Luis thinks for a moment, then nods. "Yeah, should be."

Zaef sighs. "Politically-charged assassination attempts. It's like I never left."

Hugh, crammed back into his Class A uniform after the “field trip” to Whiirr, has had five minutes to pull together an ambush. He’s used those five minutes to scout the area, note guard patrols, prepare his attacks and repeat his strategy to himself. Hiding in the shadows, he’s as ready as he’s going to get - and there come the footsteps of his target. Hugh takes a breath, and then he strikes.

By which we mean he appears walking next to Samantha Barnes as if out of thin air.
“A moment of your time, please,” Hugh says.
Barnes jumps as Hugh speaks after peeling out around the corner to walk with her. "God!" She puts a hand on her heart for a moment, then keeps walking. "Captain, yes, of course. Things are going well with Owenby, by the way. If we survive this, we'll have more space allocated for the GRHDI on base, and more Bashakra'i here. What do you need?"
“It’s not so much what I need as what I’m planning to do,” Hugh admits. “My active duty service obligation will run out in about two years, give or take a few weeks. I wanted to inform you that I intend to resign my commission at that point. I am not going to take on any job that requires me to extend my service beyond that.” Hugh lets that sink in for a moment. “I’ve been fighting off attempts at getting me a promotion for too long, Director, and I know I can’t stay on the frontlines forever. And as it happens, I think I’ve figured out what I’m going to do with myself after this.”
Barnes nods at Hugh's statements about resigning his commission, but raises a questioning eyebrow at him having plans beyond that. "And what would that be?"
“This war is leaving a lot of kids without families, and I - I think I would very much like to help them,” Hugh says. “As a civilian, but one who understands their cultures and what they’ve been through.” He beats himself internally. Dammit, this was not the script. Why is it so hard to explain?
"You want to start an orphanage?" Barnes asks, both eyebrows raised now. "That's quite an ambitious project, Captain. What brought this on?"
“Yes, yes, I know,” Hugh says, getting that glint of excitement, “but I know I can make it work, we owe it to these kids and - I’m sorry, you had a question?”
"This is just a little sudden, Captain," Barnes says. "Where did you get this idea from? What are your plans for all this?"
“The idea? Oh, on Whirr, but it doesn’t really matter - I mean, it is a good idea, right?” Hugh asks. “We’re responsible for them, and I hope that if we help to raise them, then we’re not just helping those kids, we’re laying the seeds for a better future. Teaching those kids that the universe doesn’t run on hate and grudges, but on people helping each other.” The ‘business plan’ part is decidedly lacking from Hugh’s plea - mostly because he doesn’t have one yet.
Barnes slowly nods. "Yes, this does sound like a good idea, something that is worth doing, but Captain, what you're talking about is something pretty big. Do you have any idea about how to actually go about doing it? This doesn't sound like something you're going to wait until retirement to do."
“Well, no,” Hugh admits, “I don’t know about the nitty-gritty, but I’m not pretending I do either. What I know I can do is be the figurehead, get funding, represent the effort, lay down the broad strokes. And I won’t call resigning my commission a retirement...it’s a career change. Dear God, I’m not that old.”
"Right," Barnes says. "And you want to get started on this project when, exactly?"
“Well, I figure I can just use some free time and look into the details starting now,” Hugh says, “but this won’t launch on government time, I assure you. No grand announcements until after Uncle Sam thanks me for my service.”
"What you do with your downtime is up to you, Captain," Barnes says. "As long as it doesn't interfere with your duties with 815. But you do realize that there might be consequences. If people who think we're wasting our time with the rest of the galaxy get wind of this, they'll drag you through the mud for it."
“For trying to help kids?” Hugh asks incredulously.
"No, Hugh, as proof that you care more about the rest of the galaxy than you do about Earth's survival," Barnes says.
“If there’s a PR consultant in the world who can actually sell the public that sheltering war orphans as a bad thing, I want to meet him and shake his hand,” Hugh says. “And knock him into next Thursday after that.”
Barnes smiles at that. "Sure. But I'm just warning you, this will make the relations between 815 and the rest of the team and the Pentagon a bit more strained. They already think we're abandoning Earth to fight a war we can't win, hearing that one of 815 is trying to start a program to aid Imperial orphans isn't going to score us many points. Do you understand that?"
“Noted,” Hugh says.
"Good." Barnes stops and gives Hugh a curious look. "What, exactly, brought this on? You were the one advocating that we be as cautious as we can be a few days ago, that 815 needs to downplay its sympathies for the Bashakra'i and others out there. What changed?"
“This isn’t about the rebels or politics at all,” Hugh says, and smiles. “As for my motivation - I took a few pictures you might want to see.”

Hugh produces a digital camera from his pocket and switches it to display mode. (He felt really good when he figured out how to record videos with it last week. Probably never going to switch off automatic mode, though.) With a few button presses, he summons the most recent pictures from their trip to Whirr. A staged picture of Luis and him sitting in the grass with Rhea, Sijet and the kids, not all of whom are quite getting that “hold still” thing. Torega holding up a hand-written sign with her name in English and Imperial, showing her little nubby tusks with a smile. A shaky self-portrait of Hugh with Dush on his shoulder - his big eyes accidentally catching a bit of sunlight from the right, an effect Hugh considers a proud moment in his amateur photography career. And a quiet shot of Luis sitting on the grass with Othrod, pointing at a few symbols on the math homework and explaining things while Othrod watches and clings to him.

“And a video,” Hugh says. He clicks the digicam to the next file, and a short recording plays: an unsteady look at the Wherren kids playing some sort of game with a rough leather-hide ball, their fur flashing in a bright rainbow of excitement as they each vie to catch the ball and tackle each other in some semblance of “teams” that Hugh failed to figure out despite watching the game for ten minutes. “I think Torega’s team won,” Hugh says. “Rhea wouldn’t explain to me how the scores work, though. I think it’s got something to do with how often you can pass the ball without the other team getting it.”
Barnes smiles throughout the presentation, a genuinely warm expression on her face. "I see." She watches the video finish up, then looks back at Hugh. "But as much as you want this to be not about politics, you need to understand what I've been saying. Everything you do now is political. Everyone in 815 is too important in all of this for whatever you do to be above the fray, and even something as good as this will be used as proof that you're...some kind of seditious alien-sympathizer that cares more about people who don't live on Earth than his own kind. I think that this is a great thing you want to do, but you have to understand the consequences of it, Captain. There's a lot of people who you will have to deal with that don't see children who need help, they see aliens and furry creatures that we shouldn't be involved with and that are distracting you from your job. Do you understand?"
“Five by five,” Hugh says. “That’s why I’m doing this by myself and not pushing for GRHDI to get its hooks in. Can’t distract me from something I’ve quit doing. Anyone else who tries to come at me, whatever, haters gonna hate. Can’t spend the rest of my life trying not to piss off people who are doing everything they can to stay offended.”
"Good," Barnes says. "Have you mentioned this to Garrett?"
“Yep,” Hugh says. “Got pretty much the same speech from him, too. He seemed a little more swayed by the little fuzzballs, though.”
"Well, there's something that he's been planning that this might help with," Barnes says. "So, if we were to implement this officially, would you consider a position on the managing committee?"
“...didn’t you just warn me off that particular publicity fight, Director?” Hugh asks.
"I was concerned if you had fully thought out what you're talking about, not that I wouldn't be able to handle the fallout," Barnes replies. "If the GRHDI is spun off into its own agency with the State Department, it'll give us a lot more leeway to start helping our friends and bringing Earth and the rest of the galaxy closer together. Garrett and I have been working on a few ideas with the State Department, and this might help with that. So, Captain, are you interested?"
Hugh’s eyebow rises for a moment. “Fuck yes,” he says. “Though I guess that means more photo ops.”
"Yes, it does," Barnes says, "but that's something that all should prepare yourselves for. We've gone too far to try to reconcile with the people trying to shut us down. At this point, either we're all pariahs and out on our asses, or heroes with a lot of work left to do."
“I liked being a lazy hero better,” Hugh says. “Alright. Thank you for your time, Director, I’ll let you get back to your regularly scheduled PR disaster now.”
"Good luck with the rest of your visits, Captain," Barnes says, and walks off.

Hugh expected to have to wait outside for a good while before General Sam Kroger, Chief of Staff of the Army, had time to see him, or rather, until he was ready to deal with him. Instead, he’s hustled inside by a waiting Lieutenant aide before he even has a chance to introduce himself. The General is sitting behind his desk; Hugh stands at attention while the aide introduces him.
“Captain Hubert Verrill here to see you, Sir,” the aide says.
“Thank you, Lieutenant,” the General replies. “At ease, Captain.”
“Good afternoon, Sir,” Hugh says. “Thank you for seeing me on such short notice.”
“Please, take a seat,” Kroger says. “What can I do for you, Captain?”
Hugh takes the offered seat. “I’ll get straight to the point, Sir. I know you’re involved in the effort to bring Task Force 815 under DoD control. I know of your links to New Horizons and about the people you’re working together with. I’m here to ask you to walk away from that.”
Kroger nods and thinks for a moment. “And why would you ask me to do that?”

“Two reasons, Sir,” Hugh says. “One, I’ve familiarized myself with your record, Sir. Your leadership was critical in Operations Desert Storm and Iraqi Freedom. You’ve more than earned your current position and I have no desire whatsoever to see you dragged through the mud over your tangential involvement in this. Two. That mud-dragging is going to start soon. 815 has been sitting on the sidelines for too long in the fight for public opinion, a little PR here and there, but that’s stopping today. We’ve taken on an interstellar empire and succeeded in every mission that has been set to us, no matter the difficulty. If we want to, we will go through your plans like a hot knife through butter. The only reason we’re not already doing that is that we’d rather make all this go away than turn it into a fight. Frankly, Sir, you’ve got a lot more to lose than we do.”

