I sat in the office I was allowed to wait in with barely restrained anger. There were a few times that I’d ever let my temper get the better of me, thought it was far from common, and this occasion definitely marked one of those incidents.

It was fine if I lost out on that money. That was just par for the course, I’d set aside the majority of that money for the project anyways. I was a businessman, the head of the highly successful Artorian Mercenary Company, not some fledgling who put naive prospects before cold hard truths. This truth being that high risk investments and projects didn’t always pan out. If you took a loss, it was probably a catastrophic one. In spite of how the Titherin Mercantile Group had tried to frame all of this when I first signed on, I knew very well that the Obelisk Support Project wasn’t often a great way to recoup investments. It was a PR stunt for most, designed to show the general populations of the galaxy that you cared about the fight against biotics, even to the extent of extending an arm in support of any less-than-civilized groups out there that the major militaries and mercenary corporations couldn’t - or wouldn’t - get too.

That said, there were many opportunities that could be gathered. The Obelisks I’d paid to have deployed could be said to be one of the biggest launches that the Obelisk Support Project had ever deployed. It was a political move, economical move, and part public relations move on my behalf. My company was growing rapidly, we’d succeeded in nearly thirty large scale biotic infestation extermination jobs this year, more than double the next one up. We smashed even the current leader in paramilitary corporation contributors to the biotic war cause. And we did it fast, clean, and best of all without breaking the local municipalities wallets.

There was no better place to be, and with all of the positive image being generated, we were set to cruise for many more jobs, huge growth potential, even to the extent that there was a buzz about becoming the first sanctioned Mercenary Corporation by the Unified Galactic Council.

But there were a few qualifiers here.

I needed capital to move this forward, which we had. My people had been paid for their jobs, but this year has been so good for us that I wanted to make an even bigger move. Everyone was getting paid again for their efforts. I’d run them hard, sharpened them this year, they were badasses in every respect and had come out of my gauntlet strong. That meant other corporations would pay top dollar to take them from me.

Their holiday bonus this year was no secret, nor was the access to exclusive weapons and designs rights that was coming soon. The benefits of all my many years of targeted Matter Energy selling was paying off big. With the massive bonus, loyalty to my company was titanium-strong. It would take an act of god to get most of my men and women away from me at this point, not even commenting on my external research partners that literally only existed because of the support I’d given them for so many years.

Everything was coming up Yamak Rettle on the ol’ wheel of fortune.

But this shit completely fucked that.

I felt a vein throb on my neck as I checked the numbers again, alone in the room as I looked at the holographic display, seething in red fury. My four-hundred million had been completely used on a single planet; every single Obelisk deployed to some water-ball of a rock called DIX-975 and was easily a garden world that literally any corporation would raze a star-system to get their hands on. If it wasn’t already inhabited, of course, which for the sake of the Titherin Mercantile Group, it better have been.

If all of my money went to an empty rock that happened to have biotics on it, hellfire wouldn’t compare to what I was going to do.

I breathed then, deep in through the nose and ever so slowly through the mouth.

The girl had wisely left me to myself to simmer as she quickly sought out someone above her to check what was going on. It was a long time, something that in any other situation I would have just left and come back for. This time, I decided it was best to sit in this room and fume here.

If I went back to my people now, back to my company and they saw me, I doubted I could manage to lie to them. Especially not Maricene, she’d know something big happened the moment she saw me. Not only was she usually good with controlling her own emotions, but she was an expert at reading others too.

I checked my readout for my bank a few hours ago, it was zero’d out. The stipulation, or the bug, that anything resultant in extra costs as estimated by the Obeliks systems would be taken out of my accounts. It wiped decades of buildup from my companies accounts. Forget paying the holiday bonus to my people, at this rate, keeping my starships in the sky would be a struggle.

My teeth ground in agitation as I leaned back. I occupied myself as many ways as I possibly could in these last intervening hours, making discrete inquiries to old time companions on how successful their own business ventures had been. A part of me wondered at me, Yamak Rettle, taking loans from my own friends to pay my people their bonuses and pretend nothing was wrong. It’d be a week or so before anyone noticed anything wrong.

