Chapter 1

Benson - Epsilon Sub Sector, disputed space

“Where you from, stranger?” asked the barkeep.

“Nowhere in particular,” said Augustine.

“Off worlder, huh?” said the barkeep, “Can tell from the accent. Don’t get too many of you all ‘round here. Don’t get too many of any kind ‘round here though, to be honest. Not much to do ‘cept dig up uranium and hunt clavisaurs. Get eaten by clavisaurs’ also an option I guess.”

The barkeep paused, thinking on something. “I think the sheriff arrested one last night though,” he said, “ ‘nother off worlder I mean. With you?”

“No one’s with me, friend,” said Augustine. He tipped his hat back to reveal a face weathered by the elements but hard to gauge age-wise, “You gonna pour me a drink or what?”

“Sure, sure,” said the barkeep, voice rising, “Just makin’ conversation. Slow here in the morning no one’s back from the mines to do-”

“What’s the strongest thing you got?”

“Uh, nest wine, I guess,” said the barkeep, “Not really wine. Fermented from the fungus found in the nests of-”

“Don’t need the details,” said Augustine, holding up a hand, “I’ll take a double. What kind of coin you take?”

“Imperial or Union- it’s all the same out here,” said the barkeep.

Augustine flipped a crown onto the bar and the barkeep let out a little gasp.

“Keep the fungus stuff flowin’.”

The saloon doors slid open and a lanky, humanoid simulant clanked in, chrome plating patched in places with rust. Its optics whirred and clicked as they adjusted to the gloom of the bar.

“Don’t have nothin’ for your kind,” said the barkeep.

“Ulysses there is with me,” said Augustine, “he’s alright.”

“Thought you said no one was with you.”

“Well I s’pose that’s a philosophical question- is a sim a someone?”

“That which we are, we are,” said Ulysses, its voice a cool flat monotone.

“A what question?” asked the barkeep.

“Pour me a fuckin’ drink, will you?” said Augustine, turning to the sim, “What’ja find?”

The sim clanked over and handed Augustine a small dataslate. He frowned as he read.

“This for real?” he asked. The barkeep slid a glass of something green down the bar. Augustine downed it with a wince and tapped the bar for another.

The sim nodded its scuffed and battered metal head, “Confirmed.”

The barkeep looked suspiciously at his customer and the sim, “What’re you all up to?”

Augustine sipped his drink and smiled, “Ain’t only uranium they’re mining out here, my friend.”

The cell door clanged shut with shocking force. After a pause of less than a heartbeat the heavy electromagnetic locks fired, sealing the cell. Kyra Ren took a step back from the doorway cursing with enough originality that even the guard seemed. That was fair, In fifteen years of wandering the spinward colonies she had enjoyed plenty of opportunities to learn. Not for the first time she cursed the day she had ever heard of Benson. It had seemed like a simple job, in and out and score a few thousand credits without anyone the wiser, instead it looked like she might be here quite a bit longer than she had planned. That wasn't such a bad outcome in the grand scheme of things, plenty of places they would have just shot her.

“Your mother should have spat you out you ditch dropped son of a Keefian whore!” she screamed at the back of the departing guard. The other prisoners hooted and jeered and the guard paused for a moment and then walked from the cells without a further word. Kyra was a trim woman in her late twenties, lean and pale skinned with slightly upturned eyes which bespoke ancestry in one of the long burn colonies in East March of the Taurian J. She had short blonde hair which hung in an untidy series of tresses and braids that were badly in need of washing. She wasn’t stunning, certainly not in her current disheveled state, but she had a vivacity and intensity that turned heads or least she normally did. Currently, dressed in a shapeless spacers jumpsuit and covered in yellow gray uranium dust she didn’t cut much of a figure.

The jail, like most structures on Benson, was a prefab unit, the kind of low cost, low density, high endurance structure that could be customized in anyone of a dozen configurations. The individual cells were ribbed metal containers with woven wire paneling that had probably began life as transport for cattle or other livestock before being downgraded for human beings. There was an open air toilet and a sink at the far end but no other furniture. Either the locals didn’t expect people to remain here long, or, more likely, they didn’t care much about their prisoners comfort. Unfortunately, the plural of prisoners was true in this case.

