Interlude-Crew I

In the aftermath of yesterday’s battle and interrogation, people had made themselves scarce. Between Detective Loen’s task force, the Port Authority forces, the dockworkers, administrators, and the crew of the Jack, nearly a hundred people had been sitting on high alert for days, just bracing for the attack.

They all needed a break.

Or, that’s what they all wanted. Most of them even got it.

But this had always been just a layover for the Jack and her crew. ‘Her’ crew. That was an oddity that Deg had yet to understand. Caleb insisted the ship was a ‘she’. It seemed like the kind of thing the Vorak might do.

The Human was an odd one, for sure, but Deg was reassured by watching him interact with the Warlock. When they’d first arrived on Lakandt, Ase Serralinitus had warned them about friction between Nai Cal-Yan-Ti and Caleb Hane.

But to Deg’s surprise, when he’d finally met them, the two of them were nothing but amicable.

He, like practically every Farnata, trusted the Warlock’s judgment. Being on the same crew as her, it surprised him to learn exactly how young she was, but she’d earned her reputation regardless of her age.

So when she and Caleb announced a chaotic scheme to get information out of the pirates they’d just apprehended, Deg was all for it.

Looking at the results?

He hadn’t been wrong.

“It’s going to take months to verify all this,” Detective Loen said. In his hands was a heavy collated packet summarizing the many utterances the pirates had given under interrogation. The packet of actual transcript was even thicker.

“Putting it mildly, aren’t you?” Deg asked.

The Detective had requested one of the crew go over the information with him and timing had tapped Deg for the job. He didn’t think Serral had just assigned a Farnata crew member to work with the Farnata Detective…

Then again, maybe it was the other way around. The Detective had been helming a Casti task force on Sidar. It was unlikely he’d worked with one of his own people in months.

“Think the Organic Authority is going to want to know about these pirates?” Loen wondered.

“Absolutely,” Deg said. “We’ve got a loose standing arrangement with them to inform them of anyone we know who’s had contact with a Human.”

“Isn’t that going to be a bit hard though?” Loen pointed out. “Since it turns out there’s a second group?”

Deg turned his own eyes to Caleb and Nai’s collated reports.

Not one, but two pirate groups had come across four Human-filled ships floating on the edges of Mummar. Even worse, these pirates didn’t strictly belong to either of them.

The forty-two detainees (and one corpse) belonged to an anti-Adept organization that spanned this system and the next, self-stylizing themselves as the Unbent. But they’d picked up their psionics and Adept-weaponry from a different unsavory group, the Mak. The word meant ‘tallies’ or ‘scratches’, but the pirates had been concerningly consistent in that detail.

The Mak were the ones with the Humans, and they weren’t out here on Sidar or Sodar.

Caleb hadn’t visibly darkened when he’d learned that, but Deg knew him at least well enough to know the news wouldn’t thrill him.

It hadn’t, and even Detective Loen had been able to guess as much.

“I wasn’t sure what to think first laying eyes upon your First Contact friend…” Detective Loen said.

“Now you’re not so undecided?” Deg asked.

“That alien’s the kind of thing that makes my blood start itching in my veins,” the detective said. “How long did it take him to come up with that scheme? Battle wasn’t five minutes through before he was eager to start hammering questions into the captives’ skulls, and that’s not even talking about how convincing the whole thing was.”

“He and the Warlock have this trick, see? They get in each other’s heads, link up and exceed the limits of a single person,” Deg said. “It’s why the battle was so short and bloodless. It’s my first time seeing it in person, but just once has me believing. Nothing could match them. Compared to Draylend, this would have been a pleasant seaside stroll.”

“And you’re just going to be vague about Draylend?” Loen asked.

“Very classified,” Deg apologized.

“…If this fight really was that easy, what are the chances their—is it their?—minds were on other things during the excitement?” the detective asked.

“Undoubtedly,” Deg said. “I think our Warlock already had a plan in mind when she brought them in alive.”

