Chapter 28

Sidernis star system, inner system.

Dominion fleet base Sidernis.

"I beg your pardon?" Said the admiral, clearly taken aback by her response.

"You heard me. No. Hell no." Sarah held up her hand. "This isn't a slight against you, your command or your navy, admiral. But I have already given more than enough of myself to a navy, and it....didn't end well. Besides, my crew wouldn't approve of getting back under the command of a military, whatever flag they bear, and I already have enough administrative bullshit to deal with without having to add being part of a government bureaucracy on top of that."

The admiral licked his lips, and sighed.

"I...was afraid you'd turn me down." He closed the box, and returned it to his desk's drawer. "Ah, well, it was worth a try." He looked at Sarah, then shook his head as he chuckled. "Mercenary till the end eh? I can respect that."

"I hope so, because it isn't changing."

"Fair enough. Alright then. Captain, I would love to hire you to do such an investigation, but..."

"It would require me to constantly interact with your own officers, and they wouldn't take orders or advice from a merc. That's why you offered me the rank of commodore correct? You were planning on giving me enough authority to requisition ships and data as necessary?"

"Yes. As that investigation would require you to be in contact with a lot of my captains. Most of them wouldn't make an issue of it, but others..."

Sarah smiled.

"Others would bristle at even talking to a dirty mercenary, especially if that mercenary was doing a job they couldn't."

"Precisely." The admiral leaned back into his seat once more. "Which brings me at something of an impasse."

"Not...necessarily."

"How so?"

"I have acquired some....promising leads, about those suppliers." No point telling him about the divinium, that information was worth gigacredits right now, but if she managed to pin down where it was coming from and then selling that to the Dominion...she wasn't even sure what the price tag would be. "Nothing quite concrete yet -not in terms of locations or routes anyway-, but it could lead to one of their vital hubs."

The admiral leaned even further back, and slowly nodded.

"Would that, by any chance, have something to do with you nuking the debris of the New Arion Republic's so called 'Navy' into oblivion?"

Sarah hid a wince in extremis, and gazed back levelly at the admiral.

"It was simply a live fire exercise admiral."

"Of course captain, of course." Answered Soliensky, with the tone of someone who didn't believe a single word of it. "Well, in that case, I believe that concludes our business? I would press you for more information on your lead, but I understand the value of proprietary data. Besides, any official contracts would...restrict your operations."

Sarah nodded. The Dominion was fairly clear on what it allowed mercenaries under contract to its navy to do, and some of her methods weren't part of that. Besides, she was fairly sure the Dominion Navy had to have been infiltrated pretty thoroughly for this insane galactic insurrection to even be possible, and she'd rather not paint a target on her back if she could avoid it. Well, anymore than she already had anyway.

"Indeed. Still, be assured that if we find anything of note, we will pass it on to the Dominion...for a price of course."

"Of course. I'll make sure to have some contracts and money waiting just in case. With some...judicious backdating in case it proves necessary." The admiral sighed. "I hope you will succeed, captain. Many of my colleagues will disagree with my assessment, but I do believe you are one of our best hopes to unravel this....this conspiracy. For now at least."

Sarah blinked, then tilted our head.

"You've asked for reinforcements, I take it?"

The admiral chuckled.

"Who wouldn't? Unfortunately, the naval bases further into the Periphery are...unable to respond." Meaning that they were as deep in shit as the forces in the Fringe, which Sarah made a mental note of. Either the Dominion was far better at hiding the insurrections in the Periphery, or they'd guessed that the same thing was about to happen to it as the Fringe, and were taking pre-emptive measures. "Some squadrons have been dispatched from the Core, but...well, they themselves cannot necessarily spare that many ships. Thus, reinforcements are being dispatched from Elkator."

Sarah had to stop herself from whistling. Elkator was the Dominion's home galaxy, and thus where all of it's industrial might and military power was concentrated. It was also in serious political turmoil, thanks to some very stubborn people believing the civil war never really ended, or determined to start another one. That they were worried enough about the Protectorate to send their own ships to help meant they were thinking the problem was as serious as Elteria and her had feared.

