Ravens of Eternity

Chapter 166

166 Throttling Up, Pt The doors to one of thousands of Helios’ Police & Security Stations opened with a SWISH. Like most of the other government buildings in Helios, these were relatively nondescript. Large, unassuming, and plain, they didn’t do much to stand out among the rest.

Eva, Miko, and Amal all walked out, followed by a middle-aged man wearing a pressed business outfit. His polished Helios Megacity Police badge hung visibly from his belt, almost like a mark of honor, or pride.

On that same belt, on his right hip was his standard-issue sidearm. It didn’t look particularly dangerous, but it was certainly lethal in its own way.

Eva turned around to the genial, bespectacled cop, and gave him a smile.

“Thanks for your time, captain,” she said.

“No, thank you,” he replied. “We’ve got a lot of people in need, and not enough people like you who wanna help.”

“Well, we aren’t quite fully set up just yet,” said Amal. “Still have lots to figure out, you know.”

The captain chuckled lightly to himself.

“Whatever the case may be,” he said. “Let me know once everything’s all set up and off the ground – I’ll make sure to start sending contracts your way. The faster, the better, eh?”

.....

The four waved to each other before parting ways. The captain went back into the station, while the three headed down the street towards their parked hopper. They got about halfway when a female voice called after them from behind.

“Hey! Wait up!”

The three of them stopped dead in their tracks and turned around. Smiles spread on their faces when they saw the uniformed police tech that had called out to them.

The girl ran up, stopped in front of them, and bent over as she caught her breath.

“Thanks for waiting,” said Claire. “Been a while since I’ve seen all of you, huh? Anyway, sorry for intruding, but I thought I saw... I was wondering if you three were talking to the colonial territories liaison officer, am I right? I just kinda wanted to make sure.”

“Don’t sweat it,” said Eva. “And yeah, we were in a short meeting with Captain Phillips.”

“About doing jobs in the colonies, right?”

“Pretty much. Why, what’s going on? Something wrong with the colonies? Or maybe the captain himself?”

Claire was taken aback, and shook her head quickly.

“Nothing like that,” she said. “I was just... uh, wondering about the bounty hunting game. You all seemed to enjoy yourselves, and made a good amount of money from it. Kinda want to know why you’re doing something different.”

“It was not really our game to begin with,” replied Miko. “Some people simply needed to be removed. Or at least struck.”

“Exactly,” added Amal. “We wanna do something better than that. Be better than that, you know? Aspire to greater, and all that.”

“Not that we’re gonna stop with the bounties any time soon,” interjected Eva. “Like Raijin said earlier, some people are born to be slapped. Aching to be slapped. Sometimes real, real hard.”

Her hand shook as she balled it into a furious little fist. Then she glanced at Amal a little sheepishly before putting the fist away.

“Except maybe not as often going forward,” she continued.

“Yes yes,” said Amal. “We all know about your bloodthirsty ways. But we aren’t gonna get much done if all your time is spent in the hospital, recovering from, shall we say, job-related injuries.”

Eva scoffed at Amal playfully.

“Isn’t that why you’re around now?” she teased.

“So, why the colonial territories then?” asked Claire. “Are you all planning to do some security stuff? That would kinda make sense why you were talking to the liaison captain.”

“We honestly are not sure,” said Miko. “We’re still in the process of gathering information. There is much for us to decide, and to do that, we must first know more.”

“Yeah, we figured we’d see what sort of contracts even pop up out there, you know?” said Amal. “We’ve got a lot of skills that we could put to use. Stuff like flying, building, healing.”

“Also stuff like hunting, finding, capturing,” added Eva.

“Or stealing, hacking, implanting,” said Miko.

“Whatever we can do,” said Amal. “However we can help. I’m sure lots of people need all sorts of stuff, but would we be able to do or give what they actually want? Talking to your captain really helped us figure out the kind of stuff people need help with.”

“Also, would we be able to sustain ourselves doing this sorta work?” said Eva. “Wouldn’t be much good if we started, say, bringing food out to the outer regions, but not being able to feed ourselves.”

“Do not forget seeing the galaxy,” chimed in Miko. “That is also a large part of why we chose the colonial territories. We will get to experience so many new places, and show it all on the ‘Cast.”

Claire’s eyes went wide as she realized their goals. Like they said, they wanted to broaden their horizons, and become better people at the same time.

“Doing good, touring the galaxy, and getting paid all at the same time,” said Claire. “That sounds like a dream... The best dream! So please, consider letting me join you!”

Claire grabbed Eva’s hand and squeezed it, as though doing so would grant her wish. She then grabbed Miko’s hand, and Amal’s hand, and brought them all to the center.

The three of them looked at each other quizzically, unsure of what to do.

“Please!” pleaded Claire.

