 About Ryan BakkeRyan Bakke-AB99667-Emerald- [url= paizo.com - Paizo People: Ryan Bakke [/url] Ryan Bakke – 8A99667
STR: 10 (+1)
SKILLS: Astrogation 1, Awareness 1, Athletics 1, Clairvoyance 1, Electronics 1 (Remote Ops), Gun Combat 1 (Energy), Gun Combat 3(Slug), Heavy Weapons 0, Melee 1 (unarmed), Mechanic 1, Profession (Automated Agriculture) 0, Profession 1 (Belter), Recon 1, Stealth 0, Streetwise 1, Telepathy 1, Telekinesis 0, Vacc Suit 1 ARMOR: Combat Armor +17 / TL12 / 16 kg WEAPONS: Gauss Rifle / TL12 / 600m / 4D / 80mag / ap5, auto3, scope AUGMENTS: Strength Augmentation / STR+2 / TL12 EQUIPMENT: (correct format: Grav Belt / TL 12 / 3kg ) ALLIES, CONTACTS, ENEMIES & RIVALS: FINANCES:
STUDY PERIODS:
CAREER HISTORY: Pre-Career Education: Military Academy (Army) / Basic Training: Vacc Suit 0, Athletics 1, Gun Combat 1(Slug), Recon 0, Melee 1 (unarmed), Heavy Weapons 0 / Graduated Honors (Commissioned Lieutenant) / +1 EDU / +1 Soc Psion Test (PSI 7) / Telepathy 0, Clairvoyance 0, Telekinesis 0 First Term: Army Psi-Warrior (Infantry) / Basic Training: Telepathy +1, Awareness 1, Teleportation (fail), Gun combat +1(Slug), Vacc Suit 1, Recon 1/ Survives / Event 9 - EDU8+ for skill - Streetwise 1/ Advances Psi-Warrior (Officer 2 (Captain)) – Gun Combat 1 (Energy) Advancement skill roll – Electronics (Remote Ops)1 Second Term: Army Psi-Warrior / Personal Development +1 Dex / Survives / Does not Advance / Event – Gain Contact (Referee decides)/ Musters Out Third Term: Drifter – Scavenger / Service skill – Stealth 0/ Survived / Advanced – Rank 1 (Skill Vacc Suit 1)/ Event – Attacked. Gain enemy and Gun Combat 8+ to avoid injury table. Avoided / Advancement Skill roll – Profession 1 (Belter) Fourth Term: Drifter – Scavenger / Service Skill – Mechanic 1 / Survives /Advances / Event Patron offers chance at job. Declined. / Advancement skill roll – Astrogation 1 Fifth Term: Aging Crisis: None From Connections: Clairvoyance +1 From Skill Package: Tarondor Bonus: Gun combat (slugs) +1 Mustering Out Benefits: Benefits Summary
For Drifter
NOTES: Ryan sat atop the atop the Leader truck of the four truck Leader-Follower convoy. The auburn-haired kid scrolled through his P-Comp emails as a four-meter tall, six legged, Spyder-Co Auto-Combine maneuvered deftly across the rows of grain. Each of the large agriculture robot’s steps were guided by precision GIS data from low orbit satellites to ensure not a stalk was crushed. The magnetically spun combine blades whirred nearly silent as the grain was cut and vacuumed for deposit into the bed of the second grain truck alongside the robot. ”Got in, b!#*!es!” Called out Ryan excitedly. The two other farm hands looked towards him. ”Bullshit! Military Academy don’t want you!” Joshua yelled up from the ground, walking alongside the truck’s huge tire. Removing his ballcap he exposed his bald head and a broad grin upwards. ”No way!” chimed in David, seated next to Ryan on the roof of the ruck. He leaned over to see the screen that Ryan angled for his viewing. ”I’ll be damned, he did!” An older bearded man, leaned out of the cab, holding onto a mirror strut to keep from falling into the field, ”Hey congratulations! Getting off Emerald! Gerta and Garrit gonna like it? Your dad kept saying he wanted you to go engineer at Eritrea.” ”They’re going to have to, boss,” answered Ryan to the foreman. ”They can blame that Scout you chatted up last year. Now I gotta find someone who can run remote ops and keep the electronics running on these things” ******** The group of graduating cadets clustered around the huge holo-board. The bright and shiny gold bars stood out brilliantly on the epaulettes of their fitted grey uniforms. They all jostled looking for their last name and the newly released posting of their assigned training pipeline. They all had memorized the schooling for each of the Army branches and overtly hoped they got their first choice. There were mostly small cheers as well as a number of groans. Ryan stared at his last name, Bakke. His face scrunched in confusion. A punch in the arm snapped him to. Johan his senior year roommate was all smiles, ”Advanced Tactics! Infantry!” Ryan looked at him crestfallen. That was the course he was hoping for. Johan looked suddenly serious, ”You didn’t get Infantry? You’re honors! You should get first choice!” ”Special Aptitude Selection. What the f##* is that?” Johan shrugged, ”Never even heard of that. Maybe it’s a big deal, like a pipeline for early command?” Johan quickly glanced left over the sea of faces and grey, ”Seargent Major, what is Special Aptitude Selection?” The slim but hard-as-iron Command Seargent Major scrutinized Johan from the back of the cadet pack. His hair was buzzed short and his camies looked like he just pressed them. The sea of Cadets parted away from him like he was Moses as he marched up to the pair of newly minted lieutenants. ”You got SAS-C?” He pronounced it like the word sassy, his