The fog itself lives a life of contest
30 Apr 2021User319792
"I've gotten some interesting news, Cadence."He looked at me with the same look he'd been giving me when I hung up the holo before answering his question the last time we'd spoke. I dropped a rate with The Empress after making it to where I was going to drop off my pledges before I blacked out.
"All of them, huh?"
The twinkle in his eyes remained and his tight-lipped smile returned as the last word left his mouth. I thought about what he'd said about Denton and how The Empress spoke out in support of Hadrian.
"I told you I was worried about what might be going on. At first, I figured I'd do some recon just in case The Empress decided that the accusation's were more warranting of attention but after she issued her statements it turned into an oversight and asset assessment situation. If this thing leaves The Empress out in the cold, and Torval's statement on the issue definitely makes it clear that she wouldn't think twice about gutting The Empress if the political expediency of a link between The Empress and the NMLA comes out, it'd be in the best interest of the Empress to get a solid grasp of the assets, strengths and weaknesses, ingress and egress, and potential FLOF areas. Half of the Nova Imperium's systems aren't even within the areas of greater Imperial influence, be it The Empress, Senator Patreus, Torval, or The Emperor."
His expression remained stable, with the slightest squinting of his eyes.
"So you mapped out the potential area of operation and gave it to the Angels."
"Universal Cartographics, technically. Beyond the overall problem with Imperials and the fact that I'd love to launch a torpedo at a very specific location on Cubeo 3, I don't really have any problems with the Prismatic Imperium. If this thing goes the way it might, though, I'm not banking on them just throwing away their association with the Empire, to a man, and the last thing I need, if The Empress goes to war with a coalition of the Imperial navy- and even if she does realign with a coalition of Winters and the Rochesters, is to get shot out of the sky by someone I'm expecting to be on my wing."
His smile sank and he looked off-screen for a little while before looking back at me.
"You're paranoid."
I had very little to say to that.
"So what are you gonna do now?"
"I dropped off my pledges after waking up-," he cut me off abruptly.
"Yeah, what was that about, by the way?"
I looked away and snorted.
"I was scanning systems for a few days. Its super boring so I drank some of the Burnham Bile Distillate I've had laying around."
He immediately looked away and his shoulders hunched upwards and back down repeatedly.
"You know that stuff is made with slaves, right?"
"Yeah. Slaves generally make good product. I'm sure they'd appreciate not being slaves while they do it, but it is what it is. As for what I'm gonna do now, I was thinking I'd cruise around looking for some interesting work. I've seen some some spec-ops contracts out in NI space that look like a nice paycheck, and the Cemiess Empire Party is offering some pretty hefty paychecks for slaughtering the Vequess Brotherhood. There's was a small faction war in Cemiess, by the way"
He sat, thinking for a moment, before reaching off-screen and brought a few papers into the view, before shuffling them around and looking back at me.
"Where are you right now?"
"I'm here at Jameson Memorial, putting my shield and cargo-hold back on the Ovid, why?"
"Are you alone?"