He paced around his office aboard the VCS Metropolis, thinking about the date. It was his fifth year of being a member of the Vagrant Raiders -- that is, if you count the time spent in exile during the reign of the ill-fated Second Vagrant Fleet. Even while he was bouncing from station to station, sneaking rides on Zoner transports out to the edge worlds and back, waiting for the time to be right to return, he felt like a Raider.
And now he was the one who signed the paychecks and the communiques alike.
He sat down at his desk and typed.
Harold A. Kane
Taskmaster, Vagrant Raiders
Minister of Relations, Natio Octavarium
He never did really tire of writing that. It wasn't the sense of power. He had been called the Taskmaster for years, and the term Minister was really -- to him at least -- an unfortunately religious-sounding side effect of the Natio's government being divided into ministries. His ministry, Relations, was effectively the foreign affairs and enforcement division. In other words, the Vagrant Raiders.
Still, it was better than being a Bandit. The life expectancy for a Taskmaster was much longer.