A man, bearded and disheveled grinned at her without warmth while a fat woman with lank hair sat in the far corner by the toilet, her arms drawn up around her knees with an expression of misery on her face. The man took a step towards her, his eyes gleaming with an unwholesome hunger.

“Why don’t you just go along with it girl, old Jeb will show you how things are…”

Kyra kicked him hard in the knee, waiting till his weight was on it and angling the blow to drive the joint outward away from its natural alignment. The big man screamed and twisted downwards, only to meet her knee as she drove it upwards into his chin, cutting off his scream with a clack of teeth that was painful even to hear. It was probably unnecessary for her to drive her elbow into his kidney as he fell, but Kyra had been taught that you didn’t stop putting the boot in just because the other fellow was down. The man, Jeb she presumed, fell in a writhing heap. She grabbed his shoulder with her wiry fingers and pulled him over onto his back, expending far more effort than it had taken to put him down. Blood leaked from his lips from where he had bitten his own tongue. Without wasting time or motion she knelt down on his chest pressing her forehead to his. The mans breath was foul with old booze and some sort of herbal tobacco but she paid it no mind. Instead she pressed a finger to his temple and focused her mind.

“You will never touch me again,” she commanded pouring her will into the words. Jeb whimpered and his eyes rolled back into his head. As far as projection went, it was about as simple and brutal a technique as you could use. There was the sharp smell of urine on the air, Jeb had wet himself when she had assaulted his mind. Unsteadily she pushed herself to her feet and glanced at the woman cowering in the corner. SHe looked away instantly unwilling to meet Kyra’s eyes.

“Fuck this fucking planet,” she cursed a moment before one of the guards hit her from behind with a shock batton and she was hurled into unconsciousness.

@Flagg

"Take it you're the sheriff?" said Augustine. He didn't turn around, just continued to sip his drink.

'Cept for him, the sheriff and the sheriff's two goons, bar was empty. Barkeep had fled out the back at some point.

"Oz said there was two of ya," said the sheriff, a big man in ill fitted body armor. A meaty hand rested on the grip of a holstered Galican Repeater.

His pair of lackies, rebreather masks obscuring their faces, circled to either side of Augustine.

"Only me here. Oz was the barman? Little excitable, you ask me," said Augustine, turning around on the stool to face the sheriff, "Not sure what I done to warrant a visit from you fine gentlemen, though. Does the law take a dim view of day drinkin'?"

"Law takes a dim view of outsiders, pokin' their noses where they ain't invited."

"I see," said Augustine, finishing the rest of his drink. Four empty glasses lined the bar behind him, "Well good news then on that score- I have been invited to poke around where ever I like. Name's Augustine- retainer to House Kesselbrood, which I believe holds title to this here rock. They asked me to sniff out some rumors been goin' round about Dark Age artifacts bein' dug up, sold on the black market, that kinda thing."

What happened next happened real fast. The sheriff drew his gun along with his cronies. Augustine drew as well, faster despite all the booze, and shot down the man to the sheriff's right. Something chrome-colored flashed as it dropped from the bar's metal rafters.

Ulysses smacked the gun out of the sheriff's hand and knocked the fat man on his back while breaking the arm of his remaining thug, who fired a few shots into the floor until the sim prostrated him as well.

Augustine stood up, mostly steady- but only mostly- and sauntered over to the sheriff, who was busy cradling a broken nose.

"My mistake- didn't think you all'd be fool enough to let the idiot barman in on the racket."

The was a loud crack and a whiff of ozone. A las-bolt struck Ulysses in the chest and the sim stumbled backward. Augustine whipped around and fired.

Oz, the barkeep, dropped the rifle as the top part of his head painted the bottles lined neatly behind him. He sank to his knees as he died, disappearing behind the bar.

The sheriff and his remaining man each had scrambled for their guns in the momentary confusion. Neither was fast enough. Augustine shot them as they struggled to their feet.

"Shit," he hissed, striding over to where Ulysses now knelt, fluids dripping from the hole in its chest.