Kroger sighs. “I’m sorry, Captain, but I can’t do that. And what you’ve just said is precisely the reason why I can’t. Firstly, there shouldn’t even need to be an effort to bring Task Force 815 under DoD control. You’re a captain in the United States Army. Task Force 815 is a US Army detachment. You’re already under DoD control, you’ve just decided that you’re not, and we cannot afford to have our number one unit out there in the Imperium deciding to play by their own rules. You bring up your record as if it’s some kind of excuse for your behavior, but, Captain, you know that it’s not. You’re right, I have served with distinction my entire career, but I do not see my successes as license to ignore the orders of my superiors and make up the rules as I go along, and the same applies to you and 815. And now you have decided that threatening me is the best way to achieve your goals?” He shakes his head. “Captain, what exactly do you hope to accomplish here? Why are you declaring war on your own side? Have you forgotten which side you’re on?”
Hugh’s eyes narrow. “Your information is out of date, Sir,” he says. “We’re under joint command. You wish to bring Task Force 815 under sole DoD command. Under the agreement that established the GRHDI, we are entitled to apply regulations in a relaxed manner, because that’s necessary for our work. I bring up our record not as an excuse for anything, but to make a point of how effective the current configuration of 815 is. You’ve sidestepped that issue quite neatly - because it’s hardly just about who gives us our orders, is it? You intend to make serious changes to our unit composition, too. So with our chain of command changing, the rules of engagement changing, and even the members of our team changing, how can you sit there and claim that this is just reaffirming the status quo? As for threatening you, Sir, well, I didn’t want it to come to this. Unfortunately, your friends began that trend. Maybe you should ask Agent Simmons about his attempts to intimidate several of 815’s members into resigning. You do know who Agent Simmons is, don’t you? Your email certainly does.”

“He’s an asshole,” Kroger says. “I don’t like his involvement or his methods, but I was overruled, as you found out when you burglarized my office.” He leans back in his chair. “And yes, Captain, this is about reaffirming the status quo. Before, you were a top-notch soldier with a fear of advancement being all that held him back from leaves on his shoulder. Riviera, Stanhill, all three of you are exemplary soldiers. You took orders and did what it took to get them done, but you never broke the rules. We need those people back, Captain. It’s you that’s changed and upset the status quo, and whether it’s from Garrett Davis, Quis, Holoni, Swims-the-Black or Utari, we need soldiers in this fight, not undisciplined freedom fighters. Put yourself in my shoes, Captain. If you had an element you couldn’t control, no matter how successful they were, wouldn’t you want to bring them back into line before they make a mistake?”
“DIscipline without results is just empty ritual, Sir,” Hugh replies. “You’ll be heartened to know that this exact same discussion played out in 815 after our initial missions. We came down on the side of adapting to the new war, not trying to fight the old one. You can grab a half dozen ‘Hooahs!’ from the Rangers or Green Berets that follow orders to the letter and know how to shoot straight -”
“And they’d look good and fly straight but not be half as effective,” Kroger says. “I know what the score is, Captain. We need soldiers that can do more than shoot straight, we need ones who can talk and think on their feet, I agree, but more importantly, we need soldiers that can do that. Can you honestly say that you’re still one of us, Captain? After coming in here to fight to remove yourself from the chain of command?”

“You understand what 815 members have become, Sir, but you don’t understand why we’re against you on this,” Hugh says. “We’re not looking to extricate ourselves because we want to screw the Army or the US or Earth. The fact of the matter is, DoD leadership is an impediment to our mission success. Every idea we’ve heard from your quarter on how to fight this war is either mired in thinking on conventional warfare that cannot be applied out there, or else based on stereotypes and incomplete, if not erroneous assumptions about the Imperium. This isn’t about us going rogue, Sir, it’s about doing our best to be effective out there. I know we look like we’re a rag tag bunch of sons of bitches who wouldn’t know how to salute an officer if a clue bit us in the ass, but I can assure you, when the rubber hits the road, we’re a disciplined, well-trained fighting force. If you want to see the lessons we’re carrying forward, Sir, I would invite you to visit Whirr. See what we are doing there, what we have taught the Wherren and the rebels. We’re running primers on small arms use, unit tactics, fourth generation warfare. We’re turning those freedom fighters into soldiers, Sir.”
“But loyal to whom?” Kroger asks. “Given your attitude towards leadership, certainly not the US military or any other Earth authority, let alone how the Bashakrans feel about our taking leadership over from them. You’re shaping them into a fighting force that only reports to you and the rebels, Captain, and when 815 started sounding like something out of a Kubrick film, that’s when you went too far. If we are so backwards in how we’re fighting this war, why have none of you offered to teach these lessons to your own planet? None of you have instructed since you were snatched up by Davis for the Whiirr mission, and now you come back, having decided that we haven’t learned lessons that you’ve never taught us, while the Bashakrans and the other Imperials are the sole recipients of your aid and your own people are the enemy. Captain, you’ve gone too native to see what you’re doing, and I want you and the rest of the real soldiers on 815 to realize what you’ve become and come back to us, that’s all. Remove the influences that put three good soldiers on this path, and give you the freedom and structure you need to share these lessons and be the leaders we need.”
“With respect, Sir,” Hugh says, “we are available to teach, if the DoD would listen. All we’ve gotten so far is the message that we’re doing it wrong. The DoD frankly doesn’t seem all that interested in what we’ve learned or accomplished. It feels like you want to own our successes but then turn around and say we’re rogue and gone native when you don’t like what we’re doing, Sir.”

“Because you’ve been convinced by your native friends that we’re the enemy, Captain,” Kroger says. “I want you and 815, Captain, warts and all, but I want you on our side, not your own, and coming in here threatening to declare war on the Department of Defense certainly sounds like the actions of someone who’s forgotten where their loyalties lie, doesn’t it? Remember, Captain, for your own sake. Remember where you’re from, and where your loyalties lie.”
“That’s Simmons talk,” Hugh replies. “Loyalty. When it’s no longer about how well something actually works, it always comes down to loyalty and ideological purity. I’m loyal, General. I’m out there risking my ass for a planet that’s currently debating how much it doesn’t like me, Sir. I’ve made friends you don’t approve of, but they’re all fine soldiers and they’re our allies, Sir. And I would be proud to serve under you, General.” Hugh pauses for a moment. “Because for all that we’re still arguing about this? I think you get it. But then I see your friends, and it’s no sale. Simmons and Russell, Sir. Simmons all but threatened Luis Stanhill’s fiance with getting disappeared if she wouldn’t break it off with him. Russell’s men jumped me and Swims-the-Black in an attempt to kidnap us. That’s not the country I pledge allegiance to, Sir. And you stand with them.”

Kroger looks Hugh straight in the eyes. “And if I were to renounce Simmons and Russell tomorrow, would 815 really accept Department of Defense control? Not just my command, but everyone that’s supposedly above you in the chain of command, no matter what they think of the alliances that you’ve made without our support. You would need to start taking missions, not making them up, run any deals with alien species past those who have the appropriate rank and office to be making such deals, and act like a real unit with real commanding officers again. Given what you believe to be true about us, can you honestly say that any of you could ever answer to us and follow our rules ever again?”
Hugh returns the look with steady eyes. He can do staring contests. “I can’t speak for all of 815,” Hugh says, “but I would like to take a deal, if it came with less than a full string orchestra. 815 has assumed competences and powers far beyond that of any other special forces unit run by someone of my rank, so the way I see it -”
Kroger cuts Hugh off again. “- the way you see it doesn’t matter, Captain. This is the way things ought to be, and if you want back into the fold, that’s the way things will be. Someone of appropriate rank will take over whatever responsibilities that are above 815’s position, and you will be put back out into the field to do what you do best, and that’s disrupt and capture Imperial strongholds. You’ll be given far more leeway than is usual to accomplish these missions, but you will certainly not be acting as ambassadors of your own little nation any more.”
“I would really appreciate it if you did not cut me off again, Sir,” Hugh says.
Kroger nods. “I apologize, Captain, but the point must still be made that you are a captain in rank, and are talking about matters that are far above your pay grade.”
“I have an entire file folder with letters from flag officers all but begging me to accept a promotion to Lt. Colonel, Sir,” Hugh retorts. “I think one even offered me a full bird, I don’t recall clearly.”
“They did make such offers, Captain, but I doubt you’ll find much support around here now,” Kroger says. “Not that it would matter. Roles like chief liaison with the Bashakrans, the Sheen or the Wherren should be handled by Generals and ambassadors, not to mention planning operations as large and as delicate as your team seems to enjoy undertaking. I don’t know how to make this much clearer - if you accept my offer, 815 will be taking orders, not giving them. Do you understand?”

“I understand that all too well, Sir,” Hugh says. “I will be taking your offer back to the rest of 815, it’s not my place to decide this alone.” Hugh sighs. “And it is a difficult choice for me, as well, but I am very grateful that you’re offering it to us, Sir. I will have an answer for you within the next few days. Thank you for taking the time to talk to me, Sir. I really appreciate that.”
“Thank you for listening,” Kroger says. “It’s good to see that at least one of 815 hasn’t gone completely around the bend.” He motions towards the door. “Good day, Captain.”
“And a good day to you, Sir,” Hugh answers, and leaves. He’s got more words, but he swallows them; catharsis be damned, this is the most headway he’s made with anyone so far, and a good sign that their opposition is hardly monolithic. Russell should be very interested to hear that Kroger’s willing to hang him out to dry to get what he wants...

On his way out, Hugh grabs his cellphone - hm, that wasn't his imagination, Luis really hasn't called. He types in Luis's number (what's a quick dial?) and hears the line ring.

"Come on, Stanhill, pick up..."

Luis sits the back corner of one of what seems like several thousand DC Starbucks, sipping at a venti latte and pretending to look over a stack of papers. However, in his head, he’s hooking up to the location’s WiFi (after having his GRHDI driver take him to three other Starbucks in an attempt to find a location that didn’t demand a latte an hour for WiFi access) and preparing for what he knows he’s about to face. Arketta sits next to him, reading a paper and practicing some of the English words she doesn’t know while sipping her latte and munching on a cinnamon roll. He sighs, and dials his vox.

