12 - Lissandra Vi Trane

"Whew. Now please show me some sort of proof that states you're who you're saying Miss Lissandra, otherwise, we're going to have a real fucking problem."

Crouching down in front of the woman he had just rescued with his pistol still drawn, Mike hadn't missed how it had taken 4 men to hold her down and took proper precautions.

"Are you okay Mike?"

"Yeah, my suit is bulletproof but it still hurts like a bitch."

Still keeping his eyes firmly locked on the (self-proclaimed) princess, Mike responded to River's worry before she started bickering.

"How come you're the only one with a bulletproof vac suit and a gun too for that matter?"

"Feel free to pick up a weapon from one of the corpses, as for a bulletproof vac suit you're going to have to wait until we can afford that."

Addressing the last part of that sentence towards the self-proclaimed princess, Mike made it clear that he wasn't in the mood for waiting an eternity on her proof of identity.

"Or what? You're going to shoot me?"

Although Lissandra was grateful to her rescuers, her tone made it very clear that she didn't trust Mike in the slightest.

After all, what kind of person refuses to help people in peril unless he's paid handsomely for it?

Faced with somewhat smug-looking defiance to his question, Mike considered leaving the princess for dead where he found her but dissuaded those thoughts with a deep sigh as he hadn't been paid yet.

"It seems you misunderstand your current situation, princess. If you really are who you're claiming to be, then we're your only chance of survival."

Confused by Mike's words, Lissandra looked to River for an explanation, and after breathing a tired sounding sigh River found herself in a kind enough mood to explain.

"There's no way a group of 5 low-level thugs simply just nab a princess in some shady alley unless the local security forces are complicit or have been paid to look the other way."

"Meaning that as things stand you have no hope of getting off this station alive, if security forces find you, you're back where you started before I killed those thugs. Not even the pilot's guild will help you as they don't stick their heads in internal affairs, leaving me and River here as your only option so I'm going to ask you a final time, just because I'm nice like that."

Learning in close, Mike made sure Lissandra really understood his words and realised that he wasn't the one that would be inconvenienced if she couldn't find any ID.

"Show me some sort of proof that states you're who you're saying Miss Lissandra, otherwise, we're going to have a real fucking problem and you'll be shit out of luck."

"... Before being attacked I was travelling incognito so I don't have any identification on me, besides I hardly ever carry things like that."

Perhaps having realised that River and Mike were her best chance at survival, Lissandra turned a bit more meek as she started talking.

(Yep, she definitely sounds like a sheltered noble… The real question is how much cash we can make from helping her and if she actually is who she's saying, one thing is saving an heir to the throne but another to save her maid. But looking at how she's dressed the incognito explanation makes sense.)

Looking over Lissandra, the first word that came to mind wasn't exactly princess, but under more detailed scrutiny her pair of brown boots, white pants and the brown jacket was definitely all first-class items that together cost close to a fortune.

"Ah! I have this, although I don't know if it'll be enough to convince you that I am who I'm claiming to be."

Reaching into her jacket, Lissandra pulled out an intricately fitted purple gemstone adorned on the end of a golden necklace.

"This gem is known as the eye of the Trane imperium, it is a crown jewel and part of my country's cultural heritage."

(Well, shit.)

Even without looking the necklace up on the local net Mike knew it was without a doubt the real deal, this presented a problem as he still hadn't thought about how to actually 'save' this princess. Of course, this was plain to see for River, as she had worked with him a bit now it was easy for River to see when greed had gotten the better of him.

"I swear to god… Okay, let's find a place to lay low for now, even suppressed, those shots might have tipped someone off."

"Ye, yeah yeah yeah, to a shitty love hotel we go."

"Wait what?"

-

"... Did we really have to hide out here?"

Doing her best to ignore the sounds of god-knows-what coming from both the wall to the left and right as well as the floor about, River breathed a deep sigh of regret when she realised she had just sat down in a bed that was damp for some godforsaken reason.

"Yeah, these places are anonymous and not somewhere security forces like to patrol, plus the cybersecurity in this place is so bad that I was about to crack it with ease so our location doesn't leak from there either."

"Fine, but you're paying to get my entire outfit sanitised after this."

"Sure."

Somewhat satisfied with her situation for the moment, River let Mike take charge for the moment and did her best to zone out the sound from all around.

"Okay then, please explain what's going on here princess? I get that this little dictator state here is imploding for some reason, but what's up with a head of state getting jumped by shit tier operators in a random alleyway?"

Doing his best impression of a hard-boiled interrogator he had seen on tv, Mike placed a foot on a nearby chair and leaned in close to Lissandra's face as he started bombarding her with questions.

