberty slaughtered!"

It took a lot of effort for Max to not roll his eyes. His response carried enough sarcasm to make up the difference, though. "Sure thing. Phoenix can definitely spare forces to fight the entire House of Liberty while they're also fighting the entire Corsair Empire and the Spirits that they woke up because they helped the Order antagonize them. Who else can come help? The Medics? Maybe the shipping company?" Max offered a single dry laugh to the gathered protesters.

"I'll tell you what's next: They get slaughtered. Bethlehem isn't unknown. The moment they hear that it's an outpost dedicated to fighting Liberty, they'll make it a testing ground for whatever their newest WMD is. Congrats, they died fighting for something they believed in. Sacrificed all their families doing the same."

Max tapped the announcement. "So you played a stupid game and won a stupid prize. I know none of you got faith in the Spirits, so I don't know who you have left to pray to. But you better pray it don't come to fighting, yeah? And if it do, we get to see if you're ready to support them living for their freedom the same as you're ready to support them dying for their freedom."

Max sat back down in his chair, daring them to move somewhere other than the exit. Members from the security team had quietly filtered into the bar as Max told them off. Muttering among themselves, they slowly began to filter back out into the hall, most likely on their way to the residential corridors. A few officers from security followed them discretely. The bartender slunk out from the back room. He'd retreated just in case things went south. "You know, you really should get in touch with the network. You'd make a great Administrator."

"Nobody wants that, Ken", Max said, picking up his drink. The ice had melted, watering it down incredibly.

"Mmh, you'd be surprised. So, what the hell was all that?", Ken asked, gesturing to the protesters shuffling down the halls.

"Meh", Max shrugged. "Everybody wants to be an outlaw until it's time to do outlaw shit." Ken mirrored his shrug, and poured Max another drink.

Max was at the bar doing paperwork this time. Partially for the sake of being close to the alcohol, but also because the bar is where the guard patrols changed shifts. He was there to listen in to the reports. He was also there to be easy for others to find and approach, especially his unofficial aide, Ken, who works at the bar normally. Today, he was staring at a list of communications, and Ken was cleaning a mug. Ever the cheeky bastard, Ken chose to use Max's line on himself. "Somethin' on your mind?"

Max looked up from his data pad at the smug grin that had callously stolen his catchphrase. "Don't push it, brother."

"But yeah. Of course, some people forget that neutrality is an obligation, not a shield. Pennsylvania is flaring up again, and a bunch of mass communications to Zoners and Militants are going out." Max glared at a few in particular. The guard change for the refugee living quarters reported nothing out of the ordinary.

"Lotta spam, then. You don't normally look like someone pissed in your whiskey over spam mail, though." Ken sent a glass of whiskey and bitters on the rocks sliding across the bar, gracefully coming to a halt directly in front of Max. Max picked it up and took a sip while he figured out how to word his thoughts in ways that didn't overshare.

"Some old names. Bad blood. Nothin' more." Max resisted the urge to glance across the bar to gauge Ken's reaction. That, in and of itself, would give too much away. Instead, he set the glass down, and tipped it forward, watching Ken through the reflections and distortions in the ice, drink, and glass. Ken was wearing his therapist face. Seems this was going to be a long one.

"Well, you spent a long time running, didn't you? Now you're here, sitting in one place, stuff that you were running from is gonna catch up. Lotta demons wear the faces of men, I'm sure you know. Evil spirits don't get tired, right?" An appeal to Max's spirituality. Whether he's a nice guy or just looking to get some extra job security was anyone's guess. Max didn't answer immediately. He wasn't planning to answer at all, but a familiar ping reached his ears, and he caught one of his jade coins. He looked over to Ken. Max didn't trust people, but he made deals plenty. In the place of trust, he lends these coins, to call on favors from one another.

"In my youth, I dealt with revolutionaries." Max didn't need to ask what Ken wanted. He took a moment to get his memories in a line before he continued. "I was a right-hand-man to some twins. Romulus and Remus, we called 'em. We had a gang on the surface of Pittsburgh. Something to be safe from DSE goons and Police goons. And, well..." His scowl deepened as he looked back to the data pad. "Xenos."