“Well spooky alien and Warlock aside, bringing our quarry in alive keeps on giving me good,” Loen said. “All of a sudden, everyone’s forgotten how many months it took to catch these scrapes. Local law is downright ecstatic they finally get to put them on trial. These pirates have a lot to answer for.”

“Courts happy enough to overlook Caleb’s…’creative interview strategies’?” Deg inquired.

“I definitely smudged a few regulations allowing that,” the Detective admitted. “But catching them in the act pretty much erases the chance we got the wrong people, and they killed a lot of folk in previous raids. So if any of them were feeling litigious, I don’t think there’s anyone on this rock or the next willing to represent them. That said…”

“We shouldn’t go bragging about our role in this?”

“That’d be: yes.”

“Well, don’t worry, Detective, I haven’t flown with Nai that long, but long enough to know she’s not the bragging type. If our crew’s names never come up, it’ll be alright by all of us.”

“No promises,” Loen said, turning to yet another new page of transcript. “…Huh. Your ship was over in Port Kensher a week or two ago, right?”

“Yes, why?”

“One of these pirates says they heard someone was trying to make trouble for you,” Loen said. “Number sixteen. It’s on page nine…”

Deg flipped to the spot and read.

Interesting.

The pirate had heard about someone offering money to make trouble for a crew with a Human. More specifically, this pirate had heard of a few dock overseers taking that money.

Compared to the other, more verifiable information Caleb’s interrogation yielded, the account was pure hearsay. But that this pirate had heard of anything even remotely resembling that was suspicious.

Someone had it out for them, and it didn’t appear to be any of the groups of pirates. Could it be Kemon? The pirate hunter didn’t appear to have a clear motive, but without any alternate suspects…

Well, Deg had never been an excessively qualified investigator.

“What’s it like, your job?” he asked idly.

“Pays well,” Loen said. “I have to move around a lot, but only because I’m not attached to any local department. There’s a lot of upside to that. My contract with the planetary bodies more or less means I go where I’m needed.”

“Exclusively on Sidar and Sodar?” Deg asked.

“Mostly Sidar,” the Detective nodded. “More crime in need of investigating there. I’ll probably revisit the contract terms in a year or two. Maybe travel. Not sure where I’d go though.”

“When I first met Caleb we wound up stumbling our way through an investigation into some…things…I can’t actually talk about. But we were crawling all over High Harbor and I couldn’t help but feel pretty useless whenever it came time to talk with local Casti.”

“Which, on Lakandt, I imagine was frequently,” Loen chuckled.

“Less than you’d think,” Deg mused. “But the rest of the time we were actually talking to local Vorak, so yeah, still then too.”

“…You’re wondering what I think about being me on some very Casti planets,” the Detective concluded.

“I am,” Deg nodded.

“I honestly don’t notice it much,” he answered. “But that’s because I landed in this job because I ran away from my old life. I might not be the best person to ask.”

“Did your old life need running away from?”

“Yes,” Loen answered without hesitating. “At least I think my reasons were good. I didn’t leave anyone who needed me behind.”

“Family? Or something else? If you don’t mind me asking,” Deg said.

“Spouse,” Loen answered. “It’s a complicated story not fit for polite company…but what about you? Plenty of Farnata in the Coalition navy, but since you’re not Adept, you aren’t the standard model, are you?”

“I signed up to make my folks proud,” Deg admitted. “I didn’t turn out Adept, but my parents talked a lot about how lucky I was to still have both of them. So I felt it was a duty of mine to do my part.”

“Dangerous way of thinking, quite honestly,” Loen said.

“I know. Now, at least. But even knowing, I still can’t help but feel I should do something that matters.”

“Doesn’t everyone? Seems even Humans do. Why wouldn’t that be universal?”

·····

Tasser was the last crew member to board the Jack before launching toward Cammo-Caddo.

