During the years of her youth she had never been the most academically gifted student; all members of the aristocracy were enhanced compared to the average man, but she had not as adept with the sciences as the others, and not every subject captured her interest as much as linguistics very obviously did. Despite their disappointment that she would never be a biological engineer, one of the most prestigious professions in the Stellar Empire, the late parents of the duchess had quickly realized that she surpassed the children of others when it came to social aptitude. Put into colloquial terms she could read people. When measured against her contemporaries she fared better at establishing a rapport, discerning lies, coaxing the truth, and intuitively perceiving their emotional state. For a few moments she studied the trader, quietly assessing, and debating the best way to convince him to divulge the suspicions she knew were lingering in the back of his mind.

By her estimation, there were three different scenarios whose end result would have been Bel'sian leaving the world in a crate. The first was that she was attacked and involuntarily entered the container by force. This was incredibly unlikely for a variety of reasons, including that any altercation would have been loud, there was no known provocation, evidence could be left behind of the scuffle, and an aggressive abduction would guarantee deadly retribution. The seedy underbelly of the outlying fringes of humanity would be reluctant to take a slave from the fearsome Kalderi and earn their ire, and it would put Bouradine in much more trouble than he could ever gain. The second scenario was that Bel'sian was incapacitated, but this would require extensive physical and medical knowledge of their species. From what they had gleaned, Bouradine did have the resources for such an ambitious plot. Brilliant scientists had spent nearly a decade trying to create pharmaceutical equivalents for Syshin when they were initially subjugated. It was statistically impossible that a merchant would have stumbled onto the discovery of a perfect cocktail to knock out a young, female Kalderi, in the correct dosage, without bringing her harm.

Murder was entirely out of the question as far as she was concerned. There was no motive; Bouradine did not have a reputation for possessing a temper, and even if he did, she couldn't fathom anything he was kill someone over. The mere implication of murder destroyed his business opportunities, and he had been here long enough to appreciate how he needed to remain emotionally stable. A verbal altercation alone would have ejected him from the surface. Additionally, if there was any reason Bel'sian could have threatened him or goaded him into a rage unintentionally, disposing of the body by taking it with him was an extreme response. Corpses were shot out of airlocks not infrequently to cover up heinous acts because of how hard it was to locate one in the vast depths of space. Bouradine could have taken a trip out for a couple hours and 'dumped' her if she was dead without anyone the wiser. Not only that, Caperelli himself admitted the cleaning out of the shop indicated this had been planned for quite some time, so whatever occurred could not have been a crime of passion so to speak.

With a soft, bemused expression she smiled at Caperelli. "Oh, my dear sir, I think you know exactly why she frequented his shop and bought so little," Solae ventured. With a certain tone it would have been accusatory, but she was light and airy, as if laughter were trapped behind her lips. "Why, I'm sure you dealt with it a few times yourself." It was flattery, a stroke to his ego, which did not go unnoticed by the older man.

"I'm not sure what you're suggesting," he puffed, trying vainly to hide his grin. "I can't possibly know what would bring her there so often... but perhaps something similar has happened to me before," Caperelli confessed with feigned humility. Puffing out his chest slightly, he toyed with some of the threads of his shirt.

"Bouradine still had years left ahead of him here, he wasn't what any of you would consider successful enough to 'cash out,'" she pointed out sweetly. It was true. The trader in question was still in his prime, decades younger than his peer with whom they had the pleasure of conversing. "Do you know if he had any family?" the duchess inquired, her line of thought becoming increasingly clear. Once they eliminated all the possibilities only one viable one remained- Bel'sian had left of her own accord. Whether it was romance, or a platonic relationship between two kindred souls, or a man simply spiriting away a discontent alien that wanted to see more of the universe, they weren't tracking down a fugitive. If she had to venture a guess, it was the former, because love catalyzed everyone it touched to take wild risks and make huge changes to their lives. Caperelli must have considered the same thing.

"No, no family that he ever mentioned to me," the gentleman readily replied.

"Any idea where he went to procure his art pieces?" she prodded. "Not everyone comes here surely. Most of you must have a meeting place for your suppliers, somewhere out of the way, but not so far its inconvenient. I can't imagine the Kalderi want traffic in this system at all hours from the type of individuals that might be bringing your colleague's inventory."

Caperelli shifted in his cushion, tilting his head to the side. "Well, usually that's not the sort of thing we tell each other, but he was always going on about how he had found somewhere fascinating where they had a terra-forming failure. Not anywhere I've been," he added with a shrug. Maps would omit this sort of data since once a planet had such a failure it was deemed uninhabitable and of no interest to the populace. Exploration or access to records related to the endeavor would be the best methods for locating such a place. No one here was of stature within the empire, so Bouradine must have found the failure during his travels.

"Well that was productive," Rene said feeling positive as they stepped out of the shop and into the balmy afternoon air. It wasn't cold exactly but the large expanses of ocean meant that there was always at least a moderate wind blowing. Judging by their architecture, which was frequently open enough to permit breezes, the Kalderi preferred it that way. Some humans probably did too but Rene found that he preferred both the alpine cold of Capella and the tropical heat of New Concordia to Ranal Pindi's slightly damp gusts. The Trading quarter was nestled at the foot of the rocky plateau upon which the Kalderi city stood. The shoulders of great cliffs protected the settlement from the periodic storms and sloped downwards into the arms of a natural embayment several hundred meters across. The two peninsulas had been joined by the construction of a sea wall and the resulting lagoon had been almost completely filled in with some sort of whitish concrete with perhaps a meter of water covering the surface. The resulting disc served as the starports landing surface, the water absorbing the heat and various unpleasant compounds a human starship made when it landed. The resulting system meant that water boiled upon landing and was then flushed with fresh seawater while the heated effluent was cooled in long column that sank into the ocean. Colorful tropical coral and fish species clustered around the ready source of heat, making the far side of the sea wall colorful and exotic whilst draining away chemicals that the Kalderi above the port would have found unpleasant. It did mean that the traders operating here had to run small raised walkways out to their vessels or risk it getting wet but trading here was a privilege and Rene seriously doubted it was too much of a problem. It wasn’t as though they were loading industrial equipment or other heavy cargo afterall. The mole itself had been planted with trees that must have been a tropical variety. They were similar to Terran palms save for the fact that their leaves were long, slender crystalline needles. Rene made a mental note to walk along the mole with Solae when the sun got a little lower.

The settlement itself was small consisting of three streets that climbed the steep rising rockface in terraces. Simple but pleasantly painted warehouses lined the shallow waterfront of the starport while more artfully appointed shops comprised the second and third rings. While the shops had probably started out as normal human architecture, they had been ‘improved’ over time so that they now looked to be a hybrid of human and Kalderi aesthetics. Access to the upper plateau was restricted to a single elevator which used static suspension rather than a traditional cable to slide up the side of a smoothed out section of stone. A small area, set off by intricately wrought stone fencing and guarded by a pair of Kalderi prevented humans, or at least most humans, from ascending to the city above.

“It shouldn’t be too difficult to compile a list of unsurveyed worlds within the jump range of whatever ship it was Bouradine was using,” Rene mused, figuring it unlikely that the trader’s source was too far beyond that.

“Sir Rene, there are thirty one star systems that would be within the range of a Talian 121B class freighter,” Mia chirped over the communicator he wore on his epilauet. Rene frowned, something tickling his memory. Mia had been tasked with compiling a list of all human shipping during the period they were interested in and had evidently managed to break into the information without any assistance from her human patrons.

“Talian class?” he asked. It had been a fairly common ship at one point, but age and the increasing cost of maintenance had made them significantly rarer over the past decade.

“Master Gregorie Bouradine is the owner and captain of the Talian 121B Class, registry number 1923942-A, registry name Corsica,” Mia provided helpfully. Rene felt his stomach drop out from under him, remembering the derelict vessel they had come across during their flight from Zatis to Ranal Pindi.

“Stars above,” he cursed, trying to imagine how the Kalderi might take the news if Bel’sian had starved to death on a derelict human spacecraft. There might be nothing that would prove this hadn’t been an abduction.

“They might both be dead,” he muttered grimly.

"Yes, I'm certain that Bouradine took the monumental risk of spiriting away a young female Kalderi, leaving behind a profitable business, earning himself a tarnished image from the community, setting things in motion that could result in him being hunted down at best by the mate of the lady he 'stole,' only to be thwarted by limitations or disrepair of his ship," Solae said with a roll of her eyes. Given how many preparations she knew the trader must have made in order to successfully take Bel'sian away and not have been located, she was willing to wager any sum of money that they were both very much alive, and that the merchant had anticipated being pursued. A smile curled upwards on her lips as the duchess realized the correlation between the pair they were attempting to locate and her own past with Rene. "Surely you aren't projecting," she mused with a coy smile, "because you and I left New Concordia on an old, run-down slaver's vessel."

"How would you like to proceed, Lady Solae?" Mia purred affectionately in her ear. The diplomat smiled at the AI's tone and mused how comically difficult it would have been to explain to their hosts why a synthetic assistant was so overtly sensual. She had alluded to the computer aboard the Bonaventure openly, but had not volunteered to introduce even Lithyll to her digital companion, not only because the complications it posed, but because she selfishly wanted to keep part of her life slightly private. Being an ambassador meant she had to be open and transparent with more aspects of herself than the average citizen, which made what she did not share that much more precious.

"If he's being cautious, he would have gone to a system that none of the rest use," the linguist theorized, "so reach out to the other docked ships and request, under my authority, they divulge which of those thirty-one systems they have not been to. If they ask for a reason, state that we will being surveying those systems that they do not regularly frequent- that will give them an incentive to keep us away from where they conduct their exchanges."

"An excellent idea, Lady Solae," Mia cooed compliantly over the communication device. A dress did not afford her a consistent place to put any sort of external transmitter or receiver, so she had a small ear bud that functioned as both and could be toggled off and on by verbal command. The noblewoman had configured it to have a 'safe word' so that if she was in danger it would come on and send ferry an alert to Mia on the other end of the figurative line.

"Further limit the parameters to systems with a habitable planet, but expand your scope for habitable to include outside of the human comfort zone, and what is technically feasible, if less than ideal in terms of atmospheric conditions and climate." Desperation could have compelled a couple- if that is what they were- to retreat to somewhere that would be traditionally written off by colonists with higher standards. Constructing a bio-dome was unlikely by her estimation. Even with modern technology they were costly regardless of whether or not it was for a municipality or a single residence. Not only that, it required an expertise that no trader possessed, and was labor-intensive to install. Admittedly Bouradine had been meticulous, but he wouldn't have invested vast sums of credit to obtain a bio-dome, whose side effect would be creating a trail of workers to follow, when there were alternatives available.

"That will take Mia a bit to complete since she'll have to reach out to all the traders," she observed, looking towards the vast ocean. "While we wait we can either go on a date or spend some time studying Kalderi. Any preference?" the golden-haired woman teased, prodding him in the ribs with her elbow. As honored guests they had a rare opportunity to stroll around without an escort or suspicion.

A slow smile spread over Rene's face as his concerns about interstellar navigation and diplomacy slid into the back of his mind. There wasn't really a time limit to the task and they had already made more progress than the Kalderi had in their investigation. The fact they had sighted the Corsica meant the likelyhood of them finding the fugitives eventually was excellent.

