FSE

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Meanwhile on the station, Anon was walking through one of the corridors on the perimeter of the station. One of the nice parts of how open the Family was in their business on the station meant it was usually very easy to get a hold of them for interviews. All Anon had to do to get a meeting with them was simply call any of their top members and ask for it and they gave her a location to meet up. And normally, when it's her personally asking they know that it's serious enough that they'll send out one of their bosses to go and meet with her. This time, they picked a spot in an observation lounge, a location that's out of the way enough that it won't attract too much attention but at the same time not be taken as anything conspiratorial. She arrives at the location and can see a few of the Family's bodyguards standing around seemingly uninterested in events. To anyone else it would likely just seem to be just anyone else wandering the crust of the station. But Anon has had enough interaction with the Family to recognize a lot of their main bodyguards or at least to recognize how they like to position themselves. But as she is a Guardian and they were expecting her anyway they don't even seem to notice her, instead looking at data plates or having conversations with the residents of the crust. She passes them and walks into the actual observation lounge and spots Mister Doreslo waiting on her. She shrugs and steps into the room, the human currently staring out the window as the planet begins to pass by.

“Head Guardian," he says while nodding towards her, though still looking out the window, his orb already calibrated to her again. This time she isn't too surprised. Having asked for the meeting personally it is to be expected for him to have it ready for her since he knows what language she speaks. She would have done so as well but she didn't know which one they were sending. She had a feeling it might have been Carver, since the meeting area was in the human sector, but a big family meant they had a lot of higher ups in charge. “What can we help you with."

Anon takes a deep breath as she steps forward. Mia, on the other hand had no such reservations and leapt off her to go attach herself onto the window to look out into space like the human. “I was hoping that you would be able to provide me with some information. We had gotten word of a potential threat coming to our station within a few days from Ret. But because we got this information by way of a very round about manner. He didn't send it to us directly but rather said it during a game while making sure that a station personnel was in attendance."

“I understand, you want to have a more official source of information to be actionable. So what was the warning?"

“A shipment of nothing would be arriving from Raeshael space in a few days."

“A shipment of nothing?" the human asks.

“Well, the Habenceun word for nothing. Again, Ret was not really forthcoming in his warning if it is one. Best we can guess is that it's possibly a shipment of either antimatter or phasic energy. Can't really say either way."

“And what do the Habenceun have to say about the matter?"

“That they have no clue and that we should simply ask Ret what he meant."

“But that would defeat any purpose Ret may have had in going about this roundabout manner."

“Exactly, thus why I went and contacted you. You had heard of someone trying to move Consortium Tech before we had any other indication that that was why they were heading in our direction. It stands to reason if there is a threat on its way that your Family would have an ear out for it, if only to stay out of its way or to profit from it."

“Oh," Mister Doreslo feigns some sort of severe injury to his heart. “you wound me so, after all I have come here on your request."

Anon just stares at him in response. “And you're saying that your organization wouldn't think about how to profit off the information."

“No," he shrugs, “it would be a wasted opportunity to not try and find some profit in any situation. But it still wounds me that you'd accuse me of that."

He pulls out his data plate and touches a few buttons on it before touching something on his ball and then speaking out loud, but since he turned off his orb Anon cannot understand a word he's saying. Which is fine, he knows she's here and she's asking for their help. If a condition of that is not kept out of the loop regarding potentially information that would require her to act against them she won't hold it against them. Instead she lets her attention wander and watch Mia for the moment. The small creature is currently busy running all around the place trying to stay as close as she can to the planet below them. In the back of her mind she's also considering what course of action to take if the Family hasn't heard anything. If they have heard a similar rumor then that's actionable, something for the station to do. If they haven't, or aren't willing to admit that its coming, then what should she do? He puts his data plate down and touches the orb again.

“It'll be a few minutes," he says, turning his back away from the window and stares into the room, kicking his leg forward and back while waiting. Anon continues watching Mia for the most part. A bit of waiting was expected. In fact she'd be really suspicious if he had an answer ready for her immediately. “Though I suppose while I still have you here. I know you're a follower of the Three Sisters but there is a celebration of Saint Boleron coming up."

“You know I can't make a point of playing favorites in that manner."

