Chelen City: Chapter Nine, Part One

 Notes: Ugh. My kidlet brought pink eye home on the last day of kindergarten, I’ve subsequently been infected myself, we both have colds, and to top it all of parts of my blog are being extra-censored thanks to someone reporting them for “content issues.” So, basically, everything sucks and I’m going to get off this platform as soon as fucking possible, BUT! I do have more story for you today, so…enjoy.

Title: Chelen City: Chapter Nine, Part One

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Chapter Nine, Part One

The studio was comfortable, once it was lit. There was a faint sound of water falling, and the light on them was a warm sunny yellow that made Elanus’s complexion look lively instead of sallow, like pure white light would. The chairs were soft but supportive, there was a place set aside for Ryu, Aloia did in fact provide him with a very excellent drink…it was a lovely buttering-up, and by the time he’d swallowed his first sip, Elanus was ready for the questions to begin.

After all, every question was a clue for him too.

“Elanus, I’m so pleased to see you again,” Fritz said, his professional façade going full-throttle. “It feels like it’s been forever since we talked.”

“Four and a half years,” Elanus said.

“That long?”

Elanus smiled. “Oh, I remember it well. It was at the launch event for my company. You were of the opinion that LifeShip Enterprises was an enormous waste of money and a poor investment, and you weren’t shy about spreading that impression around, either.”

Fritz’s smile didn’t waver. “How crass of me! And yet you have to admit, for a company that’s spent untold credits in development of these ‘sentient’ ships, the fact that you’ve yet to launch one to the public is telling.”

“And yet we’re still the most solvent company on the whole of Gania,” Elanus replied. “And trust me, there will be a launch soon. I’ve just got a few kinks to straighten out.”

“Not too straight, I hope.” Fritz pivoted before Elanus could go on. “Speaking of kinks, I daresay it was inconvenient when Mr. Moritz ran off with your prototype. You were gone for a long time, Elanus. Why did it take so long to enact your little rescue operation?”

Elanus took another drink. “How much time do you have for me to talk about quasars and asteroid fields?”

That burnished smile dropped for a moment. “None, I’m afraid. Although…insight into the mind of a criminal is never a thing to turn away. Why do you think your former partner decided to head to such a remote location, instead of going to a more populous place where he could get lost?”

“The more people are around you, the easier you are to track,” Elanus replied. “That’s the truth across any Federation system. They’re so interconnected that not even the stealthiest ship can escape notice, but a place like the Cloverleaf Quasar…with the right kind of ship, you can get lost there and never be noticed.”

“Hmm. And yet you managed to track Deysan down.”

He smiled. “He didn’t have the right kind of ship. But there’s a big different between knowing roughly where he was and actually being able to laser-point him.”

“Which brings up another intriguing topic.” Fritz practically purred. “You invested heavily in Cloverleaf Station before you made your way there. Why?”

“Because I needed a reason not to get kicked out before I’d recovered my ship.”

“How could the people in charge kick you out? And don’t quote regulation to me,” Fritz added. “There are ways around regulations that don’t involve buying an expensive, remote station’s operating contract for three years in advance. From what I understand, the station requires a caretaker at all times. Why not strike a deal?”

“That’s not the way you do things in the Fringe,” Elanus replied. “It’s deadly there.”

“It’s deadly here.”

“The danger is entirely different. Here, if you piss off the wrong person, you can expect to be visited by an assassin on their behalf. That’s considered the beginning of negotiations, though; if you survive, which any Ganian should, you have a starting point. Out there…” Elanus’s eyes went distant as he remembered seeing Cloverleaf Station for the first time. It had been the climax of a mad chase, pushing Lizzie back when she’d been The Lizzie so hard he was afraid he was going to burn out her engine only to find he was barely too late. He’d been on the verge of insanity, driven to the absolute brink—and he wouldn’t have turned around. If things had gone bad, if Kieron hadn’t let him in for some reason, he would have gone straight into the asteroid field looking for Catie and damn the consequences…which would have been his death, one way or another.