"How dull it is to pause, to make an end," said Ulysses, its optics sputtering.

"Sorry pal," said Augustine, kneeling next to the sim, "We had some times."

"Little remains," said Ulysses, "SYSTEM FAILURE CRITICAL."

"Till we meet again," said Augustine, reaching behind the sim's head. He pulled out the memory core and, with a blue electric flash, Ulysses crumpled.

The radio unit on the sheriff's corpse squawked, "Boss, we got a situation down here at the jail- "

The taste of blood was bright and coppery on Kyra’s lips. Part of her mind objected to this as out side of normal but it was rapidly replaced by another part of her mind that was screaming about having recently been hit with a shock baton. Something cold had been dashed in her face and she could hear people shouting and rattling bars around her. Shaking her head she realized that her wrists were bound above her head. It was nearly depressing that she could recognise the feel of standard issue Union handcuffs without actually seeing them. Benson wasn’t technically in Union space, or Imperial for that matter but hardware tended to flow from one or the other.

Her vision returned and she found herself looking at a pudgy man in early middle age. He was balding and had grown a patchy goatee by way of compensation which Kyra felt made him look a bit like a diseased egg. She recognized him as one of the prison flunkies she had seen on her way in. A shock baton waved in his hand and he was shouting something, his eyes wide with panic. That fact bought Kyra’s mind sharply into focus and she felt the first real prickle of fear since they had dragged her out of the cargo hold of Hogan’s Whore. Angry people were predictable but scared people might do anything. The deputy appeared to be shouting something and with a little effort she was able to make it out.

“I said are you a fucking witch?!” he shrieked, literal foam flecking the corners of his mouth.

“She used her mind powers on me,” another voice whined and she recognized the drunk that had identified himself as ‘old Jeb’ shortly before she had explained to him that she wasn’t interested in being groped or worse than groped because he felt like he was king shit in this half assed prison.

Kyra laughed, though the sound came out like a crackling wrasp. Suns she was dry and Suns she was sore but physical discomfort could be ignored if one had the right mindset.

“I’m not kidding, are you a fucking jayser? I’ve heard the stories. Can you read minds and do all that shit.” The prongs of the shock baton rose towards her face, electricity jumped between them in sharp unstable arcs.

“Yeah you caught me,” she croaked, wiggling her fingers in the cuffs above her head like a child pretending to work a spell.

“My evil plan to get arrested and thrown into prison is going perfectly,” she choked. Pain exploded across her face and she fell into blackness again, the smell of burning hair filling her nostrils.

Consciousness returned faster this time, although she wasn’t certain exactly how she knew it to be so. The pain was incredible. Muscles fired spasmodically, twitching her right cheek into a painful rictus that sent fresh daggers of agony into her brain. Something had evidently happened while she had been out. The deputy was looking between her and the dispatch desk, his eyes wide.

“What do you mean he isn’t answering! Get over there right now, go!” the deputy snarled. There was a clatter of boots and the distinctive sound of a shotgun slide being worked. The panic officer seized her by the hair yanking her head back.

“Is this your doing witch? You got backup out there?” He leaned close, close enough that she could smell the garlic on his breath. Kyra hummed a bar of Lillibullero soft enough that only she and the deputy could hear it. He leaned in closer.

“I confess,” she murmured.

“What?” the deputy asked his eyes widening. The moment of panicked realization rolled off him like a chill wind of an icy lake. It would never have worked if he hadn’t gotten this close.

“I can read minds and do all that shape changing shit.” There was a sudden popping surge of energy and the light strips dimmed for an instant. The deputy staggered back, his hand raising to the blood that was pouring from his nose. He gave her a last look, more shocked than angry, then his knees buckled and he fell into an awkward pile, his heart thudding for an instant and then stilling.

Lillibullero bullen a la

Kyra tasted blood again as her eyes rolled back, and for the third time in an hour, fell into unconsciousness.

Three of 'em poured outta the police station into the dusty main street as Augustine approached, his duster swirling behind him in the warm breeze. He didn't hesitate, just opened fire, killing one outright with a bullet through the neck and sending the other two diving behind the dumpster that sat open and stinking just outside the pitted metal exterior of the jail.

