Ronin's Burden

Posted on Sat May 28th, 2016 @ 9:45pm by Ronin & Isaura Panossian
Edited on on Sat Jun 18th, 2016 @ 10:50pm

Mission: Further Challenges
Location: The Cherry Pit

* The Cherry PIt *

Ro watched as the doors closed to Rhian’s guest quarters, then leaned back against them with a sigh. He had been utterly unprepared for what this evening had thrown at him and he knew he was in deep trouble. He hadn’t expected Rhian to be so...so….yeah. He didn’t even want to think about that. What he needed to do was get moving, get away from her door. Without warning, her door opened suddenly and Ro fell backwards to the floor, his view a close up one of her bare leg showing through the slit of her dress. Damn

“Need something?” he managed to ask.

“Do you?” Rhian laughed softly and nudged him with her toe. “I was just going to ask if you’d heard from Isa and Kaeli.”

“No, not yet but I am very sure I will soon.” He rolled off his back and jumped to his feet. “I’ll tell them you said hello.”

“You do that.” A wicked gleam had appeared in her eyes as she watched him back out into the corridor. “Goodnight Ro.”

“Yeah..night.”

He turned and all but ran to his own quarters. As soon as he entered, he crossed to the desk and sat down. Once he had a channel open, he began to untie his bowtie. He was only partly done when Isa’s face appeared.

“Isa. Interrupting I presume?”

“You know it,” Isa grumbled, a sheet held against her breasts. Her coloring and the tousled state of her hair revealed just what she’d been up to until a moment ago. “You and Raf can settle it when we get back. Now why are you calling me?”

Ronin finished with his tie and tossed it aside, then loosened his collar. “A few things, the main one I’ll get to in a moment. How’re things there?”

“Ah,” she glanced into the shadows behind her then said, “Cooling down at the moment. We’re through the wormhole now, so we’re well on our way.”

“You should be about a day and a half out by now, yeah?” Ro sighed aloud. That meant almost a week before they would be home.

“Yeah, about that. You seem a little ... frustrated?”

Ro snorted. “Vast understatement sweetheart. But first, how’s Kae?”

Looking a little shifty, Isa shrugged and hedged around that. “Oh, Kae... um... she’s well, yeah, she’s occupied. Nicely occupied.” She nodded and smiled, glad that he couldn’t touch her to read her thoughts. She was also glad the sounds from Kae’s quarters had, for the moment, stopped.

“How?” Ro frowned slightly. He had a feeling he was about to have a second reason for a headache. “Come on, might as well tell me.”

“Well, Suresh sent one of his lackeys with us - Patch, the Cardie? You might have seen him around Saturnalia. You know, grey skin, neck ridges, shiny dark hair?” She smiled. “Jarad’s not happy.”

“Why isn’t he--?” Belatedly, he caught Isa’s point and smacked his forehead. “Shit. How unhappy is he?”

“Hmm... Patch might need to lay low for a while,” she guessed. “But Jarad is going to hold Drekkar at bay, so our little trip should go off just fine.”

“At least something good is happening,” Ronin muttered. “Drekkar’s been a pain in the ass over your sudden absence. At least he can’t read thoughts or we would all be sunk.” He frowned then. “Why would Kaeli’s attention suddenly wander? That’s odd.”

“Suddenly? Well... it might be more that she’s angry. Jarad put trackers on her again. We found them and removed them. Patch did, that is,” Isa replied and smiled at him. “Payback’s a bitch.”

“It most certainly is.” A certain departed redhead danced through his thoughts. “Just make sure Patch is aware. I’ll square it with Suresh, make sure he knows that it might be a good time for Patch to take care of some away business.” He brushed back his hair. “Anyway, there’s something we need to talk about.”

“Is there? What is it? Rafe and Zarv are with me, so ....you shouldn’t be having any issues?” Isa looked at him closely. “Whatever it is, it’s causing you some wrinkles, isn’t it?”

“Gee thanks.” Ro’s tone was pure sarcasm. “It’s our little stowaway and it started with a dress with too high a slit.” He rubbed his eyes for a moment. That wasn’t exactly how he’d intended to bring up this subject.

“Slit? Really?” She gave him a doubtful look. “I have the feeling that the slit that’s bothering you isn’t the dress’s slit.”

Ro rolled his eyes but she had a point, he realized, and nodded. “You do have a gift for getting right to the point, don’t you? She showed up tonight, wanting to go to the Nexus and I didn’t even recognize her at first. She’s not a...kid, no matter what we may think. And it only gets better.” His tone made it clear that ‘better’ wasn’t exactly what he meant.

She laughed. “Yeah, that was a little crass, huh? You didn’t take advantage, though, did you? I mean... she’s what? Four years old?”

