Outsider

[Laowai]

The weapon laying on the large metal workbench emitted a faint blue glow from its interior. At odds with the dusty yellow lights beaming down on it from above the light from the weapon pulsed softly, as if it had a life, a heartbeat, of its own.
The man standing over it held a large cutting torch in one hand and a dark eye shield in the other, carefully, he cut a small section of metal casing free, exposing just the tiniest speck of blue light and what appeared to be organic tissue. He took the metal fragment to a neighboring bench and fixed it into a clamp. The fragment was square and uniform, except for one small section which seemed chipped and scarred. Carefully he held another small fragment beside it and slowly began to weld the pieces together. The gap on the weapon casing had to be completely sealed, any gap or exposed section risked the weapon malfunctioning, and, some said, exposed the user to possession by the weapon itself.
Nomad weapons were considered highly dangerous by some Corsairs, others refused to even go near them, so great was the fear of "possession" by the weapons. Such things had never concerned Ben Laowai though, superstitious paranoia.... he thought to himself, as he carefully finished the weld of the two fragments. He had no qualms about using Nomad weaponry if and when he could get his hands on it. It was notoriously fickle in its maintenance, and indeed, adapting it to use on a human vessel was in itself a touch and go process, even the slightest miscalculation in power levels would lead to a burned and fried lump of tissue and hours of wasted labor. He had grown quite adept at fitting the weapons to his own vessels over the years, and recently, owing to an "understanding" he had with a certain Dr at the Cambridge research institute, his knowledge of the weapons had grown in leaps and spades. These days, it was the exception, rather than the rule, when he fried a weapon and ruined a casing.

Looming in the darkness behind the glaring lights was the great bulk of the cruiser "Xibanya Nuren", her hull only recently repaired, (along with the roof of the hangar). Ben put down the welding torch, realising that the fragment he had would not quite fit he decided he needed more basic alloy, a small amount of which, was in the Nuren's hold. Climbing up into the ship he spoke out "Lights!" and the interior corridor lights lit up suddenly, illuminating the inside of the ship and stabbing the surrounding gloom of the hangar with pinpricks of light emanating from the windows.

"So, you finally got it flying" a voice said behind him. Ben whirled around in surprise and below him on the hangar floor he saw a woman, standing arms folded, looking up at him with a smile. "Isabel!?" he said, unable to hide his surprise and happiness, a rare genuine smile crossing his face. "Hello stranger" the woman said, smiling back.
Ben leaped down the last few rungs of the ladder to the ship, "how did you get i..." he said but was cut off, "you have never been able to set up a security system i couldnt get through" Isabel chuckled. He stood looking at her a moment, shocked to see her there. "Don't you have a welcome for your little sister?" the woman said. Snapping out of it he walked towards her and hugged her tightly, laughing out loud, "of course, of course!" Holding her a moment he then let her go and looked at her. She had aged since he had last saw her, but still looked younger than her fifty years of age. Her dark, half Kusari features, similar to his own in shape, showed none of the outward scarring and aging that his face did. Her hair had not yet begun to grey, something Ben had never been blessed with, and was tied neatly behind her head. Her narrow frame was clothed in drab, civilian clothes but still an aura of energy seemed to emanate from her, as it always has he thought to himself. His sister had always been unpredictable, unstoppable, and entirely untameable.
She smiled back at him "You've got a lot more Grey hair than the last time i saw you" she said. Ben laughed, "well, yes i guess i do"
She looked around and then said, "So, do you have a drink in this place or what?" Ben nodded, "yes of course, baijiu, upstairs" he motioned across the room to the stairs that climbed up to the overhanging mezzanine that served as his living quarters.

"Still have it straight up" he asked her once they had climbed to the top. Isabel leaned over the window looking over the hangar floor below, looking down on the Xibanya Nuren, its hull still showing the scarring from its last encounter with the Nomads. "Of course" she said. Ben handed her a small glass of the colorless spirit and poured one of his own. He stood beside her looking down at the ship. "when did you finish it?" she asked. Ben nodded, "she has been flying for a couple of months now, had her baptisms of fire, and is doing more or less well". Isabel took a sip of the drink, "Dad would be pleased" she said. "i would hope so" Ben said. They both stood looking at the ship for a moment until Ben asked; "How did you get out here?"