And then Kieron had let him in, thrown him a lifeline, and at the same time loathed him so completely that Elanus had been distracted from his blind rage by the sheer strangeness of it. Kieron, with his handy research and his dogged personality and his intense loneliness that he was able to ignore, somehow, had been the difference between success and failure, life and death. Elanus owed him more than he’d ever be able to repay.

Good thing he loved him enough to try for the rest of their lives.

“Out there?” Fritz prompted.

Elanus cleared his throat. “Out there, there are no backups,” he said. “No secondary or tertiary safety measures. Just a hell of a lot of radiation shielding, some experimental tech, and whoever else is crazy enough to endure a life in the range of one of the deadliest phenomena in the universe. That Deysan went there to escape speaks to his confidence in our LifeShip’s capacity.” Elanus shrugged. “That I was able to find him and recover the ship speaks to my dedication to the project, and the wealth of other technologies that my company is responsible for.”

“Perhaps it speaks to the wealth of experience your companion at that station possessed as well, hmm?” Fritz pivoted again, clearly testing all his avenues before deciding to go deep. “You spent months together in Cloverleaf Station and managed to retrieve your ship, which is impressive enough, but you also managed to convince the man to come to Gania…after he went to Trakta and intercepted a derelict vessel full of political refugees to bring along with him.” Fritz’s eyes glittered with intrigue. “Just what kind of person is Kieron Carr?”

“He’s someone who’s obviously got a very low sense of self-preservation,” Elanus said immediately. “Otherwise he would know better than to get involved with me.”

“Oh, I’m sure you’ve got your charms,” Fritz said coyly. “One of the refugees on the ship he brought to Gania is none other than the wife of his former research partner. I’m sure it’s occurred to you that to a man with ulterior motives, you must have seemed like a godsend.”

Elanus laughed. He couldn’t help it. “Are you—are you really being serious?” he asked. “Is that the angle you’re going with? Oh, my lord…”

“Tell me how I’m wrong,” Fritz challenged. “There’s very little recorded about Kieron Carr, but he himself was once a refugee from a place called Hadrian’s Colony. It was a militaristic cult and haven for anti-Federation sympathizers.”

“He left that place as a child.”

“He would have had to, since it was the site of a mass suicide twenty years ago, orchestrated by none other than Mr. Carr’s grandfather,” Fritz went on. “I’m not calling him equally insane, but I am saying that early training leaves a mark. Gania is a wealthy world, equal to any in the Central System, and you’re one of our brightest stars. These things make you a very choice mark for the right people, and it’s plain he had an ulterior motive in coming here.”

Elanus wasn’t laughing anymore. Doubling down on immigration fearmongering. Fine. “Kieron likes to do things by the books,” he said after a moment. “It was a point of contention between us while we were on the station. If you bothered to request a copy of the station’s incident log, which I’m sure you did since you’re so thorough—” there was movement off to his left, Aloia shifting uncomfortably—“then you probably saw the extensive Regen use that Kieron required after the recovery of my ship.”

“I…noted that.”

“Good. Then you’ll also have noted that the amount of radiation absorbed by that Regen machine, and the amount of damage that was repaired, was nearly too much to handle. He was on the verge of death,” Elanus emphasized. “And I am not and never have been a particularly compassionate person. I had what I needed by that point.” Mostly. Kind of. “I could have let him die and no one would have ever questioned it. I’m also not blind—I know what kind of mark I am. I’ve been targeted for most of my life.” Including by people like you. Whatever Fritz was seeing in Elanus’s expression, it seemed to be unnerving him.

“He risked his life to help me because he fell in love with me. I saved his life for the same reason. Everything that’s happened since then, including him rescuing over a hundred individuals declared outcasts by their own breaking society and left to die alone, in space?” Elanus grinned, shark-like. “That’s all just a bonus.”