He knew the Jack would receive a few angry transmissions from Sidar authorities over the next few days, demanding to know why they didn’t stick around.

Tasser would never admit it to the Captain’s face, but his willingness to outright ignore civilian authorities on certain matters made the Ase his favorite commanding officer.

If Serral had refused every single civilian correspondence, it would have actually lowered his esteem in Tasser’s eyes. But the Captain was just so good at circumventing the pageantry that went into any Casti function more formal than a family picnic.

Spending so much time among transport unions and dockworkers these last few months had been a welcome surprise for Tasser. Pragmatic, with limited patience for contrivance. ‘Blue-collar’ people, as Caleb put them, were Tasser’s sort of people.

Which was why he couldn’t pin down his ship’s captain. He liked the Ase, for sure. But he didn’t understand him well enough.

“You confuse me sometimes,” Serral said.

Tasser blinked.

If he’d understood psionics any less, he might have thought Serral had just read his mind.

“Right back at you, Captain,” he said.

“I’m just thinking about Caleb and Nai putting together that interrogation,” Serral said. “Not everyone would be eager to be involved in that. Not everyone would be eager to be involved with First Contact at all.”

“I’m committed,” Tasser shrugged. “Even if there was some reason I might back out, I was never one for half-doing anything. In addition to the fact that I don’t have a reason to back out.”

“You and Nai are both committed. I mean, I know why Nai committed,” Serral nodded. “I made her, after all. But what made you commit? At the beginning, I mean. From the moment you both rolled into Demon’s Pit, it seems like the two of you were ready to stare down anything for each other—you and Caleb, I mean. I know you and Nai have been friends longer. Nerin’s here because she wanted to help, and she could, but also to be with her family. But you’re not doing all this just to follow Nai. Why are you here?”

“That’s not really a great mystery,” Tasser shrugged. “Caleb and I are similar, that’s all. An alien who couldn’t speak a word I understood wanted to understand me more than any of my own kind ever had. After that, well, it was just impossible not to try to do the same.”

“…I keep finding myself surprised by his person,” Serral admitted. “What insight do you have into our brave Human?”

“We’re similar,” Tasser repeated easily. “It’s not in the same ways, or to the same degree…but neither he nor I are welcome among our own kind.”

“…Did he say that?” Serral asked. “That other Humans would see him the way the most of Nakrumum would care to see you?”

“…No,” Tasser admitted. “But then we don’t exactly have a lot of Humans to put the idea to the test. But even if he’s not a reject of his people, he’s still a reject of his peers. And, well look at me. You know what they say about stripes and spots… the real question is why you committed, Ase. You didn’t need to do everything you have for Caleb. Yours was a more-or-less promising military career before ‘First Contact’ became your two favorite words. Why did you decide to stay?”

“You don’t have the first clue about how promising my career was before all this,” Serral pointed out.

“What did see you into command of Demon’s Pit? It’s a high value target, sure. But it’s not a very prestigious command either. The only way a position like that ends is being overrun or conceded, neither of which looks good on a record. Who’d you upset to get shoved out there?”

“It’s a long story, and I’ve no inclination to tell it soon,” the Captain said.

“I wouldn’t dream of putting you on the spot,” Tasser said, “but you don’t even seem bitter about the whole thing either. Dumped into a terrible assignment with limited prospects, and you’re still unflinchingly principled. Most people would at least show a little frustration, but here you went and did the right thing and abandoned the position, all without complaining. Even if Laranta agreed with you, the rest of the Admiralty Board would almost certainly—”

Tasser cut himself off when he saw Serral glowering at him.

“—give you some leeway, because they and you are surely fair and reasonable Casti,” Tasser tried.

“Ambassador,” Serral drawled, putting every ounce of reverence Tasser’s title deserved, “you might just be the worst soldier I’ve ever had the pleasure of commanding.”

Serral had seen Tasser’s record.

They both chuckled a bit at that.