"Well, while I have no doubt that the Kalderi are worthy of continued intense study... I was just about to ask a pretty girl to take a walk with me..."

_________________

"HK-421," Rene said with satisfaction. He spun on the console seat he had been sitting at. It was early afternoon the day after their visit to the trading quarter. The two humans had spent a pleasant evening strolling on the artificial strand before taking a meal at the one restaurant in the trading quarter. It hadn't been a great meal as such things went, but it had been spicy, filling and most of all human. Kalderi fare was edible but without much character. It was a marked improvement on anything Rene had eaten since he had enlisted, with the possible exception of what had been available while they were with Ten on Zatis, though truthfully, with the threat of imminent death approaching the PEA array Rene hadn't taken much joy of it. The wine had actually been fairly respectable and it had been the first decent meal they had enjoyed together in safety. All in all it had been a wonderful evening, a fond memory to be stored for hard times ahead.

"Are you sure?" Rosaria asked, looking up from whatever it was she had been reading. Rene wasn't sure what files she was accessing but he was fairly certain that it had nothing to do with the search for the missing Kalderi. That didn't mean she was wasting her time of course, far from it, she lacked the expertise to be of much use in such a search having had no astronav training and having an only academic appreciation of the universe beyond Zatis. He hoped she wasn't simply reading literature, though he didn't know what other activity would be of help at his point. They had gathered on the Bonaventure in order to have better access to Mia and, subconsciously, to continue the previous evening of 'humanness' as best they could. It also gave them some privacy from their Kalderi hosts, which probably wasn't necessary, but there was always the chance they would discover something that it might make sense to conceal from the Kalderi, at least for a time.

"Yes," Rene said with certainty, he waved his hand at his display, it was unidirectional but Mia, as always, picked up on the intent of the gesture and an omnidirectional holographic system. The hologram showed a composite star chart and sensor readings from their encounter with the derelict Corsica.

"They abandoned the Corsica, probably intended to from the beginning," Rene explained, "I guess they could come back for the ship when the heat was off because they system they jumped to is rarely visited, we wouldn't have gone there except to throw off pursuit." The hologram shifted as Rene manipulated the controls changing a portion of it to a visual screen showing the Corsica hanging in space.

"They used an escape pod, a small one jumper I suppose, to light out of there. Under normal circumstances it would have been undetectable," Rene went on. The view zoomed in on a section of the hull that looked like an open airlock.

"Luckily the Corsica was leaky enough that there was some gas at the moment of launch," he told them. A red line extended from the image as Mia zoomed the view out, first to the stellar and then to the interstellar scale. The line touched dozens of systems as its uncertainty spread over time, but only one of those systems, the computer designated HK-421, both lay on the track and was among the list of worlds Solae had winowed from the assembled files of the human traders, all of whom had been eager to cooperate rather than risk losing their trading privileges.

"Are there settlements there?" Yarue asked from his own console, the Syshin had been silent so long Rene had almost forgotten he was present.

"Nothing listed, just an astronomical survey that says there are planets," Rene admitted. Exploration this close to the Kalderi border was minimal, the risk of angering the alien race had been deemed too great, at least while there were still plenty of undeveloped worlds for the humans to exploit.

"But I think it is a fair bet that Bouradine knows something we don't..."

"If one of the planets was a terraforming attempt we wouldn't know," Solae was quick to point out, not just to Yarue, but also to Rosaria, Rene, Dasin, and herself. "Failures are proprietary records kept by the companies that facilitated the endeavor, and whose technology was utilized. By Stellar Empire law they are required to provide basic information, such as the exact location and ultimate outcome of the attempt, for the imperial galactic database. As a duchess I would be able to access the network if we were somewhere with an embassy, communications center, or archive, but... as you can imagine, none of those are here." She plopped herself down in a chair and rubbed her temples to encourage herself to think more clearly. Even if the Kalderi had been willing to host a governmental building for the humans on the surface of their world, she did not think the upper echelon of the nobility would be quite so willing to trust the aliens. The peace treaty forged so long ago did not establish them as allies that were privy to the secrets of one another. It would take much, much more than a trading outpost and exchange of artwork on the fringes of their respective territories before either side was willing to place all their proverbial cards on the table.

"Are we going to this HK-421?" Yarue asked, casting a glance to his fellow Syshin, who appeared equally concerned. Neither of them had fostered quite as much of an adventurous spirit as their benefactors, and found their leaps of faith, their courage, and their dogged pursuit of the truth to be equal amounts refreshing and perplexing.

Solae nodded. "Once we're there we'll be able to survey to determine which planet can sustain life and perform a more intensive scan for signs of human life. If there is a settlement I doubt it very large," she mused thoughtfully. The more 'rural' stretches of the universe tended to be one of the two extremes of society: incredibly homogeneous, treating outliers with contempt and derision, with a fascist leader, or one step away from anarchy, each individual instilling themselves with their own sovereignty, too suspicious to form anything resembling a community. Bouradine would not have taken risks with the first because a Kalderi would not be accepted, to put it lightly, and the second was quite rare. Nonetheless, settlements thrived where they were least expected. The empire had absorbed nations that existed for centuries outside their reach, that had flourished without their intervention, who had naturally been formed by members of their species that had ventured out during the early days of colonization and lost contact- or purposefully broke it.

"Do you think it was really a kidnapping?" Rosaria asked. "Why would a merchant kidnap a girl? It doesn't make sense," she said with her lips pressed together in a thin line. It occurred to the linguist she had not yet divulged the theory to anyone except Rene. When she fell into lockstep with her fiance it was easy to forget that the rest of her 'crew' were not unconsciously synchronized.

"Slavery does not make sense," Dasin defensively, bristling slightly. While Rosaria had been born free, her time in captivity had not been on the same scale of oppression as the Syshin; she was being groomed to rule them, and they were being forced to obey, their days filled with being threatened, beaten, or subject to a wide variety of cruel assault. They had been robbed of their culture, torn from their twin partners, stripped of clothing, and made to perform acts that some chose death over. His comment hung heavily in the air in a moment.

"No, I think Bel'sian went along with Bouradine because either she was fleeing her own kin or she is smitten with him. Abduction seems unlikely in these specific circumstances," she shrugged. "But if she was taken for the purposes of enslavement," she continued, turning towards Yarue and Dasin to make eye contact with both, "or if she's changed her mind about leaving, we will bring her back. I stand by my promise to the two of you when I made my offer on Zatis. I won't let a single Kalderi fall prey to mistreatment, nor will I look away if I see any Syshin abused. One of the perks of my new station is I am equipped to do more about it than as a marquise. If we bring peace to the Eastern Cross, I intend to slowly institute reform, beginning on New Concordia. I can't free the Syshin in captivity without the blessing of Empress, but I can declare that every new Syshin born in the Eastern Cross is free." It was a radical preposition but technically possible. Stellar law had a loophole when it came to the subjugated race. If Solae were to specifically designate future Syshin as exclusively free, and forbid them from being enslaved, then it would force an uncomfortable discussion.

"Mia, hail the Kalderi and advise them of our imminent departure. We don't want to collide with another ship that is about to land," she clarified. "Yarue, would you like to pilot our take off? This will be one of the easiest places to practice," the diplomat pointed out. Locations without cleared areas, proper equipment, and preparation were more inherently more difficult. If she wanted to ensure she had a competent co-pilot, she needed to have him eased into the role, and that meant seizing an appropriate opportunity.

"I... will try," Yarue reluctantly agreed. She knew from her interactions with him that his hesitation was not the result of a lack of enthusiasm but a fear that he would disappoint.

"Mia, let the Kalderi know Yarue will be handling the take off," she said with a smile.

"Are you all right?" Rosaria inquired as she furrowed her eyebrows together.

"I am just a little tired," Solae replied dismissively, though it was a headache that posed a larger problem. Delightful as her date had been, and the ball the evening prior, she felt exhausted, every waking moment consumed with knowing she was responsible for a large swath of the empire, solving a murder that she had made no real progress on, steering emancipation of a subjugated race, and brokering better relations with another. She enjoyed her nighttime trysts with Rene, but she was dead on her feet when it meant she didn't have as many hours of sleep as she required. "You can do this," she reassured.

Rene had been trained in the rudiments of flying Marine Dropships. Unfortunately there were nearly no similarities between the armored boxes that delivered marines to the surface and much more sophisticated spacecraft like the Bonaventure. Yarue was doing well under Solae's direction, though the ship had a tendency to bobble as they rose through the atmosphere on their jet of plasma. The Syshin was clearly nervous about making a mistake and when one of the thrusters lifted too high and began to unbalance the ship, he almost unconsciously throttled back and they mushroomed as their velocity fell off and needed to be rebuilt. The net result was that by the time they reached orbit and the gravity generators took over, they all felt a little queasy and they had burned a third again as much reaction mass as Solae would have used to make the same assent. Still it had been a success and Rene clapped Yarue on the shoulder.

"Well done, you have the makings of a fine pilot," he told the Syshin. Yarue made a grin that immitated a human smile but it was clearly a little forced before letting go of the controls as Mia took over the relatively simple task of pointing them directly away from the gravity well to get them to a safe distance to jump. After the attentions of both Ten and the Kalderi the Bonaventure was no longer the barely functional wreck it had been when it lifted from New Concordia and assiduous application of cleaning agents had removed the lingering smell of the slaves that had once been transported in its hold. It didn't look exactly new, but the scarred old bulkheads were at least clean, and the parts locker and food stores had been replenished to a point which probably exceeded that of most tramp freighters of a similar size. Rene had performed a sweep for listening devices, it was his duty as Solae's chief of security afterall, but neither he nor Mia could detect anything of the sort, not that it particularly mattered.

"Thank you Col... Rene," the Syshin replied, remembering to use his given name now that they were in private.

"We have some skill from when we were forced to work the rockhoppers, but never in an atmosphere," the Syshin replied with a trace of pride that Rene was pleased to hear.

"How long to this HK-421?" Rosaria asked as Rene stood and stretched, stifling a yawn. He hadn't slept much in the past several days and it was starting to wear on him even in spite of the various genetic augments.

"It should take about a day," Rene told her, at her look of surprise Rene touched a key and brought up a holographic starmap. A red bead appeared indicating the alpha numeric star system where they had spotted the derelict Corsica. A golden line appeared tracing the jump to Ranal Pindi, he manipulated a control and a second line appeared to the uncharted star system designated HK-421. The lines made an acute angle with the end points closer together than might have been assumed from travel conditions. Rene added their current course which created a triangle and then, for reference, added Zatis, a dark green bead considerably further away than any of the earlier points.

"If it is so close why haven't the Kalderi colonized it?" Rosaria asked, her eyes narrowed in concentration. Rene shrugged his shoulders.

"It dosen't seem to me that the Kalderi are a particularly expansionist people," he told her. Indeed, given their focus on maintaining the continuity and harmony of their communities, it was somewhat surprising that they established colonies at all. Perhaps at some point in their history scarcity of resources had forced the race to migrate, or perhaps when really serious disagreements arose they solved the problem by fissioning groups rather than by conflict.

"Indeed, of the aliens we have met," Rene paused to give Yarue a respectful nod, "humans appear to be the only ones who habitually spread to new worlds regardless of any particular need."

"That makes us sound a bit like locusts," Rosaria said, sounding a trifle unhappy with the analysis. Rene shrugged his shoulders.

