It was a relatively uneventful warp-journey to the Wolf 359 system. The Aegis made a fast passage with Navigator Yasha Saurlance at the helm but exited the Warp much further out-system than usual, resulting in wasting several days burning in-system before beginning the survey work. It was all quite routine stuff: check that no asteroids were wandering outside their expected belts, the planets were all in their usual orbits, and no additional space stations or debris fields had been added since the last update a half-century ago. You stand your watches dutifully, but much of the 'off-duty' paperwork is reduced to manageable levels, leaving you with time on your hands. With the less-than-perfect expedition to Altia lurking in the back of your mind, you decide to spend some more time with Morrigan, both to see if you can improve your tactics and skills, and to see if you can learn some more about her. Her twitches upon entering and exiting the warp, and her habitual persistence in overseeing the transit security details are both oddities you decide you need to look into.

With this in mind, you decide to 'wander by' and train with her on the pistol range. You are still no good with a rifle or shotgun at long range but you are a fair hand with pistols and she never seems to bother with them, so (perhaps foolishly) you decide to challenge her to a pistol competition. It seems the only contest you have a chance of winning, given her demonstrated match in speed and skill but greater strength she has shown in past sparring matches.

You settle on a simple competition: autopistols, human silhouettes, best of seven rounds, each round best score out of ten bullets: kill-shots worth two, wounds one, misses nothing. She takes the first three rounds handily, but you manage to squeeze out the fourth round by a single point, and ace the next two, leaving it all up to a tie breaking seventh round.

Reloading your magazine, you decide to ask Morrigan some probing questions to see if you can put her off her game. An underhanded tactic for sure, but it may also get more information than she is willing to reveal if she chooses to concentrate on her shooting. "Well Morrigan, I admit I didn't expect you to be quite so good with a pistol. you are always using a hellgun and never carry a sidearm, so why bother keeping up the skills?"

She pauses in her reloading and cocks an eyebrow at you, "Didn't ye read up on my homeworld of Dagda? It’s a deathworld alright, but it got that classification mostly because of its critters. Pieholes, basically flying snakes with a right nasty bite and a bad habit o' eating human flesh. Hexatigers and Deepbears, carnivores with big fangs, bigger claws, and fouler tempers. Bloodviper snakes digging into and through anything to keep warm at night. And their littler, meaner cousins: Hellshrikers. They get their name because of the sound you make after the bite you but before the poison finally kills ye. And then there's the plants. Beautiful but killer, the lot of them. Everybody carries at least a sidearm and a knife as soon as they can walk. But I kept the skills up after the Eldarim incident. Was in a boarding fight with Void Pirates when I lost the originals," she wiggles her augmetic fingers, "to one of the damned bastards. Stabbed him in the guts and left him to bleed out, but took his sidearm. Couldn't shoot a rifle properly with only one hand, and didn't figure my chances were so good with just a knife. So I had to figure out to shoot a pistol all over again right quick. The little thing was a bit helpful in that it fired out a hail of sharp discs, so my bad aim was more wasteful of ammo then anything else. But I made a promise to myself that day to not let my skills slip so badly again. Now, are ye gonna finish loading or just gab Tristan?"

You thumb the last cartridge into the magazine, "Nah, there's a tie to break and bragging rights on the line now. Flip a coin for first shots?" You hold up a one-Throne coin to illustrate you point.

Morrigan shakes her head, "ye get first go, if ye answer one question for me first. How did a dandy like yerself learn how to shoot a sidearm, but not a rifle? Did ye never go hunting or nothing?"

The question throws you for a moment, but only until you remember that Morrigan doesn't have access to the kind of background information that Zheeves digs up for you on a regular basis. "No, I never went hunting. Spent too much time learning numbers, history, how to make friends, and properly duel foes for that. How else did you think I picked up the fancy footwork to keep up with a woman who could probably bench-press my skinny ass?"

Morrigan laughs and flexes her arms, "Scrawny little scholar eh? No wonder ye can’t hold your drink then. The look on you face after that first sip of whitesnake, ye looked like you had just swallowed a sourbriar tart whole. Ah well, take yer shots then, before ye get to gabbin too much."

You shrug and take your stance at the firing line. Your first four shots go into the target's chest, but only one winds up a 'killshot' in the target's heart. The fifth misses, but only by a little bit. Feeling emboldened, you decide to go for headshots with your final five shots. The first shot punches neatly through the targets nose, but you are over eager, and the seventh, eighth, and ninth shots miss. You take a breath and place your final round of the match through your targets' left eye. "Nine points, despite four misses. Not terrible, if I do say so myself."

