Outsider

[Laowai]

Laowai sat hunched over his desk in the room on the mezzanine inside his hangar complex home. The single light was assisted in its onerous task of lighting the darkened room by the faint glow of a data pad, its soft blue and white light reflecting off his face as he read over the texts scrolling across its surface.

He scowled and shook his head, action reports and action reports, then letters after letters.


"Still working?" a voice spoke quietly from the dark behind him.

He turned his head a little startled, Zarita was sitting on the couch across the other side of the room, leaning forward a little and watching him. Laowai exhaled loudly, "Zarita!... you startled me... i didn't hear you come in?"
She shook her head, "No, i didn't want to disturb you, you looked pretty lost in whatever it was you were doing..."

He exhaled again and growled, leaning back in his chair he rubbed his forehead and pinched between his eyes in frustration and tiredness. "It's these action reports... Too many idiots with too much money equipping themselves with the biggest and largest ships they can, sucking up crew from all over Crete who dont have the money or sense to realise they're working for a Captain that doesn't have a clue how to command because he's just stepped out of his Trials.... and then I get the letters from the families of those who have been killed.. wanting to know who to blame, who to kill, who pays what..... uuurrghhhh"......
He groaned again and looked up... 'Anyway, its fine.. there's just been a....."

He paused. Zarita wasn't looking at him now but instead down at the table, biting her lower lip with her upper teeth and looking...
"Whats wrong?" Laowai asked... he knew that look, that was the troubled look.

"Something....., something happened today" She said.

He cocked his head and sat up, "What happened?" he rose from the chair and moved over next to her sitting on the couch.
"You remember i said I was going to take the ship out... to fly, you know, see the sun and well.. you know.."
Laowai nodded, "well... yes... what happened?". He sometimes missed the way they had used to be able to communicate, instantly and completely through the crystal chamber with nothing hidden and without words. But while she was gaining more and more control over her form Zarita still hadn't managed to convey complex thoughts, emotions, images and experiences in their entirety as they once had without making him almost pass out. They hadn't tried for sometime but in these moments he missed it.

"Well... I didn't just stay above Crete, i went out further...."

A crease made its way across Laowai's brow, "Further... what do you mean, Further across the system?"

Zarita looked at him, at once looking like a child who has done something wrong but also looking genuinely worried. "no, to a completely different system..."

Ben sat back, surprised to say the least that she had taken that kind of risk and at once worried "Another system? you're kidding right?"

She shook her head, but the look of fear on her face tempered his anger at her recklessness, it was completely disproportionate to what she was telling him. "Where did you go?" he asked, calming himself.

***Freeport 9***

Her thoughts appeared in his mind.


"Freeport 9???" he said aloud... his hands flew to the side of his head in disbelief "oh by Crete Zarita why would you even do that??"


She sat back slightly defensively, "Well... i just wanted to see it, I mean, You know how I am, I... just wanted to..."

In a state of shocked disbelief Laowai stared at his now silent wife... anger rose within him at the magnitude of her risk, What could have happened out there? There are bounty Hunters in the Malvada cloud... worse, there are NOMADS in the Malvada cloud.. What would have happened had she encountered them? Would they have sensed her for what she was? Could they have harmed her? And what if she had been harmed? . As these and a thousand other panicked scenarios entered his mind at a thousand miles a second he found himself speechless and simply staring at her.

She looked sheepishly at him, a look of concern and remorse on her face and try as he might that look smothered the anger within him. He couldn't stay angry at her, he'd never been able to... he shook his head again.

***There's more***


"What?" he said, calming down.


And then... she retold the story of her meeting with the Reaper on Freeport 9, how she had tried to hide herself and of how he had suspected something of her nature and then of how she had ran, ran all the way back to Crete and then, after passing through docking clearance she had parked her Titan far out in the hills to be alone, calm herself and work up the courage to come and tell him what had happened.

There was a long silence at the end of her story. Laowai stood up, standing in the middle of the room with his hands on his hips looking at the wall but not looking at the wall, looking through it, his mind a race and at the same time his mind seemingly empty.
"This...." he said... pausing for what seemed to Zarita an age... "this will need to be watched..."

" Watched? what.....I....I'm sorry Ben" she said "I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to land on the Freeport! I really didn't it just... there were those ships and, the ship it just....."

"I know" he said, turning slightly to look at her, "I believe you...".
He considered things rapidly. This was potentially dangerous but at the same time not a complete disaster. The Reaper had only intimated its suspicion of her nature, it was doubtful he knew what she actually was.... she had hidden herself, and whats more, it was a Reaper..... not exactly someone they were likely to run into in the course of their everyday lives..... these things could be... handled.

"Watched... yes" he turned around and sat back down. She looked at him expectantly and he went on. "I'll need to find out a little more about this Reaper and we'll need to watch the situation..."

"but?" she said.

***I miss when we didn't have to use words***

The thought entered his mind and he gave a brief smile. He looked at her and raising his hand he gently stroked her cheek, "I know, i was just thinking the same thing" They sat in silence for a moment, looking at one another, the fear of the preceding moments gradually subsiding into other, gentler feelings... until Laowai broke the moment:

"You will need to be a lot more careful...."

---

http://img686.imageshack.us/img686/3289/...047770.png