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Family Reunion Teaser

A Scarborough Fair Story

by RedFox6

(This particular part is inspired by three songs: In the Beginning and Lovely to See You by the Moody Blues, and Rose Tattoo by the Dropkick Murphys.)

As the Scarborough Fair traversed hyperspace, Tollel was attending school. While her body sat motionless in her cabin, her mind traveled through Marie's systems. Under Marie's guidance, she was learning how to improve her abilities in cyberspace.

As her avatar moved through the systems, she came across a sealed file marked with a red rose. Her curiosity was aroused, as all the other files she had come across were identified by alpha-numeric codes.

"Marie," she asked. "What's this?"

There was silence. It went on for so long that Tollel thought Marie wasn't going to answer.

Then, almost shyly, she did. "Those are my most important files. Memories of all the organics I have worked with over the years. Would you care to see some of them?"

"Yes, please," she answered.

"These are the most recent ones," Marie began. "When this ship was called the Wild Rose and we were Wild Rose Trouble Consultants Ltd."

The first file came up, a middle aged grey coyote with dark brown hair and his left ear partially chewed off. He was wearing a singlet that stated, 'Always Bring Grenades' while holding a beer and smiling broadly at something.

"George Beltane," she continued. "A member of a special forces group, before it was forcibly 'demobilized'. A good fur, and one of the first to realize that I was fully sentient. He died on Excalibur, covering our escape."

Another file came up, showing a human female with chestnut hair dressed in an ancient style bomber jacket and jodhpurs, and posing with an oversized revolver in her hand and a sardonic smile across her face. "Florence Fisher," Marie said. "Founder of Wild Rose. George may have been the public face of our group, but Florie was the guiding light. To a very real extent, she kept the group together. Even after the others left, Florie and I kept going. We left the Sword Worlds, and began trying to help wherever we could. It was while we were smuggling weapons and equipment to Johnny Rotten that we met Leu. After they were destroyed, he joined us as a partner for several years. He has soldiered on after Florie's death on Deseret, trying to carry on her legacy."

The next file came up, showing a short mouseling with pale cream fur and red hair, dressed in a light blue jumpsuit and holding a large grey cat in her arms. She had a pair of goggles perched on her head and a smile so wide it almost met itself behind her. "The mouseling is Gadget Hackwrench," Marie began. "She was an orphan, who named herself after a character in an ancient, preHegemony animated movie. An itinerant engineer on Asherah who showed up at our original spaceship looking for work. She did such a good job, that Florie and George offered her a permanent position. As she was unable to get into the Engineers' Guild, and thus secure a steady job, she accepted.

"Her companion is Joel Grey, a Terran cat uplifted to human level intelligence. We never did learn how they came to be together. Joel was very protective of her, and only reluctantly trusted us. Oddly enough, he was very good at hacking computers. He caused me many problems while attempting to hack my systems. Because of his efforts, I was able to find and plug many holes in my security settings. He also enabled me to automate the ship more effectively, although I still occasionally find trapdoors he left behind.

The next file came up, showing two humans wearing naught but collars. The female had auburn hair, while the male had been completely depilated, save for his eyebrows. Both were laughing happily at something. "Kayla and Cale," Marie said. "The children of one of George's friends. The political situation changed for the worst on Durendal, and it was necessary to smuggle them offplanet. The quickest and most expedient way was to disguise them as slaves. Once safely offplanet, they decided that they liked being our slaves, and continued on as such. They were very useful in helping us navigate the overly complicated politics of the Sword Worlds."

There were other files, and Marie quickly skimmed through some of them.

Marie finished with, "As long as I exist, all these people, including you and Leu, will be remembered."

It was an oddly comforting thought to Tollel.