Intergalactic Summit

... oh, here we get into dicey territory.

Do I know for sure? No.

Do I believe him when he says he isn't? ... Yeah.

Why? Because he's never been deceptive, and I've seen or heard nothing to make me think he's lying to me. Because he's been true to his word so far. Because he's honored our agreement in letter and spirit.

Because he's given over close to thirty-five thousand people so far, in trade for a hug, and, maybe, my willingness to continue contact. Because he's sometimes sent along materials or information I'd need to keep more of them alive longer, although that wasn't strictly part of the deal.

Because so far the people he's turned over have been exactly who he said they were.

Because he knows what I want out of this, and so far he's been willing to provide it.

Ever since I took him up on his offer, I've been in kind of uncharted territory, feeling my way, making up my path as I go along. It's dangerous ground. I've lost at least one friend over it.

We're supposed to be meeting for tea, soon, in, as he says, non-weaponizable paper cups. It seems he's more wary of me than I of him, though I doubt if I harmed him I'd escape alive.

It's dangerous to continue. It's been dangerous from the start.

I'll be going.

I know, it's kind of funny.

Been there, done that.

Sort of.

PY-RE.


If it means they stop being monsters long enough for a cup of tea, is that really such a bad thing?

We're pseudo-immortal, Mr. Ronin. There have to be solutions to that kind of monster that don't involve slaying them.

Thank you for your thoughts, Ms. Vess.

Without going into too much detail, I'll just say that I don't really care what Miz has gone through. I'm aware that she's a damaged person. That doesn't mean I forgive her.

To me, her judgment is contemptible, her word meaningless, her insight diseased. I trust nothing she says.

My feelings here are personal and practical, not moral. I don't know whether she is a good person by any definition, and truthfully I don't care.

I have no use for her. That's all.


From some perspectives, a good mercenary is a bad person by definition. I'm not sure that's something I believe, myself. I do know that the work wore at me more than I understood until much later. I'm not the lost child who first came to visit the Empire.

You were with Anslo, weren't you, the time we charged his T3D fleet with Catalysts? ... it was a suicidal charge; we figured if we took even one T3D down it would cover the full value of every destroyer we lost. Anslo was so sure we headshotted him. Actually, it was nothing so calculated. It seemed like Des just called someone whose death we'd find satisfying as primary, and away we went.

I called Jebi primary a few months ago for similar reasons. That was probably a "headshot," too. ... Noisy person.

Yeah. You're right. I know those feelings. Even now, that's still the person I am-- someone poisoned with cold and hungry for death. Even after mostly staying away from the field for months, I still like the taste of blood.

So ... I guess I can't really deny being a monster. Just, I've decided to be careful whose orders I take. I'm not really kidding when I describe myself as the hawk on the Praefecta's wrist.

And, yeah. I kind of got the sense Mr. Ronin hadn't hunted a lot of capsuleers when I read his duel conditions.


Only, I don't think he is so much like us, Ms. Vess. He's a capable enough duelist, for sure, but the hallmark of our kind of creature is the cold. We kill incidentally: a target off of overview, a thrill of satisfaction, a new target call. There might be a few, or a few hundred, dead, but we don't really see or register it.

(It hits me just a little harder when it's face to face; I haven't done that often, but I have done it, now. I can't say I feel very bad about that, either.)

Mr. Nauplius knows exactly what he's doing, at least when it comes to his captives. He's even demonstrated empathy when he's not talking about religion. What he does is all very real to him; he even considers appreciating the horror of it something proper in Sani Sabik practice. And he's really devout.

What do you feed an all-powerful, sadistic deity? Well....

Pain. Fear. Grief. Despair. ... Probably mostly other people's, but, maybe even your own.

You did. I came to you asking to learn my strength. You gave me exactly what I asked for.

I'm not ungrateful, Pieter. But when I said, later, that I didn't think the Caldari would see anything wrong with me, it's you and Des I was thinking of. I'm really fond of you both, but I'm not ... hardened, quite the way you are.

More to the point, I don't want to be.