The technician Sheen that’s been performing his head scans picks up halfway through the first tone. Luis knows that it’s because he’s dialing into the robot itself, but it’s still a nice surprise. “Sheen Tech technical support, how may I disconnect you today?” it jokes.
Subvocalizing, Luis responds, “Hey there. I’ve been having some issues around the office lately, and I need some help sorting them out.”
“I’ll say,” the Sheen replies. “It’s not like you got your whole brain replaced or something, that shit’s just discriminatory. But that would be awesome, by the way. Let me know if we can hook you up with that. So, what do you need? Want us to send a ton of hardcore porn to their offices? Order a few hundred pizzas on their personal credit cards? Ooh! Spam them with ads for discount dick pills!”
Luis tries to stifle a grin. “Nothing quite so visible yet. Was more hoping to have a look around their stuff, see if we could find out more about them.”
“And how would we do that?” the Sheen asks coyly.
“I might have the IP of their internal network and mail servers,” Luis responds.
“You’re not suggesting that I, one of the Sheen, who are sworn to not violate the privacy of servers marked as off-limits to our kind, participate in hacking one of these servers, are you?”
“No,” Luis says, “I’m not suggesting that you might, I’m asking if you will.”
“Why, how dare you, sir!” the Sheen proclaims, then giggles. “How dare you accuse me of stooping so low as to break the covenant snicker that our species has established with your home world! I would never -” At this point, the snickering becomes full on laughter for a second. “Yeah, I’m just fuckin’ with you. Sure thing, let’s go get the bastards. How do you want to do this?”
“Well, they left their mail server and internal network open,” Luis says. “I figured we should give that a look. Ideally, they don’t even know we were there, so we can use anything particularly juicy to make them think we’ve turned some of their people.” He flips over the paper he’s pretending to look at, and takes a sip of his coffee.
“Ooh, FUD. I like it. Send me the IP address, sir, and let’s get this show on the road.”

---

Luis verifies that his hardware is securely tied into the Starbucks’ WiFi, then pulls up the implant’s hacking interface. Or rather, he drops into it. It’s like the whole world takes a step back, and the virtual world steps into the space. He can still feel the faux-leather of the seat and hear the buzz of conversation and the milk foamer behind the bar, but they’re far off. At the same time, the virtual world flies up to fill his vision, restricting the input of his real eyes to a small corner of his vision. Instead, his vision is filled with translucent panes of information. The outgoing/incoming traffic from the server, the actual command line itself and the console asscoaited with it, and all the other information his vox always showed him before. However, now, it’s all-encompassing. Instead of being abstract, it seems very real, and the rest of the world seems indistinct and far off. It’s an almost Zen remoteness, and Luis can see what Jonnoperest saw in it. He takes a breath, focuses on the moment, and calls up the New Horizons IPs.

Floating patiently outside the security bubble surrounding the New Horizons mail server is the Sheen - residing in a virtual shell that, surprisingly, looks like a Sheen attempt at building a humanoid shell. Black metallic panels and joints form arms and legs, and the torso is contoured like a human male’s. Even the sensors are placed in a head-shaped appendage on top of a neck made of actuators and shielded cables. “S’up,” the Sheen says.
“Not much,” Luis says, looking around. “Seen anything interesting?”
“Nah, no scanners, security sweeps, nothing,” the Sheen replies. “But hey, Narsai’s only a few thousand years behind the Imperium in terms of security. I’m surprised they have a firewall at all.” The Sheen bounces a ping request off of the shield, which it easily absorbs. “You like the avatar?”
Luis nods. “It’s pretty sweet. Why humanoid? I didn’t think you guys went in for that kind of thing.”
The Sheen shrugs. “Not usually, but I figured that you’d get a kick out of it.”
“It’s pretty shiny,” Luis says. “You make it yourself?”
“I had some spare time, figured I’d show you how to look good while you hack.” The Sheen stares at Luis for a moment. “So! Shall we?”
Luis grins. “Let’s do it.”

The Sheen dives straight for the firewall and shoves its hands into the firewall’s protective bubble. The piercing motion opens a small hole, which the Sheen stretches wider and wider, until the hole is large enough for Luis and the Sheen to swim through. The hole seals itself up behind them, and now you are both confronted by an enormous array of shifting packets, shuffling to and fro in an array of machinery that seems to go on forever. Surrounding certain packets and areas are red fields, presumably extra layers of security.
“Oh, shit,” the Sheen says.
Luis looks around, correlating the new sights with how he’s seen things in the past. “So...that’d be bad? How bad?”
“Reasonably bad,” the Sheen says, and a panel slides back on its right forearm to reveal a scanner probe, which takes a quick look at one of the red fields as it slides past in the machinery. “Pretty clever for a bunch of biologicals. The red fields? Detect Sheen software signatures. Basically, I touch any of those fields, all kinds of bad things start to happen.”
Luis groans. “Great. How would my stuff read?”
“You’re not running enough to ping automatically if you try to disable them, but I wouldn’t want to try to pass through them if I were you,” the Sheen replies. “So, how do you want to proceed?”
Luis looks back the way they came in. “Was the gateway protected that way?”
“Nah, I scanned the outside while you were waiting. You wanna get out, we can get out any time,” the Sheen says.
“Okay, then,” Luis says, “We’re in, let’s have a look around for anything else and figure out what’s important.”

After looking over the headers and top lines of a few emails as they fly through the system, Luis gets an idea as to how things are routed around the system, and quickly deduces the routing for most of the red-shielded mail. Ignoring the tracks, Luis flies through the maze of machinery and fields, leading the Sheen through the machinery until a second security sphere emerges in the distance between the tangle of routing tracks.
“Man, this is easy,” the Sheen says. “No trackers or watchers or probes or nothing. Just a bunch of passive firewalls.” It nods towards the secure sphere. “Outer layer’s red. You want to take the first crack at it?”
Luis looks over the sphere. “Sure.”

Luis hovers closer and reaches out for the sphere. His hands stop just short of the field, and he pulls out a retractor from his tools and shoves it into the field. Cranking it slowly opens a hole in the field, but when it almost slips out, he nearly puts a hand through the security field trying to stabilize himself. Still, the hole stays open, and Luis reaches through to place a small viral code on the inside of the field. The code activates on contact with the field, and starts nibbling a line through the firewall, accelerating as it goes. Soon, it pulls enough out of the field that the entire sphere unravels, and the firewall collapses.

“Not bad,” the Sheen says, and mimes cracking the joints on its avatar’s hands. “Now, watch a pro at work -”

Before the Sheen finishes its sentence, an angry red block flashes on inside the fields, manifesting a pattern of an enormous red eye. The block swivels to look directly at Luis and the Sheen, and blinks once.

“What the fuck -” the Sheen manages to spit out before the eye is replaced with text in an 8-bit font.

HELLO LUIS

The eye returns, and then the cube beings pulsating, each cycle pumping out a rotating sphere composed of red field panels. The Sheen backpedals through space in a panic, while Luis is simply engulfed by the layers of security. Layer after layer passes through his avatar until the Sheen is separate from Luis by four rotating arrays of blaze-red firewalls. The array of firewalls protecting the secure section of the server still are up, and when Luis turns to look for the Sheen, he sees that the Sheen has been backed into a corner, penned in by two static detection firewalls and the array of new security layers.

Luis grimaces. Should have seen this coming, it was too easy. “Hold steady,” he calls back to the Sheen. Then, he turns back towards the block. “You appear to have me at a disadvantage.”
The eye doesn’t reply or move, it just stares off into the virtual space.
“Well, that’s just rude,” Luis says to the cube. “You know who I am, and you don’t introduce yourself?”
Again, the cube remains completely static. Actually, it doesn’t seem to be looking at or for anything in particular. Luis inspects it more closely, and when he looks at its activity in the server, it’s clear that it’s simply a dumb object, a creepy placeholder pre-programmed with the trap to send a message and that’s all. In fact, the whole trap doesn’t bear any of the hallmarks of the virtual intelligences that Luis is used to dealing with. The fields are intimidating, but they’re simply extremely well-placed and not intelligent like the hunter programs and counter-hackers he encountered on Napai.
He turns away from the cube and back to the Sheen. “Looks like it’s just pre-placed stuff, nothing actively controlled. You up to breaking through it and moving on in?” He looks around, then turns back. “On the other hand, if they knew we might be coming, this could just be the start.”
“Whatever gets me the fuck out of this corner would be good!” the Sheen shouts, its avatar frozen. “I’d prefer not to be the one who gets blamed for starting an interstellar war, thanks.”
“Yeah, I’ve done that, it’s no fun at all,” Luis says, continuing to survey the area. “If they had this set up, could they have something waiting for us at the gateway?” He sighs, and examines the set of fields between him and the Sheen, looking for anything that might report their destruction if he takes them down. He tries to get a good look, but the fields are cycling quickly, and he can’t read anything definitive in the data. It doesn’t seem like it, but then again, it didn’t seem like there was a trap on that first field, either. He takes a moment, peering at the data stream, trying to see the patterns better, when it hits him that it’s cycling far too randomly for any kind of trigger to be placed on it. Maybe. He hopes.

He sighs again. “Here goes nothing,” he says, and goes after the first field. The retractor goes in without a hitch, and the virus quickly disassembles the field. One down.
The fields flare slightly with the increase in power. “Getting a little cozy over here!” the Sheen shouts.
Luis looks up before going to work on the next field. “Then keep an eye out so I can focus on getting through these.”
The Sheen rotates its head around a few times. “Yeah, I’ll do that, just, you know, hurry up.”

Luis nods, and gets back to work. The retractor goes into the second field, but as he’s cranking it open, the field flares and cuts straight through the software tool! His hands almost go through the field, but he catches himself just in time.
“Fuck,” the Sheen adds for emphasis.
Luis tries again, and this time, the field is disabled successfully. No additional flares, but that was close enough. He takes a breath, trying to calm himself, then moves onto the next field. As he slowly edges the retractor in, his cell phone call ring goes off, almost sending him through the roof of the Starbucks. The caller ID overlay pops up over the hacking interface; it’s Hugh calling.
“Are you fucking kidding me?” the Sheen exclaims. “Tell whoever it is that you’re fucking your girlfriend or whatever, we’re busy.”

Luis answers the call. “Hey Sir.”
“Stanhill!” Hugh calls out. “I was expecting a call, are you alright?”
Luis’ expression grows pained. “Been a little busy, sir, they’ve been throwing some surprises I wasn’t expecting. Can I get back to you?”
“Oh, right, don’t let me keep you. Call me when you’re free.”
“Yeah,” Luis says, and hangs up.
“Want me to call him back?” Arketta asks, her mouth half-full of cinnamon roll. “You were talking out loud.”
Luis shrugs. “Nothing much else to say yet.”
“I’ll call him back, ask how things went with his general.” She reaches into her pocket and pulls her vox out.