tone dripping incredulity. Johan withered unheroically under his stare, ”Not me, Seargent Major. Bakke.” Seargeant Major turned his gaze to meet Ryan’s green eyes. ”Well then, he’ll find out.” ******* Two weeks aboard a space station in a location he did not know, in which he only saw a half dozen people a day and wasn’t allowed to have any outside contact or wander the station, sucked. He was quarantined to a small group of spaces aboard, taking his meals alone in a private stateroom. Ryan hadn’t had a room to himself since joining the military academy, so that was nice. But the routine was wearing thin. Each morning he got access to a small gym, where he exercised by himself. Then when he returned to his room, he would find his breakfast waiting. Then the same Major, who never gave his name nor wore any identification upon the flight suit he always wore, would meet him sharply at 0700, give him a small beanie to where and escort him to various tests. And these were weird tests. He called the first hour What’s in the Box? The box test was day one. Each day it changed but the theme was the same, guess something that is somewhere unseen. Other tests were, What Can You Hear, How Slowly You Can Touch Something, and his favorite Stop the Ball Flying at your Face. He tried to use his hands to deflect those ping pong balls but they just kept coming faster and faster till he was getting pelted. They also asked him a lot about his family history, things that occurred when he was young. Sometimes he would be escorted into a room and a panel of other unidentifiable people would just stare at him. Laughing out of nervousness didn’t break the seriousness. In between tests, he usually did a short bit of physical activity. Pushups, sit-ups, pull ups, burpees. Whatever the Major instructed. After five minutes, back to the tests. Afternoons were physical training and problem-solving examinations, which he was more used to. The physical training was grueling, designed to wipe him out in under an hour. They weren’t unlike tests for the Academy, just wearing a beanie. Just before evening chow he would be instructed on meditation how to relieve stress from the body and mind. Again, he had some baseline classes at the academy on mental health, but the cadets all joked it was just so the government could claim that everyone was instructed not to kill themselves if they failed out. However, the SAS-C instructor on meditation was serious. Scary serious' To Ryan’s surprise, he found he slipped easily into the instructed ”thoughtless space” and could visualize in his mind the waves of sound made by a small metal bowl. After dinner he had two hours of free time, which he used to keep his uniform sharp, room tidy and practice meditation. It was annoying but he would get punished if he let his Academy habits slip in the least. Punishment being another hour of PT after dinner. It only took him relaxing standards once to stay on top of his stuff. On the twelfth morning, he was ready to go when the knock came promptly at 0700 and the nameless flight suit Major walked in. He took a quick look at Ryan, smiled, and offered his hand. ”You’re in. My name is Marcus.” ******** Ryan was the third man in the five-man stack. His MRM-40 Gauss rifle covered down the dust filled hall around the right shoulder of the second man, the entry man. The buildings fire alarm added to the cacophony of noises which the helmet of his combat armor largely blocked out, but the alarm’s flashing light was distracting. He reached for the thoughtless space and could see the two threats in the room beyond. He passed the information to his teammates. Five Ready calls cascaded through his thoughts. Then a GO! The first heavily armored man stepped back away from the door, weaponed aimed at the portal, and knelt. Ryan raised his rifle slightly for the door-man to pass and then resumed his overwatch as soon as his team mate dropped to one knee. The door gave a slight metal-straining groan before tearing loose and flying into the room. The second man in the stack was moving the moment the door came free and Ryan was right on his ass. Ryan knew which target the entry man was going for as the threat was in his sector assignment. The second target would by Ryan’s. As Rayn moved a complete 180 degrees to go left into the room, he swung his rifle to bear on the target he knew was there. He couldn’t hear his teammate’s shooting as the MRM-40 gauss rifles velocity had been dialed down subsonic for this mission. But his teammate let everyone know, Contact… target down! The threat popped out from behind a ratty-old cabinet, some antiquated auto pistol in hand. The target essentially appeared directly in Ryan’s holo-sight illuminated on his heads up display. Contact, he called simultaneously as his two shots struck the threat’s chest followed by two shots in the face that threw the target back behind the cabinet. He moved up to verify his