"I suppose it depends on how you look at it," he replied, "at our worst, sure, maybe locusts, but I think at our best we are explorers fascinated by the unknown." It was a romantic outlook he knew, but Rene was, at his core, a romantic. There was an undeniable excitement to seeing an unknown world and it was another place he could be all but certain the Duke's thugs wouldn't be looking for Solae. A win win.

"So what are we going to do now?" the girl asked, "more training?" Rene glanced at Solae and shook his head before yawning somewhat ostentatiously.

"I don't know about the rest of you, but I think we ought to get some sleep. It is a short jump and we don't know what is waiting for us on the other end, clear heads will do more for us than a few extra hours at the range."

_______________________________________________

The crowd roared with approval as the parade made its way down the main thoroughfare towards the Ducal Palace. The palace was constructed in the Jovian style, with tall soaring arches and elaborately decorated colonnades surrounding the hollow hexagonal structure. The interior contained the actual Ducal residence, surrounded by well manicured gardens and parks which were in turn protected by the outer building from direct line of sight. Emperor Alexis Tan sat on a throne at the top of the large steps which lead from the boulevard to the elaborately decorated entry portal to the palace flanked by guards in body armor of gilded bronze which clashed with their modern and functional looking assault rifles. A small and very expensive energy shield had been erected infront of him, though it wasn't apparent to the naked eye other than for a slight tinge of ozone in the breezy afternoon air. The crowd close to him had been swept by his security, but an Imperial agent with a sniper rifle could be anywhere within several kilometers. Still, Imperial, or formerly Imperial subjects, expected that their leaders would do more than cower in their boltholes, and that was particularly true where Tan was trying to set himself up as the head of a new people. Enthusiasim for his elevation had been uneven among his subjects, but distribution of free food and drink as well as curiosity had been sufficient to bring the people of Trallus Prime out in droves. His officers and political allies stood behind him in solid ranks including Antigony Bhast, although the general was significantly further from the throne than she had been before her failure to prevent that cursed Falia bitch from activating the PEA on Zatis.

Trumpets blared brassily as the parade approached. Spacers in newly issued uniforms marched in step to either side of three self propelled flat beds which had been converted into parade floats by draping them with red velvet. Atop each float stood a large piece of mangled metal, each engraved with a single word in gilt lettering half the size of a man. Each bore the name of an Imperial warship which had been destroyed when they jumped in system. The leading piece of wreckage bore the legend: INS Yasimir. The words were only barely ledgeible on the twisted scrap of titanium ceramic composite. The two floats preceding it, INS City of Miridan and INS Selpura, were in better condition, but a practiced eye could detect that they were props rather than the real thing, the actual vessels having been blasted to atoms and thus not amenable to salvage. Another brassy blast sounded and the spacers halted in formation. Tan had never known a real spacer to be able to keep step, but these actors made the point better than the scruffy mercenaries who actually crewed his ships would have done so. The officers, resplendent in the new uniform of the Empire of the Eastern Cross, lifted glittering swords in salute and then fell into a posture of attention.

"Come forward Admiral Rade," the would be Emperor boomed, his voice picked up by hidden microphones and transmitted by a PA system boomed. The officer at the head of the column, a small somewhat rat faced man in an elaborate uniform, climbed the steps before kneeling before Tan. Rade looked like a weasel, but if that was so he had the cunning and viciousness of the breed. His strategy had allowed him to ambush the modest Imperial task force and destroy it entirely before any of the ships could escape, though the last had been a near run thing. The tactics had been designed around the many light auxiliary 'anti-pirate' vessels Tan had illegally built up over the last several years. He could never hope to equal the tonnage of the yards at Capella or Simtai, but Rade had demonstrated that a fleet of smaller ships could, at least for now, supply the lack. The Navy of the Eastern Cross could never hope to match the Imperial Navy, but it could, with luck and the kind of tactics Rade had pioneered, make the sector a mouthful that was just too unpalatable for a divided Empire to swallow. Tan cursed inwardly at that thought, if only he had access to the PEA arrays he could communicate with his conspirators across the Empire and know what was going on. Irritation welled up inside of him and it was with difficultly that he refrained from turning to glare at Bhast. Instead he stood and held up his hands imperiously.

"Admiral Rade, in your defeat of those who would oppress us you have earned, the eternal gratitude of the people of the Eastern Cross. You have secured your name among the greatest warriors our race has produced, you have served as a shield to protect liberty and peace for my people," Tan boomed theatrically. That was guiding the lily considerably, the Imperial force had been a small scouting element, but there was an element of theatre to building an Empire, and this was the first military victory of any note that Tan could point to. It would be foolish not to capitalize on the opportunity. The destruction of the trio of scouts was a victory after-all and hopefully it represented all the effort the Imperial Navy could muster given its, theoretical at least, troubles in other sectors. Tan took a large gold medallion shaped wit the arms of the House of Tan and the new stylized X of the Eastern Cross engraved in sapphire inlay. He settled it around the rat like admirals neck with slow deliberation for the benefit of the holocameras.

"Arise Admiral Rade, Knight of the Eastern Cross and Baron of New Concordia," Tan pronounced, stepping back away as the Admiral rose and saluted before turning to the cheering crowd. Tan smiled thinly, cursing the Falia bitch in his mind for leaving him blind and drawing the Imperials in months before he was ready to face them. Once he got his hands on her she would pay for what she had cost him, though her death would be delayed until she could birth an offspring with the right genetic markers.

"Soon," he muttered to himself as Rade began to recite his acceptance speech, "Soon..."

Compared to the amount of time she meant to sleep, Solae had overslept. Mia had not interrupted her slumber nor had Rene out of consideration for how exhausted she had been and because there was no impending deadline. As long as she was conscious and cognizant when they made their approach, so that she could pilot their landing, there was a passive agreement to let her rest as long as she needed- and the duchess had sorely needed the added hours. By the time she had climbed into the captain's quarters bed her entire body felt impossibly heavy with fatigue. Rene had been mere minutes behind her, but he had found her out cold when he joined her in their room, having drifted off the moment her head hit the pillow. It wasn't until she had awoken she realized she had only shucked off her shoes before collapsing onto the mattress.

After a brief shower and change of clothes, she was exiting the bathroom when she ran into Rosaria, who had apparently been waiting to ambush her. Slightly startled in surprise, she moved to politely step around the teenager when the girl, whose eyebrows were knitted together in scrutiny, spoke. "Are you sick?" she asked. This had been a question she had posted to Mia but the computer could only analyze very basic biological functions of her passengers as a way to gauge health. The synthetic being had reassured the youth that their mistress had no erratic heartbeat, elevated temperature, or other concerning symptom, but this was not enough for Rosaria. She didn't trust a machine that completely. If Solae looked like the afterlife warmed over, then she was more apt to believe her eyes.

"No, just tired," Solae said with a smile. "I did not mean to worry you if I did," she added, encouraged by the fact that the former protege of Thorne was showing signs of empathy. They could teach her much of the world outside the slaver's education, but helping her navigate emotions, most of which she had been punished for exhibiting, and thus had become suppressed over the course of several years, was more tricky. More than one night since they had rescued her the diplomat had laid awake at night wondering if they had been too late with their intervention. There was nothing more they could really do, but she grieved for the innocence her younger companion had not been able to keep.

"Are you sure you aren't pregnant?" Rosaria prodded, jumping to what would have been the natural conclusion for someone unfamiliar with the practices of nobility. For all of her composure, the linguist faltered for a moment and gave a somewhat nervous, awkward laugh. Being around others who had families made her think of creating one increasingly. Pragmatically it was impossible at the present, she was not even wed to Rene, nor had she solicited his opinion, she was a woman being hunted down by a treasonous tyrant, her beau's name had not been cleared of the false murder accusations, and she had inherited a sector that was occupied by the very man that wanted her dead, but the heart was often illogical. She missed her parents. She missed knowing that despite any misgivings they had about her, all her flaws, all her mistakes, they would be there for her. It did not matter she was an adult; her mother and father had been taken from her too early. The only chance she had to have a family beyond cousins with whom she was distant was to create one, be it one of choice, or one made by blood.

"It's not possible," Solae finally gently corrected Rosaria before she became too smug with her guess. "Stellar Empire nobility take certain precautions to prevent conception that can't be easily reversed." Tempted as she was to explain more fully, it felt rude to tell someone what Rene had done to him without his consent. "I was just very tired, but I feel better now." While she did feel rejuvenated, it was not fully. The war weighed on her psyche and she did not think she would be fully refreshed until Duke Tan and his conspirators had been apprehended, the empress was safe, and she was just as free in practice as she was in theory.

"Good, a baby would be annoying," Rosaria declared firmly, trying to brush off her concern for Solae as being nothing more than apprehension she'd have to share a ship with an infant in the future. For a second the golden-haired aristocrat was flattered that mentally, whether or not she was aware, the young lady was anticipating spending at least another nine months with this ragtag group of assorted individuals. One way or another they would not be together that long without conscious effort and the decision to do so. Duke Tan could not be evaded forever and it would not take the better part of the year for one side or the other in this galactic altercation to find one misplaced freighter.

"I'm going to study some Kalderi before we enter orbit if you'd like to join me," she graciously offered as she started towards the cockpit. Mia could bring up her lessons on any of the many consoles aboard the Bonaventure. One in the hold would be more ideal for studying, but she wanted to cram every last minute with the tantalizing distraction of learning a new language, and she could capitalize on her time by keeping it at her fingertips in the same place where she would have to initiate the landing protocol.

"I thought we can't speak Kalderi because of the differences between us and them," Rosaria said, narrowing her eyes again, this time in confusion that edged on frustration. "Why would you bother leaning a language you can't even speak? What's the point? They won't really care since they can speak what we do," she said as she chased after the ambassador. This had been a developing habit over the last week. If she did not at first understand a concept, she would mull it over, then revisit it repeatedly until it made enough sense for her to digest. It was not the most offensive compulsion- her swearing was worse in Solae's estimation- but it challenged the patience of her stand-in maternal and paternal figures.

"If you do well studying languages I think you could have an excellent career as a spy for the empress," the duchess cryptically asserted as she took a seat in the cockpit. Wearing slacks and a fitted shirt for comfort, she unwittingly had attired herself all too well for her role as navigator. Were it not for her enhanced aesthetics and perfect posture it would have been easy to mistake her for a member of the crew that had been aboard for exponentially longer than the reality.

"A spy? What does that have to do with learning Kalderi?" Rosaria half-inquired, half-demanded as she plopped down into the other seat.

"There's popular misconceptions about what a spy does," she explained, crossing her legs and leaning back in her chair. "A good spy does not sneak and skulk around because they don't need to. They know numerous languages so they can understand everything spoken around them, even if the people they are spying on are unaware of the true extent of their abilities. If you met someone and they were cold and evasive it would make you guarded, alert, suspicious. A good spy is congenial, charming, and agreeable, but not overly friendly, because that is the impression that would make people less defensive around them. They know how to talk to anyone, but they don't stand out, and can blend in equally well with high society and the seedy underworld. It seems to me that is something that you would be able to do better than most," Solae pointed out. Exposure to Thorne had desensitized her to the brutality of criminal networks and also given her valuable access to their mannerisms and vernacular. If the same could be done with different facets of the universe's communities, she could adapt, and become more of a chameleon than someone with symmetrical features and hair of an abnormal hue ever could.