"Turf competition?", Ken offered, his unspoken question not yet answered.

"Competition ain't the same down there. If you weren't Xenos, you were a Liberty Loyalist in their eyes, and that meant you weren't just an enemy, you were evil. Someone who's just trying to eat fights differently from someone who thinks your existence could stain their souls. Desperation will slit your throat, regret it, and come back to bury you if it can. Hate? Hate will kill you as painfully as possible, twist the knife as much as it can, and pray you have a family so it can kill them too."

Ken nodded. Max didn't know much about where Ken came from. Whatever brought him here, though, had driven him out of the Omegas, because he'd never hesitate to mention how much he hates the Walker Nebula. "And now here they are, offering help to Zoners and Militants, and you're on that list because you've got the badge, huh? The old Pittsburgh street gangster is watching the people who wanted his group dead offer help to the Zoner and his group. Feels wrong, right?"

Max heaved a sigh, and drew his Gaian Titan-Bear fur poncho tighter around himself. His skin felt cold, despite the temperature in the bar always being warm. "They ain't offering help to me, and while we're all Zoners, Erie ain't mine. They want to be the new Insurgency, more power to them. Xenos turned on the last Insurgency, too."

Ken nodded more enthusiastically than before, seeming to finally hear what he was looking for. Max turned the jade coin over in his hand to stare at the image of the two-headed snake. "You think the Xenos are using Pennsylvania for their own ends, and they're going to turn on Erie once they get what they want?"

Max didn't respond, he simply made eye-contact with Ken. That was more than enough. Ken's question, though it had never really been asked, had been answered in full. Max flipped the coin back to Ken, a silent request to change the subject. Ken pocketed the coin. "Any follow-up from that "Tau Initiative"?"

Max checked his datapad. "Nothin'."

Ken slid a new drink to Max, a creamy green with a whipped cream topping. The smell of licorice and herbs met his nose. "Then, I think you should take a break from all this other-people-stuff. Freeport 10 is your home right now, and you got people to see to. Look, upper-deck guard's changing out already, you should go check in on little miss Milly. She hasn't seen her big, fuzzy hero all day, has she?"

Max looked over to Ken's smug grin. He wondered if Ken had ever gotten tired of teasing people. "Keep dreaming, brother. Guys like me don't get happy endings like that."

Ken's laughter chased Max and his drink out of the bar, along with the upper-deck's replacement guard. "Careful who hears that, Max. You know how stubborn she can be, imagine if she decided to prove you wrong."

---

---

Life on Freeport 10 wasn't that bad. Maybe that's what made it feel like, someway, somehow, he didn't really belong.

A problem for another day.

Millicent Dixie Vickers, the tragic beauty of Freeport 10. Kidnapped often, orphaned, and starved and beaten within an inch of her life when refugees from the Outcast slave revolt crash-landed on Freeport 10 and supplies became scarce. Mostly all according to plan. However, instead of sparking a civil war that would drive slave refugees off the station, a single man had shown up, sporting battle-scarred armor, draped in a poncho of some animal fur littered with jade ornaments, with a hefty hand-cannon in hand. The slaughter that proceeded was better than she could have ever wished. And at the end of it, he had the audacity to simply claim he was just passing through, and that he would be on his way again soon.

What a liar. Milly was the cute, innocent, adorable belle of the Freeport, and Max didn't even give her a second glance. It was strange. It caught her interest. As time went on, Max expanded into some sort of guardian of the station's peace, bringing the order of law, though whose law was never really clear. Like a sheriff from those ancient Liberty movies that one could find in the museums, except constantly depressed and paranoid. Max kept himself distanced from everyone but the bartender, even Milly. He barely saw her, let alone seeing her as someone special. Milly's interest grew into obsession. She had to have him. It was easy to play it off to the residents of the Freeport, "the rescued maiden developed a crush on her hero" was cute and easy to accept. For Max, though, he was too absorbed with whatever was crushing him inside to even notice until it was spelled out to him by others. But that was fine. Milly was a very, very patient girl.

