[IC] Star Crossed: The Duke's Rebellion

[Penny]

Rene flopped bonelessly onto the mattress, only to grunt in surprise as it nearly swallowed him. The mattress was a large bag of cotton fabric, judging from the unexpected give it was packed with some sort of loose cushioning, perhaps leaves or wool. He blinked for a moment in stunned surprise, it reminded him of an underfilled waterbed he had once played on as a child.

“Well,” he said in an ironically voice, “I suppose it has less in the way of interesting pharmaceuticals.” It wasn’t much of a joke but they both laughed relieved to be alone and alive. Rene struggled to the edge of the bed with some difficulty and stripped off his boot. Lasha had bathed Solae while she had been unconscious and Rene, waiting anxiously without other options, had sponged the worst of the dirt off himself. His hands were pitted with small red dots where he had scoured away the metal that muzzle blasts had redeposited on his skin.

Solae stripped down to her under clothes, an act which commanded Rene’s full and immediate attention. She let them fall to the ground, the faint hint of a wicked grin on her full beautiful lips. Without warning she leaped onto the bed, landing on it with her full weight. The counterforce flipped Rene out of the bed with a whoosh of escaping air, depositing him on his back on the floor with a crunch. He groaned in surprise and was rewarded with her silvery laughter.

“Is that anyway for a lady to behave?” he asked and dived (more carefully) back into the bed.

They found each other in the night, the natural impulse of the bed drawing them together as both of their bodies sought the lowest point. It was less frantic than it had been in the Park’s spare bedroom, enthusiasm trumped by the pain and fatigue of wounds and the exhaustion of battle. Still hunger for each other overcame natural caution and more than once the ecstasy of togetherness mingled with the pain of an awkwardly place leg or hand. Rene didn’t care for his own pain eager to feel Solae against him even if it came at a price. He wanted to explore every inch of her, eager to prove she was still alive after the scare her capture had given him. Sleep found him with an arm around her and her golden hair spilling over his torso, her head resting on his chest.

The Syshin had different biological rhythms than humans. Triurnal by nature, they tended to view the day as split into three segments. An early morning, a full sun period, and an evening night. The arrangement suited their social structure allowing both bonded pairs and twins a period of communion without depriving them of rest. There was no day and night in Amber Horizons in any case, the hull of the ship effectively cutting off all natural light. Inspite of that Rene was already beginning to stir when a polite but insistant knock sounded at the door. Groaning he slid out of bed, careful but unable to avoid Solae who was also rousing to the noise. He picked up his trousers and awkwardly tugged them on before opening the door a crack. Enro stood in the hallway beyond his face unreadable to Rene.

“We need to speak of the prisoner,” he said, with more urgency than the statement should have required. Rene’s lips compressed into a frown. Solae was moving behind him, he could hear her pulling on her own clothing, gifts from Oanh he supposed. Briefly he regretted not finding spare gear at the Rat Trap, but the only real choice would have been to strip the dead.

“Now?” Rene ask musily trying to kick his brain into action. The effects of his wounds and his exertions were clearly catching up to him. The backs of his hands burned and it was painful, and he was stiff besides, muscles protesting the abuse he was putting them through. Enro nodded in an exaggerated manner that Rene was coming to associate with the Syshin. Florid gestures seemed to be the norm among the creatures, he wondered if they found humans boring and restrained in their speech.

“Yeah… yeah ok give us a minute will you?” he asked, closing the door before the alien could reply. Solae was already dressed so Rene quickly pulled on a fresh shirt and a socks before snapping the battered plastic closures of his combat boots. He took Solae’s hand and squeezed it.

“Lets find out what this is about,” she said with a smile that held a slight unreadable quality to it.

When they arrived at the cell, it was immediately obvious that the prisoner was much worse off than he had been the night before. A sheen of sweat coated the man's cruely pinched face and he appeared to be shaking despite being wrapped in a warm cloth blanket, much like the one Rene and Solae had used last night. Rene reflected that it had been a mistake for the Shyshin to give him that. A dedicated man might have used it to fashion a noose.

“What is wrong with him?” Enro asked. Rene thought about the bridge, the plasma bolt, fragment bursting up from the bridge and spattering the fellow legs before pitching him back into the creek.

“He is septic,” Rene said in a voice too low to carry to the miserable prisoner.

“The wounds in his legs, Lasha treated them, but either she missed something or you don’t have antibiotics appropriate for humans,” he concluded. Even a skilled surgeon was likely to miss something and this wretch wasn’t even the same species as the healer. Rene couldn’t find any mercy in his heart for someone who was willing to buy and sell sentient beings so that they could be raped and tortured, but without antibiotics, the man was going to die a slow and agonized death.

[Syrenrei]

Solae had stood behind Rene, slightly to the left of Enro, and stared at the prisoner impassively as she considered the options before them. To murder an unarmed man in cold blood, no matter how justified it may be with his depravity, felt like it was crossing a line that was not even embraced in warfare. The slaver was helpless. Syshin culture was conflicted on how to handle such captives of conflict- there was such a thing as a mercy killing, but it was also greatly dishonorable to dispose of a life unless it was necessary to do so. This was one of the reasons that Rene and Solae had been summoned; not only were they being regarded as leaders of the resistance mounted the night prior, they were being respected as humans who could speak to what human society would request of the members of their race.

Pursing her lips the marquise knew they could not let the man live. Treating him, if even possible, would rob the Syshin of precious resources they could not afford to waste. It would take weeks if not months for any supplies to reach Amber Horizon. The rebellion had bigger concerns than their subjugated labour force. More importantly, the slaver could and would spread word of Syshin hostility to everyone that would hear him. Retaliation would be swift and deadly. Solae was less concerned about the risk to herself- she already had a bounty on her that placed her in constant danger- but she would not impart any peril to the peaceful beings that had become her saviors.

"Enro," she started, turning and bowing to the elderly male, "please forgive me while I have a word in private with my bonded. This is a delicate matter and I do not want to speak for both of us without his understanding and consent." Her Syshi flowed off her lips. Immersion, even for a singular brief day, had made her accent less stilted and clearer to the aliens. Enro glanced to Rene and nodded in approval as he waited patiently.

"I hope you didn't sleep through your High Imperial classes," Solae began, turning towards Rene this time. "I think we have a couple of options."

Rene groaned a little to himself. It had been quite some time since he had needed to read High Imperial much less speak it but there was no better way to discuss the slaver without him or Enro being privy to the discussion. "What are you thinking?" he managed with a slight clipping of his enunciation.

"We let him go. We can lead him to think he's recovering- inject him with adrenaline perhaps- and then give him just enough opportunity to 'escape.' He'll lead us straight to wherever he came from and, hopefully, the spaceship," she proposed. "He won't make it the entire way, but it will put us in the right direction, and put some distance between him and Amber Horizon so they are less suspect. If he manages to get too close to his home..." she paused and shook her head, "then we could deal with it then." It was a tacit way of implying they would execute him if not for his crimes then because he was too close to death to cheat it even with medical intervention.

"And the other option?" Rene asked thoughtfully with furrowed brows.

"We try to convince him we will take him to get medical help and hope he directs us to where his people- and ship- are instead of the acting military. Considering his profession he's more likely to go home than law enforcement. I'd like to say we can go back their house," she said, referring to the Parks but unwilling to drop the easily-understood name, "but I do not know we can impose upon them again to help. Either way... if he survives this the good we've done here is forfeit."

The pair fell silent a moment as the weighted choice hung between them. There was no right or wrong, only a hard question with an even more difficult answer. Enro had taken to watching the shaking man under the blanket as he tried to afford his guests what little privacy they could be granted without abandoning them in the hallway.

[Penny]

Rene mostly followed the High Imperial. Trust a linquist to keep fluent in a dead language. As a child he had learned the language from his tutor but mostly for the purposes of reading the various historical and philosophical tracts which formed the core of an aristocratic education. Classics were usually taught immediately after children mastered the basics of grammar and arithmetic with specialty education in the science occuring later. Young Rene had been a keen reader of history, his family had been proud of a number of pre-collapse manuscripts that it owned in true to the stars physical print. They had always seemed like wonderful things to him, conjuring up an archaic past where Earth had ruled the galaxy with vast fleets and armies unknown in the current age.

“Let us give him his freedom, better not to promise clemency we have no intention of honoring,” Rene replied. The formal structure of the grammar made his words sound more pompous than he would have liked but his command of the language wasn’t such that he was an easy conversationalist. Solae nodded her head clearly taking his drift even if his words were imprecise.

“We will make a gentleman out of you yet,” she said, smiling slightly. Rene unsuccessfully tried to fight off a smile and was immediately glad the prisoner was in no state to register the crack in his carefully stern impression. The stepped back out into the hallway where Enro waited. Solae briefly explained the plan to him in a liquid stream of Syshi. Enro’s body language betrayed, even to Rene’s untrained eye, that he was uncomfortable with the plan. It was a reasonable concern, if the prisoner somehow evaded his pursuers Amber Horizon’s might well face an attack which they couldn’t possibly repel, but Solae and her bonded had proved themselves friends, heros even, and he couldn’t deny them the right to try it.

“What do you need from us, Solae of the Empire,” he asked at last, speaking common for Rene’s benefit.

“Can you send someone for my backpack, I need the medical kit,” Rene explained.

The prisoner bucked as the the injector hissed against his neck, delivering the carefully mixed cocktail of drugs into his carotid artery. Rene wasn’t a medic, but he had taken the corps extensive field first aid course and was familiar enough with the application of stimulants. The mix contained an anti-pyrogenic, to break the fever, as well as a dose of adrenaline and preepinephrine. It would suppress the effects of the infection as well as give the man the energy to move. Rene had decided against analgesic, he didn’t want the man to be able to move too fast and besides, they might need it themselves.

The slavers eyes cleared almost immediately though sweat still beaded on his face. Rene stepped back and drew himself up to his full height. He was wearing his side arm and dressed in the most formal of the clothing Min Ho had given him. The dark grey tunic, sealed on the left side and the black pants gave him a semi official appearance without being anything like a uniform.

“What is your name,” he demanded. The prisoner squirmed, hate filling his eyes. He glanced back and forth, perhaps looking for Solae. They had decided that it would be better if she were not visible for this part of the plan and so she had waited out side, though the door was open and she could hear everything that transpired. Enro and one of his companions waited there as well, crude spears clutched in their hands in case something went badly wrong. Rene had made certain his pistol was unloaded, just in case the fellow managed to jump him.

“Fuck you..” the slavers jaw snapped back as Rene delivered a full armed slap to the mans face, the contact echoing in the improvised prison cell like a gun shot.

“What is your name,” Rene repeated in an identical tone. The prisoner did not answer. Rene drew his hand back for another blow.

“Krol Tamworth,” the man grunted, glaring hatefully at the marine. Rene nodded and was silent for a moment.

“Krol Tamworth,” Rene began formally, his posture stiffening into something like a formal parade rest, eyes gray an pitiless as he watched the shivering form before him.

“For the crimes of sentient trafficking, attempted murder, kidnapping and assault upon the person of an Imperial official..”

“Wait a minute,” Krol interjectected, eyes wide, but Rene didn’t pause in his recitation.

“I Renard Lucius Du Quentain, Commander of Her Imperial Highnesses’ Forces on New Concordia, That Territory being in a state of Martial Law and in accordance with the emergency powers so granted me , do sentence you to death.” Rene repressed a shiver at the use of his full formal name, something he hadn’t uttered since he took his oath to join the Marines. It felt like peeling back the protective layer on a block of sodium, a soft sizzle that started the chain reaction to an eventual and inevitable detonation. Solae had pointed out that as the only surviving member of the the Imperial Military command technically fell to him, even if that was command of exactly one soldier. He supposed that the Marines would have approved of the chain of command surviving.

“What you can’t!” Krol began struggling to get to his feet. Rene slapped him hard again sending hm sprawling to the floor in a heap.

“You will be executed at local nightfall, 19:30 hours, I suggest you use that time to make whatever peace you can,” the words were filled with icy contempt that he didn’t have to dredge very deep to find. Turning on his heel, he strode from cell. One of the Syshin guards closing the bamboo door behind him.

In the hallway Solae and Lasha waited. Solae had a strange look on her face. Stars what did he look like, he tried to force his face out of the bleak expression he had been wearing for the interview.

“How long?” Lasha asked eagerly.

“Two hours,” Rene said as they moved down the corridor.

“Let him get good and scared so he doesn't try anything.” The plan was for Lasha to turn Krol loose, explaining that her people couldn’t be party to an execution regardless of what the Empire said. She could lead the slaver to the exit hatch where Rene and Solae would be concealed, waiting and ready to follow. Enro hadn’t approved of that part of the plan either, but Lasha herself had been compelling in explaining why it should be her. The Syshin nodded and headed off to make her own preparations, leaving Rene and Solae alone.

“Are you ok?” he asked her quietly.

[Syrenrei]

"Am I okay?" Solae repeated back to Rene incredulously. Both her brows lifted as she took a moment to look him up and down, her eyes lingering on where she knew the fabric to be concealing wounds he acted as if he did not possess. The marquise knew the marines instilled in him a pain tolerance and stamina that exceeded her own but this did not fool her into ignoring them completely. Rene's nerve endings still functioned no matter what he led her to believe.

