Chapter 48

Deep Space

12 Astras from Narval

"Captain Ciel, what a pleasure." Said Soliensky as the waiting screen of the Dominion Navy vanished, and the admiral replaced it. "I was made aware you wished to speak with me?"

"Yes admiral." Either the admiral had been far less busy than she believed, or he truly had put a very high priority on her calls. She hadn't even waited five minutes! "I have some information that might prove...valuable to you."

"Oh? Do tell captain."

Sarah chuckled.

"Admiral, please, you do know I won't tell you for free."

"I am sure I can arrange for proper compensation for your services, captain."

"In this case...admiral, I'm afraid even your resources will pale in comparison compared to my price." The admiral wasn't physically frowning, but even through the screen Sarah could feel it, and she continued before he could answer. "For this kind of deal, I think you'll need to contact High Command."

The admiral's face went blank, as if his expression had been erased.

"Protectorate High Command is not casually consulted on such matters, captain, especially not for mercenaries."

"Oh, I wasn't talking about Protectorate High Command. I was talking about Dominion High Command, and the High Admiralty."

Soliensky went completely still, before leaning back slightly in his seat.

"You're not joking, are you?"

"No, I'm not."

"Very well. But I cannot contact them with nothing to show." He raised his hand. "I promise you, on the honor of the Dominion Navy, that you will be fairly compensated for the information divulged. But I need something for High Command to listen."

Sarah hesitated. As a rule, Dominion officers did not swear upon the honor of the Dominion Navy lightly. Even less for flag officers. A captain could be renounced, and his vow broken. An admiral...what Soliensky had done was effectively legally tie the Dominion to his word, and the only thing that could break it would be him being charged with high treason or mass murder.

"Very well admiral. We have located several of the enemy's logistics hubs, where they are supporting their invasion...as well as found the source of their funding." Sarah grabbed a bar of divinium off of her desk, and showed it to the admiral. "Divinium."

The admiral's face betrayed his consternation for a split second.

"Divinium? From our own mines? That is-"

"It isn't. We have also identified and located what we believe to be a divinium mining site, operated by the rebel elements."

The silence was deafening as all color drained from Soliensky's face. He could do the math like Sarah and Elteria had done. In fact he could probably do it much better, given that he probably had more information than they did about the Protectorate's actual situation. The entire Dominion's strategic doctrine was based on them having a near monopoly on divinium.

If it was no longer the case...

"I will contact High Command immediately. Please stand by captain."

Sarah leaned back into her seat. This was going to be a long day...

*****

It took less than half an hour for Sarah's screen to turn back to Soliensky's face.

"Captain. I have established contact with High Command, and gotten...appropriate attention from the relevant authorities. If you are ready, and you have proof of your claims ready to transmit, I will put you in contact."

Sarah blinked, then nodded. The admiral looked...shaken.

"I am ready."

Soliensky pressed a button wordlessly, and his image retracted to but a tiny portion of the screen. Multiple other smaller windows appeared as well, containing serious looking people in Dominion uniforms, most with their chest covered in ribbons and medals.

But all those windows were minuscule compared to the main one, which showed a single man.

Motherfuc- was all Sarah could think of before her mind screeched to a halt as she recognized the man on the screen.

Azrael Sorak, Sword of a Thousand Stars, Hero of Baalagan, Savior of Sartonis, and by the grace of the stars and the High Council, Lord Protector of the Dominion.

The man who ruled the entire nation she was currently in.

"So, captain...Sarah Ciel-étoilé, was it? One of my admirals, an admiral that I respect and whose career I have been following with some interest, has just told me that you have some rather dire news to report to the proper authorities, as well as negotiate payment. Well, the proper authorities are present, so speak, captain."

The man's voice boomed even through the call, and Sarah could almost feel his command presence. She had to stop herself from just saluting him out of sheer reflexes.

