[IC] Star Crossed: The Duke's Rebellion

[Penny]

The crude plasma forged glass crackled under Rene’s feet as he ran across the concealed concrete pad. Heat still radiated up from the surface his feet and knees uncomfortabley warm. Not for the first time he wished he had a set of temperature stable fatigues. He hated to leave Solae but any chance of her survival lay in taking the ship as quickly and as bloodlessly as possible. Rene was no spacer but her had more experience with ship and with close quaters violence than anyone else present.

Ignoring the obvious route he leaped up against the side of the ship, snatched the emergency handholds and pulled himself hand over hand up onto the dorsal spine. For a moment he balance on top of the ship, fully half the height of the main house. From the vantage point the night looked like a black ocean, the limited moonlight painting the tops of trees silver. He took two clanging steps across the spine of the ship and dropped through an open air shaft into the main hold.

Even having caught the edges of the access port to break as much momentum as possible, Rene still hit the deck with a considerable clang. He was in the main hold, a ten meter by twenty meter box that took up nearly half the ships internal volume. Rather than deck plates, the floor was a corrugated metal grating raised ten centimeters above the bottom of the compartment. The underlying deck plates were slick and shiny and the whole place reeked. At the end of the compartment stood a large man wearing a shapeless grease stained jumpsuit. He had a high pressure hose in his hand and was hosing off what looked like low metal couches, the water coming off them ran black as river silt.

They were stretchers for the slaves. Rene realised, they put them in comas to transport them but they didn’t make any provision for waste beyond hosing it into this improvised drainage sump at the end of each voyage. Rene struggled not to gag, though evidently the man using the hose had enough exposure to Syshin excreta to have gone nose blind to it because a tobacco stick hung from his slack lips as he gawped in shock at the dark clad figure who had just fallen from the sky. Rene struggled for some quick clever lie that would make the man stand down but between the stink and his own revulsion nothing came to him.

The grease stained man dropped the hose and grabbed at a holster on his overburdened utility belt. It hit the deck with a metallic clang, the pressure making the nozzle whip like a scorched snake as it sprayed water uncontrollably. Rene unslung the mob gun, leveled and fired in a single smooth action. The weapon coughed like a god clearing its throat as the dispersal charge blew a storm of areofoil blades down the barrel. Mob guns were a good choice in close quarters, and particularly in spacecraft. The lightweight ceramic blades couldn’t inflict serious damage to machinery but spread into a flesh devouring cloud over short distances. Rene would have preferred his pistol but a misplaced plasma bolt might cut an oxygen line or destroy some irreplaceable hardware. The first shot went wide, with a crackle like a hundred glass bottles being dropped onto concrete. The walls were covered with cargo netting behind which tools and supplies were contained. The netting flew appart in a storm of fibers and crates and boxes tumbled free in a mini avalanche. Rene cursed and worked the pump, driving another round into the chamber and spitting the hot empty, sizzling and smoking, to the deck.

“Put it dow..” Rene started to scream but it was too late, the creman finally pulled his pistol free of his holster and started to raise it. The mob gun coughed a second time. This time the blast caught the man full in the chest, shredding him where he stood. The hose exploded from a dozen puncture points along its rubberized length as the unfortunate crewman was flung back into a bulkhead with a wet crunch like a steak hitting a butchers block. His tabacco stick spun in the air for a second before dropping into the water with a soft hiss. Blood ran down into the grating along with the other filth.

Rene brushed what he hoped was water from his space and ran to the bulkhead door which led towards the cockpit. He saw a figure peering down the access gangway and bought his gun up. The man dived sideways into a compartment Rene couldn’t see and the blast of his mob gun tore up empty deck plates, sending puffs of insulating flying from a nearby access panel that hand’t be properly secured. He moved to step into the accessway but before he could enter a fire containment door slammed down between him and his destination. Cursing, Rene pounded on the door with the butt of his weapon, succeeding only in scratching the paint. Two or three hostile crewman stood between him and the cockpit. Worse they could get access to Solae. If he had his sword maybe he could have gone through the door but he had left that with Kalrio to protect Solae.

“Stars bloody burn me for an idiot!” he cursed and raced back to the mangled body of the crewman he had killed. The blast had cut the utility belt to pieces and scattered tools in a broad arc of destruction. Water from the severed hose soaked his knees and legs as, desperately, he started grabbing gear, looking for something, anything he could use to get the door open.

------------------------------------

“Mistress Solae wouldn’t want me hurt would she?” Byona Prap wheedled through the honorific stuck in her throat.. The maid, or former maid now she supposed, paced the room in which she had been sealed, casting frequent glances out the window to where the Bonaventure had just touched down. She could see the pretty bitch’s hair as it caught stray light from the house.

“Uncertain, data is limited,” Argon replied with computerized good cheer. The maid ground her teeth. When she got out of here she was going to pound the AI into glass dust for confining her here. The overwrites Solae had used were far to complex for her to understand or dream of replicating. Byona was not a smart woman, but she had an animal cunning which had allowed her to eek out a comfortable living. Or at least it had before the Syshin loving bitch had showed up. Solae was instantly recognisable from the wanted holos and the extravagant rewards offered were beyond Byona’s dreams of avarice.

“She would have already disposed of me if that were her plan,” Byona insisted in her faux reasonable tone. There was a slight pause.

“A reasonable assumption,” Agron conceded.

“If she dosen’t want to hurt me she wouldn’t deny me medical treatment would she?” Byona pressed. She glared out the window, wondering what that fool Lis was doing out there. Had the Noblewoman seduced him to assist her? It seemed unlikely while she had her cold eyed protector there to take care of her.

“You do not require medical treatment Byona Prap,” Argon replied, his sensors were not the high end class that the aristocrats like Lord Armon employed but basic medical status was a standard monitoring point.

“Not physically,” Byona went on, “But mentally I’ve suffered a tremendous trauma! Several of my friends are dead including poor Dolf!” The slovenly guard had been a friend of sorts, and if she got out of this she would make sure the Syshin maids who had butchered him were sold to the worst brothels she could find so that they would suffer for what they had done to their human betters.

“The death of friends is recorded as a serious trauma,” Agron replied and Byona felt a small surge of triumph.

“Then surely Mistress Solae would not deny me psychological care!” This was it, she knew she had the computer now.

“Likely she would not,” Argon agreed in the same cheerful tone which he always used.

“Then please connect me to an emergency psychologist in Armistice,” Byona all but crowded. The computer constrained by its programing and defeated by her logic opened the communication line. By law it wouldn’t even be able to monitor the call. Byona smiled as she began to speak. Very soon, all that reward money would be hers...

[Syrenrei]

"Something's wrong," Solae whispered to herself. Kalrio glanced over to her and narrowed his eyes in pensive thought while Kent shifted his weight uncomfortably.

The latter's eyes were glued to the smuggler laying on the ground, writing in pain, as he bled out slowly. As the life drained out the of the wounded man the butler grew more and more pale. Despite all the atrocities he had witnessed during his tenure at the plantation he had never bore witness to a death like he did now. That was not to say he believed every slave lived a long, full life while his gaze was averted, but it was easier to pretend not to know. His willful ignorance had a price. As both the marquise and Syshin stood unmoving in their resolve to let the depraved individual die he felt increasingly nauseous. His stomach rumbled and churned until he fell to his knees and began to vomit violently. Both looked at him as if he was a monster but it them who had become desensitized to killing that were losing the morality they touted over him so smugly.

"What's wrong?" she asked as she tried to ignore the retching behind her. Before the offensive strike to take the spaceship had been launched Rene and Solae had both taken slightly outdated earbud communicators to help assure that arrogance about the perfection of their plan would not be their undoing. It had almost seemed to be an excessive precaution at the time but now she was glad that she had been so insistent. The small devices were a lifeline as they were separated by simmering tons of super-heated metal and two thugs that could take down the noblewoman in the blink of an eye.

"I'm trapped in a... it doesn't matter! Get inside the mansion where it's safe!" Rene replied. There was grunting relayed before the curt transmission cut out.

"Argon!" Solae snapped immediately.

"Yes, Solae Falia?" the artificial intelligence responded after a distinctive pause that made the already internally panicking scion's heart stop. The synthetic voice was being projected over one of many external speakers that had been affixed to small low-rise walls that acted as barriers between the fields. For someone of the non-criminal variety these would have been functional dividers meant to help distinguish plots of land for testing of various soil nutrients before deciding if a crop rotation was necessary. For the felons that actually owned the sprawling estate they also concealed various security software meant to help spy on laborers, spot advancing law enforcement, and allow Argon to relay orders when a direct supervisor was not present.

"Explain the delay," she demanded as hysteria lumped in her throat.

"You will be pleased to know I have connected Byona Prap to Armistice medical services," was the smooth emotionless statement. If she hadn't known better the diplomat would have thought that Argon was satisfied with himself in his announcement.

"No!" she exclaimed. For a split second she was dizzy with everything that was crumbling before her. Rene was allegedly trapped, where and how was not clear, thus they had not successfully taken the vessel under their control. The maid was undoubtedly selling out the golden-haired linguist for the sizeable bounty reward that was designed to entice every soul on New Concorda save a select few loyalists. Kalrio and his companions had yet to be sent to Amber Horizon. A military force of the rebellion could advance with a single uttered clue or traceable call.

"Argon sever the connection immediately," Solae ordered as she turned on her heel away from the landing pad that was still emitting sizzling heat. "Drop all reinforcements on the manor immediately. I want the closest drone to be given the order to execute Byona as soon as the reinforcements over the bedroom windows have been properly removed."

"Yes Solae Falia," Argon acquiesced with perfect obedience.

"Sir Kent, I suggest you run immediately as far as you can because I don't intend to leave this place standing," she said ruefully as she glancing at the trembling elderly creature that was curled into a fetal ball on the ground. As soon as the words left her lips the former butler jumped to his feet and bolted mindlessly into a throng of tapped rubber trees as if he thought she would use him for target practice with her pistol next. Solae would be remiss if she did not admit to herself the thought had crossed her mind but she would not murder someone who had helped more than he hindered deplorable as he might be. She'd not be judge, jury, and executioner for more beings than she was absolutely compelled to be. Had only her life been at stake she'd have taken the higher ground of the pacifist she used to stand upon.

"Are you sure that is wise?" Kalrio queried in Syshi.

"No, but I still need to sleep at night," the marquise said with a sad smile. "Argon," she started again, "I want all of the nine remaining drones not assigned to Byona Parp's execution to converge on my point. They are going to escort the Syshin back to Amber Horizon. I want you to turn over control of their operation to Kalrio, the Syshin beside me."

"That isn't necessary," the alien objected.

"It is," Solae replied quietly. "It truly is. Let me do all I can for you, please. It's my honor to help."

Kalrio's scarred face softened and he bowed his head as he offered her back the sword of Lord Armon. All of his compatriots did the same, pausing as they made the formal gesture of respect. Solae uncomfortably held the blade in one hand as she shifted from one leg to the other at what she felt was undeserved recognition. A few times now she had seen her soldier lover express this very sentiment and found it odd he did not want accolades that he so clearly had reaped by virtue and just action but now she understood more intimately. After a certain point it felt as if there was too much praise for being decent and humane rather than courageous above and beyond what was expected. She did not feel like a hero for ordering machines to guard beings that had been beaten, tortured, abused in every imaginable way, and exposed to the horrors of the world simply for being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

"I have to go burn down a house," she explained, nodding one final time as she sprinted away and through the stalks of sugar cane. The marquise could feel their stares on her back but she dared not tarry a moment longer while lives were in danger. With her thumb she turned on the weapon held in her off hand and used it to slice through the vegetation that would otherwise rip at her clothing and flesh alike in her reckless dash. Had she the time to dwell upon it she might have realized how light it was, how terrifyingly efficient it was, how there was no resistance to her novice swings that were no better than a child playing with a toy.

"Argon!" she yelled as she rounded on the gaudy building that had become all too familiar. "The artificial intelligence you downloaded earlier- is there any chance you can upload it directly to the parked ship? You had to download before you copied it to an external drive for me so there should still be a temporary download in your storage."

