Objective_Campaign82
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Sins of the Father Ch48
🕑 Added 2023-07-28 14:58:04 +0000 UTCHard Truths, Soft lies
They walked in silence, Astarte scooping up a glass for herself while Rachel decided to take it slower.
She looked back up to where the pirate had been just moments before to see Judge surrounded by her mom’s fellow vipers looking harried and unhappy. His gaze wandered for a second and saw Rachel with Astarte, his eyes narrowed but he didn’t make any moves to get away or involve her. Obviously he didn’t want her to get involved there.
Her mother also noticed the pirates absence and gave Rachel a brief frown. Her mother was trying to tell Rachel through her displeasure that she didn’t like her daughter monopolizing their special guests’ time. Especially given what she knew about Rachels predilections.
Rachel pretended to be ignorant of all that. A plausible excuse given her years away from her mother.
“You know,” Astarte said, drawing her attention back to her new companion. “I never took you be so passive. Why didn’t you tell that girl to shove it?”
Rachel frowned “Shove what where?”
The pirate huffed in exasperation. “It’s a Terran expression. There’s a couple different ways to interpret it, but basically it means that she can take her bullshit and shove it up her ass.” The pirate said crudely.
Rachel looked from side to side to make sure no one heard her. “Must you be so crass?”
“Well I am just a jumped up street rat, these delicate high ladies will just have to forgive me.” She said blithely. “Again though, why did you let her corner you?”
Rachel sighed “I didn’t have much choice since she knows about my secret. She’s well connected and could ruin me.”
“What secret could she possibly know to have you so worried, are you in a cult?”
She blinked “no I’m not in a cult.”
The pirate turned and gave her a teasing grin. “Are you sure? I can almost picture you in a dark cloak with a creepy mask. Maybe a scary voice to match as well.” There was something in the way she said those last parts that made Rachel feel like Astarte was making a joke that only she knew the punch line to.
“No, I mean the other thing.” Rachel said through gritted teeth.
“Do you mean the thing where you can’t keep your eyes off me?” the pirate asked, her voice just loud enough that others might hear.
“Shut up” Rachel hissed. “And that’s not true.”
“Come on, the only reason I noticed you talking to that girl was because it was the first time you took your eyes off me all night. I’d be flattered if you didn’t look so pissed, last I checked I didn’t do anything to earn your ire.”
Rachel guffawed “you really don’t know? You toyed with my emotions and cheated on Karega in all but name.”
“Okay first, Kar and I are not an item. He and I have only ever been friends. So no cheating. Secondly, if you recall. You came onto me, then got upset when I called you on it.”
“I did no such thing!” she hissed.
“You’re the one who led me on a walk through your family garden, and you’re the one who asked if I was available to join you at this party. You even asked me on a date. So excuse me if I misread that.”
Okay, she could see how that could be misinterpreted. “I, I see your point.” Rachel said in defeat.
“But you still don’t admit to any possible attraction?”
Rachel scowled why did this pirate keep bringing it back to that. “Why are you even doing this?”
“I’ve made my case as clearly as I can” the pirate said, frustration touching her voice.
“That’s no that’s I mean.”
“I’m not a mind reader, even if you are an open book.”
“I mean-” Rachel said bitterly before pausing, what did she mean? “You, you, I’ve seen the way you look at the other men here. Even if you and Karega aren’t a couple why can’t you just pick a guy and leave me alone. You actually have a choice about it unlike me.”
“Dammed fuckin Union propaganda.” The pirate growled with a shake of her head. “How ignorant are you? Sure I have a few more options than you, but why should I ever limit my feelings for anyone.”
“Because its wrong, and because society disapproves!”
“This society disapproves” Astarte said pointedly, putting emphasis on ‘this’, as if there was some other society she knew about. “And I will never feel the least bit ashamed for being exactly who I am just for the sake of some assholes feeling.” She spat the last word and made a sour face. “Here’s a better question, why do you care? I can tell from a glance that you hate being here, hate just about everyone here, and would rather be anywhere else. So why bother?”
“I would be ruined if my secret got out.”
“Last I checked being gay isn’t illegal. And again, you hate these people. So why should you care if they know?”
“Because that’s not how things work. People can’t just do what they please, there’s an order to things, and to defy that order is to invite chaos.”
“And what’s wrong with a little chaos. Chaos in itself is not inherently evil. Chaos is the upset of the status quo, and in that upset better things can emerge.”