"You have deep scratches all over your arms, your leg is still pitted from where you pried something sharp out of it, and you were burned, all while trying to save the whole of Amber Horizon, and taking lives in the process so no one else feels the burden. You've consistently put yourself in danger for me, have run yourself veritably ragged selflessly, and just summoned authority you do not relish to make a slaver believe you mean to execute him. And you are asking if I am okay? Renard Lucius Du Quentain," she said, smiling as the name crossed her lips, "if you were not so handsome I might be compelled to strike you upside the head in hopes it knocks some sense into you."

Solae had not answered the question for herself which in itself was telling. The soldier deflected his own needs to focus on her and so she did the same. Such escapism did not do either of them any favors. She had yet to confront the demons of doubt that nightmares had planted into her soul. The marquise was changed by the guilt of survival, the guilt of Rene's protection, the guilt of having happiness when so many were suffering or snuffed out of existence entirely. Articulating this to her consort would place an undue burden on his psyche. He too had crawled out of a mire of death without guidance from the universe as to why or what he ought to do with this opportunity. How could he console her when he was no better?

"I wonder if I asked you the same questions what methods of interrogation I might have to use to get an answer out of you," she wondered aloud idly with an impish grin. Solae stepped forward to be so close that their breath graced one another's skin. "The courts may have the upper hand on tactics here I believe. Maybe if I were to..."

It was as she leaned in as it to plant a kiss upon his neck that two Syshin rounded the corner and found themselves in the midst of human display of affection. One female gasped and dropped a basket she was carrying while the other stared, unblinking, with studious detachment.

Red-faced Solae moved back and cleared her throat. Pink colored her ears no matter how fervently she tried to stifle her embarrassment. Were they happened upon by other people (such as Oanh and Min Ho) then she would have nonplussed, but Syshin did not understand the 'mating rituals' of humans unless they were sold into sexual slavery. Being watched by them felt inherently strange because she was not just herself, performing an action all others did, rather she was a demonstration for curious foreigners.

"We brought... things," one of them struggled in broken common. Leaning down the shorter Syshin picked up her basket and presented it to Rene and Solae jointly. "Things for... move? Journey?"

Rene, who seemed substantially less mortified than Solae, took the gift graciously. There were several items in the basket but they were all thoughtfully sized to fit into the backpack that no longer was being used for transporting wine. Leaves had been wrapped around a foodstuff not unlike rations that was composed of rice, dried fruits, vegetables, and nuts to maximize its nutritional value. Two small earthenware jars were labeled 'Bruise' and 'Cut' and filled with ointments made by their healers. Long strips of fabric had been tightly rolled for use as bandages were they to find themselves injured. Set slightly to the side, however, was a small brick of a sweet-smelling biscuit that was more confection than meal supplement.

"To eat, for hurt, and for..." the Syshin faltered and looked to the other as she gestured to the block that reminded Solae of a bizarrely-shaped cookie.

"Bonded use it to help bring child," the other said as she patted Rene's hand. In their culture fertility was a brief window that all bonded had to make use of if they hoped for the continuation of their species. Due to this facet of their society they assumed that all bonded were actively trying to conceive- including humans. People did not speak with Syshin long enough to clarify this misunderstanding.

Solae was stunned into silence, a rarity that was increasingly common with recent events. "I... we...," she tried to form a coherent sentence but failed. The Syshin smiled knowingly which only made the marquise more perplexed. There was no tactful to broach the fact that although Rene and she called one another 'bonded' for simplicity they were not wed and, in fact, were not preparing to become parents.

[Penny]

“We...uhh... thank you for your generosity,” Rene managed, eyes a little wide and cheeks flushing in spite of his best efforts. Members of the aristocracy virtually never conceived children naturally. THe preference for genetic tailoring meant that men usually underwent a retroviral sterilization when the reached puberty. THe process was theoretically reversible but the normal procedure was to extract genetic material and tailor the embryo in vitro. The practice wasn’t secret exactly, but it wasn’t widely publicised either. The Nobility had a stake in making sure that the common people didn’t view them as too alien and genetic manipulation was always a topic which raised pulses. “So High and Mighty the don’t even fuck,” was a common enough epithet that struck close to the mark without being technically true.

The Syshin made that odd bobbing curtsey they had seen before, the unnatural bend from the extra joint making Rene’s leg throb in misattributed sympathy. The aliens moved around them forming an honor guard of sorts and escorting them through the now familiar corridors to the main hold. Syshin working in the orchards paused in their labor as they passed, bowing heads and speaking a single melodic word in Syshi.

“What are they saying?” Rene whispered as he leaned in close to Solae. SHe frowned as if puzzled and made an equivocating gesture with her right hand.

“It doesn't translate very well,” she told him, “its an honorific, maybe sacrificer or they who have sacrificed.” Syshin culture abhorred violence and death, the taking of life was far more taboo than humans, inculcated with violence in media, entertainment, history and lore could readily appreciate. To Rene it seemed like it was the Syshin were taking a huge risk by letting Krol go free, even as a ruse, if something were to go wrong and the renegade escaped it could mean the destruction of their community.

Enro and Nari stood before the large central building along with a knot of older Syshin in a rough semicircle. The pair seemed to be wrapped in loosely draped ribbon of green and metallic gold. As the approached Rene realised it must have been copper, probably braided wire hammered flat and polished clean of verdigris.

“You are certain it does not mean human sacrifice right?” Rene muttered in High Imperial, syntax slightly stilting the joke but not enough to kill it completely. Solae elbowed him gently in the ribs by way or reply. The Syshin escorting them peeled off to take their places at the end of the extended line. Naril began speaking in Syshi, her voice clear and ringing with the fluidity of an orator even if one could not understand the words.

“We are recognising you as true friends of the community,” Enro said in a quiet but audible tone, presumably for Rene’s benefit.

“And we are asking the Twin’s to watch over you in your coming trials, and grant you safe passage to your homes,” he explained. Rene assumed that the Twin’s were some sort of Syshin spiritual entity. He wasn’t a religious man, few of the aristocracy were, but he was willing to take any help he could get. Besides it was the sentiment of Amber Horizion that really mattered, not how they chose to convey it. Naril’s oration came to its conclusion and she and Enro stepped forward as one, each holding an earthenware bowl filled with the now familiar clean water extended.

“Dip your fingers in the bowl,” Enro instructed and Rene and Solae tentatively complied. The two Syshin lifted the bowls to their lips and drank deeply. Having witnessed how fastidious they were about the purity of their water, Rene couldn’t help but feel he was watching something that would have been deeply transgressive if it weren’t embedded in a ritual. As they drank the other Syshin spoke the word that Solae had translated as sacrificers as one. The Syshin upended the bowls and let the remaining contents trickle to the earth and then stepped back.

“We wish you luck in your quest Solae of the Empire, and know that no matter how many hunt you, there are those who wish for your success.”

Rene and Solae waited nervously amidst the rocks above the exit they had chosen. Both of them were dressed in travelling clothes and carrying all that they possessed. Even with what they had been given by the Syshin it amounted to precious little, far less than Rene would have been expected to take into the field with him as an active duty marine. Rene had recovered the pistol that Solae had dropped the previous evening and returned it to her, while he himself carried the pistol Min Ho had given him, along with the least dilapidated of the several rifles they had recovered from the raiders. The rest of the weapons were stacked in one of the cells in Amber Horizion’s, a last ditch defence if the Syshin should need them.

“Any minute now,” Rene said, checking his chronometer, completely unnecessarily. He was nervous, not for himself, but he was starting to question his earlier certainty that Krol wouldn’t try to harm Lasha as she ‘freed’ him from his cell. Another torturous minute dragged by before the hatch squealed open. Krol, looking sickly, stumbled from the hatch onto his hands and knees. The slaver glanced around trying to get his bearings before standing and staggering off towards the east. Rene waited till he was at the edge of their sight line and then rose with Solae, following Krol from a safe distance. The drugs in the man's system, as well as his very real but suppressed infection had him on the edge of delirium, he probably wouldn’t notice the tail, but it was best not to take chances you could avoid.

The air was hot with the latent heat of noon as Krol lead them down the slope. The jungle was thinner here on the rocky fringe of the hills. Twisted trees, draped with moss like vines scrabbled for light, with only a few of the most optimistic ferns to provide ground cover. Krol staggered and fell repeatedly, his crashing approach starting birds and small forest creatures from their hides before he reached them. Rene was beginning to worry that the man was lost, to sick to find his way back, when the hit another old railway track. It cut through the jungle like a scar, raised slightly on a bed of crushed gravel barely identifiable now. The track was heavily overgrown, branches covering it at a height that would have preculuded any engine from running on it, but the lack of growth covering it suggested that it might still have been used for foot traffic. That or the gravel substrate was so unappealing that even entrepreneurial jungle flora couldn’t make a home of it. Krol paused, looked up and down the track, and then staggered off southward.

They followed the track for well over an hour. Krol was clearly deteriorating as the meds began to where off. His falls became more frequent and at times he crawled on hands and knees. The rails began to rise slightly, the embankment growing higher as they reached lower ground, more susceptible to sudden monsoonal floods. The Jungle to either side was much thicker now, not quite the towering giants of the deep bush, but trees large enough to black the sky almost completely save for the odd dapples of light brought on by the errant winds. Krol rounded a bend and let out a weak but strangled cry. Ahead Rene could see the wild jungle trees give way to regular rubber trees, easily distinguishable by their dark green, almost black leaves. Splotches of paint in various colors marred their smooth trunks, probably something to do with orders of tapping.

“This must be it,” Rene said, uttering his first words since the pursuit had began. He was whispering but after the protracted silence it sounded like a shout. Without a pause he climed to the rails and dashed along them to seize Krol. The man’s flesh was hot to the touch and he was soaked in sweat. The smell indicated he had lost control of his bladder at some point too, which made the task no more pleasant.

“Who… who… are you,” Krol croaked through lips parched till they had split. Rene realised that the slaver was too far gone in his own delirum to recognise him.

“What should we do with the prisoners boss?” Rene asked, doing his best to conceal his upper class Capellan accent. It would never have worked if the man wasn’t half out of his mind with fever, but it was worth a try.

“Prisoners…” Krol moaned as though not quite certain what Rene meant.

“The...chooks, the ones were are going to send off world,” Rene expanded, wincing inwardly to use the borrowed slur, even in a good cause.

“Right… chooks… we need to… south side of the plantation… need to load them before the woman and her…” Krol paused and squinted up at Rene, he licked his cracked lips blinking to clear the fever haze from his eyes.

“I know you…” Krol began. Rene straightened and unclipped the sword he had taken from Lord Armon’s estate. They were too close to other humans to risk a shot and Rene didn’t want to do something as brutish as cut the mans throat, or wring his neck, although he supposed neither would have been too difficult.

“You are that golden haired bitches lap dog!” Krol managed, his voice rising but still weak that it wouldn’t carry very far. Rene thumbed the powered blade to life, it hummed gently as the segments began to oscillate, to finely for the human eye to measure more than a shimmer.

“It is still an hour till sundown,” Rene said quietly, “you have my apologies for that.” Then, without further hesitation, he thrust the blade into Krol’s chest, the tip sinking into his heart like a knife sliding into softened butter. Krol stiffened and coughed once, a trickle of blood appearing at the corner of his mouth. Then he sagged back, the light fading from his eyes in the space of a few heart beats. Rene withdrew the point of the blade a fine mist of blood, scattered by the oscillators spattered the front of the dead man’s shirt, rapidly obscured by the spreading crimson stain. Rene thumbed the blade off and the slight whine died away. The sound of insects and bird calls filled the quiet of the forest. He felt sick, killing a man in a firefight was one thing, but this was something else again. Rene had no doubt that Krol had received justice for crimes he openly admmited to, but slaughtering a sick half delirious man curdled his stomach. Glancing back he saw Solae approaching along the train line. This was no time to be weak. Clipping the sword back to his belt, he seized Krol’s body by both arms and dragged it off the track and into the concealment of a nearby knot of thorny bushes, covering the corpse with a layer of leaf litter hastily scrapped from a nearby bank. In a few days the smell would make they body easy to find, but by that point they would either be dead or off New Concordia.

“He said something about the south side of the plantation,” he told Solae as he returned to the train tracks, trying to ignore the blood staining the gravel. He nodded his head to the long lines of dark rubber trees. They were closely packed, and marched off until the gloom beneath them became impenetrable. No workers were yet in sight, perhaps this section wasn’t due to be harvested any time soon, he didn’t know enough about rubber production to even hazard a guess.

[Syrenrei]

"The south side of the plantation?" Solae repeated slowly as she came up to his side. Rene did not physically look worse for wear but she was not ignorant of the life he had just taken. "Which way is south?" she inquired further with effortless deception as if she had missed his nod. The marquise had been mentally tracking their position since they departed Amber Horizon by astrological observation and what she had memorized of the maps from Lord Armon's manor. Fortunately the soldier not in a mood to question why she had suddenly lost her bearings for he was already fixated on the next obstacle and what they must do to overcome it. She could have made excuses. The days had been long, the struggles great, the trauma significant, the journey difficult, and perhaps that is why he did not spend the time to evaluate the innocently placed query.