[Penny]

The gore slicked tools were a bust. Whatever the dead crewman had been planning to do after he finished out hosing the filthy hold out, it hadn’t involved cutting through a security bulkhead. Rene felt his tension rising, if the crewmen forward of the hatch had enough skill to get the plasma motors lit the backwash might be enough to kill Solae. There was beyond doubt equipment he could use to breach the door but he might or might not be able to find it in time. Without another option to hand he stood and ran back towards the engineering section of the ship.

In its way the engineering station was just as bad as the filthy hold had been. A large, two story hexagonal chamber surrounded the lowering bulk of a fusion bottle. The bottle was old and flecked with rust, condensate ran down its surface in slow rivulets that made the air feel unbearably humid. The air stank of half decomposed lubricants and hot electronics as well as the sour stink of long unwashed bodies. Pipes and conduits and nests of wiring came of the housing of the fusion plant like cilia from an amoeba. Ladders led up to a second story gantry which circled the upper half of the fusion bottle. Half disassembled machines were scattered on benches and on the decking, some obviously abandoned junk, others only presumably so. Trash, empty liquor bottles and half eaten containers of food lay in mouldering heaps, adding to the stink. Dozens of screens were affixed to the conduit wrapped walls, some of them showing read outs from the power plant and ships systems, others showing scenes of holo porn that ranged in tone from improbable to insane.

Cursing Rene plunged through the trash, searching for a tool locker. If this was how the ship normally operated, and the mold covering several half eaten fast food packages gave him no reason to doubt it, he couldn’t imagine how the Bonaventure hadn’t caught fire and been lost years ago. Amid a half sheared piece of hull plating he found a diamond cutting bar. The teeth looked to be worn down to almost nothing but it was the best he could find. A cutting bar was a high speed rotary saw used for making quick and dirty cuts to structural metal. They weren’t dissimilar to breeching bars that the Marines used in ship to ship actions, though they were considerably larger than the miniaturized military units Rene was used too. The lights suddenly dimmed to almost nothing and Rene had the sudden and irrational fear that the fusion plant was about to go critical due to years of half competent maintenance. That would have been extremely unlikely but ... after a moment though the lights began to come back up in uneven patches.

With no time to ponder power fluctuations. Rene lurched back across the deck, his foot caught in something solid concealed in the trash and he fell to the floor, breaking the fall with his arm as the slung mob gun banged painfully into his hip.

“Stars Above!” he cursed and pushed himself to his feet, vaulting over the last of the detritus to reach the hatch. The hold was as he had left it save for the fact that the hose was no longer spewing water. Perhaps the ready tank had been drained, or perhaps the pump needed user input every so often to keep valves open. He crossed the deck at a sprint, placed the cutting bar against the jam of the hatch and squeezed the activator stud. Nothing happened. Rene looked down and saw that the battery pack was not only empty but so old the contacts had actually corroded it in place.

“Fuck!” he screamed in frustration and pounded impotently on the hatch with the useless cutting bar. Sparks flew where the diamond teeth scuffed the metal.

“What seems to be the problem Master Quentain?” an oddly familiar voice crackled from a dusty intercom speaker. Rene turned to stare at it in surprise. The voice was distorted by the half derelict equipment but that sultry undertone was unmistakable.

“Mia?” he asked in shock. How had Solae managed to get the AI uploaded without being on the ship. The command center, the ship had to be connected to it in order to receive all of the data about the slave shipment, weather data, landing telemetry. In theory the ships own communication gear had lock outs that would prevent the remote installation of something like an AI but a tramp freighter in the back end of nowhere had probably never had them set up properly.

“Yes Master Quentain, I apologize for the condition of the house. I cannot find records for cleaning staff and I am experiencing some difficulty accessing the kitchen.” Rene blinked, momentarily defeated by too many strange impulses. The condition of the house?

“Mia can you open the door?” he asked, tossing the useless cutting bar away.

“Yes but there are two men on the other side who might prefer privacy…”

“Open the door Mia!” Rene implored. The containment door hissed halfway up and bound in its housing. Rene leaned back and kicked the door frame and the door slid the remaining three feet into its housing.

“Has Mistress Solae seen this side of you, you were fairly subdued at the previous manor and based on her reactions to stress she might find…” One of the crewmen leaned out from behind a hatchway and opened fire. The small pistol yipped as he filled the corridor with automatic fire. Instinctively Rene threw himself forward onto the deck unlimbering his mob gun as his body slapped the metallic plating. Wild ricochets caremed down the accessway, filling the air with amber traceries. The shots were too high, the muzzle lifted by the pistols recoil. Rene fired a split second before the figure ducked back into cover. The mob guns aerofoils sparkling uselessly up the hallway. There was a scream of terror as Rene scrambled to his feet and rushed the hatch, working the action to lever another round into the cumbersome weapon.

Behind the hatch the crewman with the pistol, a bearded man, overweight and in slightly less filty coveralls, was fumbling with his pistol trying to reload after foolishly emptying the magazine. Behind him another man, skinny and cadaverous with gleaming oiled hair was typing furiously at a console. The first man dropped his pistol and threw himself at Rene catching the marine in a flying tackle and driving him into the bulkhead. Rene yelled and swung his weapon stock at the mans head but the impact with the bulkhead spoiled the stroke and the metallic stock bounced off the man’s flabby back without more than a grunt of pain. The fat back tried to twist Rene to the floor but the former aristocrat dropped the gun and drove his fist in a rabbit punch into the man kidney. This time the crewman howled in pain and recoiled, half grabbing at his kidney with his left hand. Rene drove his knee up into the man's chest as he straightened. A blast of rank breath blew across Rene’s face but he was already driving his booted food into the man's crotch. Vomit exploded from the battered crewmans lips and he staggered back. The thin man was drawing a small flechette pistol from his belt and fumbling with the safety. With a shout Rene drove his boot into the fat man's sternum tumbling him back into his companion. They both went down in a tumble and Rene scooped up the mob gun, pointed it in the general direction of the crewmen and pulled the trigger.

As the echoing blast faded there was a long moment of silence. Rene let the smoking gun lower so that he held the grip with one hand and sagged back against the bulkhead. The two crewmen were too intermingled to tell apart, flesh and clothing torn to red ruin by the blast. Individual muscles still trembled but that was muscle spasms, not anything resembling life. The flechette pistol had been too much of a risk to take. It was an amateur's weapon, designed to be pointed in the general direction of the target without the need to really aimed, but at close quarters it would have shredded Rene nearly as effectively as the mob gun had shredded the crewmen.

“Would you like me to dispatch cleaning crews?” Mia enquired politely, “Delays may be significant.”
Rene shook his head, though he had no idea if Mia could register the motion without the excellent sensors she had had at Lord Armon’s. He took a step into the small chamber the two had been holed up in. It appeared to be a navigation or communications rather than a pilot station. Rene made a half hearted effort to brush the mist of blood from the console screen but succeeded only in smearing the tacky blood. He went the rest of the way up the access way to the cockpit. It was much cleaner than the rest of the ship although still well short of a military inspection. Three consoles sat facing the forward view port. Through it he could see the manor house and the reinforcement panels rising. He frowned in concern

“Solae?” he said, tapping his ear bead, the damn thing seemed to be struggling to cut through the hull plating. Cursing he ran back down the accessway to where the ramp exited the ship. A containment door sealed the entryway but a quick word to Mia opened it and he ran down onto the landing pad. His heart was thumping, fear that something had happened to her far outweighing caution.

“Solae, we have control of the ship? Where are you? What is happening?”

[Syrenrei]

In an attempt to compensate for the poor reception caused by the ship's hull Solae had amplified the incoming volume on her communicator. It was not her finest moment and she regretted it deeply as Rene's urgent words thundered with vibrations that instantly inflamed her eardrum. Gritting her teeth she removed the bud, discreetly adjusted its output, and slipped it snugly into the crevice of curved cartilage before thinking to respond.

"I have to burn down a house," she grunted as she flipped off the blade and dropped it at her side. Rene had the benefit of physical training with the military; when he exerted his strength he always made it look so deceptively easy. With her substantially less muscle-based genetic enhancements she felt worn from her dash through the fields. For a split second she wished she had let herself be persuaded into the Rev Chamber. The sutures at her side throbbed and her cheek stung from where errant sugar cane debris sliced by the sword had caused a bleeding abrasion. The marquise was still gasping in heaving breaths as she took more measured steps up the stairs of the mansion.

"What? Why?" was the bewildered soldier's response. In her mind Solae could see the furrowed brows of concern on Rene's handsome face as he tried to seek out her slender form in the darkness. The harsh illumination of the vessel's flood lights, which had been flickered on after landing, would make it all but impossible for him to pinpoint her in the shadows of the distant building.

"The maid was briefly connected to someone in Armistice," the diplomat began to explain as she walked through the front door and jogged into the kitchen. "It'll all make sense in a minute. Clean up the ship best you can, load up any supplies you can manage, and I'll be there as soon as I'm done here," she ordered with an unconscious and unintentional tone of authority. She did not mean to be brief with her lover and truest ally but she could not focus on the task at hand with him as a distraction. They both needed to be as efficient as possible with the tasks at hand to make the most out of the narrow window of opportunity still left to escape. In Solae's case that meant engaging with Argon one last time.

"Argon, I want you to back yourself up remotely. I presume your mainframe is underground so I want you to engage every security protocol possible between the underground levels and where I am. Do you understand?"

Experience had taught software engineers and various forms of law enforcement that self-destruct options for artificial intelligence systems was inviting abuse of the feature. Creators of synthetic mechanical beings were generally opposed to allowing others, even with a legitimate purchase and use, destroy their hard work on a whim. The Stellar Empire found in the pioneering days of the technology's introduction they were unable to conduct proper investigations. People on a whole were hysterical about personal privacy. Not only would criminals easily erase all evidence of their felonies, alibis were derailed unintentionally, data that exposed flaws in programming was lost, there was malicious destruction of property and individuals under the guise of an 'accident,' precious files were obliterated by genuine misplacement, and the like. The so-called 'nuclear option' was revoked from the public, including all nobility, in what was deemed imperial preventative safety measures. This did not mean that more patient deletions could not be made (as Solae proved), it just meant there was no easy kill switch to press recklessly.

"Yes, Solae Falia. Do you require further assistance?" intoned the soothing masculine voice over a nearby intercom.

"Send the drone that executed Byona Prap to the parked vessel. I'll be taking it with me," she instructed. She was yanking open every cabinet and drawer in sight looking for anything that might allow her to ignite a flame. Mentally she was counting how much time had transpired since she the call had been severed to better gauge when the armored vehicles might start crunching over the outer edges of the plantation. Paranoia created phantom earthquakes under her feet that was nothing more than the conjuration of frayed nerves. Steeling herself she set her jaw as she finally came across what she had been seeking. Crammed into one drawer were all manner of smoking apparatus, herbs, vintage cigars, and a long antique lighter that was older than her parents had been but would serve her purpose.

"Understood. Is that all?"

"Yes, thank you Argon." With mounting anxiety she rolled the gear of the tool in her hand and pulled a trigger that released a small lick of flame. Holding it as far in front of her as possible she touched the droplet of fire to the flammable greasy curtains, to the wooden furniture, to the papers scattered on a counter by the slavers before they had been drawn out of their home. Solae did not wait to see it take hold of its fuel before she sprinted into the adjoining rooms and repeated the process before gradually making her way to the threshold of the porch where a safe retreat could be managed.

"I'm coming back to you," she stated as she turned her communicator back on to alert Rene. The linguist had made it to the bottom of the stairs and had, with a burst of energy and slight limp, began to retrace her cut path to the thick slab that constituted a landing pad. Glancing behind she saw that one exterior wall had started to smolder and darken from the offensive pristine white color that had been obnoxious in daylight hours. There was an ominous illumination dancing behind the smokey windowpanes of the lower floor and it would not take long for the residence to make a spectacular conflagration. Elite citizens of the empire generally favored fine metals and gems over the collectibles gathered by the plantation's owner. Ironically it was his indulgence in the bizarre that had made it even more susceptible to being eradicated quickly by blaze than another's. New building materials would have been much more resistant if not invulnerable in the most extreme cases.

[Penny]

Rene nodded as Solae’s order cut through the confusing and rapidly altering situation. Years of training and service conditioned him to respond to an order in a chaotic situation. There was a brief buzz of 2mm gunfire up near one of the higher windows where the security reinforcements had lifted away. That had to be by Solae’s command but since she hadn’t mentionedit there was no point in worrying about it right now.

