Chapter 33

Stuggart star system, inner system.

Stuggart Prime, Secure Berth Delta-31.

Sarah's head came up as her office's door chime resonated throughout the room, and almost subconsciously pinged the security system for an ID of the caller, which was promptly sent back.

Upon seeing it, Sarah smiled and got up from her chair, simultaneously ordering the door to open.

"Esmeralda! Come in, come in!"

A small, almost petite woman, her skin bearing the heavy tan automatically acquired by Stuggart's inhabitants due to the planet's rather harsh sunlight, stepped through the door, smiling, and opened her arms.

"Sarah! It's good to see you!" Both women embraced, before taking a step back. "Sorry I couldn't make it earlier. There were some...developments with some of the dossiers I'm working on. Including the one I came to talk to you about, actually."

"Ah, anything bad?" Said Sarah as she gestured towards the chair in front of her desk, before heading over to her liquor cabinet, adroitly extracting a bottle of rum and two glasses.

"Not really. Not for us anyway. Just...interesting."

"I see..." Well, if the woman wanted to be mysterious, Sarah wasn't going to push.

Especially because she knew from personal experience that Esmeralda was as unyielding as the Seeker's armor plating, if not even more so.

There was a reason she'd hired her to be the company's head lawyer.

"How are the kids?" Continued the captain. "I heard Josh had joined the naval academy?"

"Yes. Too much like his father I'm afraid. Very adept at....ah, direct problem solving."

Sarah chuckled. Hector was Esmeralda's husband, and despite each regularly complaining about the other's sneakiness and lack thereof respectively, they'd been married for over 3 decades and had 3 children, and their relationship was still going strong, even getting stronger every passing day.

And contrary to Aura, Esmeralda very much understood that her husband simply wouldn't be able to sit still on Stuggart for long anyway, and given Sarah's impressive record for keeping people alive -less than 50% casualties over 6 decades was nothing short of a miracle for mercenaries- she'd been as enthusiastic about the captain dragging her husband into warzone after warzone as anyone could be.

Her only request had been that if her husband fell in battle, she'd get to execute whoever had slain him, if possible. One Sarah would happily oblige if it ever came down to it.

"Well, it runs in the family. Hector's father was much the same."

"Yes, I've been told that as well." Esmeralda's gaze softened, before she cleared her throat, trying to change the subject. After all, Hector's father had died in the same massacre that had taken most of the Seeker's crew loved ones, and whose retribution had led to their exile. "Anyway, I came here because of some...interesting legal problems we've gotten from Arion."

Sarah winced, but nodded.

"I was expecting something like that. Let me guess, it's the government that's after us, not even the NAR?"

Esmeralda smiled, and nodded. Fortunately there was no need to fill her in on what was going on, as due to her position she got access to the reports on the Seeker's endeavors, and thus was as up to date on current events as most of her officers.

"Bingo. Half the lawsuits they've tentatively started are bullshit, but they're very...uniform in their mantra."

"Meaning?"

"Meaning that while these lawsuits are coming from all over the place, they're probably originating from a single group, or faction."

"We made some enemies it would seem."

"You always do. The good news is you also made some allies."

"Ah?"

"Yep. I'm sure you already guessed that the Dominion started not so gently defending you, and cracked a few skulls? Metaphorically of course." Sarah nodded, and Esmeralda smiled. "Well they weren't the only one. I think their prime minister likes you, because the justice department has fallen on these guys like raptors on a pile of fresh meat. It's complete chaos there, some people even claims that the government has started a massive wave of arrests, and there are rumors of target assassinations as well."

Sarah winced even harder.

"They're cleaning house." The captain shrugged as the lawyer gave her a questioning gaze. "My guess is, the government had been deeply infiltrated by the New Arion Republic, or their backers. They knew the NAR was building up, but the moles probably downplayed it and made sure the government didn't realize just how screwed they were about to be. Now that the NAR's true resources have been revealed, and rumors of what's happening throughout the Fringe has reached them, they must be terrified of their supporters starting an uprising on the planet itself, and have started a purge."

"You do realize that their actions are going to start an insurgency anyway, correct? You can't just arrest tens of thousands of people like that and no expect a violent response."

"Not in this situation no. I'd be very, very surprised if the NAR didn't have a contingency plan for this, or at least whoever is pulling their damned strings."

"Fair enough."

"Is that all?"

"Mostly. I've gotten the full financial reports ready from our accountants. This has been a very profitable couple of months. I also received an official notice from Ternal's system security about a sixtuple murder. They acknowledge that you acted in self defence, as a bounty hunting team was illegally attempting to bring you in, but they want to question you about the accident and want you to justify the use of lethal force."