“This is a diplomatic ship,” Tasser pointed out. “How much commanding have you been doing—how much do you really expect to be doing?”

Captain Serralinitus gave Tasser a withering look. He knew exactly what Caleb’s interrogation had uncovered. The Jack might fly under a diplomatic flag, but to say its mission was entirely peaceful would have been willfully ignorant.

Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

“…There’s very little chance this mission of ours ends quickly,” Serral replied. “The longer it’s forced to go on, the more certain it becomes that any given human—and, quite bluntly, ourselves—will see at least some harm.”

“We’ll probably get in a lot of trouble when that happens,” Tasser said.

“But given the resources available to us, I don’t think there’s any feasible way to help Caleb and keep him safe. We’re flying toward equatorial Cammo-Caddo. If we’re lucky, these Humans will be somewhere like Mistina and not Felegrin. Taking someone in Caleb’s position anywhere like that…In a word? Unsafe.”

“…Maybe I was wrong,” Tasser said. “Mmm…half-wrong. You’re committed to helping Caleb, but you aren’t treating him like a member of this crew.”

“Because I’m trying to keep him alive?”

“Because you’re trying to keep him alive more than anyone else on this boat,” Tasser said. “You practically said it seconds ago. I’m an ‘ambassador’ too, but when it comes down to it, you’d prioritize Caleb’s life before the lives of everyone else, including your own. That’s noble and respectable, but it’s also not going to work long-term.”

“…Caleb keeps mentioning offhand how, since he’s increasingly not the only Human out here, he’s not really worth any special protection,” Serral said. “I’m not sure I can dispute him convincingly.”

“That word ‘special’ is the problem,” Tasser said. “He is worth protecting, but so is every member of this crew. I’m not saying there won’t be different consequences if something goes wrong with him as opposed to another crew member, but I think we do need to think more about exactly what risks need to be acceptable for him.”

“He’s been in fights out of necessity before, and I wasn’t thrilled then,” Serral said. “I still don’t like the idea of using one who’s essentially a refugee as a combat asset.”

“Necessity is the only reason we have to fight,” Tasser said quietly. “And rescuing these abductees is surely necessary.”

“Still…I thought the Red Sails were going to be the worst thing we might have to square off against,” Serral said. “But thinking about the future…I’m worried.”

Tasser had to admit where they were going next had him nervous too.

Criminals were bad, but idealogues were a different breed. They weren’t just diving into the criminal Casti circles. These were the kinds of groups no one ever left. The kind that cultivated a new, dangerous sense of belonging in its members.

“I didn’t realize pirate groups had branding like this,” he said, indicating a picture of the emblems the pirates had been wearing. He and the Captain were poring over the interrogation yields while they rocketed away from Sidar. “The Mak… How much do groups like this publicize themselves?”

“Depends on where you are,” Serral remarked. “Most of Cammo-Caddo is straight edge enough that you wouldn’t hear them mentioned among polite company. But even paradise has its shadier corners. If you get really far south, where the weather isn’t as good, there’s a few colonies that you might see some people flying colors.”

“It’s just whenever I’ve heard about Cammo-Caddo’s jungle region, it’s not usually talked about in any organized way. It’s all just…lawless.”

Perhaps fittingly, Cammo-Caddo was the verdant world least like Nakrumum. The Casti homeworld was dominated by just three massive continents and mostly empty oceans between them.

Cammo-Caddo sported fifteen discrete—if smaller—landmasses still large enough to be called continents, and the waters between them were littered with tiny islands and archipelagos. Tasser had heard the terraforming surveys had over looked the planet because it so closely resembled the Vorak homeworld.

But where the homeworld states’ colonization passed it over, the private religious colonization effort had seen its potential.

Like all terraformed worlds, there was a wide variety of terrain across those fifteen continents. Simple probability said at least some of them would resemble certain Nakrumum ecosystems after life was introduced.