Without breaking stride the gunslinger clicked a switch on his weapon, which let out a brief high-pitched whine, and fired on the dumpster. The HE bullet blew the trash bin and the men behind it apart before they could duck around the sides to return fire.

"What a mess," slurred Augustine, "last time I run my fuckin' mouth to a barman..."

Taking an uneven step towards the jail, he sank to his knees a few feet from the entrance and vomited into the dust. He reflected blearily that the whole situation was pretty much only his fault. It was one thing to take your time and get to know a place before making your move. Another thing to get completely shit-faced two hours after you roll into town and immediately blow your own cover.

That was his last thought before the burly woman in mining gear hit him on the back of the head with a wrench and sent him spiraling into semi-consciousness.

Something wet and cold hit Kyra’s face startling her back to consciousness. To her surprise she was no longer in the prison. Instead she was in the back of what appeared to be a flatbed truck. Benches that were probably used to transport laborers ran along both side of the rear. The vehicle had an enclosed cab that looked like it would fit six or eight and though it wasn’t exactly armored, it was a heavy industrial vehicle, with shock resistant plasteel windows and a heavy construction. The oily reek of a diesel chemical motor tinged the air.

They were moving along a rutted road at about thirty kph, the suspension was bad enough that even at that modest speed every bump felt like she was being body slammed. Shackles encased her wrists and bound her to a metal support post between her legs. It wasn’t quite freezing but large blue gray snowflakes, a product of the higher than normal copper sulfate levels in Benson’s atmosphere, floated down with enough insistence that there was already a rind of bluish snow. The back of the truck contained three other men. Two of them were guards, not cops, but men in mining utilities dark grey garments with yellow reflective markings at the wrist and across the small of the back. Both carried heavy semi automatic rifles of a solid electromotive variety which Kyra thought was very unminer like.

The last man was something else, he was hunched in a coat that concealed his face, but his aura was stormforged as Mistress Lelamai would have said. Other later instructors, followers of a less spiritual but more practical path, would have counseled her to put two in the back of his head just to be sure. The strange man was also shackled to his bench in much the same way as she. The pallor of his skin looked awful and he smelled of vomit and strong liquor. Kyra tried to smile but the effort was too painful. Dried blood stained her face and an unknown amount of hair had been burned from the side of her face, it probably wasn’t the best moment to judge her appearance either.

They moved along the road at the plodding pace for a minute or two longer before the vehicle shifted into some sort of a dynamic drive and they began to speed up. Forests of trees, mostly colonized with greenish fungus, stretched out to either side, save where electrical lines or pipes had been passed on suspended stablizier towers. Benson was supposed to be more tectonically active than most habitable worlds and the risk of burying pipes risked a kink or a break that couldn’t easily be fixed.

“Well thanks for springing me from jail and all but you guys can let me off wherever,” she said trying to sound as casual as she could. One of the guards turned and glared at her.

“Keep your mouth shut bitch, we know about you two and your little investigation. I don’t mind shooting you both but then the boss’d be pissed he didn’t get a chance to find out everything you know first.”

If your gonna get taken, better it be by rubes, Augustine thought. His head felt full of shattered glass and the burning hint of bile lingered in the back of his mouth, but he smiled nonetheless as he palmed the small, dull colored blade from where it lay sheathed in the buckle of his belt. Rule one when you're taking prisoners is, always make 'em strip, and always scan 'em for tech. Fuckin' amateurs.

As Augustine quietly sawed through the links in his chains with the monoknife, the guards were busy barkin' at the mouthy little sprite they had chained up front- they seemed genuinely spooked by her, moreso by far than they were of Augustine. Considerin' he'd blown away a half dozen or so of their colleagues earlier in the day, he reckoned that made whoever she was formidable.

He wondered what in the six hells she'd done to get herself mixed up in this mess. A Union spook, maybe, but then it'd be weird if a real pro'd wound up caught by these hicks.

The transport left the forest and began trailing the ridge of what first seemed to be a canyon. Only with a second look did Augustine register it for what it was, a vast open faced mine, with roads spiraling down its sides. Spotlights lit up huge metal trusses and scaffolds as the day gave way to frosty twilight.

