5. Heist

Awash in a sea of twinkling points of light, two slowly pitching steel-skinned monoliths sat suspended in darkness. Powered down, the mark-two Badger freighters were visible from a distance only due to their orange maintenance strobes that illuminated sections of their ill-lit carapace. Upon this carapace, dwarfed by the hauler's size as insects are to the cattle they feed upon, strode two black-clad figures - each casting a dagger-like shadow with every regular flash of the hull beacons. Deprived of the stabilizing properties of the human body's natural gravity-dependent gyrocompass, the two men in advanced skin-tight environment suits depended wholly on hull-attracting magnetized strips, sown into the millimetre thick barrier that separated them from certain death, to grant them some illusion of gravity. Above them, slowly rotating into view, a distant space station cast helpful rays of light from its massive search-beacons, for a moment seeming almost as though it were a binary companion to the distant Wirashoda star.

The two men stopped briefly, each independently noticing the austere beauty of this vista - a veritable floating landmass of steel and trimorphite stretching nearly a half-kilometre to either side of them, finally meeting horizon with a perpetual night sky filled with glorious stars; all this illuminated by a sort of artificial moonlight originating from the Caldari installation far in the distance. Soon the characteristic clanging of magnetic boots against hull-plating sounded again as the pair tacitly resumed their task - each man hefting the weighty end of a hundred metre long, immensely heavy roll of plasteel, an endeavour made possible by the zero-gravity environment but by no means made easy.

“This looks like a good spot”, crackled the voice of one man in the headset of the other. The two heaved the plasteel roll in contact with the outer skin of the Badger freighter, wheezing and panting with exertion into their compact respirators. Nodding to each other, they reached for the fusion-welders dangling from tethers upon their suits, and in a shower of brilliant blue light, affixed one edge of the great rolled sheet of flexible metal to the freighter’s hull.

As their labour progressed, the two men slowly unfurled the giant plasteel banner along the side of the freighter, revealing part of a large image. A finished example cresting over the metallic horizon, the other Badger freighter loomed into view, giving a subtle hint of the workers’ aims - its port flank decorated by the expertly forged corporate emblem of the Astral Mining Corporation, and its hull showered in light from a dozen other EVA-suited silhouettes; split into six two-man teams, each operating cutters and welders.

As they completed unrolling and fusion-welding the second sheet, the two men found themselves scrambling for cover as a Minmatar shuttle roared overhead, the concussive waves from its engine exhaust buffeting them and - were it not for the magnets by which they now clung flat to the freighter’s hull - threatening to blow them clear off the surface and into deep space.

“Fucking moron!” spat Tetsuo Shogaatsu, tugging himself free of his magnetic attachment to the hull and uncertainly rising to his feet. He fumbled around for his welder, his gaze angrily fixed upon the fleeing shuttle, by now no more than a distant point of light as it streaked toward the station that was Tetsuo’s home. “Bad enough that I get stuck with these EVA shit jobs while my brother sits in a nice air-conditioned station in his nice comfortable lounge chair, drinking and sucking on cigars, now I gotta deal with goddamn talking monkeys trying to take my head off with their goddamn shuttles”, he continued grumbling sourly. “Goddamn!”

“Who do you think that was, are we expecting guests?” queried the other man between blinding surges of light produced by his fusion-welder.

Tetsuo thought for a moment. “Yeah, we should get back in sometime in the next hour, just to meet and greet the guy. If I’m right, that there is our new Minmatar friend… one of Istvaan’s associate-slash-projects.” Feeling sweat on his face from the intense heat generated by the welder, the younger Shogaatsu wiped his forearm across his forehead, forgetting entirely that he was still encased in his environment suit.

The other man nodded. “Let’s get the crew started cutting the hull for those expanders. These things have to move out soon.”

+ + +

As he squeezed through the typically narrow hatch of the Minmatar passenger shuttle, Hamish noted immediately that for a Caldari outpost, this one certainly lacked the sterile perfection of angles and orderly human traffic he was used to. The all-covering layer of rock dust crunching beneath his feet and distant din of ore cracking stations confirmed it - this island of civilization in the ass end of the Forge region was a mining station, a waypoint for the insatiable locust swarm that was the Caldari resource-extraction industry.