Kalrio and his Syshin were still standing more or less as he had left them. Some of the females looked nervous but the males were as impassive as though they had been carved from sandstone. The maid had been in contact with armistice. That meant that they could have Gids here within minutes, fast deployment troops by jumper if not heavy vehicles. Rene knew that the deployment of troops was always more problematic than that. Authorizations would be required, commanders would need to be convinced, troops rounded up and briefed, all of which caused delay. He also knew that a single cracker jack with enough skill and drive could cut through all that with a shouted word.

“Kalrio, get your people to start loading supplies,” he ordered. Most of the Syshin flinched at the barked command, too similar to the curt yells of their former masters. Rene blushed with shame, paused and offered a formal bow.

“Please,” he added and then rushed back up the ramp. With a flick of his thumb he safed the mob gun and then tossed it underhand into the cockpit. Lips curling in disgust he made his way into the communications station where the last two crewmen had died. The stench of blood and punchered entrails made him gag but he steeled himself and dragged the slick offal into the back up airlock across the hall. It was a difficult task, but he managed it as well as he could. Once that was done he went back into the hold and did the same for the first man he had killed, piling all three bloodied corpses in the airlock where their stench could be contained and they could be easily spaced once they lifted.

As Rene suspected the hose his gunfire had cut had shut down after amount of run time. He sliced the ruined section off with a stroke of his knife and reengaged the pump with a jerk of a stiff lever. As quickly as he could he hosed the blood and viscera into the drains built into the hold and shut it off. At another time he might have taken a grim satisfaction in the blood of the slavers following the fear of their victims but just at the moment it was all he could do not to wretch. The place still stank but at least the worst of the abattoir reek of blood and feces was gone. He couldn’t imagine that the air on the Bonaventure was going to improve after a couple of days in space though so he might as well get used to it.

Two Syshin banged down the companionway carrying a box of foodstuffs between them their large nostrils flared at the smell of the hold, doubtless even more offensive to them than it had been to Rene. The looked around in panic until Kalrio shouted something at them in Sysi. His voice echoed off the metal bulkheads like the beating of a great drum and the younger Syshi all but dropped the box and fled. The Syshin leader stomped into the hold carrying two large containers of medical supplies one under each arm. Rene remembered Oanh Park’s warning about protecting Solae from shock and felt a surge of gratitude towards the alien. He supposed he wasn’t doing a great job of following her advice, but Solae was tougher than Oanh had imagined.

Rene had a sudden and uncomfortable feeling. If the Gids were in bound, then finding Kalrio and his companions here would lead them back to Amber Horizions. Rene didn’t want to place bets on just what the Gids would do at that point but once it came out that they had sheltered Solae, it wasn’t likely to be anything Rene wanted on his conscience. Kalrio set the boxes down with a clang and started back towards the landing hold. Rene caught the Alien by the forearm.

“You need to take your people and go,” he told the scarred old Syshin, speaking slowly and clearly so that he would understand with his limited Imperial. Kalrio responded with a stream of angry Syshi.

“He wishes to know if you are a superhuman who can carry the remaining ten boxes by himself.” Rene spun and cursed before he remembered that Mia was in the process of being uploaded into the system. Dimly, he recalled Solae mentioning that Mia had been helping to refresh her Syshi, ergo, the AI could speak it.

“I don’t think he meant it politely but my Syshi vernacular is seven decades old,” Mia added, there was the hint of an inappropriate giggle in her voice.

“Mia, tell him that we might have the army coming to get us and that he and his people need to be long gone by the time the get here, they can't be linked to us or the Gids will burn Amber Horizons. The AI sutifully trilled out her own string of alien syllables. The alien grunted a couple of words, one of which was recognisable as Solae, and then turned and strode from the bridge.

“He says he will discuss the matter with Mistress Falia,” Mia advised. Rene shook his head in exasperation. It was probably just as well that he hadn’t ended up in the diplomatic corp. Sucking in air he jogged back to the entry hatch where he met another two Syshin manhandling a second crate of food.

“Leave it!” Rene snapped, “Leave it and go!” The pair dropped the crate to the deck and scurried off as Mia translated. Rene put his boot against the crate and shoved it hard to the side of the companionway and then followed them down the gangplank.

The mansion was well and truly on fire now, smoke poured from the upper story windows and bright tongues of flame leaped skyward like hungry Gwa lizards. The heat of it radiated off his skin and he squinted into the light and picked out Solae’s unmistakable figure hurrying back towards the landing pad. Kalrio was striding towards her. It was impressive, given how the alien had been tortured, that he was so willing to approach such and inferno. The remaining supply crates were stacked haphazardly by the corner of one of the unburned warehouses, just inside the door so they would be out of sight of the descending Bonaventure. He pushed passed the confused Syshin and seized one of the crates of weapons and a smaller box of medical supplies.

“Forget it, there is no time, you need to go,” without Mia to translate he had limited success getting the point across but several gestures in the direction of Solae and Kalrio got the group moving. Sweating and straining he lugged the gear to the ship and up the ramp, dumping it without ceremony in the access way. They would be low on food, but it was going to be much easier to find food than it would be to find medicine, plus he could always hope the Bonaventure had something in its galley, if such a chamber existed on the filthy scow.

“Mia does the ship have an air defence board?” he asked, using the Marine term for an anti aircraft tracking suite.

“I am unfamiliar with this model of houseboat,” Mia responded sounding like a clueless bimbo who needed someone to rescue her. Rene rolled his eyes and headed for the cockpit, climbing into the jump seat attached to the central console. He punched it live and brought up the sensor suite and then, with a little difficulty, set it to display local air and space traffic. The blank return of the monitor showed clear skies. He blew out a quick breath of relief.

“Mia if anything new shows up on this display, call me over the earbud I’m wearing,” he ordered and then raced back outside to join Solae.

[Syrenrei]

Solae did not regret setting the manor on fire but she had vastly underestimated the inherent dangers of her plan. By the time she had broken through the edge of the sugar cane field she was wheezing, her chest heaving as she tried to inhale clean air, and she admitted mentally that Rene had been right to worry. The marquise had set so many ignition points on her route out of the home that the flames had both grown in size and spread with surprising speed. Well-bred and intelligent noblewoman she was but arsonist she was not. Toxic clouds of smoke had been breathed in before her legs had been able to carry her a safe distance away while heat from the conflagration had made the back of her arms and neck burn to an unhealthy shade of pink.

"Solae of the..." Kalrio started but stopped a few inches in front of her. She had staggered as she felt her limbs turn to jelly in protest of both overexertion and exhaustion. With the Syshin equivalent of a frown the older male stepped forward and braced her under the shoulder with a forearm. Realizing the conflagration behind her was the source of physical distress he guided her closer to the ship where the blistering air was less oppressive.

"What's wrong Kalrio?" Solae asked in Syshi. Her tongue slurred the syllables slightly and she coughed out particles of ash that had gotten lodged in her sinuses. One of the female Syshin took an empty decoy box and quickly moved it next to the woman's side before knitting her brows in concern and gesturing for her to sit. "We don't really have time to..." the diplomat protested.

"Sit," the elder requested sternly. He waited until she had reluctantly complied before he continued. "Rene, bonded of Solae, has told us to leave before we have finished loading the supplies. He speaks of an army and a need for our people to evacuate. You can not possibly finish this task by yourself."

The linguist sighed, sputtering briefly as she did so, and her pallid features took on a gray hue that sent whispers among the congregation of aliens. None of them were experts on the human condition but they had enough exposure to the race to know that this ambassador of the empire was incredibly unwell. Kalrio turned towards them and, with a single gaze of reprimand, silenced their panicked musings. Unofficially he was their leader in the absence of an an encampment with a more formal social structure. Because communities were presided over by a pair of twins, and old age often left a single Syshin of a pair alive, the eldest was typically ineligible for the position. What tilted them into cultural obedience was that all the foreign beings were so young they would have been exempted by age alone- which left him in charge by default.

"He's right, you do need to leave. In fact, you should have been gone by now," she finally managed. Realizing they were wasting precious time she bowed her head and decided to take the path of least resistance. "None of you are maids anymore. Everyone will move the crates inside the ship. I need to get to get the ship calibrated for take off. The instant that we are ready for take off I want you to run into the grove. The drones will escort you to Amber Horizon and be under your control except for the one I am keeping. Understood?"

They all nodded. Kalrio was obviously still troubled, and one of the former house staff was uneasy about the heavy lifting involved in the compromise, but they leapt into action. With the authority bestowed onto him Kalrio lifted each crate, judging its weight, and gave it to a pair of appropriate strength to haul into the vessel so as to maximize their efficiency. Solae hadn't been able to translate for Rene precisely what deal had been brokered but he caught on quickly enough when he saw the soldier-like dedication that was being poured into the loading process. Overhead nine drones hovered in a swarm as they waited patiently. A single machine, however, flew over all the assembled heads as it coasted into the Bonaventure and nimbly landed on a small shelf that would not obstruct movement in any meaningful way.

"I need to help Mia," Solae said simply as she pushed herself up off the empty container on which she had been perched.

"I think Mia can use all the help she can get, but..." Rene began with a displeasure written on his visage.

"I'll be better off inside the ship, right?" she said with a wry smile.

Unsolicited Rene wrapped an arm around her waist, not allowing her a chance to protest, and escorted her up the ramp. None of the Syshin dared to get in their way as they ascended up the plank and made their way to the cockpit. The instability of Solae's gait, the way she leaned so heavily without intention, and her shortness of breath made Rene wholly unwilling to leave her alone even after she had been deposited in the upholstered central command seat that provided ample support. Rank as the air in the ship was it was devoid of the smog outside that had wrecked havoc on her respiratory system. The marquise forced herself to take several long, deep inhalations before addressing the artificial intelligence system that had been shoved into the mainframe of the Bonaventure so roughly.

"Mia, you were uploaded to this ship by Argon, the AI of the plantation. His core is underground so he should be intact. I want you to contact him and acquire all the necessary data you need for this vessel, the Bonaventure. We're not sure which model this is so download anything that might have the correct schematics."

"Understood. Are you unwell, Mistress Falia?" was the crackling response over the intercom.

"I will be fine," Solae reassured with uncertainty as Rene frowned at her. There was little Kalrio and Rene had in common but their solemn disposition towards her at present had an uncanny resemblance despite the species difference. "Fuck," she hissed as there were little blips that appeared on the edge of the radar Rene had called up earlier. They had at most twenty minutes before they would be ambushed by rebellion forces but it was much more likely that they would be overwhelmed in ten.

"Kalrio, go! They're here! If you stay any longer you will stain all our names. Please!"

With a grunt Kalrio lugged two crates up the steps, dumped them unceremoniously on the floor, and scowled. "We go," he acknowledged with discontent but obedience. There were many things he was willing to risk to assist the heroes that had freed his people and earned the praise of Amber Horizon, but the sanctuary of the settlement itself was not one. What she said had been true. Were they to be killed by the Gids readying their assault then today's victory would have been meaningless. If no one survived to tell the tale of their liberation by two humans then it would be no better than if it never occurred.

[Penny]

Seconds dragged by with the weight of decades. Rene’s attention darted between Solae and the unfamiliar controls. He hastily punched keys at the console. Holographic screens fluttered to life on either side of him, filling the cockpit with a pale blue glow. The screens stuttered and flickered unsteadily, given the slovenly state of the Bonaventure Rene wouldn’t have bet that the projectors had been serviced since their installation. Another few keystrokes brought up the external cameras. Six out of eight returned nothing but static, the optical pickups either damaged or missing all together. By luck or providence one of the two live screens showed Kalrio and his people retreating towards the rubber trees that screened the ancient railroad.

Rene glanced at Solae, she was obviously in a bad way, smoke inhalation or the early stages of shock perhaps. The incoming contacts were coming across the attack board at considerable speed, vector line elongating as the rangefinder figures clicked down in a blur. The freighters sensors were too rudimentary to provide any identification but they had to be rapid response jumpers. Armed aircraft that could carry a squad or two depending on who friendly the soldiers were willing to be. Sweat began to trickle down his neck, there was so much going on that his body wanted to shut down, but that was death for him and maybe worse for Solae.

