Chapter 1

Thaumor Galaxy

Ternal star system, planet of Ternal Prime

Capital city of Ternis, Pullo's bar

Year 984 746, New Imperial Era

Sarah downed her drink, and sighed as her implant suite, connected to a whole host of augmentations spread throughout her body, pinged her. A security alert ping to be precise.

She double checked the alert, and sighed even more deeply.

Oh you have got to be kidding me, she thought to herself.

"Hello Soris. What brings you here?"

The man walking up behind her froze, as did his two henchmen. He stared at her for a full second, before deciding that he at least owed her the courtesy of answering.

"You know what. You put a bullet through the head of the Silver Syndicate's boss on Syndal. They've got an 8-digits bounty on your head. Come on, you know the Silvies can be....reasonable, if given the right offer. Surrender yourself, we can work something out."

Now that's not exactly true, she told herself. Technically, it had been a short pulse of coherent electromagnetic radiation, in short a laser bolt. Not that most people cared about the difference, although the mess had certainly been harder to clean up, as contrary to popular belief, laser weapons powerful enough to pierce body armor didn't burn clean, cautherized holes through people. Rather they blew very bloody chunks out due to the way energy transfers worked. She'd studied that in the academy as to why battle lasers blew the crap out of starship armor.

Not that it really mattered, the man was as dead as someone could be, which was rather the problem at hand.

"Between us, or between me and them?"

Soris obviously considered her words carefully, before lightly shaking his head.

"I'm sorry, but I'm not giving up the bounty, for more reasons than the money. You know why."

"I know why."

She didn't even grace him with a glance as she tripped her implants' combat protocols, flooding her organism with combat drugs, and having the tiny, omnipresent wires spread around her body take over her muscles as she activated the fire plan she had been preparing in her virtual interface.

Boosted by the chemicals, and with the virtually instantaneous transmission speed afforded by her cables rather than her comparatively slow and clunky nervous systems, her body leapt into action. She pulled out her gauss pistol, and in one smooth, continuous motion, blew all three of their heads clean off, before moving to eliminate the other 3 thugs he'd left at the bar's entrance. Her aim was a bit less precise this time, if only because one had the reflex to actually dive for cover instead of just gawking at their dead comrades, but it only took one more shot. Diving for cover was usually a life saving reflex in a firefight....but she was using a gauss pistol, made to at least be able to harm someone in power armor, hiding behind a bar's couch wasn't going to save you.

Then she holstered the pistol, flipped a credit chip on the counter, and left in the horrified silence as the bodies dropped to the ground. She did not want to be there when system security arrived. It wasn't that she had much to fear from them directly -they were, as far as she could tell, relatively honest as far as such things went-, but the Silver Syndicate's bounty making it's way to Soris' ears meant that one of their representatives was in system, and once they realized their bounty hunter, along with his team, had ended up splattered all over the bar they'd send more, better armed people. Maybe even one of their own assault units, which would be...problematic. They probably wouldn't attack the system security post she would be held at for a statement, but the second she got out she'd be guaranteed to walk straight into the path of a laser cannon or 50 kilograms of C-96 explosives under the street. Thanks to her implants and various other augmentations, she was tougher than most people, but even she had her limits, and weapons meant to vaporize tanks would more than do the trick.

It took her less than a minute to find an autocab back to the starport, and less than an hour to reach her ship's landing pad. A simple command on her com implants sent the appropriate messages for her crew to gather at her ship for immediate departure. Unfortunately it wasn't something they were unfamiliar with. There was a reason everyone took their R&R near the space port.

She took a moment to stop and gaze at her ship as she arrived at the landing pad and stepped out of the cab, her implants automatically paying for the journey.

The Eternal Seeker was old. There was no denying that. In fact, it was much, much older than most people would guess...but that feeling of age could conceal a great many things.

