Chapter 30

Sidernis star system, inner system.

High Orbit over Sidernis Prime.

"Well, that answers whether or not the Silver Syndicate is here." Said Elteria bitterly as her hologram sat down on Sarah's desk.

"There's no guarantee it was the Syndicate Elty." Said Sarah as she grabbed a ration bar from her desk.

The AI snorted.

"Yeah right. I know we have enemies, but most of them wouldn't be able to get a strike force in a backwater like this underway so fast. All the ones that had the resources to do that we either made peace with or helped take down."

Sarah winced, before unwrapping the bar, and taking a bite of the protein rich, surprisingly tasty ration bar. Some days she was really thankful they had retained their automated chef bots, or autochefs, onboard. Even with all the technological might of the Near Verge they couldn't make the ration bars anywhere near as palatable as a real meal, but at least it wasn't just a tasteless hunk of proteins like what the poor bastards in the Dominion had to contend with.

"If by 'helped take down' you mean 'nuked from orbit', then I suppose you're right." Sarah sighed, before chuckling as the AI eyed the ration bar with open distaste, extending the bar towards the hologram. "Want a bite?"

The AI turned her head and huffed.

"You do realize the crap they put in these things, right?"

"I know, I know." Sarah smiled as she took another bite. Elteria had always been more concerned with her health than she herself was. Although to be fair the AI had a point, the bars were made to feed a standard human for 24 hours, and thus were packed with all the necessary nutrients, which made them something of an overdose if you had already eaten something that day. "But hey, combat takes it out of me."

Elteria rolled her eyes, and said nothing.

"Alright, so, status report?" Continued Sarah after taking another bite.

"Charlotte and Maria are making a full recovery. Not that it is much of a surprise. The darts that hit them tazed them and injected them with a tranquilizer, but their implants were already purging the latter. They just need a bit of psych support. As for Cindy...Well, she'd going to need a new kidney, and some intestines. I've hooked her up to the medical system and the new parts should be out of the cloner sooner, and she should be back on light duty by tomorrow."

Sarah nodded. Near Verge medical tech, hell, even Dominion tech, meant that even normally lethal injuries for humans could be relatively easily patched up if given the proper facilities. Their cloners, which when given a DNA profile could clone any organs or limbs necessary, might be getting old and a bit finicky -like their unnerving tendency to fuck up melanin dosages and have the new patches of skin be off-tone-, but they were still extremely fast and effective. They could even create an entire replacement body for a brain transplant, push came to shove, although it was neither a quick or particularly clean process, physically or mentally.

"That's good. What about the others?"

"More or less uninjured. They're a bit shaken, but otherwise fine. Even Seria, which is surprising. You picked one tough new recruit."

"I wouldn't be surprised, she dealt with what happened in the governor's palace just fine on Sepia."

"Fair enough. As for the rest...I've taken the liberty of undocking us from the station, although I've been told that admiral Soliensky has requested that we stay within support range of it for the time being."

"Keeping us under his guns, in short."

"To be fair, I genuinely think it's to come to our aid if someone attacks us. I've also gotten the preliminary reports from the investigation groundside."

"Ah? Anything concrete?"

"Yep. They identified the bounty hunter outfit that came after us." Elteria gestured at the desk, and a floating hologram appeared, depicting a colorful brochure. "Rainbow's Slashers. Very famous locals, even did some jobs throughout the province. According to system security we more or less nailed all of them."

"More or less?"

"They're having a hard time parsing through the remains of those Turral shot up. Vaporising half of what was left didn't help either. System security lodged a formal complaint for smuggling, illegal possession and usage of a plasma weapon by the way. Fortunately the admiral put this under Dominion jurisdiction and told them to stuff it. He seems to be under the impression this was some kind of assassination attempts by the rebels."

Sarah chuckled.

"If he thinks that, far from me to correct him. Did they arrest those that ran?"

"Yep. Most of them anyway, a few seems to have slipped through the net, although once again due to the mess they can't be sure. What they are sure of is that we accounted for their leader, Rainbow, as she was the one wearing the power armor."

"Well, so much for asking questions then. I assume she was the only one that knew the details from the contract?"

"So far, apparently so. Some of the bounty hunters probably know more than they let on, but you know, system security doesn't want to let us interrogate them, and the Dominion doesn't want to push them too hard."

Sarah nodded. It basically meant that barring system security making a deal with one of them they wouldn't learn more.

"Well, I suppose they'll have fun digging for a while. Ask them to send us updates via the galanet, if they find anything of significance."

"Aye aye ma'am."

Sarah looked at the memorabilia around her office, then stopped at the portable shield generator.

"Well, at least we know the shield generator works." She said as she nodded towards it.

Elteria nodded.

"Yeah, I reviewed the footage. It probably saved everyone too."

"How so?"

"They were focusing their fire on you. You clearly were their primary target. The fact that you didn't go down panicked them and broke their discipline."

"Some bounty hunters."

"Well, to be fair to them I doubt they were expecting you to wear a portable shield generator tens of thousands of years beyond their tech, including the High Verge armor they somehow got their hands on."

"Which means that our enemy is still underestimating us."

"That's not going to last forever."