When they did, maybe they’d stay on for a few more weeks, hoping that any further pay was just a bump in the road. But the contract I’d signed effectively screwed me for any further pay that my company would receive. If there was more money needed by the Obelisk Support Project, it would take it, unless I declared bankruptcy. In which case my entire life’s work was up in smoke, eighty years of effort gone in the blink of an eye.

I’d probably eat my plasma grenade if that happened.

I sighed again, defeated energy finally cycling around yet again to replace my anger. The twinge of anxiety in the back of my mind prompted me to bring up my accounts again, something I hadn’t done for nearly six hours now.

“What the hell?” I surged forward, examining my account closely.

It wasn’t at zero anymore. My credits as the Matter Energy was converted to funds was ticking up rapidly. I’d set it as such, the Titherin Mercantile Group would get a small cut, but due to how much of the costs I’d taken on, I’d get ninety percent of what came back from anyone hunting biotics.

“This… wait… what?” Millions of credits were in my account, surging by the second. “This isn’t possible? How is some backwater tribe racking up that many kills?” I paused, thinking over the possibilities.

Then all at once the rock in my gut seemingly bloomed into ecstatic relief. Suddenly all the pieces came together in an impossible picture. The world wasn’t only sentiently colonized, but the species itself was numerous, adaptable, perhaps even on the fringe of space travel. If they were so close to joining the galactic community, that’d make sense on why most of my money would have been absorbed.

They’d have a lot of people, and my setting to give 100 M.E. to each individual would have gouged titanic amounts of money from me given the awful conversion rate on the flip side. That part alone was so rare as to be unique, in the entirety of the Obelisk Support Project, this exact situation was the best possible outcome, the exact reason why it was proposed and jointly approved by both the Specialized Intelligence System that controlled Obelisk functions and by the Unified Galactic Council.

On top of that, they had to have a lot of biotics, it was a mercantile groups wet-dream for investment returns.

The political clout I would have, the public image for giving support to a race that would have been on the edge of oblivion…

I felt all tension evaporate from me, and instead I felt a thrum of vigor course through my thick veins. Forget being the first acknowledged mercenary group, this would make us an indispensable piece of the Council. We were already considered popular but with this we’d be saints, people would literally throw themselves at our doors for the chance to so much as meet my company, let alone becoming a part of it.

At that moment, there was a knock at the door before it opened. The lady from before was there, looking very tense.

“Ah,” I smiled, feeling guilty for how tense she was, even if I didn’t remember her name, “I have good news! It looks like I’m recouping some losses now, though I’m sure it’ll take a while to get it all ba-”

“Captain Rettle, sorry to interrupt, but these men would like to take you to meet the Titherin Mercantile Group’s CEO.” She gestured warily to the men that now stepped into the room.

I felt my body tense at seeing the robed men, knowing damn well the golden and white trimmed fabric was among the best armor you could buy. It looked like fabric, but if you hit it, it would stiffen, stopping anything less than a super dense slug from penetrating. They were Titherin - they didn’t accept anyone else into their number - and were experts in combat and escort missions. Unofficially, they were quite experienced in assassination and other unsavory tasks.

“And why, I have to ask, are two Templar here for little ol’ me?” I kept my tone friendly, but they certainly registered my tense body.

They bowed slightly, a gesture of respect and friendliness, “Captain Yamak Rettle, we mean you absolutely no harm and are here only for your own protection. In that, we mean you no disrespect, as we are certain that you are adept at your own defense.”

One of them spoke, but the voice seemed to fade at its source, indistinct in the strangest of ways. Either of them could have been the source.

I sighed deeply, “Well…” I muttered a moment before rising steadily, careful to not make any abrupt movements. They rose slightly from their bows, and just I caught just the slightest waver in their stances. They were just as ready as wary as I was, which was just as well.

The Artorian Mercenary Company tolerated no weak links, especially not up the chain of command.

“Alright, alright, let's take a breath.” I smiled and loosened my posture, “I take it you both aren’t named yet?”