"Matthius" Isabel said, motioning to her left. Ben looked in the direction she had indicated and saw, far off below in the corner of the hangar the silhouette of a man standing in one of the hangars small doorways. Ben scowled, "Him, here? you brough...." But he was cut off quickly, his sisters smile quickly vanishing. "Don't you start on him!" she snapped "we are not having this conversation again, I'm tired of you going on about it, and you wouldn't have ever finished your precious ship if it wasn't for him"!!!

Ben went to interrupt but his sister continued "He has paid any debt he owed you, and he risks his goddamn life every time he brings one of those damn food shipments here that you demanded". She downed the last of her glass of baijiu and slammed it down on the windowsill with a violent BANG!.

Ben glared at her, he had not seen his sister for many years, and the last time he did they had had this same argument, it always ended badly, sometimes violently. Since then, they had communicated by long range transmission, and the man in the doorway, was a constant source of friction between them.

The man was his sisters' husband, Matthius Ren, a liberty trader whom she had run off and married years earlier, against the very heated objections of her brother. Isabel had always been fiercely independent, and though half Kusari like Ben, she had not lost any of the famed Corsair temper. A trait that often seemed more pronounced in Corsair woman than in the men. When Ben objected to the union, she had threatened to remove certain sensitive parts of his body with a crowbar. And when later, Ben tracked them down and attempted to break up the wedding ceremony with several Corsair thugs, Isabel, the glowing bride, produced a blaster from underneath her wedding dress and threatened a firefight.

You just don't mess with a Corsair woman, especially on her wedding day.

Later, when she learned that her Brother had threatened to send her husband home in a box should he ever cross him in space, the two siblings had worked out a compromise (with much interceding from the unfortunate husband). Money was agreed on, and the trader would (against his better judgment) perform certain duties for the Corsairs as a whole until the debt of honor was repaid.
Laowai and his sister had both suffered ostracism from other Corsairs because of their mixed heritage as they grew up, and it had continued long after they had left childhood behind. Despite this, Ben had decided to remain on Crete, to claim what he believed was his Corsair heritage passed down through his father, and to live by the code of conduct and honor that his father had taught him.
Isabel had simply chosen to leave.
Ben had always found her a contradiction, believing as she did in the one instance, that all Corsairs were fools, and on the other, shooting some random pilot in the bar on Yaren because he had yelled out in a drunken slur "I'll shoot any Corshair i come acroshhhh".....
Despite this, and their disagreements, Ben loved her dearly.

She looked at him, trying to calm herself. " I dont want to fight you about this again, that isnt why i came". She sat herself down on the dusty couch in the center of the room. Ben took a swig of his Baijiu and sat down in the couch opposite her. "Do you know he brought a shipment of food here when we came in?" she said "and that he picked up a downed Corsair pilot in Sigma 13 , turned around and came all the way back to this miserable place, with an empty cargo hold, just to bring him home?!"
Ben frowned, he did not know these things, in fact, he avoided Matthius as often as he could, whenever he heard that the trader had landed with a shipment of food, he tried to not be around. "Well.. no, i didn't know he did that" he said, he hated having to back down, the damn fool libertonian "farmer" as he called him, irritated the pants off him.... "He's probably still scared im going to kill him"...

Isabel shook her head "No you idiot, he did it because he knew I'd want him to, he treats me well, which is more than any Corsair man ever did"

Slumping back into his chair Ben admitted defeat, for today he thought to himself and asked "ok ok, so why did you come here?" Isabel smiled, sensing that for this round at least, she had won the Matthius discussion. " After we spoke last i decided to come and talk to you". She reached into a pocket on her shirt and held out small photograph, which she passed over. On it, was a young man in a pilots uniform, standing outside what looked to be a spaceship hangar. The man was young, no more than 21 and he stood proudly in the picture, as if he was very pleased to be where he was. On his shirt was pinned a set of Liberty Civilian pilots wings .His light brown hair was tossed by the wash of landing spacecraft and he looked like any new and excitable liberty pilot recruit.
All save for his eyes, which, when Ben looked closely, had an almost Kusari appearance....

a sinking feeling hit him.

"who is this?" he said, knowing he wasn't going to like the answer,

Isabel smiled, "Ben, that is Donny, He's your nephew, and he'll be coming to stay for a while"


Ben groaned... a nephew, a nephew who looked like his damned annoying farmer trader father, and he was coming here.

This could only end badly...

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