"I...see. Thank you for the information admiral, it helps put things into perspective." And get her motivated to move faster, which was probably what the admiral had intended. After all if she witheld her information for too long the people she could sell it to might be dead by the time she was ready to send it. "Well, if that is all?"

"It is captain. I wish you a nice trip back to your ship, and fair stars."

"Thank you admiral. I hope the stars will shine upon you as well."

They both nodded at each other, and Sarah left the room, troubled.

*****

"Well, you know it feels nice to be vindicated, but sometimes it sucks to be right as well."

Sarah chuckled as she dropped down onto her seat, Elteria's hologram once again sitting on the AI's favorite spot on her office's desk.

"Yeah, I can relate. So, in short, we know the Dominion is about to get fucked, hard, and someone is seemingly coordinating it all."

"Yep. Oh, by the way, Gries has left a message for you. Our contract is complete, and we received the payment...as well as all the bounties from the Dominion, including the payment for the gunships."

"How much?"

Elteria didn't need her to precise she was talking about the bounties. Gries' contract had always been pocket change.

"150 megacredits."

Sarah nodded. That was nice, it was basically pocket change compared to the worth of the container of Divinium in the cargo hold, but still nice. Although there was no way she was selling it off for Dominion credits.

"Reminds me. Since we're setting a course for Stuggart, could you handle the paperwork with traffic control?"

Elteria winced. Unlike many star systems, they couldn't just scan Stuggart, and jump in without pinging the hyperspace beacon. Part of that was because the system was packed with twitchy, heavily armed mercenary warships, but another was that Stuggart traffic control was highly centralized...and more or less run by the defence fleet. A highly paranoid, extremely well armed defence fleet, one they really didn't want to tangle with.

Sidernis had a single fortress capable of dueling a battlecruiser, which they were currently docked to and served basically as the main anchoring point for the fleet base, although most of the repair yards and refuelling installations were anciliary stations.

Stuggart had almost a hundred of them. Plus their own defense fleet, which could have smashed every warship and fortress in Sidernis combined in a single missile volley. There was a reason Stuggart was considered to be the one and only Core World outside of the actual Core itself. Although to be fair given their usual clientele having a sizeable defense force was pretty much a requirement.

"I'll get right on it." The AI paused, before coughing. "You know what that will entail, right?"

"I...will deal with her, don't worry about it."

"Of course captain. Just making sure." The AI tapped her fingers against the desk. "Should we grant some shore leave on Sidernis?"

Sarah hesitated, then nodded.

"Yeah. But everyone moves around in groups of 6 minimum, as heavily armed as the local authorities permit. If any place in the area has agents of the Silver Syndicate, it's here."

"Fair enough. I'll ask Hector to have one of his marines accompany each group."

"That's probably for the best. I don't think we need to maintain a watch here as well." If nothing else no one was going to get past the Dominion's fleet base's defenses to get to them with a stars damned capital ship. "I suppose that also means I'll have to graft myself onto a group as well?"

"Well, you did say 'everyone' captain." Said Elteria, somehow keeping a straight face.

"Right. Well, I suppose I'll have to rein myself in for now then."

Elteria nodded fervently. Her captain was all business when she was on a job, but once it was done...She could, ah, enjoy the finer things in life at their fullest extent. Something to do with being a hunted mercenary, a profession without the highest of life expectancy even without the qualifier. She supposedly had a perfect memory, and even she couldn't quite make sense of all they'd done on Sepia before leaving, as her captain had dragged her around bar and nightclub after bar and nightclub. At least her android body had virtually infinite endurance, so she'd been able to scoop up her captain afterwards and bring her back to the ship, although to Sarah's credit she managed just fine on her own most of the time.

"Well alright, send the restrictions to the crew then." Continued Sarah, before stretching. "I'll find a group to attach myself to. Would you like to join me?"

The AI tilted her head, and shrugged.

"After a bit? Sure. But I have a lot of....personal downloads and purchases to take care of, so I won't join you for at least the first night."

Sarah hid a shiver. Knowing what went into the AI's entertainment downloads, she'd been very careful not to pry into what she brought as part of her personal purchases from the planets they stopped at. Elteria had an assigned personal cargo space, like every crew member, and a very sizeable one at that, given that she was the executive officer.

"Sure. Well, in that case, see you around."