They rose the rest of the way, forcing their own stances to loosen, “Yes, you are well informed.” One of them spoke, almost a question rather than a statement.

I ignored the implication to explain where I knew that bit from, knowing that only a certain rank of Templar would receive a name that they would be allowed to tell someone not of their order. “Well, lead the way then. I’m guessing that I’ll be notified as to what exactly is going on here in a minute.”

They nodded slightly, leading me from the room as the woman from before breathed a silent sigh of relief. She was a clerk, albeit a highly cared for one, and this was dramatically above her pay grade. Templar were an existence that a common citizen would never interact with.

‘Well, she’s gonna have a story to tell,’ I thought with amusement, walking between the two as they guided me wordlessly to another elevator. This one was under guard, and as we approached I could tell the pair of men that stood there were expecting us. They were, to their credit, able to retain a posture of indifference as we passed them. The dense metal of this particular model of elevator was designed differently than what I normally passed through. It, and likely every floor we’d be passing, was designed to interfere with monitoring technology. Tech didn’t travel through these walls well, with exception to a few select devices that would be routed in from outside.

Anything said from this point on was local only. At least, anything that the Titherin Mercantile Group wanted to remain local.

“So, do I get to hear about what’s goin’ on now?” I idly hooked my thumbs into my pants pockets and drummed my fingers in feigned boredom. They paused and shifted to each other. ‘Hmm… either they know and don’t wanna tell me, which wouldn’t earn them any cooperation points from me here, or they don’t know either.’

“Our superior will explain the situation fully.” They came to the unspoken consent.

‘They don’t know then. Probably. Damn.’ I shook my head, watching as the dial went up floor by floor. As we ascended hundreds of feet in the air, I found myself amused by the fact that even this elevator had music, though it wasn’t half bad surprisingly. Some kind of background orchestra, a rare moment of appreciation for something so mundane running through me.

As movement ceased and the door opened to a long hallway, I frowned. This floor wasn’t an office floor, it was a special projects floor. At least, that’s what it reminded me of; sterilized hallways with scanners every six meters, doubled down at every door, polarized bulletproof and explosion-resistant glass potentially allowing others to see into rooms along the way. We walked forward, our feet clacking against the hard floor in the soundless hallways. As we passed beneath a handful of panels in the ceiling, I wondered how many rounds a second the hidden turrets within could spit out at any unwanted guests.

“Real cloak and dagger here, guys.” I commented, a crack in my stoic facade as I felt the depth of the problem growing.

I almost felt the one on my right grimace, “To our understanding, the situation is… bad.”

It took everything I had not to turn around and leave, consequences be damned. Templar’s did their duties unquestioningly and without complaint. Need someone protected against the galaxies best assassins with a ninety percent lethality rate and above? Sure thing. Need information from some of the most secretive organizations, battered down in some god forsaken asteroid belt? Say the word.

The only thing that they couldn’t do?

“Politics.” I uttered dryly, the pair either didn’t hear me or ignored me as we continued walking.

Finally, after four minutes of meandering maze like halls, we came to a room that was different from the rest. Encased in some extremely expensive metal and technology, this measure against monitoring was borderline paranoia.

And as the door opened to a rather fine office I was treated to quite a rare sight. Most of the room was fairly moderate in terms of luxury, there were necessities like coffee, some snacks, and holo screens built into the walls. The long oval table had several holo modules in front of a dozen ergonomic black chairs, each one designed to be able to accommodate a variety of races.

At the right side of this table was an individual that I recognized but had never met before; CEO Lazka Muran of the Titherin Mercantile Group, a man whom had assumed the position of CEO a few years ago at around the same time as the Titherin Mercantile Group was selected to be the host for the Obelisk Support Project. Titherin’s had only been a voice in the Unified Galactic Council for about as long, but they’d been granted the privilege of affluence with such a position. They were the Host Race for an entire sector of space, hundreds of solar systems. Any biotic presence detected to be moving into that region would be taken care of with their personally owned Obelisks, barring any unusual circumstances. In this way, they would expend a fair amount of capital, but they could also use that position to push their mercantile groups to a forefront, a period of prosperity that would allow them activity through all of Council space without even a tenth of the paperwork that would normally be required.