“Three. As Marabeth kept telling me, she is about my age in Ocampa years.That did not help.” In the least, he thought. “There’s more. She has made friends with the other Ocampa here, the pilot. Remember him? She says he wants to ditch the Fleet and join...us.”

“Ocampa Fleet pilot?” Her brows furrowed and she shook her head slightly. “Not ringing a... wait... he’s young; isn’t he even younger than Rhian? At least, if I’m thinking of the right guy, he seemed somehow... younger. Having him join us... it’s his choice, but the Fleet’ll likely be pissed.”

“She says he is her age.” Ro nodded then. “The Fleet won’t like it but he’s an enlisted. The problem is that he knows my ‘other’ occupation. He was the pilot on that alien recovery mission.”

“Oh. Well, could that be erased or swear him to secrecy? Of course, he could spill those secrets to Rhian anyway, even without joining our crew.”

“His security clearance was raised because of that mission. He’s….I don’t know Isa. With us adding Paz and Falon to replace Jock and...Olivia, things are tight. Rhian kindly offered to give him her cabin and move across the hall, with me.”

“They aren’t that tight, Ronin, and you know it!”, Isa protested. “We have ten bunks on that ship; without Drekkar, we should be fine.” Granted, she hadn’t counted how many they numbered now. Mentally, she went through the list: Joe, Zarv, Rafe (who didn’t count - he didn’t have his own quarters), Jarad and Kaeli, Ronin, Rhian, Paz and Falon - eight filled beds. “Yeah, we should have room; no need for her to bed down with the likes of you.” She winked at him.

“Exactly,” Ro agreed. “As I said to Joe, I’m in her crosshairs in a big way. I don’t know that Awf is ready for the life we lead. He sees the young, wild, carefree Rhian. Not the one who hops into a poker game and reads everyone’s mind and takes all their money.”

“Perhaps we could take him for a spin when we get back, show him what life on a pirate ship is really like. Maybe we could find another shipment of t’blu,” she said, referring to the half-boar, half-porcupine animals they’d transported once. Once had been enough. The feeding, the watering ...the clean up. She made a face remembering how Zarv and Rafe had reeked of shit. She hadn’t let Rafe sleep with her during that trip and she’d had to promise she would never take livestock on again.

“That sort of shipment wouldn’t scare him I don’t think. What concerns me is something like the trip where we picked up Olivia and all of us were almost killed by the Syndicate there.”

“Oh yeah. Gods, I really hope we never get on their radar again. That was... awful. Oh. maybe Suresh could set us up with a mock Syndicate attack? Something fakely bloody and scary?”

Ro snorted. “He hangs around with us long enough, it will happen for real. I have reservations, Isa. Serious ones.”

“Then we deny his request to join the crew,” she said, wondering why that was a tough question. “Leave him as a Fleety and we’ll be safe.”

“We’ll see how it goes. I think it would end up better if he decides that on his own but I wanted you to be aware of what’s up. Tell Kae that if she gets Patch killed, we’ll never hear the end of it.”

“From who.. Oh, Suresh? Psh... he was easy on me even though I stole the Ning from him,” she laughed. “I don’t think he’d do anything about Patch.”

Ro shook his head. “I think you’re wrong there. A ship, when you have his kind of money, can be replaced. A loyal soldier, not so much.”

“Maybe that’s why he didn’t kill me,” she muttered, thinking about how quickly he’d turned to her for a task. One she willingly took on. One she looked forward to completing in the most gruesome manner possible. She knew Kaeli wanted it to go quickly, smoothly, undetectably; Isa had other plans. “Right, loyalty. Very important. I appreciate all the loyalty that comes my way, too, by the way. Just sayin’. We’ll think about Awf some more. We have time. Maybe another solution will present itself.”

“And my problem? Any suggestions there? Please tell me you have some?” Ro pleaded.

“Cold showers? Some good oil and a few minutes alone?” She shrugged and chuckled. “For her, maybe remind her how old you are comparatively? Maybe hint that you’re all dried up and crinkly?”

“Hey!” Ro protested. “I am not! Comparatively speaking, according to Marabeth, I am only 4 years older than her. She’s almost approaching middle age, comparatively.”

“Uh-huh. She looks nothing like a middle aged anything,” Isa laughed, shaking her head. “Hold on for a couple of weeks, Ro, we’ll get this resolved.”

“Promise me you’ll be careful? I know you Isa. I know how impulsive you can be,” Ronin warned. “Just get in and get out. Please?”

“Of course! I look forward to getting in and out with Boroca,” she smiled sweetly, thinking of how she wanted to slide a knife into and out of Boroca’s eye. “Don’t worry about us.”

“Yeah, not happening. I always worry. Later chickadee.” Ronin closed the channel and sat, enjoying the silence. Soon, though, it got to be too much. He rose and entered his bedroom to change. He needed to see Joe.

**************
Capt’n Isaura Panossian
First Mate Ronin The Tempted