"I know, but I'll take what I can get. Alright, we're done on this planet, and there's no way I'm sending anyone else down with this kind of mess. Are we ready to depart?"

"Yep. I started cycling the hyperdrive as soon as the distress beacons got activated. I also have a course laid in to the hyperspace limit in the outer system."

"Good. Did you contact Stuggart traffic control?"

"Yeah. I got the...usual response." Sarah winced, prompting her AI to chuckle. "I've also booked a secure berth for when we arrive."

"Excellent. Very well then, warn everyone that we are departing in an hour, and that if they have any downloads to do they should do them down. Oh, and warn the admiral that we're moving out to follow up on those leads I warned him about."

"Aye aye ma'am!"

*****

Faldor sighed as he looked at the report.

"I was afraid this would happen." Said the enforcer as he set his tablet down. "You read through this mess. Can you give me a summary?"

Roman gulped, and nodded.

"Yes sir. Uh...Rainbow appeared to have organized an ambush with most, if not all of her bounty hunting outfit. Nonlethal weapons backed up with lasers, in case they needed some lethal force. Plus her in power armor should everything go to shit."

"That's...paranoid." Faldor looked at the tablet, and winced. The pictures of what had been left of the building and part of the assault force were very graphic. "And apparently not paranoid enough. Please continue."

"Yes sir. According to one of the bounty hunters that escaped, it was almost textbook perfect. They managed to take down two of them in the first volley, but according to him the captain was wearing some kind of portable shield generator, and everything they threw at her just...bounced right off!"

Faldor leaned back into his seat, sighing. This kind of defensive gear...complicated things. He was aware that such things were possible, but he'd been told such equipment was rare even in the Near Verge, and definitely wouldn't have survived 60 years on a stranded ship far from home, let alone one regularly in combat!

"That is...unfortunate. I assume Rainbow decided to intervene directly?"

"She did. The one that got away couldn't tell us what happened, but our local office greased some palms in system security, and according to them they vaporized her with a fucking plasma grenade."

This time Faldor's wince was much more pronounced. The Dominion couldn't even make plasma grenades. It was, at least, a Mid-Verge weapon, and even then one used with the utmost care.

"Alright. It's getting pretty fucking clear we've underestimated our dear captain, badly." He looked up at Roman. "I need a new threat assessment."

His aide nodded, and Faldor once again toyed with the idea of 'leaking' the classified information some of his higher ups had bestowed upon him, before deciding against it. He knew of Roman's discretion, and he trusted him about as much as he trusted anyone, but a simple slip-up could lead to his demotion...or dismissal through an airlock. Without a space suit.

"Yes sir. It's clear we've taken a great deal of wrong assumptions in our original assessment."

"Good. Has our office on Stuggart returned anything?"

"Yes sir! They say that the Eternal Seeker booked a secure berth, and have found a multitude of mercenary units and bounty hunters willing to take the contract, provided the compensation is a bit more...generous. If they are found out, they will be banned from ever returning to Stuggart after all."

Faldor sighed. The bounty had already been upped to three hundred megacredits after what Sarah had pulled off in Ternal, and it became clear that no second rate bounty hunter was going to manage to get to her, and the first rate wouldn't risk their hides for so little.

"Alright, up the bounty to 450 megacredits. But emphasize that this is only if none of her crew are killed. Otherwise...minus 50 megacredits per fatality."

"Yes sir!"

"Good. Was that all?"

"Yes. A few routine reports and solicitations, but none worthy of your attention."

Faldor smiled. If there was one thing he was truly thankful for, it was that his aide was the best example of a 'Jurgen', or a combination between an aide and a secretary, he'd ever seen. He was exceedingly good at politely fending off people not worthy of his time or attention, and judging which reports he needed to see and which could be compressed into the general weekly overview.

"Excellent then! Dismissed!"

Roman nodded, and stepped out of the room.

Faldor waited for the door to close, before leaning back into his seat and sighing loudly.

Yet another failure, he thought.

This hunt was starting to become...problematic. Furthermore, it was starting to cost the Syndicate in terms of prestige as well as simple credits. There were some whispers going around that a mercenary had killed one of their system director, and gotten away with. Worse, rumors were starting to circulate that the same mercenary had crushed and defied all attempts to bring her too heel.

Most of the rumors were wildly exagerated, saying that that mysterious mercenary had destroyed entire fleets sent after, and smashed entire strike teams flat, but...well, they had failed to capture her, and every new defeat would only lend the rumors more credence.

Some of his superiors were catching wind of that as well, and although he wasn't supposed to be privy to such information, he hadn't managed to work his way up to special enforcer without high ranking friends and connections. And said friends were telling him the upper echelons of the Syndicate were starting to seriously debate whether just killing that troublesome mercenary captain would be better than fruitlessly chasing her for a mission, no matter how vital the mission was. Oddly enough, the most vocal ones in their support of the 'let's kill her and be done with it' option were the ones in the arms trade. There was something odd there...Very odd.

Faldor made a note to dig a bit deeper into what was going on -knowing his organization's internal politics was the only way to navigate them safely and get higher up the ladder after all-, and turned back to his tablet, and began reading the whole report.