The bare look of discomfort on his face as I entered the room didn’t surprise me as much as I thought it would. Obviously something was wro-

I swallowed hard as I realized who the other person in the room was. Ivory robes with gold trimming, similar in the most distant sense to what the other two Templar wore adorned her form. To compare the two, though, would be like comparing a rough quartz crystal to a perfectly cut diamond. She was radiant, streaks of deep silver and the heavy weight of presence she exuded in the room told me who she was.

Without delay, I bowed my head slightly, “Greetings, Oracle, it’s been a long time.”

In spite of how calm my voice was, my heart hammered in my chest, adrenaline implants ready to flood my already wired system in case I needed to run. Not that I thought I could run, nothing short of an all out assault would phase her. A presence touched on my mind with amusement and warmth that almost drained the tension out of my body instantly ‘Relax, Yam, I’m here on business, and I’m not mad in the first place.’

“Captain Yamak Rettle,” a severe voice sounded from the woman, distinctly different from the words she’d spoken in my mind. “Please, join us at the table, my disciples as well.”

The three of us shared an almost hilarious moment of wariness, as though we expected this to be a test. Me, I had my own reasons, but it seemed that Peya Doltar was as complicated a teacher as a lover. Still, we all sat, the Templar’s subtly forcing me into the seat directly on her right, across from the CEO of the Titherin Mercantile Group.

Lazka gave me a momentary look of annoyance, likely from everything that had been dropped on his lap, before he schooled his facial features into a mask of congeniality.

Not that Peya didn’t notice the underlying emotions he had, though. He probably didn’t realize the extent of her capacities. I, however, did, and kept my internal landscape as fresh and trained as possible.

She always did say that had I awoken to a full psionic gift, I’d have been one of the best. A shame, that.

“As you’re aware, I’m an Oracle of the Templar Order of Titus, an organization who strives to ensure that our Titherin race is kept safe and honest through the many trials and tribulations that we have faced.” She emphasized the word honest, something not lost me. It was a subtle reminder - not that I needed it - that she could read through a lie the moment it left the tongue. “According to our species role as the Host of the Obelisk, we are given a unique opportunity to accelerate our fledglings species growth. This cannot be understated. Yet, I find that, perhaps, there are some mistakes being made. Grave errors.” She paused, careful not to glare at the CEO seated across from me.

I frowned, “Wh-, uhh, what kind of errors?”

“We detected biotic intrusions into sectors that we are responsible for,” she started succinctly, “the issue being that this information was not made aware to proper parties for months.”

My brain slowed to a crawl, not quite getting the significance of the statement. Even if there was a biotic intrusion, usually they’d be small and scattered, not especially large. Maybe a tiny comet that would hit a planet, devastate a few kilometers, then begin to spit out abominations like they were going out of style. Even a primitive planet could hold out for a few months based off of that, so even if they screwed up a bit, the Obelisks should arrive to help in time, it might even be better to engender a positive image amongst the population. Not that I wanted to see a bunch of people die before they could get help, but there were plenty of cases where a race that was aided with Obeliks tech eventually joined the Host Race as a Partner Race and ascended from there.

“Lazka Muran, here, had the same expression you do now.” A rare moment of tension rolled through the air as the psionic quickly restrained her internal mood, “Now that you’re both here, we can discuss the rest of this. Given the nature of this incident, you’ll both be considered primary witnesses, and depending on the findings herein, the Council may deem punishment necessary going forward.”

The two of us straightened more at that, the sudden streak of ‘Oh crap, that’s bad’ a pretty universal body language across cultures.

“To begin with, a biotic of at least the Fifth Generation, possibly higher, disappeared from one of the fringe worlds, along with a mountain. The area of devastation around where the mountain used to be is… well, look.” She gestured at the table, a hologram showing a planet, one that I assumed was the ‘before’ picture. It was a barren planet, not good for much more than mining, probably the reason why it was left alone long enough for an insanely dangerous high-generation biotic to spawn.