Notably, before she'd been kicked out of the Alterian Directorate's Core Worlds -with a note that if she came back she was going to end up on the wrong end of a battleship's missile battery- she'd had it refitted to the highest Near Verge military standards on, well, nearly everything. 4 rapid fire gauss point defence guns, a spinal battle laser with the power to slag the pitiful pieces of scrap the locals called warships here, and 6 missile launchers with powerful enough acceleration rails to serve as railguns if need be. Backed up with a sensor array that could detect a ship under power anywhere within an entire star system, and a shield generator made to eat fusion bombs in the megatons range for breakfast, it was an impressive warship.

And it came in a package barely bigger than a in-system customs cutter, as her 'gunship' was 150 meters long and 50 in width. That was staggeringly big for planetary folks, but...she'd seen an Infinite Systems Federation 'super-destroyer' once. Compared to those star sized super-capital ships, everything was going to seem tiny to her.

She shook her head, and pinged the ship, and got pinged back before the handshake had even finished.

There was only one being aboard her ship that had the reaction time to do that. She sighed, and accepted the communication request that came with the ping.

Instantly, she...felt, more or less, the presence within her implants. Then a young woman popped into existence to her right, leaning against the landing strut. She was about the same height as Sarah herself, 1m80, which was average for the heavily bioengineered beings called 'standard humans' nowadays, with piercing purple eyes with flares of a strange, holographic blue filling her slit pupils, and long, raven black hair. If their eyes didn't look so different -Sarah's being grey-, and a good chunk of her face hadn't been hit so badly she'd needed complete regeneration, giving her a skin tone difference, they might have even looked like sisters. They even fought over hair lengths, the AI being able to wear hers waist long because digital avatars didn't need to don space suits, unlike Sarah, for who shoulder length was unfortunately a limit she dared not challenge.

"I thought we were supposed to be there for at least 3 more days." Said the AI.

"We were." Simply replied Sarah. Elteria was a good friend, and a terrifying combatant, but she was also about as nosy as anyone could get, a trait that a lot of AIs seemed to share now that she thought about it. "I assume you already know what happened?"

"I have system security's preliminary report. I also have taken the liberty of crashing the local bounty board's systems. Not for long but....long enough. They should be back up by tomorrow."

Which probably meant that she'd encrypted to hell the computers of one of the most powerful organizations in the system. Bounty boards had a tendency to be purely local affairs -the Dominion frowned upon competition for it's precious mercenary board-, but they still had a surprising amount of reach for essentially mono-system organizations. At least the AI was usually very good at covering her tracks in this kind of stuff.

"Right. The ship? Everyone made it back yet?" Said Sarah as the ramp finally came down, and she walked up the metal stairs, quickly followed by the AI's avatar -which was purely a representation projected by her implants in her mind, and thus didn't have to bother with little things like the laws of physics, but she appreciated the politeness.

"Everyone is accounted for and at their battle stations. We're refueled and prepped for immediate take off. Still warming up the main drives, and, well, you know the hyperdrive is going to take a bit, but otherwise we're ready to go."

"Weapons?"

"Ready capacitors for the battle laser still charging up. The point defence guns and missile launchers are loaded and ready to fire however."

"Good."

Sarah stepped through the personnel airlock on her ship, and took a deep breath.

"Alright. Elteria?"

"Yes captain?"

"File in with traffic control, immediate departure. Then get us out of here. Flank speed, no need to alarm security's patrol boats, but...fast."

Which meant around 400 g of acceleration. A lot, but significantly less than the 600 g the ship's 'true' flank speed, which had a tendency to alarm people around them when used. Plus, the main drives were getting really old and Sarah would rather avoid to push them unless absolutely necessary. Besides, acceleration for similar sized gunships was a 100 g in this backwater hellhole of a galaxy, so they should be fine either way.

"Aye aye ma'am. Destination?"

"Find us some backwater system for the hyperspace jump. Not some station lost in the middle of the void, just....a quiet world. I think we're going to need to lay low for a bit."

"I have a list of those, just in case."

Somehow, Sarah wasn't even surprised.

*****

It took less than an hour for the transmission she'd been expecting to come.

"Ma'am. We have a transmission from an unknown source. Secure, highly encrypted...well, for this place anyway. Should I put it on?"