Two continents close to the planet’s equator had wound up covered in the most dangerous biome the Casti homeworld had to offer: tropical jungle.

Except the carefully engineered introduced ecosystems had one major difference from the homeworld: no apex predators. In the absence of those, the niche had been filled by Nakrumum’s second deadliest class of creature.

Tasser didn’t know exactly what series of mistakes or faulty assumptions that had led to the region being overrun, but the end result was easy to understand.

A continent-and-a-half covered in thousands of hideouts and criminal hives. The only formal authority on the planet’s equator was the city of Mistina. If you were looking for pirates on Cammo-Caddo, that was where you’d start.

“Don’t let decoration fool you,” Serral said. “Every pirate outfit that ever flew fancies themselves revolutionaries, but waving a few banners around doesn’t make them any less chaotic.”

“I don’t actually know the first thing about how Cammo-Caddo’s organized,” Tasser said. “But I have to imagine groups like these are a problem for every governor on the planet. I’m trying to think about how we can begin tracking them down, but I can’t say whether or not following their recruitment would yield results.”

“How unusual,” Captain Serral chuckled. “You’re the one thinking about how to navigate colonial bureaucracy and I’m the one thinking about how to avoid it at all costs.”

“…You have an idea?” Tasser clicked, surprised. “I was just thinking that was one of your best qualities.”

“It seems to me that we have one goal dependent upon a prerequisite, neither of which are made easier by publicizing who we are or what we want,” Serral said. “If the pirates learn there’s a Coalition ship—even a diplomatic one—that’s come for their abductees, they’ll disappear.”

“How sure are we they haven’t already?”

“All indications suggest ‘the Mak’ have at least some roots across the jungles. I’ve found little reason to think they would without reason. Caleb’s interrogation suggests the Mak have been exploiting the abductees for psionics and Adeptry for months now.”

“Maybe we could follow the weapons,” Tasser said. “If the pirates are using or selling what they’re forcing the abductees to make, that could leave the trail we need.”

“…I was thinking we could exploit our strengths more,” Serral said. “There’s one thing we know whoever has abductees will probably have also…”

“…Psionics,” Tasser followed. “Nai and Caleb can pinpoint where psionic-equipped minds are. Still, how are we going to comb two continents?”

“Satellite,” the Captain said simply.

“Even if we could make a satellite somehow sensitive to psionics, the way Caleb tells it, whatever the Beacon did to scatter the intro-module was more or less random. There’s going to be people on the continent who happened to acquire the module without being connected to the pirates at all.”

“True, but you don’t have my experience with photography. How much do you know about long exposure?”

·····

Funny thing about orbits, it was taking longer to get to Cammo-Caddo than when we slingshotted past it on our way to Sidar—we hadn't needed to slow down the first time 'round.

The Jack was borrowing a military surveillance satellite with permission from the system’s Vice-Admiral. They had clearance codes and a certified dispatch of orders. The biggest obstacle should have been Caleb and Nai puzzling out how to get the satellite to detect psionics instead of heat sources on the surface.

Caleb and Nai had figured out a ‘psionic thermographic film’ almost an hour ago.

Fenno couldn’t believe it was the technicians operating the satellite that were the problem.

They were on the ground, where the controls for the satellite were, while the Jack was in quite low orbit, preparing for the apparently complicated endeavor of fitting Caleb and Nai's film over the satellite's dish.

“It’s not that complicated,” Shinshay relayed into the radio. “It’s an Adept material designed to release heat in response to psionic signals.”

“…And so…the satellite normally picks up heat,” Fenno chimed in. “So you cover the dish with the film…and instead of mapping out hotspots…it maps out psionic…spots.”

“Eloquently put, but perfectly accurate,” Shinshay said. “The explanation, at least, not the process. It’s going to absolutely kill the resolution, so we’re only going to be able to narrow down our results so much, which is why time is of the essence! So please just tilt the satellite so we can start sweeping. If we lose our window because you dragged your feet, Captain Serral is going to amputate something of yours.”