The after picture made my blood run cold. It was rare for intrusions to be deployed long range, simply because it was hard to project that much mass into space, usually requiring the combined forces of unspecialized biotics under some estranged directive. No one was really sure why they did it.

The slideshow that displayed now was a rock filled with silvery metal, black flecks of armored tissues interspersed a mountain several kilometers in width and height. A single biotic organism tapped into it, what was once a volcano, and rendered it entirely inert. It grew rapidly, encompassing the whole mountain. Where once lava and smoke flowed, nothing escaped. And then, one slide there was a mountain.

The next slide there was a crater and hundreds of kilometers of devastation, visible only through alternate modes of sight, since the planet was steadily being covered in thick layers of ash, tectonic activity stirring the continent into a frenzy of activity.

“The observation probe had been taking pictures of the location, but due to an error in programming mistakenly assumed that the volcano had simply exploded, leaving nothing left. Now, we suspect the biotic intentionally projected itself, and the mountain, with the force towards a target. This information is being filtered to other organizations; and this, by the way, is considered need-to-know only. The general population is not allowed to know that this is a strategy that some biotics are adopting.”

“No shit,” I breathed, “If they knew they could have a mountain thrown at them from another planet, I don’t think people could sleep at night.”

If she considered my input rude, she didn’t mention it. Plus, it seemed everyone else at the table tacitly agreed, based on how hard they stared at the image.

“We’re sure that it escaped atmosphere?” The CEO looked at the images, “We detected a biotic presence leaving our space from another solar system, but we didn’t detect it he-”

“Actually, it was.” She shook her head, suddenly seeming very tired, “The information coincided with another incursion being rebuffed by outer system orbital defenses, so it was mistakenly flagged as resolved. While I have no direct proof, I suspect the biotic projected a smaller mass first, and then used some kind of method to bypass the network, or perhaps found a blind spot.” She shrugged, “Later, a meteor was tracked along the same area, heading toward a specific source.”

“After some digging, we detected some extremely faint radio waves and other frequencies from a distant planet. We think it was a civilization on the cusp of space travel. Only, regrettably, I believe this biotic detected those signals as well. Given that such a planet was in our jurisdiction… you understand how bad this looks for a Host Race, yes?”

Lazka paled at that, his fine dress, flexing as he sat forward, staring at the series of reports that pieced together the puzzle.

“They… that civilization’s gone, then? I can’t imagine that they’d fend that off. Most races need to be well within space faring before they could fight something like that off.” Lazka deflated, the hit to reputation alone would gut the Titherin Mercantile Group in the public eye.

I found my fists clenched atop the table, the number of people possibly lost to something like that meteor would have been… catastrophic. That was a world-ender.

“Normally, yes. But we have reason to believe that the source planet did in fact fend off the meteor. Or, at the very least, break it up. It seems that the biotic that made up the tissues of the meteor slowed down en route, likely to prevent hitting the planet at near light speed. That seemed to kill the high gen biotic in the process, and we believe the natives were able to respond and broke up the meteor. From here, it’s all conjecture, and we’ll need time to summon the Council and perform and inquiry with Sis.”

I stood then, “Wait, wait, so… my Obelisks might have all gone to those guys?” A tremor of excitement and relief washed over me. Sure, having them all in one basket was bad in a way, but whatever survived that impact had to be quite hardy, and based on the amount of Matter Energy I was receiving now, I’d say they took to it like water.

My excitement tapered off, though, as I realized that a lot of that species had probably been wiped out. They didn’t deserve that, the Titherin Mercantile Company had screwed up bad on this one, not just them, but military too. Layers of redundancy were supposed to exist, but somehow this had happened.

That meant someone wasn’t doing their job right. And it only took one perfect storm for a worst case scenario. The very worst would be if the biotics won on that planet, then the chance of fighting on yet another front on the galactic map increased exponentially.

As I sat back down, energy visibly leaving me, I shook my head, “Well, at least they might have some kind of chance now.”