Sarah looked at her communication officer, a youngster named Conciniera Reihart, who everyone called Connie for short, and nodded.

"Yes, put it on the main projector."

The communication officer nodded, and a second later the hologram of the system disappeared, and a screen appeared in it's place. Sarah had to stop herself from sighing. These people didn't even have 3D scanners for proper holographic communication. Sometimes it amazed her they weren't just banging rock together in caves. At least they were in one of the myriad of dimensions colonized by humanity where light was instantaneous, and they wouldn't have to wait for the transmissions to slowly make their way across space, with minutes or hours before the reply reached it's destination.

"Miss Sarah Ciel-étoilé. It is...a pleasure to meet you." Said a non descript man on the screen. So non-descript in fact that every one of her instincts screamed 'SPY!' in big old capital letters. After all, how often was it in a universe where cheap bioengineering and complete body reconstruction surgery were commonplace that someone was exactly average height with brown eyes, auburn hair and a look so standard it almost came off of a encyclopedia page? "I am Faldor, of the Silver Syndicate. You know why I am here."

"I indeed do. Must I assume it has to do with the misadventure that mister Carmichael suffered?"

The jaw of the Syndicate agent worked for a few seconds before he regained his composure.

"If by 'misadventure' you mean you brutally executing him, then yes."

Sarah smiled. All in all, it wasn't a particularly nice smile.

"Mister Faldor, your Syndicate's ertswhile system director was a massive piece of shit that decided that the best way to ensure loyalty among his employees, including the mercenaries working for him, was to take one of their own hostage, and use them as his personal...toys in the meantime. You should be thanking me for having removed this worthless bastard from the face of the universe. Strangely enough, the Dominion's Navy and mercenary board agreed with me."

Faldor's face looked like he had bitten on a very, very bitter fruit. He was probably very well aware of Carmichael's excesses....and likely despised the man as well. But the bastard had been well connected among the Syndicate, what with his propensity to easily find young girls and boys to satisfy the vices of some of his more fucked up patrons. He really, truly was one of the bastards she was the most proud of having sent to meet his ancestors. She'd also captured his 'business list', with all of his victims and client on it. And promptly transmitted it to the Dominion. The Dominion Navy might have many issues, but they were death on slavery, and the sex trafficking of minors definitely fell under that. Not that they really had any choice, the Infinite Systems Federation having it made very, very clear millenia before that slavers were dead men walking, and if they ever had to clean up after a government because they'd turned a blind eye, there wouldn't be a government by the time they were done.

That was if the Imperial Frontier Fleet didn't get involved, in which case there was no guarantee there would be anyone left alive to tell the tale afterwards.

"I...am aware that Carmichael was less than perfect. Hence why we are having this discussion. The Syndicate is always pragmatic miss Sarah. We would be willing to overlook this...transgression, if the appropriate sum was to be transferred...along with a small favor."

Sarah smiled tightly. She already knew what that 'small favor' would be. It was, after all, the job Carmichael had tried to pressure her into taking by holding the life of one of her crewmembers over her head. And she wasn't desperate -or suicidal- enough to take it.

"Thank you, but no. Have a nice day mister Faldor."

And with an abrupt hand gesture towards her communication officer, the link went dead.

Elteria's hologram materialized by her side, gazing at the screen for a split second, before it was once more replaced by a representation of the star system. The advantage of having holographic projectors on the bridge, and throughout most of the ship, meant that the AI could pop in anywhere without having to invade people's implants. It also meant that she had gotten into the habit of never announcing herself. Not jumping every time she just...appeared was an acquired skill, one that you learned very fast when serving on this ship.

"Well that is one unlucky Syndicate enforcer." She turned towards Sarah. "We have cleared the planet's primary defence perimeter, and are outside of the world's gravitational interference. The hyperdrive is still cycling however. But....there is no pursuing ship. Even a high speed interceptor from the orbital docks wouldn't reach weapon range by the time the hyperdrive is ready."