The extended rooms of the bar had been closed for nearly an hour. This is where he hides when he spirals into depressive memories. Milly had nearly a year of tracking his habits, tendencies, and nuances. Sure enough, daintily leaning around the corner, she spotted her prey, an empty bottle of whiskey lying on the table and a nearly empty one in his left hand. In the corner farthest from the door, with his back to the corner so he could see the entire room. Milly knew her smile was subtle and natural, her stride was graceful and delicate, and her sundress was billowing just right as she approached.

"Somethin' on your mind?"

His voice thoroughly masked whatever he was feeling. Her response tested the waters. "Someone told me there was a cute boy back here."

Max made a show of looking around the barroom, as if anyone could slip past his constant vigilance, before responding "Should go and punch "someone" in the mouth for lying to you."

"Really?" Milly took a moment to consider just how aggressive she should be this time. Sidling up on Max's right side, she wrapped herself around his free arm. "I think I found exactly what I was looking for."

It wasn't that Max was too drunk to resist. He could easily pick her up and do whatever he liked, Milly's petite frame offered her neither the strength nor the weight to resist. No, instead, he had just gotten used to her advances. The poor boy had made peace with evil, and now she was going to eat him alive. It was only really a matter of time now.

His silence heralded the return of the far-away look in his eyes. Whatever he was seeing wasn't here, and that was starting to get on her nerves. She was right there in front of him, how could he possibly have the audacity to ignore her in favor of some guilt or regret that only he knows? Well, she wasn't exactly in front of him, but one intrusive thought later, she was straddling him on the bench, holding his face and staring directly into his eyes. "If you don't stop ignoring me, I'm going to baby-bird all the rest of that whiskey to you."

"Don't--don't do..." Max startled a little bit, sitting forward to make sure his bottle was still in his hand. "Don't say that. Don't do that either."

Coming to his senses significantly more, Max finally really started paying attention to the situation he was in. It was a pretty bad situation: not a soul in sight, Milly sitting on his lap, empty bottles of alcohol. And her face was really close to his. If someone walked in, Max guessed that he had a fairly high chance of being lynched for harassing the station's poster girl. Max liked his personal space. Milly also liked Max's personal space. This was a fairly well-known phenomenon. Milly had ensured that the mindset of the people allowed her to do whatever she wanted with Max. No doubt a part of his guilt was somehow feeling that Milly's affection was proof that, in some subtle and subconscious way, Max had been manipulating her, which was fine by her. It made him easier to push around to where she needed him.

Her mind wandered as Max struggled to mentally navigate this situation and find the words to say. She'd seen men drown their sorrows at the bar before, but they're never as silent as Max. She'd never seen a single tear out of him, but whatever his problems were, they were so bad that Ken the bartender wouldn't tell her about them. What she would give to see him break. A single tear. She might lick it right off of his face. The thought of it put warm tingles in her stomach.

"And what does that face mean?"

Whoops, her fantasies had let a smile unbefitting of the cute girl that everyone loved creep across her face. She played it off, lying as naturally as she breathed. "Well, I was thinking about what to name our kids, buuuut I got distracted thinking about making our kids."

"Woah, woah!"
"You know, you're pretty big compared to me. Like a foot and a half taller. I mean, I can probably make it fi-"
"Stop. I'm also twice your age, I don't think we should be making kids."
"I was already sold, you didn't need to convince me."
"You need to rein in your fetishes a little bit."
"You know, despite how much I've been kidnapped, I'm still a vir-"

Max stood up, causing her to fall backwards onto the table, and he pinned her there too, clamping a hand over her mouth. The whisky bottles rattled together a tiny bit. "Please stop talking, I am begging you."

The position had become infinitely more compromising. Milly had translated her straddle into a leg-lock, Max had pinned her to the table. He had to admit, her figure was alluring.

Milly began licking his hand until he was uncomfortable enough to remove it. "We can make them right now if you want." She put on her best timid babydoll eyes.