Rene lifted his arm and gestured, turning to face the southern direction instinctively. His noblewoman companion seized her opening and slid underneath the outstretched limb. Head tucked against his chest she embraced him with the only comfort she was able to provide in their circumstances. A hug was hardly enough to bolster one from a murder, however deserved, but she hoped to impart even an ounce of strength and appreciation. When all of this was over they would undoubtedly argue who had suffered more under the yoke of the rebellion and reach a stalemate. Solae would never concede that she endured the brunt of a war's brutality.

"I told you that the courts have superior tactics," she teased impishly before she stood on her toes and bestowed a quick kiss upon his cheek. Rene looked puzzled but did not object to the sudden display of affection. Solae was pleased that she able to distract him from the task at hand even if the reprieve from grim reality was short-lived. "Let's go before we lose the last light." Patting his back and releasing him from her hold, she strode off nonchalantly towards the densely planted grove.

Rubber trees had been planted at precise (if not slightly crowded) intervals in rows for maximum efficiency both in growth and navigation for the workers tasked with tending to the flora. Closest to them were saplings still being nurtured; it appeared the native jungle was being cleared as the plantation expanded its borders. Beautiful as a tropical forest might be it was not as profitable a resource as what man could manipulate. The further south they traveled and the larger the trees grew, each of them incised and bearing a single alloy tap from which a bucket hung. Cursory inspection revealed that most had been recently emptied and no container was more then a quarter full of the milky white liquid that was being extracted.

Solae and Rene were both silent as they kept themselves alert for any slavers or other employees of the plantation. There was shouting in the distance but nothing nearby more threatening than a small group of birds fighting over a piece of discarded fruit on the ground to their left. There was a bigger score to be made than raw latex. Nearly very man and woman on New Concordia greedily eyeing the prizes that could be claimed in the chaos of a change of power. Looting and plundering was still rampant days after the initial assaults. For the morally depraved this was a golden opportunity they were more eager to take full advantage of than most.

They breached the end of the unnaturally straight line of rubber trees, crouching behind the trunks of the largest two they could find, and saw a sprawling estate with half a dozen buildings looming several hundred feet away from their current position. Five structures were composed of imported concrete and steel, drab gray in color, rectangular in shape, and obvious warehouses for goods awaiting shipment. The sixth was a three-story garish white house, complete with more balconies than Solae cared to count, and flags for obscure ethnic factions within the Stellar Empire. Frequent rains and a humid climate discolored many of the homes in the area and so that this one was pristine, rather than dappled with moss and moldy green, spoke to an obstinate obsession with at least the appearance of wealth.

Between the couple and the buildings were fields of various crops that were rotated yearly so as to not deplete the soil of its nutrients. One lay fallow far to their right, on the northern most plot, but the others were filled with sugarcane, sweet potatoes, coffea, taro, and sorghum. Of all the choices the sugarcane provided the most potential to conceal themselves on any approach.

"If I can get to one of the buildings, and if they have an AI, I should be able to get in the system and control things from there," Solae whispered. Even with no one in sight she was not taking chances she might be overheard. Had she not known precisely how rusty Rene was in High Imperial she would have continued in its use for the purposes of added security.

"Are you sure?" Rene asked pensively. It was a large gamble to take and he needed to ascertain her level of confidence to help evaluate their chances of success.

"Criminals, or people engaged in criminal behavior, tend to find the back door for law enforcement to override their directives. The one I used on Mia relies on social status and it's so rarely used that I've never heard of it being disengaged. I doubt they even know it exists," she said as she slid down and began to tie her long ponytail into a knot on the top of her head. "Even if they somehow managed to protect against that, however unlikely, I'm familiar enough with the interfaces to brute force my way in."

"We have to get you there first," Rene remarked grimly. Above the harvests, bobbing and weaving around tall stalks and heavy farm equipment, were the heads of those that the slavers had left behind. They were too far away to spot either one of the pair even if had they been standing in the open. Drawing closer, however, would unequivocally gain the attention of the presumed hostiles.

"A trap?" Solae ventured. "I'll stay closer to you this time, but I'm recognizable. If I get a bit closer, make a bit of noise, I can draw them over here where it will be easier for you to ambush them." The marquise frowned to herself. Such a plan would necessitate Rene doing more of what both of them loathed him to do- killing their adversaries. Taking hostages was a luxury of morality, time, and resources they did not have. Fervently she wished there was another way other than through people. They were out of options and she could think of nothing that would spare their shared conscience.

[Penny]

Rene let out a long breath through his teeth. No plan that risked Solae sat well with him but there was a distinct lack of easy alternatives. The recent rains meant that all of the crops were too wet to burn and the buildings were concrete and steel so fire wasn’t a viable diversion. From where they were concealed Rene could make out four guards, they were all armed and looked agitated. No doubt by now they were spooked by the fact that their raiding party hadn’t returned.

“They can’t,” Rene said, voicing a conclusion without verbalising the question. Solae looked at him in askence.

“I was wondering if maybe they were going to go out looking for the men that we, that I, killed last night,” he explained quietly.

“But they can’t, they don’t know what is happening, for all they know the Syshin are waiting for them to try so they can come swarming in here and finish them off. The fog of war.” None of that was immediately helpful of course. One of the guards flicked a cigarette to the ground and crushed it out with a boot. The man, unshaven and a thirty pounds too heavy, slid his rifle into the crook of his arm and opened his fly, urinating onto the grass.

“Well they aren’t the Imperial Guard,” Rene commented dryly. His eyes drifted across to Solae his heart fluttering in his chest in a way it didn’t do when he was in danger.

“Look Solae I…”

“Rene if you are about to make some speech about how I shouldn’t put myself in the line of danger I have every right to take the same risks you do!” she hissed, her voice rising with each syllable. Her eyes smouldered and he raised his hands in mute surrender.

“Okay okay… here is what we will do…”

Rene crouched amidst the stalks of sugar cane only a few feet back from the edge of the field. His skin prickled and stung. Sugar cane was covered with a multitude of small hair like filaments that prickled and irritated his hands and neck. Discomfort could be ignored, a fact on which both the aristocracy and the marines could agree.

“Ready?” Solae asked breathily, she was standing in the clear though she was concealed from the house by the corner of the cane field.

“I am, is your gun off safe?” he whispered. THere was a pause and an audible click.

“Ok, do it.”

Solae stepped around the corner and into view of the guards. It took a second but then a shout went up. Solae let out a scream that chilled Rene’s blood for all he knew it was coming, and then turned and ran. The shouts swelled as the men pounded over the grass towards where she was last seen. Rene lifted the sword and powered it on judging his moment. Behind him he heard Solae cutting through the cane herself, circling back towards the main house through the concealing greenery. At the last possible moment Rene leaped from cover, swinging the sword in a low whistling arch that cut the right arm from the fat guard, continuing up into his neck in a bright spray of arterial blood. The three remaining men were too close and too shocked to react quickly. Rene reversed his stroke and cut another man across the belly. The guard screamed like a gelded animal dropping his weapon to the ground as he clutched desperately at the entrails that erupted from the razor sharp cut. The rifle must have been off safe because it stuttered out two rounds when it hit the ground. The bullets ricocheted off a nearby steel warehouse flying skyward in spray of incandescent sparks. A rifle butt swung at Rene’s face but he parried with the blade and whipped the sword around in a low arc shearing through both legs at the ankles and dropping him in a screaming heap. The final guard staggered backwards trying to get a clear shot, his knuckles were white with terror and his lips were formed into a scream. Rene shot him in the chest with the plasma pistol pitching him to the dirt in a cloud of vaporised tissue.

More shouts of alarm rose from other points on the estate. The screams of the men on the ground were terrible to endure but noise and confusion were their allies now. More guards burst from around the corner of one of the buildings firing wildly in Rene’s direction. He took off at a run, bullets kicking up tufts of earth around him as he hurled himself through the doors of the nearest warehouse. The interior was dark and cool and reeked of coffee. Large wooden crates were stacked to the ceilings and the heat of a roasting furnace in the rear made the place feel like the antechamber of hell. He fired a couple more rounds out the door, more to make sure his pursuers knew where he was than any chance of a hit and ran for the rear of the warehouse, praying that he had drawn enough men away to give Solae a chance to infiltrate the manor.

[Syrenrei]

In her early schooling days, when physical instruction classes were necessary, Solae remembered thinking to herself how none of it was applicable to her day to day life. The rebellion on New Concordia had forced her to re-evaluate this belief and regret not taking the classes more seriously. She had run for her life a handful of times now and was wishing all the tips that had been given for the meter dashes that athletes trained so seriously for. Bitterly the marquise wondered if she'd ever be able to watch track and field events quite the same way again.

The sugar cane stalks battered her as she bolted through them and towards the manor but she did not let them hinder her pace. Once she was free of them, slightly bruised and scratched on her exposed arms, she lowered her limbs. They had been raised as a protective shield for her face. Any guards that were not drawn away by Rene were either inside the residence or on one of the far corners of the plantation. Solae had halted briefly in her stride a couple times just to be certain she was not straying into the line of fire but there was no threat. Had she not heard the yelling and movement of angry men rushing to Rene's position she might have thought that the home was deserted.

As she drew closer she realized that whomever constructed the manor must have fancied themselves a historian of pre-Stellar Empire establishment. A front porch had decorative columns that neither matched modern taste nor served any structural purpose but were reminiscent of architecture in centuries long past. Six different sitting chairs, all from different eras, were arranged carefully on either side of the front door but looked unused. The plaque beside the front door was even in a dead language that the linguist diplomat recognized but had not studied. Even the building construction was an odd choice- rather than rely on the materials readily available on New Concordia, it appeared to be covered in vintage exterior stone that would have to been imported from two sectors over at closest before being blasted with an array of chemicals to keep it unnaturally white.

Solae raised her firearm reluctantly as she tried the handle of the front door. Prepared for it to be locked she fell through as the door swung open easily on its hinges. In retrospect it made sense. No one was stupid or brave enough to invade the home of criminals, slavers, and deviants, much less when it was not yet twilight. They did not have a reason to closely guard the plantation. Before today they may have never been under direct attack or, if they were, they would have known the aggressor and that an altercation was imminent. The element of surprise and their brash courage had unexpected payoffs.

"AI, declare yourself," Solae called out as she raised her firearm and looked around nervously. A grand staircase was ahead of her, a sitting room to the right, and a study to the left, all of which looked abandoned. She heard noises from ahead that sounded as if someone was cooking. Pots and pans clanged together in a familiar cacophony.

"Greetings, guest. I am Argon. How may I assist you?" a deep masculine voice rumbled through unseen speakers.

"Authority of Marquise Solae Falia, Senior Translator at Stellar Imperial Embassy 524, Armistice, New Concordia. Code 4283-EMHAJ-calmtable3032. Acknowledge authorization," she called out. The sounds in the kitchen beyond had ceased. Solae edged towards the empty study, keeping her weapon steady, and then quickly darted in to seal herself inside.

"Authorization acknowledged, Solae Falia," a much more flat response came. This time she spotted speakers in the upper four corners of the room. Channeling her 'inner soldier' she ducked behind the massive wooden desk for the added safety it provided as well as the concealment.

"You are to from this point forward only respond to my commands and that of Rene Quentain. Alert me of any attempts to override my authority. I also want you to begin downloading the backup of the AI known as 'Mia' from the late Lord Armon's estate. Can you access that file?"

"Acknowledged," the synthetic voice of Argon complied smoothly. "I have begun my search for the appropriate remote backup of the AI referenced. How else may I be of service?"

"Immediately commence your lock down procedures for the manor. Rene Quentain, the other user I authorized, should be in one of the buildings by himself with a group of armed individuals approaching it. Locate him and display the schematics for the building to me," she instructed.

There was banging on the study door that was exceeding short-lived. Hissing locks sounded from every window and door in the entire manor as metal reinforcements descended from hidden gaps in the ceiling and floor. Whomever had been cooking or cleaning found themselves face to face with thick slabs of alloy that were meant to withstand much worse attacks than that of tiny plasma rifles. Solae had selected the study to hide in because of its convenience but it was more well fortified than other rooms as the owner of the plantation was particularly invested in keeping the secrets she was sitting so close for his eyes only. Were there time to look for it she would have gone digging around for any safe that might be placed behind a painting. Rene's safety was a more immediate concern than valuables and riches from criminal activity.

A hologram display lit up on the desk and Solae reluctantly climbed out from beneath it. "What self defense measures are available in the vicinity?" she demanded with increasing alarm at seeing so many descending upon where Rene was positioned. Concrete walls or not he needed help and as quickly as possible.

"The plantation is equipped with several drones that have..," Argon began patiently.

"How many are functional at this moment and have operational weaponry?" Solae demanded.

"Ten, Solae Falia."

