Rene stiffend slightly as Solae seemed to shrink away from his offered support. His face stilled as his mind was unable to translate the mixture of motions that played across her features. A little pang of hurt sprang up inside of him but he ruthlessly smothered the emotion. Alot had happened in the past few hours perhaps it made her view him in a different light, perhaps being in something more like her traditional role had reminded her that by most Imperial standards, their relationship was inappropriate. Once he was certain she wouldn’t fall he withdrew his arm.

“I was able to get some rest while you were out,” he told her stating the facts without quite telling the truth. He had at least been sitting down most of the time. Pain pulsed in his leg with the beat of his heart but it seemed to be lessening, perhaps as a result of the Syshin ointment he had applied before bandaging it. He was a little scratched up, but it was nothing that would have excused him from even peacetime duty.

The followed Enro back through the low corridors. Their route took them back through the lush green garden that had once been the main hold. Rene tried to imagine what it had been like when the super freighter had been filled with containers of cargo but found the effort almost beggared his imagination. The Syshin transformation of the place as so complete that even the gentle curve of the hull had been terraced with river stone and adobe, alowing the trees and shrubs to climb partway up the hull. He wondered how many other Syshin settlements dotted across the face of New Concordia were suffering the same kind of attacks as the one this one had endured last night. Those settlements wouldn’t have the advantage of modern human weapons to aid in their defence. His knuckles popped and he realised he had been clenching his fists. With a deep breath he forced himself to relax. Rene had no illusions that the Stellar Empire were the forces of Right and Justice in the universe. No one who grew up in the halls of power did, but just he wished he could whistle up a platoon of Marines to teach the locals what was what. Not that he, with his background, would ever be put in charge of anything more complicated than a latrine detail. His eyes cut to Solae who was speaking to Enro in Syshi, a feat that still seemed amazing. He didn’t have a platoon, but he was going to see her safe no matter what. He tried to ignore the sting of her newfound distance.

They entered a series of narrowing corridors to the rear of the great vessel. The tangle of ancient pipes and gutted consoles made it clear that this had once been the engineering section. The Syshin had their own control systems retrofitted to the originals, mostly antiquated and simple consoles that would have been hopelessly insufficient for a star ship but evidently were more than satisfactory for operating the colony’s simple electrical and water systems. Not only were the consoles cheap but they were much easier to maintain without dedicated technical staff. The quality of the air differed sublty as the moved along the corridors, the earthy scents of dirt and plants giving way to the petrochemical tang of ancient lubricants and the plasticy smell of warm electronics.

The prisoner was held in what might have once been an arms locker. Two spear armed Syshin, black feathered Inyrio, stood guard over a woven bamboo lattice that covered the door. Wire ties, incongruously cheerful in red, blue and yellow, secured each cross piece. The original door had either seized or long gone unpowered. Rene could pick out the line of rust in the doors channels, though the panel must have been retracted or removed. Both Inyrio pivoted outwards as they approached, giving the trio a clear path. Rene smelt the prisoner before he saw him. The man was a little taller than Rene but lacked his defined musculature. He had a scraggly beard and mustache  that still held river mud and twigs, despite evident effort to comb them out. A Syshin healer, less skilled than Lasha, had bound his legs with bandages of woven plant fibre. Rene remembered the way the plasma bolt had splashed up over the man's legs, he doubtless had burns as well as splinters of timber and iron from where the rail bridge had been vaporized. The fellow was lucky to be alive, though he probably didn’t appreciate that fact just at the moment.  He wore no shirt and had several tatoos although time and slackness of flesh distorted them to unrecognisable blurs against his tan skin.

“You!” the prisoner yelled as Solae came into view. He leaped to his feet without thinking and the blood drained from his face as his injured legs took his weight. With a screech of animal pain the prisoner collapsed gasping to the ground. After a moment he pushed himself into a sitting position, teeth grinding against te pain. Rene’s face was as blank and cold as an insects. This man had abducted Solae with the intent of violating her and then passing her off into the vilest of slavery. For all the information he might provide, Rene couldn’t help but wish that his bolt had punched the man in the chest.

“You can’t leave me here with the chooks! They are animals!” The prisoner snarled. Rene had heard the word ‘Chooks’ shouted before and hadn’t thought anything of it, now he realised that it must be some sort of racial epithet aimed at the Syshin. Rene knew from interrogation classes that his unsmiling visage would be more use than any threat he could deliver so he stood stoically silent, allowing Solae to conduct the interview.