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The original was posted on /r/hfy by /u/KamchatkasRevenge on 2024-11-01 22:24:59+00:00.
The next meeting was a big one.
The entire Bridger family is on hand, either wearing uniforms or nice dress clothing where appropriate, with the six daughters who could do more than crawl sitting to the side. They’d arranged something akin to stadium seating to ensure everyone could see and be seen.
It was critical that this go off well, because Jerry knew what would be happening. Observer Wu would be more or less asking the same questions to see if everyone’s story lined up, and to take advantage of the mixed backgrounds of the Bridger girls to get different angles on information that he’d already gotten from Jerry, Undaunted intelligence or even just pulled up on the galactic info net.
Jerry takes his seat next to Sylindra down in front, with Syl to his left and Aquilar to his right, as the other ‘heads’ of the household.
“Good day ladies, and thank you for taking the time to speak with me. As you no doubt know, I am Observer Wu. I have been sent by the governments of Earth to see exactly what has happened since Humans entered the wider galaxy. I will be recording this discussion for future reference.”
Syl offers Observer Wu a dignified bow of her head, looking as regal as any queen or empress greeting a petitioner… and on this ship, she might as well have been.
“We greet you Observer, and hope you find your time aboard our vessel instructive. Humanity has certainly had an interesting impact on the galaxy already and our individual interactions with Humans as a species has been… intense, to say the least.”
Wu nods. “Moving right along then, you are Madame Sylindra Bridger yes?”
“That’s correct, Director of Operations for this ship, and the Chief Executive Officer for the Bridger Conglomerate, which grew out of my high end boutique cloning service back on Centris.”
“Very good. Can you tell me a bit about your services as a commercial cloning entity?”
“Of course. We mostly provide the same services I did back on Centris, but at a much larger scale and with a lock galaxy wide on Earth origin goods. We also clone a large number of live animals, mostly for the pet trade for Humans, and Human adjacent families, but there’s a large cat fancier’s club that’s established itself on the Yauya homeworld just for example.”
“…I see. Ah. Yes, Admiral Bridger mentioned something called a Hyper Malinois. Can you explain this creature to me?”
Syl smiles serenely. “Of course. We can modify animals from baseline DNA. The Hyper Malinois is a larger, faster, stronger and more intelligent Belgian Malinois, and it has been evolutionarily advanced so it can start accessing axiom instinctively using advanced computer simulations. We’ve also done a Doberman for Marines, and the Dire Wolf.”
Wu blinks for a moment, clearly latching on to that last phrase. “So you are responsible for those massive wolves they’ve been introducing into the Dark Forest on Serbow?”
Wichen chuckles. “Ha. Forest nothing, they’re going into individual homes as puppies too!”
“Nyahahah! The shock on human’s face is most entertaining to Nezbet. Come dear Observer, surely a sweet little puppy is not so surprising to you.”
Nezbet’s mirthful grin is the kind of smug amusement that could in fact start a bar fight in the right circumstances, but the Observer was determinedly ignoring her.
Syl gestures for quiet before continuing. “The dire wolves are a ‘custom’ project and there’s a few strains. The ones on the Apuk homeworld are fire resistant for example. The prime strain is the best and is exclusive to our household for pets and war hounds. They were made on a request from some of our soldiers. They’ve also asked for something called a Warg eventually which should be large enough for a grown woman in armor to ride but it’s proved to be quite a complicated project…”
Wu’s eyes bulge slightly for a moment as he deals with what had to be to him, the raw absurdity of that last statement.
“That. You can just. Is it not complicated? To just make new animals?”
“Extremely, but my staff are very good at their jobs. Like many things in the galaxy, Observer, you’ll find a lot of things aren’t done mostly because people don’t see the point in doing so, not because it can’t be done.”
“I see. Moving along, can you tell me what happened after your initial encounter with a Human?”
Syl chuckles into her hand politely.
“In some ways that initial encounter has never ended, Observer. The first Human I ever met is my own beloved husband, Jeremiah. He came to me with an intriguing business proposition, we became partners and… the more intimate kind of partner… and shortly thereafter I ended up in our first gun fight together, alongside my future third wife, Eymali.”