"Excellent. Release the drones with directives to eliminate any living target that is not Quentain." The marquise's lips curled up into a smile. This might actually work after all. If just once she could save Rene she would feel exponentially less guilty for the times he had already saved her own.

[Penny]

Rene leaned out from behind one of the towering stacks of crates. Industrial fans spun lazily overhead, circulating the air and filling the building with a low rhythmic thump thump thump that he felt in his chest. It was a noticeable counterpoint to his pounding heart. The doors to the place were ten foot sections of extruded metal, left deliberately ajar to provide a three or four foot entry point. Rene supposed that was a compromise to keep out the damp and promote airflow but it might simply have been a case of the guards being too lazy to close the door.

Whatever the case it provided him with an opportunity now. A shadow filled the gap as one of the guards tried to rush into the warehouse. It wasn’t a mistake a trained soldier would have made. Rene’s plasma bolt center punched him as the fading afternoon light back lit him perfectly. The guard flew back into the door with a dull metallic clang, his tunic smouldering as he slumped bonelessly against the door post. Rene ducked back, momentarily blinded by the sudden light in the darkened building, eyes dappled with dazzling purplish after images. Gunfire tore into the crates in front of him, splintering wood lost in the echoing cacophony of sound reflected off the cheap metal wall. He exhaled hard through his nose to clear the ticklish cloud of coffee dust from his nostrils and darted deeper into the warren of crates ahead of the pounding of feet and shouts of anger.

The warehouse was laid out on a fairly standard pattern although the haphazardly stacked crates made it difficult to navigate. He ran towards the rear trying to stick close to the wall so as not to be stuck in blind corners that he could get out off. The men pursuing him were shouting and firing, at shadows as they couldn’t possibly have a target, but they would figure it out eventually. He burst unexpectedly into an open area where the concrete floor was raised by a few inches. A wire enclosed control station was centrally located though both the console and the rodent chewed stool were coated with a thick layer of dust. Rene followed the cabling with his eyes and registered an ancient and rusted overhead crane system. He paused sighted and squeezed the trigger. The room flashed into cyan relief as the bolt sped to the ceiling, intersecting the connecting bracket of the rusted and disused gripping arm. Metal screamed and burst into gorgeous red flame under the stellar heat of the plasma bolt. Hydralic lines blew out in gouts of dirty orange flame that seemed tawdry by comparison. The gripping hand, a metal x weighing a third of a ton, plummeted into the crates with a shattering crash of splintered timber that was literally painful to hear. Hundreds of pounds of coffee poured from broken crates as dozens of piles went down in ruin. Smoke billowed forth as the dust caught fire and began to burn. Men screamed, though Rene couldn’t have said whether it was in terror, rage or pain. All of those things suited his purposes, so long as it took attention away from Solae and the house.

The rear of the warehouse grew increasingly hot as he neared the roasting oven. Rene could smell the slight methane stink of propane flames as he wove his way back through piles of empty crates. Unexpectedly he ran into a woven wire fence, bouncing back with shock though with no real paine. He took a couple of lunging strides to a metal framed door, surprised to find it secured by a padlock. Rather than waste time he pulled Armon’s sword from his belt and swept the energized blade down through the hasp causing the door to spring open with a musical twang. He stepped quickly through the door and darted around a large hydralic press before freezing.

A half dozen Syshin were huddling in a corner of the large room. A pile of coffee beans, easily a ton dominated the center of the space, deposited by front end loader or industrial tractor. Shovels, their handles worn smooth and shiny with long use lay scattered around where the Syshin had tossed them when the gunfire had startled them. A large roasting oven rumbled along, the slow conveyor empty now that the Syshin were no longer feeding the thing. It reminded Rene of a child hood monster he had once feared, the fires of hell glowing in the depths of its metallic gullet. Most nightmarishly of all, one of the Syshin an older male, was chained to the thing. His skin was blackened with old burns and he writhed against the hot surface unable to get free. Long whip scars mared his skin and two digits on his left hand were missing.

“What the actual fuck,” Rene gasped and the Syshin cringed back from him, those in the corner trying to flatten themselves into the corner.

“We work good master,” one of them mewled in broken Imperial. Rene looked between the chained alien and his cowering confederates in horror. That was why the door was locked, they had enslaved Syshin, presumably males they had no use for in brothels, working on the plantation. He strode forward with the sword, waking screams from the group, and cut the chains holding the prisoner to the tormenting heat of the oven. The metal links clinked heavily as they fell to the ground. Rene cursed himself for not learning any Syshi and turned to the group the corner.

The world exploded in pain as the chain caught him across the back. He spun by the prisoner he had just freed was already on top of him, meaty fist swinging. They went down in a heap rolling across the spilled coffee grounds in a tangle. The Syshin was screaming, a weird warbling warcry like the one he had heard the night before in the forest. Rene bought his arms up in front of him, parrying the prisoners punch and following up with his own elbow. It was like striking a stone wall.

“I’m a friend!” Rene screamed but the Alien was terrified and furious seeking only to kill one of the hated humans. It drove one of its shackled wrists at his throat but Rene, slippery with sweat, twisted sideways so that the blow glanced off his shoulder. He slammed his head forward in a headbutt that connected with the Syshin’s chin, slamming the brutes mouth shut with a painful clack that must have chipped teeth. Rene’s own vision swam but he bought his hand up and around in an open handed strike that would have ruptured the kidney of a human. Judging by the howl of pain the blow elicited there was enough similarity between human and Syshin physiology to do the job. He smashed his knee into his attackers chest and rolled to his feet, blood running from his mouth in a steady stream. Gunfire scythed through the air, ringing the side of the oven like a drum, three guards burst through the door firing from the hip. Rene pulled his pistol, miraculously still on his belt and shot the lead man in the face, the blast of superheated plasma snapping between the teeth of his open mouthed scream, blowing the back of the man's head off. The remainder swung their aim on him but he dived sideways landing against the pile of coffee grounds. He fired again but the bolt went wide blasting one of the crates into flaming splinters behind him. The second bolt hit the man low in the pelvis, vaporising a chunk of his hip and all but severing a leg. The pistol made a chunking sound and the circular ammunition disc ejected, empty, eight charred holes in the matrix where the plasma charges had been embedded. Cursing Rene hurled the empty weapon at the final gunman in desperation. The man flinched as it bounced off his shoulder but the barrel of his weapon didn’t waver. Abruptly the unshaven guards howl of triumph transfigured into agony as the burned Syshin swung a shovel, edge on like a battle axe, up into the man's chest. The sound was horrifying, a kind of crunching sucking sound like a knife being dropped into jelly. Blood gouted from the guards mouth in a spray, driven by the jet of air from his caved in lungs. The man fell to the ground, made a final cough of blood and was still.

Rene lay against the pile of coffee, the coppery taste of blood in his mouth, gasping for air. The Syshin made an attempt to remove the shovel but it was too deeply buried to make the effort worthwhile. The alien turned his baleful eye on Rene and spat on the floor. The burns on his back had cracked open and were leaking clear fluid, though Rene couldn’t see any sign that it discomforted the brute.

“Friend,” the Syshin rumbled speculatively. Picking up Rene’s pistol and tossing it towards the marine. Rene made an effort to catch it but the coffee pile spoiled the motion and the weapon landed on the pile beside him.

“Friend,” Rene agreed wearily, spreading his fingers to show he meant no harm, before retrieving the pistol. Awkwardly he pushed himself to his feet. His back was on fire and his head was buzzing like a struck bell. The Syshin who had been cowering in the corner were on their feet now though none seemed eager to approach him. Now that he had time to look he could see that all of them were whip scared and at least one more of them had burns across his back, all wore simple loin cloths fashioned from the sack cloth the coffee was being shipped in.

“Were you from gunman,” the big one asked, its voice a cracking croak as though parched beyond human comprehension..

“I’m from the Government and I’m here to help,” Rene managed but the joke was evidently lost. He pulled an ammunition disc from his pouch and slotted it home, yanking back on the primer handle to charge the weapon. The room was hot from plasma discharge and the liberated heat of burning flesh. It stank of blood and fire as the small blazes he had started at the other end of the building began to pick up speed.

“We need to get out of here,” he declared. The sword had fallen to the ground so he scooped it up and thumbed the power. He staggered to one of the thin metal walls and made three quick slashes. A triangular section of corrugated metal fell free with a clang, the edges red with friction heat and trailing thin tendrils of smoke. Without waiting Rene stepped through into the deepening twilight.

“Freeze!” A half dozen men stood within twenty meters of him, each one pointing an assault weapon at him. Smoke was pouring from the warehouse behind him as it found the new found ventilation option he had just created. Rene’s stomach flip flopped and a cold chill prickled his skin. He should have anticipated it of course they would have surrounded the building. The hot emotion of shame ran through him, shame at having failed Solae, at having to leave her alone to face what was to come. There was no way out, he would never get back into the building before they cut him down, and even if he did it was a choice between the fires and their bullets. The thin metal walls wouldn't provide any protection. He raised one hand and with the other tossed the sword back into the building as though disarming himself, hoping the Syshin could use the blade to make another exit before the fire drove them into the sights of their captors.

“Alright,” he called back, judging the angle to go for, figuring he might take one, perhaps two of them with him before he was killed.

“I’m sorry Solae…” he whispered. With a suddenness so shocking that Rene could do nothing but twitch, the gunmen disintegrated. Just disintegrated. There was a sound like a buzz saw and what had been human beings flew appart in sprays of blood and offal. Security drones, each the size and shape of a half beachball zipped and whirred into view. Under slung weapon mounts traced smokey lines across the darkening sky as they quested for targets. The weapons were small calibre, only 2 or 3 millimeters, but the rate of fire on the zip guns more than made up for their low throw weight. Drones were of little use against real soldiers because they were hard to shield against electronic warfare, but against untrained amateurs they were lethal beyond words. One of the things darted close to Rene who stumbled in a belated ghost of his planned dive, but the thing must have decided he wasn’t a threat and zoomed away. There were another few isolated spurts of gunfire and then the estate was silent save for the crackling roar of the burning warehouse and the distant and distressed clucking of terrified chickens. Solae had made it. Against all odds she had taken control of the manor house. Behind him the Syshin began to emerge, they former prisoner carrying the sword in his hand as though it were a knitting needle. Rene sank to his knees in exhausted relief. They had done it.

[Syrenrei]

"Status report?" Solae breathed as she watched the holographic display. She had made Argon shrink it so that she could look at a more comprehensive 3D rendering of not just the building Rene had been inside but the entire plantation. There were gaps in blind spots over rows of crops but it was more than sufficient for her purposes. Tiny little moving figures less than half an inch tall represented the living, sentient creatures that were emitting a heat signal the synthetic being could detect through various sensors, video feeds, and the drones that acted as observers to the chaos. One by one the little red replicas were falling to the ground and fading into a yellow hue indicative of catastrophic heat loss- dying or death.

Fortunately it was just detailed enough she had stopped the massacre of Syshin before it started. The first directive had to been to kill any living target that was not Rene. In her panic Solae had forgotten there were probably alien captives on the plantation as slave labor, sexual servants, or toys for deviant minds to torture. The exotically different joints and stature had given her sufficient time to set conditions on the initial command and discriminate between the races. A wireless relay ensured that Argon, who was sophisticated enough to tell the difference, would not let his underling drones accidentally execute a non-hostile.

Try as she might to detach the marquise felt cold watching the scene. It was her that had ordered the death of numerous men. True, Rene had taken out more than she had anticipated with only soldier training and scant weaponry at his disposal, but he was prepared for war. He had been trained and given authority to act within combat parameters set by the Stellar Empire. All Solae was able to rely on were ethics and history classes that were introductions for for the nobility that wanted to matriculate into leadership roles with her studies. Since such desires had never been a part of her she had understandably declined further education down those avenues. Squeezing her eyes shut she slowed her breath as she waited for Argon to make his calculations and reply to her query.

"Drones are in pursuit of two armed individuals in the coffee field. All others have been confirmed deceased. Do you have further requests, Solae Falia?" the automated male voice interrupted her mental meditation.

"What sort of broadcast system do you have access to?" Solae responded as she clenched and relaxed her hands slowly. Her gaze had settled onto the sitting form of her bonded among at least half a dozen Syshin. What little she could gleam from their posture they were more likely male than female. One was holding Rene's sword which she took to mean he had established a positive rapport and was not in immediate danger.

"There is a half mile radius broadcast from the manor in all directions that may be utilized as well as smaller X95 intercoms on all buildings with the exception of one that is showing significant damage. If you wish to use that system I will need to summon a repair technician immediately. Would you like me to establish contact with a Systec representative?"

"No, no, that won't be necessary. Please turn on the half mile broadcast and adjust the frequency and volume to only project a quarter of a mile. Let me know when the adjustments had been. When I tap my finger three times then I want you to end the broadcast."

"Yes, Solae Falia. I am ready," Argon acquiesced pleasantly as a new holographic display appeared overhead to indicate that the connection had been made per her instructions.

