It smelled like all of the coffee houses in the universe were getting ready for the morning rush. The warehouse Rene had set alight radiated heat and smoke poured from the triangular hole in a thick rolling cloud. It was a good thing that the afternoon had nearly complete faded into evening because otherwise the plume of black smoke would have been visible for miles. There was a sudden deep boom from inside of the building and the smoke spat pale blue white flames for a second before guttering back to its original volume. Rene remembered the propane lines that must have fed the roasting oven. He was glad that whatever nameless engineer that had designed the thing had put in some sort of cut off mechanism to the feed lines. Glade because otherwise the resulting detonation might have killed him and the freed slaves in a gigantic fireball. It was hard to be excited about the possibility, the adrenaline of the fight was fading, leaving him burned out and hollow feeling. He had been in enough action know to know that the feeling would fade in a few minutes or so. 

Without fuel the fire was unlikely to get hot enough to collapse the building, even though the blaze was sucking in oxygen like a miniature storm system. Leaves and organic trash floated towards the hungry inferno, catching fire a few heart beats before they were sucked into the plane. Steel and concrete had extremely high temperature tolerances which was one of the reasons they had been used for so many millenia. Glass popped and shattered under the relentless hammering of the heat, though Rene didn’t recall seeing any windows during his frantic flight. At least the pungent aroma of burning coffee bean masked the porcine reek of burning bodies. Solae’s voice, beautiful even in an alien tongue reassured him that she was alive, that was victory enough for him.

“Are there other slaves in the other warehouses?” Rene asked, aiming his question at the young clark who had translated Solae’s message. The young Syshin performed an exaggerated nod. A drone zipped past and they all shied away for a moment, instinctively and sensibility scared of the grey mechanical hemispheres that had just reduced a dozen armed men to cat food.

“Free them, and find food and water,” he directed and turned away. The big burned Syshin rumbled something and Rene turned back. The brute was holding the sword out to Rene hilt first.

“He say he sorry he hit you,” the youth translated helpfully. Rene’s back throbbed in silent protest.

“Yeah, I’m sorry about that too,” Rene said with a wry half smile that was completely lost on the aliens. He accepted the sword and then stepped close to the Syshin, carefully shearing the manicales that encircled his wrists and ankles with small precise cuts. The skin underneath bore the indentations, proof that they had been in place for a long time. He passed the sword back to the alien.

“In case there are more chains,” he explained, pointing from the young Syshin to his hulking elder to ask for a translation. They began to converse in unintelligible Syshi and Rene turned and headed for the manor in something between a fast walk and a slow jog. He was eager to get inside, even though he knew the area to be clear it wasn’t something his subconscious was ready to admit just yet.

The door to the manor swung open at his approach with a ponderous grace that was a sure sign it was armored. It would have seemed like paranoia on many other planets but on New Concordia right now it seemed like the correct choice. He stepped over the threshold his pistol up and sweeping the corners for rooms.

“Good Evening Master Quentain, I trust your stay will be a pleasant one,” a synthesized voice welcomed. The speakers were not as well hidden as the one Lord Armon had used but the effect was similar enough to run chills up his spine.

“Mistress Solae bids you welcome, to her humble home,” the voice went on. Rene grinned at the thought. The home was neither humble nor Solae’s, the reception room appeared to be decorated into a gaudy mismatch of style that only great wealth and complete lack of culture could have generated. Despite the sobering reality that he was a member of the lower classes now, Rene couldn’t quite banish the touch of aristocratic contempt he felt for the vulgar efforts of the parveniew. His father wouldn’t be caught dead in a place like this, nor would the elder Quentain ever have stooped to owning slaves. He might very well oppress a hundred thousand tenants on a distant world for the sake of settling a score, but out right chattel slavery was far too vulgar to contemplate. 

A metalized security door seperated the reception room from the rest of the house. Rene pushed the release switch but nothing happened. He tried again. The AI cleared its electronic throat with simulated embarrassment.

“The security protocols are currently engaged sir I’m afraid..”

“Put me through to Solae right now,” Rene snapped, in no mood to bandy words with a silicon chip. There was a slight pause and then Solae’s voice came over the air.

“Rene?”

“It’s me Solae, I’m alright, though I would be cold meat if it hadn’t been for you,” Rene replied overjoyed to hear her speaking, even in electronic form. In brief terms she explained the situation to him. Rene nodded in response although she probably didn’t have a visual sensor to see the motion.