Rene wasn’t a pilot. The corp employed specialist flight officers and all the training he had ever had was a few hours moving dropships around a firebase. Nothing like this. For a moments delay he checked the video to make sure Kalrio and his people were out of the way of any potential backblast, then he reached over and lit the plasma thrusters. The great engines roared to life filling the ship with an assymetrical rhythmic thrum that rattled his teeth. The deck beneath him quivered like a living thing as the thrusters fired. At present the outlets were flared widely enough that they gave almost no lift. Rene waited three precious seconds and then irised the thruster casings to focus the thrust. The Bonaventure pitched sideway as the port side lifted a meter into the air and ground them sideways across the pad in a shower of sparks that would have put any fireworks display he had ever seen to shame. Intertia slammed Rene into the side of his seat as the ship slid sideways gouging a thirty centimeter trench through the dirt, he felt them hit the side of the cane field and keep going, the slap of the stalks like a gauntlet. Solae screamed and Rene couldn’t be sure he wasn’t joining her.

“I suggest you rebalance your thrust,” Mia crooned, her tone so inappropriate to the situation that it shook Rene from his panic. He cut thrust to port and increased to starboard and the ship pogoed into the air the deck pressing hard against his feet. A shower of flaming dirt, ignited by the star hot kiss of the plasma thrusters, tumbled to the ground to add to the gathering blaze. They were ascending rapidly and Rene made a few quick adjustments. The Bonaventure’s thrusters were badly misaligned, a fact which its veteran pilot was no doubt used to compensating for, and Rene, as a novice, had missed it completely. Given the power involved he was lucky he hadn’t flipped the ship on its back and wrecked the freighter within the first few seconds.

“Mia can you help balance port and starboard thrust!’ he yelled, struggling to make himself heard over the roar of the ship. The flight smoothed considerably and the vibration decreased from bone rattling to merely brain scrambling. Rene had just enough time to sigh with relief when a proximity alert shrieked. Rene glanced down at the attack board in horror, one of the jumpers was within 1500 meters. There was a noise like an anvil falling into a steel works and the ship whipsawed wildly. The sound of bullets ricocheting inside the hull was so loud it was a physical pain to endure.

“Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!” Rene yelled, ducking low in his seat in what was an understandable but totally useless response. The air was filled with the thick greasy scent of burning metal and he could see the pale blue sparks of shorting electronics flickering in the corner of his eyes. Something on the control board went dark but he didn’t even have time to worry about what it might be.

“Frieghter Bonaventure you will land at once at desig…” The comm unit squaked.

Rene chopped the throttle and the ground fell away from under him as the Bonaventure plummeted a thousand feet in a few seconds, dropping him out of the line of fire of the jumper. The ship screamed like a whistle and he slapped the emergency containment sealing the cockpit off from the hull of the ship. Then he focused the jets as tightly as they could go. The deck smashed up through his spine as the ship lifted at maximum rate. He felt his vision begin to gray as the blood was forced to his feet. He cast a desperate glance at Solae, aware that he was pushing her beyond her physical limits but unable to do anything else that would protect her life and freedom.

“Stay with me,” he prayed, though the words came out as an unintelligible slur. The altimeter spun like a roulette wheel climbing to fifty thousand feet, then a hundred. His hands felt weak and his vision was going dark.

“Master Quentain I suggest you…” Mia buzzed at the edge of his consciousness. Through his fading vision he saw the atmosphere slip away, his reckless rate of climb far outpacing that of the pursuing jumpers. They were atmosphere capable vehicles and couldn’t pursue into vacuum. The viewport darkened to the full black of open space, the stars losing their twinkle and sharpening as the air molecules that diffracted the light slipped away beneath them. Rene chopped the throttles back to one gravity and nearly passed out as his blood thundered back to his brain. He gasped several mouthfuls of air and then vomited over the arm of his seat.

“Miiiiaaa,” he croaked.

“Plot a one g burn to the closest jump point and execute,” he managed wiping his mouth with his sleeve and disengaging his restraint. He tumbled to his knees and crawled across to Solae. Without a pause he pulled an infuser from his belt, a basic unit loaded with adrenaline and powerful anti-inflammatories. He pressed the needle to her wrist and pulled the trigger with a hiss of compressed air. The rattle of the plasma jets slowed and ceased and he felt the gentle kick of impulse engines engaging, driving them out and away from New Concordia.

“Stay with me,” he begged cradling Solae in his arms.

[Syrenrei]

Solae had fallen unconscious although she would not be able to recall herself at what point the world went black. Her memory was scrambled and blurred by overwhelming sensations that had collided aggressively with medical distress. Inertia slamming her into one side of her seat (as it had done to Rene), deafening noises, vertigo caused by reckless acceleration and deceleration, and a litany of other stimuli had been too much for her body to handle. Unable to process the whirling images and sounds around her she had been ejected into nothing. The marquise did not dream for she was not asleep. Every mental process not dedicated to self-preservation had been shut down as if she herself was a ship focusing only on life support systems. She might have drowned in that void without waking had it not been for the timely intervention of the very man who had saved her many times before.

The injection of both adrenaline and anti-inflammatory medication was followed by the faint whistling sound of Solae's breathing, which was being forced through a swollen windpipe, morphing itself into a less troubling wheeze. Sputtering she began to cough up phlegm speckled with the unintentionally inhaled byproduct of combustion that had been the source of so much irritation. As restricted airways shrank back and allowed more oxygen color began to return to her cheeks. There were still injuries that would take more time to remedy, such as the hip wound that was perpetually strained to the point its healing failed to progress, but none were lethal. Solae would be uncomfortable but not in any true danger.

"Rene," she groaned. Eyes fluttered open a few seconds later; she had not needed to see the soldier to instinctively know his embrace. The diplomat tried to move herself upright but even with chemical assistance her muscles protested sufficiently she abandoned the attempt. Everywhere ached. Her legs were sore from sprinting, her hip throbbed where sutures barely held in place, her torso was bruised from both falling in the altercation with the slavers and them being tossed around in her console seat, her neck was damaged from the heat, and there was a gash on her cheek from a protruding sugar cane stalk, yet she was happy to be alive. They had escaped. Nothing that plagued her now had permanent consequences. Time, supplies she knew were on board, and rest would aid in her full recovery.

"Rene... let's get married," she proposed without any grace. Her head was swimming and she was disoriented, unable to focus on any his facial features individually, but she was not delusional. "If... if something happens to me you can inherit everything that passed on to me from my parents," she continued. Both of her cousins could object and stake a claim on the Falia fortune but it would take ages for them to have even a chance of success given the complicated legal system. Their names would be dragged through the mud due to their distance to Solae prior to the attack on New Concordia. Being labeled as greedy did not stop many, not when there were vast sums of money being contested, but it would do them no favors. Even now she could hear accusations of them being petty, not truly caring about their lineage, about being indirectly responsible for her family's passing for not intervening even if impossible, possibly how they did not deserve their status.

Although they were safe now, and the Stellar Empire was closer than it had even been before, the linguist was truly beginning to grapple with her mortality. She had enough brushes with death she had no illusions that she was invulnerable. The vessel on which they were traveling was not a carrier equipped for blazing speeds or equipped with communications that would immediately secure their future. Solae was internally pensive and scared of not only another attack of the rebellion but what would occur after she was gone. They might need to travel for weeks before finding the right general to listen to their report and in that time anything, absolutely anything, could happen. Between herself and Rene she was the weakest link.

While an engagement, and marriage, as preparations for her demise might be unpalatable she could not deny she had an ulterior motive. Speaking to the Syshin had made it apparent to her that the actual bond between herself and Rene was fledgling at best and had no proper name. They were not dating because there hadn't been a chance for romantic outings to the theatre, a restaurant, or a perfectly manicured park. Boyfriend and girlfriend were not applicable labels either since they had not had the need to have an explicit discussion for the few. Being a girlfriend suggested a more flippant attachment as the scions that utilized it were not seriously courting on a whole and instead were using one another for mutual gratification. Only a fiance and fiancee meant much of anything in the world of the elite as it was a contractual obligation to not turn on one another, not to discard one another so easily, that there was even a chance of something more lasting and meaningful. Solae did not fit into the conventional marquise mold but she was undoubtedly shaped by some of their social expectations and thoughts.

It was equal parts selfish and selfless. Perhaps Rene, kind and gentle as he was, would see only the latter. She had warned him to turn away from her before she was unable to let go. There had been no doubts in her mind she would become possessive and needy as both time and dire circumstances entrenched him more deeply in her heart. Now that he had refused to do so Solae found herself finding reasons to try to grip onto him in desperation.

[Penny]

Rene’s heart thundered in his chest like a distant orchestra. A surge of physical weakness ran through him as Solae’s eyes fluttered open. Some part of him, a distant cold part, had been preparing some sort of response for what he would do if she had died. He wasn’t entirely sure what that would have been, other than violent and short lived. It’s sudden absence felt like a stone slipping from between gears that allowed time to move forward as it should. He held Solae close to him, her slender frame was cooler than it should have been, but he felt her pulse warm and vital within.

The universe abruptly flip flopped. It took a moment for his mind to replay her words and relay their meaning to his adrenaline addled mind. Marriage. It seemed like a dizzy daydream, something he had steadfastly not allowed himself to think of in the few free moments they had had since their sudden and violent meeting nearly a week before. A week did not seem like a long time to know someone but Rene knew that this last week had been longer than a lifetime for most people.

Part of him wanted to argue the point. To remind her that no matter what his previous rank, he was a penniless soldier, a murderer as far as the Imperial authorities were concerned, for all that he had cheated the headsman by taking the Star and enlisting in a service that was a haven for the dregs of society. The social cost of such a marriage would be ruinous to Solae, it would certainly spell the end of her glittering career in Imperial service. She would be an outcast among her own kind. But of course she already knew that. Solae Falia knew every bit as well as he did what such an arrangement meant and, as she had so clearly pointed out back at Lord Armon’s estate, a subjective lifetime ago, he didn’t have any business trying to make her decisions for her.

That pretty firmly put the question in his court. How did he feel about it? She already considered the risks and had made her decision. He didn’t care about her property or her wealth or even her station, he had once enjoyed all those things and not found his life unbearable for their absence. It wouldn’t matter a spacer’s damn in any case until they reached loyalist territory and could register the vow. That goal, though far closer for their possession of the Bonaventure, still seemed impossibly far away, hardly worth worrying about.

Rene glanced around the cabin. Trash eddied in the uncertain flows of the air recyclers and the chamber smelt of unwashed bodies. The star field was pure enough that there was no sensation of motion, although the readings on the navigation field scrolled with digital exactness, tracing their outbound course through the heavens. It was about as far from the formal setting he had once imagined as could be imagined. Still cradling Solae he reached an arm around and collected the sword that had been propped against the spare jumpseat. The weapon was slick with sugarcane juice and slightly tacky to the touch. He really should have been in ceremonial armor with a proper favor from his intended. The only favor either of them had were bruises and burns from the past several hours. At least in space he could argue that it was moonrise, the traditional time for such overtures.

He was on his knees holding Solae in one arm, her aurite hair cascading to the deck, frizzled, burned, and tangled with tiny pieces of cane husk. Rene didn’t want to know what he looked or smelled like, spattered and slicked with gore and sweat. It didn’t matter. With archaic dignity he lifted the blade to his lips, and kissed it just above the pommel, a surprisingly formal gesture in such squalid surroundings.The act was supposed to represent a formal offer of protection by the suitors house for their intended. He didn’t suppose that house Quentain would feel bound by the symbolic act of a disinherited son, but it felt like the right thing to do. There wasn’t much in the universe that Rene was certain of right now but the fact that he loved the golden haired marquessa was a truth as solid as bedrock. He could find political reasons why this was a bad idea but nothing that changed the way he felt.

“Solae Falia,” he said over the whine of the impulse engines. The rest of the formula archaic and courtly fled his mind. It seemed to pretentious a thing to say out loud.

“Will you marry me?”