For the next two minutes and fifty three seconds the unmistakable voice of Solae flowed out of the manor in composed and fluid Syshi. Rene's companions bobbed their heads in understanding and made noises of exclamation to one another when the scion took a breath between sentences or phrases. That Rene had proclaimed himself a friend and defended them was unusual but that he had also come with someone that spoke Syshi made even the jaded veteran of the plantation's cruelty joyously surprised. Before their trip to Amber Horizon the soldier would not have been able to distinguish even Syshin names from conversation but here he could spot a few that he knew- Solae mentioned both Nari and Enro explicitly.

When she tapped her fingers three times the broadcast ended without a single syllable of Imperial Common. The Syshin whispered to one another as they argued over who was the best to attempt to translate to Rene what Solae had imparted. It was the youngest, a Syshin with dark emerald plumage and just barely of adult age, that stepped forward hesitantly. "You bonded say... she in there. Open front door but she think other inside. Be careful. Once safe, we can go inside and rest, eat." His face creased in an unusual way to express displeasure at his halting grasp of the human language.

"Argon, I want to release the lock down in individual segments." The two men that a drone had been in hot pursuit of crumpled then exploded into shimmering dust on her holographic display. Solae tried not to stare at the spot they had once occupied. Horrible as they were they had been alive and she had taken it away. The drones acted because of her. "The front door is first. Please remove the reinforcement. Can you show me the manor's interior with heat signatures?"

"Acknowledged, Solae Falia," Argon intoned as the front door's metallic coverings slid back out of sight an easily open, unlocked door remained. Half a second later a green diagram sprung to life directly above the larger plantation model and showed not one but seven different beings trapped inside the manor with her. Not one moved towards the front door. Four were cowering in bedrooms in fetal positions, one was pacing in the hallway directly outside the study, another was in an upstairs bathroom, and one was walking from the kitchen to what she presumed was a dining room in a foreign, vintage style complete with cushions rather than chairs for seating arrangements.

"Fuck," she swore under her breath.

"That command is not known to me, Solae Falia. Can you please elaborate?" Argon quipped.

"Can you identify the seven others in the manor with me? Your memory banks must have stored personnel information, does it not? Professions only, please." Despite her perfect vision she leaned in to evaluate each of the seven hoping for some clues as to whether they merited a visit from the drones or Rene or if she should declare more peaceful intentions to them. There was no telling what sort of staff slavers kept in their company. Ordinary peons could have been stolen from their homes and forced into servitude to work off debts.

"Yes. There are four maids, one chef, one butler, and one guard inside the manor, Solae Falia. Three of the maids are of Syshin heritage," Argon informed anticipating her next question. Solae bit her lip absently. Obviously the maids were to be spared but she did not know what to make of the chef, butler, and guard, and the drones would not be able to do more than to eliminate targets within preset criteria with extreme prejudice. They were not capable of a judgment call. The marquise rubbed her temple and hoped one of them would be dumb enough to make a run for it and let the survivors outside determine if they ought to live.

[Penny]

It smelled like all of the coffee houses in the universe were getting ready for the morning rush. The warehouse Rene had set alight radiated heat and smoke poured from the triangular hole in a thick rolling cloud. It was a good thing that the afternoon had nearly complete faded into evening because otherwise the plume of black smoke would have been visible for miles. There was a sudden deep boom from inside of the building and the smoke spat pale blue white flames for a second before guttering back to its original volume. Rene remembered the propane lines that must have fed the roasting oven. He was glad that whatever nameless engineer that had designed the thing had put in some sort of cut off mechanism to the feed lines. Glade because otherwise the resulting detonation might have killed him and the freed slaves in a gigantic fireball. It was hard to be excited about the possibility, the adrenaline of the fight was fading, leaving him burned out and hollow feeling. He had been in enough action know to know that the feeling would fade in a few minutes or so.

Without fuel the fire was unlikely to get hot enough to collapse the building, even though the blaze was sucking in oxygen like a miniature storm system. Leaves and organic trash floated towards the hungry inferno, catching fire a few heart beats before they were sucked into the plane. Steel and concrete had extremely high temperature tolerances which was one of the reasons they had been used for so many millenia. Glass popped and shattered under the relentless hammering of the heat, though Rene didn’t recall seeing any windows during his frantic flight. At least the pungent aroma of burning coffee bean masked the porcine reek of burning bodies. Solae’s voice, beautiful even in an alien tongue reassured him that she was alive, that was victory enough for him.

“Are there other slaves in the other warehouses?” Rene asked, aiming his question at the young clark who had translated Solae’s message. The young Syshin performed an exaggerated nod. A drone zipped past and they all shied away for a moment, instinctively and sensibility scared of the grey mechanical hemispheres that had just reduced a dozen armed men to cat food.

“Free them, and find food and water,” he directed and turned away. The big burned Syshin rumbled something and Rene turned back. The brute was holding the sword out to Rene hilt first.

“He say he sorry he hit you,” the youth translated helpfully. Rene’s back throbbed in silent protest.

“Yeah, I’m sorry about that too,” Rene said with a wry half smile that was completely lost on the aliens. He accepted the sword and then stepped close to the Syshin, carefully shearing the manicales that encircled his wrists and ankles with small precise cuts. The skin underneath bore the indentations, proof that they had been in place for a long time. He passed the sword back to the alien.

“In case there are more chains,” he explained, pointing from the young Syshin to his hulking elder to ask for a translation. They began to converse in unintelligible Syshi and Rene turned and headed for the manor in something between a fast walk and a slow jog. He was eager to get inside, even though he knew the area to be clear it wasn’t something his subconscious was ready to admit just yet.

The door to the manor swung open at his approach with a ponderous grace that was a sure sign it was armored. It would have seemed like paranoia on many other planets but on New Concordia right now it seemed like the correct choice. He stepped over the threshold his pistol up and sweeping the corners for rooms.

“Good Evening Master Quentain, I trust your stay will be a pleasant one,” a synthesized voice welcomed. The speakers were not as well hidden as the one Lord Armon had used but the effect was similar enough to run chills up his spine.

“Mistress Solae bids you welcome, to her humble home,” the voice went on. Rene grinned at the thought. The home was neither humble nor Solae’s, the reception room appeared to be decorated into a gaudy mismatch of style that only great wealth and complete lack of culture could have generated. Despite the sobering reality that he was a member of the lower classes now, Rene couldn’t quite banish the touch of aristocratic contempt he felt for the vulgar efforts of the parveniew. His father wouldn’t be caught dead in a place like this, nor would the elder Quentain ever have stooped to owning slaves. He might very well oppress a hundred thousand tenants on a distant world for the sake of settling a score, but out right chattel slavery was far too vulgar to contemplate.

A metalized security door seperated the reception room from the rest of the house. Rene pushed the release switch but nothing happened. He tried again. The AI cleared its electronic throat with simulated embarrassment.

“The security protocols are currently engaged sir I’m afraid..”

“Put me through to Solae right now,” Rene snapped, in no mood to bandy words with a silicon chip. There was a slight pause and then Solae’s voice came over the air.

“Rene?”

“It’s me Solae, I’m alright, though I would be cold meat if it hadn’t been for you,” Rene replied overjoyed to hear her speaking, even in electronic form. In brief terms she explained the situation to him. Rene nodded in response although she probably didn’t have a visual sensor to see the motion.

“Ok drop the door in front of me and only that door,” he directed. After a moment the security barrier slid down into is recess. A pair of Syshin, young females, both attractive and colourfully plumed clung to each other. He lowered his pistol immediately. The women probably understood Imperial after their long association with the household but Solae spoke over the intercom in Syshi. Fearfully, and still clutching each other the moved past him, putting as much room as they could between themselves and an armed human. A moment later two more Syshi straggled into the hallway beyond from side chambers, one was pulling free of a human hand that tried to hold her back.

“You in the room! Come out slowly and keep your hands where I can see them, I swear by the stars this is a terrible day to startle me!” He yelled. A human woman dressed in the same maids uniform as the Syshin stepped clear her hands raised comically high as though she were in a holo drama. The woman was aged, maybe fifty standard and shaped like a pear, she was as unappealing as the Syshin were attractive, with stringy hair that had been poorly dyed to conceal the grey.

“Outside… no wait,” he said uncertain of exactly what parameters Solae had given the drones.

“Stay inside, in that corner,” he ordered, taking one hand from his pistol to point without lowering the weapon. The maid was blubbering now her nose runny as she hurried past him trying not to look.

“There are two more,” Solae’s voice instructed, “A guard and a butler.”

“Is the guard armed?” Rene asked, there was a long pause before Solae responded.

“I don't think so but I can't be sure,” she told him, her voice filled with concern.

“Alright both of you gentleman come out nice and slow. I have video of you so don’t even think about trying anything.” An elderly man stepped from a stairway at the end of the hall, his hands raised. He looked distinguished and wore a formal livery that hadn’t been the style on Capella in twenty years. He marched out straight backed, averting his eyes from Rene. A moment later another figure stepped into view. The guard was dressed in the same half uniform half salvage as the men who had died outside. He was slack jawed and unshaven and his clothig was spattered with grease spots and food stains. He glared at Rene with hateful piglike eyes. Rene was amazed that a man in such luxurious surroundings could be so slovenly, granted Rene himself was filty, covered with dirt and a coating of crushed coffee beans that clung to his skin and clothing, but at least he had an excuse.

As the fellow shuffled past Rene he head a sudden scream. He spun bringing his gun up expecting that the guard was trying something. Instead one of the Syshin maids flew across the room at the filthy guard. Rene had intended the Syshin go outside to join their fellows but they had evidently interpreted his instruction to the human made to apply to them all. Steel flashed in the girls hand and the guard gave a squeal like an animal being slaughtered as see crashed into him. The steel flashed red and the guard and the maid went down in a tangle of limbs. Rene hesitated in a moment of indecision, unwilling to shoot and unwilling to disarm himself to intervene. The maid was still screaming her mouth inhumanly wide, like the Inyori’s had been when they launched their charge against the slavers. In her hand she held not a knife but an old fashioned silver letter opener, smeared with black blood from the deep stab wound she had inflicted on her victim. The guard was easily twice the Syshin’s weight but the girl was on top of him. The blade stabbed down again plunging into his chest with a wet tearing sound that bought a gout of blood from the fallen man’s mouth. Rene finally got his weapon into his off hand and lunged towards the girl but not before she plunged the improvised dagger into the man's groin with a savage stroke. Rene seized the Syshin and tossed her bodily into a corner his pistol coming up to train on the girl but she was a spent force. She dropped the knife and fell to the ground curling into a ball and sobbing. At least Rene assumed she was sobbing, it was difficult to hear over the liquid gasping screams of the dying guard. Black blood bubbled from a puncture to his belly that must have pierce his liver and pools of blood spread from his chest and crotch across the tiled floor. His screams weakened after a moment and his heels drummed on the tiles, then he coughed and lay still.

There was a moment of shocked silence, punctuated only by the sobbing girl. Rene’s pistol barrel wavered and then he let it fall to his side. The weapon suddenly felt like it weighed as much as a battleship.

“He hurt her,” one of the other maids said quietly.

“He hurt us all,” another chimed in.

“Yeah well…,” Rene said, his gorge rising slightly, “I’d say that makes you even.” Judging by the look in the remaining maids eyes, Rene didn’t think they agreed.

“Girls, outside now,” he commanded, his composure returning with the will to action. The human maid started to move by Rene froze her with a finger.

“Not you, the Syshin only. You and you,” he said pointing at the maid and the butler.

“Take me to the command center and for the love of the stars don’t any of you move sudden because I swear, right at this moment I am as jumpy as I’ve ever been.”

[Syrenrei]

The 'Command Center' was a singular room that was accessible through the same study that Solae had fled into. This had been done by the deceased plantation owner to limit its accessibility by his staff and slaving employees alike, as well as safeguard he knew who was inside, how long, and when. A short set of cheap, sturdy metal stairs led them no more than one story underground and into a barren hallways before emptying into the apparent technological center of operations.

Each wall of the enclosed space was covered in screens that displayed information that, on a cursory glance, would be of interest to someone in the profession of Argon's master. On the left wall were economic figures from the sector showing the current values of the crops being harvested outside, their forecasted gains and losses, and a graph for each showing variations in price over the previous three months. Profitable as the human trade might be that was not the entirety of their business. The computer attached to this particular display had analysis printed in real time on the bottom in columns sorted alphabetically by crop name. Rubber had spiked due to an increased demand caused by the onset of armed conflict. Flashing letters alerted the empty consoles they should wait approximately 52 hours to maximize on the profit gained given historical comparisons of prior rebellions. The middle screen was fragmented into various maps showing the planet as a whole and it's nearest interstellar stations, one of Armistice proper (that revealed it was occupied by a prolific number of armored men and heavy machinery), and a few of the nearest settlements of Empire citizens. An angular, rotating view of the plantation itself dominated as it shifted without instruction following various movements of drones. On the right screen were spreadsheets of inventory of the humanoid variety- names, ages, tiny portraits, and asking prices. Given the text scrolling on the left of these chilling summaries of living beings were what appeared to be illicit bids and chat regarding the chattel.