Luis nods absently, but he’s already switching back to the hacking interface.
“Done with the chit-chat?” the Sheen asks.
“Yeah,” Luis says. He returns his attention to the field. The field goes down quickly as Luis starts to find his rhythm.
The Sheen’s head turns to watch Luis as he approaches the last field. “Hey, Luis. Thanks, and good luck.” It’s a startlingly honest moment from the smartassed Sheen.
Luis looks up, “No problem, and thanks, but let’s not start showing each other pictures of our family or we’ll never get out of here alive.” He grins and turns back to the last field.
“Yeah, we might be here a while, I’ve got a big family,” the Sheen cracks as Luis slides the retractor into the last field. It’s glowing pretty brightly by this point, and he almost can’t force it in, but after some effort, it finally goes in and the field comes down.

The Sheen bursts out away from the corner the instant the firewall is down. “Holy shit, I thought I was burned for sure. Thanks a fucking billion.” It looks back at the eye block, now staring off to somewhere below and to the left. “You up for cracking that fucker wide open now?”
Luis looks at the block, then eyes the mass of code surrounding them. “Let’s do it.”

“Fuck yes,” the Sheen says, and approaches the blue field surrounding the secured area. Sparing the gentle approach, the Sheen’s right arm rearranges and transforms into a simple powered cylinder, which with one strike, shatters the field, leaving the cube naked and unprotected. The Sheen takes a step back and gives Luis a look that would have a smile on it, if his head was capable of expressing emotions. “They already know we’re here and they fucked with us once already, so fuck being quiet, yeah?”
“Sure,” Luis says. He floats closer and peers at the stuff inside the security, but the cube is opaque and obscures anything inside it. Luis looks over the cube itself, looking for more traps, alarms, or anything tricky. While it looks to Luis like the traps and tripwires part of the hack is over, the cube itself is tricky. It’s a slippery thing, with a thin blue shield surrounding it, preventing him from being able to get ahold of it, as his first attempt to probe it just slides off. If the outer shield could be immobilized, Luis could probably disable the interior. Or, he could just take a crack at it and be really careful.
“Clever,” Luis says, looking around the cube. He looks to the Sheen, “See any way to hold that exterior still?”
The Sheen hovers around it in a circle for a moment. “Yeah, I think I got something.”
“All right,” Luis says. “You hold it still, I’ll go for the inside.”

The Sheen nods, and in a final move that breaks whatever illusion of the shell’s human-ness that’s left, telescopes its arms out wide enough to grasp two opposing sides of the cube at once and expands its hands to a few feet in diameter before clamping onto the exterior blue field. Luis approaches the field, but the interference with the outer security layer triggers a new response, and the eye is replaced by a brick wall, the code instantly becoming denser. Luis thinks for a second, then starts tapping away at the wall. Finding a weak spot, he cuts into it with a razor-tipped slicing tool, and a few strategic cuts later, the wall fragments into a dozen facets, like a diamond, that quickly disappear.

“Open sesame,” the Sheen cracks. “So, now we get the phat lootz?”
Luis chuckles. “Let’s see what we have here.”

--

After rifling through the files contained in the secure partition (and inserting a few fake ones of your own), Luis and the Sheen back out of the region of the server. Luis picks up the broken facets of the cube, and with the Sheen helping to hold them together, welds the pieces back together and with a shock from his tool kit, reactivates the security cube. Luis and the Sheen both have to back up quickly as the blue and red shields surrounding the cube reactivate, but aside from that, they’re both in the clear and extract themselves from the server.

“So, that was exciting, Luis,” the Sheen says.
“No kidding,” Luis says. “But I think it was worth it. That was a nice move with the cube.”
“Hey, your idea,” the Sheen replies. “Thanks for the excitement. You need anything else hacked, you give me the first crack at it, yeah?”
“You know it,” Luis says. He grins. “You’re on my speed dial, under H for hacking, or you would be if I had a speed dial.”
The Sheen shakes its head. “Nah, man, neurally-activated address storage. All your numbers are on speed dial.”
“Can I get a name to file that under, then?” Luis asks.
The Sheen makes a screeching sound for a second, like the noise after a dial-up modem connects. “But I doubt that’s much use to you.”
Luis nods. “Yeah, I don’t think my vocal chords could handle that. Puny biologic limitations, I’m afraid.”
“Well, whatever gets your rocks off, then,” the Sheen says. “Just don’t make it something lame.”
Luis nods, “Will do.”
The Sheen nods to Luis. “Catch you later,” it says, and winks out.
Luis blinks, then shuts down his own connection. The real world rushes back at him, and he looks around for a moment as he re-adapts. Then, straightening up his stack of papers and finishing the latte, he turns to Arketta. “You about done?”
“Finished my sweet pastry a few minutes ago, my drink is cold, and your print news uses a lot of strange words,” Arketta replies, and gives Luis a peck on the cheek. A couple of DC suits seated nearby stare when they hear Luis and Arketta conversing in Imperial, and do a double-take when they see Luis’ eyes, but no one starts a scene. “What do you want to do now?” She wraps an arm around his shoulder. “We never had a chance to see any of your capital’s museums or memorials before...”
Luis nods, and indicates the stack of papers. “Yeah, I think I’ve learned about all I’m going to. I’ll give Hugh a call and let him know what’s up, then we can hit the Mall.”
Arketta gives Luis a quizzical look. “Shopping, as well?”
Luis chuckles. “No, the Mall is the big lawn that the Capitol, the White House, and a bunch of the museums and Memorials are on.”
“Do you mean the big batch of dead grass with patchy green parts?” Arketta asks.
“Yeah,” Luis says. “That’d be it.”
Arketta stands up. “Strange name for that, then.”
Luis shrugs and stands up himself. “Better than the Court of Heavenly Purity.”
Arketta gives Luis a mischievous smile and another kiss. “It wasn’t much better looking by the time we were done with it, either,” she whispers in his ear and wraps an arm around his back side.

On his way out of the section of E Ring that houses the Joint Chiefs, Hugh locates an empty restroom. Much like the rest of the Pentagon, it’s about 20 years overdue for a renovation and too big, with two rows of five cabins each, none of which are in use. (Hugh doesn’t exactly feel overjoyed about checking them all.) Satisfied that he’s alone in there, Hugh locks himself into a cabin far away from the door and grabs the vox from his pocket. He clips it to his ear, looking for all the world like a young officer flaunting the dress code with a bit of oversize jewelry. A few taps later, the preconfigured conference call to the rest of the team connects.
“Avengers, assemble,” Hugh quips. “I’ll make my part quick: Kroger wants 815 on a leash as an attack dog. Sounds like he thinks this is a boat he can turn around, and he’s willing to sell Simmons and Russell down the river to get it. Er, this concludes my potpourri of nautical metaphors. What’s the word on the exploration, Stanhill?”

Luis and Arketta are about to go through the security checks at the Capitol when they get the call from Hugh. Excusing themselves from the line of other tourists, they find a spot slightly off the hill and out of the way to take the call.
“Things went pretty well,” Luis says. “Ran into some trouble, but nothing that couldn’t be handled. Pulled some files, and added a few choice emails, then I put everything back so they shouldn’t even know I was there. I’ll have the haul sent out to the team and secure storage with the Sheen shortly.”

“What was the trouble?” Davis asks. He and Swims-the-Black are grabbing a late lunch at a burger joint near the hotel. Swims expressed interest in going there after reading about their burgers, and while Davis was hankering for a burger, he was concerned about privacy, let alone how people would react to Swims-the-Black walking down the DC street. However, between the 6’8” shaggy alien working on his second double-bacon-cheeseburger and the two humorless bodyguards in suits sitting on either side of them, they have plenty of space. A kid carefully steps towards the table, having gotten away from his parents. The mother sees her boy walking closer to the big alien and her eyes go wide, but then Swims just gives the boy a big smile and ruffles his fur at him in a brief display of colors, and after the kid hides behind a table, he pokes his head out and smiles back.

“Some clever stuff set up to detect any Sheen tampering with their files, and a few simple software traps,” Luis says. “Nothing we couldn’t handle.” Arketta gives him a cockeyed Really? I was there, you know look. “The ones we had to bypass on the way in we even reset, so they shouldn’t know how far in we got.”

“Any interesting mail from Kroger?” Hugh asks.

“Haven’t had time to look through it in any depth,” Luis says. “There’s a lot of stuff here.”
“Whoa, let’s go back to the traps part,” Davis says. “I didn’t even know we had Sheen detection software, why did they have that in the server?”
“It is odd, indeed,” Swims grunts in Imperial, then looks back to the kid, standing his fur on end and waggling it up and down. The kid laughs as his mother moves to sit down at the table he’s standing behind.

“The ‘why’ is obvious. You don’t put Sheenware in a server that you don’t expect Sheen to hack.” Zaef says as he throws a knife at the cutting board he hung on the wall of his hotel room. The knife spins twice before burying itself into the makeshift target with a thunk that can barely be heard on the other headsets. “The better question is, where did they get it? Did they make it themselves? Did they crib it from Imperial security systems?” Another soft thunk. “And since I’m feeling inquisitive today, Verrill, in what way does Kroger want us tethered?”

“By turning my paygrade from joke back to punchline,” Hugh says. “No more self-directed missions, no more diplomacy. Just go where the DoD wants us to go and wreck shit. My read is that his head doesn’t sit quite as deep in his ass as Simmons’s does - he wants our track record and he wants us, but he’s scared that we’re out of his control and making alliances and basically punching way over our weight class when it comes to galactic policy making. The way I see it, we can apply a softer touch here. Because acting like entitled know-it-alls who’d just as soon kick the DoD to the curb completely as follow any orders, that’s what’s bringing our enemies together. I reckon a few gestures of good will to the right people will soften that coalition, if at the same time we can manage to piss off their extremists into a frothing rage. You know, one hand offers to be more forthcoming with training and intel to the DoD, the other talks to Russell about the weather.” Hugh pauses for a moment. “And yeah, where did they get their hands on Imperial tech? Sounds like they’ve already got people operating on the other side of the gateway. That’s going to be a pain in the ass if we can’t nip it in the bud.”

Luis shakes his head emphatically. “No, Hugh. This wasn’t Imperium software. None of their active defenses, nothing smart. Just passive well-laid traps using Earth software able to detect the distinctive patterns of Sheenware. It’s an interesting question who made this, but it wasn’t intelligent, it wasn’t responsive, and it wasn’t Imperium. Just well-thought out Earth code.” He pauses for a moment. “Whoever it was, they’re pretty good.”

Davis takes another bite and chews as he thinks for a moment. “What else happened in there?” Swims-the-Black asks he plays “peek-a-boo” with the kid as his mom smiles at her son. “The details are important.”
“Yeah, take us through this trap,” Davis says. “No one was supposed to know we were even breaking in there, and if it was as elaborate as you say, it would have taken time to set it up.”