shooting, knocking a desk chair to the side, while reporting, target down! He received the moving call from the third man whose job was to clear the center of the room. Contact up! Ryan knew that was the fourth man in the stack and realized he f@%!ed that up. Target down, came the follow through. Clear right, chirped the entry man. Clear left, answered Ryan. Clear up, rolled the fourth man’s report in the way only women telepaths can…room clear! Suddenly the siren and flashing lights of the fire alarm ceased, and the room was filled with bright fluorescent lighting. Ryan relaxed his weapon to a low ready and looked to the corner where a camera would be, not that the instructors needed cameras to watch. Bakke! The thought boomed in their skulls. Yes, you did f@++ that one up! Mouse holes are real, people. Take your time and make sure you know all the adjacent rooms before moving. Bakke, hit the burn pit. The rest of you, rearm, refit. You got 10 minutes and we do it again. ******** The 7th Commando Group, commonly known as the 7th or just The Group, is allegedly the Imperium’s primary top-tier special mission unit. Officially, the unit is listed as a Strategic Testing & Evaluation Unit. Members are selected from across all services of the military and tasked with performing the most complex, classified, and dangerous missions directed by the Imperial Command Authority serving the Emperor. The 7th conducts various specialized missions such as counterterrorism, hostage rescue, special reconnaissance, direct action (short-duration strikes or small-scale offensive actions) against high-value targets as well as other special activities. Criteria for selection is not publicly known and the training provided is highly classified. Candidates selected must undergo physical screening, psychological testing and are then interviewed to deem whether they are suitable for assignment to the Group. If the 7th mirrors the other known Service specific Commando Groups, those who pass the stringent recruitment process attend an eight-month selection and training course. The training course attrition rate is unknown but suspected to be high, at least 50%. ******** ”Don’t know what to tell you, Captain Bakke. Your record is good. You’re a good operator. Your talents are average, so maybe there tripped you up?” Talents being the euphemism for the psionic skills each member of the 7th possessed to one degree or another. The Colonel just shrugged as he sat back, ”You know, promotion boards are weird. You just never know.” Ryan could understand that. His talents were average, and he lacked some of the higher end abilities that got people into the Special Activities branch straight out. Those guys were the hot runners. Still, his skills were good enough to be an operator and thus avoid the dreaded support jobs. Yet, Ryan still wondered if it was his mom’s Zhodani heritage gumming things up. The Colonel was staring at him, but Ryan’s shield hadn’t been tested, so Jacobson wasn’t trying to read his surface thoughts. It was common etiquette during promotion board debriefs for both members to keep their mental shields to avoid triggering emotional responses. ”Give it a couple more years,” his commanding officer offered. ”Even if you don’t advance, you always have a place here.” It wasn’t meant to be threat but that is how Ryan took it. No one leaves. You either stay, retire to a Red Planet for drugging and quarantine, or according to rumor ”get retired” if you can’t play nice. ”No problem, boss. Best job in the galaxy,” The last a running joke in the 7th, especially when an op really goes to crap. The Colonel frowned, ”Look Ryan, I’ll see if I can get you running C2 for an SA op. It will look good on the next board.” Ryan slicked back his non-Army regulation length hair. ”That’ll work. I’m just disappointed,” he said truthfully. ******** The entire third-floor hotel room shook as the rumble rolled across the city. ”WHAT THE F$++?!” Ryan yelled aloud. A distinct deviation from how members of The Group normally communicated. Stewart, a man built like a line-backer, slapped closed the computer terminal, All drones off line. Thor unit just fried. We’re being boxed! Sandra, an athletic blond women swung around on Ryan, Get straight, Ryan! Send the tight-beam with status. We are compromised. Tell them we are going E&E. Ryan stared back, That was f*@!ing 10 story complex! She was pissed now, Do it! The emotion of alarm from the mission commander suddenly flooded into Ryan’s brain. He looked to see her grabbing for the gauss pistol laying on the desk by her terminal. The door to the room came off the hinges with a bang and debris and dust seemed to leap out of every crevice to fill the hotel room. Stewart died first; Ryan saw his head just come apart. Sandra was shooting but without armor, she never had a chance. When Ryan had yelled but moments before, he had stood up, which moved him out of sight of the door. His gun