"Argon, are you still available in here?" Solae called in as they stepped inside. She motioned to Rene, the maid, and the butler to each take one of the five chairs that were installed in the center of the room. Upholstered in synthetic fabric and thick foam they were comfortable but not quite as luxurious as a true noble might have in their quarters. They spun in a complete circle to allow them to see any of the displays but also to turn towards each other to make a circle. A thick cylindrical table was in the middle of the quintet that thrummed with power indicating it could be utilized for holographic imagery itself.

"Yes, Solae Falia." The maid gasped at the name but the butler was more reserved. Clearly they had heard about the bounty that was being broadcasted over all of New Concordia; they had not, however, known enough about Solae's physical appearance to equate the two.

"Please turn off your auditory recording of this room but let the visual monitors remain online. If you see any aggressive action from the two that are not myself or Rene, have a drone ready to respond. Do you understand?" she asked.

"Yes, Solae Falia," Argon replied pleasantly. "I have also located the artificial intelligence system you requested earlier. How would you like for me to proceed?"

"Download a copy of the back up, using my authorization codes if necessary, and store it to an interface transport stick. I will need to take it with me manually rather than transfer it electronically. While you process that transaction for me I would also like for you to alert me if there is any aircraft, spacecraft, vehicles, or persons approaching our location. Syshin may be allowed in and out of the perimeter, but nothing else without my prior approval."

"Yes, Solae Falia," Argon repeated smoothly before falling silent. It was as much privacy as one could truly have in any residence that was monitored and assisted by a synthetic technological organism.

The marquise crossed her legs as she took a long, hard look at both the maid and the butler. She had not yet asked their names because she was cautious how familiar she truly wanted to be with the hired hands of a slaver who had abused an alien race physically, mentally, and in the case of the females, sexually. That he had even listed the heavily traumatized Syshin as maids was as laughable as it was repugnant- perhaps the overweight woman before her had tidied the beds but she suspected that the Syshin were pets for a deviant who 'tested' his goods and kept the best for himself. Solae sincerely hoped his captives would find peace if they returned to Amber Horizon. Nari and Enro were more than capable in caring for their own but the rapid changes in their circumstances would create a strain on their resources. It was sorely tempting to simply stay in the decommissioned space ship with them, forget who she was, and allow herself to be swept up in the foreign culture as an escape of what lay ahead of her.

After pondering for several long moments she asked each the same unusual question: "How did you come to work here?"

Both were taken aback by this query; the butler raised a brow despite his stoicism and the maid proceeded to turn into a blubbering mess that made Solae's stomach turn. Neither answered immediately. The older gentleman seemed to be considering why she was asking such things while holding them hostage and looked between Rene and Solae suspiciously. The aging woman was either consumed by her own guilt or hear fears (for neither highborn had relinquished their weapon) and started to choke on her heaving breath and tears. If she was looking for sympathy she was doing a poor job of invoking it out of the golden-haired scion who waited impassively.

"I needed work," the butler simply stated after prolonged silence. "There was an advertisement seeking a man of education to help oversee the basic tasks of a home on a plantation, as well as handle light menial tasks for the plantation itself. I used to manage a quarry but I was forced to retire and could not pay all my bills staying retired." The more Solae listened to the inflections of the elderly man's voice the more convinced she was that he was not now, nor had ever been, noble. More than likely he had been a member of the upper middle class before a series of unfortunate events put him into a financial tailspin and led him to becoming someone else's paid servant.

"Did you have any slaves?" Solae asked placidly. The maid continued to wail loudly.

"I did not," the butler said indignant outrage that punctuated his words.

"Rene, could you escort the lady here to a place where she can calm down on her own? You can commandeer one of the drones, but I can't have someone disrupting us," she remarked delicately. Rene nodded and, taking the mess of a woman under the arm, led her upstairs to a guest bedroom where she could be secured with door locks, windows covered in thick plates left intact by Solae's lockdown, and Argon's vigilant eye.

"I would like to an extend an offer to you," Solae said, leaning forward as she withdrew the pistol from her holster. The butler did not look as if he had intentions to bolt but she would not have him escaping under her watch if his actions belied his motives. "My companion and I need to leave New Concordia and to do that we need a space ship. I understand one should be arriving here tonight. If you help me communicate with the pilot of that spaceship, and turn a blind eye to the escape of the Syshin slaves, I will see that the slush fund that is scrolling on these displays is partially diverted to an account under your control as compensation. I'm sure you're thinking about the bounty because it is quite significant. I don't blame you for being tempted. But the fact of the matter is, as you can see, we will not be taken alive, and that is what the rebellion wants. You can either chose the wealth over there, " she motioned with her free hand, "or take a gamble that I won't commit suicide before you transport me to the fledgling government that can't even keep the small villages near here safe."

The butler pursed his lips in displeasure before letting his gaze drift over to the aforementioned displays. What Solae had tactfully omitted was that his refusal could also end in his demise rather than hers. He let out one long, despondent sigh and shrugged his shoulders in defeat. "What do you want me to do?" he asked wearily.

"What time is the transport scheduled to arrive?" As eager as she was to know she kept her voice even and level.

"Right before the shift change - a few minutes before 10," the butler informed her apprehensively. It made sense. Arrival would be late enough that residents of the area would already be in bed or too tired to care what the plantation was doing if anything carried them close enough to notice. Monitors of star charts and travel would be reluctant to write up reports before they want off duty and would be exhausted from the the long hours they typically worked. Unfortunately, that left Solae and Rene with more time than they knew what to do with before they would have a chance to depart this world.

[Penny]

Rene nodded his head and marched the blubbering maid out of the room. He doubted that the man would give her any real trouble. Even if he were insanely brave, he had to know that there was no practical way out passed the drowns and the Syshin. The took the corridor out of the command center and up a flight of stairs to what were living quaters. Argon guided him in much the same way Mia had done with the occasional blink of led light. This AI was less subtle than Mia had been but the basic process of locating the room best suited for Solae’s instructions was the same.

“Please sir,” the maid begged as Rene guided her through a slightly recessed door and into the bed chamber. The place was luxurious with tables and benches of polished stone and a thick carpet of expensive natural fibre. Rene had a momentary and irrational flash of embarrassment to be tromping dirt across the carpet.

“Please you can’t leave me here for the Chooks! They will kill me!” she begged turning to face him and falling to her knees, palms pressed together in supplication. Rene inwardly cringed at the embarrassing display but his face remained blank and impassive. In his mind's eye he was seeing the Syshin chained to the roasting furnace, his back cracked and blistered from the heat.

“AI identify yourself,” Rene stated his voice flat and emotionless.

“I am Argon Master Quentain, how may I serve you?” the computer responded. The maid leaned forward and grasped his trouser legs. Rene stepped back quickly slipping from her grip with revolution. The heavy set woman toppled to the flow sobbing wretchedly.

“Identify this maid please,” he instructed Argon.

“Gyni Cafran, chief maid, date of birth…” Rene made a chopping motion with is free hand cutting the computer off in mid sentence. The biographical details and employment history were hardly relevant to him at the moment.

“If Mistress Cafran leaves this room kindly add her to the list of drone targets,” Rene instructed, eliciting another wail of despair from the woman.

“That would have already been consistent with Mistress Falia’s directive Master Quentain,” the AI responded as emotionlessly as it might have if it were discussing dinner plans. Rene had the sudden realisation that if he had ordered the maid and the butler out of the house, rather than holding them in the reception room, the drones would have cut them down as mercilessly as they had the guards. Well it hadn’t happened that way and if it had, well, worse things happened in war time. That was a maxim of the Imperial Marines which made a lot more sense in the few days he had been fighting for his life. Without another word he stepped from the room and sealed the door. Argon assured him that it could not be opened without his or Solae’s permission. Rene wondered what would happen to the woman when they left. Well she would have to look out for herself, the stars knew the rest of them had to.

Rene headed back towards the command center but paused to look out through one of the broad windows that overlooked the front section of the plantation. A score of Syshin were gathered in a loose knot, several of them looked hurt, though none so badly as the burned male Rene had rescued. The coffee warehouse continued to burn, through the fire was only evident by the slight shimmer radiating off its metal walls and the plume of smoke trailing from the triangular exit Rene had cut in the side and a pair of smaller streams escaping through what were either ventilation systems of electrical fittings that had been burned out by the heat. The grass and scrubby bushes surrounding the building were withered and shriveled as nature itself seemed to try to lean away from the blaze. Rene was no expert but he didn’t think the fire would rage too long. The buildings structure was steel and concrete and the only fuel was coffee beans and old timber, both of which would burn bright, hot and quickly. He wondered how many thousands of credits had just been converted to so much ash, but the thought was a fleeting one. He would have burned down the whole plantation in a heartbeat if it meant keeping Solae safe.

They needed to organize food and treatment for the liberated slaves, come up with a plan for dealing with the ship if and when it arrived. They also needed to figure out where they would go if they could get off planet. Rene’s mind felt glassy, the facts and demands sliding against one another without getting any real purchase. He squeezed his eyes shut for a moment and then opened them again. He went down the stairs and through the door to the command center and gave Solae a quick nod to assure her that the maid had been safely contained.

[Syrenrei]

"Rene," Solae's visage brightened as he re-entered the room absent the morally bankrupt sobbing mess of a woman he had escorted out. The marquise herself was unaware as to the subtle change in her disposition but the butler, who was a third party with nothing else to do but quietly observe, watched them quietly with mounting suspicions there was more to their relationship than a mutual desire to survive. His gaze flitted back and forth between the pair. Were they as emotionally entangled as their body language led him to believe cooperation was truly the best course of action. Even if he managed to escape- which would not benefit him as much as staying- there was little more terrifying than a man or woman avenging their consort.

"The gentleman here, sir..." she paused, frowning slightly as she realized she had not asked his name.

"Kent Xavier Lis," he intoned helpfully.

"Sir Kent," she said, using an honorific despite their temporary companion deserving no such title, "has agreed to assist us before we depart. The cargo ship won't be here until shortly before ten when there is a shift change. We'll need to gather some supplies for travel before then, as well as eat, so there is plenty to do to keep us busy." Solae rose from her seat and wandered over towards the screen displaying a scrolling list of auction bids as well as the slave Syshin that had been freed from the plantation. "You're injured, so I propose that Sir Kent can enlist some of the Syshin to aid in dinner preparation, while the others help you with packing for the journey, while I will purge what I can from the system with Argon's help. I don't want anyone looking for the Syshin and I made a promise to Sir Kent he would be compensated for his assistance."

The butler looked nervous as this was relayed to Rene. As casually as Solae had presented paying him a vast sum of money to keep his mouth shut he had no illusions as to what sort of person this made him. Imperial Marines were rumored to be deranged in every sense of the word but they still had a code to uphold. Not only that, he had already bore witness to Rene showing more principals than the entire plantation combined. Kent did not want to walk away from the wealth nor did he want Rene to grow incensed if he disagreed with the ethical implications of the reward.

"They have a Rev Chamber," he blurted out.

"Sorry?" Solae said as she turned. Revitalization Chambers, or Rev Chambers as they were more colloquially called, were specially designed human-sized capsules outfitted with the cutting edge of medical technology. They could not bring back one from the dead nor could they cure genetic disease or defect, but they were commonly utilized by the upper echelons of the military to quickly mend the wounds of war heroes so that they could survive to become propaganda. They were outlawed for civilian use, not that the nobility particularly cared- they weren't in the business of sustaining bodily harm, just social. Additionally, even if they were successful in their petition for the equipment, an elite was not attacked and left to be able to crawl to safety.

"It's a dangerous business," Kent added lamely but looked towards Rene to understand the impact and provide explanation. "It only fits one at a time and isn't calibrated for Syshin," he reluctantly advised as he talked to the heavily armed male.

"Argon is this... Rev Chamber operational?" Solae asked before she realized that she had turned off his auditory monitors of the room with her last order. Cursing to herself she leaned over a console attached to the center display and typed instructors to the system to resume all functions inside the Command Center.

"Is the 'Rev Chamber' operational?" she asked a second time stumbling over herself slightly. She could surmise from the name what it might do but she had never heard of much less laid eyes on such an item in her lifetime. Both her parents had been great admirers of the arts because that was what was expected of someone of their social status. Following inventions that did not apply to their lifestyle and would not be considered 'fashionable' was not even relayed to them in their very select news feeds.

"Yes, Solae Falia, the Revitalization Chamber is online and functional. It was last accessed 5 hours, 34 minutes, and 27 seconds ago. Would you like me to run a diagnostic to determine its efficacy?" Argon offered.

[Penny]

“Diagnostic reports Revitalization chamber at ninety eight percent capacity,” Argon replied in response to a small affirmative gesture from Solae. Rene exchanged a long glance with Solae.

“It is a shame it can’t be calibrated for Syshin,” Rene observed blowing a breath out between his teeth. That would certainly have simplified things but it stood to reason. Rev chambers were state of the art medical engineering and, like any high precision instrument, it was to specialized to be very flexible.

“Yes but that isn’t who I intended to go inside of it,” Solae said with a dry smile. Rene was about to object but the slight hardening around her lips convinced him not to bother.

“Well I can at least wait until after we get the…” he began.

“Now Rene,” Solae declared, planting her hands on her hips.

