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Outside of the shielded transpari-steel dome, asteroids floated with a deceptive serenity. It wasn't visible to the naked eye at this distance, but five fleets of heavily-armed battleships patrolled the far, far-off distance in a spherical shell around the base.

The Five sector bosses of the Golden Sun were seated around a round table. Not because they felt themselves equal, far from it, but rather because that way they could keep an eye on each other better. Slugg Pa writhed its body, shaped very much like what earned its species its name, and a psychic message was sent to outside their lavish room. Fast enough, dumbwaiter droids came in to take their orders. Duuk Dremal, the Vrunak warlord snapped his draconic cyber-claws and asked for four shots of their strongest firespiced liquors, impatiently clawing at the table with one of his fingers. Then he raised a performative skål towards each of his rivals, and downed them all one after the other, before leaning back into his chair, and continuing clawing obscenities into the table. Merav-Yla, the once-planetary princess mirrored the black-dressed spy-mistress known only as Shade opposite her, and waved the droids away - contrary to the Vrunak, they didn't have auto-poison filters in their guts. Au Rodan the hologram never took anything except for lag-time before his answers. And Pa, as usual, ordered a small fishbowl-like container with a creature that looked suspiciously like a Vrunak tadpole. Then he reached down with its psychic antennae, and promptly drained it of its mental faculty.

Duuk Dremal looked upon the spectacle with disgust, then kicked off the meeting with a frustration in his gravelly voice that even the Vrunak-to-Galactic Human Basic translator managed to pick up. "Well, what are we waiting for? Let's get to it, then."

"Calmth," Pa vibed, and the Five felt a sensation like a pressure blanket coming down on their impatience, "the tides are favorable," and thus passed the turn to speak on to Rodan, who proceeded to give a brief update on their joint mining and mercantile cartel in infuriating detail. Several minutes and holo-graphs later, and the conclusion was simple: "This interbellum is very profitable, indeed. Many are looking to rebuild or cleanup. And our networks are of great service."

With that, Pa turned to the spy-mistress in her elegant all-black dress. "So then what news do you bring, Shade? Why did you call our meeting early, and with such urgency?"

The lady in black closed her eyes, and turned nonreactive for a few seconds. One would almost think she hadn't heard the question. But her fellow sector bosses knew better. She heard everything. Lines of encrypted text scrolled across her sternly closed eyelids, information locked away deep inside her brain's cybernetics that she queried only when absolutely necessary - everything to keep her secrets. Her lips fluttered ever so slightly as she subvocalized its decryption in real time. Then she opened her eyes, leaned forward, tented her fingers, and spoke without ever letting her eyes meet any of their gazes.

"Sector Alpa-Red surrounding Tar Yrra is in motion." Shade said plainly. "The probes sent into its rimward region have been rendered inoperative by destructive force. From the few transmissions we got back from them, all we know is that the Cyber-people are awake, and are amassing a great force there. A force not suited for peacetime."

"So the Supremites are gearing up for war..." Duuk Dremal said. "How much intel and influence do we have along their rimward systems?"

"Little," Shade continued, "the systems there are notoriously self-reliant due to a richness in resources. Save for the occasional trade, we have little leverage there."

"We might have soon more substantial, then," Pa said as his fringe shuddered in revelry at the thought of war coming to their systems. War was good for business, after all.

And Duuk Dremal nodded in agreement. Then he turned to face the lady next to him that was dressed in opulence, who chimed every time she moved from her precious metal jewellery, but who had not yet spoken a single word. "Speaking of leverage, what of your... internal troubles, Yla?" Duuk asked, with a mischievous glint in his optical array. Once-Princess Merav-Yla had worked her way up to a syndicate sector boss in record time compared to the others, just a single decade. And with her people's belief and loyalty behind her, no less. But now there were rumours of a rebellion within her ranks. With the wish to return to their older way of life, the one from before their planet found itself in the path of a stray relativistic killshot during the last Reclamation War. And rebellions were a nuisance.

"My people are well taken care of," Merav-Yla responded with a regal grace that may have fooled the others, but not Duuk. He smiled at her being very deliberate in not using the word 'placated'. "Of course. But, if I may offer some advice, from the longest sitting member of this Family to its youngest: gather up these miscontents of yours, and send them to patrol this Supremite warpath," Duuk sat up. "Tell them it is a... expeditionary diplomatic mission. To scout out a new opportunity for settling, or a people to join." Duuk's voice softened, as if talking to himself. "And then, when disaster strikes again, then they will come to understand why we live as we do." The world was ruthless out here. The history of his own people-in-exile flashed into his mind, driven off by the Augustans, and Duuk ground his jaw in barely-contained anger and hate. Yes, there was only one way to climb to the top here. "I will send along some of my mercenaries as an escort." Not his best, of course. But still, he decided, it might be better to keep the princess on his side for now.

And so, the Five continued for a while. As was customary, more small talk and barbs were traded, and they tried to gather some more information on each others' business, get on each others' good side, or bad side, or at least feigned as much. But the real business of importance had been concluded, in lines that were as throwaway as the lives they would be sending off in some weeks time. One more round of drinks followed, then each went back to their protection fleet, and hundreds of bluish-white lightstreaks briefly illuminated the asteroid base as their FTL drives shot them back to their home sectors.

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Some weeks later, in a different fleet, a different system, and in a very different credit-range, Rasan Do Csina stood in the employment line of the Pauper Ship laughably named New Hope. It had been one of the older vessels of their fleet, one of the Old Guard-ships, from before their motherplanet's destruction. And to be fair, for a while it did serve valiantly as one of their people's hopeful crown jewels. But now it seemed not a single week went by without there being something major that had to be duct taped together, again. Rasan was sure the ship had a future. Just not for him.

So, into the employment line he went. The smell of neurospice was strong here. Around him, holo-ads blared the perks of their respective vacancies, but he had no interest in most of them. No, there was only one that caught his eye: "Join the Expedition: Explore New Worlds! Learn Valuable Skills! Be a Part of Something Greater! Join the Expedition..."

"Rasan Do Csina, call me Rasan," he told the recruiter when he reached the end of the line and scanning drones whirred around him to take some medical scans. The recruiter said nothing as he looked upon the scans, but didn't send him away as quickly as he did with others, so that was a good sign. "Spelling of Csina?" "Doesn't matter." And it was true: the family wouldn't care what he did with their name, just that he'd send them back some credits. "Skills?" "Farmer. Or we used to be, back home." "Any fighting?" "A bar brawl here and there. Why, expecting trouble?" "In this day and age? It'd be foolish not to. And our Princess only wants the best for her people, and that includes safety. Bar brawls you say? I'll put you down as 'trainable.'" "When will I hear back from you?" "Why? Want to get going so quickly?" And Rasan smiled with more than a hint of sourness as he looked around him. "In this day and age? It'd be foolish not to..." The recruiter paused for a second, tapped some buttons, then faced Rasan and nodded. "Approved. Proceed to transport ID:34-75Δ with destination expedition ship Pendant-12. Good luck, Rasan."

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