Chapter 32

Stuggart star system, inner system.

Entering Stuggart Prime's atmosphere.

"Course laid in, landing beacon coordinates locked in. Beginning atmospheric reentry....now." Said Normensk as he adjusted a few things on his display, and the ship started moving. It wasn't truly necessary, the ship was actually controlled via his implants, but it helped having some buttons to push.

Sarah lightly tightened her hands on the arm rests of her command chair, before relaxing. She wasn't worried about entering atmosphere -the Eternal Seekers' size and lack of shuttles meant it was routine-, but the space around Stuggart Prime was crowded with ships, ranging from barely spaceworthy cutters to...

"Is that the Kaiserschwert?"

Elteria blinked, and nodded.

"Yep. Uh, I thought it was in Alientia. What the hell is it doing here?"

"Probably the same as everyone else. Racing to get the biggest piece of the pie from this mess."

"Possibly. Although given the scale of the insurrections..."

"It would be overkill...but in these kinds of things overkill is sometimes what you want to aim for."

"Well, it certainly will provide that."

Sarah nodded in agreement as she gazed at the crowded, almost overloaded, display. There was, at least, a hundred thousand ships somewhere in orbit around Stuggart, but even the largest merchant vessel was dwarfed by the Kaiserschwert, or Emperor's Sword, in the long dead german language.

It was, after all, a freaking battleship.

At 12 kilometers in length, and 4 in width it was larger than entire space stations, and had enough firepower to flat out crush an entire Dominion fleet. It was also incredibly old. The simple fact was that no one in Thaumor could build ships of that incredible size and make them effective warships, let alone give them hyperdrives capable of carrying them between the stars. The Dominion Navy's main shipyards in Elkator could, but even they were struggling to produce more than a handful every year, and the Dominion Navy hadn't yet recovered its battleship strength from before the Civil war. That resulted in a single 10 ship strong squadron of the behemoths being stationed in the Protectorate Core, a pitiful number given the million or so worlds that made up the Protectorate.

It also meant that the Kaiserschwert simply wasn't from here. In fact it had originated from the Weiter Stern galaxy, from the Heinsinch Empire to be precise. Now, that empire was well into the High Verge level of technology, and slowly making it's way to Near Verge, but that ship was so old, and so second hand -persistent rumors claimed it was over a thousand years old and had seen a dozen different owners- that it was barely Mid Verge in terms of technology...and even then was a hodgepodge at best.

Still, an almagamation or not, the Kaiserschwert was a power to be reckoned with, and extremely famous for being hired as the flagship of the Condor sector during the Civil War, where it had served with distinction, and it's unbroken string of victories during the war had made it the target of many novels, songs, and even holovid games.

It had also meant that when the war had ended the Dominion had made it crystal clear that if the Kaiserschwert needed work during those troubled times, the Dominion would be more than happy to oblige.

And if the battleship chose the wrong side again, the Dominion Navy would hunt it to the end of the universe.

No one was quite sure if the Dominion actually meant it, but if pissed off enough they certainly could do it. The Kaiserschwert had better tech than the Dominion Navy, but it didn't have nearly enough of an edge to beat 10 times it's number in battleships, and that was if the Dominion didn't bring escorts with their battleships. And while the Dominion struggled to build battleships, they knew how to build battlecruisers. Lots and lots and lots of battlecruisers, at least relative to their battleship production.

"It must have arrived recently, otherwise we'd have heard about it when we were in Sidernis."

"Well, as long as they keep their offers to themselves, we'll be fine."

Sarah chuckled at the AI's slightly aggravated tone. A decade ago the captain and owner of the Kaiserschwert had offered to hire the Eternal Seeker as a parasite craft and recon auxiliary. Now, Elteria didn't really care about being used as a recon ship -it was one of the mission parameters the Seeker had bee built for after all-, but she had taken offense to being carried 'like a sack of potato' by a ship she saw as little more than an arthritic turtle in terms of speed.

To this day she still snubbed the poor captain whenever the topic came up.

"I think they have bigger fish to fry right now."

"Understatement of the century right there." Said Elteria as she gestured at the display, which was quickly replaced by a list of job postings on the Dominion mercenary board. "The contracts here are insane. Not as much as say, what Sepia paid us, but...damn."

"A lot of people in power are getting desperate. And even the governments without an open insurrection have to be terrified right now."

"Fair enough. I don't suppose we'll be taking any of them?"

"No. What we have in our cargo hold blow all these." Sarah gestured at the display. "Out of the water. But I'll make a big show coming down the mercenary board office." Which on this planet was almost full sized city dedicated to mercenary contracts. "And talk about some of them, and spend some credits getting info about more juicy offers."

Elteria nodded. It made sense, and would divert attention nicely from their actual endeavors.

"Right. I've also gotten a response from most of our suppliers. A full resupply for our stores of food is ready, and I've got the raw materials for the fabricator waiting for us in a secure warehouse. I also got an answer from Runan, and he has offered to schedule a meeting if we'd like."

Sarah tilted her head, then nodded. Runan was an oddity: an intergalactic arms dealer with something of a conscience. He was also very old school, and insisted on physical meetings for large scale transactions. Given that they usually had a lot of money to spend when coming back to Stuggart, and used a lot of 'imported' technology, they were usually on his short list of people worthy of his attention.

"Go ahead. We probably won't bring some Divinium, but he always has something in stock for Dominion credits."

"Alright. I've also gotten a notice from our groundside offices. Esmeralda wants to meet with you, something about legal troubles."

"Oh? Did she say what?"