[Syrenrei]

"Didn't I... ask you?" she blinked in confusion. Technically she had not. She had proposed a marriage, and perhaps proposed a proposal, but not actually proposed in the same manner that Rene did now. Her mind spin two or three different ways as she hung on the strange revelation before letting out a little bemused laugh that resulted in more chuffing that expelled errant ash. Frustrating as it was to ruin such a beautiful moment with a sickly cough the passageways were becoming more clear with each exhale and she knew the irritation would subside with chemical assistance. It took a few precious seconds to overcome the laughter at her own expense that co-mingled with the more forceful bursts of air heralding the end of her wheezing.

"Yes, yes of course I will," the marquise responded not wanting to leave him waiting any longer for a proper answer. He had to have known, given that she had initiated the discussion and made her feelings apparent, that there would be no refusal. Many men only lowered themselves to one ceremonial knee when they had explicit conversations about marriage in advance yet there was something gained in vocal affirmation. Allusion, innuendo, and coy remarks were no substitute for the profound potency of a simple declaration.

Had anyone of any status been observing they would have laughed at the absurdity of the two people so divorced from their stations engaging in a haphazard adherence to tradition. Garbage still littered the edges of the ship that had become so rancid that only putting it out an airlock had a chance to cleanse the odor of the room. The hull was stacked with crates tossed in at the last moment in complete disarray and obstructing a path to the rear of the vessel. Rene's vomit was on the floor only a few feet away from where the couple was embracing one another. Walls were mottled with filth that no one had yet had the time to wipe away. Everywhere they had stayed before this day was a more appropriate venue: Lord Armon's estate, Min Ho and Oanh's home, Amber Horizon, the sprawling yet gaudy plantation. Solae liked to think that it was so undignified it showed the depth of their connection. It took dedication, and a focus on the person rather than the place, to forge an engagement in a decrepit freight carrier.

"Congratulations!" Mia exploded over the speaker as she was no longer able to withhold the excitement she had been programmed to feel for this sort of event. The intercoms struggled to broadcast a prerecorded fanfare from a parade in which they could hear the jovial laughing and clapping of a crowd. The diplomat was so startled by the intrusion of the artificial intelligence she jerked in Rene's arms in alarm. Temporarily she had forgotten they were not quite alone.

"Thank you, Mia," she managed with a glance to the soldier who was less than enthusiastic about the interruption. "I'd like for you to.." she requested as leaned up with Rene's assistance, this time successfully, and let a brief bout of dizziness dissipate, "to run a diagnostic. Take an inventory of all the supplies that are internally stored as well. We're going to need to sanitize the living quarters if we're going to be traveling in space for the next few days at a minimum."

"I have located a cabin with a bed adequately sized for both you and Sir Rene," Mia intoned with a playful purr that was wildly inappropriate. The lights dimmed in the cockpit and the control screens winked out until the only real illumination was the distant sparkling of stars in an ocean of darkness. Tearing away her gaze from the glittering, breathtaking wonder Solae saw glowing strips appear on the walkway as the synthetic being tried to guide them towards what she sincerely believed to be what ought to follow an engagement.

"I'm sure Sir Rene would appreciate a shower, Mia. Is there one on board?"

There was silence and a soft clicking noise as Mia, who had already begun running the processes to comply with Solae's directive, tried to analyze the schematic. The Bonaventure had more limitations to its hardware than an opulent mansion's mainframe and thus Mia, firm and obedient ally that she was, was not living up to her previous capabilities entirely. "There is one shower directly adjacent to the captain's cabin and shared with the crew quarters. Unfortunately, only one of you will be able to utilize it at a time as it is compact by design," she said with obvious disappointment.

Solae laughed to herself and shook her head. They both needed to bathe, probably her worse than him given how long it had been, but she wasn't confident in her ability to walk more than a couple steps before falling flat on her face and causing her new fiance to panic. "How do you feel about a romantic evening of washing off the grime and checking my abrasions for me?" she jested. It wasn't what he probably wanted when he imagined proposing to a woman. She had only just escaped the clutches of respiratory distress, she was covered in sweat, she had a vague sensation of bleeding from more than one wound, and her hair was an unspeakable disaster zone that would have made beauticians declare it a national tragedy. It was, however, what they had, and she was happy for it all the same.

[Penny]

Rene laughed, a primal expression of happiness and the release of long held tension. A part of his mind gibbered at him that this was a terrible idea and it would all end in disaster but he resolutely ignored it. Besides it wasn’t exactly like everything was going swimingly as it was. The intelligent bet was still on both of them dying long before the reached saftey. Grinning like a school boy he scooped Solae up in his arms, careful to avoid the worst of her hurts, and carried her towards the doors to the cargo bay and the living spaces at the rear of the ship. A red tell tale flashed above the hatch.

“I am sorry Master Quentain,” Mia said, sounding genuinely apologetic, borderline pouty, “but the cargo bay was depressurized during lift off.” Rene remembered the burst of fire from the jumper. Doubtless it had blasted holes in the walls that had spilled the atmosphere once they reached vacumn. He paused before the door and shook his head in wonderment.

“Of course it was…”

It took Rene the better part of an hour to fare rough patches across the dozen or so holes that had been punched in the starboard hull. Bright flashes of metal showed where the ricocheting rounds had splashed across long uncleaned surfaces. The air suit he had worn to work in the airless hold was in remarkably good condition, perhaps not surprising given the wretched state of the rest of the Bonaventure. The patches were pieces of scrap metal welded in place and then sprayed with a combination filler sealant. The yellow orange sealing foam gave the impression that the starboard side of the hold had a bad case of acne, but Rene was confident enough that the improvised repairs would hold. The upside of their graceless exit from New Concordia’s atmosphere was that the explosive decompression had carried with it most of the trash that had littered the deck, sucking the detritus free in a blazing tail of fire as they had broken orbit. It even smelled better now that most of the waste products that had been caked to the lower floors of the hold had been peeled off by decompression, though the slight smell of wastes still wrinkled his nose once Mia pumped fresh air into the newly sealed chamber.

It was with a sense of considerable accomplishment that the pair of fugitives finally made it to the captain's cabin. The term seemed rather grand for the small metal box with a single bed and desk bolted to the deck but Rene had been on enough ships to know that space was at a premium. The cabin had been emptied of most of its contents by the same blast that emptied the hold, though Rene doubted that the former captain had personal possessions that they would have been interested in.

As Mia had said, the shower cubicle was too small for the pair of them, but with a little creativity they were able to run it with the door open. Rene improvised a small damn out of towels and bedding to keep from flooding the cabin and he gently helped Solae to wash, paying particular attention to the various scrapes and contusions she had picked up. He was still giddy with relief and excitement and there was an undeniable pleasure in helping to wash her naked body. Although the fact that Mia might be watching made him a little uneasy it was impossible to hide his own excitement. Solae noticed that as well. The captain’s bunk turned out to be more than big enough for the both of them.

Rene awoke to a polite clearing of the throat. Or at least that's what he presumed it was supposed to be. The poor quality of the speakers leant the sound a staticy crackle that made it sound like the speaker had a hairball. Solae stirred beside him, eyes blinking open with sleepy contentment. Rene marveled at her beauty, fingers idly running through her golden hair.

“I am sorry to interrupt,” Mia purred, “but we will be reaching the jump horizon within thirty minutes.” Reluctantly Rene sat up and reached across to where the medkit he had brought to tend Solae’s wounds sat. He peeled open the seal and withdrew a healing salve and began to apply it to the worst of her abrasions.

“We need to decide what our next move will be,” he told her as he gently worked the gel into one of her bruises. They had been so consumed with getting of New Concordia that they hadn't had the time to think beyond that. Now that the Gids knew they had a ship, Rene didn’t doubt they were readying their own vessels for pursuit, and if other systems were involved in this rebellion, that they would spread the word of Solae and her priceless genetics to their allies.

[Syrenrei]

"We should keep this ship as long as we can," Solae sighed. The sensation of the gel being rubbed into her bruises, which were fading much more quickly than they might have otherwise, was soothing. Although the topical treatment had been fashioned to both break down the blood beneath the skin and relax strained muscles, it was Rene's touch that was more appealing. Every action conveyed a protective tenderness that made her believe no matter what the universe thrust at them they would not just survive but flourish. Nobility was fond of the axiom mind over matter as a solution to any issue that may arise. It was not as applicable a thought as they professed but the marquise could not deny emotional and mental satisfaction hastened recovery.

"With all due respect, Lady Solae..." Mia began to object.

"I know it's not quite what you deserve, Mia, but there are benefits," the diplomat stated with a casual yawn. She was reluctant to do anything more than lay on the slightly lumpy bed and sleep an entire day away. What little slumber she had found in the last twenty-four hours was woefully inadequate compared to the lazy weekends she used to enjoy. "If we were traveling in luxury spacecraft it would be highly identifiable. The smugglers chose this one for a reason and it wasn't just price. A hobbled together exterior makes it less identifiable with all the other run down vessels on the fringes of the galaxy. If we can find a way to cover up the name it will be nearly impossible for anyone to recognize it from even a detailed description."

"I understand," the artificial intelligence replied with a slightly more sullen tone crackling through the nearest speaker.

"We'll need to refuel and get some supplies for repairs and upgrades, things we couldn't anticipate until the Bonaventure arrived," Solae admitted with a groan as she sat up. A line of pale purple, remnants of an altercation with slavers and slamming into the side of her console seat on take off, rippled with her movement. The diplomat did not bother to cover herself as it was abundantly clear there was no need for modesty in current company. "From the jump horizon what is the closest habitable planet?"

"Kasperth II has recently completed terraforming," Mia chirped happily.

"How recently? Has it been colonized?" the scion asked skeptically with furrowed brows.

"Records do not indicate that the infrastructure process has been completed as of yet. They are currently in Phase 3 of 17, which includes transport of raw materials in select zones for the construction of utilities for pre-planned central cities. It is estimated they will move onto Phase 4 in approximately twenty-nine days."

"What's the next closest option?" Solae asked. Theoretically a recently terraformed planet would have a minimal presence of any imperial militia. Without native settlers what few people would be on the surface would be laborers who were being paid to do all the less than glamorous grunt work necessary before any civilization could be established. They would be easier for Rene to overtake if the need arose but they wouldn't have the things that were needed to keep the couple moving towards central systems of the Stellar Empire. There was too much risk with almost no chance at any gain.

"Panopontus," Mia replied simply. "Approximately 82.39% of the surface is covered in water. Land masses include numerous self-sustaining archipelagos that govern themselves independently with imperial oversight. Exports include precious gems, algae, oils derived from sea creatures, varieties of seaweed, berthove stalks, both raw and processed, and eishrelas coral."

"Estimated time of travel?" she inquired. While Panopontus did not sound like an ideal destination she had no illusions that perfection would land in their laps. They would need to make at least a couple hops to obtain enough fuel to make the long journey to more firmly defended imperial space. With any luck they would find a communication array intact that would warn the empire before their arrival of the insurrection and spur a quick response. The more time it took them to get a message to authorities meant more damage done and more lives lost to rebellion and chaos.

"26 hours, 53 minutes, and 17 seconds. Would you like me to set a course, Lady Solae?" Mia sounded giddy at the prospect. Living beings might be happy being idle but a machine was hard-wired to value constant action.

"Yes, thank you Mia. Well, my dear fiance, what do you think of unpacking some of those crates? We have some time to make this feel more like a home away from home. Less than ideal I admit, but..." she started. The marquise paused as she realized that she was all but suggesting nesting. It was silly to think of a freight ship, one still half filthy, formerly manned by the dredges of the human race, to be a cute little lovers' bungalow. Had anyone else been in her company she would have scoffed at the insanity of viewing it as such an oasis. She hadn't packed any home decor to disguise their surroundings as a cozy abode, yet somehow just sorting what few things they possessed into storage felt like a wonderfully mundane intimate task to do together.

[Penny]

As a child and even as a young man, it had never occured to Rene that he would ever need to clean anything. Menial work was, definitionally, beneath the son of a powerful aristocratic family and thus was the province of servants. The fact had not been lost on his instructors after his fall from grace, most of whom had taken every opportunity to pile such duties on to a son of privilege unexpectedly brought down to their level. Rene had borne the intended insult with the same quiet stoicism that had kept him moving following Amelia’s death, but to his own amazement he found that there was a part of him that enjoyed cleaning things. Perhaps it was a twisted reflection of his aristocratic upbringing, a desire to bring order to a chaotic universe. Maybe he should publish a paper of political theory which couched the noble classes as the janitors of the cosmos. The thought made him smile still wider.

