Chapter 31

I holster my weapon and sigh, resuming my re-assembly routine for my shotgun. "Is something on your mind?" I look up at Gali and she shifts a bit before speaking "I was asking if you meant it when you said you'd teach me how to shoot.." she looks at me sheepishly yet again.

Blinking, I reply. "I never said such a thing." deadpanning my response. "But, I said I wanted to learn!" Gali protests my declination. I pinch the bridge of my nose and sigh in exasperation. "Galinae.. I may have said to get up early in the morning but I never intended to teach you to shoot. You are, quite frankly, too timid and you jump at the slightest loud noise."

Her lip quivers at my reply in disdain. "But-"

"No buts! I will not."

"You said you would!"

I rub my forehead, setting my shotgun aside as I think it through internally while I rub my head in annoyance. Sure it would be nice i f she knew how to defend herself. But I doubt she knew the first thing about marksmanship or weapons. Nor do I have the time to train her properly. I suppose that I should figure out where she stands in that regard. "Alright, fine. Follow me."

I hop off the workbench I was sitting on and walk towards the weapon lockers. The haptic interface chimes with each keypress as I put in a four digit code. Five-zero-five-seven. After keying in my authorization code, I find a handgun and a smaller bore shotgun, along with a small box of ammunition. I walk out of the armory with Gali in tow towards the elevator.

***

After a walk to a long space by the landing pads, I hold out the unloaded handgun with the grip facing away from me to Galinae. "Alright, take this and shoot." She looks at me, then looks to the gun. Then back to me. "What do I do here?" she blinks several times in confusion.

"Shoot the damn gun!" I snap at her. She jumps and takes the gun from me. "Okay okay!" I hold out a loaded magazine. Twenty rounds of 5.6x33mm - a smaller caliber, higher velocity cartridge with far less recoil than my Mk-26, which was in 10x33mm. I wanted to upgrade to a sidearm in the newer 11x35mm cartridge. Perhaps i could find one in the arms markets in Midnight City later.

Galinae takes the magazine and clumsily loads it. "Now what?" she tilts her head at me. I sigh "see that lever there? Push it down. She does so, and the slide springs forward to load the first round. Galinae squeaks and drops the gun, the weapon clatters to the ground and I pinch the bridge of my nose.

"It wont hurt you." I pick it up and aim downrange at a piece of metal. Firing five shots at the plate before handing it back to Gali. she tries to mimic the way I hold it and pulls the trigger. The gun goes off and she again startles and drops it, immediately recovering it from the ground "oops.." she turns to me, but she has the muzzle pointed at me! "Hey! Watch where you point that thing Gali!" I push the muzzle aside so it isnt pointed at me "and for gods' sake, keep your finger off of the trigger when you are not shooting!"

Galinae blinks and corrects herself. "Whoops! Sorry." I sigh. "You can kill someone when you accidentally pull the trigger, dont do that again!" I give her a piercing stare, to which she shrinks back. "Okay. what's next?"

I sigh "get one hit on that piece of ,metal." she looks at the target and back to me "easy!" Galinae aims and fires. Flinching but not dropping the gun this time.But she is far off target because of that flinch. I watch her for the next thirteen shots and notice she is anticipating the discharge too much. She also had a tendency to pull and not squeeze the trigger, which was pulling her off target.

I sigh "Gali, squeeze the trigger, dont pull it." I show her with my index finger how to squeeze it. "Janking the trigger is throwing your shots off target." I hand her another magazine "Reload it."

She puts the magazine in backwards at first, then corrects her mistake after some struggle. She then hits the slide catch release lever and aims downrange. She fires several times and misses "this is hard!" she complains.

"You're janking the trigger, remember what I told you!" I instruct her. After this she squeezes the trigger slowly while aiming and the round hits the metal plate, making a ringing sound.

Galinae's face brightens "I hit it I hit it!" she looks at me with her finger still on the trigger, the muzzle pointed at me. "Give me that!" I snatch the gun from her. "Remember what I told you about keeping your booger-hook off the bangswitch?!" I scold her "another rule, Never, EVER POINT IT AT SOMEONE." I give her a piercing stare and she shrinks further back from me "s-s-sorry!" she holds up her hands disarmingly.

