Outsider

[Laowai]

Docking code recognised, you are clear to land.

She piloted the CT-6000 Eagle deftly out of the docking gates controls and banked widely outwards and in an arc. Gracefully flying in a wide turn over Crete's capital city she headed quickly towards a large hangar complex with which she was very familiar, and where she knew her brother would be.
Isabel would never usually call unannounced this way, and definitely not this early in the morning, but her brother had been hard to get a hold of recently and had seemed more evasive than usual. However, this was not the reason for her visit, and what she had discovered was big enough to warrant the unscheduled barge in. Ben hated it when people did that, but in this case he would just have to deal with it, she knew this would be something he would want to look through himself.

She banked over the hangar complex she was looking for and then, thrusting the engines down arced the craft downwards, her nose up and approaching parallel to the landing pad, seemingly coming down too fast and yet she expertly skimmed the ship on the grav-landing beam without so much as a bump. Not waiting for the canopy to be fully opened she leapt out of the ship and strode briskly through the swirling dust kicked up by her landing to the hangar door. It would be locked, it always was, her brother was nothing short of paranoid at the best of times, yet he had given her an override code on a pad to use in case of an emergency and the multiple dead locks disengaged, trip beams disarmed and shields deactivated as she keyed in this very code.

"Ben!" She called out as she crossed the dimly lit cavernous interior of the hangar, heading towards the mezzanine on the other side where she knew he would be sleeping. " Ben, its Isabel, Get up! This is important!!" She skipped across the room and leapt up the steps, reaching the mezzanine she pushed open the door to find her brother stumbling across the room fumbling with trying to put on a shirt.
"Isabel!!" he said startled, "what in the name of"... She cut him off; "I know I know, its early and I didn't tell you I was coming..." She rummaged around in pack for the data pad she had brought from Hokkaido, finding it she pulled it out and held it out to him... "but this couldn't wait, I had to come, Ive got information about....."
It was then she noticed that, far from being angry at her, and even looking at the pad her brother was closing a curtain to his sleeping chamber and tidying.. tidying clothes. Clothes that weren't his
"Wait..." She said, slightly dumbfounded. Her brother tossed a bundle of garments into a container near the far wall "Dammit!!" he said, "What have I told you about showing up unnano...."
"Wait....." Isabel smirked she raised an eyebrow and looking towards the now drawn curtain to the bedchamber, "are you...?"

Her brother was trying to be angry, and yet he seemed genuinely caught out and very uncomfortable. She repressed the urge to laugh and was about to try and say something funny when the curtain drew aside and a young woman stepped out slowly, looking first at Isabel, then to Ben and then back again. She approached shyly and held out her hand, "You... Must be Isabel..." she said. Isabel took the offered hand and shook it, more than a little amused now, "Ben??" she said, shaking the much younger girls hand and looking at her brother quizzically. "Who is this girl?" The young woman looked a little unsure and was about to answer when Ben moved beside her and protectively placed his arm on her shoulder.
"Wait" he said in a tone that Isabel thought she had never heard her brother use before. "I wanted to tell you in my own time" he began.

"Tell me what?" Isabel said, her curiosity now more than a little peaked.

Her brother continued, " Isabel: This is Zarita..." he paused and then added... "My Wife."

Isabel stopped shaking the girls hand immediately and looked stunned. "Your wife!?" She stared at the girl, who couldn't have been a day over 25 years of age, if that.... "You got married?! ...And you didn't tell me?!" Ben looked genuinely squeamish.
"Well its just, it was complicated and..."

"Complicated..?" Isabel said, "How complicated is it to send a comm signal?!"

Ben shook his head, "its not that, it wasn't that kind of ceremony or wedding, I wanted to tell you after things had settled down here."

Isabel nodded slowly still eying the younger woman strangely, "riiiiiggght" she said this is all very amusing and... weird she thought to herself, but it could wait, there were other things do deal with for now.
"Look... Whatever, we can talk about it later, for now... I have something I need to show you its Ive got some information about..."

She paused and looked at Zarita, " No offense meant dear... but could my brother and I have a moment?"

"Of course!" Zarita said, smiling slightly. She moved towards the door, then pausing, turned and addressed Isabel directly: " You dont know me Isabel, and have no cause to think of me beyond any of the other young playthings that Corsair elders are so rumored to be fond of...."
"And yet, this is not how it is with my husband, your brother. I know him, and through him, I know you. You have his same sense of strength and determination and his sense of loyalty, I hope you can find it to allow us to know each other as well, You are my sister now after all ....I would like to be friends."

She smiled again and left the room, treading lightly and silently down the stairs to the hangar below. Isabel turned round to her brother: "OK.. What is with that girl?!"

Laowai shook his head. " I did mean to tell you but its been complicated here, but..this is an honorable marriage, and you should know she is genuine in everything she just said."

Isabel shook herself... "Honorable shmonorable.. she's..."

"My Wife" Ben interrupted.

"Right...." Isabel said, "I was going to say... young".
She passed him the data pad. "Anyway, this actually can wait; I came here because of this."

Ben took the pad and set it beside his work terminal on the other side of the room, he pulled up a chair and Isabel did the same. "What is it?" he said. The terminal booted up and quickly interfaced itself with the pad. "Computer.." Isabel spoke up, " open up file Inari 1, code locked Zhang 11b."
The screen flickered and several documents filled the screen. Ben leaned in and it was then he noticed the Golden Chrysanthemum watermark on the corner of one of the leading documents.

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