He immediately felt somewhat at ease here, more so than usual when stepping foot on Caldari territory. The few miners and tired looking traders milling about didn’t give him a second look, a reception far warmer than the disdainful stares of inherently supremacist core-worlders. Great exposed machines worked and crushed just feet away from him as he strolled from his glide-bay-moored shuttle across a chain-suspended catwalk, the gravity differential upsetting his stomach slightly as the station’s artificial downward pull took over from the null weight of the hangar.

The main concourse of the station, usually a hive of shops and markets, was likewise a portrait of form over function. Behind a sound-muffling glassteel barrier, great pistons pummelled freshly gouged boulders of ore into finer particulate matter. The mounds of rock then fell into what could well be the mouth of a dragon, a great tooth-edged orifice from which radiant heat and orange light poured amid gouts of smoke and dust. The monstrous blast furnace formed the first leg of the path taken by raw ore on its journey to refined metals at the other end of the station’s refinery. Elsewhere, giant buckets filled with molten metal traversed across sprawling railways built into the ceiling of the refinery, spilling their white-hot contents into blackened casting channels. Hamish found himself captivated by the mammoth machines and the grace with which they moved.

A tap on the shoulder startled him, and he spun around to face the conservatively dressed woman who interrupted his trance. Behind her stood two more, all bearing the trappings of religion. One even carried a placard slung over her shoulder, the Gallente word for disgrace splashed upon it with still-moist red paint.

“Warrior”, spoke the lead Sister of Eve with the grating authoritarian cadence inherent to a religious cult; her loyalties made known to Hamish by a pendant unique to the order hanging from her neck. “Care to lend your time to a protest and a good cause? A swindling Caldari sin-broker on this very station has bought out and hijacked one of our shrines! He has turned it into a den of crime and indulgence; surely you see the outrage in this? Come join us! Lend your voice to the choir of rightful opposition!”

Hamish gazed over the woman’s shoulder off into the distant part of the concourse. Indeed, a small gathering of Sisters seethed and jeered there, clustered around a neon-lit establishment, placards hoisted and angry chanting making itself known even over the clatter of nearby machinery. Suppressing a grin, he asked a question of the Sister, to which he suspected he knew the answer already.

“What is the name of this place you’re protesting?”

The woman summoned her best expression of pious condemnation. “The Guiding Hand Social Club! A wretched nest of drink and deviance!” she spat, in a fashion that suggested to Hamish that this speech was well rehearsed. “They could have moved in anywhere else to ply their excesses to these poor simple labourers, but taking over our chapel is an affront to the Sisterhood itself! We must shut it down!”

“Shut it down?!” cried a young miner who happened to be jogging past and skidded to a halt overhearing the Sister’s sermon. Streaked with ore dust, there was a mix of disbelief and derision about his expression. “Why would you want to shut down a fun joint like that? Don’t you humourless whores have any starving orphans to force-feed somewhere?”

As a fierce shouting match exploded between the three Sisters and the apparently regular patron of the club in question, Hamish took the opening afforded by the distraction and excused himself from their company, trying his best not to laugh out loud. The old man had told him beforehand of the Guiding Hand Social Club, a personally owned haunt of some ill repute, but as always neglected to go into detail. Shogaatsu’s taste for such establishments, however, was now becoming very apparent.

With some Sisters pleading for his aid and tugging on his suit sleeves, and others bellowing dire warnings of spiritual corruption into his ears, Hamish elbowed his way through the tiny group of protesters, eliciting at least one stream of decidedly un-Sister-like verbal abuse. The doormen, burly and armed with ugly repeating riot-shotguns, wordlessly waved him through - obviously having been told to expect him, the Matari deduced.

The protest outside was immediately drowned out by a sound now familiar to Hamish from his many meetings with the old man. He wondered how anyone could stand listening to that steady and incessant beat for such long stretches of time. As the Guiding Hand Social Club’s arched entryway swallowed him in darkness, the club’s interior was revealed to him - behind a lobby staffed with well-dressed club workers there lay a spacious main dance hall with a low-hanging ceiling of gutted girder and steel. Here and there, remnants of the old chapel poked through the lights and decorations; the atmosphere granted by this mishmash of the hallowed and hedonistic made the Matari feel as though he had stepped into a temple devoted to the pursuit of refined over-indulgence.

