driftfleet | inquiries & a challenge

Who: Ray Kowalski
Broadcast: Video
Action: Windrose, and space!
When: today and also whenever the races are happening

[Ray is looking bored bored bored. He has a toothpick stuck in the corner of his mouth, and he's throwing a ball from one hand to the other, sometimes scrambling after it when he misses- it's astigmatism, okay, he just doesn't see all that good.]

Alright, so I got a question. Not everyone here's from Earth, whatever, but most of you are from some kinda place with some kinda rules and laws. And I figure a bunch of you have gotta be law enforcement yourselves, y'know, statically. [sic]

Now me? I'm just a regular schmo, city cop worked his way up to Detective. I didn't always wanna be a cop, but I tried it out and it stuck. Chasin' bad guys, putting on the heat, lock 'em up. Bam-bam-bam. [He slams the ball into his hand three times, then sits forward and grins.] It's a job, right? Just like bein' an engineer in here.

[He misses it. He misses it a lot, actually; misses his partner and the job, the satisfaction of a puzzle and a chase and locking up someone who made the world a little more dangerous.] So the rest of you: what do you do? How's it work in your world?

[Added, a few minutes later:]

By the way: I don't have my ar here to race you in, but back home I'm the last guy you wanna get into a car chase with. [He may be exaggerating slightly, but who could contradict him?] Figure I gotta keep those instinct working. I'll be there in two hours, ready to go.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[Ray is used to it- posturing comes with the job. You don't know how to loom a little, how to intimidate just by crossing your arms, you're nowhere. It's not something he's had to do much on the Fleet, but he recognizes it in her.

It makes him grin, a little sharp but still friendly enough. He appreciates a little edge in a woman.]

So what'd you do? [Because that doesn't sound like she just had it for kicks.]

Drive the War Rig, oversee Warboys, keep the other Imperators in line, make sure Rictus keeps his damn hands to himself, that sort of thing.

[She doesn't imagine a lot of this is going to translate but there are some things she's not quite ready to go into detail about, especially with a stranger.]

You?

[Most of it doesn't, though he tries to fill in a bunch of things-- he imagines her as a general in an army, old-fashioned maybe like he remembers from school. It makes him feel a little small, especially faced with how fierce she looks, but it doesn't make him lose his smile.]

Sounds like a lotta hard work.

Me? Like I said, y'know- someone commits a crime, I find out whodunnit, and then I find out a way to catch 'em. And then it's over to the law, outta my hands.

It was, but not more than I could handle. [Especially considering how much harder she made it on herself when she stole the Wives, but that's a story for another day.]

So you get the fun part.

[His smile gets a little tighter, a little less genuine, but it doesn't go away. No need to put his shit on her.]

Sure. I get the fun part. Guessin' you're ain't exactly fun then?

Let's just say I did it out of necessity. [Her options in that society were really rather limited.]

Must be good, bein' here.

It's better. [It'd be a stretch to say good, since they're still technically kidnapped, but at least survival is a little easier here.] Still getting used to a lot of things; we had only ever heard stories about being up here.

What, you heard stories about being on space reality TV?

Maybe not exactly, but I heard everyone had their own stories, and they would send them up to the satellites so everyone else could see them. I knew we had once conquered space, but my world was dead and it was hard enough living on it, let alone leaving it.

What- like reality TV? Yeah, those didn't take place in space, though. Don't. I mean -

What year is it where you're from?

[She looks at the feed blankly for a moment.]

We don't count years. We count days. You're lucky if you make it that far.

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