If I'd known what the cost would be, would I still have come? I might have. The insult that drove me to you stung badly, pricked at a shortcoming I saw in myself:

I'm a capsuleer. If I won't kill, what am I even for?

Well-- I'm useful, now. You gave that to me. Only ... I want to know what I'm killing for, Pieter. And I want not to regret it.

I want it to be safe for me to care why.

My non-slave-containing hanger was audited by Vlad a few weeks back; I don't know whether he reported the results to anyone beyond Sammie. I make no promises regarding the slave-containing status of my hanger in the future; my last written agreement obliging me to have no slaves there expired a few days ago. There are, however, no slaves there now.



This is saddening.

The industrialist's response. Only (1) that path, also, is usually pretty bloody, just not always in the sense of pulling the trigger yourself. An industrialist's course is normally to use materials someone died over to make weapons for those who do the fighting.

In keeping with that, (2) I'm not someone who's comfortable asking others to do dirty work I won't do myself.

And, (3) I live permanently in the shadow of my predecessor, Mr. Ramal. Even if no one ever mentioned her to me, I came into this existence with a head full of the things she knew, or believed, even if I couldn't remember how any of it got there. Point (1), above, is originally hers-- a near-automatic response when someone claims that industrial capsuleers have cleaner hands.

In terms of skills, what I came into this world knowing was how to fight. Missile launchers, shields, navigation, tactics-- I was basically born with years of training in how to hunt my own. Everything she knew.

Anslo compared me to her, and found me pathetic. I wanted to tear his throat out. So I went to people who'd help me learn to do just that.

They did.

I don't believe he did believe that when you first resurfaced. I'm not trying to speak for him but it definitely seemed that way in conversations I had with him at the time. Later he definitely did however. And going back to something before, he complained about being headshotted by you guys for a few days. For striking for effect you definitely hot your mark.

Yeah, I remember. The two of you were some of the first people who ever communicated with me, while I was locked in my quarters waiting to find out whether I was going to be stripped of my identity and then almost certainly shot.

I didn't even know who I was, yet, I don't think.

Anslo was nice to me. Wanted to help me.

... later, though ...

Insults from people who don't know me very well don't tend to take, really. Mr. Ronin, for example, doesn't even know me well enough to identify my mistress. He just thinks of her as some random Amarrian. When it comes to my status as a sworn retainer, he literally doesn't know what he's talking about, so, I don't care very much what he says.

Insults from people who really understand what they're saying, and especially from people I've cared about in the past, and wanted to prove myself to-- wanted to be liked by.... Those are a little more meaningful.

Maybe to everyone. Definitely to me.

"Nice" isn't quite the issue, Pieter. It's more ... oh, gods, how to put it?

I wasn't unhappy, you know? I was okay with it. I was proud. I was happy. I loved being a Falcon.

Only then I took that leave of absence to go and see more of the world, and the contrast was a little intolerable. Surrounded with all that life-- all those people just living their lives, all that warmth and light-- I started to feel like a miserable little wad of ink and soot with a face.

Not a proud hunter. A shadow. A remnant of something that used to be a person.

I guess, for a killer, I'm a little sensitive.

I couldn't go back to PY-RE, not without feeling like I was surrendering whatever was left of me. It's not even you and Des I was afraid of turning into. It was ... the person who's always seemed kind of like my own reflection in a cursed mirror would be ...

Veik.

For two people so totally different from one another, we have too much in common. By a lot.

I'm glad you've both found some peace of your own, Pieter. I remember my time in PY-RE fondly, in spite of all I've said. I'm not sure I really regret any of it. Just, I guess....

I didn't quite believe anymore that being a mercenary is a very constructive way to exist in the world. If I was going to be a shadow, I wanted to attach myself to the strongest, steadiest source of light I could find. I wanted a cause, only I didn't have any I really believed in.

So-- I found someone, instead. A couple of someones, really.

One's ... gone, now. We parted ways months ago. I hope he's okay.

The other's still here.

... and wants me to take a vacation.

I have such mixed feelings.