As he strode through the moderate crowd of miners and merchants enjoying the music with clumsy dancing toward the centre of the club, Hamish was keenly aware that eyes followed his every movement. Here, two suit-wearing men stared at him and exchanged whispers between long pulls on their cigars; there another eyed him and hurriedly spoke into a personal link. This did not arouse his suspicion much, for he was no longer surprised by the sight of these individuals, these nameless well-dressed men and women who always seemed to be finishing a conversation with Istvaan Shogaatsu and walking tactfully away just as he approached. A man with his reach had to have a support structure of subordinates, he often reasoned.

Knowing only to meet Shogaatsu at the Guiding Hand and little else, the tall warrior uncertainly made his way to one of the bars, a classy affair of wood and marble, framed overhead with an arching element of the old chapel from which tiny lights hung loose. Easing himself into a seat, he hoped he wouldn’t have to wait too long - until he laid eyes on the delightfully attractive and appropriately well-attired Sebiestor girl sashaying toward him behind the bar. Suddenly Hamish realized, as he forced away his idiotic grin, that the prospect of waiting here didn’t seem all that bad.

+ + +

“Oh for fuck’s sake.”

Pulling the skin-tight respirator hood off his head with a wet snap, the red-faced and exhausted Tetsuo Shogaatsu wiped the sweat from his face and slouched in exasperation, his eyes resting on the small group of protesters outside the Guiding Hand’s doors.

“What’s up”, asked Feaux Tomai, Guiding Hand elite operative and the other half of Tetsuo’s welding team, wincing as he extracted himself from the clinging confines of his own black-skinned environment suit.

Tetsuo pointed to the crowd. “It’s them again.”

“The good Sisters”, Feaux proclaimed without a hint of excitement. “We’re going to have to deal with them someday. All these protests are driving the customers away. Want me to?”

“Yeah, right. We’ll be cleaning Sister pieces off the walls for a fucking week if you deal with them”, Tetsuo chortled, slapping Feaux across the back with his suit’s glove. “I’ll handle them. Istvaan’s busy, I’m pretty sure he’s inside monitoring the job. I’ll see if our guest’s here, talk to the ladies in grey, and then we’re getting fucking tanked until we puke in the ore extractors again. Sound like a plan?”

Feaux’ face lit up with glee and anticipation. “Sounds like a plan!”

The two pushed through the crowd of now infuriated Sisters, whipped into frenzy by a canoness of the order spouting a diatribe on morality and quoting various scriptures. They lost sight of one another as Feaux split off to a table where two other operatives sat, and Tetsuo bee-lined for the bar - not for desire of finding the guest however, but merely to get a glass in his hand. It was by sheer coincidence that he spotted the bald Minmatar leaning too far forward on the bar and too close to the bartender to be sober.

His warrior’s sense of perception only somewhat clouded by the potent drinks foisted upon him by the darling bartender girl, Hamish sensed Tetsuo’s approach and unsteadily spun around on his stool, coming face to face with a younger, lighter-haired carbon copy of Istvaan Shogaatsu. Save for the prominent implant-work on the younger Caldari’s face, they were nearly identical - he even began to mouth the old man’s name before the realization that someone else entirely stood before him finally sunk in.

Tetsuo spoke before the tipsy Matari could. “Yeah yeah, I look just like him, I’ve heard it before. I’m Tetsuo… Istvaan’s uh, brother.”

“He never - “

“Yes, I know, he never told you about me. In our family, naming our relatives isn’t a smart thing to do”, Tetsuo shouted over the music. He turned to the bargirl. “Hey Shaheen, keep them coming for this fellow, on the house from now on.”

“Where - “

Again Tetsuo interrupted the Matari. “He’s waiting for you in the back room, just ask the guys in suits where to go. Listen, love to stay and chat but I’ve got to deal with some nuns.” He patted Hamish on the back. “Have a few more before you go in, why don’t you. Oh, and have a cigar! Everyone here smokes fucking cigars!”

Tetsuo walked away shaking his head in bemusement, leaving the startled and somewhat inebriated Matari at the bar. Shaheen the bargirl could get anyone drunk, but this guy was here on business, thought the younger Shogaatsu. “He’ll fit in just fine,” he quipped to himself.

Grabbing a suit jacket from the club lobby’s coat check without much regard for its owner and throwing it on haphazardly, he strolled back outside only to be met with a renewed chorus of taunts and jeers from the assembled Sisters. The canoness orator had somehow managed to find a box to stand on, leaving Tetsuo to smirk at the thought of whether there had ever been any soap in it.

