Most of the TGFT council was gathered in the small room. Normally Hortan would have been deeply embarrassed to have to dress in front of so many people, but frankly he was too tired to care. He took the too small pants and the too large jacket with the name tag Horton.
"You need to stop doing that son," Waldoze said, "it will kill you real dead sometime soon."
"But I need to pay the guild back" Hortan stammered, the tears almost flowing both from the tiredness and the hopelessness of the situation.
"I refuse to believe that you are telling us the truth'" Surbius said from behind Hortan. "If you wanted to pay us, you could have done so in cash. I have seen the balance on your account. So please try again, why are you insisting on going to Latos?"
Hortan looked down to the floor. Vardonx sat down on the bench beside Hortan, and placed a hand on his shoulder.
"What is it mate, you can tell us"
"I needed to see her" Hortan whispered and refused to say more.
The matte black Corvus Vulturius with the larger than life CLM sign on the side, approached the the main dock at a speed much higher, not only than what was normally comfortable for the pilot, but especially for the crew working the ships. Ignoring the desperate pleas of the dock handler, the Vulturius slammed hard into the docking cradle with a precision born of many hours of flying. Ignoring the shocked cargo handlers, the pilot inside swung easily out of the cockpit and looked at the assorted trade vessels with a smirk. The Chief of the docks came flying, raging like an angry bull, with a mighty swearing streak that died the second he saw the pilot. Dressed in latex and leather, and not too much of it, the arterial blood red outfit fit her very nicely indeed. The only hard edges on her were the heavy projectile revolver on her left hip, and the frown she wore on her face. The same frown that made the Chief wither away, like early autumn frost before a thermonuclear explosion.
She ignored the chief and the dock hands and moved down towards the entrance to the TGFT part of the station. A single guard stepped up to her and demanded ID. She merely stared at him until he flinched and moved away. It was not that she did not have valid ID, it was not that she was wanted, it was merely the nuisance of having to provide it, that made her so hard on the guards. That, and the fact that she simply hated the too smug, easy bribable, rent-a-cops. With a flicker of her hand, she showed her credentials to the scanning bot at the entrance, and the admission light went green, to the surprise of most of the crowd looking. Which was at least all of the males, and some of the females too.
She went straight to the brains of the guild, the command centre. Not pausing the least, she ignored the two guards outside, and side stepped their clumsy attempt at halting her. Entering the holiest of TGFT, she steered straight for Ecka.
"Pappy, we need to talk"
Mor Isil and Vardonx walked Hortan down to his cubicle. Maybe walked was not the right phrase, dragged would be more describing. Vardonx opened the door and pulled Hortan over to the bunk. He sat down and looked at Hortan, the worry apparent on his face. Hortans eyes were closed and his breathing was easy.
"I think he is asleep" Vardonx said "lets leave him for now."
Mor and Isil left the room. As soon as they had left, Hortan opened his eyes. He lay still until he could no longer hear sounds outside the door. He got up from the bunk and headed for the door. He was just about to grab the handle and open, when a low knock came from the door. Startled, Hortan stopped breathing, and had to force himself to start again. He stood absolutely still and hoped that the person outside would go away. No luck, the knocking sounded again. Defeated once more, he opened the door. It was a girl with big brown eyes and brown hair, in a light blue flight suit. She looked at him and walked directly into his room without asking. As she entered, she turned and looked at Hortan, who was too stunned to speak.
"There is one thing i do not understand, just one thing."
Hortan remembered that an open mouth is generally not considered a sign of intelligence, nor even of sentience, and so closed his mouth. He closed the door too and turned around, the confusion now absolute.
"Bwah eh, how the why, huh?" Hortan replied in the best English his mother had taught him. In the internal mental picture he always ran, both his ego's strangulated themselves so as not to witness the next thing that happened. Deciding to attempt to gain the upper hand, Hortan tried acting cool. He took the chair, turned it so the back was in his front and sat down. With a leg on each side of the chair, the too small pants did what they were supposed to do when he sat. A kick to the groin would have been more merciful. Hortan fainted from the pain.
He must have died. Well, he wished he had died. He awoke on the floor, the girl sitting next to him. She had tried to find something to wake him with, and settled in the end for a bottle of Helio Mists. A single drop in the left nostril did the trick. Pain seemed to be his companion today. He sat up and looked into the brown eyes again. She looked back at him. Hortan decided that he refused to give in and stared more intensely. She smiled. He gave in and looked away, once more blushing like the engaged engines of a turboing Taur.
"You OK now?" her soft voice and Itani accent reminded him of an incident, he had had a year ago, and he blushed even harder.
"Yeah" he lied, "I am fine"
"So, I need you to help me understand, will you do that?"
"If I somehow can, sure" Hortan replied.
"How come you are trying to date The Huntress? I mean, she is a notorious pirate and you are a bor.., well not a very flashy, miner. What on Eo would the two of you have in common? "
Hortan smiled, and replied even though he knew she would not understand. "She is My Queen."
"Right, that explains a lot," the girl answered, the sarcasm stripping the paint off the walls, "care to elaborate?"
It took three hours and a pitstop at the vending machine to drag the information out of Hortan, but eventually the girl had the answers she needed. Once more life proved to be immensely more complex than previously thought. She was happy, but at the same time sad. Happy that she had solved her mission for Miexon, but so very sad that the shy kid opposite her would continue his destructive life until it would fizzle out in misery. And nobody would know why but her. She had to take a decision, and a very difficult one. Sometimes she loved her job, sometimes it was absolutely amazing. She had reached her decision. She smiled, he blushed even more. Good.