He noticed the sea-turtle silhouette and flashing lights of a bulk conveyance flashing a little ways ahead, circling what he assumed was a landing pad. Legally, all space travel on and off planet had to go through Port Carolus. Customs on this backwater was a joke, and Benson had a thriving black market through the regular channels of trade, with Kesselbrood and Imperial officials mostly happy to look the other way and take their cut.

Whatever they were shipping off-world here they were real keen to keep hidden from official eyes.

One of the guards went up to towards the cab to speak to the driver.

"What're you all diggin' up here?" croaked Augustine to the remaining guard, "This sure as hell ain't a uranium outfit."

"Salvation," said the guard, striding down the aisle to where Augustine sat, "Don't worry, wastrel, you'll see soon enough, maybe even come to belie-"

He noticed the broken chains but it was too late. Augustine lurched forward as the truck bounced over a rut and sank his blade into the man's neck, knocking the rifle from his grip and sending it clattering to the back of the truck. The two men tumbled to the ground, Augustine keeping one hand firmly planted on the dying man's mouth and tossing the monoknife to the woman in chains. It landed between her shackled feet, hypersharp blade buried in the metal floor of the transport.

The other guard had returned from the cab, blinked as he registered what was going on, and hefted his rifle to fire on Augustine, who was pointing the dead guard's sidearm straight at him.

"Not so fast, friend," said Augustine.

The scent of blood filled the night as bright arterial spurts pumped the man's life from him in the space of a half dozen, very obvious heartbeats. Kyra snatched the blade from the floorboard, thumbed the power and severed the loop that bound her to the truck with a quick slash. The monokife, atom thick teeth of synthetic diamond whired at several thousand revolutions a second, slicing the tether is cleanly as a laser could have done. Releasing the shackles themselves would have been extremely difficult. It was impressive that the stranger had managed it without cutting his wrists open, nearly as impressive as taking out the guards the way he had. Rather than risking it she close her eyes for a moment and focused her mind. The human body was a remarkable instrument in many ways but it was the product of blind channels of evolution. If one had the right training and the right mindset… Kyra forced her tendons to relax, her hand popped unpleasantly and she was aware of a sharp spike of pain as her hand deformed. With a sharp tug she pulled the limp hand through the restraint, it scraped her skin raw but it was cheap at the price. As she relaxed the mental technique her biology reasserted itself, painfully wrenching her hand back into its original form.

With the restrain still dangling from her wrist she scooped up the carbine and hoped off the back of the truck, yanking the door open before the driver was able to do anything but gawp. He fell to the roadside and she kicked the fallen man in the temple dropping him into unconsciousness. With long strides she moved around the engine block to the man her rescuer was covering with his pistol. She struck him a sharp blow to the back of the head with the stock of her weapon. Dropping the man with a groan to the hard packed road. The stranger was still pointing his weapon but if he were going to shoot her he would have done so already.

“Alright,” she said as placeholder.

Down in the mine the freighter was setting down on a landing pad. That shouldn’t be here. Stabilized uranium was a bulk commodity, according to her information it should be shipped overland to a collection port before being lifted out. Why were freighters landing here? Did it matter at this point? Her cover was blown and she needed to get off planet before one of these yokels got lucky. She glanced up at her apparent rescuer.

“I’m Kyra Ren,” she said by way of introduction.

“I’m looking to get off world.”

"Seems like a good idea," said Augustine, "Locals haven't proved too friendly."

The road was quiet, the only noise the steady, distant hum of heavy machinery from the mine. Above, stars began to poke through the bluish haze of dusk.

He looked around, fishing a smoke out of his shirt pocket with his free hand. With his long dark coat and upturned collar, his face slightly crooked- a broke jaw that'd healed badly years ago- and speckled with the dead miner's blood, he looked mildly sinister in the gathering darkness. A revenant from the old stories, looking to settle business unfinished in life.

"Name's, uh, Augustine, Lex Augustine," he said, lowering the gun but not holstering it, "What's got you mixed up in this, Kyra Ren?"