"So you want me to study languages and become a spy?" Rosaria asked, puzzled. She was not put off by the idea, just shocked that it was suggestion from someone so upright, so proper, and so transparent. It was not a recommendation she was expecting from a dignified woman who had been awarded her stature by the sovereign of humanity.

"I want you to be exactly who you want to be," Solae clarified. She was reluctant to do anything more than divulge the suitability of her charge. On Zatis she had been granted her agency for the first time in her life and the Syshin, who were more wary of her than they admitted aloud, were cautious to respect it. Torn between wanting to guide someone who needed help to take their place in society and wanting to make sure she had the latitude to explore the wrong choice here and there, she let silence envelop the room. Unprompted Mia, who knew her intentions, had pulled up the uploaded Kalderi language data and categorically divided it into increments so Solae could advance through it at her own pace without being overwhelmed.

"You are a strange woman," Rosaria told her before standing up and walking out, heading towards the kitchen to get food, which wasn't as perplexing. Once she was certain that the girl was out of earshot, Solae let out a bemused chuckle, shaking her head as she queued up sample dialogue for dissection.

"I will be damnned," Rene declared as he examined the sensor read outs flipping through screens from optic to microwave imagery. It had taken them nearly three hours to reach the orbit of HK-421, an unavoidable delay given the total lack of astronomical data they had on the system before they terminated their jump in its vicinity. The sensors were currently gathering all sorts of information which, in the happy world of Rene's mind, he would one day include in the mother of all after action reports to Navy Office on Capella. HK-421 had a half dozen planets in its system, three of which were gas giants. The inner three worlds were too close to the sun to be habitable, little more than radiation drenched rocks but the fourth gas giant was ringed with a consetelation of moons. Many of these were simply large asteroids but one of them was a planetoid four fifths the size of New Concordia, it might have been the largest 'moon' in the Imperial astrological database, though the records available on the Bonaventure were to scant to be sure. In any event there was little doubt it was the world they were looking for. It not only possessed what the sensors reported as breathable, if argon rich, atmosphere but its two large continents were submerged in shallow oceans that had a slightly rosy color to them. Greenish vegetation started a ways inland and swept up onto impressive mountain ranges that attested to active volcanism. None of that, while remarkable enough, were what drew Rene's exclamation.

"Trouble?" Yarue asked, waking from the Syshin equivalent of a doze and taking the entire situation in at a blink. Rene shook his head to calm the Syshin as Solae and Rosaria, drawn by the same stimulus climbed up into the cockpit. They had prepared a meal and had been engaged in what Rene took to be Kalderi lessons. Happy as he had been to watch his beloved follow her passion for linguistics, it had ben his duty to man the controls and sensors. Well, oversee Mia's automatic control at least.

"No, no trouble," Rene explained, touching a control to remote his own console onto the main screen. The hologram formed, displaying a picture of the rotating world in something close to its natural colors. Informational tags sprang out of it at various points, though the data they referenced wasn't displayed unless Rene or another operator called them up.

"I had expected a Kalderi world, or perhaps something like Zatis, environmental domes maintained by smugglers and free traders," he explained.

"This isn't only breathable," he went on, opening one of the informational tags to display an image the Bonaventure's optics had captured on their first orbit. A window opened to display a ruined city on a grid pattern around an alpine lake. The image had been considerably sharpened from the crude optics the freighter possessed but it was obviously a human city. The buildings were graceful and stately in their ruin, tumbled white marble and other materials rather than the rude industrial landscapes which passed for cities on most colonial worlds.

"It is human," he concluded, shaking his head in wonderment.

"But its all ruined, and we are outside the Empire. It can't be a human world," Rosaria interjected. Not for the first time, Rene wondered at what kind of education the girl had received under Alayla Thorne's harsh administration. He supposed that history hadn't been given much emphasis.

"This is pre-Imperial," Rene told her with the certainty of someone who had been dragged to many pre-collapse museums by his tutors over the years.

"You can tell by the architecture, and by the atmosphere," he told her, touching another symbol which brought up a chormatograph which analyzed the air from the refracted sunlight. It was a standard mix of oxygen and nitregon combined with argon and several other impurities.

"Pre collapse terraforming was crude by our standards," Rene explained. He didn't bother to go into the details of genetically tailored generations of bacteria which slowly converted seeded biomass into the molecules that later generations would fix as nitrogen oxygen and other such vital elements, nor the way in which celestial ice, delivered in the form of blown out asteroids was applied to provide the necessary water. Rosaria could learn those things if she wished, but the minutia wasn't important in itself.

"They dropped rods of tungsten on the poles to vaporize polar ice," Rene explained, even now the froze poles were unusually circular from the procedure and trace amounts of radioactivity, far to weak to be dangerous, still lingered in the atmosphere.

"So why wasn't it resettled?" Rosaria asked, clearly uninterested in how humans dead a thousand years had approached the task of making dead planets live. Rene made a guesture that was intended to indicate the direction in which they had come.

"Records from the collapse are pretty thin on the ground," Rene explained. Most computerized records had failed in the intervening centuries, save for a few places like Capella where enough technology had remained to curate the barest fraction of humanities first sojurn into the stars. Even there a tremendous amount of data had been corrupted or lost due to lack of maintenance, as food became a more important preoccupation than information collation.

"We probably lost the information then, and because of the Kalderi and the Jeweled Armada, exploration close to the border has been prohibited by Imperial policy for hundreds of years." That begged the question of how Bouradine had discovered the place. There were no indication of human habitation now whatever the situation had been a thousand years ago. Starvation or pestilence might have carried those isolated colonists off, or perhaps they had fled their homes, worried that the Kalderi would turn their eye on them next.

"Electro Magnetic signatures," Mia broke in, sounding regretful at having to interrupt Rene. A pair of red dots sprang up on the holographic projection of a world.

"Well," Rene said recognizing the distinctive features of an escape pods small fusion reactor in the read outs.

"Shall we see who is home?"

"Mia, can you make some preliminary calculations as to the best landing trajectories within five kilometers of those escape pods, taking into account the residual heat the Bonvanenture will be emitting after we touch down? I want to avoid crash landing onto a building but still make certain that we don't cause nearby vegetation to ignite," Solae said with a sigh as she deposited herself into the chair for the pilot and turned herself towards the nearest console to have a closer look at the data that Rene had been reviewing. This would be a more difficult landing than when visiting Zatis, which had a large area available to facilitate such functions, but would still be easier than navigating through the eye of a hurricane. Surprisingly this might be the first instance in which she had to worry about forest and underbrush. Circumstances had allowed her to avoid the complication thus far, but nothing lasted forever.

"I will do a thorough analysis of each option, Duchess Solae," the AI purred in her characteristically overtly sensual tone. Machines were incapable of emotions, yet she seemed to emulate a degree of enthusiasm for orders from her mistress that was not replicated when she accepted similar instructions from Rene or Rosaria (Dasin and Yarue had not felt comfortable enough with her to test the waters so to speak).

"Why don't we just land right next to them?" Rosaria asked incredulously, stating what she felt was the obvious. With two strong male Syshin, a marine, herself, and an aristocrat she knew for a fact had learned how to handle a weapon in the last few weeks, she knew they were fully equipped if their runaway couple managed to pose any sort of threat.

"This is a diplomatic endeavor, not an invasion," Solae chastised her young counterpart gently, "and if they came here, to a planet that is all but abandoned, it would seem to me that they are hiding. Hearing our descent veritably on top of them, a foreign freighter that belonged once to unsavory sorts, will almost certainly invoke fear. The more peaceful approach is from a short distance away. They will see us first rather than what we travel in; plus announcing ourselves will leave a better first impression, don't you think? We need to plan prudently. If they bolt into hiding it will be all but impossible to find them and the problem will remain."

"It is also easier to determine if they are dangerous if we sneak up on them first," Rosaria shrewdly deduced after a prolonged pause.

"Yes, that too," the linguist reluctantly conceded before strapping herself into her chair. Already she was apprehensive about this venture. Nothing on the sensors immediately leapt out at her as a natural deterrent for re-settling this habitable planet. It was true that many worlds were lost to common knowledge during the passage of time, and an age had passed since the first deployment of terraforming technology, but it was improbable that no one had stumbled upon it in the interim. To have somewhere like Zatis seen as a desirable location, despite the setbacks and necessity of bio-domes in the interim, but the moon vacant, was absolutely baffling. One wayward ship ought to have capitalized on this rare opportunity before Bouradine. Merchants and traders ought to have set up shop and advertised the solar system as a rare chance to get close to enigmatic aliens without inciting offense. Artists at the least would have flocked here so that their works would be more accessible (and valuable) to Kalderi buyers.

Mysteries such as these bothered her. Just as she sought out the solution to the puzzle of who framed Rene with fervor, so too did she chase down what was conflicting or unknown, savoring the satisfaction of her conclusions and greater knowledge. It was the inherent jeopardy of flying them to the surface without that crucial information that made her so anxious. Ferocious beasts could be lurking in the undergrowth and keeping would-be visitors at bay. The weather, which seemed so serene now, could be highly unstable from idiosyncrasies of the evolution of the atmosphere. Humanity could have fled their grand buildings and regressed to more primitive beginnings. A few times she had heard of the Stellar Empire trying to cover up rumors of small outposts becoming isolated and horrifically mutated without the influence of a grounding civilization. What had seemed like outrageous paranoia was not so far-fetched the farther one traveled from the grandeur of Capella.

"And if the Kalderi female was kidnapped it would give the male human a chance to escape," Dasin pointed out more quietly. He didn't distrust the wisdom of their theory that this was something less malevolent, but he had a hard time having faith she hadn't been tricked. Understandably his experiences had left him skeptical of the dominant expansionist species of the known universe.

"We do have to be cautious," Solae agreed as she sighed in resignation. "I'll chose the best route, but the rest of you might as well change and determine what weapons we will carry. A certain dashing man I know," she explained, clearly referencing her own fiance, "would say that we ought to prepare for the worst but hope for the best. We shouldn't rely on our assumptions that they are here alone." Mia couldn't distinguish until they were closer any signs of life and, when she did, she may not differentiate beast from bipedal humanoid. A terraformed world did not sit vacant for centuries without evolution creating prey and predators alike. She grimaced inwardly at having to bear arms. The recollection of using it to save Rene was still burned into her memory in a way she could not quite articulate.

Rosaria all too eagerly turned, as did Yasin and Darue with a distinctive lack of enthusiasm, but Solae extended her hand to signal to Rene he should stay there with her. "I'll need my good luck charm here. After all, I can only assume that you are truly responsible for my success so far, so I must insist that you would sabotage me if you went with them," she winked.

Turning back to the console she saw that Mia had plotted four different possible landing spots, each accompanied by data that listed the difficulty on approach and the distance to the pods. The duchess smiled at how well her needs had been anticipated. The easiest was of course the farthest away. Since she had tested her ability in the an objectively harrowing landing once, and survived to tell the tale, she opted for the median. It was a short walk, a relatively patch of terrain, and would not be somewhere between so easy they could be utilized for training the Syshin on and being a serious challenge for her. The interior of the vessel remained still as she adjusted their angle of entry, the view facing their destination the only indicator of her intent.