"It is true that my nation is currently facing unrest Sir, but thanks to you and your honourable knight that has been avoided."

Faced with questions and terms she hardly understood, Lissandra did her best to follow her education and answered what she could while doing her best to ignore Mike's rude manners.

"My name is Mike and that's River behind me, make sure to remember both our names and faces as you'll owe us a lot of credits after this is over."

"O-okay sir Mike, Miss River…"

Ending her words with an expression that screamed she wanted to ask something but wasn't sure if it was okay, Mike figured it wasn't a good idea to press the princess but still did so anyway.

"Go on."

"Erm?... Is it really okay for us to be here? It sounds like someone is getting hurt next door."

""...""

Both at a loss for words, Mike and River shared a look to find out who should tell the pure princess what kind of establishment they were in, River won out over Mike with an inaudible threat.

"... Princess Lissandra, how old are you exactly?"

"I'm 97 years old, why do you ask?"

Taking a second look at the princess, Mike was about to call bullshit on her age when he remembered the whole eugenics speech he had given River and decided to just roll with things.

(Great, we have a 97-year-old princess that doesn't look a day over 20 while no one thought it was important to teach her about the birds and the bees… Her age aside, I should just treat her like she's 12 and everything will be fine.)

"It's fine, more importantly, has anything happened within your family recently? Any new blood, a new advisor or perhaps an evil stepmom?"

"... A few years ago my father got a new physician, it was after that he started taking those pills, that's when he really started spiralling. I think he's from some sort of corp trying to take over this area."

Stuck in a state between surprise and resignation at the poor, formulaic quest writing, Mike eventually decided just to roll with it as it was an easy cash grab to complete.

"Great, so we avoid/kill whatever operators still active on this station, escape back to Crown station and get you in the hands of someone you trust, does that sound good?"

"Yes, I don't think I could ask for more given these circumstances."

With their plan of operation settled for the moment, Mike left the cramped hotel room to go get some refreshments and something to dull the pain in the right arm he had used to block a bullet.

"Excuse me, Miss River… Are you, perhaps, a knight?"

About half a minute after Mike left, Lissandra finally felt like broaching the subject which had been on her mind since they had met.

"... I have no idea what you're talking about."

"In that alleyway, I saw you kill a person with a single kick."

Sure, River had managed to score a quite decent surprise attack after Mike had distracted her target, but to kill a well-built man with a single kick wasn't normal, let alone at the speed River managed to do it.

"I don't know what kind of idea that's gotten into that royal head of yours, but I'm a pirate daughter. Nothing more, nothing less."

Showing enough blood lust that even the sheltered princess noticed it, River put an instant stop to the princess' questioning by replacing her curiosity with fear.

"A-a pirate!?"

Sheltered as she was, Lissandra had only ever encountered mentions of pirates in her goodnight stories, stories which had become a significant trauma that the maids used to keep her in bed.

"You would think they sold some normal things in a love hotel, but nope, it's all fucked up stuff, I can't believe I had to walk all the way out and then pay to get back in just to get a fucking… What's going on in here?"

Returning at the most inopportune moment, Mike was met with the sight of a terrified princess and River who was scowling more than she usually did.

Looking back at the terrified princess then back at River, Mike quickly figured out what was going on.

"What did you tell her?"

"That I'm a pirate's daughter, apparently the princess here is scared of pirates."

(Fucking great…)

Turning back towards the princess she visibly flinched as she continued keeping her eyes on both Mike and River.

"So yeah, she's a former pirate, but one of the really soft ones that save shipwrecked people out of the goodness of her heart. And before you ask, I'm a mercenary, the kind of piece of shit mercenary that's willing to do a lot of unsavoury things to earn a living, but tough luck, we're still your best chance of survival so I'll give you 10 seconds to deal with it."

Giving the princess about 5 seconds to deal with her new situation, Mike extended a ration pack to her as a peace offering.

"As luck would have it, we both stand to benefit financially from you staying alive, so let's start working on that."

"... O-okay."

"That's fucking fantastic. Now, how do we get to Crown station? Preferably before whoever sent those goons after our dear princess realises they've failed and comes looking for us…"

Having resolved the situation, Mike tossed River another ration pack before pulling down the arms of his vac suit and tying them around his waist.

(Ah, I fucking knew it… Luckily it doesn't appear to be broken.)

Examining his forearm where he took a bullet, Mike found the source of his continuous pain taking the form of a black mark the size of a clenched fist.

"Why don't we take the Scorpion?"

Continuing to be a model partner, River completely ignored Mike's suffering as she started brainstorming.