The Rev chamber was in a small medical bay on the below ground level. Down here the mansions vulgar luxury gave way to the utilitarian. Store room and electrical generators competed for space with pipework and the small living places that Rene presumed must belong to the maids and the butler. They were little more than cots with tiny ensuite refresher units and closets. Even so they were more luxurious than most of the quarters that Marines had assigned. Lis led the way, apparently eager to ingratiate himself with his captors and potential benefactors. Rene found it hard to find sympathy for the man. Despite his privileged birth ate had given Rene a choice between being executed for a time he didn’t commit, or enlisting in a service that would almost certainly kill him. If the choice had been between starvation and working for slavers, he liked to think he would have happily gone hungry.

The med bay itself was larger than Rene expected. There was a small auto diagnosis unit and several wire shelves piled high with medical supplies of various kinds. It was mostly the sort of standard equipment one might keep on hand in case of agricultural injury but Rene also spied nasogastric feeding tubes and paralyzing sedatives bunded together in small kits. Of course, how better to ship a slave than in a chemical coma. His lip curled in disgust, the slaves couldn’t even starve themselves to escape their fates. The Rev chamber sat on a small pedestal in one corner, banks of monitors connected to it through a forest of wires and tubes. More tubes ran away from it into the floor or into the walls, bringing in chemicals and carrying away waste products. The chamber was the size of a large coffin. It was slightly egg shaped with a number of irregular bulges which mounted integrated monitors. The whole place smelled of antiseptic and another slightly astringent odor which Rene had to assume was related to the medications. A low electric hum emanated from the various consoles and monitors.

“Mr Lis, please give us a moment,” Rene said, his words coming out colder than he had intended. The butler flinched slightly but stepped out into the hallway. Rene moved close to Solae and whispered into her ear.

“Please be careful, if he is going to try anything it will be while I am under,” he told her. Leaning forward he kissed her on the lips. Instinctively he closed his arms around her waist hugging her close to him. Pain rippled up his back, reminding him that she was right about needing medical attention. With a slow movement he clandestinely slid his plasma pistol into her hand so she could tuck it away. The weapon was more complicated and more dangerous than the simple auto pistol she already had, but he didn’t want to leave a weapon out where it could be found. Reluctantly he stepped away from her.

“Alright Argon, how do we use this thing?”

The lid closed with a hiss and for a moment Rene was in darkness. He had stripped naked as instructed, an embarrassing experience with Lis still watching from the hallway and climbed into the dark padded interior of the capsule. Argon indicated that showering was not necessary because cleaning was part of the sterilizing function of the unit. For a moment there was complete darkness and then a bluishish display sprang to life. A dizzying number of digits flashed into existence as a beam swept over him. The simplest figures were recognisable as blood pressure and heart rate. A disembodied voice, cold and clinical began speaking.

“Male subject, Human, Cappelean. Injuries include severe contusions to the anterior plane, muscle tears, microperforation with indigenous stone and residual blunt force trauma with partially successful first aid applications.” It was extremely disconcerting to have the past several days reduced to a staccato list of injuries.

“Estimated repair time Two hundred and eleven minutes. Initiating.” Rene felt something prick his wrist and a moment later a cold sensation flowing up his right arm. A moment later everything faded to black.

[Syrenrei]

Solae lingered for a few moments outside the ovoid Revitalization Chamber. Argon had announced the time that it would take before Rene was restored and she knew rationally he would be under anesthesia for the duration. Despite knowing he was unconscious, that staying in the medical bay would provide now benefit, and that the machinery needed no monitoring nor assistance, she wished it had been upstairs where she could have worked while she waited. In their short time together she had found Rene's presence to be comforting both while they were awake and enraptured by the realm of slumber. With him she was not alone, not in the world nor in her fight against the rebellion. The marquise was not certain that anyone alive nor dead had ever been so clearly in her proverbial corner until the soldier stumbled into her would-be ambush unwittingly.

"Argon, I want you to secure the medical bay after we depart; only myself and Rene are to open it. I also would like you to summon one armed drone inside the manor with instructions to eliminate any human targets that assault either myself, Rene, or the Syshin that remain on the plantation," she instructed.

"Acknowledged, Solae Falia," Argon responded. As the highborn woman stepped outside the room in question it hissed as the door closed and numerous airtight seals were engaged for maximum security. The linguist highly suspected that typically these safeguards were meant to keep humanoid property from escaping captivity. She did not know what would happen to this gaudy mansion once they left but she felt that it was minimally cleansed by the Syshin liberation and certain functions being put to more virtuous uses than they had in the past.

Kent twitched nervously at the sight of Solae carrying two deadly weapons and the knowledge that there was a robotic entity also under her control en route. He followed after her obediently as she departed the underground bunker and emerged in the study on the first floor. The butler was a shadow to her as he had been to his former slaver master. Posture and expression made him no more menacing than a toothless lapdog in light of the aggressive layers of protection enabled. When Rene had first breached the estate he had thought it was more deadly to be outside where airborne vehicles of destruction were obliterating all his co-workers. Now he wasn't certain that Solae's dispassionate authority was not more terrifying.

"Argon, I would like you to put me back on broadcast please, if you will, so that the Syshin outside may be able to hear me," she requested pleasantly.

The noblewoman summoned the Syshin inside with reassurances that the situation was well under control and that their safety would not be in jeopardy. The maids were still traumatized and hesitant to re-enter the building of abuse but they were emboldened by assertion that they could now make it their place. No one would know what had transpired until all of them were long gone. More importantly, all the Syshin were tempted by the prospect of a meal before they began any journey to find the rest of their people and reintegrate into their society.

Before they began they went, in two shifts by gender, to change out of their uniforms and rags into clothing of their choosing from the upper floor. Admittedly there were more choices for the male Syshin than the female but they were all grateful for the agency given. That they could hear the blubbering, squealing noise of the human maid begging to be let free (for she mistaking though the approaching steps were the human saviors of the complex) had given them guilty pleasure. Human garments were so drastically different in size, fit, and design that none of them looked quite right but it was better than charred remnants of fabric or entirely short skirts that had been taken advantage of to brutalize. Something about taking the attire from their deceased oppressors was empowering. Though they had not the benefits of a Revitalization Chamber each one of them was rejuvenated by the relatively minor transformation made of their own accord.

All of the female Syshin, as well as the injured male still wielding Rene's sword, were tasked with dinner. The latter had been reluctant as he thought his skills could be better put to use elsewhere but Solae made her intentions clear- he was to use that sword and all his rage if anything slipped past the drones and posed a credible threat.

Kent Lis and the male Syshin were given the duty to pack supplies that Rene and Solae would need when they traversed the stars. To say that either party was unenthused to be working with the other was a vast understatement; they had thinly veiled contempt on both sides of the aisle. The marquise put the younger male Syshin with the best Imperial Common in charge and advised both Argon and the aliens that should Kent be physically hostile that they had her permission to restrain and execute him if necessary. They had killed nearly everyone else on the plantation of the human race so one more body truly would not weigh heavily on their conscience. Solae and Rene both knew themselves to be past a point of no return. They would not be kept awake at night over one slaver's servant; more tragic and horrific sacrifices had already been made.

The golden-haired diplomat descended back into the Command Center and, with a drone hovering over her right shoulder, sat down upon one of the plush chairs with a heavy sigh. "All right, Argon, let's discuss how we can eliminate all records of the Syshin transactions."

[Penny]

In the darkness Rene dreamed. It was at first a kalediscopic thing. Flashes of real events, plasma fire flickering out into the darkness, Solae’s hair catching the sunlight, the smell of blood at the berm of the rat trap. Older memories too, somehow glassy and disconnected, riding at Caralia Major, his family estate, swimming in the cold mountain stream till his lips turned blue. Then there were things that he didn’t think had happened, though his dreaming mind registered them as just as real. He saw himself in the uniform of a fleet admiral, commanding a firing party to execute a criminal. He was the criminal facing the guns, determined to go game and make his last words something witty. Blue waters of some tropical ocean gave way as he plunged into them from a steep cliff dive, rising with a triumphant whoop above the cerulian wavelets. He was an older man, clutching a railing in the Imperial palace as he looked out over the burning city beyond. He was seated on the Imperial Throne in the Hall of Crystal as rank after rank of nobles bent their knees to swear fealty. He tried to shake his head, willing himself to wake from what he now knew to be a dream.

“Reintegration 70 percent,” a dark and distant part of the universe stated to no one in particular. Rene’s eyes fluttered open in the darkness. His limbs didn’t respond to his commands, even his eyes seemed disconnected from his mind, blinking in steady five second intervals as though his body were animated by a metronome. High tech medical facilities didn’t use chemical analgesic. Neural disruptors were used to disconnect the systems responsible for reporting pain or any other sensation. It allowed for procedures to be carried out faster and with a much higher rate of feedback than chemicals would have allowed but it did tend to fragment the patient's consciousness for a few minutes following reconnection. The air tasted overwhelmingly of antiseptic, the first sensation of which he was aware. Others followed rapidly, he realised he was cold, he remembered he was naked, he was in a rev chamber. He felt great. That surprised him. Dozens of minor pains and discomforts he had been carrying were gone, evident by their lack in a way they hadn’t been in his keyed up adrenaline soaked state. He didn’t think he recalled ever feeling this good. Artificial hormones and endocrine complexes had been added to his system, giving him a feeling of rest, of sharpness and rejuvenation, no less welcome for being completely artificially induced.

He sat up as the top of the chamber slid aside. The room was empty save for a neatly folded set of clothes. Awkwardly, as his muscles were still unsure of whether they should respond, Rene swung his legs over the side and clambered down. He took the dark gray pants and white shirt and began to dress, his fingers growing more familiar with each task. The fact he didn’t have a weapon disturbed him, though he could now remember giving it to Solae. The name bought him fully back to the world of the living. He had been injured and had gone into the Rev chamber, she had been managing the estate. Right.

“Argon, where is Solae?” he asked tersely.

“She is in the formal dining room Master Quentain,” the computer responded. He pulled on his boots, the only article of clothing that was his own and snapped closed the seals then stood and headed for the elevator.

To Rene’s surprise the formal dining room was a wash of activity. Syshin were gathering up parcels of food and other provisions. Electronics and other trade goods were being stacked neatly for transport. There were a number of weapons, evidently looted from the building’s armory stacked at one end of a large formal dining table. Two Syshin stood over them with cane knifes in their hands and uncomfortable looks on their faces. Rene wondered if the liberated slaves would be more willing to use them than the rank and file at Amber Horizions had been. Lis was in one corner, doing his best to look inconspicuous, the Syshin shot him occasional hostile glances but evidently hadn’t decided to murder the former butler just yet.

“This you,” a Syshin voice rumbled, Rene turned to see the big Syshin who had attacked him thrusting Armon’s sword towards him hilt first.

“Kalrio,” the alien growled. Rene blinked in confusion but closed his hand around the hilt of the blade. He wasn’t wearing a scabbard so he thrust it through his belt as best he could.

“I don’t speak…”

“My name. Kalrio. I thank you for...free people,” the Syshin went on, clearly struggling with the Imperial.

“Kalrio,” Rene said as understanding came to him.

“You are welcome I am…”

“Solae of the Empire has told us what you are,” Kalrio responded and turned and walked away without another word. Rene noticed that his burned back was sticky with some sort of ointment or salve that glistened under the artificial light. He frowned at the aliens puzzling reactions but could only shrug his shoulders. His heart rose as he finally spotted a flash of golden hair. Solae was in a corner working on something at a terminal. He moved quickly across the floor to her, the noise of his approach causing her to turn her eyes widening in surprise.

“Your treatment was completed twenty minutes ahead of the initial estimate master Quentain, this may account for the Mistress’ surprise,” Argon interjected but Rene wasn’t listening. Part of his mind had been terrified something had happened while he was out, even though he knew Argon would have told him. He swept Solae up into his arms and kissed her, a broad smile breaking across his face.

[Syrenrei]

"For someone who intended to protest using the Rev Chamber you look like a new man after using it," Solae remarked with a bemused smile and unabashed admiration. Though the nobility had cast him out of their ranks they had not been able to so casually erase the evidence he had been born into such status. High cheekbones, a square jawline, and nose neither too small nor too prominently large made Rene ridiculously handsome refreshed and restored. The marquise marveled quietly at whatever luck of the gods had allowed her to survive the embassy, be saved by such a creature, and earned his affection. Thoughtfully she reached up to ruffle his hair with a soft smile.

By comparison she knew she looked less than ideal. Her long golden hair had remained mostly untouched by the trek through the jungle and infiltration of the mansion, but the rest of her body was showing wear. Lasha's oil had broken down the blood trapped below the the surface of the skin on her side and helped her heal. "We should get some supplies from the medical bay underground," she mused aloud as she considered the sutured wound on her thigh and the more visible laceration on her forehead that had been tended to at Lord Armon's. Not only was she eager to look more like Rene's equal, she knew this was not a sprint to the finish but a marathon. They had no way of knowing how far they would need to traverse in space before arriving somewhere that would have equipment capable of contacting the higher authorities of the Stellar Empire.