The Bonaventure rocked down through the upper reaches of the planets atmosphere. Rene reached out and squeezed Solae’s arm and then strapped himself in. Part of Rene wanted to take the controls himself but that wasn’t a logical part of him, rather it was simply a man’s desire to spare his beloved a task which she didn’t relish. Rene could not, simulation had shown, pilot the ship as well as Solae did and while training might one day make him a competent pilot he just didn’t have the natural flair for it that Solae exhibited. Winds buffeted the hull of the freighter as it sank lower, growing cooler as the flow of air began to scrub the heat of reentry away. The slightly unstable weather systems of the terraformed world shoved the vessel this way and that, each time Solae allowed the ship to shift, countering the trust gently almost in harmony with the weather until they got low enough that the heavier more stable air permitted a smoother flight.

The landscape below was breathtaking, great mountains and sheer valleys that dwarfed anything in Rene’s alpine home flashed beneath them. The vegetation had appeared terran from orbit but as they got closer Rene saw a shocking divergence from Terran standard. Pine trees the size of giant sequoia rose up off the mountain sides, needles bending and questing like snakes. Great fields of undulating lichen covered areas of rock too barren to permit the penetration of roots and strange birds with two sets of wings startled from hides among sheer faces of vertical rock.

“It all looks so weird,” Rosaria said, voicing the thought they had all been thinking. Rene nodded.

“It is the radiation from the terraforming,” he explained. It had only been a thousand years since the human colonization of this place, not nearly long enough to account for such rapid divergence, but the background radiation had multiplied the chances for mutation in the plant and animal germplasm, speeding the process considerably.

“Is it dangerous?” the girl asked, looking a little nervous.

“Maybe,” Rene conceded, “but it cant be that bad if Bouradine was willing to bring Bel’sian here.” That wasn’t necessarily true of course. Bouradine might be insane, or suffer from the blindness to danger that enthusiasts sometimes had for things they were passionate about, but nothing Rene had noticed in the careful way Bouradine had executed the ‘kidnapping’ suggested that were true.

“We are nearly down,” Solae stated, feathering the thrust controls to arrest the vertical motion of the ship to the speed of a falling leaf. They were out of the mountains now and in a low range of hills that sank towards the coastal plain. The Bonaventure had come down on the far side of a mountain range and slid around the foot of it that stretched towards the coast, concealing them from any possibility of visual detection. Frequent gorgeous, apparently cut by rainfall and water run off, gave the ground an odd striated appearance. The ruins of several human settlements were within a few miles of the spot Solae had selected as their landing ground, behind a few shallow hills to shield them from direct observation. The sensor suggested that the pods were close to, but not quite at the ruins. The ship set down with a sudden thump like a distant clap of thunder and Solae cut the feeds to the thrusters before reversing them, sucking away the oxygen that would allow the touch down to start a grass fire. The ship settled for a moment on its struts and then was still as Solae cut power to the thrusters. Rene clasped Solae’s shoulder, pride in her accomplishment evident in the simple gesture.

“Why are there two pods,” he asked. The question had been bothering him during the decent but he hadn’t wanted to distract the pilot while she made the difficult approach.

“Maybe they plan to leave in the second one?” Rosaria asked. It was a shrewd guess but based on a mistaken assumption.

“No, a pod can’t make orbit again once its down, the propulsion system would require…” Rene trailed off as he saw Rosaria’s eyes begin to glaze over. Alric Quentain had been a naval officer and though he had decided to send his son to court for political reasons, Rene had gotten a reasonable education on naval matters by simple association with his father and his circle of friends and allies.

“It just can’t,” he amended, unstrapping himself and standing up preparatory to heading back to the hold to collect equipment.

“Maybe they are meeting someone,” Rosaria tried again. Rene shrugged, that was certainly possible but it was alot of trouble to go through to meet someone in an extremely efficient manner. If they were meeting confederates then there was nothing to stop the second party from bringing a ship, in fact it made more sense to do so as presumably Boradne and Bel’sian didn’t plan to spend the rest of their lives here.

“The simplest way to discover this is to go and investigate,” Yarue said, so unexpectedly direct that Rene almost started.

“This is very true,” he conceded, eager to encourage the Syshin to directly communicating their thoughts. All in all there were a few too many mysteries beginning to assemble around Bouradine and this world. If they had been human nobles Rene might have suspected a lure for a trap, but it seemed too convoluted and too dependent on secrecy for what he knew of the Kalderi mindset.

"Why can't I have a real weapon?" Rosaria objected. She was a teenager but the petulance in her voice was vaguely reminiscent of a whining child half her age. The duchess wished she could have said she had never heard or seen an adult throw a tantrum over a perfectly reasonable decision; the truth was a great number of the aristocracy had honed their skills in being overtly upset into a fine art. Her recent promotion fortunately meant that noblemen and women would be more reluctant to show this side of themselves. The lower one was in the complex socio-political strata of the empire, the greater the chance of becoming the target of the frustrations of the a lord or lady, regardless of whether it was an irate tirade, chastisement, or unwarranted punishment. Such petty maneuvers of the court were distant enough that the diplomat found herself smiling at the similarity rather becoming annoyed herself.

"That weapon is real enough," Solae pointed out. She had secured one pistol (for lack of a better term) for herself and her younger counterpart. Unable to bring herself to carry a lethal firearm, hers and Rosaria's were loaded with exceedingly potent tranquilizers. In her heart of hearts she knew that Rene would be more comfortable with her being able to defend herself with more force. By her own admission she had nearly been dragged off by slavers once, almost been apprehended by Duke Tan's mercenaries on Zatis, and had to threaten a man that held her paramour captive. The need, coupled with recent training, was a perfect scenario for her to take the plunge, but it was a step she could not take. Merely thinking of having that sort of power under her fingertips made her queasy. She did not trust her judgment in life and death a fraction as much as she inherently trusted her fiance's.

"This is bullshit," Rosaria grumbled. Yarue and Dasin were visibly rankled at the criticism, which was veritable slander against their mistress, but the linguist put up a calming hand and smiled.

"Well then, you can spend some of your free time composing a thorough argument for why you have earned the right for a 'real weapon' as you put it. I'll accept it in either written or verbal format, and I will review it with Rene when it's completed," she said with a grin that made it clear she was enjoying this far too much. For someone as gifted with all the methods of communication it was a fun exercise to undertake. To a recently freed youth that had come to resent aspects of her formal education it was absolute torture. It was not an assignment without merit. Solae wanted Rosaria to explore her emotions, not dismiss them as Thorne had taught her, so long as she took the time to realize that not every feeling deserved action.

Honestly it was an unspoken agreement between the adults that Rosaria was not ready for a lethal weapon. Yarue and Dasin had the physical prowess to defend themselves. Something about them made Solae have unwavering faith that they were sufficiently responsible not to abuse the 'privilege' of being allowed in the firearms cache. None of the four could say the adolescent had yet earned their confidence she wouldn't be reckless, excitable, or panicked depending. Thorne had groomed her to take over a criminal enterprise. From what they had seen, however, she had no experience with the world outside her tutor. They were just acclimating her to the universe and encouraging empathy. Handing her a loaded plasma rifle could undo their progress and the Syshin were skeptical that she didn't have a ruthless streak underneath her trauma.

The wilderness posed a challenge to the crew of the Bonaventure unlike other planets. When they had touched down on an oceanic planet there was a sea separating the ship from its resident duo. On this deserted world there were forests, mountains, and other obstructions that could cause interference, without the benefit of the infrastructure they had found on Zatis or with the Kalderi that allowed quick, efficient contact with the vessel and its resident AI. Freak weather, unknown creatures, and towering constructs meant that it would be difficult to reach Mia unless they found a better connecting link.

With the assistance of Mia, Solae had repurposed some scrap pieces of technology to fabricate an improved relay. It must much less subtle than her regular communication devices, but wouldn't be as hindered by structures or hills, depending on how far they had to travel given that the two they were visiting could flee to remain hidden. A cord of metal and plastic curled over one ear and up onto her temple with synthesized silicone helping it stay in place. A small visor could be rotated up above her hairline or over her left eye if she decided that computer analysis was required. Fashionable socialites would be horrified at the sight of her. Caring nothing for aesthetics, and even less what her peers would think of her reliance on a machine, she had been excited about testing out how it would affect their exploration.

"Are you sure that is... safe?" Dasin inquired with what she knew to be a Syshin expression of concern on his features.

"I am ethically barred from assisting humans in manufacturing, using, or maintaining any item that could cause harm to another human unless in self defense," the AI interjected in a seductive purr over the speakers.

"That is her way of saying yes, it is safe. She can't give us absolutes, since mathematically there is always a minuscule probability that things could could awry, but it's statistically negligent. I'll be fine," Solae assured, putting her hand on Dasin's forearm with a friendly smile. He relaxed a little. When they had first met neither Syshin welcomed contact of any sort. Within a week they had started to warm to Solae in particular, who used it as a way to express affection, or convey a positive message when words were insufficient.

"If you would lead the way, kind sir," she added, looking to Rene. It was safer for him to "run point" but she played it off with some humor so as not to alarm her companions. Their theory that the two they were seeking were lovers was still in the front of her mind, but the closer they got to them the more apprehensive she was that they had misjudged the circumstances completely.

“I notice he gets a plasma rifle,” Rosaria groused, still a little sullen as the pistons began to hiss as they extended the belly ramp of the Bonaventure. The weapon hung infront of Rene’s body armor from one of the integral attachment points, muzzle down across his body at a steep angle. The armor itself was standard marine battle dress, mottled gray carbon fibre cored ceramic. It was actually heavier equipment than had been issued to the troops at the Rat Trap back on New Concordia which hadn’t been considered combat conditions. That Ten had been able to get his hands on a set of the stuff was impressive and more than a little unnerving. When the day came that Solae assumed her responsibilities as Duchess of the Eastern Cross, he was going to suggest a serious audit of Imperial logistics.

“Well,” said Rene judiciously as the ramp thumped down and the internal hatch hissed open. There was a slight outrush of air as the cargo bay depressurized slightly to the local ambient. A moment later the air of HK-421 rushed in. Rene had found that each world he had visited had a certain character to its air which was in its own way unique. New Concordia tasted like the wind before a storm, Panopontus tingled slightly with sea borne salt, Zatis tasted of the lubricants used in the atmosphere reprocessors. HK-421’s air had a slightly spicy taste, like the memory of cinnamon prickling at the back of his throat. The snuffed fires of the landing and the cooling metal of their reentry mingled with the slightly wrong scents of grass and trees.

“If you ever feel like enlisting in the Marines, they have an excellent course on how to use one,” he told the girl, catching Solae’s eye and controlling the slight exasperation with a quirk of his lip. The moved down the ramp and onto the grassland beyond. The landing site Solae had chosen was between two small hills that formed the toe of a range that rose to mountains to the north. Scrub forest seemed to predominate in their planned direction of travel, likely a sign that weather formed on that side of the range while this side was in the rain shadow. The grassland appeared to be all but flat but the occasional line of short shrubby trees suggested that what rainfall runoff there was was channeled into shallow stream beds that were not visible until you stumbled onto them. The most striking feature of HK-421 was its sky. Whether due to the higher concentration of argon, or the reflection of the gas giant around which it orbited the sky was a wash of rose colored pastel, like a gorgeous sunset that was never ruined by dusk. Thin wispy clouds were swirled at high altitude further enhancing the impression that the sky had been painted by some ancient artist rather than occurring naturally.