“Th-the colonial territories are pretty dangerous, you know,” said Eva.

“I can handle myself!” Claire said. “I’ve got a hundred hours of security officer training! And I take weekly conflict resolution lessons!”

She let go of everyone’s hands, tapped on her standard-issue sidearm, and showed off a number of her law enforcement tools. She even shared a few accolades she had received in her career.

“That is perhaps not enough,” said Miko. “According to the captain, the territories are occupied by pirates, brigands, and even hostile nations’ troops and warships at times. These people are nothing like the criminals and bounties found on Helios.”

“I know that – I’m not dumb,” cried Claire. “And I know you all are super competent. I mean, I saw the full list of bounties you all brought in. I know I couldn’t do any of that, ever. It would take at least a dozen me’s to achieve what one of you could do... Which I get might make me a liability sometimes.”

“Exactly that,” said Amal. “Um. Not that you’re a liability, but we don’t want you to get hurt.”

“What, so it’s okay for you all to get hurt? I’m not allowed to scrape a knee or get shot at or whatever? I also wanna do something better for myself, for my life. For others’ lives. And I wanna see the galaxy too! (And maybe also get paid better than a regular cop would?)”

She looked at each of them in turn as she pleaded, her eyes slightly wet and wide. The three were honestly a little awed by Claire’s persistence. And her shamelessness.

“Okay, how about you think about it this way instead,” she continued. “You might be the most badass chicks in the whole damn galaxy, but I’ll bet not one of you is remotely good at admin work. Admit it – which one of you loves to do paperwork?”

Miko turned away and gave it serious thought. Although she didn’t mind paperwork, she certainly preferred to do other things. Doodling, for instance.

Amal opened her mouth to retort, but realized she too wasn’t a fan of paperwork. She recalled her 100-page academy application form, and shuddered.

“I definitely hate paperwork,” said Eva. “Especially when I’ve gotta fill out those god-awful bounty claim forms. Can’t you all make those more streamlined? I mean, that’s too many initials and signatures just to beat up a few bad dudes.”

“Yes! Exactly! See, I love filling out forms!” Claire cried out. “Lemme do the basic stuff – searching for contracts, organizing, scheduling. You get to not deal with the boring crap, and we all get to see the galaxy!”

“And get shot at,” said Miko.

Claire shrugged.

“So I’ll take care of the insurance claims,” she said. “I’m perfectly happy to trade in my boring desk job and live life right at the edge. Lemme take the risks, too. I’m not trying to waste away on Helios my entire life. I’m sure you all feel the exact same!”

Eva scratched at the back of her head, unsure of what to do. They all certainly felt the same way.

She looked at the other two for guidance, but they were also a bit lost.

“What about your boyfriend?” asked Eva. “And didn’t you want to move somewhere? Gilden? Gilcrest? Why not do that instead? I sorta remember you saying that was your dream.”

“Oh, I got rid of that guy a long time ago,” said Claire. “I really liked him too, but he was just keeping me down. And besides, it was you who told me to go after the things I want, didn’t you? Well, this is what I want now.”

“You’re really set on this, huh?”

Claire nodded squarely at Eva, who turned towards the other two Ravens.

“What do you two think?” she asked them.

“I’m not against her joining,” said Miko. “However we still have much to do before we can promise anything. The captain was merely the first of many we need to contact. Still, if we must vote now, I vote yes.”

“Plus we don’t even have a ship yet,” added Amal. “Though to be fair, we kinda need to nail down the sorta jobs we’re gonna be taking first, know what I mean? Like, if we need to have something with lots of cargo space, or with bigger guns, more sophisticated sensors. Too much to figure out.”

Amal tapped her lower lip with a finger as she thought about everything involved. Once they had the big picture of everything, then they could map out the jobs, then they could figure out what ship to get.

“But otherwise,” she continued, “yeah, it would be great to have you along! The fact that you’re a cop also means it’ll be easier for us to get stuff done. Like sneaking contraband across system borders and whatnot. I vote yes.”

Eva appraised Claire as Miko and Amal voted to let her join up. She was young, strong, tough. Just like all of them, despite not being a refugee, or a reborn, or anything. Claire was just a normal, everyday human.

Some might even describe her as ‘basic’, but Eva didn’t see that as derogatory at all. It simply meant she had the potential to rise above who she was.

And that was everything the Ravens were trying to be.

“I vote yes,” said Eva. “But we’re not gonna get going for a while. Like we’ve been saying – we’re still looking into things. This might not even get off the ground-”

“And it will!” interjected Amal.

“-but when we get to that point, we’ll send you a message. Is that good?”

Claire shook with excitement as energy coursed through her veins. She finally got the chance to get out of her rote life, and become someone who could be proud of herself, of where she was going.

Of who she was going to be.

“Yes!” she cried. “Hell yes!”