“Ok drop the door in front of me and only that door,” he directed. After a moment the security barrier slid down into is recess. A pair of Syshin, young females, both attractive and colourfully plumed clung to each other. He lowered his pistol immediately. The women probably understood Imperial after their long association with the household but Solae spoke over the intercom in Syshi. Fearfully, and still clutching each other the moved past him, putting as much room as they could between themselves and an armed human. A moment later two more Syshi straggled into the hallway beyond from side chambers, one was pulling free of a human hand that tried to hold her back.

“You in the room! Come out slowly and keep your hands where I can see them, I swear by the stars this is a terrible day to startle me!” He yelled. A human woman dressed in the same maids uniform as the Syshin stepped clear her hands raised comically high as though she were in a holo drama. The woman was aged, maybe fifty standard and shaped like a pear, she was as unappealing as the Syshin were attractive, with stringy hair that had been poorly dyed to conceal the grey.

“Outside… no wait,” he said uncertain of exactly what parameters Solae had given the drones.

“Stay inside, in that corner,” he ordered, taking one hand from his pistol to point without lowering the weapon. The maid was blubbering now her nose runny as she hurried past him trying not to look.

“There are two more,” Solae’s voice instructed, “A guard and a butler.”

“Is the guard armed?” Rene asked, there was a long pause before Solae responded.

“I don't think so but I can't be sure,” she told him, her voice filled with concern.

“Alright both of you gentleman come out nice and slow. I have video of you so don’t even think about trying anything.” An elderly man stepped from a stairway at the end of the hall, his hands raised. He looked distinguished and wore a formal livery that hadn’t been the style on Capella in twenty years. He marched out straight backed, averting his eyes from Rene. A moment later another figure stepped into view. The guard was dressed in the same half uniform half salvage as the men who had died outside. He was slack jawed and unshaven and his clothig was spattered with grease spots and food stains. He glared at Rene with hateful piglike eyes. Rene was amazed that a man in such luxurious surroundings could be so slovenly, granted Rene himself was filty, covered with dirt and a coating of crushed coffee beans that clung to his skin and clothing, but at least he had an excuse.

As the fellow shuffled past Rene he head a sudden scream. He spun bringing his gun up expecting that the guard was trying something. Instead one of the Syshin maids flew across the room at the filthy guard. Rene had intended the Syshin go outside to join their fellows but they had evidently interpreted his instruction to the human made to apply to them all. Steel flashed in the girls hand and the guard gave a squeal like an animal being slaughtered as see crashed into him. The steel flashed red and the guard and the maid went down in a tangle of limbs. Rene hesitated in a moment of indecision, unwilling to shoot and unwilling to disarm himself to intervene. The maid was still screaming her mouth inhumanly wide, like the Inyori’s had been when they launched their charge against the slavers. In her hand she held not a knife but an old fashioned silver letter opener, smeared with black blood from the deep stab wound she had inflicted on her victim. The guard was easily twice the Syshin’s weight but the girl was on top of him. The blade stabbed down again plunging into his chest with a wet tearing sound that bought a gout of blood from the fallen man’s mouth. Rene finally got his weapon into his off hand and lunged towards the girl but not before she plunged the improvised dagger into the man's groin with a savage stroke. Rene seized the Syshin and tossed her bodily into a corner his pistol coming up to train on the girl but she was a spent force. She dropped the knife and fell to the ground curling into a ball and sobbing. At least Rene assumed she was sobbing, it was difficult to hear over the liquid gasping screams of the dying guard. Black blood bubbled from a puncture to his belly that must have pierce his liver and pools of blood spread from his chest and crotch across the tiled floor. His screams weakened after a moment and his heels drummed on the tiles, then he coughed and lay still.

There was a moment of shocked silence, punctuated only by the sobbing girl. Rene’s pistol barrel wavered and then he let it fall to his side. The weapon suddenly felt like it weighed as much as a battleship.

“He hurt her,” one of the other maids said quietly.

“He hurt us all,” another chimed in.

“Yeah well…,” Rene said, his gorge rising slightly, “I’d say that makes you even.” Judging by the look in the remaining maids eyes, Rene didn’t think they agreed.

“Girls, outside now,” he commanded, his composure returning with the will to action. The human maid started to move by Rene froze her with a finger.

“Not you, the Syshin only. You and you,” he said pointing at the maid and the butler.

“Take me to the command center and for the love of the stars don’t any of you move sudden because I swear, right at this moment I am as jumpy as I’ve ever been.”