lay on his desk only feet away, but he knew he would die reaching for it. Thoughtlessly, the king-sized mattress accelerated off the bed and across the small room to wedge itself into the little hallway formed by the bathroom and leading to the hotel room door. Micro-polyester fill foam puffed from the back of the mattress as the attackers continued to shoot blindly. Ryan turned and the ceiling to floor glass door cracked in a spider web pattern. Where his head had been was pocked by a sniper’s shot. In less than a meter, he ran through the screen door, and threw himself off the balcony. ******** It had been 60 hours since his escape from the hotel room and Ryan hadn’t slept yet. He executed the escape and evasion plan, abandoning the contracted merchant that was supposed to take him off world. He was supposed to recover his kit bag stored at the space port and move to an alternate rendezvous and await contact. After 24 hours the team would be overdue, and a Search and Rescue Team should have been launched. However, no messages ever got out and open-source news would indicate a huge building had been brought down. Ryan was betting no one was coming anytime soon. They may look, but this one was too messy. So, Ryan changed his E&E plan once it was clear no one else was coming to the rendezvous. He found the local homeless population he had geolocated during operational planning and changed his appearance. He traded his warm jacket and clothing for a set that were thread bare and smelled terrible. Now being bearded, dirty, and disheveled, he fit right in. It was easy not to talk to anyone, he just mumbled and acted crazy like the rest of them while he waited for someone. He found that someone 30 hours later. Reddish hair, same height as Ryan but much slimmer. One question about where the local Liquor & Stim store was got the man to open right up. Once the guy passed out, Ryan robbed him of his identification and was at the spaceport for 6 hours before the man even knew he was gone. ******** The lady exited the rented 3 ton parts-lorry. She wore a well-worn flight suit, oil stained and fraying at the cuffs. Her hair tucked back in a ball cap that advertised some obscure naval repair facility. ”This is him.” The men squinted at him for a second and Ryan instinctively braced for his shield to be tested. But the man wasn’t psionic. ”You smell terrible,” the older man accused. ”And I’m not just talking about your clothes.” ”Leave her out of this,” he answered. The old man stopped surprised, then burst out a laugh. The lady looked pissed. The roar of an atmospheric interface vehicle lifted off from the spaceport filled the air for thirty seconds effectively silencing conversation. Ryan had no play so he found the thoughtless space and scanned the old man’s judgment of him. Yes, he thinks I’m trouble, but no surprise there. That lady hates me too. Ryan decided to just go for it. ”I’ve got 40 thousand in gold. No questions, take me to your next port of call and I’ll go from there. Here is my ID,” and he held up the homeless man’s identity card. The man’s chuckle settled down and he rubbed his chin thoughtfully. Ryan knew he was in. ”I like you. What’s the name for the manifest?” Ryan, out of some militarily ingrained habit of speaking to a superior, pulled the cap he found at the homeless camp from his head. After days of not showering and wearing a biologically suspect cover, his hair stood straight up like a red-headed cockatoo. ”Boris Prokofiev,” Ryan said confidently. The man burst out laughing again and reached out to Ryan. Putting his arm over his shoulder, the old man steered them both towards the Free-Trader berths. ”Suuuure. We’ll call you Rooster! I’m Vlen Backett.”
******** Ryan reluctantly met the men at the airlock of the Free Trader SUN TAN. Captain Tay said the man in charge of the disabled shuttle would want to meet the remote operator that rescued them. The shuttle had been disabled for two weeks after a mishap during a general evacuation of a planet falling into civil war. It had been slowly spinning on all three-axis making the stabilization first-priority to get the people onboard safely. It was difficult work but not that hard and so Ryan tried to beg out of the meeting. Captain Tay insisted. Always politicking. Captain Tay took Ryan on as remote operator and mechanic at Vlen Backket’s recommendation. Ryan couldn’t tell if Backket was a mastermind at concealing his thoughts or just a genuinely open guy with nothing to hide. But the last four years had taught Ryan a lot about working salvage and that Captain Tay went wherever the contracts were. And this planetary evacuation was a money-maker thanks to an emergency declaration by Imperial bureaucrats. The slight rush of air as the shuttle hatch opened between the two ships smelled like it indeed was adrift for two weeks spinning on all three axis. It caused a slight wince from the assembled crew of the SUN TAN.
