Space Odyssey: Spectre-Chapter 38: Azena Family

Steel followed Cornwall as he walked up to the front of the mansion. Where a young man in purple robes was standing. Next to him was a bald man with severe scars. He could tell the man was experienced.

The man's armor was unique. It even had unique markings that Steel recognized at a glance. Steel saw Cornwall frown out of the corner of his eye. He must have recognized the markings as well.

"Count Azena? I am Lieutenant Cornwall, we understand there was an issue with a civil revolt." Cornwall asked.

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"Bah! There is nothing civil about it. Those barbarians are damaging my property and making nonsensical demands. Just shoot them and be done with it. I can always get new peasants to replace them." The man talked like he was almighty incarnate. Steel already hated him.

Thankfully the entire squad was recording as soon as they touched down because what that guy just said was already really damning.

"We cannot without first investigating the reason for the dispute. May we come inside so we might discuss this." Cornwall suggested, putting on his scummiest voice. Steel understood immediately and played along.

"Ahh..." Azena narrowed his eyes and waved at his door. "Please come inside. I have some high-quality wine that you might enjoy." He led them inside. As Steel walked in; he heightened his senses to eavesdrop on any conversations that were going on.

They walked into a sitting room, "perhaps it would be best if your bodyguard showed my cadet to your security room. To make sure there are no problems with your systems." Cornwall suggested as he took a seat across from him.

"Hmm..." Azena seemed to think the reason was so they could have a private talk about how much it would cost the Count to help him with his little problem. "Very well, Raleigh, take the cadet to the security room. I will call you when I am done."

Raleigh grunted in response. Before leading Steel away. As he left he caught a snippet of conversation from another room. "Do you think your brother will discover us?" A sultry female voice asked.

"No, my brother is too focused on his new business venture with that criminal. As well as playing with his toys. How can he even be in the same room as those peasants? It disgusts me. Are you sure you are pregnant with my child?" A male voice responded.

"Positively, your brother has not touched me for over two months. How will I tell him? He will be furious and kill us when he finds out." The female answered.

"Do not worry about that. I convinced my brother to let us go to the capital planet for a year while he does work on the mansion. You can give birth there in secret, my love." The male voice answered.

After that he could hear the sound of them making love in what he believed might be another sitting room. They did not seem concerned about the unrest outside the gate. They also gave him some useful info. The count was participating in a criminal enterprise and he had 'toys' that the count's brother considered disgusting that were distracting him from his wife's affair with his own brother.

Steel listened closer to see if he could hear anything else and caught a snippet of another conversation close by.

"Why are we still on this planet? What is Raleigh's plan? It makes no sense." One soldier complained.

"Come on we know we know Raleigh would enjoy raiding colonies as much as any of us. But even so, we need to step up for a payday sometimes. That last raid was a disaster, we lost most of our numbers. We need to replenish if we want to survive as pirates."

"I suppose but I still don't see the long term benefits of this plan. It is not like the locals will keep quiet about what we did. Nor are we going to be able to get a constant stream of merchandise. Eventually they are going to smarten up and migrate out of the count's reach."

"Yeah... the count should have kept this quiet instead of having us ransack that village. Now those morons are banging on the gate."

"Well it does not matter, we just have to trust in Raleigh's plan."

Steel frowned. They were definitely taking something from the locals. He was starting to get a grasp of the situation but he is not liking what he is hearing. He could not hear any other conversations that might have been relevant.

They walked into a room that was pitch black with the only light being some screens that showed views outside of the mansion. "Hey Raleigh the misses and the count's brother are at it again. You sure we should not tell him?"

"Nah, dishing dirty laundry is not our business. Now shut it. This cadet of the military was sent here to look over our system. Give him an access port." Raleigh answered as they walked forward. The guard was already standing up in surprise at the additional guest.

"Uh... yes sir." A little slow on the uptake but it did not matter to Steel. He walked up to the terminal the guard motioned at.

Steel pulled out his hacking device and began quickly accessing the system. It only took him a few moments to get in. While on the surface it looked like he was just running a diagnostic. He was actually quickly browsing through data. He highlighted a few pieces of information and sent it to both Lieutenant Cornwall and to Sergeant Tani.

He heard the click of a gun and saw Raleigh, the leader of these pirates, holding a gun towards his back in a reflection on a screen. "I am guessing your boss is not here to take a bribe. Is he?"

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Tani led the squad to the gate. The private army was standing back as bouts of fire and rock bounced off the fortification that was hastily set up.

"You must be the squad the military sent. We need help-"

"What's the reason for the civil unrest?" Tani interrupted him and signaled the squad to stop the fighting. They moved quickly pulling the hired guns back and disarming them. Then Corporal Wise and Feathertail along with Cadet Charlie walked up to the gate which caused the locals to decrease their attacks in confusion.

"Well... they um... they seem to think the count is stealing from them. We think it is about how much they are being paid to work the fields." The one in charge answered nervously. It was obviously a lie but they just had to ask the civilians to get the truth.

"Very well, watch them." She nodded to Corporal Hand. "I am going to talk to the civilians to see if we can peacefully resolve this." Tani walked over and saw a frown on Cadet Charlie's face. "What have they told you?"

"Apparently kidnappings and abductions started a few months ago. There were small amounts of women and children at first. Then a few days ago an entire village was ransacked, the woman and children disappeared but all of the men and elderly were killed." Corporal Wise reported while Corporal Feathertail went to watch the hired guns with the others.

"Why did they come to the count's place?"

"Because one of the worker's came to the fields early that day and saw the count's private army marching a bunch of figures into the mansion at gunpoint." Wise repored.

"Hmmm... have the civilians back up. Then get the witness to step forward. Get a first hand account. We need evidence before we can move in. Make sure you are only armed with a sidearm. We don't want the civilians to get spooked." Wise nodded in response and Tani walked back to the soldiers with Cadet Charlie.

"Now we just need either Wise or Steel to get evidence of-" Tani stopped as her communicator beeped with an emergency signal. She glanced at it and saw it was from Steel with a file attached. She opened it and frowned, Talus nobility really was scum.

Tani was about to give the order when several gunshots coming from the mansion shattered the silence.

—-----------------

Cornwall gritted his teeth, doing his best to hide his anger and disgust while talking with the count. He had removed his helmet to be more 'civil' with the count. Now he wished he had beaten the man to a pulp.

While they were talking Cornwall received an emergency alert on wrist communicator. He looked and saw it was a message from the cadet. Seems he had finally found the evidence they needed, hopefully Tani had found some as well.

"Well Count Azena it appears-"

BAM! BAM! BAM!

Three shots echoed throughout the building coming from the direction Cadet Steel went. It appears something more has happened while he was gathering the evidence needed. He pulled out his stun rifle shooting the count once in the chest. Then firing at the pair of guards taking them down quickly.