“What I mean is, you are armed to the teeth and the rest of us have…” she made as though to grab the butt of her pistol but Rene’s eyes slapped her hand away before she could actually draw the weapon. He had made it abundantly clear to her in their brief training that one should never draw a weapon, particularly a pistol, unless it was for use. Rosaria’s experience with guns was more as a theatrical tool, where Thorne’s thugs had swaggered around to intimidate and impress. It would take time and training to grind away those subconscious lessons.

“Why do you think that is?” Rene asked, taking his queue from Solae to use the bitching as a learning opportunity for the girl. Either she would learn something, or she would learn to stop bitching. To her credit Rosaria bit back a retort and considered the question.

“Because you think you might have to shoot Bouradine?” she hazarded after a moment. They set off to the east, skirting the hill rather than climbing it. Rene had planned their route to the downed escape pods before they left and it was projected onto his retina by a holographic projector in the brow of the armors helmet. The unit had a blast shield, but Rene kept it retracted for the moment in order to better observe the terrain and so that his companions could see his face rather than the blank plasteel shield.

“Solae is the representative of the Empress in this sector,” Rene explained as they climbed over a small rain cut streambed. It was deeper than Rene expected, and cut to the bedrock where mineral salts dispositive by run off glistened in metallic rainbows.

“Under normal circumstances, her head of security and military liaison would have at least a squad of troops with her if she insisted on visiting an unexplored planet, probably more like a platoon, and that goes double for meeting an unknown contact in an unsecured location. Wearing this,” he rapped his knuckles on the armor.

“And carrying this,” he tapped the butt of the plasma rifle.

“Everyone in the Stellar Empire recognizes marine battledress, so he isn’t going to mistake us for pirates or bounty hunters and he is going to take Solae seriously because if he doesn't he has a visual reminder that the whole weight of the Empire can come down on his head,” Rene explained.

“So it is all political then?” Rosaria asked. Rene chuckled softly. He wondered if there were any aspect of life in the upper tiers of the Empire that wasn’t political. He glanced sideways at Solae and smiled fondly at the image of her wearing her fabricated interface gear. He didn’t doubt that some, perhaps most of the nobles he had met on Capella would be utterly horrified to even think of trekking across an unknown world, with improvised equipment.

“Partially,” Rene admitted, “There is wildlife to consider and... “ he trailed off for a moment trying to consider the best way to phrase his next words. There were too many variables tumbling in his head to allow for him to make a clear decision this far in advance. In the end he decided it was best to go with the plain and unvarnished truth.

“...and because yes, I might have to shoot Bouradine.” There was a long and grim pause before Rene's mind spun away from a future where a panicing Bouradine pointed a gun at Solae Falia and Rene Quentain burned him down with two plasma bolts as precise as the certainty he would regret doing it.

"You should name it you know," He said, turning to Solae before making a guesture to encompass the world around them.

"You are the first official Imperial contact after all, and we can't keep calling it HK-421."

"I'm not the first official Imperial contact," she objected, "it was settled before. I would argue technically the people who settled it before had the right to name it then, regardless of whether or not there was officially an empire," Solae pointed out. They could narrow down the possibilities of what year the world they had landed on was terraformed, but not with absolute precision. In the olden days the process was not nearly as efficient as the present day technology. Their ancestors might have had to weight a considerable amount of time between beginning their endeavor and actually determining that their end result was safe enough to visit. The modern era had sped up the process, though it was widely joked that the bureaucracy involved did not hasten how long it took from inception until clearance was given for building.

"Is it possible to find its old name?" Yarue inquired curiously, genuinely uncertain of the limitations of their records. Because the Syshin were less 'advanced' as a civilization they did not have the robust databases of their oppressors. They had been discovered by wayward explorers centuries before they would be able to invent a ship that could traverse their solar system, much less be capable of intergalactic travel. This was one of the many reasons their prowess did not given them an advantage against the species that subjugated them. Truly they had never stood a chance against the innovative weaponry that came after first contact, when morally bankrupt attaches realized that they could be laborers, and giving them freedom or basic rights could be circumvented.

"It's very unlikely," Solae conceded after a moment's pause for thought. Rene wasn't wrong in his assertion that she had the unique privilege and authority to grant a new name to these lands, it was just that she felt strangely reluctant. Some part of her felt it was ethically wrong, even if the wild beasts, mountains, and seas did not care one way or another. If anything it was more disrespectful to have a designation of letters and numbers. Idly she chewed on the inside of her cheek. An arrogant man would name the first remarkable discovery he made after himself. To the golden-haired woman it was the least desirable of all her choices to the point she would quite literally rather name it 'Rock' or something similarly absurd.

For their part both Dasin and Yarue had fallen characteristically silent again, but Rosaria, who had never before stretched her proverbial wings, leapt at the opportunity in front of her. "I can name it instead if you don't want to," she offered as if it was a selfless gesture. She was fooling no one except perhaps herself. The Syshin exchanged knowing looks and she saw the edges of her valiant escort's lips twitch in either amusement, frustration, or a mixture of both.

"I appreciate it," Solae began graciously as they continued to walk, and she could see a hopeful overeager glint in her younger companion's eyes, "but there's a certain protocol to these things. Either we'll follow the tradition or..." she let the unfinished thought hang in the air playfully. The men in the group didn't let it bother them. Sooner or later it would be resolved, one way or another, and none of the three were particularly invested in what the final decision was; it wasn't as if their quest would be altered by such a detail. Rosaria, whose patience was wafer-thin, stared at her incredulously waiting for the next word. The duchess's acting talents shown as she feigned a prolonged lapse.

After slightly more than thirty seconds but less than a minute Rosaria, flushed, interjected, "Or what?"

"Oh, well," Solae started, noting a sly smirk from Rene who took a certain measure of pleasure seeing her tease the demanding teenager, "If we aren't going to follow tradition we can defy it purposefully to make a statement of sorts. Many, many centuries ago there was willful social or civil disobedience that was more commonplace. You wouldn't necessarily break any laws in a tangible way that might merit punishment, but you could sidestep them, or ignore ones that relied on patterns of behavior to gain acceptance within the community.

There was only one answer that Rosaria would give to such a query, which Solae had shrewdly anticipated. "We're not sticking with tradition, right?" The excitement in her voice belied the fact that she mistakenly believed that she, a girl not yet through puberty, might name the second planet she had been on after Zatis, the third in her young life.

"If we're going to thumb our noses at tradition to make a statement, we need to craft it carefully, so that it has lasting impact and shines a light on injustices. Dasin, Yarue, what would you name a place like this?" she asked the pair of former slaves. They were both startled out of their passive listening and were so shocked at the gravity of the suggestion that Dasin stumbled over his two feet briefly before catching himself and righting his posture.

Expecting they could be there for hours, if not days, weeks, months, or years, trying to persuade one of the Syshin that her offer was genuine, she laughed lightly and smiled reassuringly. "We'll name it Huodan, a word that means togetherness and community in their tongue. I couldn't possibly name it after all the lives lost on New Concordia," she explained in a more muted, less jovial tone, "and my parents are out of the question. They quite enjoyed their privacy and adventuring such as we have would not have appealed to them at all. Instead I elect to christen this world with a name that reflects both our goals and also commemorates our success in finding each other."

"Huodan", Rene echoed, "I like it."

"Huodan," Dasin corrected, placing the emphasis on slight different syllables. Rene chuckled but didn't make a second attempt to pronounce the Syshin word. It really was going to be a whole new sector if, when, Solae took power.

As the trek progressed the grassy savanah gave way to light scrubby woodland. Rene was no biologist but he recognised some Terran standards. Other plants though showed signs of many generation of basking in the slight radiation of Huodan's atmosphere. They passed a pine tree with spines protruding from its trunks and needles that dripped with sap that Rene suspected was venomous. An oak that depended tentacle like vines which might once have been strangler figs but had fused with their victim to choke out smaller trees, creating strange almost conical trunks as the various offshoots grew together. It would have been difficult to keep a sense of direction as the trees grew thicker, but Solae's improvised relay provided them with updates whenever they turned too far of course and as early afternoon approached they climbed a slight ridge to look out across another of the shallow valleys that spread like fingers from the foot of the mountain. On the far side of this one the delapidated ruins of what had once been a human settlement glinted in the rosy light. More to the point, a pair of escape pods were on the valley floor, within a hundred feet of each other, the burnt out patches of their landing thrusters still black against the greenish carpet. A small stream ran across the bottom of the valley, running high with recent rains well. Fern like plants and other succulents seemed to crowd its banks, fronds reaching across in the fashion that reminded Rene of a military honor guard at a wedding.

Gesturing the others down Rene took a pair of binoculars from his pack and focused in on the escape pods. One was a standard civilian model exactly what Rene would have expected a freighter like the Corsica to carry. Canvas awnings had been rigged from the side of it, giving it the appearance of an open seed pod and crates of supplies had been stacked around it in an orderly semicircle that would also serve as a wall to provide shade and a wind break. The second pod though. Rene zoomed and focused the binoculars, his thumb spinning the wheel from x32 to x64 and engaging the gyroscopic stabilizer. The pod seemed to jump closer and the image steadied. Rene cursed quietly under his breath and turned to look at Solae.

"The second pod is a military model," he explained, "according to the ledged it's from the Zandi Tremane, an Imperial destroyer that wasn't assigned to the Eastern Cross when I got here." Rene didn't know the deployment orders of every ship in the navy of course, but marines were routinely briefed on fleet movements in their area of operations. At the Rat Trap the briefings had been kind of a joke: on this day, nothing happened. Rene didn't know what the presence of an escape pod from the Zandi meant but whatever it was, it was unlikely to be good news.

"What do you think it means?" Rosaria inquired, ever the inquisitive young woman. While the duchess was reluctant to make assumptions about the internal thoughts of any other intelligent life form, she was relatively certain the teen was eager for confrontation in equal measure to how much Solae and Rene were anxious. To Rosaraia it was still something of a novelty. For the adults, however, they had enough experience to be cautious and apprehensive. The diplomat was optimistic that the encounter would go well, but the appearance of a military escape pod was an unforeseen wrinkle, and suggested that this would not go nearly as smoothly as she secretly wished it would.

"This doesn't change anything," the former marquise quickly interjected to head off any inquiries if this meant they would advance with their sidearms drawn. The few weeks spent together, as well as recent prodding about a 'real weapon,' made her anticipate the next unspoken question. It was still only one escape pod. She didn't want to jeopardize a peaceful exchange of pleasantries by having their guns aggressively in hand. Privately she assessed that there was little to no chance whatever soldier stole the pod would be on par with her fiance's skills. Modest as he was, time and time again he had proven himself to be an exceptional combatant, and she was confident it would play in her favor in the future as well. It was much easier for her to make demands (and excuses) for keeping him by her side if were was a tangible benefit that he provided. Had she fallen in with a tradesman or craftsman it would be next to impossible to include him in her daily duties until after marriage.

"What is the allegiance of your military?" Yarue asked after a moment of contemplation. He had been briefed on the coup staged by Duke Tan, but needless to say he had no education on the empire on a whole, and had little knowledge about the intricacies of their structure. Both he and Dasin were still trying to wrap their head around the brewing galactic war. Syshin was a peaceful species on a whole whose actual physical fighting with each other was limited and hardly ever to the death. The very concept of killing each other for power was a foreign and had to be explained multiple times.

