"Verende..." "...Verende..." "...Empress?" Empress Verende jumped slightly, and then shook her head... "I'm sorry, yes... what is it?" The officer lowered the hand he had been calmly waving in front of Verende's face. "I thought you might like to know that Leender has finally found the resonance signature of the Warlord's ship." The Empress perked up, "Well, tell me more." "We found it trailing another very old energy signature," An image rose before the two and the officer pointed to a star on the diagram that appeared, "The trail leads to this system but the Warlord's signature trails off towards the Alanda system afterwards. It appears that the trail he was following leads straight into the core of the star." The Empress calmly fiddled with the cuffs on her dress, "A star drive right?" "It would appear so," "That's Leer technology isn't it." "Yes, that technology was designed by the Leers. Either he was chasing someone who had one, or they wanted to make him think they had one. In which case they've been hiding in the core of that star for the past two months." "Well how far can you track the warlord, and what about the Leer." "The warlord's signature skips around from system to system, but it fades out once it approaches the Centauri systems. As for the Leer's trail the best we can do is a conservative estimate based on information from gravitational distortion in the area, which seems to suggest that the star drive was used to connect the Vela system with this system," the officer pointed to a small yellow star, "known indiscriminately from various scout missions, nine planets and an asteroid belt. No valuable resources of any kind. Pre-jump technology inhabitants on the third world. A really rather insignificant system. We won't know more until one of our scouts arrives in the system." "What's the name of this system, Cetere?" The officer paused for a second, "The inhabitants typically refer to it as 'Sol', but I really don't see what relevance that holds." The Empress moved her hand across the display and brought up more detailed information. After a few moments of examination she spoke, "Cetere... send a comminique to Admiral Ferene. Tell him I will issue an Imperial Decree tomorrow. Tell him to ready the armada and recall all expeditionary fleets." The officer rose his hand slightly as the Empress began to walk away, "And what, may I ask Empress is the reason for such drastic measures?" Verende paused and then turned slightly to face Cetere, "Tell him the Setex have finally found a new homeworld and that we will depart within a week barring any serious delays." Cetere snapped to attention and saluted, "Yes M'lord." ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ --------------------------------------------- "Ma'am you don't seem to understand--" "--No, Mr. Officer or what ever your name is," Seraph tilted one eyebrow down mimicing an angry expression on one half of her face while maintaining an artificial smile on the other, "I don't have a 'lincense' and I'll be damned if I need one to operate a mechanically inferior vehicle like this." The police officer paused from chewing his gum and shined his flashlight into Seraph's eyes which produced an almost eerie but enticing glow in the darkness of the night, "And I'll be damned If that's legal... which it isn't. And I guess then that means your damned and I'm not. I believe it also means I'm going to have to arrest you." [Seraph I can't find anything in the law books about needing a license to operate anything, for that matter I can find no reference to vehicles of any kind.] [And why not, what are your historical records dated?] [That's the amusing part... they're not. Because they no longer exist.] [Er... what?] [Well I never had any hard copies of the records for this world, I've been remote accessing them from the guild mainframe to avoid arising suspicion, but someone has deleted them.] Seraph gazed into the officer's eyes for a moment, "Are you sure that this isn't legal?" The officer lowered his flashlight, "Step out of the car." She pouted, "But I haven't done anything wrong." [Why don't you just point your gun at him like you point them at everyone else.] [Shut up, I don't want to get in trouble, being hunted makes it hard to hunt, that's the second rule] "The law's the law ma'am." Seraph turned and gazed into the officer's eyes, "No it isn't." "Step out of the car." "I... uh... can't..." "Oh really, and why's that." "Because I can't fit through this tiny opening," She patted the window sil. The officer stood silently, not a word. "Oh fine," she finally shrieked. She opened the door and stepped out. "Now we gonna do this the easy way?" [Seraph...] [Please not now.] [Just thought you might like to know this star system was just annexed] [Shit... someone must've found out] "Are you going to imprison me?" "That's generally what arresting someone means." "For how long?" "Just a few days probably." "Oh ok, I'll go peacefully."