“Or worse things. War, plague, famine, death-”
“You leave my lawyers out of this.” Astarte interrupted.
“What?”
“What?”
Rachel stared at the pirate in bewilderment.
Her tirade stopped Astarte took the initiative. “You can’t honestly tell me that the current order is perfect. You live in constant fear of people learning who you really are. This isn’t some morale failing or great sin, your just attracted to women. You were born that way and are completely incapable of being otherwise. The current order thrives on shunning our differences rather than celebrating them. Deathworlders, and Terrans especially cannot fit into their mold, and as a result of that we live as second-class citizens in a Union that claims to support all species.”
“We’re not second-class citizens.” Rachel scoffed.
“Oh really?” Astarte seemed incredulous. “Tell me, do you know how many laws there are restricting the movement of Deathworlders? How many restrictions there are on expressing our culture? Did you know that Football is banned, both American and international?”
“What’s Football?”
“A sport where chase a ball and can only move around by kicking it.”
“Why not call it kick ball?”
“Because that’s a different sport. And that’s not the point, the Union banned Earth’s most popular sport because they thought it got us too riled up. And American football got banned for sharing the same name. Though given the full contact nature of that sport I can understand.”
Astarte’s description jogged her memory. She had been called in several times to break up similar sorts of games set up by a bunch of kids. Ordinarily it would be beneath the ADCU, but seeing one of their officers enforce the law instilled a good respect for the law early on. “It encourages violence. What if those players tried to kick a regular person?”
Astarte’s eyes flared “And there it is” she said triumphantly “they’re the normal people while we’re the freaks for being exactly what we are. To them it’s the normal people versus the Deathworlder freaks. We’re not seen as a contributing member of the Union, but a troublesome and deadly species that needs to be governed and corralled before they can grow too strong.”
Rachel opened her mouth to protest, but could she really? She didn’t find any flaws in the pirates assertions, but her impulse to defend the Union she had decided to serve prevented her from agreeing either.
She glanced around at the whole room. “What about these people, would you call them oppressed?” all around the room Human men and women were wearing the finest clothes and jewels available. They held real power on Unity even if they weren’t the most powerful or influential .
Astarte sneered “I don’t think the words I’d use to describe them would be acceptable for present company.” She said snidely. “But the term ‘race-traitor’ does come to mind.”
Rachel coughed in surprise. “Race-traitor?” she asked incredulously. These were the people the Pirate was supposedly trying to impress and align with. The very same people Astarte was chatting up and smiling at just minutes ago.
She shrugged and continued walking. “It fits.” She said blithely.
“How so?”
She gave Rachel a sidelong look. “A good half to two-thirds of the families present have made their fortunes off the exploitation and oppression of Terrans. Your own parents for example are in the business of private prisons. They literally make money from the continued incarceration of their own people. They then further exploit those convicts by offering then in-prison manufacturing jobs with a pay of one credit and day. Which is a tenth of what a single meal on the outside costs. That little blonde girls family used that prison labor to build armored excursion suits to allow non-Terran species to survive Earth’s surface. Those suits were used to allow non-Terran officers to police Terran cities on Earth. Those forces were often harsh, excessive, and notoriously corrupt. The only reason your family and hers have been lost their cash cow was because paramilitary organizations around the world rose up and literally kicked them off the planet.”
Rachel watched the impassioned look on the pirates face. If she hadn’t known that Astarte was a criminal who had probably done much worse she would almost believe her passion. “So to summarize. You think the whole Union has a grand vendetta against Terrans, that all the people here are race traitors, and that I should just ignore what they think and do whatever the hell I want” Rachel said blandly.
“Pretty much.”
Rachel shook her head. “I get where your coming from. But I can’t think like that. That’s how criminal’s and terrorists justify their crimes. Maybe things are bad, but you can’t fix that by being selfish.”
Astarte looked sad at that. “Its not selfish to want to be happy.”
She sighed, “maybe, maybe not.”
They walked in silence, well Rachel did at least. Several people came up to Astarte to strike up a conversation before she politely excused herself. And though the pirate spoke Rachel could see her mind was wandering.
When they were alone again Astarte broke the silence. “Who was that girl anyway?”
“What girl?” Rachel asked.
“The blonde girl with that gratingly fake ‘cutesy’ voice.” She explained, putting air quotes around cutesy to show what she really thought of it.