"With the exception of Rene, the imperial marines on New Concordia were murdered outright, no doubt because of their unwavering fealty to our empress. Duke Tan does have troops, and some of them may be imperial marines, but it's unlikely he's had as much success gathering their support as others. We're far enough from the battles that I don't think they will know what's happened in the Eastern Cross yet and, even if we assume they did... it doesn't make much sense for a soldier to defect here, by himself, on an abandoned planet. Whomever used that pod being unaligned is the most probable scenario," she mused aloud.

There was a small chance she would have authority still over the wayward citizen that had touched down here. The armed forces indoctrinated respect for figures in the upper strata of the society more than most. If that failed, whomever used the military escape pod may defer to Rene, if not for his rank than because of his service and skill. Perhaps it was naive of her to try to cling to her optimism in arriving at the conclusion that the appearance of a detachment of an imperial destroyer would not prove detrimental. Surely the influence of a treasonous narcissist would not work against them here in the farthest reaches of their sprawling civilization.

The terrain proved to be more a hindrance than their discovery. While Rene could easily keep his pace, and Rosaria to a lesser degree, Solae's genetic predisposition to athleticism had been mitigated somewhat by her sedentary lifestyle. Yarue and Dasin fared the best on the rocky downward slope; their race was unaccustomed to the tundra, but they had evolved to be able to scale much less hospitable landscapes on their homeworld, where the weather created towering dunes and mountains of stone rubble were more prevalent than grassy plains. Dasin subtly moved to Solae's opposite side from Rene to silently prepare to help catch her if she stumbled, not wanting to injure her pride or impose on Rene's role as her 'mate.'

Rene watched through the binoculars for several minutes. Finally a man, clearly Bouradine from the video they had seen, emerged from the treeline in the direction of the ruins. In his arms were bundled several strange looking stalks of a greenish brown root of some kind. The trader walked over to the millitary pod and then knelt down and began to peel the root with a small powered knife, he held each length over a small plastic bucket, allowing sap to drip from the root into the bucket before vanishing into the escape pod. Of Bel'sian there was no sign.

"Well we might not get a better chance," Rene said turning to regard his companions. For a moment he struggled with how to proceed balancing different skillsets and temperaments.

"Rosaria, you are up front with me, Dasin and Yarue the two of you stay behind us and either side of Solae," Rene ordered. Rosaria smiled broadly, no doubt thinking that Rene's choice reflected confidence in her. Realistically he would rather have the girl running point beside him where she couldn't accidentally shoot him him in the back as keyed up as she was. Armed with the tranquilizer gun Solae had prepared, it wasn't going to be a problem if she accidentally shot Bouradine full of sedative and she was young and keyed up. That was the right type of person to have on point. Both of the Syshin were steadier by far, but their natural inclination would be not to shoot, which could be a problem if it really needed to be done. In some ways Solae would be a better choice for the lead, but if he put an Imperial Duchess on the point of an assault team a marine drill instructor would materialize from the ether and rip his intestines out on general principles.

"What are you smiling at?" Solae asked him with a cocked eyebrow. Rene forced the grin down with some difficutly.

"I was just thinking, that no class on small unit tactics I ever took involved deploying two Syshin, a teenage girl and a Sector Duchess," he admitted, feeling unexpectedly ebullient.

"Alright, lets go."

They moved across the open grassland in a loose diamond formation. Rene and Rosaria at the front with Solae at the rear. They didn't quite move at a run, Rene didn't want to outdistance his companions, but it was a brisk jog. He resisted the urge to tell them to spread out and maintain their distance. It was a natural tendency of all groups in dangerous situation to close ranks, that had probably been a good move on the ancient savannah of Old Earth, but it was less so in the age of automatic weapons. Still this was no time for him to be teaching fire and manuever techniques. Bouradine had not emerged from the pod by the time they reached the camp. It was clearly improvised, built from supply crates which must have been stuffed into Bouradine's original pod. A catalytic cooker and some fold out chairs sat in a loose circle beside a trio of solar powered refrigerator/condenser units which held food and water. The short grass had been flattened in tracks that showed where foot traffic tended to occur, mostly between the two pods and with a third track leading away towards the ruins. Rene guestured to Rosaria to stick close to him and unslung his rifle, brining the stock to his shoulder as he approached the door of the pod. He held up three fingers, tapped his hand three times and then stepped through the door, still a heart beat ahead of Rosaria who, at least, didn't jostle him as he made his entry.

Inside the pod he found Bouradine crouched over a woman in Imperial Navy fatigues, the legs had been cut away and burns disfigured the woman's lower body. The trader looked up at them in frozen surprise, he had a sponge in his hand which he had clearly been using to bathe the awful burns that leaked sera and smelled faintly of suppuration. Bouradine's eyes were wide and shocked to be suddenly confronted by a soldier in battledress and a jumpy looking girl.

"Don't move," Rene instructed, not razing his voice to emphasize the threat of the barrel of his plasma rifle. Bouradine had a pistol on his hip, but it clearly hadn't even occurred to him to draw it until Rene spoke. The spacer moaned deliriously, clearly too out of it either because of infection or whatever analgesics she was being dosed with. The trader began to tremble in fear and the sponge fell from his hand.

"Who...who," he stammered.

"I'm Colonel Quentain of the Imperial Marines," Rene said, raising his elbow to gesture to Rosaria without moving the bore of his rifle so much as an inch.

"This is Rosaria, and both of us would like it very much if you would put that pistol on the ground and then kick it over towards us."

Bouradine, who was much more attached to living beyond the next few minutes than having a misunderstanding blown out of proportion, quickly pulled out his pistol and veritably tossed on the ground as if it was a live grenade that he had to immediately distance himself from to survive. It was not the method in which Rene had instructed him, but the pistol still had the safety lock engaged, and bounced harmlessly in the dirt. The merchant was not a real threat; he was panicked, with a basic knowledge of firearms only as a means for self-defense, and neither equipped nor willing to engage a marine in combat. Terror tended to make people who didn't have martial training or nerves of steel react unpredictably. That he flung his weapon was probably an expected outcome for the soldier, though he said nothing on the matter, nor did he his body posture indicate anything, not even the relief he surely felt when the minor threat had been eliminated.

Just as the colonel leaned down to cautiously retrieve the pistol, his duchess slipped around the side of Rosaria. Everyone was so fixated on the 'enemy' in front of them, and the curious confrontation with the man, that they had been too distracted to notice what the wayward noblewoman was doing. Dasin belatedly stretched out an arm just as she was out of reach, while their teenage companion nearly jumped out of her skin as her mistress glided past. Solae knew that if she had taken another route or waited a second longer someone would have stopped her. While what she was doing might take a year off of Rene's life or give him gray hair premature, she was a cunning woman of determination, and she would no more let her friends stay in her way than she would her adversaries.

"We can worry about propriety later," she declared by way of introduction. "I am Duchess Solae Falia and we come as friends. The Kalderi were worried about their missing citizen, but we can address that after we tend to the injured. We have better medical supplies on our ship," she added as she did a visual assessment of the wounded woman. Rene would be a better judge of what sort of treatment she needed, but the Bonaventure would have an actual bed and equipment that they had acquired during their travels. Ten, mercenary man of ambiguous morals that he was, had stocked them with enough to last them weeks of constant scuffles easily. "Dasin, Yarue, do you think the two of you could carry her to the ship? No offense to Rene, I think you'd have an easier time of it," she said with a bright smile. There probably wasn't an aristocrat in the sector that would so fondly remember being slung over a shoulder.

"D-duchess?" Bouradine stammered again, perplexed. His eyes grew wider as he drank in the refined features of the golden-haired woman in front of him that was so direct and compassionate. He couldn't quite decide what was more bizarre- that he had been found, that a duchess had visited his abandoned planet seeking him out, that she was there apparently on behalf of the Kalderi, that she was personally concerned about the health of a single marine, that she had two Syshin with her, that the Syshin were dressed in uniforms, that the Syshin's uniforms were obviously tailored for their specific use, or that she spoke to them with respect when the empire habitually treated them as slaves. Fiction was less strange than the scene unfolding in front of him. Too stunned into silence to object, his stare traveled around the group.

"Yes, we can carry her," Dasin affirmed, "easier together as two if she is hurt, but we are here to protect you." His large eyes went from the half-conscious warrior to the diplomat who looked on with worry.

"My life isn't in danger, though, and hers is," Solae pointed out. "Where is Bel'sian, Mr. Bouradine?" Without consciously meaning to the reluctant leader had taken control of the situation and, just as unconsciously, Bouradine respected her inherent authority. Later he would reflect about what made her so compelling. The fact of the matter that whenever an individual acted as if they were a responsible person to make decisions (as the linguist did not), those around the individual in question would respond in kind so long as they were reasonable.

"Are you going to take her away?" the merchant panicked.

"No, I would never take someone anywhere against their will. Dasin and Yarue can carry the marine to our ship, and we will prove to you that we are the honorable members of the empire we claim ourselves to be, so Rene will escort you there as well. Once this lady has been stabilized we can discuss how we all came to be here. Rosaria and I will go to Bel'sian. You have my word as a Falia, we will do nothing more than talk to her and bring her to the ship."

It wasn't as if there was a true choice. Bouradine recognized they wouldn't just leave after coming all this way. Looking at the marine, and then at the earnest blue eyes in front of him, he sighed. There was no better option than trusting. If he was reading the 'room' correctly, the trio of armed men would back up whatever their leader asked of them, and she was quite set on her plan- enough that he doubted the muscular man with the rifle could dissuade her. Besides, had they meant to kill him, they would have done so already and departed for their next target. "She's down the path," he said with a gesture towards the worn path towards the ruins.

Rene lowered his rifle with considerable relief, returning it to the attachment point on his chestplate so it hung muzzle down across his body at patrol rest. Everything they had seen of the man suggested he was clever and careful, and now they were beyond the moment of initial confrontation he would likely realize that his only real option was to go along with his new situation.

"...spacer...able spacer... Savachev..." came a whispered croak from the injured woman. All eyes turned towards her as she moaned feebly, her eyes fluttering open. She was in her mid thirties and had the muscular frame that one often saw on people who worked out to avoid the loss of muscle mass that accompanied extended periods in space. Her hair was dark, cut short in regulation fashion and, like the rest of her body covered in sweat.

"Sir... regret to..." the effort of speaking seemed to be almost more than she could bear and the hazed unfocused look of her eyes spoke to the delirium the infected burns had induced. Rene glanced into the corner to see an improvised waste bin filled with pieces of surgical cloth that had been used to wipe away pus and sera. Bouradine had expended the meager supply of antibiotics in his pods first aid kit, but the kit was only really intended for treating cuts and scrapes, not second degree burns. Several half spent doses of painkillers suggested that Bouradine had been rationing the pain killers in an attempt to keep the spacer comfortable as long as he could. That wouldn't have been much longer, but the delerium might have taken some of the pain away. The sap he was using appeared to be some kind of local antibiotic, but there was no way to deliever it to an infection that had already penetrated the tissues.

"Sir... report the loss off..." Savachev continued her breathing growing more labored. Rene stepped to the womans side, laying a hand on her shoulder.

"Save your energy spacer, you can tell me all about it once we get you patched up," he told her in what he hoped was confident tone.