“Here he comes”, she bellowed, pointing him out with an accusing finger. “Peddler of indulgence and addiction! Merchant of sin and - “

The younger Shogaatsu cut into her sermon abruptly. “You aren’t going to accomplish anything screaming at people from that box, sweetie! I thought the Sisterhood always took the peaceful and reasonable way about things like these.”

The canoness stepped down from her makeshift podium and stormed toward him in so threatening a fashion that only the cautionary loading chatter of a perceptive doorman’s gun served to slow her advance. “What course do you propose we embark on, we who have been robbed of our shrine, we who are victim to your villainy and double-dealing!”

She wasn’t half bad looking, thought Tetsuo. “Any chance I could get you to cut the shit and talk like a normal human being? We’re not in a church. I never said we weren’t open to negotiation, why don’t you come inside and we’ll talk over a drink or five, maybe even reach an agreement of some kind.”

The woman agreed immediately, eager to preserve her image but haughtily averting his sight. Mid-stride, Tetsuo turned his head slightly to the flock of Sisters who remained outside, suddenly silent and clearly worried by his all-too mischievous expression. As much as they wanted to, the two heavily armed doormen prevented them from following, and he ushered the Sisters’ beloved canoness into the sparsely lit depths of the Guiding Hand Social Club.

+ + +

Slightly unsteady in his footfalls, Hamish stepped through the unassuming doorway toward the rear of the nightclub’s dance hall. The wall of Civire muscle who led him in scanned the crowd like a hawk, making sure no-one else approached as he closed the door behind himself and the Matari. Hamish found himself fascinated by the muscle-bound man’s plainly visible adaptive camouflage tattoos, a staple in the Caldari armed forces but seen in few places outside it.

His eyes took a while to adjust to the decreased light level, finding himself in a short, pitch-black corridor with only a distant green light to guide him forward. It wasn’t long before he reached what appeared upon first glance to be a conference room, were it not for the abysmal light levels and scattered monitors recessed into the walls. Central in this room was a round-table encircling the source of green light he spied moments ago - a slowly pitching hologram depicting the two Badger freighters from outside the station.

“Glad you could finally join us”, said a chair with its back to Hamish before rotating around to reveal the old man. His brow was slightly furrowed. “I take it my lessons on punctuality are lost on you, what took so long?”

Hamish struggled with his recollections for an instant, failing to recall the bargirl’s name. “Shaheen”, he finally sputtered - to which Shogaatsu responded by a notable softening of the expression, switching from annoyance to experienced understanding.

“Worth her weight in gold, that one.”

The Caldari would have to have been stone-blind to fail recognizing the liquor-induced fluidity in Hamish’s movements as he sidled over to the high backed chair beside his own. Rather than chastise the warrior further, he reached for a bottle of Amarr cognac to his side and a second glass - amused, he tacitly wondered how Hamish would react to tasting the harsh liquor.

Gaping at the high-resolution projection of the two freighters, seemingly fed in through their native camera drones as they traversed star-gates and systems, Hamish absently brought the glass to his mouth and instantly regretted taking so large a sip. Swallowing the horrid liquor hard, he fought the urge to wince.

“Anything important, or is this the most boring holoreel in the history of film?” he queried, nodding toward the projection. He hoped the old man didn’t notice the tears forming in his eyes, brought about by the shockingly potent drink.

“Quite important. We’re about to make a strike upon an opportune target in the Gallente Federation, the results of which will directly aid the funding of your… our, newborn corporate entity.”

“You do all your fighting in haulers, then?” the Matari queried sardonically.

The question appeared to spark a long-dormant and rewarding memory in the Caldari, who shook his head subtly and gazed into the amber liquid in his glass, almost as though reliving some great and terrible deed from years long past.

“You would be very surprised to learn how much damage a hauler can inflict in the right hands”, he intoned cryptically, smiling and sealing his statement with a quick sip of cognac.

For the first time since taking a seat, Hamish allowed his eyes to wander around the dark conference room. He could now discern the shadowed figures of at least a few individuals, one slightly bobbing his head to the muffled music penetrating into the room from the adjacent dance hall. “What is this place, anyway” he asked, turning to Istvaan.

“This, my friend, is the Guiding Hand. Not to be confused with the establishment outside, the Guiding Hand is the means by which I act upon the world around me.” Shogaatsu could see confusion building in the Minmatar’s expression, and continued. “It’s a group of men and women close to me. A number of them I am acquainted with from the golden era of the Endless Corporation; others are prominent political figures, others still merely have talents that make them invaluable to our curious little cause.”