He turned, not waiting for the answer and rummaged through the truck's storage bin, pulling out the hat and gun the locals had confiscated. He checked the magazine on his pistol and shrugged, looking satisfied.

"You sure had these miners, or whoever they are, plenty spooked," he said with a faint smile, "Enough so they didn't notice me pull a blade. Didn't have much time for me at all, in fact- despite me shootin' down the sheriff, the barman, and plenty others. Makes me wonder."

Kyra looked up at her new found ally, the hard edge his aura was obvious even without the look of a man who had been in tight places and lived to tell about it. She turned the carbine she had looted over in her hands checking the load automatically. Rifles were not her weapon of choice, though she was familiar with them as part of her training. If she were ever in a situation that she needed that kind of range things had gone badly wrong.

“I was hired to… perform an audit, I guess you might say,” she responded. The Syndicate, one of the larger criminal organizations in this part of space, expected a certain amount of graft in any operation they ran. Afterall, who would trust a man who didn’t skim a few credits here and there, but this relaxed attitude ended once it started to cut into their profit margin. Kyra had started her career as an intelligence officer the Union had been willing to use jaysers to gain an edge in wartime but with the war over all she had to look forward to was a dead end job, or just a dead end. Getting out had not been easy and it had used up every credit she had been able to beg borrow or steal. Contracting for the Syndicate was better than starving, or had seemed so. She should have figured that the fact they were trusting this to an outsider meant they didn’t trust their own people, a fact that her situation illustrated perfectly.

“Unfortunately it seems someone tipped these bastards off,” she went on, nudging one of the unconscious men with her boot. The man didn’t move and Kyra wondered if she shouldn’t drag them into the forest and cut their throats. It would certainly have been the safer course, but murdering an unconscious man wasn’t something she wanted to do unless she had no other choice.

“I came in on a bulk freighter, stowing away, and they just marched right on and snatched me up,” her face twisted in irritation. Her first job blown before she could even get started, though the very fact that it had happened proved that the Syndicate had bigger problems than it had figured on. Someone had tipped the locals off.

“And I don’t think they are really miners, no scuff marks or dirt on their fatigues, the look like they came right out of central supply,” she glanced down at the yawning pit of the open cut mine. The freighter had set down on the landing pad and a vast cloud of dust kicked up by its plasma thrusters was billowing out from where it had touched.

“Which I suppose raises the question of just what the hell is going on down there,” she mused, looking around for but not finding a set of binoculars or some other visual enhancer.

“As for why they were so spooked… I heard some radio chatter while they were interrogating me about someone shooting up the town. I think they thought you were my back up,” she said, lies, as always, coming easy to her. With an impish smile she tapped her temple with her index finger.

“That makes me the mastermind. So your turn, just decided the constabulary here was overstaffed?"

"They got some positions open now, anyways," said Augustine with something between a smirk and grimace, "I was lookin' into some things for a client, minor smugglin' type stuff, no big deal, didn't take these guys too serious and ran my mouth after a few drinks. What I get for slackin on the job."

He pulled handcuffs from the belt of the prostrate miners and shackled the two unconscious men together, grunting slightly as he dragged their bodies into a ditch off the side of the rutted road. He didn't motion to Kyra for help, just moved with steady purpose.

"Well," he said, nodding towards the truck, "What's say we..."

The alarm started blaring in the mines then, loud enough to hear even at this distance. Kyra and Augustine both turned, expecting they'd been detected.

A gunfight had broken out at the landing bay- figures from the mine were firing on the ship and her crew as they began to unload, and the off-worlders were returning fire. The ship's shields had activated, and rippled under the barrage of small arms and grenades.

"How 'bout we take the truck, drive in the other fuckin' direction," said Augustine, "hire us a ship outta Port Carolus or Toehold?"



"On behalf of the Royal Navy, allow me to extend my sincere thanks to House Kesselbrood for this hospitality," said Morning with a stiff bow, "I know these circumstances are...unusual, but we appreciate your, ah, receptivity."