"If you move her, she might die," Bouradine objected, concern for the injured woman overwhelming his fear of his current situation. That spoke well of him in Rene's mind. A few pieces of the puzzle began to click into his head. Bouradine had arrived in orbit, probably with the intention of going to ground and waiting to be picked up by another trader or smuggler, only when he arrived in orbit he had picked up the distress beacon from the navy pod and put down beside it to try to help. That certainly banished any lingering thoughts of kidnapping as there was no need for him to put himself at risk.

"If we don't move her, she dies for sure," Rene responded, lifting his hand as Savachev lapsed into unconsciousness once more. Thanks to Ten's not entirely selfless generosity, the freighters medical suite was well stocked, and if they could get Savachev there in one piece she would live, the problem was that she ran a real risk of going into shock while she was being carried. In some regards it might be easier just to bring the Bonaventure here but the walking back and then flying here simply added time to that which it would take to carry the stricken spacer. Rene pondered several unsatisfactory choices in his mind, and then a rumble of thunder outside made the choice for him. Beyond the shelter of the pod, black clouds were gathering with ominous speed, seeming to spiral together almost like smoke. There was another peel of thunder and then heavy rain began to fall, first in a patter and then in an increasing downpour.

"We can't move her in the rain," Rene stated, "We need to bring the ship here asap." There were several things wrong with this plan too, but none of them could be helped.

"Yarue, head back to the ship and bring it here, as close as you can comfortably get," he directed. The Syshin blinked in consternation.

"I have had only a few lessons Si... Rene," he began correcting his use of the formal title to which Rene had no legal claim in any case, "I don't think I can fly the Bonaventure, perhaps Lady Solae..."

"We need her to retrieve Bel'sian, none of the rest of us can understand Kalderi," he interjected. Technically Bouradine could, or at least Rene presumed so, but although his misgivings about the trader were easing, he wasn't about to put anyone in a situation where they had to rely on his translations.

"There is a ground effect mode you can use, Mia will be able to help you, it is much simpler than lifting and landing the way we do when we go to orbit," he explained. That was stretching the truth a little, it was much simpler than a powered decent, but it would be no picnic in the rain. With Mia's help though, it should be possible.

"Get going," he ordered and the Syshin gave Solae a startled look before turning and vanishing into the rain which by now was an opaque grey sheet. Rene unslung his rifle and set it aside and began to peel of his armor.

"The armor has integral first aid gear," Rene explained as he cracked open the breastplate and wiggled out of it. The first aide suite was emergency field medicine, little more than hemostatic drugs, but it also contained adrenaline and antibiotic systems, designed to keep a soldier functional during what would be a crash for an unaided human.

"Bouradine, give her what is left of the pain meds if you will, strapping this on her with her burns won't be fun," he directed the trader. Rene's confidence seemed to infuse the man and he stepped quickly to the drug injectors and began to combine the doses. As soon as it was done he knelt and thrust the injector into a vein on the spacers left arm, dispensing the entire dose with a hiss of air.

Solae was highly displeased at this turn of events. Truly it was not Rene's fault that it started to rain or that the soldier could not be safely carried to the ship. She knew from experience how stressful it could be, however, to be solely responsible for piloting the spacecraft, and she didn't wish that level of anxious pressure on anyone. Were they under a different set of circumstances she would have made a passionate argument against forcing the responsibility on her Syshin companion. He had only just started to learn the art of navigation of control and his teachers were a relative amateur who had been at the helm less than a month and an AI was improvising an instruction program for their lessons. They were out of options and the injured woman's health was the most important factor in their decisions, but that did not mean she had to be happy with the ultimate outcome.

"Rosaria, let's get going," the duchess said to her charge as she turned towards the path leading from the makeshift campsite to the ruins. She should have known that the inquisitive youth would have questioned their quick departure. In no mood for an extended discussion on the matter, she bristled internally when she didn't hear footsteps behind her. Perhaps she had been too encouraging about letting the girl speak her mind as often as she wanted.

"But why aren't we going to stay here and wait for the Bonaventure?" she ventured, oblivious to how much her aristocratic companion did not want to debate the subject. To her it made sense to delay. Unlike the adults in the party, she didn't think quite so thoroughly or as far ahead, partially because of her age and partially because her life had been so suffocatingly contained before she was liberated from Thorne.

"You might have noticed the colonel said that strapping the armor to her with her burns wouldn't be fun. We won't be any help here," she explained as patiently as was possible, "and I don't think she wants an audience to that pain more than necessary. It would be improper and disrespectful to longer." Once she had finished chastising she glanced over her shoulder to address Rene directly. "We'll be back with Bel'sian as soon as we can to have group conversation. At the very least it will be warm and dry in the ship." The area Bouradine had set up was habitable, just less than ideal, and could not compare to the space and facilities of a freighter. More and more the diplomat was beginning to appreciate what a godsend the slaver's vessel was even if its origins were horrifying and it was several models out of date.

Rosaria jogged to keep up with Solae's brisk pace as her long strides carried her further from what would soon be a ghastly show as quickly as possible. Once she caught caught up with her pace, two of her steps to the linguist's one, she furrowed her brows in worry. "Do you think she'll be all right? The soldier that is?"

"You're really that concerned?" the former marquise asked with mild surprise. She had been a little pessimistic they had intervened too late and Rosaria wouldn't be able to empathize or sympathize with others. There was a raging debate over nature and nurture, yet there were centuries of evidence that rearing a child in a vacuum of emotions could turn them into cold-blooded monsters. Toddlers that weren't shown love could become callous, detached adolescents, and over ten was nearly a guarantee of severe psychological damage. Rosaria was flawed but was miraculous, an exceptional beacon of hope, proof that upbringing was not always a correlation to damnation. They had a long ways to go, but the progress was reassuring. "Rene wouldn't have taken off his armor and volunteered the kit if he didn't think it had a chance to work. Besides, Ten gave us enough medical supplies for a platoon of marines, and the equipment we have will make a huge difference in her condition."

The walk took them longer than she anticipated, almost twenty minutes, before they ended in the ruins. Gradually it became apparent that a significant portion of the trail they followed had once been an actual road that had become overgrown with vegetation since it had been abandoned by civilization. Scraggly shrubbery, piles of rubble, animal droppings, and other bits of wilderness stayed at their sides, never quite able to root itself where they tread, the less refined technology persistently maintaining structure underneath the dirt, grime, and leaves.

If she had to hazard a guess what they approached was once a breathtaking estate constructed of expensive stone to resemble a long-forgotten culture that was fashionably popular in the era. Exterior walls had survived; the doors and windows had not been so fortunate. The two ladies trekked up to on archway that had only rusted hinges left of its door and cautiously walked inside. Creatures must have sought shelter from the weather here intermittently, mud tracked in that outlined countless prints that were foreign to the educated aristocrat. In the corner was Bel'sian, and easel in front of her as well as a half-painted canvas. In retrospect it made sense. For a culture that so valued the artistic expressions of humanity, at least a handful of them must feel compelled to try to replicate the process, to create their own wonders.

"Miss Bel'sian?" Solae said quietly. It was better if they didn't get too much closer without making an introduction first. Failing to announce their presence and then startling her by appearing at her elbow would make a negative first impression by the most gracious of socialites. "I am Duchess Solae Falia, and this is Rosaria."

Bel'sian turned, eyes wide, in what Solae was fairly certain was alarm. Facial features were hard to read, but body language was blessedly universal, making it exponentially easier to communicate if they encountered a language barrier. First contact protocol utilized reading subtle physical cues extensively when there was no common tongue known. "Where is Bouradine?" she demanded, frightened.

"He's fine," Solae replied with a practiced calm, soothing tone. "My attache is helping him and a wounded soldier that was in his care. We didn't come to hurt either of you or take you anywhere you don't want to go," she added, "just to talk. The Kalderi were troubled about your disappearance. I can lead you back to Mr. Bouradine and my retinue. You may not be familiar with the human empire, but I swear to you on my empress that we have honest intentions. We are here to talk and help," she reiterated.

Savachev screamed in pain.

"Hold her damn you," Rene snarled. The merchant was white faced, lifting the spacer was not a pleasant task. One hand was under the woman's shoulder, but the other was just below buttock, the burned flesh slid under hand, the grip lubricated by sera and damaged flesh. Bouradine swallowed hard but kept his grip. It wasn't Bouradine's fault really, the merchant was doing well enough given the task at hand, Rene simply didn't like Solae wandering around without him. It made sense, but he didn't really trust anyone to look out for Solae as well as he could. Part of that was skills, but devoted as the Syshin were, as much as Rosaria looked at her as something between a mother and a savior, no one loved the Duchess the way he did.

"One more second," Rene told Bouradine and nudged the backplate into place. Savachev was whimpering now, her body growing limp as the pain overloaded her system.

"Ok, down," Rene directed, lowering the spacer down into place. The armor was slightly too large, sized for Rene, in theory it was adjustable but the process was tedious and didn't really matter for this purpose. They settled Savachev down and Rene picked up the chest plate and pressed it into place, it clicked and there was a whir of seal engaging.

"Are you really with the Marines?" Bouradine asked. Rene looked up at him, forgetting for a moment that he was still wearing a combat helmet. The merchant was scared, all but babbling, inhabiting a world of fear wholly different from Rene's. What had he expected when he and Bel'sian eloped? Certainly not a crashed escape pod, and Imperial Duchess and being pressed into service as a medical orderly. All things considered Rene supposed he was doing surprisingly well. Instead of responding immedialey he raised his right sleeve to display the tattoo of the dagger crossed planet and the serial number marked into his flesh.

"Really," he confirmed tonelessly. The visor blinked a red alert as it resynced with his chest plate. A schematic of a human body occupied a portion of the head up display. Red warning lights lit up all over the body. Not Rene's body, Savachevs. It was possible to open the individual alerts if more information was required, though the real purpose of the sensors was to inform a squad medic and command group of soldiers status. Rene didn't need to open them to know that the spacer was in bad shape. The critical alert flashed in his visor and Rene activated the emergency medical pack. There was another soft hiss as auto injectors pumped antibiotics into Savachevs system. Judging by the white count and the blood pressure it was amazing the spacer was still alive. Whatever Bouradine had done had probably saved the woman's life. The spacers eyes snapped open as drugs and combat stims poured into her system.

"S..sir?" she moaned, her voice like a wood rasp. Her eyes tried to focus, but the left one seemed to refuse to do so, a side effect of the anti-shock meds artificially raising her blood pressure.

"Colonel Quentain," he identified himself, "keep calm and relax for stars sake, we have medical inbound, but I need you to stay calm till we can get you into a medi-comp." The spacer nodded and seemed to relax, her signals improving slightly.

"I can't feel my legs," she half whispered.

"No sweat, the analgesics are deployed by vasoconstrictors, targets where you are hurt, it isn't paralysis," Rene assured her. Savachev nodded, letting out a deep breath. She reached over and her hand pawed at a panel. Rene reached out and pulled the panel free. Beneath the panel was a data key, striped red and black. The emergency data dump. Any time a ship launched escape pods it dumped an encrypted copy of its core files onto a high capacity key. Rene took it and slid it into his pocket. As the senior officer it was his responsibility.

"Gory... gory... but a hell of a way to die..." Savachev moaned, sinking back into her fuge.

"We will get you help, just hang on," Rene told her, listening for the distant roar of the Bonaventure.

"Just hold on," he repeated under his breath.