FFM 2025 9: The Message

A direct continuation to FFM 2025 7: Meet QWERTY, this time switching the POV to Beyari. I was thinking of doing a dual-POV, switching to Steirdar halfway through, but there wasn’t space for it. Next time might be QWERTY POV time. Maybe. We’ll see.

Oh, and this mf of a story went over by 6 words, and somehow it was hard to edit it down to the limit because new words kept popping up.

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Beyari grinned as she sat down at her tablet and opened Kohar’s message. The text section read, Bay, you gotta see this. She shook her head and played the video. Kohar came into view, the background indicating xe was at the bar at the Hunters’ Guild safehouse on Bastia. “Hey Bay, have you already heard about this new bounty posting, the one I’m attaching to this? It’s hyperpopular here. Some now-ex-Infini’Republic Security Enforcer named Steirdrar Urrang apparently committed treason and really ruffled some feathers on their way to wherever they’ve ended up after evading capture. Some IR official really, really took offense to that. Seriously, it’s so indignant and wordy, you gotta read it. Everyone’s been laughing about it today! Like, listen to this bit here.” Kohar cleared xyr throat and wrinkled xyr nose, quoting with a nasally voice, “‘I want this treacherous traitor hung from his limbs!‘”

Beyari hooted a laugh, covering her mouth to try to stifle her guffaw. In the meantime, Kohar’s recording continued, accompanied by hollers in the background, “‘I don’t care how few limbs he has left by the time you bring him to the IRS, as long as he has something other than just his neck to be hung from, because he’s never serving with us ever again even if he grovels and begs for forgiveness all his damned life!‘” Xe snickered. “So dramatic. Makes me wonder what this guy did. Really, if I ever meet ’em, I’m buying ’em a drink just so I can ask. No way I’ll be able to capture ’em — their skillset indicates they need to be 1000% paralyzed for a hunter to be able to deliver ’em to the client — and, honestly? Many people are saying if it means that the posting stays up, they won’t try to catch the guy. It’s already framed here at the bar for people to enjoy, so it’s not like it’ll go away from public knowledge anytime soon, but it’s the thought that counts, I guess. Let me know what you think, will you? Good hunting! Kohar out.”

Beyari howled with laughter, feebly hitting her armored thigh, tears rolling down her cheeks. She controlled herself just enough to write a response, You should make a full read of that desc with that impersonation. It’s priceless! X”’D

“Quite the splash he’s caused,” QWERTY commented. “What’s your take on him?”

“He’s cool,” Beyari managed to say. “Iasa’net’tea. Sparred me to a draw.”

QWERTY made an agreeable hum.

Beyari was pleased (and admittedly also a little relieved) with the response. “How much does his file say?”

“A long service record from the IRS. Unsurprisingly, he took part in a bunch of atrocities. None affect us personally.”

Beyari nodded, sobering and starting to remove her armor. “Good.” She paused to reach into the fabric of the universe and move two bottles of water from the refrigerator to the table. “He’s the one who sat with me when I had that vision about Arkan.”

QWERTY looked up from aers tablet and processed in silence. “I see.”

Whatever remark QWERTY made about Commander Urrang based on that to aers personal files, Beyari could not deduce from the toneless response and the return to the tablet. She focused on removing her armor instead of asking; the sooner she got ready to take her turn in the shower, the better. Besides, QWERTY would speak up if ae had something to say.

She was halfway done when Commander Urrang exited the bathroom, looking somewhat refreshed. He walked up to them, seeming unsure about how to address them. Beyari grabbed one of the water bottles. “Here.” She tossed to bottle to the wary-eyed commander, who caught it with ease.

“Thank you.” Commander Urrang opened the bottle after a quick inspection of the label and took a sip. His presence in the fabric relaxed a bit when he got some cool water into his system. “Quite impressive, this ship of yours.”

“Thanks. You’d be even more impressed if you’d seen it when we bought it. ‘Twas a fixer-upper. Barely legal to fly to any other places than the repair shops on-planet.”

“Not that the engines, both regular and interstellar, and the flight systems didn’t need repair… or weren’t completely replaced eventually,” QWERTY commented.

“Barely legal to fly,” Beyari emphasized. “It was dirt-cheap and we needed both a break from hunting and a better ship. We used to fly a Koltotech AZ-3000, but reliable spare parts were getting sparser and more expensive after Koltotech discontinued the AZ line and our use cases had expanded since we’d got the AZ-3000, so we were due an upgrade anyway.”

Commander Urrang’s eyebrows shot up at the mention of the AZ-3000. “You must’ve gotten quite a profit compared to how much you’d paid for that AZ-3000. The prices they’ve fetched all my life are insane.”

“We did. It covered the materials and initial upgrades this ship got, and that was thirty years ago.” Beyari leaned forward to remove the armorplates on her shins and boots. “We could go top of the line with literally everything in here if we were to sell that same ship today.” Once she was finished with the armorplates, she stood up. “Time for me to shower. Feel free to stick around if you want to chat more. QWERTY’s not talkative but I’m open to talking your ears off about this ship or anything else once I’ve got the sweat off my skin.”

Commander Urrang nodded. “Very well.”

Beyari nodded and headed to her quarters to grab a change of clothes before heading to the bathroom. She overheard QWERTY say something about standing around as she crossed the corridor. However Commander Urrang responded to that, she missed it as the bathroom door closed. If it was anything interesting, QWERTY would be sure to tell her afterwards.

Now, however, her only priority was to get her suit unsealed, off her skin and into the laundry basket with her underwear and take a shower.