Syl pauses and Eymali raises her hand before bowing her head in turn, following Syl’s lead.
“Huntsmistress Eymali Bridger. For my part of this encounter. A nasty bunch of blighters tried to rob Syl and Jerry. They ordered me to leave. I didn’t exactly comply, but appeared to. Even if Honor did not compel me to assist in that sort of situation, I’d not leave people to deal with those animals alone. My people have natural invisibility, so I doubled back and attacked from ambush, as is traditionally preferred by my people.”
“Noted. Thank you, madam. Is there anything you’d like to say as a general statement for the record before we continue, Madame Sylindra?”
“Yes. As a matter of fact. I am beyond blessed to have my husband in my life. Beyond blessed to see our family grow as it has, both in terms of new sisters for me and wives for Jerry, but also in children, which I consider my true wealth. This ship. Credits. All of that is just things. My blessings are my children and my sister’s children, and the incredible, warm and loving man who brought us together, and if I can say one thing about my husband is that he never stops thinking about and working for Earth. Not once, nor will he, I suspect, till his dying day.”
“…I suppose your stance on children as blessings would be part of this large family photo I have of your many children. Including the first Human born out of Cruel Space.”
“Humans counting some of my sisters children, but yes, that’s right. Volpir like myself and my sisters have a faster gestation time than Humans. So I gave birth to my son, James, before the Schmidt family had their son.” Syl chuckles. “Admittedly, my sweet boy didn’t hatch from an egg like the Schmidt’s child did. Volpir pregnancies are far more conventional from the Human perspective.”
Jerry leans forward a bit, joining the conversation fully.
“For ‘full human’ children born out of Cruel Space, I believe Sharon will have that honor, with Diana not too far behind. We are of course keeping an eye on their pregnancies for research purposes, with that information being correlated and reviewed on the Dauntless. More invasive demands placed on my wives have been ‘gently discouraged’, both by myself and by Admiral Cistern.”
“It strikes me they were likely discouraged at muzzle velocity if the rest of the Undaunted are anything to go by so far.”
Jerry doesn’t respond, just offers Observer Wu a wolfish grin before exchanging a look with Syl and picking up the story.
“So that brings us to the second shootout, which you and I have discussed in detail and reviewed the footage on. More importantly that event marks meeting Jaruna, my fourth wife, and Wichen, my gunnery officer, armory master and fifth wife. After two shootouts in as many weeks, I determined that Centris was no place to raise a family. I don’t like cities to start with and Centris is… well. Nothing but the things I hate most about cities. I also believed we could do more good by taking our operation mobile. I was looking at a relatively small science ship, as I believe I mentioned, but Jaruna pointed out I wasn’t thinking big enough, and the Tear just happened to be on the market.”
“I still find it remarkable that such a large vessel can be kept casually in private ownership.”
Syl grins. “I wouldn’t say it can be kept casually in private ownership, it’s a significant amount of work and expense to keep the Crimson Tear in the sky.”
“I most certainly believe you madame, and you had enough money to buy a ship of that size?”
Sylindra tilts her head up a bit, clearly pleased with herself as she boasts;
“You have to understand the market on Centris, Observer, it’s the most competitive, and lucrative market in the galaxy for one world operations. I was already considered very successful, and even before we went to market with the new products Nadi and I produced with Jerry, I was a very well off woman in my own right. We took a loan out, but that was more to keep more of our assets liquid. We then had a decent portion of the fitting out subsidized by the Undaunted. We’ve signed a fifty year contract for service as a fleet auxiliary cruiser for the Undaunted and negotiated for a lot of those modifications to be paid on their end. The expansion of our cloning business to pan-galactic scale’s paid for everything else a hundred fold.”
“Moving on, I have all the details of your initial cruise and your reports, but I did want to hear the initial start in your own words. Not to discount your other activities, but now I specifically wanted to ask about your counter-piracy operations and one other matter.”
“I just bet I can guess the other matter. I take it you’d like to discuss the pirates first?”
“Yes. How prevalent is space piracy?” …
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