Sel opened her mouth to suggest that keeping an eye on the men was Sergeant Crispin's job but she closed it before speaking. Clearly such protestations were not going to save her from people feeling the need to involve her in decisions. She wondered how this state of affairs had come to pass when three months ago she had been happily piloting a sentinel with nothing more to worry about than the odd enemy pot shot. 


"Yes Sir," she responded instead as she followed Kayden through the massive doors into a vast reception chamber. Two giant sets of stairs swept down from a marble clad mezzanine above, polished wood covered with expensive looking hand made carpet. In the center of the room stood a twenty foot statue of a handsome man in some form of archaic military uniform. Before the statue stood the Baroness, arrayed in a dress of red silk that clung to a figure that only Imperial Science could have rendered, a great white fur stole over her shoulders despite the fact that within the house the temperature was warm enough to make Sel sweat in her winter battledress. 


"Ah Lieutenant," she called out in a honeyed voice, "how wonderful of you to join us." Sel managed not to grin. Typical of a nob to frame it that way, drag a whole platoon all the way out here and then frame it as a social call.


"A pleasure my lady," Kayden replied, taking her outstretched hand and kissing it in a very fancy fashion. The baroness giggled in a surprisingly girlish fashion. Other matters might demand his attention indeed Sel thought to herself. Nor was the Baroness without her own escort. Two... soldiers Sel supposed, stood beside her. Both were male and extremely handsome and wore elaborate mustaches, one of them looked enough like a male version of the Baroness to be a cousin or even a half brother.  Compared to the dull battle stained gear of the guardsmen their gear was fantastical. Both wore fatigues but these were of fine tailored silk and were bright with the house colors and so stiff with gilt that they would probably stand up on their own. Over this gaudy ensemble they wore polished silver breastplates that were chased with elaborate gold engravings. Rather than lasguns they wore side arms and carried long pikes from which fluttered silken streamers. Their eyes swept the guardsmen with utter contempt. Sel suppressed as sigh. If this lot were representative of the rest of the Lady Arsenault's guards, any suggestion of training them was out the window. Sel just hoped they would stay out of the way of the real soldiers.


"Ah this is your dashing aide de camp! We saw you on the holo you know, after those beasts attacked you," the Baroness gushed, surprisingly recognising Sel. Her eyes cut back and forth between Kayden and Sel and it didn't take a pskyer to know that she was wondering what the relationship between them was.