At that moment, I felt the Oracle’s full attention on myself and the CEO, “The first thing I must confirm with you both, now that you certainly understand the full breadth of what is going on, is that neither of you were aware or knew anyone who was aware of the biotic meteor moving towards the planet in question past one month ago.”

“What? Uh, no, I didn’t actually know that there was a biotic presence for sure until this morning when my bank account was wiped out.” I answered honestly, realizing that there was a possibility that someone could abuse the system and send an injection of biotic presence to an area they were paying to sponsor. It looked especially bad for me, considering my package to take on ninety-percent of the expenses for this operation in my mapped out area. High risk, but extremely high reward.

“Neither did I, and I can also go as far to say that my company would never want to risk an entire sentient species just to turn a profit.” He bridled somewhat at the undertones of the question, but I couldn’t blame him. When I looked to Peya, she simply nodded with her eyes closed, the rest of her face covered in a delicate mask of white metal.

“Good. Secondly, neither of you has had direct contact, or received any insider information regarding this incident?” She waited out answers, both of which were no. There were a handful of other questions, but none of them as important as the first one.

“Now, Captain Yamak rettle, from what it appears, your funds dipped precipitously low this morning, to nothing, as I believe occurred. It seems that the Obelisk charged you for the natives use and subsequent misuse of weapons that were allowed through the system. While the Obelisk administrator for the planet is still setting up, we can’t know for sure what exactly happened. But, judging from certain… exclusions coming up, we can estimate what has been going on. Firstly, the penalties on using Obelisk technology in destroyed local ecology and semi-permanent damage on an environment is in effect on the planet. Those fees are wildly increased due to the viability of the planet.”

“On that note, I would point out that many chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons have been disabled in Obelisk menu. It appears that the native race was quite well versed in warfare, especially kinetics, they’re very nearly equal to a core race in terms of that technology.”

“Well, that stung my wallet.” I admitted, “But it’s recovering. I won’t hold it against them.”

No one found my joke funny. “We are worried, of course, about the native species further abusing the weapons technologies therein. I’ve already taken the liberty of passing along my request to the Council on an assembly so official action can be taken, and to inform others of this incident.”

“Ah, is there, perhaps, any way we can handle this… without the Council needing to be bothered?” Lazka’s question was accompanied by a nervous, hopeful tone.

Peya stared at him for several long seconds, a posture that I recognized from long ago that she never could get rid of. That was generally the ‘should I murder him?’ posture.

“No. Now, my disciples will escort you to the elevator. You may be called upon for further information at the behest of the Council.” She gestured to the Templars, making it clear that he was excused. The man nodded, sweating, not that I could blame him.

When it was just the two of us, I leaned back in the chair more comfortably, “Well, that certainly was fun.”

She shook her head, a wave of amusement rolling from her, “I’ve been working at this for the past 48 hours. It’s anything but fun.”

I smiled broadly, perfect and slightly pointed teeth peeking out, “Well, I just have to say you make it look good. And, on that note, I know a very good place that has great food, great drink… and I happen to know of a very good place to sleep.”

“You haven’t changed at all,” she laughed, a tinkling glass sound that reverberated in my mind, “And dear me, I thought you’d gotten afraid of me, leaving so suddenly like that.”

“W-Well,” I sputtered, “You father wasn’t exactly pleased that the Merc he’d hired was rooming with his daughter.”

“Mmm… he can be rather protective.” She tilted her head, “But, now that I’m here, I believe I can spare some time.” She rose from her seat, walking past me with the barest fingertip touching across my shoulders, sending tingles of energy down my spine.

“I’ll just need to change from my robes, contact me with this.” She sent a communication request to my shard, a notification alight in my peripheral as the Obelisk handled the specifics.

“It would be my pleasure,” I rose, teasing her with my own fingertips across the small of her back.

We departed, and I couldn’t help but wonder at the odds that I’d have met her again. And while circumstances certainly weren’t great, I couldn’t help but feel that maybe, just maybe, this was all going to settle itself nice and easy...