Ryan hung towards the back. After a few minutes his Captain called for him, ”ROOSTER! COME HERE!” Ryan stepped forward moving through the crowd. ”Hi ya,” he offered the two men standing with the SUN TAN’s commanding officer. ”Rooster, this is Navy Petty Officer Lincoln Forgrave. He was the shuttle pilot. And this gentleman is Nicholas Maya the engineer.” ******** Ryan had spent seven years not accessing the thoughtless space. He knew the Imperium was always looking for those demonstrating psionic potential. And someone trained can spot the talent like blue paint on a white shirt. And you couldn’t tell who was trained unless they revealed themselves. So, Ryan believed with all his heart that his survival depended on not using his abilities. However, conditions had changed. ”YA WANNA F$$! WITH ME, GINGER?! I’LL F#~~ING KILL YOU!” The young skinny man in an oil-stained wife-beater yelled as he pressed a semiautomatic pistol into the back of Ryan’s head. The pirate’s vac-suit was pulled down and tied around his waist. The ship had responded to a distress call despite the first mate’s concerns that the vessel did not have an automated identification system number broadcasting. Captain Tay though had been swayed by the offer of a hefty reward. But Ryan knew nothing of this as he was on his back buried deep in an osmotic reclaimer that had gone on the fritz and until it came back online, no one got to shower. It wasn’t until the skinny man shoved the pistol in his face that he realized something was amiss. The skinny man pushed him forward through the p-way while speaking aloud into a throat comm, ”Found ‘im. Right where they said he was. Meet you at the lock.” The pirate then hit him hard in the back with the gun, ”HANDS UP, B&%$$!” Ryan’s hands were already above his head in compliance as they marched towards the cargo bay. He knew this was going to go badly and for the first time in a long time, he accessed the thoughtless space from where he could see everything. The hatch loomed ahead, when the skinny pirate chortled, releasing his grip on Ryan’s collar. Ryan saw him, touching his throat-comm, ”Ohhh, don’t start on that blondie without me!” When the skinny reached back to grab his collar again, he knew the pistol wavered towards the deck. It was enough. The pirate leaned towards Ryan, ”Big man, you a little b+##@, ain’t cha? A little bit…..” Ryan spun like a top, his left arm chopped down, knocking the man’s pistol hand away. The skinny man’s eyes went wide as Ryan’s forehead crashed into his face. Before the unconscious body could hit the deck plates, Ryan had thrown a forward kick to the man’s solar plexus so hard he figured the guy’s spleen probably ruptured. The body crumpled. Grabbing the gun from the deck, he chamber-checked it and verified the safety was off. He quickly rifled the pockets of the skinny, maybe dead, man and tossed aside everything but the throat com unit and an extra magazine he found. Clairsentience was difficult to hold, and if he had a choice, he wanted to see what was in the cargo bay. He donned the throat com unit and its ear bud to catch, ”….Chief coming over. Black Ear going to escort…” The thoughtless space expanded, and Ryan could see everyone in the hangar bay. The seven crewmembers were face down on their stomachs, hands out to their sides like airplanes. Captain Tay was flat on the deck, blood pooled around his head. The blonde girl the skinny pirate had been talking about was Sheryll Pine, 3rd Mate. Two pirates were in the process of forcefully pulling her flight suit off. One pirate, a Vargr, stood behind them, some kind of rifle at the ready. Another pirate moved through the airlock back to their ship. The last pirate was a bald female human and she stood just to the left of the engineering hatch Ryan was behind. She was a big girl, taller than Ryan, and morbidly fat. It was her voice on the net. ”Come on, Rat Face. Hurry up!” She barked. Ryan saw from the thoughtless space the fire extinguisher on the far side of the bay by the p-way that led towards berthing. With ease he telekinetically popped its quick release and it fell loudly to the deck. Everyone looked, including the two wanna-be rapists. Ryan opened the hatch. He shot the fat girl in her armpit with the pistol flat on his chest as he walked through the door. She barely whimpered and fell over dropping her own pistol. He then punched the auto-pistol out with both hands, his shoulder rolling forward. He’d done this a million times in CQB and weapon transition drills and another fifty more in real life. Smoothly he heel-toed toward the threats. His auto pistol shots were fast and rhythmic. The Vargr tried to turn back at the sound of