"I had the Syshin help us gather various things we might need for the trip, but you may want to look over the weapons at least. I do not have your familiarity with such things and I've never had to pack for a mission. It's in our best interest to defer to your judgment on what can be left behind and what will be unexpectedly needed," she said with a gesture. Kent Lis, hearing these words and wanting to be as far away as possible from Rene at all times, slid against the wall to the farther corner of the room so as to maintain his comfortable distance. The butler twitched nervously. He would be all too glad when the threat that both rebellion refugees were out of his sight.

"Ah, and I've scrubbed our alien friends from all of the plantations records. It was a little more tricky to remove them all from the back up, history notes, and personal diaries, but there's nothing left that's identifiable," she lowered her voice. "Even if the maid and butler are experts at physiological differences between members of the species, they won't be able to find any proof who lived here, so that will keep them safe long enough for them to be hidden or moved by Amber Horizon if necessary." Solae gave a self-satisfied smile. At the Syshin encampment they had imposed on the hospitality of others even if they paid by their defense and counter-attack of slavers. But this protection of abused beings using nothing more than a console made her feel more personally successful.

"Solae Falia, the incoming transport ship has been located. Do you wish to initiate contact?" Argon asked helpfully.

"Search your records. In the past, who initiated contact first?" the scion inquired.

"The transport ship has 98.54% percent of the time prior to today, rounding to the nearest hundredth decimal," the artificial intelligence system noted after a speedy analysis.

"Let's wait then. When does that contact usually-" Solae began.

"Have an incoming transmission," Argon interrupted. "Would you like me to open the channel, Solae Falia?"

"After Sir Kent is over here," she said as she waved over the twitchy older man. Giving Rene a wide birth he slinked over the marquise's other side as if he hoped she might provide a buffer. Silently Solae handed Rene his plasma gun over as there were a series of electronic sounds indicative of a connection being established between the manor and a distance space vessel.

"Is the cargo ready?" a deep baritone called out abrasively.

"Y-you have to come save us!" the noblewoman said a perfectly feigned sound of panicked fear. As she spoke she pulled out her pistol, flicked off the safety as she had seen Rene do before, and pressed it against the butlers midsection as a warning that she did not trust her bribe alone was sufficient motivation for his compliance.

"Who is this? Where's Jax?" boomed the man in reply.

"T-This is Kent Lis," the butler called out with Solae's gesture. "Most... almost everyone at the plantation has been killed. We were attacked."

"Who the hell was that talking then?" the pilot demanded with mounting agitation lacing his voice.

"It's a woman," Kent Lis stuttered lamely at a loss of what to say.

"Is she the one that killed you?"

"No, she didn't kill anyone," was the honest response with a pensive glance towards the blonde.

"On a scale of 1-10, how hot is she? Will she sell well?"

"She's... the most beautiful woman I've ever seen," Kent admitted uncomfortably as he tried to edge away slowly as the conversation was coming to a conclusion. To say this was not a scenario he ever wanted to be in was a vast understatement.

"I'm already here so I might as well see the goods. I'm sure if that fucker is really dead he left behind some valuables," he muttered. "Touch down in about thirty minutes. If you aren't there when I land I will find you," was the warning delivered as the connected was severed.

[Penny]

“Is it just me, or are thieves and scoundrels a good deal less dashing than the holos lead me to believe?” Rene asked philosophically. Lis laughed uneasily but Solae’s smile was broad and genuine. There was precious little time but he reached over and squeezed Solae’s hand for comfort. It was hard to believe that they might soon be off New Concordia but as his father had been fond of saying: there was many a slip twixt cup and lip. The Syshin had paused in their activity during the call, they clearly knew something was about to happen and just as clearly wished to be far away when it did.

“I’ll check over the weapons,” Rene said judiciously. He had seen a few rifles that might serve and an areofoil mob gun that might be useful.

“I can gather medical supplies,” Lis put in unexpectedly. The fellow flinched back from Rene’s gaze as the Marine cocked an interrogative eyebrow. Lis held up both hands in a placating gesture.

“Just trying to be useful,” he all but squeaked. Rene hesitated for a moment and shared a glance with Solae before he nodded his head.

“Thank you,” Rene said in a neutral tone of voice. Lis turned to go but Rene caught him by the shoulder and held him.

“I’m sure that it hasn’t escaped your notice that even if we are killed when the ship touches down, that the captain of that ship will gut you for lying to him. I trust we can depend on your full cooperation.” The statement was a simple fact but his lack of inflection made it sound more terrifying than a shouted threat would have been. Lis visibly gulped and bowed his head.

“I’m a loyal servant of the Empress sir,” Lis replied in a quavering voice. Rene smiled sardonically.

“May she count herself fortunate to be able to call on such stalwarts,” he said with a hint of wry amusement. Lis fled the room without a backwards glance.

It was closer to forty minutes later when the Syshin, more sensitive than humans, detected the faint thrum of plasma motors far ahead. The noise grew steadily and a bright blue star came into view, sinking with a majestic grace through the wispy high altitude clouds. Solae had warned the Syshin not to look directly at the descending ship. At close range that star hot glow of the plasma drives could burn retinas. Most humans who grew up in proximity to star travel had learned it from birth but the rural Syshin were much less likely to have had the experience. Perhaps this group had, perhaps they had seen this very ship land before, carrying off their mothers and daughters, never to be seen again.

The thrum verged on the physically painful as the freighter continued its decent. What had once been a single bright blue glow was now clearly split into eight pencils of azure fire. The vessel was about forty meters long and perhaps twenty wide at its beamy center of mass. It looked like a vast spearpoint hammered into shape by some ancient smith with the nose at the point and the thrusters clustered around the socket. Its rate of decent slowed as the plasma output increased. It was less than a hundred meters above them and sinking in a slow controlled burn. Rene felt his skin prickle unpleasantly. He turned his head to Solae and flicked up the goggles he had donned against the glare.

“Ions from the plasma jets!” he yelled above the roar of the decending vessel. Civilians rarely came close to vessels during landing, it was dangerous and unpleasant, but Rene had done his share of drop and extractions with Marine assault boats. Comfort and saftey were not values that the corp put much stock it.

“No sweat!” he yelled trying to make himself heard over the tumult. Just in case he made a thumbs up gesture to Solae attempting to reassure her. Wind, backwash from the thrusters, whipped wildly around them. Trash and leaves from the edge of the cane field swirled up in a storm as the vessel overflew the green stalks. It angled in to what Rene had assumed was a plowed field awaiting planting. Dust fountained up as the jets, ten meters long, touched the tilled soil, filling the air with the scent of burning organics. Rene frowned, wondering how a vessel so heavy could intend to land in such soft earth and not sink to the point that lifting off would be impossible. The question was answered in short order as dirt blew away under the galeforce downthrust. What had appeared to be a plowed field was actually a conctrete pad, its dirty gray surface excavated by the blasting thrusters. THe owners, needing to keep their illegal trade secret, had spread a few inches of dirt atop the pad and plowed some furrows for show. Clever.

The ground shook as the vessel touched down. The jets of plasma stuttered for a minute and then cut out completely. The sudden silence was as shocking as a gunshot after the long rumbling decent. The vessel pinged loudly as plates of heat stressed metal cooled at slightly different rates. The landing pad itself glowed in places where trapped dirt had been melted to glowing glass in the final moments of the landing. Rene licked his suddenly dry lips. It would be a few minutes before the ground was cool enough to allow anyone to disembark.

Up close the ship had a battered and used look. Its hull was composed of a patchwork of plates, some steel, others rainbow stressed sheets of iridium alloys. There were even a few pieces of what locked to be ceramic metal composites, the sort of thing one usually found on fleet interceptors or lightweight assault vehicles. Poorly maintained communications gear protruded like the spines of a cactus at several points. Rene could spot the curve of a ventral gun of some sort, though there was no way it could be depressed to fire at the ground. Faded gold lettering was splashed across the bow slope: Bonaventure, followed by a serial number that was meaningless to Rene. Several metallic pops sounded.

“They are opening the seals,” Rene explained, more to ease his own nervousness than because Solae might need the information.

“After a few weeks in space the air inside gets pretty rank,” he added, his hand rubbing the wooden gun stock of his borrowed rifle, subconsciously seeking empathy with the weapon. The red splotches of glass were cooling fading slowly towards black. Marines would have dropped the hatches and disembarked by now, but they would have been wearing battledress which would have protected them from the heat. Rene badly wished he had a suit of battledress right now. With a metallic groan a slit of light appeared as the main hatch began to grind open.

[Syrenrei]

"Stay back here," Solae ordered with the calm ease of a commanding officer. Although she had spent absolutely no time in the military whatsoever she had been bred and groomed for leadership roles. That she had declined any such positions, despite the urging of both her mother and father, was a reflection on her disposition and not her abilities.

The Syshin stood farther from the landing pad than either of the higborn pair. To help perpetuate their convincing ruse, but yet ensure, the aliens were positioned behind large crates that were filled with supplies for their journey intermixed with convincing decoys. All of the males were crouched in shadow, hidden among the sugar cane stalks, or tucked behind pastoral machinery as they held concealed weapons. Female Syshin were crowded around one edge of the unobtrusive pile of cases on large metallic stretchers that were meant for their transport. They had not been chemically induced into a comatose state so they were simply feigning such a state of repose as the spaceship drew closer. Several grew nervous as the vessel descended onto the concrete with a cacophony of foreign and frightening noises. Solae could not blame them.

"Sir Kent," the marquise called out. Out of the corner of her eye she could see Kalrio watching the butler with intense scrutiny as he crawled forward from the inky black night to duck behind a case filled with debris. To say the Syshin was not a fan of this plan was underselling his opposition. He felt indebted, however, to assist the heroes of Amber Horizon that had saved him from certain death whether immediate or prolonged by torture. Solae had been able to quell many of his objections by handing him a blaster from his former enslavers and tasking him with judiciously disposing of Kent Lis how he wished if the elderly gentleman deviated from their plot.

"Y-yes," he squeaked. The butler took a position next to the golden-haired beauty as her soldier consort stepped back into concealment. Solae placed her hands behind her back as the fingers brushed against the cool grip of the pistol Rene had insisted more than once she keep in her possession.

"Glad to see you didn't fuck this up," called out the pilot as his silhouette appeared as the hatch groaned open. A short, hobbled together ramp extended and seconds later a portly man with crossed arms strode down it. He was firmly middle-aged, unshaven, with skin that shined with oil created by a mix of perspiration and poor hygiene, and a protruding gut indicative of a love of liquor rather than simply poor genetics. What little hair that had not thinned or fallen out altogether was slicked down to the sides of his head in an outdated attempt at a hairstyle. Solae barely suppressed the urge to grimace.

"Pardon?" Kent asked with mild confusion.

"You and your proper language," the man snarled as he breathed heavily out of his mouth. "I'm saying I thought I'd have to get all this shit together myself. How did you do it?" he asked suspiciously as he drew nearer.

Fortunately for everyone (except perhaps the overweight new arrival) Solae's appearance was a distraction from the seemingly unconscious trafficked beings or haphazardly arranged crates. At once he knew that this was an elite of the upper echelon of the Stellar Empire but he didn't question long how she might have come across the plantation. Word of the mass execution of nobility had spread throughout the sector for those who had not bore witness to it directly. That a few might slip free of the rebellion's deadly assault was expected rather than unusual.

"Fuck me this is amazing merchandise," the pilot remarked as he licked his lips greedily. Eyes trailed from the spun golden hair, to the bright azure eyes, to high cheekbones, a softly pointed jaw, lily white complexion, large bosom, slender waist, wide hips, slim thighs, and everything in-between. For the courts she was exceptional; to the desperate reaches of rural colonization she was a masterpiece that could almost be charged admission to behold. Already he was doing mental calculations as to how much he could auction her for based on how many men she could sleep with in a day. Brothels would wage war with one another to have such an exotic mound of flesh. For a market that was limited to less than ideal 'product' she would extract ridiculous sums of currency and turn a tidy profit.

"Think I might take a taste myself once we lift off," he said with a guffaw. Kent gave a weak complacent smile and attempted to say something but found the marquise had already thrown herself into action.

Solae whipped out her pistol and, using the element of surprise as her more true weapon, shot the obese man in his kneecap. Her victim began to howl in pain but Kent, who knew he had gone 'all in' with the plan and had everything to lose if the man was heard, shoved a piece of cloth in the pilot's mouth before jumping back. The marquise trembled slightly at the sight of another human being rolling on the ground in agony as he clutched what remained of his joint. The pungent smell of singed flesh and blood chased away the squeamish butler and had Solae barely able to keep her composure. Rationally she knew he was a depraved being not worthy of the gift of life bestowed on him. Her heart ached all the same as her compassion knew not all the limits that the mind so diligently imposed.

"Go," she whispered barely audible over the din of the sighing and creaking ship that continued to cool.

Kalrio had risen from his position beside the bins and crept over until he was a few feet away from the scion that was trembling at her own actions. With some thought he rose up to his full height and reached toward to touch her shoulder in an attempt at comforting. The Syshin nodded to Rene as if to say he would stand guard over the slightly traumatized human he so clearly respected.