Max finally managed to break his mind free from being caught in the moment. He grabbed Milly by the waist, pulling her off of him and standing her on the floor. He gave her a stern look, to which she responded by sticking her tongue out. Her high-energy, cheerful persona was back. "Mission complete! Max has been cheered up!" She skipped down to the entrance of the bar extension before waving to him. "Come on, your Not-Administrator work won't do itself!"

Max shrugged and sighed, but started walking, moving the bottles to the bar counter. Milly smiled to herself. Nearly a year's worth of work, but she finally had Max wrapped around her finger, if only just barely.

Today is the day, Milly told herself as she stared down the last hallway. Everything was set up, though this box of water bottles was heavier than she planned for. No amount of skills made a brute force job easier, it seemed, and maintaining her delicate, weak appearance had left her lacking in the muscular department. She had a twenty-minute window where Max would be drunk and shut in his room. Months' worth of preparation had led up to this moment, and she wouldn't get another chance if she failed here. Punching in the keypad code with her elbow, the door slid open.

Her eyes were greeted over the top of her box by Max, sitting at his desk holding an artifact. He looked ragged. Frankly, he looked weak, which would only make her goal easier. The alcohol in his system was needed to impair his judgement, but mental frailty was welcome as well. Playing up her struggle, though not very much, as a full box of water was actually pretty heavy, she came crashing to the desk beside him, exhausted from her trip.

"Who gave you th' passkey to m'room?"

Milly smiled at him. His intoxicated slurring was like music to her ears. "You haven't changed it since the last adjutant."

Max put his artifact into a little felt bag before swiveling his office chair to face her. "Fair 'nuff. Sumn' on yo mind?"

"Yeah, actually." Milly pulled out one of Max's jade coins to show him. "I did a lot of hard work to get one of these. Washed a lot of dishes, cheered up a lot of customers."

Max eyed the coin with apprehension. He staked a lot of honor on those coins, and Ken knew that much. He had certainly worked her hard before parting with one. Though, debt-selling was a nasty business practice, so he'd have to talk to him about that. Milly opened one of the bottles and took a tiny sip of water while Max formulated his next sentence. She needed her mouth wet for what came next. "Alright. What do you want?"

Milly held out her arms, making kissing noises. Max responded with a facepalm. "Ok, can I ask you why?"

"For another coin, maybe." She knew he wouldn't, though she didn't particularly mind finding a new flowery way to confess her love. It was fun to watch him get flustered. He seemed to sober up slightly, likely about to appeal to reason.

"Listen, Milly, seriously. I am forty. You are nineteen. Don't you think that's a little weird? I don't know why everyone else goes along with it but surely at least you can tell there's something off with that age gap."

Walking around behind the chair, using her footsteps to hide the crunching noise in her mouth as she bit a capsule in two, Milly grabbed his chin to lean back the chair and look into his eyes. She dropped most of the innocence out of her voice to reply. "Yeah, I can't tell which I like more: that or the size difference." Fortunately, the contents of the capsule ended up a sweet and salty flavor after thoroughly mixing with her saliva. It would have been harder to get away with it if it had been bitter. She took everything that she could get out of this kiss, as if she wouldn't get more in a few minutes. When they did separate, she spun Max's chair around to face her again.

"What did you eat before you came down here? Sour gummies?"
"Are you saying you like how I taste?"

When Max didn't offer an answer, she climbed into his lap, fully intending to pull herself in for another kiss until he caught her by the waist. "Slow your roll. You got too much dip on your chip" Her logic kicked in for a moment. Having the drugs in her mouth first meant that she would be hit by it first. Now that she was paying attention, her heart rate was up and her body was on fire. She really needed him this exact second, she wasn't certain she could wait until the drug hit him.

"Just a little bit, please?"
"Don't you think-..."

Max stopped mid-sentence. Milly could feel that he was getting warmer, too. She couldn't help but giggle when she stuck out her tongue to show him the two halves of the gel capsule. Swallowing them, she added: "The best part of a good con is sh-"
"Showing your mark where you hid the ball."

Max picked her up by the waist, but stumbled due to the alcohol and the drug mixing, dropping her onto the nearby bed. It just so happened to be a bed, hmm? "What did you do?"
"Well, I really, really, really want you. And I just really, really, really wanted you to want me too."

