Emissary
Chapter 11 - Anywhere

Stel tried to stay awake but definitely fell asleep for twenty minutes here and there as she watched the vast starfield race by in slipspace. The usual tiny pinpricks of light were elongated into long streaks as the Motherwill raced though the stars, heading for Ryn's prechosen destination. She hoped that home would be okay, even if Ryn was right that she probably owed them nothing; they were planning to arrest her after all. Still, she couldn't leave them to die.

The door slid open behind her and jammed halfway, a curse emitting from Ryn that she'd never heard before and he began forcing the door open with his shoulder and arms, the accessway grinding open as the door clicked back into its rails and opened.

"Never did find a fix for that door... or some of the others..." he muttered over a cup of something hot as he flopped into a chair near Stel, since she was in the captain's chair. "Mornin' kid, anything fun happen while I was out?"

Stel jerked her head towards the starfield and shrugged. "Were you expecting action? We're safe in slipspace, right?"

Ryn shook his head slowly. "Not in the slightest. But I'm decent at what I do, so we should be fine." He swiveled his chair to stare out of the viewport, quietly sipping his warm drink.

"What kind of name is Stel anyway?" He asked blankly, his voice somewhere between incredulous and inquisitive.

Stel turned to face him and scoffed, "The kind of name that people get. Why, where's Ryn coming from?"

Ryn crooked an eyebrow and turned to face her, "From a family line. Just... I've heard of Estella, Stella, Miastel, but never just Stel. Some kind of nickname?"

Stel grunted and swiveled away. "Just... Stel."

Ryn held up a hand and shrugged. "Alright, alright. Sorry if it's a touchy subject."

The main terminal began to ping and Ryn was on his feet and moving to Stel's chair in an instant. He leaned over the terminal and keyed in the reversion to real space, warming up the pulse drives to get ready to move after leaving slipspace.

"Reversion to real space in ten. Buckle in, kiddo." Ryn says as he sets his drink in a cup holder and leans over the terminal, gripping one edge with his hand as Stel scrambles to buckle into the chair. She thought it odd he wouldn't kick her out of his chair but wasn't complaining as the stars shrunk to tiny pinpricks of light once again and the ship thudded as the slip drive spooled down and the ship finally returned to real space. The gravity control struggled for a moment and Stel and Ryn rocked forward as the sudden loss of speed lurched the inertial control out of sync, giving the sensation of being thrown forward by a sudden stop.

"There we go. Real space... hold on..." Ryn looked out of the viewport to see not empty space but instead a bustling space station, a misshapen mass of metal and bustling lights; small space craft moving in and out of the station. "I'll be damned... perfect. Alright, outta my chair."

Stel fumbled with the crash harness and got out of Ryn's chair, the fennec sliding into place, his tail falling through the hole at the back of the chair and he pushed the ship into forward motion and headed for the station. "Did you get a good count of your spare munitions while you were loading for calibration?" Ryn asked as he busied himself with the communicator.

Stel quickly thought through her loading sequence and nodded. "Yeah, and I calculated my usage from that Cantarus battle. I should have two more fights of ammo, counting what's currently loaded."

Ryn nodded and scowled. "Thought so. They didn't give us nearly enough back home." He said with a sneer in his voice. "What you're looking at is Anywhere. A pirate's space fort and mobile trading hub. Black marketers, slavers, smugglers, and bounty hunters. All kinds of law-avoiding folks. I'm trying to see if they still have my name in their logs."

Stel stared at Ryn and thought through the implications of him being a known quantity at a pirate's station. "Are... you a criminal, Ryn?"

Ryn looked up at Stel and his ears flattened and his eyes narrowed. "Yes. You are too, in fact. Petty theft, grand theft mech, evading arrest. Check your record some time, those council members back home won't exactly roll out the red carpet for you when we get back." He resumed typing into the communicator before muttering, "And it's smuggling. In case you're wondering. And deserting."

Stel found a chair and quietly took it, thinking about how he was probably right about their return to the colony. She was a petty criminal herself, even if she tried to not hurt anyone with it. Pickpocketing and minor burglary was still criminal action. She looked over at the fennec and thought about his second charge. "Deserting? You... left the military?"

Ryn sighed and looked at her briefly until the communicator began to blink. "I told you I used to fly for the militia. I'm not still doing it. You do the math."

Stel fell quiet again as Anywhere grew larger in the viewport and those "tiny ships" turned out to be even bigger than the Motherwill. Stel felt her palms get a little sweaty as she saw the large turbolasers watching over the docking bays but they remained inactive as the Motherwill slipped through the particle field and into the hangar bay. The ship shuddered softly as Ryn landed on the landing struts, the ship's engine whining into silence as he powered down nonessential systems.

"Right. Game plan. We need ammo, I have an old friend to meet, and you need to not get killed while we're here. So stick close, speak when spoken to, and if anyone asks you're my adoptive daughter. Got it?"