"Right, and if I ever come back there I'll probably end up in a Syndicate holding cell, if not turn up in a ditch in tiny diced bits. What did you tell them?"

"To stuff it obviously. We're not above the law, but we do get some leeway from our mercenary license, especially as it turns out the bounty hunter you killed -Soris, was it?- was wanted by the Dominion, under a different identity however." Esmeralda shrugged. "Basically we told them that you had been acting in accordance with your mercenary license in attempting to bring a Dominion criminal to justice, that Dominion warrants authorized deadly force if the target was armed and non-cooperative, as well that if they weren't happy about it they were welcome to take it to court with the Dominion's mercenary board."

"How did they respond?"

"Predictably they shut up and got out of the way. The Dominion's started hiring mercs left and right to help with the whole mess around the Fringe, and simply can't be seen having a government, even a Periphery one, step all over their mercs in such an obvious case of self defence. And even if they weren't inclined to tell them to stuff it, you have enough friends in their ranks I believe they'd just bury the enquiry in several metric tons of bureaucratic red tape."

"I guess it is useful to have an admiral owe you one."

"More than that. News of Carmichael and what you did to his fucking slave trafficking network is starting to spread, at least unofficially, through the Dominion navy." Esmeralda shook her head. "Our offices is starting to get oblique letters of thanks from all over the Protectorate. We've even gotten one from a Dominon Commando major!"

Sarah smiled.

"I've been reliably informed the Dominion sent some of their commandos to wrap up the network."

"Ah. Well these guys are screwed."

"Indeed. Was that all you wanted to talk about?"

"Well, in business terms, yep."

"Good! So, coming back to Josh, how's the academy treating him?"

*****

"We are approaching Old Joe's now." Said the shuttle pilot, before flipping some arcane switch, with the mandatory completely unhelpful ultra-compressed label underneath it. Even after physical controls had become thoroughly obsolete, aircraft designers still relished in covering the cockpits in a vast array of buttons and switches, and pilots in manipulating them at seemingly random.

At least even the most rudimentary starships were so complex that it would never be possible to use that method, and the inverse approach had been taken, with minimal physical systems, and everything run through console at most, usually through implants.

"Right, ETA?" Asked Sarah as she adjusted a bit in the cockpit's observer seat. One of her weaknesses was that for the life of her she couldn't just sit somewhere doing nothing while being shot at, hence why she would rather be on the bridge, or cockpit or whatever of her current transportation, should something go terribly wrong. She wouldn't be able to do much of a difference from here, but at least it made her feel better.

"30 seconds." The pilot nodded towards a sudden break in the sea of kilometer high towers and arcologies that made up Stuggart's capital city, Central, and the giant sphere building just awkwardly sitting in the middle. Despite being displayed on screens relaying the images taken by the sensors dotting the shuttle's hull, and the Dominion's tech being, well, rather primitive, the images still looked like they were just seen through glass out of a holofilm's idea of a military cockpit. "There it is."

"Thank you." Sarah looked at the incongruous looking sphere, and shook her head.

Most people assumed it was just a bit of architectural excentricity, but Turral had been persuaded there was something more to it, and had asked for Sarah's permission to investigate further. Notably by doing a 'sensor test' and ping the sphere with everything they had. Although unbeknownst to the engineer Sarah had asked for Old Joe's approval first, and thankfully the engineer's little trick had amused him more than anything else.

In any case Turral had taken the sensor readings, a connection to the galanet and the Seeker's database, and went to work out exactly what was going on with the building.

6 hours later she'd dropped in Sarah's office, practically emptied the captain's liquor cabinet, ended up overloading her medical implants and nearly falling to a coma, and finally gave up her findings while recovering in the medbay.

Apparently, the building wasn't a building. Or rather it wasn't one originally. According to her it was a hollowed out ship, with everything but the hull and the armor plating stripped out. Which given the size of the building made it a frigate, at the very least.

And according to her, the armor plating was something her databases flat out insisted shouldn't be there.

Because it was the same armor the Infinite Systems Federation wrapped their battleships in. Nothing the Eternal Seeker had could even hope to penetrate it. She wasn't even sure the entire Stuggart Defense Force could either, although enough energy could overcome anything. If nothing else a sustained bombardment would cause the building to be literally hammered into the ground and swallowed up.

"No problem. Beginning landing procedures...."