Shogaatsu noted the Matari’s gaze fighting to pierce the darkness. “I suppose a few introductions are in order. Over there in the corner is Artel Rivaad, ex-Endless armed forces man.” As the two exchanged nods of recognition, Istvaan’s attention was drawn to Tetsuo, who had quietly entered the lounge accompanied by a strange woman, and was leading her to a private side room.

“You’ve no doubt already met my younger brother”, he continued, exchanging telling glances with his sibling. “And this, is Heraeus Doradus.”

Hamish felt his muscles tense involuntarily, unable to explain the strangely misplaced fight-or-flight reaction - until the face of the last individual mentioned by Shogaatsu emerged from the shadows and sat casually a few seats away from him. The unmistakably Amarr gentleman stood over seven feet in height and, to Hamish, looked as though he was torn from a holographic horror-show - ashen-faced and wracked with apparent atrophy belying inhuman strength, the Inquisitor’s monstrous visage put the warrior in a state of some discomfort.

“Nice to meet your acquaintance”, Hamish stammered, lying. He considered extending a handshake until his eyes rested on Doradus’ improbably long fingers.

A cannibal’s grin etched its way across Doradus’ face. “Likewise…”

“You’ll meet the rest of the group in due time”, Istvaan resumed, “but for now I have to concentrate on this operation. I wanted you to be here to watch however, so you can get acclimated to the sort of things we do around here.” His eyes met those of the Matari. “You are, after all, an associate of the group now.”

Hamish felt a surge of warmth, the unique sensation of acceptance and belonging. Emboldened, he decided to ask a question - “So how does it work? Are you the chief exec?”

“Of sorts… I am an operations chief. There’s a few people with that designation in the Hand, my brother among them.” He cast a brief, furtive glance at the now locked door of the small side room Tetsuo disappeared into. “Everyone else goes by the standard designation of ‘operative’ until they demonstrate aptitude in a specific field. They aren’t ranks really, just categories to help us remember who does what well.”

“And this?” Hamish gestured toward the central hologram, now witnessing as the two freighters approached the berths of a space-borne Gallente metropolis.

“This,” Shogaatsu explained, his voice swelling with a hint of pride, “is a heist.”

“A heist? You’re committing theft?”

“Redirection of assets is so much easier on the ears. Yes, we are committing theft. Theft from the Gallente Federation; Astral Mining specifically. If you need to justify your passive participation in this to yourself, why don’t you think of all the aid those egalitarian Gallenteans send by way of your people? Oh yes, what aid? They’ll hold protests on behalf of the Republic quite often, they’ll call louder than anyone for the liberation of slaves… but how often do they act upon their widely broadcast, loudly proclaimed moral stances and actually commit funds?”

Hamish keenly remembered the Federation Customs officer he encountered on Sovicou, that insincere wench who fawned over him for his race, and even dared to refer to him as blood. The ramshackle barriers of conscience and hesitation crumbled quickly in his mind.

Shogaatsu read the Matari’s relaxing expression like a book, and continued driving at Hamish. “You’ve seen the decadence, the sickening excess to which they can sink. You’ve seen the reckless abandon with which they piss away their wealth. What we are doing isn’t theft - it is merely re-alignment of Federation holdings with their moral structure. We are only helping them put their money where their mouths are. Tell me that money is not better spent on the Tribal Trust of Pator.”

Across the table, Doradus chuckled. “It is a good thing Mr. Farrad isn’t present to hear this.”

Shogaatsu grinned, picking up the glimmer of excitement growing in Hamish’s eyes.

“So how are you pulling this off? Isn’t it a bit hasty?” Hamish nodded as Shogaatsu offered up the bottle of cognac, by now growing confident in his ability to choke the stuff down.

“Hardly. Each such caper is meticulously planned. As we speak, forged identification signals beam from those freighters, and loading crews stand ready to plunder immense wealth in refined minerals. Aboard the station, other operatives are prepared to intercept and falsify cargo verification codes. A great warship guards our escape route. We’ve even done psych-profiles on each individual station guard in the hangar bay to find out which is most likely to… ah, there she is now.”

Shogaatsu pointed to a wall monitor, which appeared to be feeding visual data from a camera secreted upon someone’s body at chest-level, the rise and descent of footfalls clearly apparent. The view spun sideways and came to rest on a polished-metal support column, in which appeared the reflection of a stunningly beautiful woman in red; she coquettishly adjusted her dark flowing hair before resuming her leisurely pace.

