Mel listened with wrapped attention as Tommy recounted his unsettling encounter with the unknown, offering up only the occasional "Holy sh*t!" as it seemed appropriate to respond.
She felt vaguely bad for the poor soul that was lost out there in the void, but could still understand the decision that Tommy had made to G.T.F.O. Especially on the edge worlds, who knew what that could have been?
She was so invested in the story that she didn't even realize that her frantic sips on the glass of whiskey had drained the glass. It was only once Tommy had finished his story that she realized that she had been sipping on nothing but an empty glass for the past several minutes.
Lachlan puts the terminal away the moment he hears the first words of Tommy's explanation. He listens intently, his face adopting a focused expression which stays unchanged throughout the whole story. When Tommy finishes, Lachlan stands up and pulls a stopper out of a small decanter filled with amber colored liquid. He pours a generous amout of said liquid into a glass, closes the decanter with the stopper and then walks over to Tommy, offering him the glass.
"Here lad," he says in soft, calm tone, "I think you need a bit of something stronger than the water you people from Liberty call ale."
He puts the glass on a small stand next to Tommy's armchair, then he turns towards the remaining two people in the room to adress them.
"I think what this tells us is you people, who actually fly out there, should be doubly carefull, especialy when you't in the outer regions. I haven't been out there, in fact, this is probably the furthest I've ever been from the planet, but some of the stories my brother and his crew told me were rather disturbing. Not as disturbing as Mr. Epsetti's, but disturbing nonetheless."
Ha takes a short brake to take a sip from his own glass.
"I know I probably don't have to remind you this, but do try to rein in your curiosity, if it ever tries to get better of you. Let others risk their necks chasing the weird things which are out there if they want. There's enough brave fools to do that already, you don't need to expand their ranks."
Tommy accepted the glass, sipped a bit from it . The drink burned his throat slightly, and it had an effect. His vision cleared, anxiety started to slowly fade away. Tommy emptied the glass and put it back on the table.
“Well, at least it’s in the past now. I might still take time to recover, but it won’t mean my ship will be a dead weight for a company. My mate, Tereon Kallisto, will take over my position as a captain of Zero Space for the few days I’m out. I will relay to her any contracts Irregulars will get and upon completion she will then report to you, Lachlan”
Mel subtly poured herself another small glass of whiskey as Tommy wrapped up his story and Lachlan offered the boy a draught of something stronger.
Her fingers twitched a little as she considered reaching out to the boy, but she thought better of it and occupied herself with continuing to sip on her own drink instead.
It was weird thinking that someone would take a leave of absence so shortly after joining the Irregulars, but if what Tommy had said was to be believed, she couldn't blame him.
"F*ckin' brainworms," she said under her breath, and as soon as she said it she instantly regretted it and hoped no one had heard. She'd been referencing the person Tommy had encountered, not Tommy himself of course. But no one here knew her well enough to know for sure what the hell she was talking about.
She'd grown up idolizing the Freelancer Trent from the Nomad conflict in 800, and had heard stories of Nomads driving people to madness. If Mel knew anything, she knew one thing: and that was that she never wanted to encounter anything like that close up.
Loud steps from outside of the room drawn their attention. The steps went towards the door, stopped for a moment, then the door opened and a tall man in his late thirties walked into the room. His dark hair was cut short, gradualy transitioning into a stubble of a beard. His face was still young, though there were signs of the creeping age, mostly subtle wrinkles around the corners of his eyes. He wore a flight overall with a synth-leather jacket on top of it, both worn, but well maintained. The jacket was decorated with a simple patch on the left shoulder, though the motif was almost bleached out, showing only a vague hint of former colour and shapes.
He looked around and noded to himself.
"Looks like I'm late," he said, his voice deep and little raspy, "pleasure to meet you all."
Lachlan turned to the newcomer and flashed a smile at him.
"Brother!" he greeted the man, "I was starting to think you won't show up!"
Finnean snorted.
"Was considering it. Queen's Comfort? Really? You used to have better taste. What's next, drinking decades old posh blend of whisky from decanter?" he asked, then noticed said decanter on the table , half empty at this point, and rolled his eyes.
"I swear the money's rotting your brain," he continued with the scolding. "No wonder Morg was able to get away with the stunt she pulled if your head is filled with a snobish nonsense like this."
"You're the one to talk," countered Lachlan, "with your prime losangelan cigars, kusarian beef and gold lined cushions on your pilot's seat. You're just as snobish and degenerated as me."
Silence lingered for a few moments, while brothers MacRorys stared each other down, their expression stiff and serious. Then, suddenly, at the exact same time, they both bursted in laughter.
"Tie?" asked Lachlan when he finally calmed down a bit.
"Tie." Noded Finn, still struggling to keep his composure. "Gold lined cushions? Where did that come from?"
Lachlan shrugged, grinning from ear to ear. "Came up with it on the spot."
Finn shook his head in a pretended disbelief. "You and your quick tongue." He then picked an armchmair next to his brother's, sat down and fished for something in his breast pocket. He pulled out a large cigar, cut it's tip with a fancy guillotine-style cutter he produced from another pocket and then proceeded to light the cigar with an antiquated matchstick. He gave the cigar a puff or two, letting the smoke to be picked up and carried away from the room by the ventilation shaft conveniently located just above the chair he picked. Then he finally focused his attention to the rest of the people in the room.