“Oh, that was just Vivian.” Rachel said quickly. She didn’t want to talk about Vivian and hoped Astarte would just drop it.
But Astarte didn’t. “I know that. I’ve done more than my fair share of research for all the potential players.” That made sense, Astarte had mentioned the Wells’ business as if she was intimately familiar with it. “What I meant was what’s the history between you two?”
Rachel looked down at the glass in her hands. “She’s just the standard I could never live up to. My parents always compared me to her, always pointed out all the ways I was lacking compared to her.” She took in a deep breath, “She was also the first person I met who was like me. You know, in that way.” Rachels hand shook slightly before she could stop herself, she hoped Astarte didn’t see it.
But as was common in her life her hopes fell short of reality. “Ah fuck!” the pirate cursed. “I take it that whatever happened afterwards wasn’t exactly pleasant.”
Rachel stared deeper into her drink. “It wasn’t… unpleasant-”
“Not the same” the pirate interrupted. “Did you consent?”
Rachel blinked. It seemed the pirate already came to wrong conclusion. “Yes, the night sort of bleary but I remember saying that much.”
The pirates concerned look didn’t change. “Okay, let me ask a different question. Did she bring you a drink to break the ice, or did you already have quite a few.”
Rachel blinked, what kind of question was that. “No, she brought me one. It was my first drink of the night.”
“And everything got bleary?”
Rachel nodded “Yes, I didn’t have a good tolerance back then.”
The pirates scowl deepened, and she saw her hands tighten into a trembling fist. “You stupid girl, you didn’t have a bad tolerance you got ruffied for fucks sake. By the saints your so ignorant it hurts.”
“Ruffied?” The word sounded English, but she had no idea what it meant.
“Date rape drug. Its why you don’t take drinks from strangers, everyone knows that.”
Rachel blinked, date-rape-drug. She shook her head “No It wasn’t, I said yes.”
She rolled her eyes, and was about to say something, but then remembered where she was. “This isn’t the time, or place. But after this I would like to take you to my ship to show one of our mandatory harassment training videos.”
“You have mandatory harassment training videos?” Rachel asked incredulously. She had to sit through a few of those at the CSP. Though they were more in the realm of cultural sensitivity between officers. “Why?”
Now the pirate looked incredulous. “Uh, why not. We wouldn’t want any of that happening to our crew, and we certainly don’t want our crew doing the same.”
If that was true, and was certain it was, then what kind of pirates were these people. Then again Byron was somewhat famous for strictly enforcing a no rape policy in his attacks. Just murder, theft, ransom, and kidnapping. So maybe Astarte picked it up from him.
Something else occurred to her. Astarte had just invited her aboard her ship. Whatever the pirates true intentions were, inviting Rachel aboard was literally the whole point of her ‘undercover’ work. They couldn’t get a warrant for the Astaroth, and anything less than ironclad would be torn to shreds by the pirates’ absurdly competent lawyers. But inviting an officer aboard meant that anything in plain sight was fair gain.
Rachel almost felt giddy at the idea, she might be able to put this whole case to rest tonight. Then the harsh reality of what that meant sank in. She would be betraying Astarte’s trust to get her and all her friends arrested.
Astarte, the space pirate who seemed oddly concerned for her feelings and wellbeing.
God this sucked, why couldn’t Astarte just be like all the other heartless criminals she met? Why did she have to be so nice?
A bell rang and they both looked towards the sound. A set of double doors had just opened up. “Looks like the dinner portion of the evening has begun.” Astarte said as she stood up straighter and wore a slight smile. “Would you care to join Kar and I?”
She blinked; her previous train of thought forgotten. “Are sure that’s alright?”
The pirates smile became mischievous “And if it isn’t. who’s going to stop us two gals from being pals.” Again, she seemed to be making a joke Rachel had no context for.
“No one I guess.” She said uncertainly.
The pirates smirked faltered and she sighed “Maybe I should show you a primer on Terran culture as well.” She muttered to herself and she led Rachel onwards.
Comments
Alphonso
In the far future there is only GOLF.
ta583
It would be quite amusing if Rugby somehow avoided being banned because technically it's Rugby Football, but no-one seems to use it as more than perhaps in the abbreviation RFC.
Objective_Campaign82
One of my favorites too.
Adeyemi Oyemade
The Lawyer joke had me actually laughing out loud.