“The star of this operation. Linicia is what we call a Valentine operative. Her talents lie in… being convincing, shall we say? Sit tight, the fun is about to start.”

Disembodied voices, emerging from speakers hidden about the room began to flood in, in rapid succession.

“Raem reporting in, the Five Fingered Discount has just docked up.”

“Ryctor aboard the Grand Larceny, ready to receive.”

“The Hvarkann is shrouded and in position in case things go south, Mr. S. We’ll give any pursuit ships that undock something to chew on.”

Istvaan leaned forward and spoke in a direction not occupied by anyone. “Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that.” Glancing sideways, he noticed Hamish chuckling to himself quietly. “What is it”, he barked.

“I can’t believe you named a ship, the Five Fingered Discount.”

The Caldari grinned. “Wasn’t my idea.”

A uniformed guard loomed into view on the fish-eye lens of the tiny camera pinned to Linicia Reloubasan’s ample chest. Hamish noted that Istvaan’s grip on his cognac glass tightened somewhat and he focused his attention on that one monitor, disregarding the flashing icons appearing on the holographic display. The two Badger freighters’ holds were open wide, aligned below massive dispensary chutes and waiting for ill-gotten bounty to pour into their bowels.

Though there was no sound feed from the operative’s camera, it was clear from his gestures that the guard was reluctant to allow her access to the Astral Mining warehouse complex - even when presented with convincingly forged documents. Shogaatsu animatedly pointed to Doradus, and then to another monitor, which Hamish only now noticed was displaying six heavily armed men in black body-armour, no doubt a backup team ready to storm the entrance in the event that Linicia failed.

Just as the old man was ready to give the go on the assault team, the fish-eye lens showed Linicia tenderly running her fingers along the guard’s forearm. Rolling his eyes, the uniform finally relented, and opened the warehouse access doors before the beautiful Valentine operative.

Shogaatsu sank in his chair, exhaling in relief. “Who needs mining…”

+ + +

Stubbing out his cigar in an ashtray, Feaux Tomai surveyed the now-packed dance floor of the nightclub, scanning the crowd for clients - those seeking the services of the Guiding Hand always had a particular manner about them, one of abject confusion as they themselves peered through the crowds looking for the right individual to engage in discourse. They were always easily distinguishable from work-weary locals looking to unwind or dance themselves into exhaustion.

His eyes fell on one of the doormen, parting the crowd as he walked toward Feaux, a meek looking Sister of Eve firmly in tow. The woman looked to be in a state of near-shock, and Feaux reasoned that people like her must not go into nightclubs all that often.

“She insisted on talking to someone inside”, growled the doorman, clearly aggravated by the woman and the presence of the Sisterhood in general. She stepped in front of him, and spoke with considerable apprehension.

“Sir, if I may inquire, is our good canoness all right? She’s been gone for quite a while! I’d really like to see her and make sure she’s all right, it’s time we returned to our duties!”

Soon, Feaux and the Sister made their way toward that unassuming door. He ushered her in gently and she flinched, clearly intimidated by her immediate surroundings - the Sisters were utterly convinced that the Guiding Hand Social Club was nothing short of a drug-soaked abattoir where murder was commonplace, and that fear was readily apparent on the woman’s face.

Witnessing old man Shogaatsu and the Minmatar newcomer clinking glasses and congratulating each other was a welcome sight. “How did it go?”, Feaux called into the main conference room.

The Caldari appeared elated. “Two hundred million and counting! Smooth sailing all the way, the haulers are on the way back and the Hvarkann is shadowing them home just to be safe. We drink tonight!”

Istvaan’s eyes came to rest on the Sister. “What’s with her?”

“She’s looking for her uh, boss. She with your brother?”

Istvaan pointed to the side room, and Feaux nodded. He indicated the door to the Sister, and invited her to step through. As she did, her eyes immediately fell upon her canoness engaged in what can only be described as un-sanctioned diplomatic manoeuvres with the younger Shogaatsu - the former screaming out in surprise and falling off Tetsuo’s lap.

The topless canoness ran from the conference room, with the lesser Sister in hot pursuit shrieking Gallentean curses, and roaring laughter at her back. Tetsuo Shogaatsu emerged bewildered from the side room with his pants still around his ankles.

“Doesn’t look like the Sisterhood is going to bother you anymore”, muttered Hamish finishing his drink.