She knew Max had a very strong mind. She also knew that Gallia's underworld produced some very strong and effective drugs. But when he stood up and turned away, even when he wobbled a bit, she was afraid that, somehow, he had won. All of this amounting to nothing would be more than just a bother. She could easily play this off, of course, to everyone except Max. But she wasn't doing this for everyone except Max. She wanted to have Max.

Then his armor fell to the floor with a clatter. Her thoughts were becoming hazy and unfiltered, but she had enough presence of mind to understand that she had won when his undershirt hit the floor next.

"Oh." That was all she had left to say. It turns out Max's armor was thinner than she had imagined, he truly was that big. Milly couldn't tell if Max had more muscle or scar tissue, but a nagging fear at the back of her mind was starting to become a greater concern.

The last thing she understood clearly was: "Alright, you're going to have what's called "a learning experience". The moral of the story is "you reap what you sow"."
"Y-yessir."

---

---

---

Max woke up first. It was the first time in months, maybe years, that he had really slept. If he had a dream, he didn't remember it. He was, however, physically exhausted, and when he sat up, he noticed Milly plastered to his side. He thought she was bruised, but then the idea of hickeys crossed his mind, to is own horror. He checked the clock. Twelve full hours had passed.

The memories were slowly starting to trickle back, and with them a wave of guilt. They had gone through all the water that Milly brought, and there were holes in the sheets and pillows where she had bitten all the way through. The judges among the Spirits weren't going to hand down a kind verdict for this one. Though, after the Tenacity, he supposed there wasn't a good afterlife waiting for him anyway.

Milly woke up, too, rustled by Max sitting up. She didn't speak immediately, instead choosing to latch onto Max's arm. Then she started licking it, which Max responded to by grabbing her head and stuffing it in a pillow. "I don't think you learned anything."
"You think wrong. I learned exactly why safe words exist."
Max put his head in his hands, stress levels rising. "That's not what you needed to learn, either."
"I also learned that you're very scary when you're mad."
"Don't say it like that."
"Hmmm." Milly made a show of thinking about the experience. "I learned that size differences are not for the faint of heart. That thing was like the size of my thigh."
"Oh-kaaaayyyy." Max had been trying not to remember anything specific. "Listen, I'll go find a change of clothes for you, just be discreet when you leave, alright? I don't know how often you go AWOL, but I don't think the regulars at the bar would forgive me for... you know..."
"Sweetie I am not standing, let alone walking. Not for a few more hours." Noticing Max's concerned stare, she stuck her tongue out at him before trying to continue. Patting her stomach, she added: "I'm still le-"
The soft thud of a pillow launched at blazing speed and pinpoint accuracy silenced her. "Shut! The fuck up!" Max tossed her the undershirt he had taken off last night. "Here, put this on so you stay warm." The sundress she had come over in was torn into a few separate pieces, she certainly couldn't wear that, and the room had gotten particularly humid.

"I need to fetch an outfit for you, and then I need to find out a way to explain why you were gone all day. And you need food, and I need to finalize the next Cardamine shipme-" Milly had chosen, instead of putting on the shirt that Max had given her, like any normal person would, to begin huffing the smell from it, catching Max completely off guard and utterly destroying his train of thought. She even noticed him staring, bewildered, and simply continued.

Max's stare of confusion eventually shifted to judgmental disapproval, finally prompting a response from Milly. "I've discovered that you taste amazing."
"Dubious little rodent creature."
"Gotcha, next time, in a bunny suit."
"No, just... just message me when you've recovered."
"Don't worry about making something up to cover for me." Milly decided to try and ease his struggles a bit. "Most of the regulars already know how much I like you."
"That doesn't inspire confidence."
"Hell, Kenny owes me a congratulations."

Max had changed his bodywear and strapped his armor back on by this point. He tucked the artifact pouch in under the armor plating on his belt, then turned and opened the door. "Bye! Come back safe!" Milly blew kisses after him, and then laid back down.

At long last, victory. She had conquered Maxamillion Kress. Freeport 10 was, for all intents and purposes, now under her control.