The two officers on the ground seemed desperate to make sure every moment of this was as agonizing as possible.

Hopefully resorting to a video connection would smooth the frustrations communicating with each other.

Fenno hoped in vain.

As soon as Shinshay pressed the button for the Jack’s video communication the two technicians found ways to derail their task.

“What’s wrong with your eyes?” the officer asked.

“It’s congenital,” Shinshay said, fighting—though not hard—to keep from rolling their eyes. The answer was mechanical. Rote. How many times had they given that answer in their life?

“Purple eyes means bad eyes,” the technical sergeant said. “What kind of congenic’ gives someone purple eyes?”

“Inbreeding does that,” another voice said on screen. “Are you one of the—”

“It’s relevant to configuring this satellite. Please match the specifications we’re transmitting,” Shinshay said. “Amputating, remember?”

“You’re a pushy sort, you know that?”

“Deadlines tend to do that,” Shinshay muttered. “Do you have the alignment specifications ready?”

The looks on their faces said they were hesitant.

“Say if you have them or not!” Fenno said, exasperated, only to immediately take a step back and try to compose herself.

“These aren’t standard procedures,” the sergeant said. “Did you write these parameters? How do we know your code won’t fry our equipment?”

“I wrote the program,” Fenno said, patience growing thin. “Our clearance is good. If you get obstinate and we have to call the system Vice-Admiral, you’d regret that. We wouldn’t.”

She had not, in fact, written the programming. Shinshay hadn’t either, but she didn’t want to waste any more time.

“Alright, alright, just give us a minute to clear the diagnostics…” the technician griped.

Fenno flicked the Jack’s microphone off and resisted the urge to swear up a storm. In the end her frustration still boiled over as this aggressive screech, not quite managing to form any proper words.

Regardless, it was not dignified conduct around a junior.

Shinshay wasn’t young enough to be a child, but there was a wide range of Casti adulthoods. Shinshay was still toward the younger end, while Fenno—not exactly old—could not be called ‘young’.

“I apologize for that little display,” she said. “And quite frankly for their conduct too.”

Religious affiliation was one of the few flexible portions of Coalition uniform code, and both technicians wore small square Fiansisi pins on their shoulders. Fenno didn’t opt for the pin, but she did wear a pendant around her neck.

“…What do you have to apologize for?” Shinshay asked sincerely.

“They wore Fiansisi decoration,” she clicked. “It’s damning that you’ve been given that much practice ignoring ignorance. I feel bad.”

“Casti—my own species—have found problems with me my whole life, is it really that surprising for some of them to be my same religion too?”

“Not surprising, no, but no less wrong for it,” Fenno said. “Wait, ‘your’ religion?”

“You thought you were the only deist on this ship?” Shinshay snickered. “I might not come from the same devout background, but I still call myself faithful.”

“Well, no, sorry, I just…” she stammered. Goodness, she really was flustered in front of a junior. “In my experience, whatever good religions do, they have a nasty habit of ostracizing people who don’t belong.”

“Really? Where I grew up, the faiths were the only ones willing to ignore my sex and lack thereof,” Shinshay mused. “Everyone else thought I should stay home and out of sight. My parents practically drooled at the prospect of shipping me off to a seminary schooling.”

Fenno grimaced at that idea. Underpinning Theory observed that families were something every species wound up showing in some form or another, but some Casti had a very specific idea of how families should present.

But maybe that was a dangerous way of thinking.

Who exactly were ‘some Casti’? She’d already wrongly assumed her background meaningfully informed her about Shinshay’s once this conversation.

Which patterns were ‘Casti’ and which were ‘Fiansisi’? But religions weren’t the only categories people used to arrange themselves. Nation, planet, the list was endless.

Thinking about this just put her in a bad mood.

“Alright, we’ve cleared the diagnostics, are you in position?” the technicians called.

