As Rene had imagined, the cellar served as both cellar and armory. The whole room had been sealed with a plasticized chemical which mimicked stone in effect but was more like ultra fine concrete. Boxes of food ranging from ration packs to flash frozen local produce were stacked with a perfect neatness which would have made Lieutenant Van Heck’s heart glad. Barrels of preserved meat and salted fish were laid out in neat rows  along side casks of what Rene presumed to be palm wine distilled from the plentiful Terran palms which grew all over the coastal region of New Concordia.

The other half of the room would normally have been concealed behind a false wall but the seamless access panel was currently slid open. A variety of weapons and equipment was stacked in neat storage bins. Rene didn’t recognise half of it, but what he did recognise ranged from the illegal to the very illegal. Any doubts he had of Min Ho being in the Imperial service evaporated at the technological cornucopia. No jumped up bandit could ever hope to see, let alone own half this stuff. He took off his pack and set it inside the door and then unslung the rifle and set it across the top of the pack.

“Keeping the pistol?” Min Ho asked, his voice neutral. Rene began reply intending to tell the stranger that he wasn't going to disarm himself so completely but the older man merely reached past him and took a heavy pistol down off the wall and passed it to Rene. It was a heavy calibre electromotive model, black and round rather than boxy. It was a standard issue naval piece that Rene was familiar with from his ship board rotation. He thumbed an activation stud and twelve led lights lit up behind the receiver, indicating the load. The marine cracked the chamber with a practiced motion and made sure the electronic read out was correct. It was, though the rounds were of an alloy of stabilized uranium rather than the ceramics usually found in such weapons. You did not fire an armor piercing round in a space ship unless you could breath vacuum or were really sure you would hit.

“Cautious, that's good, but don’t let it become paranoia,” Min Ho advised as Rene snapped the chamber shut and dropped the weapon into his pant pocket. He added two additional magazines to balance the weight.

“I’ve had enough luck these past few days that I must be close to using up my lifetime supply,” Rene replied honestly as Min Ho pressed a switch on the inside of the door. The concrete panel slid shut without so much as a whisper as though it had never existed.

“Thank you for the gun,” Rene told his host courteously, Min Ho had been making a statement by giving it to him. I know more about you than you think most likely, but it was a good choice.

“Easier to lie about if the Gids find me, not their equipment,” Rene said, earning a smile from the older man.

“Paranoid and smart, you maybe missed your calling,” Min Ho laughed, clapping Rene on the shoulder as they headed back across the supply room. The armored man grabbed several boxes and a cask seemingly at random. The spectacle of a man gathering food for dinner in tactical armor was disorienting.

“You came from the Rat Trap?” Min Ho asked as the pair ascended the stairs. Rene nodded though he really didn’t want to think about it. It showed a surprising amount of knowledge of the local situation that he referred to the post by its nickname, but then perhaps that shouldn’t surprise him coming from a man who had half an Imperial Guard Battalion worth of hardware in his basement.

“They hit us there yesterday afternoon,” Rene said, helping Min Ho lay out spoons and fill glasses with an unfamiliar juice of a vaguely purplish color. Instant bread appeared from some of the cartons as did cuts of preserved meat with a peppery crust. 

“Wiped us all out in one fell swoop,” he went on because his host appeared to expect it rather than from any genuine desire.  Min Ho noded, his face somber and craggy.
“The Marines, The Embassy, they even took out the two courier ships in orbit. According to the news broadcasts Duke Tan has declared a state of emergency, cracking down against a possible coup against the Empress.”

Further discussion was interrupted by a subtle trembling which shook dust from the corners of the rooms. It was an unpleasant thrum in the base of the chest. Both men paused and cocked their heads in near mirror images. You didn’t forget the sound of ships decent and both Marines and former assassin's logged more space time than most people. Spacecraft descended on jets of plasma which chopped the RF spectrum to hash and as such their arrival and departure was usually tightly scheduled.

“I think that is the first touchdown I’ve heard since this mess started,” Rene observed as the rumble rose in pitch momentarily and then died away. Min Ho continued to set the table, tugging the red and white checked table cloth back into place where the wind had pulled it up over one corner.

“It is, might be they are trying to open the port, get trade flowing again,” Min Ho suggested dubiously. Rene shook his head.

“Too many thrusters for a freighter,” he explained. Plasma motors used water for reaction mass and so fuel was cheap, but the process of decent ate away at the throats of the thrusters. Replacing a worn thruster was both expensive and time consuming and so merchant captains almost always landed with a minimum thruster configuration.

“Must be a warship or a fast courier,” Rene concluded hoping that it didn’t bode i’ll for the fugitives.