“Should we believe him?”

“I… I don’t know. He seems to be legit, at least by his accent… So, maybe?”

“Then we should contact Her Ladyship and let her know. Where should they meet?”

“It is not our place to ask such questions. She will contact him or vice versa, and they will arrange it themselves. Such esteemed personages should not have their lives dictated by people such as we.”

“Then I shall send Her the message and hope for the best.”

“That is all we can do. To our Eternal Empire!”

“To our Eternal Empire!”

…

Axton had finally rejoined his friend as they made their way towards the bridge. The last time they had tried to reach that place, a bunch of morons had interrupted them, but it was much less likely that such a thing would happen again so soon.

Besides, they had entered Jump Space, which made any attempt at direct interception a pointless endeavor. You would need some damn advanced tech to rip a ship from FTL, and with the game being as early into its lifecycle as it was, that tech was far out of anyone’s hands.

“I hear that you may be a traitor.”

Thomas chuckled and shook his head in response.

“Nao, no. Just a bit of showmanship. Despite what I look like in this body, I do still have my flair for the theatric. Besides, do you really think I’d turn traitor, especially to those Andromedan Empire fuckwits?”

“Dunno.” Axton replied with feigned concern. “You had been acting pretty sus lately, and you are a rich man.”

“Axton, my friend, my brother from another mother, my dearest, closest companion, I have but one thing I must ask that you never, ever do.”

“Oh?” Axton raised an eyebrow “And what is that?”

“Never, ever use the word ‘sus’ in any such regards ever again.”

Axton patted the massive man on the back, or rather his lower back.

“Sure, sure. Now, what exactly was your reasoning for that bit of acting?”

“I suspect that I’ll need to explain that to the people on the bridge as well, so can we wait on that bit of exposition until later? I would rather tell everyone all at once than have to say it over and over again.”

“Well, I suppose that works.” Axton replied with a nod. “Now let’s hurry up before more unwelcome mooks show up to rain on our parade.”

…

“Told ya.” Thomas said with a smug look on his face.

“You could at least look somewhat concerned.” Axton replied.

“You aren’t exactly in a very good position here. You do know that, right?”

Thomas nodded and used his head to point at the various people who were aiming some rather deadly weapons at him. “Yeah, that is rather obvious, and I’m not exactly that mentally challenged.”

“So, talk.” Demanded a man who wore a generic security officer’s uniform that had been picked up somewhere. “What are your connections with the Empire?”

“Well, if you must know, in the world Axton and I come from, I am absurdly rich, powerful, and influential. Unfortunately, some of the people who share my station in life are more prone to engage in rather twisted acts, though they can’t do so in our own world. As such, they gladly signed up with the Andromedan Empire so that they could indulge in their sick little fantasies with reckless abandon. I, though, am not like them, though without Axton’s companionship in my early years, I may very well have turned out like them.”

Thomas sighed and let his face display his ‘I do not care’ view on things, though in actuality he was sweating a bit.

“Now, as for what I said and did back during the firefight. If you knew anything about me, it would be that I, like Axton over there, have both a flair for the theatric and a severe dislike for the Empire. I may be one of the ‘upper class’, but I don’t consider myself above anyone. That little bit of dialogue was not a hint of betrayal, but instead, a method by which I may screw with their minds. I have no idea if anyone was listening in, though I wouldn’t put it past those unethical fuckwits to put something like a listening device in their people for ‘safety purposes’.”

“So, that was just to fuck with them?”

Thomas nodded. “Yep. Don’t know if it did anythi-…. Well, that happened…”

Axton was the first to ask what exactly had just happened to cause Thomas to shift so quickly.

“Well, I’m not exactly sure how this will go down with all of you, but here it goes.” Thomas took a deep breath as a look of mild annoyance and a bit of anger flashed momentarily on his face.

“Let me head you off.” Axton interjected. “You got contacted by the Andromedan Empire, didn’t you?”

Thomas sighed and nodded. “Yeah. A Player with the Empire just sent me a Whisper, asking where I would want to meet a certain ‘Ladyship’. Apparently these fuckers work fast. Still, though, I guess you already have a plan as to how to fuck with them, right?”

Axton nodded as a shit-eating grin formed on his face.

“Oh, no you don’t! You aren’t going anywhere but the airlock, you damn, dirty, traitorous do-!”

“All right, all right, what the hell is going on? I thought I told you all to not worry about these two.” Daxter finally made himself known, having been busy prepping the ship for its exit from FTL space. “I got the gist of it over the open comms, but what exactly do you want to do? We are about to enter a certain system, and right smack dab near a certain planet. We’ve got money to make and challengers to defeat, so I may have a few ideas of my own to add to whatever scheme you’re cooking up.”

Axton’s smile grew more pronounced as Thomas had the guns aimed at him lowered.

“Man, I have a whole fuckload of plans, but we’ll need to know exactly what we’re potentially going to get into once we reach our destination. Plus, you never told us where exactly we were headed and what we were going to do there. You did say that there was money to be made and salvage to be gained, but you never told us why you were so sure of that.”

Daxter held a tablet in his hands and pressed on the touch screen a few times. Suddenly, a tv embedded in the side of one of the walls came to life, showing a commercial for a planet-wide gladiator fight.

“Oh, god…” Axton moaned. “Are we seriously doing a tournament arc?”

“Less of a tournament and more of a planet-wide Battle Royale with Party Play, but I guess you could call it that.” Thomas added as he watched the commercial.

“Well, that’s better, I suppose…”