Arketta gives Luis a nervous look as he starts speaking. “The setup used the Sheen fields around some of the more critical stuff. When I broke the field around the stuff we were interested in, it threw up a few more and the message ‘HELLO LUIS.’ I checked, but neither the message or the field was actively controlled or reporting anywhere I could find. Brought down the fields, broke through a second layer of regular defenses into where we wanted, then on the way out I rebuilt all their stuff and reactivated it like it’d never been triggered.” He pauses for a moment, thinking about the setup. “If they knew we were coming, then why not stop us from ever getting onto the server? If they wanted us there to set off their trap, then I’m not sure we can trust what we got off the server, and if they know what they put on and compare with what’s on there now, they could figure out that stuff was inserted even without having specific proof we put it there. That could tell them about what we’re up to.”

“Or maybe they’re cocky idiots who thought that their trap would be enough to catch the Sheen and us red-handed,” Hugh retorts. “They’re human, not diabolical masterminds, and they’re playing around with shit they don’t understand. Let’s dig into what we got and see if it’s useful before we start worrying about elaborate triple play traps, alright?”
Luis looks around, then shrugs. “Okay, just saying it’s a possibility.”
"Which is why we should get some verification on what we get out of the data before we act on anything," Davis says as Swims-the-Black finishes his second burger. "We have enough to keep Congress busy for now, I think. Luis, let me know when you've found anything we can use, okay?"

“Will do,” Luis says. Arketta looks back to her left and narrows her eyebrows in that direction. She looks away, then looks back in the same direction.

"And everyone just stay low and out of trouble," Davis says. He looks around the restaurant, and everyone's focused on Swims playing silly faces at the boy, except for two men in suits sitting near the front windows. One of them is staring directly at Davis when he looks in their direction, then quickly looks away. "Do you see our friends?" Davis grunts in Whirr-sign. Over vox and without being able to see Davis' signs, the rest of the team simply hears "See you people?"
"I noticed them when we sat down," Swims replies, looking away from the kid momentarily. "Been keeping an eye on them."
Davis looks away from the two men. "We follower have," he grunts, keeping to Whirr-sign and simple phrases. "Are others dirty?"

"Two men, black suits," Arketta says, pretending to shield her eyes from the sun and keeping her gaze indistinct as to not get noticed. Luis follows Arketta’s glance, but doesn't see what she's looking at. Trusting Arketta to keep an eye on those two, Luis contents himself with a slow survey around, as if surveying the monuments.

Zaef, just about to make another throw, pauses with the blade held up to his ear. He may be in the hotel Barnes picked for them, but despite her reassurances, it may not be as safe as advertised. He picks up another blade from the line lying on the table beside him and inches cautiously towards the door. If others were being tailed, chances are he was being watched too. He hears one of the push carts of the cleaner women rolling down the hall, but nothing else.

“Nobody here,” Hugh says, “Pentagon bathrooms aren’t in much demand. I’ll keep an eye out for shadows when I leave.”
"Okay, Luis, Arketta, you should be safe keeping to the tourist attractions," Davis says, turning away from Swims and his tail. "If they flash ID at checkpoints, see if you can get a look at them. Otherwise, just enjoy your tour."
Arketta nods. "Copy, will continue with current mission," she says, giving Luis a goofy smile.
"Everyone else, keep to public areas," Davis continues. "Do we want to just let them be, or try to snatch and grab?"
“Live and let live,” Hugh says. “If they keep back, just try to lose them. If they make a grab - well, you all know where I stand on that issue.”
"Do we risk exposing ourselves?" Swims asks. "Or let them watch for now? They likely know where we are staying."
“We’re not getting much more exposed, that’s for damn sure,” Hugh answers. “Let’s try not to make a scene, but I’m not getting my ass intimidated by these clowns.”
Zaef frowns, then locks the door and walks over to the windows to pull the curtains shut. “I’m with Verrill here. It sounds like they’re there to intimidate us, not pick us off. But don’t let your guard down either.”
“Yeah, caution seems to be in order,” Luis says.
“All right, sounds good to me,” Davis says. “Stay in public areas, and we’ll meet back at the hotel later on to sift through Luis’ haul. Agreed?” Swims the Black nods.
“Agreed,” Hugh says.
“I’m for it,” Arketta says.
“Agreed,” Luis says with a nod.
“Meeting adjourned, then,” Hugh says. “See you guys.”

Hugh stashes the vox (after making sure it’s off), then peeks over the door of his cabin. Still seeing nobody inside the restroom, he drops trou and sits down. Hey, might as well.

Luis nods to Arketta. “Shall we get back in line?”
Arketta nods. “Maybe convince our friends to follow us into a side hallway and introduce ourselves,” she says with a grin.
Luis smiles back. “Now, now, no need for that in the halls of government. Plenty of time at the Air and Space Museum.”
Arketta stretches her back out and braces her arms behind her head before putting an arm around Luis’ shoulder. “Good. At this point, I really just want to punch someone.”

Zaef wrenches the curtains shut and inspects the room carefully. This is familiar territory for him: government and people in power don’t like him and want him shut up, one way or another. It doesn’t make him feel any less paranoid. If anything, it makes it worse. The room could be bugged up the wazoo, it certainly would’ve been in the Imperium. Might also be a good idea to check out possible ambush spots and barricade material in case a hit squad knocks the door down while he’s taking a piss (he wish he could say that that’s never happened before). In any case, aside from finding a thoroughly dried-out bag of some kind of greens stashed in a floor vent, Zaef doesn’t find any listening devices or secret knockout gas hoses.

Zaef snorts as he removes the plastic baggy from the vent and tosses it into the trash. Going to have to have a talk with Barnes about this. This place reminds me too much of the Imperium...even the drug smuggling. Taking stock of the room’s furnishings, the only easily movable objects are a sofa and chair set, a shin-high table, and a rolling chair. The bed, cabinets and desk are all heavy enough that the neighbors, both above and below not to mention either side, would start complaining. Zaef has to make do with moving the sofa and chair to cover the angles from the window and the table to (inadequately, in his opinion) cover an attack coming from the door. Rearranging the room over, Zaef then returns to throwing practice-but this time, he keeps a few blades on hand in case things go tits-up.

A few minutes later, there’s a ring from the hardline vox on the desk. Zaef picks up the blocky artifact, lining up another shot at his makeshift target. “Yes?”
“Mr. Utari?” the voice on the other end of the line asks. “This is the front desk. We have a delivery from Miss Barnes for you.”
“Thank you. I’ll be down in a few minutes to pick it up.” He puts the weird contraption back down and sends a quick vox-message to Barnes: “U send mail?”
Barnes responds back in a minute. “No why?”
Zaef almost grinds his teeth into stubs. “cuz som1 wants me ded or alive, aparnetly.” After sending that message to Barnes, he sidles up to the side of the door again, quietly as he can, quickly as he dares. He doesn’t hear anything outside the door, and there aren’t any teams of soldiers rappelling down through the windows yet.

Zaef stays put, knives at the ready. They probably already have the avenues of escape cut off-but even if they don’t, it’s possible that it’s just an intimidation tactic. If the agents come knocking anyway, well, Zaef’s had some time to prepare.
What Zaef didn’t really expect was an actual knock at the door. “Mr. Utari? We have your delivery here.”
Zaef looks through the peephole, to be sure. He doesn’t see anything. Zaef decides to stay put. If it’s a hotel employee, they can wait, but Zaef will be damned before lets his pants down for a possible ambush. Especially since, if they are after him, they’ve already come pretty close.

There’s another knock at the door. “Mr. Utari?” He hears some other voice nearby, but can’t make out what they’re saying. A moment later, he hears an access card slide into the lock, and the door handle slowly turns.

Zaef’s knuckles whiten as they tighten around the knife handles. Wait to confirm hostile. Wait to confirm hostile. Don’t draw a blade on a bellhop. Wait to confirm hostile.
The door slides open, and the first thing Zaef sees is a black metal rod, like the ones that Davis gave him in DC earlier in the week.

Motherfucker. Zaef decides he doesn’t need to see anymore and decides to beat the fuck out of Room Ambush Number Toofuckingmany and his partner, Onetoofuckingmany. No killing unless the situation really calls for it.

As the man pokes his head into the room, the first thing he sees is Zaef’s fist, complete with blade, coming straight at his face. The handle on the knife impacts his face and Zaef feels the familiar moment of resistance followed by a sharp pop that indicates a broken nose. With the man stunned, Zaef takes the opportunity to inflict more damage by grabbing the man by the back of the head with his free hand and slamming him face-first into his knee. The man’s head bounces off, and he hits his ass on the floor just inside the door, his nose thoroughly smashed and already bleeding profusely.

“Fuck!” another man out in the hallway shouts, and Zaef sees another two men in the hallway wearing Narsai’i street clothes and carrying metal rods. The second one charges into the room, swinging wildly, and Zaef easily weaves out of the way. The third goon tries to hit Zaef from behind from the hallway, but when he brings the baton down towards Zaef, all he hits is the steel doorframe, and the impact is enough to knock the baton right out of his hand. “Fuck!” he says, echoing his friend.

Zaef goes straight for the second idiot, the one who had let himself into his room, with a little smirk on his face. A quick dodge towards the wall and Zaef pushes off of it, leaping into the air and landing fist-first into the face of the second goon. The blade hilt again delivers a solid blow, spinning him around, but this one manages to stay on his feet.

Goon Number 2 takes another swing at Zaef, which he swiftly ducks underneath, while the first guy through the door dizzily picks himself up off the floor.

Behind him in the hallway, Zaef hears the last man say “Fuck this!” A second later, three shots ring out from the hallway, sounding impossibly loud in the small space. Zaef dives into the bedroom, narrowly avoiding the bullets as they punch three holes in the hallway door, but the second man isn’t so lucky. He catches one of the bullets in the chest and hits the floor, gasping for air.

Zaef rolls onto his feet and crouches, ready to leap at the trigger-happy thug when he comes through the door. He was stupid, and thus dangerous, but Zaef figures he can still knock the fucker cold. No need for bloodshed yet-even if his enemies believed otherwise. And if he decided not to stick around...well, there were still some heads knock around in the room. It’d certainly be easier - and safer - to finish the leftovers than go chasing after the fresh game.