"Yes sir, I mean, milord." Sarah swallowed as discreetly as she could. She'd expected, maybe, a high admiral at most, and more likely a commander in charge of relaying everything to the power that be. Not the stars damned ruler of the entire freaking Dominion! "I have come across considerable evidence, both circumstancial and concrete, that the current uprisings in the Protectorate are the doing of a single organization. Furthermore through my investigations I have confirmed the presences of at least one logistics and industrial hub under the orders of said organization, which we believe to be producing hyperdrives meant for battlecruisers, and inferred the presence of 3 more. I have also come across considerable and undeniable evidence that said organization is operating a divinium mine, as well as having acquired the coordinates for what we believe to be that mine."

One of the women on the smaller windows laughed out loud. She was, Sarah noted, one of the most heavily decorated. Or rather, one of those that wore every one of their decorations and looked like a moving pile of medals. In her own experience the better officers tended to either have a wall dedicated to them, or simply have them sitting in a drawer. Only the arrogant or the narcissists tended to wear all of their medals on their casual uniforms like that.

"Of course mercenary, and the tooth fai..ry..." The woman trailed off as she realized the lord protector had shifted his attention to her, and stammered to a halt as the full attention of the Dominion's highest authority came down on her.

"High Admiral Cassandra. You have not been invited to speak, and your remarks are irrelevant to the discussion at hand. Stay quiet, please."

The lord protector hadn't even raised his voice by a single decibel. His expression hadn't even twitched. But even Sarah could physically feel the raw authority and menace exhuded by the man. He might be the ruler of a backwater empire, but he still ruled over an entire damned galaxy, and he had wrestled that control during a bloody civil war. Unlike so many dictators -since that was, without question, what he was- he did not wear a military uniform to appear martial or instil some kind of kinship with his armed forces. He had been an admiral, and he had lead the tattered remnants of the Dominion Navy himself to victory. He was more than entitled to that uniform, and unlike that haughty high admiral, he would probably be more than justified his wearing his full array of medals. The fact that he didn't even bother to lay his accomplishments for all to see said it all.

"So, captain Ciel-étoilé." Continued the lord protector, as if nothing had happened. "You are offering the location of those logistics hubs, and that divinium mine, correct?"

"Yes."

"What guarantees do I have that this is not an elaborate scam? What proof do you have of this hypothetical mine's existence?"

"Without revealing its location? This." She mentally flicked the file over her implant. It took several seconds for it to make through the relays, and whatever security measures the lord protector had for his own systems, before his eyes became slightly unfocused as he communed with his implants.

"I...see." Said the lord protector, thoughtfully. The package Sarah had just sent contained sensor data of the Divinium they had found, and most of Old Joe's analysis. "I see that you were hardly alone in this venture, but your choice in partners is an excellent recommendation in my book." The lord protector's tone had warmed slightly, and Sarah idly wondered if there was history between him and Old Joe. Knowing the old Blorg, it was quite possible. "In any case, the analysis appears sound, although I will forward it to my own experts for discreet confirmation."

"Of course."

"Well then captain. I accept that your information is most likely correct. Tell me, what is your price?"

Sarah breathed deeply, and leaned forward. She was going to have to negotiate with arguably the single most powerful individual within ten million astras.

She was so screwed.

*****

"So?" Asked Turral as she sat down in Sarah's office, Hector and Seria in tow.

Sarah didn't answer, simply filling, and then downing a glass of whiskey with far more speed than such a fine example of liquor deserved. She looked at the glass for a second, before pushing the bottle aside. If she didn't she might simply grab and empty it in a single go, and she needed to stay reasonably sober right now.

"The negotiations are...over. We've agreed on price, and the Dominion will pay it, provided some conditions are met."

"Ah, so you did make your way through their bureaucracy after all."

"I didn't have to. I don't know how, but Soliensky managed to get a hold of the lord protector."

Everyone froze. Except Elteria of course, who looked as shaken as Sarah, as she had to subtly help her captain to the best of her abilities during the negotiations, as she carefully maintained her background and kept her from fucking up, subtly erasing stammers and slip ups before sending the data feed.

"The lord protector...you mean, like, THE lord protector?" Said Seria.

"Yep. Azrael Sorak himself."

"Fuck."

"Indeed." Sarah sighed. "We came to an agreement. It's not...the most optimal, but I believe it is still in our favor."

"The terms?"