"Good." Sarah looked at the system's hologram. She could have taken any bounty hunter -or mercenary- ship that would have taken such a hasty contract, as the more heavy gunships tended to want a bit more warning before attacking something, but she didn't want to have to kill more people today. Soris....hadn't quite been a friend, but he'd been a friendly acquaintance, and having to kill him over this had sucked. "I'll be retiring in my quarters then. You have the bridge, Elteria."

"Yes ma'am, I have the bridge." Formally said the AI. Which made no sense, since she technically was the ship, but protocol was protocol, and as motley as her crew was this was something they all still clung to. A semblance of the discipline and purpose that had once suffused them. A shadow of...something greater than themselves.

Sarah got up, and left the bridge, heading directly towards her cabin. She needed a drink. A much stronger ones than even Pullo's would have sold her.

*****

"Sir?"

Faldor, special enforcer agent of the Silverine-Xiulan-Kisnar Syndicate, lifted up his head from his console as his assistant poked his head through the door.

"Yes Roman?"

"The Eternal Seeker has jumped out sir. No interstellar flight plan."

"Any beacon pings?"

"Not at any of the ports we have bugged sir." Said the aid, before shrugging. "Not that it really matters. This ship doesn't really seem to care about how hyperspace is supposed to work."

Faldor winced. Unlike him, Roman wasn't cleared with the data he had been handed about the Eternal Seeker. While it looked like any old, battered mercenary gunship, it was anything but...and even the Syndicate's very expensive contacts couldn't tell them how well upgraded the gunship had been. They just knew that the ship had been refitted before it's departure from the Alterian Directorate...refitted in yards classified enough that he wasn't even sure most of the officers from the navy that officially owned them were even aware of their existence. Needless to say, the schematics, or any other form of concrete information one the ship's original capabilities, had been impossible to obtain. But, well....if the ship had been refitted there, it had probably gotten Near-Verge military standard systems at least. There was no telling how much of that still worked after 60 years of gallivanting through the known universe, but the Near Verge, the general designation for the largest and most prosperous nations outside of the highly isolationist and overwhelmingly powerful Infinite Systems Federation, were quite known for building things to last. So there were bound to be systems that were at least partially intact.

For example they knew that the Eternal Seeker moved through hyperspace at 3 times the speed even the best military drive of the Dominion could make, and that they were somehow able to get their hyperspace coordinates for a jump without having to ping hyperspace beacons. Granted, most ships could do the latter...within a maximum radius of around 40 astras, or light years for the old fashioned. They knew with reasonable certainty that the Seeker had been able to casually do a 300 astras jump without even asking the beacons for anything, which was a definite sign of an advanced set of sensors if nothing else. To say that having the best espionage asset the Syndicate had -it's network of bugs planted on hyperspace beacons throughout the galaxy to track incoming ships- completely nullified was annoying would be a considerable understatement.

"No, it doesn't seem to care. Very well." He sat up. "Assemble whatever hunters and scouts you can find. Before we can make her listen to reason, we need to catch her. And get me a communication channel to HQ, we're going to need some much heavier firepower for this."

"Yes sir." The aide politely nodded, and stepped out of the room, leaving the Syndicate enforcer alone with his thoughts, as he considered his options. None of them were particularly palatable, but....the death of a Syndicate system director necessitated a response. Besides that, her ship was really the only one that could pull the job, and there was no way they were convincing it's AI to come over to their side without Sarah. Replacing the AI would have normally been the solution then, but if as they suspected the ship had been refitted to Near-Verge military standards, even if the AI didn't burn the brains and circuits out of any hackers they sent after her -human or AI-, the ship was virtually guaranteed to have an emergency self destruct sequence if it was captured or it's AI destroyed, however old the upgrade actually was. And the ship wouldn't be very useful to his bosses as a cloud of expanding plasma.

Of course, if nothing could be arranged, then he would indeed have to kill her, but until that was firmly outside of his possibilities he'd rather not resort to that, if only for the quite frankly astronomical commission he had been promised should he get her to sign up. The trick was getting her to do so without planning to stick a knife in his back.

He contemplated the paperwork on his desk for a second, and sighed, pulling out a tablet. He was going to need to call in a few favors.