Whatever else they had been, the former crew of the Bonaventure had been pigs. Decompression had cleared most of the loose trash but filth and the grime of years of neglect was not so easily vanquished. Rene solved the problem by bleeding steam off the fusion bottle and using a spare compressor to pressurize it and create an impromptu steam jet. They were aided too by the ships former trade as a slave ship. There were bottles of cheap general purpose antiseptic stacked in a chemical locker that had survived the venting as the Bonaventure broke atmosphere. Rene presumed that the slavers had dumped the stuff over their victims as a sort of quick and dirty decontamination. He couldn’t imagine it was very effective, but very few microbiologists worked in interstellar sex trafficking

The drain in the center hold of the ship was also an advantage. Blackish water ran down into the improvised sump as Rene methodically steamed the filth from the Captain’s cabin, the two crew bunks, and the small galley. Solae followed him, liberally applying antiseptic with an simple spray bottle that had once been used to apply lubricant. They gave it a few minutes and then went back over it with steam, sluicing the run off into the hold where it drained down to the recyclers. Rene didn’t want to think too much about the condition of the systems. They had been in good enough repair to keep the ship aloft and he had to assume they would continue to do so. The whole process made the ship smell of ionized water vapour and antiseptic, but that was a considerable improvement on human filth.

“Home sweet home,” he told Solae as he closed the valve to the hose and set it down. The galley and living quarters didn’t quite sparkle, but the improvement was remarkable. The walls were of a greyish white composite and the floor of a darker grey almost black rubber, almost hard enough to be plastic with a slight cross cut grip pattern inlaid to make them less treacherous in an emergency. The galley was old but functional consisting of a pair of sinks and several all purpose processing stations. They were the great great great great grandparents of the sophisticated units Lord Armon had used in his kitchen, albiet grandparents from the shabby working class side you didn’t mention in polite society. Most of the equipment was long disused but Mia assured them it was operable. There were even some supplies, mostly very unhealthy instant meals with inbuilt catalytic cookers, the kind of thing they had found half rotting on the floors when they boarded. It didn’t appear that they fed the slaves anything other than IV nutrient mix which Rene wasn’t keen to try.

There was something delightfully domestic about unpacking the crates they had bought aboard into their newly acquired home. It was simple stuff of course, cast off clothing that might more or less fit. Packets of instant soup and other dry processed food that could last a long time, some basic tools and a couple of portable computers. The cabin had a small dresser with two drawers. Rene took the bottom one and crammed in his few possessions into the drawer. He deliberately left the weapons in the crates. He didn’t want to think about killing right now. On New Concordia he had killed for the first time, he didn’t have an exact count of how many people he had shot or stabbed and that bothered him a little. Violence was not something the upper classes gloried in, at least not directly but Rene had to face the fact that he appeared to have an aptitude for it. His father had once told him you could never be great at something you didn’t love. It wasn’t a particularly comforting thought.

“There,” Rene declared as he closed the drawer. He flashed a wild smile, fully relaxed for the first time since the Rat Trap.

“It isn’t exactly a manor, but it is ours,” he went on, making a grand gesture to take in the rather cramped cabin. Idly he wondered if they could break down the bulkhead and add the space to the cabin. Home improvement. Solae laughed and flopped onto the bed. They had stripped the dirty sheets and replaced them with some silks they had bought from the plantation. Rene suspected the Syshin who packed them had probably thought of the fine fabric as a trade good rather than bedding but he was glad not to have to sleep on the threadbare rags the captain had been using.

“Ours?” she teased, “Didn’t we steal it?” Rene grinned as Solae rested her head on her palm, her hair falling onto the greenish silk of the sheets, casually gorgeous.

“Well pursuant to regulation 122-A of the Fleet code, I as the senior military official on, or slightly above, New Concordia, am empowered to seize such resources as I deem necessary in time of war. I hereby declare this vessel and Imperial Warship,” Rene said, affecting the pompous are of a stereotypical senior officer.

“Excuse me Master Quentain, but I know of no such regulation,” Mia said with the breathy enthusiasm of an admirer impressed by his knowledge. Rene snorted, he had made the regulation up as part of the joke, a fact that Mia had obviously missed.

“Well then I guess we stole it and it is a pirates life for me,” he said with a roll of his eye for Solae’s benefit. It was actually tempting in its way. They had a ship, they could light out for anywhere, Lucky Space or the Belvian Reaches, and try to work her. Live like tramp traders, making a living in the vast reaches of the Milky Way. Maybe they could even track down some of the trafficked Syshin, return them to their people. He and Solae could leave the politics and the war behind and start a new life. The spark, so alluring for its brief moment, sputtered out. They both had a duty to the Stellar Empire, she couldn’t run from her rank and if he hared off into the far flung corners of space he would be a deserter. It was vanishingly unlikely that he would ever be caught and prosecuted, as far as anyone knew he was dead at the Rat Trap with the rest of his unit, but he would know. His life had been shattered by a crime he didn’t commit, but the fact that he was innocent had kept him going when all hope had seemed lost. He didn’t know how he would go on if he used his second chance to actually dishonor himself in the same way everyone believed he already was. Everyone except Solae.

[Syrenrei]

Solae laughed lightly as she rolled on her back and stared up at the unremarkable barren ceiling of the captain's quarters. Obtaining decorations, such as paintings or tapestries, was low on their priority list. The Bonaventure had just been cleaned but she was already dreaming of what trivial disagreements they might have over domestic affairs. They had spent so much time trying simply to survive, to evade the forces of the rebellion, to not be traumatized by all they had been made to endure psychologically, that there was much they did not know of one another. Ultimately the nuances of his likes and dislikes were inconsequential in the grand scheme of their relationship. There was no difference of opinion that would make the marquise even consider parting from the soldier that had repeatedly saved her life. Still the scion wanted to know more of her fiance no matter how irrelevant. Idly she wondered what paint colors he might object to or what styles of art he had fondness for. The more mischievous side thought of provoking him by making purchases after they landed without his input and then gauging his reaction. It spoke to how hard they had struggled that she looked forward to seeing him upset over something horribly mundane for a change.

"I wasn't completely honest on New Concordia," she admitted with a sigh. "I didn't give all of the liquid assets from the plantation away. Some of the funds were shuffled around a few times to make them difficult, if not impossible, to trace and placed into an account with an alias. They won't be able to touch most of my wealth, that's too well-secured, but I couldn't rule out the possibility they could monitor the trusts for hints of where I've escaped to. Any expenditure could tip them off."

There were several reasons Solae was absolutely certain she was not monetarily poor. The rebellion was unknown to the Stellar Empire as far as she knew and they would want to keep it that way until they were absolutely prepared for full-on war. Even declaring the murdered nobles dead would alert the appropriate departments that there was something foul afoot in their sector. While those on New Concordia itself could pillage and ransack homes, there were significantly more obstacles in getting to the currency held in the name of anyone of stature. More than once Solae herself had trouble verifying her own identity for access. Obtaining her inheritance would be a notoriously lengthy process that would require multiple hearings, enough documentation to make one's head spin, and a dozen sworn attestations. There were many things that the empire arguably did wrong but failing to prevent their upper echelons from fraud was not one of them.

"I know you disapprove, but desperate times call for desperate measures," she explained, "like becoming a pirate." The jest softened the blow of her robbing depraved slavers. Without looking she could tell the virtuous male was frowning at the lows she had sunk to but neither of their hands were clean. It was not as if they actually had a legal reason to do even half of what they had done on the planet they had just escaped the surface of. "It will help us afford some of the things we need, but since we don't know what else we'll run into before we make it to a functional communication array or a fortified Imperial outpost, we should probably find temporary employment on Panopontus. My hair can't hold dye and we don't have any wigs so it might be hard for me to hold down a job without attracting unwanted attention. If you don't mind scouting out what we're dealing with I'll stay on the ship and start installing some upgrades for Mia. It's not something I've done before but I am sure she can walk me through the basics."

"That would be much appreciated, Lady Solae," Mia purred seductively. If they had not known that it was an artificial intelligence system responding to her offer it would have almost have sounded as if it was a lady of the night responding to a proposition. Adjusting Mia's settings to not be so overtly sensual was rather tempting- but she wasn't sure she wouldn't miss the inappropriate humor of her intonations. She wasn't truly sentient but in her own way Mia had become almost human to the couple. Modifying her too extensively felt like performing a lobotomy to Solae.

"And there's something else important I want to discuss with you," the marquise said as she turned back onto her side. The solemn expression of her visage and timbre of her voice suggested it was a grave matter. They were already in lockstep as to the topic of marriage and children were a biological impossibility given Rene's sterility. What she sought to address was just as significant to their future, however, and she was under no illusions as to how receptive her consort would be as to this particular plan. "Panopontus should have a library with an archive. It won't be as extensive as anything on a primary planet of the central sector, but it should go back at least a decade, and have news as recent as the last month. I'd like to start looking into the accusations that were made against you. I realize that you have moved past those events, but I can't stand idle and not try to exonerate you. If you were in my situation I can't imagine you not meddling," she pointed out.

Solae didn't quite know where to start investigating a murder. Rene had not told her any of the details and so she would have to dive into records by his name alone to find the date or the deceased. There were inherent risks that, even on a remote planet, someone might take note of the surgical precision of her focus and access. But she was incapable of pretending that she would let his soiled name stand. She could be killed tomorrow, or the day after, or in a week, and any gains she made into clearing the charges would help her soul rest in any afterlife that might await. Were they both to survive the rebellion there was no chance of building lives for themselves, much less a family, until there was a more positive resolution. Even if Solae wouldn't admit it aloud, she also could use a distraction from the death and destruction of the last week that she had even less control over. Shifting to a new problem could provide clarity in the relief if provided from the Duke's machinations.

And as painful as it might be to have Solae poking around his past, she wanted to help Rene more than the Syshin of Amber Horizon. She believed in his innocence. She wanted everyone to see the profoundly handsome, inherently noble, courageous, and honest man that was before her at this moment.

[Penny]

Rene was struck by a blizzard of emotions. For a moment he had a vivid picture of Solae laying across the captain’s bed dressed in a gown of white gossamer silk, blood spreading down the front from stab wounds, her beautiful eyes glazed and vacant, red lips lolling open in the final exhalation of life. He felt his facial muscles jerk into a grimace that made his face momentarily look like a skull. He squeezed his eyes shut at the look of alarm from Solae and forced himself to relax, to ignore the tingling in his fingertips and the queasiness of unburned adrenaline flooding his system. It was like this before the moment of action, but he had no proper vent to give to the surging cocktail of pain and hormones. A slight tick began to pull at the corner of his cheek as lactic acid began to build. He exhaled deliberately.

“Solae, I don’t know…” Rene trailed off as he realised that among the things he didn’t know was how to finish that sentence. He took a seat beside her and glanced at the chronometer, there was still thirty standard before they reached the jump horizon. It would have been weakness to put the question off in any case and he was ashamed of himself for seeking an excuse. Instead he opened his mouth and began to speak.

“About five years ago...

Something was wrong. Renard du Quentain, Chevalier of the Steallar Empire realized. The flutters of nerves that had been chewing at his stomach all evening began to grow, converging into the proverbial hurricane. Amellia Siennaferara, Countess of Astragol, Jewel of the Southern Cross, and handmaiden and cousin to the Empress Mercedez Viatrente and the sole desire of his young heart was late. He paced back and forth on the shore of the artfully sculpted pond. They were within the walls of the Imperial Palace itself, not a great feat, given the palace covered several hundred square miles of Capella’s temperate northern continent, but a rarefied position in an empire covering thousands of known planets. The pool was dark under the soft violet glow of Capella’s moons, soft ripples throwing back prickles of light as the wind stirred them. Behind him trees of soft rose coloured crystal rose to twice the height of a man before branching out in an intricate lattice of tendrils more akin to a net of snowflakes than a canopy.