I sigh "you're clearly not good with handguns. Let's try something else." I offer her the shotgun. "Do you know how to load this?" After some fidgeting, Gali responds "er.. Can we go back, Kara?" I blink "I thought you wanted to learn?"

Galinae smiles sheepishly at me, fidgeting a bit on her feet. She pokes her index fingers together as she responds "I.. uh.. I do not think I am going to be good at this-" her stomach growls, and Gali blinks, blushing.

I smile, of course she wanted to go eat. "You're hungry, I get it." I sigh "come on let's go get you something to eat on the ship."

***

After our trip back to the ship, I went to the lounge on the port side of deck 2. Galinae was going to have to work extremely hard at learning guns to ever be proficient, She was a complete novice. I sigh and glance at the viewers to the landing pad below with a thoughtful expression.

A playful voice interrupts my thoughts "what's on your mind, Kara?" I can practically hear the smile in the tone of their voice. Immediately I know who it is. "Vlondril." I address them. "Aw no fun! You are quick to learn voice patterns are you? Interesting." she sighs and sits next to me.

I crinkle my nose at the scent of perfume around her. Not my choice if I ever wore it, but I do not like wearing perfume. Scents are bad for keeping un-noticed. "Can I help you, Matron Vanrea?" I quirk an eyebrow.

"Oh.. just checking up on the most interesting and mysterious person aboard this ship!" Vlondril giggles musically. "You really are a mystery, you know that? It intrigues me." the Iridian smiles at me affably.

"Do not kiss my ass, I get that a lot." I deadpan at Vlondril then stand to fetch a bottle of wine and a stemmed glass. Vlondril frowns and sighs, leaning back in her seat as she watches the the viewer image. Several ground crew were on the port side wing, hooking up several lines to the ship for refueling and electrical power.

Vlondril sighs thoughtfully "do you know why I decided to join you?" she smiles self-deprecatingly. I raise one of my thin eyebrows at the question "not particularly. I assume you are about to tell me, however.."

The Iridian giggles softly "Because not only are you interesting, you are reliable, you get things done. I find these qualities attractive." Vlondril smiles at me mid-sip through my Wine. "what I am saying is, I love a person who has these qualities." She scoots closer and puts a hand on my thigh. I pause and sputter into my glass. "GLHK!" I choke a bit, inhaling some of the fine red wine.

After recovering from my coughing fit, I stare at Vlondril. She is watching me with a smug smile and the faintest hint of a blush. "Sooo.. will you further steal my heart, Kara?" she looks at me with a smile.

I give her a stare. Not expecting this to happen. She seemed rather direct and often times fickle, Playful, even. She has the potential to really foil my plans and cause a lot of headaches. On the other hand, politically, House Vanrea was a very prominent Iridian house with many connections and a lot of influence across the galaxy. Tapping those resources would be an immense help.

"H-how about we just see how things go?" I smile at her, barely keeping my composure. Her confession had caught me off guard. Vlondril smiles "of course, but I am very patient, Kara. I will wait." she gives me one final smirk and a wink before she stands "enjoy your wine, You seem to be awfully busy lately." she frowns "and.. Why dont you ever take me out like you did Galinae? Who do you really lke?" her frown turns into a smirk "or maybe you like B'Nan instead? I did hear he saw you naked.." she giggles as she departs.

I sigh, feeling a headache coming on, things were about to get very interesting between us four. "Since when did life get so complicated??" I say to no one in particular, resuming my thoughts as I stare out at the moon on the viewer, which gives a view of the outside of the hull of the ship.

The moon was just dipped below the horizon, bathing the cityscape beyond in a red llight, reflecting the star's rays at the surface of the planet. An eerily beautiful sight, fitting for the city of sin. Midnight City was ruled by several crime 'families'. Very much a mafioso style power hierarchy.

I sip my wine as I continue to mull over plans in my mind. I'd rather not be targeted by the families, but I needed a way to establish an informant network to get any meaningful work done. Perhaps it was time. Vlondril Suggested a hostile takeover.

First I needed to call in a favor or two.