Stel stared back at Ryn as he put on his weathered leather jacket and looked down at her own partially-zipped jumpsuit, opting to not fully zip it up. "And why's the daughter thing matter?" She asked as she stood and wished for some better clothes.

Ryn looked back at her with an unenthusiastic expression, "Because the slavers will ignore you if you're with someone." He stepped out of the bridge and through the common area and headed for the boarding ramp. Stel shook herself out of the light daze his comment put her in and chased after him, arriving just as the ramp touched the deck. A gruff alien Stel had never seen waited for them at the bottom.

Ryn bristled upon seeing the blue-skinned, tentacle-haired alien and walked down the ramp. "Yiel." He said blankly as he and the alien faced one another. Stel followed Ryn down the ramp but stopped right behind him as he put a hand out to stop her.

"Ryn." The gruff alien answered, his voice sounding like it came from an echo chamber; deep and throaty.

The alien threw a punch and clocked Ryn on the jaw, the fennec staggering back a half step before he threw an equally fierce punch, the alien falling back a full step. Stel just about pounced forward to try and help Ryn when both Ryn and "Yiel" began to laugh.

"Good to see you, scruffy, got yourself a new friend, eh?" Yiel guffawed, clearly quite pleased to see Ryn.

Ryn laughed and turned to reveal Stel, pushing her in front of himself. "Something like that. Meet Estella. My... daughter." He said with a clear grimace in his voice. Stel guessed he probably wanted to jump out of an airlock right about now.

Yiel bent over and planted his hands on his knees. He was roughly humanoid, aside from the floppy tentacles for hair, and smiled at Stel. "Must take after her mother. Nice to meet you, kid, I'm Yiel, I help out around here."

He held out a webbed hand that Stel took and shook, her hand coming back slimy and wet. She resisted the urge to wipe it off for fear of offending him. "N-nice to meet you. And yeah, I definitely get it from mom."

Yiel laughed and resumed talk to Ryn. "Guessin' you're here for the thing. And here I thought you'd forgotten."

Ryn avoided Stel's look and began walking towards a large door, Yiel falling in step and Stel following behind. "I wasn't planning on it. I went home and found the Nalesh'ka razing my city. Now I'm racing around with the kid to get help. Need ammunition."

Yiel stiffened and looked back at Stel and the Motherwill. His voice quieted to a conspiratorial tone and he leaned in towards Ryn, "The Nalesh'ka? I thought they were gone..." Sᴇaʀ*ᴄh the FɪndNovᴇl.nᴇt website on Gøøglᴇ to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.

Ryn shook his head. "Guess not. Can you help? And that thing, I'd like to mount it somewhere else. I think I have a better power source."

Yiel nodded. "Sure, Ryn. For old time's sake." The trio entered the big door and walked through a bustling hallway full of spacefaring folk of all shapes and sizes. Stel had never seen so many varieties of aliens, and her home had been a mining trade hub! They entered an elevator and began to ascend, the door opening on a slightly less busy promenade, all colors of neon lights dazzled the eye and loud music made talking and hearing somewhat difficult. Stel briefly wondered if that might be the point of the loud music...

Yiel and Ryn began to walk but the fennec stopped for a moment and turned to Stel. He pawed a small token and a credit chip into her hands. "Take these. Get yourself something nice to wear. I can practically read your thoughts on those jumpsuits. You get into trouble, you click on your comm and show that badge. Should at least buy time. I'll call you later, or meet at the Motherwill."

Stel nodded slowly and shrugged. "I'll be alright. Right?"

Ryn quickly glanced around at the busy promenade and some shady characters scattered around. "Probably. Get going, it's not a great idea to linger anywhere for long. See you at the ship."

Stel nodded and Ryn and Yiel vanished into the crowd, leaving Stel alone among the crowd. She began walking, tucking into herself slightly as she tried to figure out where to go. Clothes seemed like a good start and before long she found a shopping section of the bustling common area, quickly locating a clothing store and choosing two pairs of bulkier pants, a new set of boots, and several shirts of varying type; a tank top, a tee with the midriff showing, two tees, and one partial jumpsuit of sorts that seemed to be missing the arm and legs, leaving just the torso covered. Stel thought it was cute, so she couldn't resist. To finish off, she found a tough leather jacket not unlike Ryn's that she thought might be warm in the coldness of the hangar bay and make her look a bit tougher and more legitimate in a station like this. After buying all of it with the credit chip Ryn gave her, Stel snuck into a rather uncared-for bathroom stall and changed into a new outfit, stuffing the rest into a backpack she bought on the way out. Looking into the mirror, she thought she could do with a haircut but otherwise looked pretty good with her larger and tougher clothes.

"Now... what do we have here?" A sultry feminine voice said from behind her. Stel froze and knew they were talking to her. There wasn't anyone else in here. Slowly, Stel turned around with the expectation of some sort of pleasure worker, judging by the tone of voice, but felt her throat lock up as she found some mercenary woman with a gun pointed at her instead.

"Not your lucky day, sweetie. Come on."

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