"Displeasure," hissed the Castellan, beady eyes gleaming in the candle-light of the audience hall, "Is expressed." He was a small man in the white-and-red uniform of an Imperial officer. Lips stained purple from tarric root hovered over the curious absence of a chin. The gaggle of courtiers assembled behind him murmured sourly.

Commodore Morning cleared his throat, his gaze moving from the Castellan to the immense, frowning bulk of the Archduchess, whose gilded throne hovered several feet above the proceedings. Her Magnificence affected aloofness, waggling her fingers at a small, bluish, scaled creature with bulging eyes that squirmed and squeaked in her lap.

"The Royal Union of Octavius..." began the Commodore.

"Has not had ships permitted in Imperial space, nor the sovereign space of Great House Kesselbrood," said the Castellan, "Since the victory of our forces at Almalexia and the conclusion of the War. The second such victorious conclusion to attempted Octavian expansion."

"I am aware of recent history," said Commodore Morning, "I come today to discuss a matter of mutual concern."

"And what concerns could we possibly share with you?" asked the Castellan.

Morning sighed, eyeing the crowd of courtiers before addressing the Archduchess directly, "The clandestine excavation of Dark Age relics on a planet within your demesne, your Magnificence."

Caked powder cracked on the Archducal face as her eyes narrowed, "What manner of relics?"

"Un'Goliant, your Magnificence," said Morning, quietly.

"Clear the audience hall," barked the Archduchess, "I would speak with this man alone."

Benson, Epsilon Sub Sector, Disputed Space
Toehold

Kyra slipped back into the bar, feeling the wash of auras play across her as she entered the darkened interior. Smoke from dozens of cigarettes and more exotic delivery mechanisms hung in air like a cloud tinged with neon accents from the signs. In one corner a group of men were playing a game on an ancient holographic table. It was something like cykari though the flickering holographic heads made it hard to tell from this distance. Kyra was dressed in a suit of synthetic leather like those worn by the auto gangs that made the slums of Toehold a dangerous place by night. The garment hugged her skin without being uncomfortable. A belt was slung across her hips at a jaunty angle though she didn’t have a gun to make the look complete. Her hair had been blacked with cheap dye to eliminate her more distinctive blond locks.

Augustine was sitting in a corner booth nursing a drink and she slid in beside him waving a hand to the tattooed bartender for a drink when he looked up at her. The man pumped a few fingers of amber liquid into a none to clean glass, poured in some ice and sent it her way by sliding it down the bar with the ease of long practice. She stopped the smoothly gliding tumbler, and flicked a credit disc back along in a near perfect reciprocal.

“For my friend too and keep them coming,” she called. The bartender caught the disc and touched it to his forehead in salute before making the thing plastic credit marker vanish into a pocket. Kyra took a pouch from her belt and slid it across to the man. He opened it with a finger, took in the pile of credit chips and tucked it into his jacket.

“The good news is it is easy to find someone willing to buy a stolen truck and a couple of stolen carbines,” she said, taking a sip of the drink. Whiskey was available in most bars Kyra had visited across the galaxy, though exactly what they meant by the term varied considerably. Judging by the ethanol burn, this was an industrial alcohol cut with water and a dash of flavoring agent.

“The bad news is I couldn’t find any captain willing to lift us out of this hole. I did speak to one who said he would, but I got the impression that he was just angling to rob us,” she told Augustine. It had been much the same story in Port Carolus, though she had hoped it was just because they were closer to where they had made their escape.

“Someone really doesn't want us to get off this rock,” she went on, running a finger idly around the rim of her glass. At first she had thought it was merely an attempt to keep her from reporting back to the Syndicate but it had to be more than that. Even perfectly reputable shippers were refusing to take passengers.

“Something has people really spooked about this place. Too spooked for people who are moving uranium dust and animal skins.”

"Reckon ships are gettin' inspected in low orbit, why they ain't taking fares... Which only means one thing: Union's here," said Augustine. In point of fact, he knew this was the case. He'd not spent all the time Kyra was out looking for tickets off-world drinking. Just most of it. But she didn't need to know everything. "Imperial security, 'specially out here in the Territories, is never so thorough."

He sipped his drink. "And if the Union's over Benson, that means either a new war is cookin' up or they worked somethin' out with the Imperial Houses. And if that last is the case, if the Union and the Great Houses are makin' nice, well..."