"We provide the Dominion with every damned scrap of data we've acquired during the investigation. Full scans of Narval, our data on the divinium and the other logistics hubs, the phased arrays, everything. And we need to place ourselves under admiral Soliensky's command and guide his newly created task force to the mine, and help him capture it. In exchange...in exchange, we get 1% of all divinium extracted from the mine we discover or any other in the same cluster, as well as a hundred gigacredits. Every member of the company will also be issued a full, and I mean full, Dominion amnesty. As far as they'll be concerned we're clean as the driven snow, and anyone that says otherwise will have to argue with the Navy. Lastly, I've also wrestled to get some commercial concessions. Mainly the authorizations to set up our own corp, or freely invest in the Dominion mines as we see fit." The Dominion controlled very, very carefully who had access to their divinium deposits, and who owned those corporations. That concession alone could allow them to get rich beyond most people's dreams once the mines got going under Dominion supervision. "Lastly, we'll be handed a Dominion merc license without restrictions. A letter of marque, basically, and retroactive at that. Meaning that everything we did since we first came into the Dominion's borders up until this point have been for the good of the Domion, or so the paper says. The retroactive part is more or less superfluous since we got an amnesty, but in case we pissed off someone outside the Dominion it covers us."

That last point essentially put them above prosecution by anyone but the Dominion, as they were effectively a Dominion naval unit in everything but name, and thus attacking them outside of self defence was an act of war. Of course, if they invoked it to get out of a sticky situation they'd probably have to tell the Dominion what the hell they were doing, which might not be a good idea, but just having the option was huge.

"Bloody hell." Let out Hector.

"Yep." Sarah sighed. "But there are some bad news to go with that."

"There always is." Said Turral.

"In this case, its particularly going to suck. The lord protector wants us to move in as fast as possible. That means with whatever admiral Soliensky can scrape up, and reinforcements will follow on suit later. The problem is that over half of Soliensky's command is locked into insurgency suppression and can't pull out without risking a complete disaster."

"Why would they care? Its less important than the divinium mine, no?"

Sarah chuckled.

"In theory? Yes. But if they lose the entire area they won't be able to hold onto the mines. Right now they need to take them by force, and hold the surrounding space." Sarah shook her head. "I'm almost ready to bet that the refuelling station at Sepia isn't going to stay secret for very long. They'll almost certainly need it, if only to keep the reinforcements coming."

"How many reinforcements are we talking about?" Asked Seria. "I mean...isn't the Dominion Navy stretched thin as it is?"

"Oh, it is. Which is why our reinforcements aren't coming from the Fringe, or the Periphery, and why we can't wait for them. The lord protector has ordered elements from the Arrival Home Fleet to move out to support us."

"That's..."

"A squadron of battlecruisers, at the very least. Possibly several. But that's dependent on what they can find to carry them here. It would take them over two months to get here the normal way. Three, really, counting refueling stops and such. Apparently they're looking to requisition an intergalactic freighter, jump above the galaxy, jump back down, dump the ships and let them make the last leg of the journey to us. That would cut the reinforcement time to..." Sarah looked at Elteria.

"A month, more or less." Answered the AI. "But it'll severely limit the number of ships they can send. Intergalactic freighters are huge, but battlecruisers aren't exactly small either."

"Yeah, unless they use one of the universal ones." Universal intergalactic freighters were actually manufactured by the Infinite Systems Federation, part of the treaties established after the war with the Taian Republic. Sarah wasn't sure of the specifics, but basically as a form of repayment of the nations in the Verge that had helped the Federation win the war, they'd started selling a yearly limited number of gigantic, super-dreadnought sized freighters to the Verge. The program continued to this day. In fact the Dominion had managed to acquire a handful, which was how the initial colonization effort of Thaumor had even been possible to begin with. "But regardless, they're going to be here far, far too late for the real fight." Sarah sighed. "We've been given a deep space rendezvous point with Soliensky, we'll make our way there, and plan based on what he manages to scrounge up."

Sarah poured herself another glass, before getting up, grabbing some glasses from her liquor cabinet, and pouring them all a drink.

"So, as long as we indeed found the mine, and we win, we get paid."

"One hell of a payment." Said Seria, and Sarah chuckled.

"Oh yeah. Ladies and gentlemen, to victory!"

"To victory!"