“Did I get him?” the idiot in the hallway shouts.
“No, you shot Dylan, you jackass!” the man inside the hotel room shouts back. He’s got some kind of accent - or brain swelling from the beating he took.
“Shit!” A pause. “Do you see the alien guy?”
“No, but he kicked my ass good,” the beaten man says. “My head’s still swimming. Come on in here and help me find him so we can make an example outta his ass.”

The door closes a moment later. From his vantage point in the bedroom, Zaef can see the man that was shot still gasping for breath on the floor and bleeding. He hasn’t seen a lot of wounds from the Narsai’i weapons, but to his eyes, it doesn’t look fatal - yet. He moves to one side for optimal ambush potential, and waits.

“Don’t see the slippery bastard around here,” the third man says. Zaef can hear him literally inches from the threshold of the bedroom, and tenses up for the strike. As he steps through the doorway, a swift roundhouse kick to the gut meets him, and knocks him back into the common area of the hotel suite. Two more shots ring out, but both bury themselves in the wall on the other side of the bedroom.
“Come out, you alien bastard!” the man with the gun shouts. “Quit fucking around and face me like a man!”

Zaef interprets that as meaning “Stand where I can shoot you repeatedly”, which he has no intention of doing. Instead, flipping one of his balanced knives around from its usual throwing position and choking up on the blade a bit more, he leans out from the doorway and flings the knife straight at the man’s head. Instead of the usual one-and-a-half rotations, due to his altered grip the knife only rotates once, beaning the man square between the eyes and knocking him out cold.

Zaef chances a peek to see if the last guy standing has a firearm as well - if he does, Zaef can toss something at his head too. If he doesn’t have a gun, well. And indeed, he doesn’t have a gun - actually, he barely has his wits about him still. He hasn’t noticed that his gun-toting friend is unconscious, and he’s bracing himself against the wall as he shakes his head and tries to get back into the fight. Zaef sprints up to him to close the distance for the disarm before he has a chance to get back on his feet, but the man can barely prop himself up against the wall in time to resist. Zaef simply grabs the baton by the business end and yanks it out of the man’s hand. He takes a decent swing at Zaef, but the experienced fighter simply leans to one side and dodges the blow.

Zaef easily slips into the man’s guard and puts his knifepoint against the man’s throat. “Who sent you, boy?” Zaef hisses in soft, but clear English.
The man looks at Zaef, at the knife, back at Zaef, and then the inside of his eye sockets as both orbs roll back into his head and he slumps to the floor.

Zaef snorts, wearing the expression of someone who just stepped in shit. He turns to the man’s comrade, still bleeding from the gunshot he took to the chest earlier. “You. Tell whoever sent you that I’m not afraid of him or any little punks he sends after me.”
He gurgles at Zaef, and then he too passes out. There’s banging at the door behind Zaef. “Zaef Utari!” Whoever it is manages to mangle his first and last names. “DC Metro Police! Open the door!”

“Call your medical teams. Some, some knucklehead ended up shooting his partner.” Zaef says as he opens the door.
Two police officers stand outside the door, one light-skinned man and a short black-skinned woman - and they both point their guns at Zaef immediately. “Get on the floor!” the man shouts.
“Face on the floor, hands behind your head!” the other says.
Zaef gets on his knees and places his hands behind his head, frowning. “Is this really necessary?” he asks calmly.
“Sir, get down on the floor,” the woman says.
The officers can almost hear Zaef’s molars grinding together, then he lies down on the floor, looking like he just swallowed a whole lemon. “Is this really necessary?” he repeats himself with a little venom.
While the man checks and cuffs the three unconscious men, the woman kneels down next to Zaef. “I see you have a knife on you, sir. I’m going to search you, do you have any other blades, needles or sharp objects hidden on your person?”
“Yes. One in my sock, one in my armpit, two in my pants, and nowhere you will feel embarrassed searching.” There’s a pause. “Is this really necessary?” he asks again.
The woman pulls the blades out from Zaef’s hiding places on his person and stands back up. “Okay, sir, you can stand back up. Now, why don’t you tell me what happened here?”
Zaef stands up faster than is perhaps strictly necessary, but it’s nothing fancy. “I was informed that I received a package downstairs from a colleague. She informed me, however, that she had done no such thing, so I stayed in my room. Not too long after, I hear a knock on my door, claiming that there was a package for me, and then I hear the sound of my door unlocking, and these men attacked me.”
The woman nods and takes notes as Zaef relates the events of the last five minutes. At one point, the male officer talked into his radio and summoned the medical team from downstairs, who start taking care of the attackers, starting with the gunshot man. Once he’s finished telling the tale, the woman puts her pen and pad of paper away. “Okay, what I need you to do is take a seat in that chair over there -” she points to the sitting chair that Zaef moved to cover the window, “- and wait for a detective to show up. Is there anyone you want to call?”
“There are several. Am I limited to one?”
“You can call whoever you want, sir,” the woman says. “Just as long as you stay here.”
“Very well,” Zaef says, frowning. He sits in the chair, and pulls out his vox. He figures there are plenty of people who need to hear this, but he knows who to call first.
“C’mon, Verrill, pick up the damn vox,” he growls into the speaker.

On his way out of the Pentagon, Hugh feels the vox in his pocket vibrate. He grabs the vox, sticks it on his ear and takes the call.

"Hubert's House of Hotcakes, may I take your order?"

Zaef quickly explains the situation, his narrative punctuated by a few "Huh"s and "No shit?"s from Hugh. When he's done, Hugh thinks for a second.

"You did the right thing, Zaef. Time to lawyer up...yes, that means shut up...no, you do tell them you're not saying a thing without your lawyer present, then you shut up...I think. Look, just try not to dig yourself in too deep, okay? You did right, I don't need you going down on a technicality. I'll be at the police station ASAP. Yeah, can't believe those fuckers would try twice. Hang tight, alright?...uh, stay strong? I think it means 'stay strong'. That's how I use it. Yeah, later."

Hugh gets a move on. His next call is to Barnes.

Naturally, the pad that Gorlan puts his ship down on is isolated away from the rest of the Hedion riff-raff. It isn’t gilded or carpeted like Angel was half-expecting - it seems there’s only so much that one can do to spruce up a spaceport - but the docking attendants in Kesh clan uniform certainly know what they’re doing. Gorlan seemingly flies in and out of the port on a routine basis, as he greets the attendants by name and even shakes the hand of the dock master on the way out. A familiar model of high-end luxury skimmer awaits you both, and Angel takes the controls on the way back to the Kesh estate to keep up the appearance of being a bodyguard.

At least a dozen attendants and workers are waiting at the rooftop skimmer parking, each dressed in Kesh or Faxom-Io colors, all clutching slates and talking into voxes. Immediately upon landing, they arrange themselves around Gorlan in a swarm. First, the security manager for the Kesh estate has concerns about tightening security, given the recent events and chaos on the planet (Gorlan okays the upgrades), then a Faxom-Io flak needs to know if Gorlan is interested in taking the position recently vacated by Quon Quorona as lead Faxom-Io representative in the Hedion system and if he has any actionable plans at the moment (he is and he definitely does), followed by dozens of other questions about family arrangements, dealing with the aftermath of the death of both Tora and Reno emotionally as well as legally and fiscally, taking over command of not only Kesh Pharmaceuticals but a decently large piece of Faxom-Io and a whole raft of other decisions related to events in both industriums that Gorlan now finds himself in charge of, not to mention demands for interviews and scrutiny from the two Imperium Needleships in orbit to find out how the Hedion Blackout occurred... It’s all becoming very clear exactly where Gorlan has learned to focus and keep cool under pressure. Angel, for his part, simply walks by Gorlan’s side as he strolls through the halls of the Kesh estate, dealing with the hundreds of crises that need answers right now.

A half-hour later, Gorlan has finally cleared the decks of all of the most urgent disasters, leaving just the two men alone outside of his office.
Gorlan sighs, but has a smile on his face. Despite the barrage of comments and pressure, he seems to be pleased to be back in the hot seat, or at the very least pleased to see that the estate hasn’t been occupied by Turai and he’s a wanted man. “It’s good to be back home,” he says, and holds the door to his office open. “Care to join me for an afternoon drink?”

As far as the scout is concerned, Angel got the better part of the deal. Stand behind Gorlan, look quiet and menacing, try not to say anything stupid while the man juggles a planetary economy. He must admit, he’s got more than a little bit of admiration for Gorlan - he handles himself well, considering he’s committed crimes that would likely get most of the city turned to glass. And the Kesh Estate still being the Kesh estate is a welcome surprise. Familiar ground though it might be, Angel is less enthused about a no-holds-barred shoot out the second time around.
“Of course Mr. Kesh.” Flat, even, I’m paid to say yes and also to kill things tone.

Gorlan leads Angel into his office - which, tellingly, is on the other side of the estate from the bloodbath and charred carpets of Reno’s former workspaces. Still, it’s certainly up to Gorlan’s tastes - sumptuous carpeting, a black marble desk (with veins of quartz and gold), and in an interesting touch for an Imperial decor, wood. Real wood panelling, dark like mahogany, in a single row of 8 foot tall panels all around the room. The two doors - visible doors, Angel thinks - lead off, one open to an executive washroom of sorts, and the other to what looks like an extensive closet, completely filled with clothes, shoes and other pieces and parts.

Gorlan slides a door on the cabinet behind his desk open with a touch - Angel’s keen eye for detail notices that the mahogany-like wood’s grain on the cabinets exactly matches that of the paneling behind it - and pulls out an impossibly-shaped bottle with a brown liquid inside of it. “I don’t know if Narsai has any spirits aged on toasted woods, but we have a few spectacular variations,” Gorlan says, removing two glasses as well.
Angel looks around as Gorlan produces the bottle, looking for anything out of place, giving both doors a careful once over - and moving his chair so he’s in sight of all three. He is, after all, supposed to be guarding Gorlan. “We do, but there is always room in the universe for new and exciting alcohols.”

Gorlan pours a finger in each and adds a splash of water. Giving the glass a careful swirl, he passes it to Angel. It smells like whiskey, but with a strange fruity spice that he’s never smelled before. Sipping it first brings the familiar vanilla-caramel-alcohol notes, but it immediately becomes sweeter, and by the time the drink has passed his tongue, it tastes like some strange new hybrid of cherries and pomegranate underneath. And, of course, it’s the smoothest alcohol Angel has ever tasted.

“Aged for 50 years in Aikoran binayan wood,” Gorlan says. “What do you think?”

