A tale of two Rizzels

"You like it?" he said to Mort, in pretty much the same tone of voice people used when they said to St George, "You killed a *what*?"
-- Mort tastes scrumble for the first time
(Terry Pratchett, Mort)

There's always a bigger fish

The Cunning Man deftly makes its way through Eifer, with quick and efficient use of its on-board scanner it is able to pinpoint the location of a possible target, a Typhoon class battleship.

The Cunning Man is the latest of Kane Rizzel's Rifter class frigates, a hull he is most comfortable with but one in which he is totally reckless in, some would say suicidal. This particular Rifter is slightly different, but no less deadly.

The Typhoon appears to be on a gate to high security space and it would take Kane every bit of his great negotiating skill to get a fight out of the battleship.

After five minutes of continuous harassment, the Typhoon pilot finally caves and shoots at Kane.

Kane smiles.

The smile turns to a frown as the Cunning Man is out of capacitor... A heavy energy neutralizer of some kind, this is not good... Oh brilliant, now there's a flight of Warrior II drones, best to try kill some off... This is not going to end well.

The wreck of the Cunning Man is left behind as the escape pod of the pilot named Kane leaves the scene. An offer of a battleship duel declined by the Typhoon pilot

Somewhere in the vast nothingness...

...a comm speaker comes to life

"Hey there the best sister in the whole wide universe"

"You lost another Rifter? Didn't you?" says Keira in an almost mocking tone, in fact, it was straight out mocking, no almost about it and she adds "I'm also your only sister"

"Well yeah, but I would of had him were it not for a few small technicalities"

"A few small technicalities? Let me guess, you attacked him?" she says, the tone of her voice that of someone who has had to deal with a lot of torment due to her big brothers actions.

"Of course I bloody attacked him, took me five minutes to get him to shoot first"

In the darkness of her pod, Keira raises her palm to her face

"Where the hell are you? Haven't seen you in Gus for a bit and I know you're not hanging out in highsec with Kenny"

"I'm in Catch" she says, rubbing her temples as her brother had the innate ability to cause headaches, as much for others as for himself.

"What... The... Fuck... Are you doing in Catch?"

"Remember that wormhole you chased a Drake through last week?" she asks and before Kane gets a chance to answer "Well it turns out it's a nice pocket of zerosec, just grinding some security status back"

"What the fuck is security status?"

"That thing that allows you free travel through high security space, the thing that labels you as a delinquent, a ne'er-do-well, a trouble maker... Kane Bloody Rizzel... That's security status and I kind of need it if I'm to move stuff for the corporation and for you" She says, readying herself for the inevitable.

"This might be a dumb question, but why do you, of all people need to grind security status? It's not like you get your hands dirty, I do all the bloody heavy lifting"

"A few days ago you wanted to kill two Ravens running the Eifer Gauntlet, in an effort to catch both of them you asked me for help, I got a Heavy Interdictor and came along" she starts...

"I know, I was there"

...After a moment she continues "As you are well aware, as you were there... The Ravens never bloody well showed up, so you killed a Ferox instead and being one of the faster lockers, I tackled the pod so you could ransom"

"He didn't pay, what an idiot"

"For sending someone home via the clone vats comes with a heavy price and as I was involved my security status dropped below zero"

"He should have bloody paid... Soooooooo, when you coming back?

"Not for a while, I'm liking it out here, it's very... Peaceful" and with that she closed the conversation with the flick of a switch.

The peace and quiet was just what she needed.