You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

Morrigan snorts in derision, "I can see why ye favor a foehammer then, despite the fact that the thing can break yer wrists if ye use it wrong. Harder to miss with it. My turn." She places her first six rounds into the target's chest, four of them into its heart. Her seventh and eighth miss, the cost of rushing the shots, but the ninth round finds the chest, and the tenth the targets head. "Think I take this contest, so why don't we get down to why ye came down here in the first place eh? A shipmaster doesn't just 'stop by' without another motive in mind, and yer question earlier means yer trying to find out more about my past, the kind of things book-learning can't cover. But I won the contest, so ye will be answering as many questions as ye ask. Bosun's got a right to know what kind of Shipmaster she is serving under."

Fair is fair you think, and so ask you first question with care, "How did a Deathworlder girl get onto a Defense Monitor? I thought those things didn't carry many marines, much less local levies."

Morrigan sits down on a handy crate and pulls out a flask, "Replacement for a couple of amadán that got drunk and picked a fight on shore leave. Idiots pulled knives on a man and tried to take his money, but old Lutcha was having none of that and pitched 'em right through a store window. Shore Patrol showed up looking for them the next day and signed on volunteers when they found 'em dead. I went along because I'd always felt a need to wander the stars. Void pirates showed up the next week, and that was that. How about ye? How'd a scholar end up owning a ship?"

You find a seat of your own, "That's a much longer tale, but the gist of it is that my Family, the Von Sebastions, has always been heavily into trade. I was training to take on management of one of out business factors, but I had to finish my thesis first." Seeing Morrigan's slightly confused look, you explain, "A big final work to show that you have mastered everything that your teachers have been trying to teach you. With my Family's connections, I hitched a ride to write down details about the past of the frigates caught in the edges of the Kania Maw. Little risky if I do say so myself, but they were rumored to be old and storied ships. Little did I know, but the ship I was aboard was there to do more than just survey work, it was there to pull the Aegis out of the Maw and get her back into service. When the boarding parties had declared her safe, I went aboard to study what I could of her logs, to learn of her past. The voyage back to Viking aboard her was... not pleasant, but she did have a rather storied past indeed, so I set out to make her mine after turning in my thesis. Better to walk the stars then sit in an office all day filling out forms. little did I know that they would follow me into space as well! But what is with the shudder and devotion to duty while we are in the Warp? More leftovers form the Eldarim incident?"

Morrigan nods, and takes a large swallow form her flask before answering, "Aye, you could say that. The void pirates jumped in right on top of us, and I've no idea how we didn't get flung into the warp. Maybe because they were coming instead of going? I've no idea, better to leave that to them as can stare into the warp and not go barking mad. Why did ye trust me to pick out a Helmsman and Master of Ordinance anyway?"

You blink at her abrupt shift in topic, and decide that there is more of a story there, but Morrigan really doesn't want to share it. That being the case, you decide to answer her question and go prying at a later date, or perhaps have Zheeves do the prying. "That was mostly Zheeves. He has worked with and for me and my House for a long time, so I trusted him to pick out or pick through your selections for each of the crew positions. He did a background check on Simo and Frank, found nothing that would get then into trouble and that they had the skills you had claimed, and approved them. I think the fact that they were willing to sign up played a part too, we're not exactly swimming in Thrones after all of the effort I put into getting the Aegis."

Morrigan does a spit-take at your last line. "Not swimming in Thrones? I'm getting almost five thousand a month! That's enough to buy a house, land, and live fat and happy for a year back on Dagda."

You nod, "Aye, and we made almost six hundred thousand Thrones, after paying everyone, just on that last cargo run. Getting our merchandise back was more for honor's sake than the value of the kit. Well, that and the Planetary Defense Force probably wouldn't be happy with heavy weapons floating around in the hands of gangsters and scum. Speaking of, how would you have gone about that raid? you mentioned something about breaching charges and frag grenades...?"

Morrigan nods. "Aye. I'd have had someone look over that place for a week at least. If we had to go in, you picked the right entry points at least. Otherwise I'd have waited until they were fast asleep before knocking down the door. Probably wouldn't have used a breaching charge unless I had a Demolitions Woman to hand, didn't want to bring the whole place down. But block off the front door, picket the windows, and kick in the back works well enough most times. Frags in a small room, particularly if the scum are still waking up and the door is banging off the hinges, tends to result in a short fight though. Hard on the clean-up crew, but easy on the shooters."

Your microbead chirps, so you decided to wrap it up, "That was Zheeves, we're due to enter the warp for the Helia system in a few hours. Thanks for the advice though, and for tracking down those grenades. Next time we have to shoot someone or blow up a building, you get to lead the way, there is much I can learn from you."

Morrigan takes one last swig before standing up and heading out, "Aye. I'll see to the transit detail then."