“Oh, no!" he says, quickly shaking his hands and pushing himself off the wall. “I would never impose on you in such a matter. Now if you wanted to attend then by all means. I was only bringing up your religion because I know you are familiar with having a religious view that many would find unpopular."

Anon laughs. “That's an understatement."

“Saint Boleron is about as popular with a lot of the human population. I had submitted the documents requesting to have some Guardians in attendance at the event just in case and have also already set aside the standard fee for this. But I was hoping that with you here and me explaining the situation I could try and convince you to help push the document through. Especially considering what Saint Boleron is about, I'd hate to end up with some sort of altercation at the event."

“Ah, fair enough," Anon shrugs, it was a reasonable enough request. “I'll see what I can do."

“Thank you," he says, looking down at his data plate for a second before turning back towards the window.

Anon follows and looks at the planet they're orbiting. After another minute of waiting and Mia getting bored and slithering up Anon again she speaks up. “Saint Boleron, huh? Didn't I kill that guy?"

“No, you're thinking of General Byugia. The Boleron was a medical transport during the civil war."

“You canonized a ship?" Anon asks incredulously to which he just makes a noncommittal shrug.

“Something deserved sainthood after what happened and there was no one responsible. As I'm sure you know far more than I during the civil war there were groups that chose to simply not get involved. They went with whichever side ended up claiming them when all things were over but they did not engage in fighting for or against either side. The Boleron operated under that philosophy. They were a medical transport ship that would chase after battles and then when all the fighting was done and the ships still in operation flying off they'd go in and search for anyone still alive, regardless of side. They would treat them without reservation and then drop them off in a neutral planet. Eventually someone found out they were doing it and didn't like it and attacked them. Can't say for certain which side, but based on the fact they were hit with missiles, probably the humans."

“Yeah, probably," Anon nods. Though they were from the same base location, the mythic empire ships were usually much smaller and more agile and didn't have the space to have large missile batteries and tended to rely on magic and energy-based weapons.

“But they were an unshielded ship and was hit with five missiles. The engine room was completely destroyed, the engines themselves actually blew up from one of the missiles. The bridge was destroyed as well, not to mention the big, gaping holes in the ship. Whoever attacked them saw the ship in its state, must have written it off for dead and flew off. No distress signal was sent, not that they could with the bridge gone. Some scavenger ships arrived three days later and what they found no one has ever been able to explain."

“What, that it was good as new again?"

“Well no, the ship was still destroyed. If it was back to being new it wouldn't have been as big of a deal. That would actually be very easy to explain; that either the marauder lied about the event or was under a form of Con magic to make them think it hit. But that's not what happened. The ship did take the hits and no repairs had been made. But what was miraculous was that with all the damage the ship had taken, not only did life-support not fail at all, but not a single person died."

“You're kidding?" Anon asks, turning to stare at him.

“I'm not. All three hundred crew members and five hundred patients were all accounted for. Everyone survived, including my grandparents and life-support didn't fail until an hour after the last person was evacuated."

“Some ship. So they never figured out how it survived?"

“No. There were a few Sym mages there that could plug holes, but not that many holes of that size and definitely not for that long, and reportedly the med bay was an isolated system, so they just sealed themselves off in that for three days. But there's no reason why life-support would have stayed operational, especially since the computer it was running on was in the bridge. Scientists have gone over the information for years trying to figure it out. Best they could figure is that somehow the missile that hit the bridge didn't damage life-support and then somehow the life-support system had enough juice to keep running for three days with no power coming from the engines and somehow every single person on that ship was away from where the missiles hit. Statistically it should not even be possible, even from a laws of physics perspective. Of course the scavengers did tow the ship back in, but others found out about the ship and it was destroyed more completely before any real investigation could be done. But if ever there was a sign of the hand of the divine at work, the Boleron is an example of it. Eight hundred lives saved with only a statistical impossibility being the only logical explanation. Our celebration coming up is a celebration of life. That all life, regardless of where it came from is equally precious and everyone should strive to preserve it."

“Why would anyone want to attack an event like that?" Anon asks.