"Nope. But she didn't sound particularly worried."

"That's good. Well, I'll warn Hector." Sarah blinked as the ship shivered slightly, and looked at her navigator

"And we are...down." Said Normensk.

"Smoothly done." Said Sarah. Which it was, to be fair, it wasn't the navigator's fault that the Seeker's aging system couldn't completely negate landing tremors like they used to. "Alright, everyone remain onboard while the marines check the berth, and liaise with it's internal security. Elteria?"

"Hector is already outside. The others are following...I've also managed to establish a link with the security system. Everything looks good."

"Excellent." Sarah sighed. "Well, time to dress up for dinner I suppose."

"Aura won't mind if you show up in a ship suit."

"She won't, but I'm fairly sure her fellow officers might. We are meeting her in the defence force's offices after all." And as much as she usually wouldn't care what a system's defense force thought of her, Stuggart was simply too important to be treated so casually. It was the closest thing they had to a home port after all.

"Fair enough."

"Which means you'll have to dress up as well."

"Captain, I'm meeting with my girlfriend. In what level of hell would you not expect me to dress up with something nice?"

*****

"They've landed."

Jorge Soldado, system director of the Stuggart branch of the Silverine-Xiulan-Kisnar Syndicate, looked up from the pile of tablets and documents on his desk and at his aide and bodyguard. The young woman looked nothing like the lethal ex-assassin she was, simply looking like a blonde, bubbly cheerleader. That was until someone looked into her eyes and saw the cold stare of an experienced killer.

For that matter he supposed he didn't really look the part either. Most people put him down as an elderly businessman, complete with the graying hair and mustache, and not the local director for a crime syndicate. Well, to be fair the Syndicate did a lot more than pursue criminal enterprises, but hiring mercenaries for...unsavory operations, and providing said mercenaries with things the Dominion would not approve of was more or less the entirety of the Syndicate's operations in this star system.

"Excellent. Any news on the preparations?"

"Preliminary recon has been completed. The plan looks feasible so far, but acquiring the schematics is proving...harder than expected."

"How so?"

"Some of our contacts in the Stuggart Defense Force appear...hesitant to help us in this case. Something with one of their superiors having a liking to this particular ship. I'd have dug a bit further on that issue but like you said, there's no time."

"Ah. Is it going to be an issue?"

"Not really. I've been steadily increasing the offers, and exerting some other pressures. One of them will cave in eventually."

"Excellent. And for the assault teams?"

"They've been assembled, and their extraction arranged for."

"Good. Well, keep me updated once we get those schematics. And remember, keep this quiet."

The Syndicate had some pretty deep ties and contacts on Stuggart, and those contacts would usually enable them far more leeway than most other organizations, but those ties and contacts had started brutally drying up lately. Now, officially Jorge had no idea why...but the fact that one of his men, who he knew had been dabbling into the slave trade on the side, had turned up in front of a firing squad was a pretty clear sign. That meant that he had to shelve his plans for a larger intervention, and had to drive his preparations underground, just in case.

"Of course sir." Said his aide, before nodding and walking out of his office.

Jorge leaned back into his seat, and once again cursed Faldor for giving him this never sufficiently damned mission, before going back to work.

*****

Sarah sighed as she dropped on her office's seat. Dinner had been...surprisingly pleasant. Aura had proven a charming host, and although some of the food served had been a bit too spicy even for her taste, it had proven as excellent as advertised. The only problem had been trying to ignore the two AIs constantly sharing looks and jokes, and overall looking like very different things would be happening on top of the dinner table hadn't she been there.

She'd bid the two farewell and returned to the ship only half an hour ago, as Aura had helpfully put one of the Defence Force's shuttles at her disposition, and for all of their relatively low tech, any shuttle could get across an entire planet in less than an hour.

She'd also had the honor of being the first to navigate the marines' defensive upgrades to their secure berth, and she had to admit that it had been most impressive. A secure berth on Stuggart already meant having your ship interned into a private, incredibly well armored hangar, which could survive an orbital strike, but it also had every access point blocked off by 3 layers of heavily armored blast doors capable of withstanding low yield nuclear warheads and plasma fire. That, combined with several layers of security systems in the form of automated turrets, sensors, and an off-site heavily armed response team, made it an extremely secure location....by Low Verge standards.

So of course her marines had gone through everything, and not only installed some of their own software in the internal security system, they'd also turned every access corridor into a minefield, and installed several heavily reinforced positions in the hangar, complete with a few of the armory's remaining auto turrets.

It was a bit paranoid, but...well, she thought she was being cautious in Sidernis just ordering a marine escort for every group getting some shore leave.

Right now the crew was mostly confined to the hangar, as they negotiated private security arrangements for everyone to be able to go on proper shore leave. She'd only been able to attend the dinner because shooting down a shuttle belonging to the defence force, the people with hundreds of defense platforms capable of dueling ships of the walls orbiting the planet, would have been effectively suicide.

Fortunately Stuggart was the planet of mercenaries, and there were many companies catering to especially paranoid, or very much hunted clients, so there were some options. They were expensive, and some of them required checks to make sure they weren't wanted by the Dominion, but they were about as thorough as you could get.

Sarah looked at her desk for a few seconds, then activated her implants, and sighed as she saw the mountains of messages and paperwork. If there was one very annoying thing with coming back to Stuggart, it was that all the non-urgent paperwork that didn't warrant paying for galanet transmissions accumulated and waited for her there.

"Well...Might as well get to it." She declared to the empty room, and began working on what, had it been physical, would have been a small mountain of paperwork on her desk.