the first shot, but Ryan’s next round struck the Vargr’s chest which sparked off its body armor. Ryan walked his next two shots into the Vargr’s throat and muzzle. Its head snapped backwards, and it went limp to the deck. The two rapists both tried to reach for their guns. Ryan found them slightly comical, being in various stages of disrobing themselves, they flopped and stumbled unable to retrieve their weapons. Ryan shot them both down in succession. A hail of autofire screamed from the airlock, bullets sparking off the deck plates all around and the prone crew scrambled to get up and away. Ryan didn’t have an angle to see far enough down the lock, but he hoped his return fire kept anyone from advancing back into the SUN TAN. Koenus, the Aslan Chief Engineer, lunged forward reaching the bulkhead adjacent to the airlock. He slapped a fist sized blue button, which in turn popped the cover off another fist-sized red button. That red button got smashed. Yellow LED strobes came to life as a klaxon sounded and the airlock emergency doors slammed shut. Three seconds later, the staccato sound of explosive bolts firing announced the two ships were no longer connected. ”HOLY F#!&!” said Johnathan, the 1st Mate. Sheryl was crying as she tried to get her suit back on, two other members of the crew, the atrogator and medic, were trying to provide her help. Mickey the pilot ran to get to the bridge. Baldy, the electrician’s mate, clutched his bloody leg and asked for a tourniquet. Koenus looked at Ryan. Captain Tay lay limp on the deck. The empty auto-pistol magazine fell free and hit the deck simultaneously with Ryan slapping home the fresh mag and releasing the slide. He scanned for threats. Finding none he lowered the gun and came back from the thoughtless space. ******** ”Vlen’s dead,” answered Captain Tay tiredly, leaning in the hatchway of Ryan’s room. Tay’s right eye drooped half-lidded, never fully recovering from the beating at the hands of the pirate’s a year ago. Ryan, seated on his rack was tying his boots but the news made him pause. ”How?” ”Don’t know, but after this offload I’m going not taking a contract. Instead, we will try to hit his funeral. I think we will make it just in time.” Vlen was a likable and genuinely funny man. Every once in a while, he would show up on the SUN TAN to talk business with Tay and then swing down to berthing or the engine room to say hi, share drink and then leave. Never asked for anything from Ryan after taking the 40 grand in Imperial serialized gold coins given to high risk operators to aid in escape and evasion if needed. The old man just said that gold would be more trouble than it was worth for Ryan to have and took possession of the leather belt holding the coins. Ryan actually agreed with him. Vlen had then introduced Captain Tay and vouched for Ryan for reasons all his own. Captain Tay took him onboard and gave him job. Taught him to be a belter. Tay was a pleasant to work for, but he always had a bit of politician’s soft edge and a weakness for worrying about money. The negotiation for Ryan’s crew spot was one-sided, and that was both deliberate and fine by Ryan. Not much more pay than room and board. Spent the last eight years on the float avoiding going planet side for port visits, the few they had. Again, Ryan was worried he’d pop on a facial scan at customs or some random recognition software for tailored advertising holo-boards. Best case the Imperium thought he was dead, yet he couldn’t rely on that. He had made a mistake grabbing his kit bag from where the team had stashed it. If an R&A team had located the stash and saw only one bag missing, they may piece it together he had made it out of the ambush. Captain Tay continued, ”I’m hanging it up, Rooster. Johnathon is buying me out. He said you could stay on, but he is still freaked out by you.” Tay was talking about the pirate event. The SUN TAN’s security cameras had captured everything and though Ryan’s actions saved the group, a couple of them focused on that fire extinguisher. They just sensed that the distraction seemed implausibly fortuitous but couldn’t explain it. And Ryan’s obvious weapons training revealing itself after so many years thinking him just a mechanic and electrician. They knew Ryan wasn’t the man he pretended to be, and it caused problems. Aggravating the issue was that Ryan never even offered an explanation. Ryan finished tying his boots and stood up, pulling the green flight suit on. The homemade ship’s patch 3rd Mate Pine had sewn five years ago velcro’d to his right shoulder. ”Alright, boss. Might be time for me to make a change. Can’t give you an answer right now but maybe after the funeral?” ******** |