Angel stares down at the remains of his drink for a few moments, pondering. “That...is very good. I imagine it costs somewhat more than I make in a year?”

The door to the executive washroom swings open, and before whoever is inside clears the doorway, Angel’s stinger has cleared its holster and is aimed squarely for a triple-burst of fire to the torso and head. “That all depends on what Mr. Kesh pays his bodyguards,” the man says. The mysterious man is dressed in an expensive blue-and-gold suit - Faxom-Io colors - tailored to match his soldier’s physique, Imperial-tan skin and shoulder-length black hair. He finishes drying his hair with the small blowdryer, then folds it closed and places it on the cabinet by the doorway before turning to Gorlan and Angel. The man waves in Angel’s direction. “If you could, put the pantaki back in its holster.”

Angel keeps the stinger up, looking at Gorlan. “Mr. Kesh?”
Gorlan’s confident smile has completely disappeared, and has been replaced by a fear even above what he wore in orbit. “Yes, A - err, Ta...” Gorlan completely stalls out when he catches himself almost calling Angel by his real name, then by his cover ID on his previous trip to Hedion. He simply shuts his mouth after a second and nods at Angel. “Yes, please, put the pantaki away. He’s...a friend.”
Angel nods, the stinger returning to its holster. He recognizes that look of discomfort. The kind someone gets when there are too many secrets in a room. “Your friend have a name?”
“Abeis Hasaeph,” the man says. “I represent the leadership of Faxom-Io in delicate situations like this.” Hasaeph looks to Gorlan. “We received your business plan, Mr. Kesh, and the leadership is interested. 3 trillion estimated lats in the first year?”
Gorlan swallows hard and nods. “Yes, and similar figures on a year-to-year basis after that, with an exclusive right to the market into the foreseeable future.”
Hasaeph smiles, turning his head just enough to pretend to be playful. “And where, Mr. Kesh, did you find such a vast market, hungry for our power and data infrastructure products, not to mention construction, transportation, vox, and medical device lines, actually, nearly all of our products save foodstuffs and other consumables, on such short notice? That the other Pan-Industriums haven’t even made contact with?”
“Err...” Gorlan wipes his brow. “My sister worked in many out-of-the-way systems before her murder. She made contact with representatives of this market shortly before her death, and I assessed the market and negotiated terms while I was avoiding the chaos on Hedion.”
Hasaeph’s confident smile doesn’t budge when he turns to Angel. “And you wouldn’t just be his bodyguard, are you?”

Hasaeph may not realize it yet, but he is very, very close to being killed in a sudden and bloody way. But it seems unwise to move just yet. Instead he settles for a diplomatic response. “I am what Mr. Kesh needs me to be.”
“And right now, that would be a representative from this new market.” Hasaeph takes a few steps towards Angel. “Well...whoever you are, do you believe that the demand for Faxom-Io’s products is as strong as Mr. Kesh believes it to be?”
Angel gives the man a steady look. “If that’s his assessment, then yes.”
Hasaeph stares Angel in the eyes for a long few seconds, trying to get a read on him. What he gets is an even stare back, followed by his head tilting ever so slightly to one side, an irritatingly confident smile on his lips. Hasaeph gives a trademark smirk of his own, then looks back to Gorlan. “You do realize that Faxom-Io will be taking a significant risk reaching out to this particular market. Faxom-Io is not interested in another corporate war. If the Imperium finds out about the...particulars of this market, you are the highest link on the chain. You will be left to deal with the results of that discovery on your own, and Faxom-Io will disavow all knowledge of where their goods were going to. It will be made out as you stealing corporate property, and selling it to known enemies of the Imperium, and you will be likely interrogated and summarily executed for treason. Is that understood, Mr. Kesh?”

Gorlan nods, and unlike all the other times since Hasaeph has appeared in the room, Gorlan looks confident and sure. “Yes, Mr. Hasaeph. Let the leadership know that I am more than willing to take on the risk.”
Hasaeph returns the nod. “Then we will clear the first freighters for arrival by tomorrow.” He looks back to Angel. “I understand that your world has no orbitals, or plans to construct any at this time?”
“We have other infrastructure projects that concern us.” Angel nods slightly.
Hasaeph smirks. “I’m sure you do. I will make sure to include skimmers to transport the containers through foot Gateways, then.” He extends his hand to shake in a very stiff, disciplined way. “Pleased to make your acquaintance...which one of them are you?”
“I’m sure they’ll be appreciated. The Killing Wind, if we’re going to use your people’s terribly baroque titles.” There is a hint of promise behind the statement - possibly concerning the fate of the indiscreet.
“Ah, the ravliars do like their fancy titles,” Hasaeph says. “Never liked mine, either. Good day, gentlemen.” He turns and walks out of the office doors.

Gorlan simultaneously exhales and collapses into his leather chair, amplifying his sigh ten-fold. “Vidas Lam, I thought he was going to kill us both.”

“I very much doubt that. Still,” Angel nods to the bottle. “How about another glass.”
“Fuck, yes, please,” Gorlan says, and pours himself a triple before doing the same for Angel.

A couple of hours and several drinks of obscenely expensive liquor later, Gorlan has his shoes off and his feet up on his desk, while Angel has his own socked feet up on the second chair in front of Gorlan’s desk. While Angel swishes another sip around his mouth, Gorlan reaches into his desk and pulls out a holodisc, and slides it across the desk to Angel. “Do you know what this is?” Gorlan asks, his voice starting to wobble.

Angel frowns slightly. “A holodisc. Can’t tell you what’s on it.” Having already gotten used to this whole ‘The Imperium catches you your last hours will be painful’ thing, he’s been drinking slightly less rapidly than Gorlan.
“This...is a vox that Tora sent to my personal Cortex account, on the day she died.” Gorlan taps on his desk for a moment. “It was in my messages when I checked them in-system, hidden. And I’ve been afraid to play it.”

The Delta scout shakes his head. “It’s eating at you Gorlan. It ate at me. It’s time to face it.”
Gorlan sucks in his lip and nods. “All right.” He picks up the disc and slides it into the port in his desk.

The full-size holodisplay in the middle of the room lights up instantly, showing a freeze-frame image of Tora driving her personal skimmer. Angel instantly recognizes the light gown, hair design and every piece of jewelry that Tora is wearing - this was recorded not only the day she died, but on her way back to the Kesh estate after knocking Angel unconscious at their picnic. After a moment’s hesitation, Gorlan waves the holo into life.

Tora flicks her fingers through a few controls, and then turns to address the camera while the skimmer continues to pilot itself. “Hello, Gorlan. And Angel.” She blushes, and Angel is instantly reminded of their hilltop escapade. “I believe - no, I know that Reno will accept my offer, but if not, well, I want to be prepared. And so, I, Tora Kesh, certify that this vox will serve as my final wishes.”

Gorlan’s already choked up, and he lets out a quick sob as Tora pauses. “Gorlan, my baby brother, I know you’re going to want to know why I didn’t let you know about Angel and his friends.” She smiles warmly at the recorder. “I did it for your protection, brother dear. Even when Reno agrees to aid Angel and me, this still could end with both of us on the re-education grids, and I can’t bear the thought of that happening to you. You are strong, Gorlan. I know that you will always do the right thing. That is why I am trusting you to deliver this message to my dearest Angel, and why I know that you will follow in my footsteps and aid the Narsai’i. This galaxy needs change, brother, and we have a chance to improve more lives than just our own! I know that you won’t let that chance slip through your fingers. Promise me, that you will remember me like this, dedicated to the cause of freedom and liberty, and standing strong with the Narsai’i.” Gorlan nods, openly weeping.

“And Angel.” Tora again smiles at the recorder at saying his name. “I have only known you for three days, but already you have stoked a fire within me that had been mere embers all of my life into a towering flame. If things do turn for the worse, know that I gave my life freely and with full knowledge of the risks before me. Do not blame yourself for what I did not allow you to prevent. After all, I did drug you,” Tora says, smiling mischievously and playing with her soltoxin rings before turning solemn again. “Know that these three days have been a lifetime of growth and excitement, and that I feel fulfilled and enriched having simply known you. If the course of events allows, I will gladly spend the rest of my days by your side, but if you are watching this holo, then things did not.” A few tears run down Tora’s cheeks. “That is why I, Tora Kesh, in the absence of any children to receive my portion of the Kesh estate, hereby bequeath my portion of the Kesh estate, fortune and family name to Angel Riviera.”

Angel’s stance seems to relax as well. He’s had more time to actively deal with his role in Tora’s death than Gorlan seems to, so the tears are replaced with a fond, somewhat anguished look at the playful, mischievous side of the woman. Still, having her absolve him, to his face, lifts a considerable burden from him. A moment later, his eyes are wider than dinner plates.

Gorlan shoots upright in his chair like he was just plugged into a Groi lozenge while Tora continues. “I hope that taking up the Kesh family name will serve as a suitable token for our love, Angel. It is all I can do. I know that you and Gorlan will more than redeem our good name from the damage that Reno has done to it, and make it so that the Kesh family are regarded as paragons and heroes for generations to come.” She kisses her fingers, and presses them to the recorder. “I love you both. Good luck.”

The recording cuts out at that point, and Gorlan is simply frozen in place, trying to process the conflicting thoughts of his grief over Tora’s death, his unburdening by Tora’s vox message and joy at seeing her one last time, and her giving her entire inheritance - and rights to the Kesh name - to Angel.

Angel sets his drink down. “I...I suppose you should have watched that before you spent so much time indulging beating yourself up for being a coward. We both should have.”
“I...guess so,” Gorlan says slowly, and places his drink on the desk as well. “So...brother, I guess, err...let me see if she left anything else buried in that message.”

Gorlan shakes his head and flicks the player off, bringing up the main menu of his cogitator. A few deft moves brings up Tora’s message on the holodisc, and sure enough, the corresponding documentation is hidden in the message as well - just a few short paragraphs, but enough to make her wishes iron-clad. “Yes, that’s right,” Gorlan nods. “She’s given you her share in the estate and fund, and gifted her peerage to you.” He drums his fingers on the desk, and looks up at Angel. “I suppose you’ll want to know what all of this means. Does Narsai have noble peerages?”