He signaled to the bartender for a refill, "...we want outta here. No goods comin' from whatever is spookin' Blues'n Whites into workin' hand in glove."

He chuckled and lit a smoke, "Though, I s'pose that does reflect our own situation a bit, Ms. Ren."

They hadn't discussed their backgrounds on the ride from the mine to Port Carolus- in fact, Augustine'd slept off his hangover for most of the drive. And they were too busy outrunning ganger patrols on the stretch from Carolus to Toehold to do much talkin' neither. But Augustine knew a Union witch when he saw one- after all he'd killed his share in the War. Kyra struck him as undertrained -or maybe she just had a weaker wyrd than some of the Union hags he'd met, or maybe she was a pro and good at hiding it- but he still kept his surface level thoughts masked. The trick was simple rhymes on repeat, keep 'em goin' in the back of your mind and the jaysers had a hard time pinning down your real thoughts.

Had we but world enough and time,
This coyness, lady, were no crime.

"Anyways, I think I got an answer to our problems," said Augustine lowering his voice and nodding at a rowdy table of slavers in the corner of the bar, "flesh traders over there are due off world in two days, totally legal- they got Imperial warrants. My thought is, we keep close to 'em and the day before they leave we get the drop on 'em, lock 'em in their own hold, and sail outta here as legal slave dealers."

The bartender slid another whiskey into Augustine's waiting hand, "Plus, gives us some time to do some serious drinking."

“Sure,” Kyra said in a neutral one, sipping at the synthetic whiskey without particular relish. She had drunk much better stuff but she had drunk worse as well. At least they bothered with the flavoring here, on Harbriger they had just bled ethanol right out of the hydraulic lines. Newcomers sometimes died from gulping the stuff down without realising that it would suck all the moisture out of their throats. Drinking was a useful addition to almost any cover, but typically she would have had a neutralizer tab in her stomach to suck the kick out of whatever she was forced to drink.

“Anyway, what is the worst thing that can happen? You accidentally shoot a bunch of law enforcement officials?’

Augustine snorted in what might have been amusement or disgust and then raised his glass in salute. Kyra clinked the plastic tumbler against his and took a drink. She didn’t know quite what to think of the man. When they had first met his mind had been open to her, guarded in the way that a man who keeps his own counsel is guarded, but now he was shielding his thoughts, hazing her out as it was termed. That implied a remarkable degree of paranoia, even if, in this case, it was justified.

People had funny ideas about what ‘witches’ or ‘jaysers’ were capable of. The later name was derived from the technical name of the condition Jayeen-Sarkova Syndrome though it was still a derogatory one. Alot of that was Union misinformation, put out to both scare and mislead the public. The condition was poorly understood other than it passed through mitochondrial DNA and was thus passed down by the mother. Males with the defect were unknown, victims of spontaneous abortion during the early stages of fetal development. While abilities varied in strength Kyra was at the higher end of the spectrum and had sufficient control to keep things under wraps. Some jaysers were terrifyingly powerful, but borderline insane, unable to control their access to the thoughts of others. Most of those were indefinitely incarcerated in special Union psychiatric facilities, kept comatose except when they were needed. It was another reason she didn’t drink too much, losing control was a very bad idea.

“I would have said that the Union working with the Great Houses was impossible, but I know that they would do just about anything to prevent another war,” Kyra said, mentally running through the various intelligence reports she had read before taking her leave of her former employers. Though the Union was technically a kind of federal republic, years of warfare had concentrated powers in a junta of senior fleet and army officers. The SAC, or special advisory committee, ran Union policy by the simple expedient of controlling the armed forces and were wise enough not to make too much of a point of it. The Sack, as they were commonly known, were concerned that the economic burdens of renewed war would bring down both the Union and its opponent in a galactic collapse that might hurl humanity back into the dark ages before interstellar flight. That meant that if there were Fleet vessels in orbit, it was either the unlikely or the unthinkable. Kyra was an optimist in her way.

“They got any warrants out for you in particular?” she asked, getting to the point of the conversation at last.