"Of course captain." The AI's hologram hopped off her desk, saluted, and vanished.

Sarah smiled at her AI's antics, before looking at the pile of paperwork in her terminal....and deciding she might start reviewing which bars and other places of entertainment she might visit tonight. And contact some of her crew to see which group she could go with. She could leave the seemingly endless bureaucratic busywork for a bit later.

*****

"It's them alright." Said Faldor, special enforcer agent of the Silverine-Xiulan-Kisnar Syndicate, as he reviewed the image and data sent to him, before looking up at the holographic screen. Galanet live conversations were expensive as hell, but in that case he really couldn't care less. "You are authorized to engage, but be careful. We might only want the captain alive...but her crew is tightly knit. If you kill one of them..."

"The rest will come down on top of us like a swarm of locust, I know Faldor, I wasn't born yesterday." The woman shrugged, which did very strange things to her crystal like hair, making it glitter like a thousand stars as light bounced in every direction in the colors of the rainbow, thousands of tiny prisms turning her hair into a psychedelic mess. "My men and I will try to use stun weapons whenever possible, and shoot to disable otherwise."

"Good. The payment is ready, and the office on Sidernis has been warned to expect your delivery. Good luck and good hunting Rainbow."

The bounty hunter, her nickname unsurprisingly taken from her most striking feature, smiled.

"We don't need luck enforcer. See you tomorrow!"

"Of course." Faldor waited for the communication line to cut, before leaning back in his seat and sighing.

He stayed there for a few seconds, thinking, before pressing a holographic button on his desk. A few seconds later the door to his office opened, and his aide, Roman, stepped in.

"Sir? You rang?"

"Yes. You said that we had received word from our office in Stuggart that the Eternal Seeker had pinged their hyperspace beacon and filed a course with traffic control?"

"Yes sir."

"Then I'd like you to contact our local office, and have them advertise the bounty on the Seeker and it's captain to whom they see fit...as long as they keep it to people they can trust not to rat us out to the authorities." Some of the favors he'd called in had brought a surprising amount of information...Including that the Seeker's captain had numerous, and powerful, contacts in the system's various big players. He'd rather not garner their attention -or wrath- if he could avoid it. At least not before he had the captain and her ship under his thumb. "And tell them to contact Merio and start working on some...contingencies with him."

Roman licked his lips. The amount of bounty hunters on Stuggart was quite staggering, and it was a prime spot to hire people for...delicate operations. The local office could probably call up a small army if it wanted, although far fewer would be willing to operate on Stuggart itself, in fear of retaliation from the authorities. The planet serviced all mercenaries and bounty hunters, but its policy was very clear: barring a Dominion warrant, or the equivalent from the local authorities, trying to capture someone or conduct an assassination was going to end up with you becoming persona no grata really quickly...or a gently steaming corpse, depending on how much you'd pissed off system security.

And Merio...Merio was the ex-Dominion Navy commodore the Syndicate had hired away for forming special mercenary naval task forces from Stuggart for the Syndicate throughout the Protectorate. The Syndicate had it's own naval forces, but they were very careful about not advertising them. The Dominion tolerated a lot of things. Having semi-criminal syndicates rolling around with a fleet of warships wasn't one of them.

"Sir...didn't you just contract Rainbow to deal with this on Sidernis?"

"I prefer to hedge my bets. Besides, it is a bounty, we are not required to pay them anything if someone else completes it before they do."

"Yes sir. Of course."

The enforcer waved at the aide, and Roman retreated out of the room.

Faldor waited for a second, making sure the door was well and truly closed, before pulling back up the recordings of the ship, sent to him by Rainbow...and another recording, that one of a small station that had once owed it's allegiance to the New Arion Republic. One which showed gunships and armed merchant ships exploding left and right under an unrelenting hail of missiles.

The only reason he'd even managed to get it was because some people had gotten really desperate evading the Dominion's follow up investigation, and one of them had bargained this data in exchange for the Syndicate finding them a hole so deep even the Dominion Navy wouldn't find them.

It was very useful....and the reason for his caution.

If that gunship was capable of blasting into oblivion, oh, over 10 times its own tonnage in warships without suffering a single hit, he rather doubted its captain, or her escort, would be any less capable.