Amellia was supposed to have met him here by the first hour past Compline with her answer. Their courtship had been whirlwind by the glacial standards of the court, having known each other less than a standard year but both of them were sure of what they wanted and willing to face to social consequences. The Du Quentains were a powerful family, they very match Siennafaraia family might have sort for their daughters. Martial glory was much in fashion after the death of Phillipus Viatrente, two years ago. The former Emperor had been a timid man, intimidated by the aging generals and admirals who had served his grandfather so abely and had largely distanced such people from court. His daughter though was made of sterner stuff and families like the Du Quentain’s could look forward to great things during her reign. A relationship of the heart was unusual at this level of the nobillity, or at least purely of the heart but Renard and Amellia were determined to follow theirs.

Or were they? Renard felt a cold knife of doubt slide into his ribs. She was already nearly an hour late, and as the minutes marched on his apprehension grew. When the full hour had passed Renard faced the inevitable, Amellia wasn’t coming. Perhaps she had been delayed by some business she couldn't escape? The young chevalier clutched at the thought, the way a dying man clutches at a branch, even one he knows is too small to save him. With a decisive turn he strode from the grove and headed to Amellia’s quarters.

The luxurious quarters of the Empresses’ Handmaidens were located on the souther foot of the towering Spire of Morning, where the Emperor’s reigned, carved from a single block of marble, miles in diameter, the boulevards were lined with fragrant rosewood trees, and gently sculpted terran olives. Soft lyrical music drifted from several of the smaller dwellings that lined the way. Musical accomplishment in a variety of instruments, and particularly song were requirements for Handmaidens. Indeed it had been Amellia’s voice, soaring like pure silver, that had first caught Renard’s eye. She was beautiful of course, but in a place where everyone was sculpted to express their own family view of physical beauty, it took a special something.

Amellia’s townhouse was on the corner where two of the wide streets intersected at a square. Vaulting dolphins, statues but so realistic they could have been alive, leaped skywards to form a fountain at the center of a small square. Renard saw that Amellia’s home was quiet and lightless. His heart lurched as he imagined her at the pond, wondering where he was, having missed him in the dark or due to some comedic misunderstanding. For a moment he hesitated with indecision, but having come this far was unwilling to give up. He asccended the door and laid his hand on the intricate carved inlay on the door. Genetic codes, given to him by Amellia, disolved the door in a shimmer of light, as though a mirror had wavered to perfect clarity. Quickly he stepped inside and the lights came on in the hallways.

“Amellia?” he called softly as he moved through the painstakingly furnished rooms, casting about for her. There was no response save for a low hum of electronics. The house had no AI, such things were forbidden so close to the Empress, security risks that a clever spy or assassin might exploit, so he couldn’t simply ask for her location. Instead he crossed to a dresser of ancient polished teak, opened a draw and withdrew a slender rod that combined the function of communicator, data interface and personal address system.

“Location of Amellia Siennaferara,” he said curtly, a nervous catch in his voice.

“Lady Amellia is at home, she is not currently recieving guests,” the automated response replied. Renard frowned. How could she be home. The twisting knives of doubt grew sharper. Almost reluctantly he ascended the stairs to the second level, passing holographic stills that depicted landscape scenes of Pracalcus and other worlds where the Siennaferara’s had interests. His nose wrinkled at the strange coppery scent on the air. Something, deep in racial memory, far from palaces and sculpted landscapes, began to gibber a warning. He felt weak, moving forward became more similar to swimming through thick jelly than walking. The door to her bed chamber stood slightly ajar, the coppery scent grew stronger, almost overpowering as he approached. Slowly with infinite reluctance, he reached a trembling hand forward, hating himself for his weakness. Finger tips brushed the smooth grain of the wood, and the door, perfectly balanced on its hinges swung inwards.

There was blood everywhere. It dripped slowly from crimson pools on the silk sheets in several places, falling in slow drops which sounded like cannon shots even over Renard’s thundering heart. It ran in streams, filling the folds in the fabric before overflowing them in slow ripples. Amelia lay amids the spreading crimson stain. Her white gown, carefully picked out, her cosmetics expertly applied, her olive skin gleaming in the soft violet moonlight. A dozen deep cuts mared the priceless dress, plunging into the flesh beneath, each cut between the gathering of her breasts and the tapered finish of her waist. Her eyes were wide and sightless, her lips parted as in surprise or as though about to deliver some witty retort. Renard knew he should have been screaming, but he watched from outside his own body as he walked across the floor to her bedside. He knelt down beside her, face white with shock and reached for the hilt of a familiar dagger. The weapon was old, a steel blade with a white ivory handle inlaid with gold. In its hilt stood an emerald, hollowed and engraved on the inside with the Du Quentain crest. It had been a gift for her. The weapon was sticky in his hand its hilt smeared with blood. His chest hurt from the effort of trying to bring forth a shriek that was too big to exist in the universe. It heaved convulsively as he tried in desperation to draw breath. There was another scream, from behind him, one of the maids come to check on her mistress. As though the first scream was a catalyst, Renard finally gave vent to a cry of rage and pain which might have been better suited to an animal than a man.

“There was no surveillance footage,” Rene explained in a dead voice, his eyes fixed on the bulkhead in front of him but focused nowhere in this universe. His voice was flat and bleak, colder and harder than Solae had ever heard from him. Recalling the events stripped away years of rigid compartmentalization that had kept the memories at bay. His fingers hurt and he was surprised to see they were gripping the sheets so hard that blood had run from his hands, leaving them white and pallid despite his soldiers tan. By increments he forced them to relax.

“That close to the palace there should have been something, but there was nothing, not even to convict me, but it was my knife and my DNA and fingerprints were everywhere. I had been there before, many times, I knew the codes. Later they came up with a story that it had been a crime of passion, a lovers quarrel gotten out of hand.” The bitterness of the interrogations, smiling intelligence officers who said they just wanted to help him. Hazy days of drug treatments and sleep deprivation. Endless variations of the same questions asked a thousand different ways.

“Solae… whoever did this whoever…” he struggled to force the words out but managed with a titanic effort, “whoever killed Amellia. They did it at the very foot of The Spire. The most secured, surveilled place in the human universe. I don’t know why they did it, but they had the power to make it happen, and well you know what an attack on a Handmaiden means.” By ancient custom an attack on one of the Emperor or Empress’ attendants was an attack on the sovereign, the gravest imaginable crime. Whole families had been obliterated for such offenses, galaxy spanning corporations dissolved in the blink of an eye.

“I tried looking into it of course,” he whispered hoarsely. Of course he had, as soon as he got out of the hell that was the first few months of Marine training he had chased down every source of data he could, but with his access codes expunged… dead ends every one of them.

“You can’t look into this Solae, whoever did this would kill you just to know you were looking.”

[Syrenrei]

Solae had been prepared for the tragedy that was verbally unraveled for her benefit by Rene. What she had not expected, however, was how jealous she found herself to be of the deceased Amellia. Petty as her feelings were, and as well as she kept them suppressed throughout his tale, she could not deny their existence.

Even by the strictest standards of the Stellar Empire Solae was one of the upper echelons of the aristocracy. What she had, however, paled in comparison to what late Amellia enjoyed before her untimely death. The marquise was no cousin to the empress, had not been appointed to the illustrious station of handmaiden, and had not resided within the walls of the palace proper. Both of her parents had been transferred to New Concordia out of want of distance from the primary planets; they were tired of being one of numerous noble families and instead sought to be big fish in the comparatively tiny pond of a smaller sector. Quietly they also knew that a remote location would also allow them more latitude in exploring certain hobbies and proclivities that would be noticed immediately in the courts where everyone was allegedly always watching. Regardless of their rationale, the Falia name carried a certain prestige that was undeniable, yet it had not afforded them the high honors held once by Amellia Siennaferara.

And more than being envious of handmaiden's accomplishments, she was envious of the love story that had been sung before she had been known to the soldier before her now. Solae did not expect, want, nor need to be Rene's first relationship, but to hear in aching detail of how enraptured the couple had been with each other stung. Much like a spouse of a widow might have insecurities about the husband that came before so she was having anxiety brewing in her heart. The two traveling in the Bonaventure had but a week and yet Amellia had been courted by Rene for an entire year. A year of dates, of romantic overtures, of moonlit strolls, of blissful days filled with the deepest of joys in finding a mate for one's soul. Rationally she knew she ought not to compare but it was impossible not to draw parallels. Suddenly Solae felt as if she were an intruder on a enchanting fantasy, complete with a heroine perfectly suited to the hero, to which she could never measure. She withdraw physically, pulling the sheet around her nude form for comfort as she tried not to be the interloper coveting the things of the dead.

"I wasn't asking for permission," she asserted with a sharper undertone than she meant. Rene was hurting; this was his past, not hers, and so she took a deep breath to stifle her bruised ego. The diplomat leapt to her feet, still utilizing the chartreuse silk as a makeshift garment, as she paced to expend the excess energy she now possessed from warring emotions. It was Rene that had lost perhaps the only true love. It was Rene that was accused of murder. It was Rene that had been forced into the Marines after he lost everything of value in his life.

"Lady Solae, I do not recommend walking so close to the jump horizon. It is my duty to remind you that, given your physical condition and Argon's records, you should rest to more efficiently recover. Would you like me to-" Mia chastised lightly.

"Thank you for your concern, Mia," the linguist interrupted, "but I am fine." Her assessment was subjective at best given the fading bruises, healing welts caused by proximity to heat, sutured forehead, and thigh wound that had re-opened no less than twice, but she was not in any imminent danger. Reflection on how atrocious her injuries must appear to a man that had once successfully wooed a handmaiden made her retreat to an opposite wall against which she leaned lightly.

"I don't dispute if I started my investigation on Capella I would be in imminent danger, but how far away we are from official imperial outposts can be our boon for accessing your records without notice, just as they are a hindrance to our reporting of the rebellion. If the murderer takes note of me they will have quite the distance to traverse before reaching us- and we are already in hiding. This is the best situation imaginable to look into this, Rene. Consider all the obstacles the true killer must overcome: conjuring an excuse for an unexpected lengthy journey, not having ample time for planning, locating us while we are actively evading rebels, coming close to New Concordia which they would have an obligation to report the revolt on, and then dealing with the military rushing in to crush the coup. There will much scrutiny after this is all over, Rene. The empress will demand answers as to who was on the planet, or near it, when the first assault was made, and each faithful servant thereafter. It will be hard to bury the truth." That anyone could commit homicide at the foot of the Spire suggested they could do so anywhere without notice. To her own ears her theory was not as encouraging as she hoped, but safety was not a guarantee for a scion that slaughtered a handmaiden and eluded every form of surveillance.

"There is someone out there, Rene, who got away with it, for reasons we don't know. It's possible that they were emboldened by framing you successfully. What is to stop them from continuing down that dark path? Could you live with knowing we had a chance to find them, to stop them, and elected not take it? What if the answers are there and we remain ignorant by choice- does that not make us complicit in whatever blood is spilled until the true criminal is imprisoned or longer among the living?" Solae shook her head slowly. "I can open doors I doubt you can before. I have a moral obligation to do this, Rene, one that I can not pretend does not exist. It may be too little too late but I believe in justice. If there is even the smallest chance I can keep someone else from suffering from the same fate as you and Amellia, or that I can salvage your name so that you could find happiness if I don't make it to safe space, or that I can expose the empress to the dangers that must be close to her, I have to seize it."

"I'll start by combing through the news in the months afterwards," she began, hoping that if he saw her approach he would see the merit and be less panicked over the inherent danger. "If we assume there was premeditation and motive then there was a desired outcome that is hidden in the changes of the imperial court. Once I can establish a timeline I will be able sort out any peculiarities and also pinpoint how you and Amellia would have affected the various outcomes if at all. The officers that interrogated you did not have luxury of waiting to see how the ebb and flow of society rippled in the wake of the loss. From there I will move from the outside inwards. My first few searches will be broad, and then I will narrow my focus, so that I will be as minimally detectable as possible."

[Penny]

Rene felt fear and regret coil in his guts. From the moment he finished speaking he realised that Solae wasn’t going to relent. Though she was as beautiful as a Sorrentian sunrise, there was a steel in her that he should have anticipated. What she proposed to do would put her in danger, not just here, although that was certainly possible, but when the reached Imperial space again. The thought of her being cut down by the same faceless assassins who had cut down Amellia filled him with an icy dread that tasted acid at the back of his throat.