“Because of radicals amongst the people in the human territories. There has been a recent rise in a lot of the planets of the sentiment that the loss of the civil war is illegitimate because the only reason your side won is because we were weakened too much at the Battle of Mars. So any act seen as an acceptance of the loss or not showing the proper disdain to how things turned out is seen as contrary to what should be in everyone's best interest. And if you have politicians screaming at injustices long enough and label anyone on the other side of things as the enemy of the state, it tends to get people riled up. And stupid people do stupid things when radicalized in such a manner."

“Do you think there'll be a civil war?"

“Eh," he shrugs. “Probably not. If this station wasn't here then most definitely. They'd have to be complete idiots if they thought they could not only take on the Mythics Empire, but stand against the Station's fleet at the same time. It's one of the things I like about this place. It's a deterrent for war and war is not profitable for the Family. Increased military tensions make trying to move goods from one location to another far riskier and far more expensive." His plate beeps at him and he holds up a hand to Anon for a second before touching his orb again. After another moment of talking Anon considers what it might mean, especially with the humans coming back from their elections soon. Eventually he puts the plate down again and touches the orb again. “So it's nothing conclusive, but we were tagged on a shipment coming from Raeshael space. More specifically a human transport that had just made a stop in Raeshael space. Don't know what's in it, only that they made a point of sending a payment to the Family to 'leave it well enough alone.' Usually it happens when someone is trying to pass some sort of off-the-books transaction that they don't want us getting our hands into."

“Weapons?"

“Sometimes. Not here though. It'd still have to go through customs here and you would never allow weapons on board. For shipments here it's usually drugs disguised as herbal supplements. Things that won't raise any red flags. But since we do everything legal here on the station we don't handle that kind of thing and would report it if we knew what it was. But just being paid to do nothing and not get at all involved? We can totally swing that. And so long as we don't know what the shipment is, that it's coming isn't something that can be used against us."

“And you're just telling me all this because?"

He shrugs, “Everyone knows what we are. Everyone knows what we are here. There really is no reason to hide it from anyone, leastwise you. If you suspected us of foul play in this situation there's no doubt you'd lock us all up for a while before the courts ruled we did nothing wrong. And if that happened I'd miss the celebration of Saint Boleron. That is all. Did you require anything else of me?"

“Are you able to get any sort of timeline on when this ship is scheduled to come in?"

“Unfortunately, no. That's part of the way we are protected. They pay us off to say what kind of ship and the general direction the shipment is coming from. And then we're given a time span to just look the other way. And we were paid for the next ten days. So that's about as close of a window I can give. But if Ret said a few days, his information is probably far more accurate than ours is. Anything else?"

“No," Anon shrugs. “That should be enough."

“Then I will take my leave," he says, heading towards the exit after glancing once more at the planet. “Do be sure to push those documents for me, would you?"

Anon watches him leave and considers things for a moment. There was more that was being said than he actually saying. Things she should definitely keep in mind. But at the same time she did have at least a partial confirmation. They now had two instances from credible sources of something coming to the station, though what that thing is and what threat it could pose to the station they still have no idea. Anon waits another minute or two staring at the planet before calling Mia back over to her and leaves. She makes her way to the nearest Guardian lift. Just in case she makes sure to not say anything for the time being. There is no guarantee that none of the other people she's passing through doesn't also have an orb already calibrated to her. There is no way of knowing if anyone would be listening in to anything she said. There was a sort of secrecy with the meeting with the Family, but they can just play it off as not giving anything important and point at that Saint Boleron thing.

She resolves that once this crisis is over it might be worthwhile to go and do a sweep of the station, make sure that everything is on the up and up. But once she's sure that no one else would be around to listen in on her she presses her communicator to contact Riu.

“Family gave soft positive," she says, trusting that he'd be able to piece together what she meant by the statement.

That'll be enough for him to start getting things moving from his end. She'll submit a much more official and thorough report once she gets back to one of the hub stations where she can be far more assured as to the security of no one potentially involved being able to listen in. And since he did ask her personally she'll also go about making sure that the request for Guardians to be present during his religious celebration is approved. If it's straight forward enough and no other pressing matters for her to go rush off to handle something she might just decide to give it a once-over and then sign it herself. So long as the payment has been set aside there really is no problem with devoting the Guardians to a bit more protection to an event, so long as it wouldn't affect the station's security on the whole.