Sarah leaned back into her seat, and let the pilot focus as he weaved through the constant traffic of aircrafts and other shuttles, before smoothly setting them down onto a landing pad, tastefully surrounded by shrubbery and flower beds.

Flower beds which their old sensor scans insisted were covering something with power sources oddly reminescent of fusion guns. The anti ship kind.

Which according to their calculations meant that this building and its surrounding area alone could probably take on half of Stuggart's orbital defense network and win. Including the dozens of fortresses capable of fighting Dominion battlecruisers, and the countless laser and missile satellites backing them up. And they were probably underestimating the bar's defenses, as Sarah would have been exceedingly surprised if Old Joe didn't have a few other tricks up his sleeves as well.

"And we are down!" The pilot looked at Sarah and gave her a brilliant smile. "As usual, it is sunny as hell outside, with a balmy temperature of 31 degrees celsius. Thank you for flying with Shattersky incorporated!"

Sarah chuckled, and nodded to the pilot, before leaving the cockpit, and making her way towards the shuttle's exit ramp.

Instantly two of Hector's marines followed suit, a step behind her, before themselves being followed by half dozen heavily armed Shattersky security guards.

Shattersky had been the security company they'd ended up hiring to protect them while outside of the secure berth, and damn they were impressive. Pricy as hell, but very, very impressive. The shuttle they were disembarking from was only differing from the Dominion Marine Corps' assault shuttles in that it had a different coat of paint as well as empty ordnance racks -Stuggart's laws were permissive for mercenaries, but not 'carry several dozen tons of highly destructive ordnance while going to a bar' permissive-, and their guards were equipped to a man with perdition rifles and even imported gauss rifles.

"You know, every time we come here I wonder how this place even exists." Said Elteria as her android started walking side by side with Sarah as the captain passed by her at the top of the ramp.

"A truly neutral ground has advantages for everyone. Besides, would you want to be the one to serve Old Joe an eviction notice?"

Elteria chuckled.

"No, not at all. Point taken."

"Did you bring what I told you to?"

Elteria rolled her eyes.

"Captain, with all due respect, that's, what? The third time you've asked me that on this trip?" The AI patted the briefcase by her side. "I got what we came her to...appraise, relax."

Sarah smiled sheepishly, and nodded. Getting an invitation for Old Joe's was a long process, which involved calling in several favors and disburse a hefty sum in, ah, 'gifts' for the right people. It was, after all, the greatest, most secure neutral ground in Thaumor...and also situated on Stuggart, which made it even more important. It was the place to have a secure meeting about something you'd rather keep quiet. Rumor was that the first time envoys from the Dominion and the soon-to-be Protectorate had met to put an end to the civil war had been in that very bar.

"Fair enough, sorry, I'm just feeling a bit...jumpy that's all."

Not only because she had been afraid of wasting this chance to bring their Divinium to the best information broker in Thaumor, but also because if said briefcase was full, it was also worth more than the shuttle they'd just left, and quite probably could be sold for enough credits to buy a small gunship.

"We all are." Elteria appeared to be on the verge of saying something else, but stopped as they arrived in front of the doors.

They were large, inlaid with gold, palladium and other precious metals, depicting scenes from Stuggart's original colonization effort. It was also, for all of it's ostentatiousness, fairly tasteful, although Sarah's cynical mind couldn't help by note how all the decorations hid the fact that these doors were basically giant slabs of armor plating capable of shrugging off anything short of a direct hit by an antimatter warhead.

What was of more immediate concern was the handful of security guards in tailored suits barring their way. One of them politely held up his hand.

"Do you have an invitation?"

Sarah nodded.

"Yes. Elteria?"

The AI's gaze unfocused as she sent the digital invitation over, with the accompanying identification codes, and the guard's eyes did the same, before he nodded.

"It checks out. Welcome at Old Joe's bar, ladies. Please leave your security personnel outside." The guard smiled as he bowed slightly, and the door opened. "As long as you are within these walls, no harm will come to you as long as you do not try to inflict it onto others."

Sarah nodded.

"Thank you." She made a gesture, and her protectors strutted off towards the large plazza/restaurants, where already a small army of bodyguards from various organizations were happily eating and chatting, under the watchful eye of another batch of Joe's security guards. She looked to the side at Elteria, who nodded. "May you notify Old Joe himself that we wish for a moment of his time? It relates to his....information business."

The guard blinked, but nodded.

"Of course. I'll warn him immediately. Please make your way towards the bar, he will attend to you as soon as he is able."

"Thank you."

And with that, Sarah stepped into the bar, Elteria in tow.