“Solae…” he trailed off uncertain of how to go on. Of course she couldn’t let it go, he thought of her rage at the injustice done to the Syshin, at her determination to help them. But this meant more to her, she was willing to risk her own life to help ease his pain, to lift the burden of injustice from him. Love swelled inside of him like sunlight though a cloudy sky, brushing back the shadows of the past that his retelling had conjured. The fear was still there, opening these doors was dangerous beyond belief, but Solae knew that as well as he did.

“I don’t know what it would mean,” Rene admitted in a hoarse voice.

“Whoever did it might believe they have gotten away with it, they might not even be watching,” he went on. Rene didn’t really believe that, but it was possible that he needed it to be some dark conspiracy to justify what he been through. Maybe Solae was right and there was something that could be discovered. In any case the records they accessed out here would be archival, with communications down until the PEAs were unlocked by authorized users like Solae, word couldn’t get out of the Eastern Cross. Word could get in though, historical words at least. A little flicker of hope stirred inside of him. Of course once communications were restored …

“Solae, I love you,” Rene said earnestly. He reached out and took her hand, hoping he imagined the moments hesitation.

“Thirty seconds till transition,” Mia purred as though announcing she was almost in paradise. Rene cast a glance at the speaker but returned his gaze to Solae.

“If anything were to happen to you because of me I couldn’t live with myself.” The thought of the black depression that had seized him after Amellia’s death was nothing. Solae had come from nowhere a bolt of sunlight into his dreary existence, as dazzling as the stars. His love for her burned hot inside of him, and he was surer of it than any other fact in the universe. Amellia had been his first love but they had been children really swathed in tales of romance and the courtly games of the palace. What he had found with Solae was real and true, a fact that an older, more battered, but certainly wiser Rene recognized.

“Ten seconds,” Mia said with a breathless urgency. Rene pulled Solae close to him feeling her warm beating heart against his. He leaned in to kiss her as though by that act he could explain to her all the turmoil in his mind and…

The universe exploded. A billion billion Solae’s flew into a billion billion shards, like a stained glass window collapsing from a great height. Rene felt the flexing rip of reality all around him as the shards flew away in all directions like a dazzling mosaic painted by a mad man. Vertigo and claustrophobia screamed at his lizard brain to get down and jump up, leading to a sort of staggering tetanic convulsion that drove his head against the back of the bulk head. The jolt of pain reverberated for a moment and then the shards flew back together as though the whole scene played in reverse. He gasped as he came out of it. Entering jump space was always an unpleasant experience, though Rene would be the first to admit that this one was particularly unpleasant. You never got used to it, though veteran spacers grew better at dealing with the phenomenon. Jump space, the alien interstices between the quantum states of the human universe, was theoretically no different than regular existence but Rene knew that after a few days psychological problems would begin to develop. Crews that stayed under too long had been known to be driven completely insane. Marines jumped for short hops wherever possible.

“Solae… Solae are you ok?” he groaned.

[Syrenrei]

"I'll be fine," she murmured. The jump horizon had made her dizzy, disoriented, and confused, but it was not worse than their ascent into space that had thrown her completely unconscious and pushed her to the precipice of death. There was something depressing in the fact there was very little possibility their future could comparatively worse than what they had endured.

Craving physical affirmation of Rene's feelings the diplomat crawled into the soldier's lap and laid her head against his chest. A long curtain of aureate splendor hung behind her shoulders as she steadied her breathing to match his. Once they had the luxury of worrying about it she would need a trim; some of the tresses had been singed and created any unintentional layering effect at the ends. With her legs curled up on the sheets and her thighs upon his she felt comforted. He did not need to embrace her to have this soothing effect on his fiancee. Rene's touch alone was comforting. That he was here, and alive, and cared for her was an anchor of security among the looming threats of a haunting past and war-stricken world.

The late Marchess Falia and Marquise Falia had not been as cold as other members of the aristocracy. Young nobles were rarely directly raised by their parents. Servants and education professionals reared the elite youths from birth, when they were monitored by anywhere from one nanny to a small team of them, to their last year of higher study, when they were coached by personal attendants, tutors, and counselors in politics alongside more traditional studies. The higher the stature, the more emphasis that was put on discipline, and the more distant the family might be so as to encourage independence and emotional control. Certainly some broke these ranks. One bloodline of Dukes and Duchesses were notoriously enmeshed from one generation to the next. Solae had once been thankful that she had ever been hugged or her brow kissed when some of her peers never had. Now she was greedy for more than had been offered to her. Even Lord Armon had been a product of his environment and, when not trying to instigate intercourse, didn't waste time with soft romantic reassurances like cuddling. Like her other male suitors he had shown restraint. Perhaps it was because of their situation that Rene allowed himself to be so tender and vulnerable. The marquise found it much more likely, however, that they were both rebelling against societal expectations in their own way both inside and outside their relationship.

"I would like to reiterate my suggestion that Lady Solae retires for the evening," Mia cooed with her typical inappropriate sensual tone. While she actually meant sleep her intonation was suggestive of a repetition of the events that followed the linguist's earlier shower.

"Tell me about the Du Quentains," Solae said to Rene, clearing ignoring he sage wisdom of Mia.

The artificial intelligence system was not wrong. When her companion had been in the Rev Chamber, which had healed him and also conveyed the benefit of slumber, she had been engrossed in Argon's systems erasing all evidence of his Syshin slaves. The stars outside made it impossible to determine time but she had been awake longer than a standard day she was sure. Had that not been the case there would have still been a strong argument for seizing the opportunity for sleep- a near death experience was indicative of a body that was under strain and duress. Sooner rather than later she would need to give it respite if she wanted to keep her strength.

"I'll find out about them if I am going to research the courts. What are your parents like- are they alive? Do you have siblings? Cousins? Are you or were you close? What did they think of the charges against you?" Not only was she curious about the lineage she may eventually marry into, there was the chance, however small, that Amellia was not murdered because someone sought to kill her alone. It may not have been any coincidence that the chevalier was framed- he could have been the real target all along. More than once a noble had benefited from the disgrace from another. Solae felt guilty asking Rene with an ulterior motive but she had to know who benefited from his downfall just as much as she needed to know who benefited from Amellia's death. The first focus of her investigation would be both the Siennaferaras and du Quentains.

[Penny]

Rene sat back squeezing his eyes shut in an attempt to banish the last unpleasant effects of the jump. No one who had been bought up in the Imperial arisocracy was ever very far removed from the reality of their family lineages. Familal connections and marital alliance we're stronger and more binding than any legal or corporate contract. Even someone like Rene, who had spent half a decade trying to actively forget his family, was still much closer to the aristocratic ideal than he would like to admit.

He didn't want to talk about his family, particularly if it meant putting Solae in further danger, but she did have a right to know about her theoretical future marriage allies. Rene took a deep breath and squeezed Solae's hand.

"The Du Quentains are a old Capellan family, back to the Collapse." Most of the work old Noble families at least claimed to trace lineages back to the catostopic war which had ended the Terran hagemony over the human Galaxy. Rene had seen the ancient immigration records which listed a Major Leon Quentain as the second in command of Colonial security when the Cappelan colony was founded. He had also seen the after action reports which described how Julian Du Quentain had ordered his men to open fire on hungry citizens during the collapse. Maybe he wasn't so abnormal for his line, maybe the killing and the violence on New Concordia was true to his family rather than diverging from it.

"We are one of the old millitary families who fought in the Shism. My great grandfather was one of Kolvic's captains," he explained referencing the inner circle of commanders who had fought the bloody protracted war. He felt uncomfortable, feeling as though he was bragging even though he was only laying out the facts.

"There are too junior branches, minor Cappelan Lords, four or five first cousins. My father, he pretty much holds them in contempt, poor relations." Rene remembered the hard and envious glances at his mother's funeral, men and women with the family features but none of the gravitas his parents were careful to exude.

"I am... Or was an only child, though I suppose it is possible that my father has had another child since my enlistment." Rene hadn't heard from his father since Amelia's death buy it made sense that the old man had made some arrangement for the succession. Rene's exact legal situation was murky the legal protection of the Marines was not intended for Nobles. Whether or not Rene was disinheritred was a legal question which would be beyond the power of a peniless soldier to pursue.

"My mother died when I was nine, an anyrisim. The maternal line is Cassek, but mother came from a fairly junior branch. They are pretty far removed from the title." He quirked a grin.

"I don't know how much any of this is helping."

[Syrenrei]

"It helps," Solae reassured him firmly. "When we get to Panopontus I can look up your father and see if he's remarried in the last five years or had any children," she said more quietly out of respect for the conflicting emotions this information might evoke. Though he might have put distance between himself and the du Quentain patriarch, she knew he must have mixed feelings about the possibility of a half-sibling. It was likely the senior aristocrat had purposefully produced a replacement heir to secure the future of his bloodline. The marquise was not certain how she would feel if she were in Rene's situation, knowing that she had been written out of familial history, that there was a chance of an innocent child being conceived and borne only to usurp her former position, and that she had been utterly abandoned by the people who ought to have believed in her the most.

For the murder of a normal peasant there might have been a few limited motives to consider. On occasion she had heard a case stalled because they could find no motivation for the crime committed. Solae's head was spinning as she realized that the possible motives for Amellia's death, and the subsequent framing of Rene, were so numerous she could spend the rest of her life eliminating them one by one and still not have her answer. The killer could be a jilted suitor of Amellia's, a jilted suitor of Rene's, someone who simply who was full of fury towards one or both of their families (for either a real or perceived slight), a member of a noble line that benefited from Amellia's death, someone who benefited from the du Quentain lineage being tarnished, someone who sought to humiliate the empress through piercing her security, or even someone who might gain from one or both heirs being removed from the equation. It was unlikely that a junior family would be able to get into the quarters of a handmaiden undetected; however, that anyone eluded detection ought to have been impossible. If Rene's father had taken a new wife and that selection was predictable, Solae could not write off the minuscule probability that the slaying was calculated for an alliance to be formed that have not otherwise occurred.

"My mother would have probably liked you," she sighed as she trailed a finger over his collarbone thoughtfully. "Before me she had two miscarriages. It's not something she talked about but I found out when I was a teenager- fifteen maybe? They both put off having children for years because they just assumed that, with as wealthy as they were, that there was no real risk in waiting. They arrogantly thought that they and their plans were invincible." Solae shook her head. Many of the details had been kept from her purposefully and she had been too afraid to look deeply into their past. What she did know was that they had made assumptions about the quality of the late marquise's eggs, either because she had been genetically manipulated to look younger, or because they thought bad things simply did not happen to a Falia, and this had been a crushing blow. Originally there was to be an heir and a 'spare' or two, but there had been sufficient complications in having Solae that neither had been willing to endure more failures for a second success.

"At first she only wanted me to marry above my station- she'd accept nothing less than a duke. Since I assume you were never in the market for a male duke, I'll let you in on a secret: most of the bachelors are insufferable. I threatened her with running away with the janitorial staff at the embassy a few times. After I kept rejecting her choices she finally relented and begrudgingly allowed me to have a wider selection," she chuckled at the memory. Solae had been a largely obedient child because, for the most part, she was given very reasonable rules and expectations. There had been little reason to rebel until the subject of a husband had been broached four days after her eighteenth birthday. Marquis Falia had not intervened in the dispute between his wife and daughter. She had never been certain it was because he was unwilling to offend either party, because he was apathetic, or because he understood there was little he could say or do to meaningfully impact the outcome.

"She had started to get paranoid that my threat was going to be a reality," she mused with a smirk, "that she would have to explain how a man who emptied wastebaskets and scrubbed the bathrooms clean was suddenly a Falia. Or that I would just never pick anyone and everything would go to my cousins. In her mind she had to protect me from her mistakes, including waiting too long, and that meant I was on clock ticking down incessantly. I can't lie and tell you that you'd be her first choice, but murder allegations or not, she would have been ecstatic." From where she had nestled in his arms she led out a deep breath of contentment as she felt the siren song of slumber impressing itself upon her mind. Tempting as it was she did not want to succumb just yet. She had learned more about Rene in the past half hour than she had in the entire week prior cumulatively.

"I like hearing about your family, your past, all of it," the linguist confided. "Even if it doesn't help me solve the mystery of what happened to Amellia, or why, I want to know all about you. Except perhaps any women you dated besides Amellia," she added quickly. "I'm not above petty jealousy, so those are a secret you can keep for yourself."