"Sorry about that outburst. It's a bit of a running joke between us. The name's Finn, but you already figured that much I reckon."
He gave his cigar another puff.
"So, since I'm here, anyone has any questions before we start with the main topic of the day?"
The story that Tommy tells is a truly frightening one. Who must that woman be? She is surely someone whom is missed by her family. But Lachlan is right; curiosity can be quite deadly, and there are enough fools out there who risk their lives without a good reason. We are smugglers; we risk our lives when there is no other way, but we try to avoid it.
“Yes, out there, you have to be careful. You never know when a distress call is truly one and not just a lure to catch you. Better to be safe.”It may sound harsh to just leave someone out there in distress without trying to help.
At the end of his talk, he grabs his own sake again and drinks a few síp while listening to Lachlan’s lecture. He is right; he knows it. This information is not new to him at all, but he understands that sometimes these things need to be said out loud, otherwise people will forget them.
He hears that Tommy plans to stop working for a few days and explains who will take his place during this time. He just nods because he agrees with the young libertonian that he needs to recover from this trauma before he can again join us in space.
“Brainworms, what do you mean, Mel?”While Mel’s words were not said out loud, Vaako still heard them and sent a curious gaze towards the woman. While he had seen a Nomad, many years ago in the Taus, he didn’t know too much about them.
Soon the other brother arrives, and Vaako watches their verbal fight with a small, almost unseen smile on his face. This is something he always envied: a brother. He was the only child of his parents, and while they gave him everything they could, this was something he always missed. A brother or sister to his family.
“I have no question at the moment.”He answers Finn's question while turning in his direction and then just waits. He is a little curious why they were all called here tonight, and hopefully very soon they will all get to know why. Sitting in the dark without knowing what was happening was never something he liked.
Dammit. Of course the keen eyed Gallian had heard her. She knew that she really needed to work on keeping her stupid mouth shut. This was apparently just more evidence of that.
"It's nothin'," Mel tried to play it off as if it wasn't important. "Just the...you know the alien sh*t...when it goes..." she gestured as if she was picking up something like an eyedropper and squeezing liquid into her ear. "Ya know...brainworms?"
Vaako looked at her incredulously, and Mel felt her cheeks get red hot with embarrassment. She felt herself melting into the back of the plush armchair, trying to make herself smaller to avoid making more of a fool out of herself.
Really need to just keep quiet better, she thought.
Mel watched the MacRory brothers' back and forth, and felt herself missing Declan a bit. Banter was always a good release.
When Finn asked the table if they had any questions, she just shook her head no. She was curious what was going on with Morgana, especially since the brothers had now publicly mentioned her in front of all the Irregulars, but that could wait for another time.
Tommy heard that quick conversation between the brothers, chuckled a bit and whispered to himself “Heh, good to see that these two are good friends. They are so different though.” Finnean was clearly a spacer, and experienced one at that, way more then Tommy himself.
He smiled for the first time in a while, and responded to Finn's question with a quick “Nah, I don't have any. Let's get to business.”
Finnean took few more puffs from the cigar, then put it down on an ashtray. He filled a glass with Lachlan's whisky and took a sip. Everyone in the room made clear they have no questions by then and since everyone invited had ample time to arrive, Finn decided there's no point in waiting anymore. He nodded to himself, picked up the the cigar again, took a puff and began talking.
"Right, on to the main course then," he proclaimed. "You might want to grab a drink or a snack, this will be a bit longwinded."
He took a few more puffs, mostly to sort his thoughts and to give other the time to pick things from the table.
"As all of you probably noticed," he continued, "we're currently constructing Cape in Magellan. That's no secret among the Irregulars, even though we are trying it to keep it below the radar for anyone else. What we -" he nodded towards his brother "- weren't as open about, was the true purpose of the installation. Everything we said was true, it is meant to act as a storage for some rarer materials like relics and to be our base of operations at the midpoint between the houses we frequent the most, but it's true purpose is to act as a storage and refinment facility, a laboratory of if you will, for alien materials that are pretty much confirmed to come from the uncharted systems which become accessible since the Pulse. If you want to know why are we so sure about these systems and materials, it was this broadcast by a facility called 'Quantum Outpost' what convinced us." He pulled out a pocket terminal, similar to Lachlan's, and put it on the table within everyone's reach. There was a paused video message coupled with a transcript on the screen.
"Coincidentaly," Finn resumed, "the broadcast is also the reason why we're trying to keep Cape Horn under whraps, now even more than before. About a day ago have received call for help from the very same group. It wasn't directed at us per se, rather it was broadcasted to all sorts of groups, but the important thing is the same people who built and sold a prototype tech using materials from uncharted regions drew ire of a group called 'Technocracy of Auxo'. We don't really know who they are and our efforts to find out something about them, however limited, were unsuccesfull so far, but it's obivous said group wants to gain access to the Quantum's research and materials and they're willing to shoot at them because Quantum didn't want to comply."
Finn puffed the cigar a bit and looked around the table.
"Yeah, I've heard rumors through the CNS broadcasts about the sh*t goin' down between Quantum and Auxo. One of my buddies on Beaumont told me even Liberty Navy is gettin' invovled?"
Mel shrugged.
"Anyway, yup. I'm all for keepin' a wide birth away from that nonsense."