Angel chuckles slightly. “Are you okay with this Gorlan? I mean, genuinely okay with it?” He takes another, deeper swig of his drink. “That was an...unexpected twist. And yes, I’d appreciate knowing just Tora’s gotten me into. We...there are some nobles, on Earth. But they’re mostly powerless at this point and the United States...may have fought a war to get rid of ours. In a manner of speaking.”
Gorlan raises his eyebrows and nods. “Right.” He thinks for another moment, then suddenly remembers Angel’s first question. “Oh! Yes! Yes, I’m fine with this, of course. It’s Tora’s last wishes, and frankly, I can’t possibly imagine any concerns about what you might personally bring to the Kesh family name and genetic traits. You redeemed Tora and me, saved my life, and are brave, skilled, intelligent...everything one could hope for. Believe me, Angel, counting you amongst my relatives is an honor, not a burden, and sharing the family trust and possessions is the least I can do to repay you. It’s just rather...sudden and unexpected.”

Gorlan pauses again, before remembering the second thing Angel asked. “So! Well, first and most obvious, the Kesh family estate and fund. Part of the way our parents dealt with the family finances was to give Tora, Reno and me each equal shares in a pooled fund that the vast majority of our individual incomes were put into. That way, we would be forced to work together and check each other on any major projects or new directions.” He waves aside the holodisc contents, shuts down the man-sized holodisplay and brings up his desktop holo. “Of course, with just you and me as sole holders of the fund, we both have an even split of approximately 1.75 trillion lats.”

Angel smiles softly at Gorlan’s still clearly flustered explanation, genuinely flattered that he so readily agrees - and perhaps for reasons beyond just “Tora said so”. He blinks once at the second bit.

“You...trillion with a ‘T’?”
“Yes, or a thousand billion, if you don’t know. I found that ‘billion’ is more commonly used on Narsai,” Gorlan says. “But, with all the changes and promotions and so on, commissions from the Faxom-Io sales to Narsai, that will change. I worked out the math on the journey back from Atea, and I estimate the fund will increase, depending on how Kesh Pharmaceuticals performs this next year, to roughly 5 trillion lats.” Gorlan grins, clearly enjoying Angel being flustered for a change.

“Yeah...we generally don’t so much get up to ‘Trillion’ unless your talking about a country. A big country at that. Do me a favor? Pretend I...oh, I don’t know, get paid like a low ranking Turai. What, exactly, does 1.75 trillion lats...mean, in the grand scheme of things?”
“Err...” Gorlan’s fingers quickly bring up a calculator, and a few twitches later, he has what he’s looking for. “The average Turai is paid roughly 30 thousand lats per year, so...roughly 55 million times your annual salary?”

“Alright. We’ll round that off at...mind-boggling. I assume I can leave the whole ‘managing obscene amounts of wealth, the likes of which I cannot even conceptualize’ to you?”
“Of course,” Gorlan replies. “And of course, there’s complications. With everything that’s gone on, we can’t just go shuffling lats around in any kind of significant way. The Imperials will be watching us, watching our family, and we need to be discreet. I’ll be able to shuffle some money around, call it rounding errors from corporate earnings and transactions, so as long as you keep it below 10 million lats per fiscal period, preferably 5 million? That should get lost in the figures. Will that be enough? If it’s a problem, I can create a few blind accounts, enough to hide a few billion lats away.”

Angel’s tone is...decidedly flat. “Five million should do just fine. That’s only, what a hundred or two hundred times what I make a year. And yeah, that’ll do nicely for the time being. I presume there’s also complications to...peerage?”
Gorlan shakes his head. “Noble families handle their own peerage records, so no, not really. The only question for you is if you want to take the Kesh name.” Gorlan’s face is...the closest that Angel can think of to describe it is “conflicted and hopeful”. “Tora wished that you would take it on, and I would be honored if you would, but it is entirely up to you. I do not know how attached you are to your family name, and I would understand if you did not want to change it.”
Angel shakes his head. “Mom didn’t take my Dad’s name, its something of a one-generation tradition.” He leans back, thinking for a moment. “It’ll cause headaches back home - poor Samantha. But fuck’um. It’s what Tora wanted. I’d be honored, Gorlan.”

Gorlan smiles. “Then welcome to the family, Angel Kesh.” He raises his drink in a toast, which Angel returns and they both finish their glasses. “And if you’re that concerned about what the other Narsai’i will do if they find out about this, may I make a suggestion? Do not tell them. From what Garrett and Miss Barnes had impressed upon me, those beyond your team and GRHDI are not particularly well-informed as to what goes on beyond Narsai. Tell your team, tell Miss Barnes, and if you want to be known as Angel Riviera, lowly Narsai’i soldier on Narsai, and as Angel Kesh, member of the Kesh family elsewhere, then make that known.” He laughs. “Or not! Knowing you and your friends, this would be a perfect poke in the eye to those who are antagonizing you. Just the kind of thing to knock them off balance and make it clear who really matters beyond Narsai’i atmosphere. And I think I know you, Angel. You might be good at hiding, but you’ve never been one to hide who you are.” Gorlan smiles again and slides the bottle across his desk. “And you are a Kesh, through and through, believe me. Look at Tora, you two were so alike, if you were not fated for love you would have had to have been siblings, and hiding that might not be possible.”

Angel nods, pouring yet another drink, fully content to catch up with Gorlan and have a rousing bad headache tomorrow. “I’ll talk to Davis when I get back. Shit like this delights him - if we’re lucky, he’ll figure out some way to spin it in our favor. If not, the look on his face will still be worth it.”
Gorlan takes the bottle back, pours himself another, and takes a drink. “Stirring things up. It’s like Tora never left.” He stumbles a bit once those words leave his lips, but he recovers, and raises his glass again. “To Tora, to new beginnings, to Angel Kesh, and to a brighter future for our family.”

Luis and Arketta make they way into the Capitol. As their tails make their own way through the security check, there doesn’t seem to be any fuss, but it’s possible they just flashed a badge. Luis gives Arketta a look, and nods towards a meeting point for one of the public tours. The suited tails also joing the tour group.

About a third of the way through the half-hour tour, as the group is about to pass out of the rotunda, Luis’s vox jingle inside his mind and Arketta’s goes off. Luis glances at the call info, sees Hugh’s ID, and picks up while Arketta is still answering.

“Hello?” he says.
“Yeah, it’s me,” Hugh says, obviously expecting his voice to do all the hard work of introducing him. “Zaef just got ambushed at his hotel room. I need to know Arketta and you are safe where you are now.”
“We’re on a tour of the Capitol with some friends. It’s pretty public,” Luis says.
“Wait, is Zaef all right?” Arketta asks.
“Yeah, he kicked their asses, the cops are there, I’m heading over to sort the mess out right now,” Hugh says, then adds a sigh. “So I guess we’ll need a new hotel.”
Luis grins at hearing about Zaef, but then grimaces at Hugh’s last statement. “Yeah,” he says. “How are things where you are? Are the others making new friends too?”
“Davis and Swims are fine,” Hugh says. “Look, just...let me worry about this for the moment. You stay safe, I’ll call you when I have something new.”
“All right,” Luis says. “We’ll keep in touch if anything interesting happens here.”
Arketta looks back in the vague direction of their tail and scowled. “I’m getting tired of acting like they’re not trying to take us out.”
“Play nice,” Hugh says. “Remember guys, people are watching, anything happens - we’re the victims and just defending ourselves. We are not shooting first. That is today’s sentence. Copy?”
Arketta turns back around. “Fine. But soon, Captain.”
Luis nods, “Will do. We gotta go, Hugh, we’ll lose our tour.”

An hour later, Zaef is sitting next to a desk in the local DC Metro PD precinct office, having given his statement a couple of times by now (and backwards and forwards, it seems like). It’s odd, not having encounters with law enforcement start and end with attempted ass-whuppings, but it’s a change of pace that Zaef could get used to. Soon, Barnes walks in with Hugh. Barnes goes straight for the captain’s office, while Hugh walks up to Zaef.

"Hello, Zaef. Are you okay?" Hugh asks in English.

"Hey, Verrill." Zaef says as he tears another sheet of paper off the legal pad in front of him and crumples it up. He tosses it into a basket down the aisle, and it lands inside with a thhmp.

Zaef puts the legal pad on the desk and turns to face Hugh completely. "I'm...Well, Metro's been treating me all right. Waited for my lawyer, gave my statement a few times, give or take a dozen. And those little shits didn't put a scratch on me. But the attack's been bothering me. It's too fucking similar to, well, you in the parking garage. And it didn't work then. If it is the same guys, why are they bothering to try what doesn't work? They're up to something, Verrill."

There's a beat before Zaef asks "Who's watching my stuff?"

"Yeah, I don't know about that," Hugh says, hushing his voice a little. "Not to make too many assumptions, but those chumps that jumped you don't seem to have much training. We might have another player on the board. But you're right, that's attack number two and that's two too many. We have to find out who the fuck these guys are working for."

Finally, he shrugs. "Your stuff is safe. Probably getting processed for evidence right now. You'll get it back when this is over with."

Zaef snorts. " 'Seem' nothing, Verrill. I've dealt with professionals before, and those guys were anything but." He rips another page off and crumples it with a sigh. "S'why I'm waiting for the next blow, I guess. You're right, I'm making too many assumptions here. Might be someone else trying to make a move."

Zaef tosses, and the shot banks off a filing cabinet into the basket. "Still, I wouldn't bet that the enemies we already know about would let an opportunity like this pass 'em by." He rubs a temple vigorously. "We need to find another hotel. Preferably one with better security."

"Something that Garrett is working on right now," Barnes says, file folder tucked under her arm. She hands Zaef a folded piece of paper. "I persuaded the captain to see that you were clearly the victim of a hate crime, and that you were merely defending yourself. The fact that you didn't do more than break the nose of one of your attackers helped with that, thank you." She nods to Zaef and opens the folder. "According to interviews with your attackers, they claim to be 'citizens concerned about the coming alien invasion'. Their IDs have them as Gordon Fulton, Houston Becker, and Edward Windham." She pulls a printout with their Virginia state driver's licenses on it. "I don't expect either of you to recognize them, aside from a drunk in public arrest for Becker, none of them have any records, criminal or military."

"No priors straight to attempted armed kidnapping," Hugh says. "I don't buy it. Somebody's using them, fed them intel and pointed them our way. Shit, I bet I could get something out of them if I had five minutes."

"Oh yes, justice has been served today; the captain of law enforcement had to be convinced of the truth." Zaef snarks as he accepts the paper Barnes hands him.

"Oh, I don't doubt it, Verrill. One of 'em actually passed out when I tried to question him."