"No way, it's a two-seater so we can't secure her unless you're willing to sit the rest of this job out, besides, we still don't have any security codes to access Crown station…"

Although there technically was space for Lissandra in the Scorpion's cargo area, Mike and River had no way of securing her back there, meaning if they got into a fight on the way to Crown station their precious cargo would turn into jello before they could deliver her, defeating the purpose.

"Then what about stealing a security craft? That would have all the access codes we need."

"Yeah, and all of them would be voided by the time we left this station as security crafts have biometric locks I can't crack without specialised equipment… Unless we're somehow able to kidnap a pilot from the local security forces without raising any alarms, that's also a no go."

Going over the steps needed to kidnap a pilot from the security forces in her head, River's rapidly mounting headache told her that doing such a thing quietly was nearly impossible in the time frame they had.

"Well shit, what about stealing access codes from this station's tower control?"

"They're under the same kind of security there so that's also a no go. Furthermore, trying to get into the flight control tower is just asking to get shot."

"Umm… What about the craft I arrived in? One of the knights that protected me was a pilot and used his own personal craft to get me here so I could talk with the pilot's guild."

Appearing like a saint holding a pitcher of water in the middle of a desert, Lissandra presented the perfect solution to their current situation.

"Yeah, that would be perfect, except whoever is chasing you will already have locked down the docks so that's not happening…"

"B-but that ship isn't at the docks, my knight told me it would be safer so we anchored down at the refineries."

"... That's perfect, well perfect except for the fact that it's down by the refineries."

Using rotation to generate gravity meant the further 'down' or away from the centre of rotation, the greater the angular momentum became and the greater the experience of gravity became, meaning the automated refineries which were usually built on the end of towers extending out from the station meant an extreme pain in the ass in Mike's immediate future.

"Fuck… We should have… Gone somewhere else… Than this shitty… Fucking…"

"Stop your complaining already, I'm sick and tired of it."

While Mike had been mostly out of breath from the last 5 flights of stairs, River had been getting tired of his complaining ever since he started 10 flights ago. Breaking the refinery tower had proved absolutely no issue as no one was dumb enough to break into a high gravity refinery via the stairs instead of the service elevator, but getting down to the refinery at the end of said tower was another issue in itself as this particular refinery needed a steady 4 G to operate. Needless to say, the further Mike went down the seemingly endless set of stairs, the harsher gravity became.

While Mike could easily pull these kinds of G's sitting down comfortably in a cockpit, having to stand up straight and move around was another matter entirely.

"Fuck this shitty fucking questline… And this shitty fucking set… Of stairs…"

"We're here, the ship is parked inside the loading hangar."

Normally this part of the refinery would be abuzz with activity of loading and unloading goods for processing, but due to the economic downturn brought on by the constant pirate attacks, this refinery hadn't been used for months, making it the perfect place to hide a ship.

And what a ship it was.

"Th-that's!"

Barely able to believe his eyes (mostly due to a lack of fresh air reaching his head) Mike did a double-take, but the ship in front of him still remained where it was, it wasn't an illusion.

About two times the size of the Scorpion, Mike had spent a long time flying the ship in front of him in Interstellar Online.

"Yeah, it's a Nightingale, get over it and let's get out of here before you pass out."

Also recognising the ship as she had been forced to deal with quite a bit of bounty hunters using it while hunting a part of her pirate crew, River saw nothing special about the light fighter.

"It's not just… A Nightingale… It… Is a… A4… NGN Nightingale… The best light fighter there is!"

"Yeah, sure. Hurry up and get on board."

Practically dragging Mike on board the ship, River started to reconsider her life choices as she strapped herself in the operator seating of the 4 person cockpit.

"Okay, let's get this show on the road then."

Finally getting the chance to sit down and catch his breath, Mike quickly peaked as he now got the chance to fly another ship of his dreams. Hacking into the ship systems and cracking its security Mike powered on the reactor and from there remotely accessed the refineries system to start depressurising the hangar bay while he configured the controls.

"Okay, we don't want any attention so I'll limit the reactor output and run the ship as cold as possible and creep out of station range before jumping. River, you can power down all nonessential systems, weapon systems, most sensors and the primary drives, I'll make acceleration with manoeuvring thrusters alone."

"Roger, what sensors do you need?"

"Passive radar and low strength LIDA, keep radio to receiving mode only and don't forget to turn off the IFF beacon."

Lifting off the ground under 4 G wasn't really an issue, but after being no longer in contact with the said ground even small adjustments and manoeuvres started getting tricky so Mike left everything else to River while Lissandra observed the pair in awe.

"I was a bit on the edge until now, but you really are a first-class pilot Mike."

"I know what you mean Lissandra, I was surprised the first time I saw it too."

"Less talking, more operating. Time is creds and we'll need a shitton of creds to survive what's coming."