“Not a moment too soon,” Shinshay said. “We have time for two passes now, so better hope nothing goes wrong~”

They sung the line lightheartedly, poking fun at the officers’ delay.

Fenno thought she saw one of them mouth a very unkind word almost off camera. Glancing at Shinshay confirmed they’d read the technician’s lips too, but they didn’t react, instead staying focused on the data readouts from the satellite.

“Looks good,” Shinshay said. “We’re muting our end again, buzz us if anything affects the exposure or alignment.”

“Message received,” the other tech clicked. Their tone was cold, but at least professional.

“Not bad, all things considered,” Shinshay said. “I thought it would take another ten minutes to start the exposure for sure.”

“I don’t get it,” Fenno said. “They’re practically treating you like dirt, and you’re just…used to it.”

“Terrible isn’t it?” Shinshay agreed. “Meeting Tasser, I think he’s got the right idea of it. Don’t put up with anything and just become the very best at something so anyone who needs you can’t turn you away.”

They stopped, pondering.

“Then again, I never did go study scripture. I suppose I did the same thing he did, only with computers instead of counter-Adept tactics.”

“It’s hardly the same,” Fenno frowned. “Tasser was actually getting into and starting fights. Real violence. You were just…existing.”

“Oh, I think it’s much more similar than you might think,” Shinshay said. “You really think Tasser is naturally, dangerously violent? Or just that his community might have had no greater expectations of him than mine did of me? Because I’ve met Tasser, and I know how I’d place my bet.”

Fenno frowned.

“I don’t understand.”

“It’s not that crazy,” Shinshay shrugged. “I don’t think many communities are prepared to not have a few to keep on the periphery. I think the larger the community, the more certain and consistent those outcasts get. But I don’t consider this to be a problematic feature of any one religion, nation, or planet. I consider it to be a problematic feature of groups, especially large ones. I haven’t found it matters what they’re grouped around.”

“I didn’t realize you were such a psychologist,” Fenno said, trying to be polite.

“I’m not. I just read,” Shinshay smiled.

“But these two buffoons are a group of two,” Fenno said. “You think they’d treat—”

Shinshay waved their hands apologetically. “I think they’ll treat everyone however they please. When it comes to people like them, it’s not worth my time trying to correct. I don’t mean to make any grand statements about bigotry, just how I’ve learned to deal with it…besides, they might just be unprofessional dim minds, distracted by someone unexpected.”

“Now you’re just being obfuscatingly dense,” Fenno said. “One of them said ‘purple eyes are bad eyes’, how is that not more than unprofessional?”

“…Technically, they said ‘purple eyes means bad eyes’,” Shinshay said, unable to help correcting her. “But you’re right. Some of it was definitely personal. But I content myself knowing it’s unlikely all of their frustrations stem from one thing. They can be dumb and antagonistic at the same time.”

“…Then how much of that was them being incompetent, and how much was them trying to give you, personally, a bad time?”

“I find it to be the same thing, most of the time,” Shinshay said. “Anyone who thinks it’s worth dedicating time and energy inquiring about my genetics clearly lacks competent priorities.”

“Is it bad that I know to expect that kind of behavior from civilian zealots, and that I might be more appalled at the lack of professionalism from military personnel?” Fenno asked abruptly.

“Not particularly,” Shinshay said.

She still couldn’t believe how blasé they were about casual persecution.

“You know, on certain parts of Kraknor, Vorak use Casti biotech to change their eye color. For fashion. They like the different ways they can look,” Shinshay said.

“…You could do th…never mind, sorry.”

“No, please,” Shinshay said. “Ask me why I haven’t.”

“Why?”

“Because I will not apologize for being born,” Shinshay said. “Not ever.”

It was an oblique reference to Fiansisi scripture, ‘none can demand apologies of infants’ was the specific line.

Not for the first time, Fenno thought that Shinshay might be even smarter than they let on.