In an attempt to compensate for the poor reception caused by the ship's hull Solae had amplified the incoming volume on her communicator. It was not her finest moment and she regretted it deeply as Rene's urgent words thundered with vibrations that instantly inflamed her eardrum. Gritting her teeth she removed the bud, discreetly adjusted its output, and slipped it snugly into the crevice of curved cartilage before thinking to respond.

"I have to burn down a house," she grunted as she flipped off the blade and dropped it at her side. Rene had the benefit of physical training with the military; when he exerted his strength he always made it look so deceptively [i]easy[/i]. With her substantially less muscle-based genetic enhancements she felt worn from her dash through the fields. For a split second she wished she had let herself be persuaded into the Rev Chamber. The sutures at her side throbbed and her cheek stung from where errant sugar cane debris sliced by the sword had caused a bleeding abrasion. The marquise was still gasping in heaving breaths as she took more measured steps up the stairs of the mansion.

"What? Why?" was the bewildered soldier's response. In her mind Solae could see the furrowed brows of concern on Rene's handsome face as he tried to seek out her slender form in the darkness. The harsh illumination of the vessel's flood lights, which had been flickered on after landing, would make it all but impossible for him to pinpoint her in the shadows of the distant building.

"The maid was briefly connected to someone in Armistice," the diplomat began to explain as she walked through the front door and jogged into the kitchen. "It'll all make sense in a minute. Clean up the ship best you can, load up any supplies you can manage, and I'll be there as soon as I'm done here," she ordered with an unconscious and unintentional tone of authority. She did not mean to be brief with her lover and truest ally but she could not focus on the task at hand with him as a distraction. They both needed to be as efficient as possible with the tasks at hand to make the most out of the narrow window of opportunity still left to escape. In Solae's case that meant engaging with Argon one last time.

"Argon, I want you to back yourself up remotely. I presume your mainframe is underground so I want you to engage every security protocol possible between the underground levels and where I am. Do you understand?"

Experience had taught software engineers and various forms of law enforcement that self-destruct options for artificial intelligence systems was inviting abuse of the feature. Creators of synthetic mechanical beings were generally opposed to allowing others, even with a legitimate purchase and use, destroy their hard work on a whim. The Stellar Empire found in the pioneering days of the technology's introduction they were unable to conduct proper investigations. People on a whole were hysterical about personal privacy. Not only would criminals easily erase all evidence of their felonies, alibis were derailed unintentionally, data that exposed flaws in programming was lost, there was malicious destruction of property and individuals under the guise of an 'accident,' precious files were obliterated by genuine misplacement, and the like. The so-called 'nuclear option' was revoked from the public, including all nobility, in what was deemed imperial preventative safety measures. This did not mean that more patient deletions could not be made (as Solae proved), it just meant there was no easy kill switch to press recklessly.

"Yes, Solae Falia. Do you require further assistance?" intoned the soothing masculine voice over a nearby intercom.

"Send the drone that executed Byona Prap to the parked vessel. I'll be taking it with me," she instructed. She was yanking open every cabinet and drawer in sight looking for anything that might allow her to ignite a flame. Mentally she was counting how much time had transpired since she the call had been severed to better gauge when the armored vehicles might start crunching over the outer edges of the plantation. Paranoia created phantom earthquakes under her feet that was nothing more than the conjuration of frayed nerves. Steeling herself she set her jaw as she finally came across what she had been seeking. Crammed into one drawer were all manner of smoking apparatus, herbs, vintage cigars, and a long antique lighter that was older than her parents had been but would serve her purpose.

"Understood. Is that all?"

"Yes, thank you Argon." With mounting anxiety she rolled the gear of the tool in her hand and pulled a trigger that released a small lick of flame. Holding it as far in front of her as possible she touched the droplet of fire to the flammable greasy curtains, to the wooden furniture, to the papers scattered on a counter by the slavers before they had been drawn out of their home. Solae did not wait to see it take hold of its fuel before she sprinted into the adjoining rooms and repeated the process before gradually making her way to the threshold of the porch where a safe retreat could be managed.

"I'm coming back to you," she stated as she turned her communicator back on to alert Rene. The linguist had made it to the bottom of the stairs and had, with a burst of energy and slight limp, began to retrace her cut path to the thick slab that constituted a landing pad. Glancing behind she saw that one exterior wall had started to smolder and darken from the offensive pristine white color that had been obnoxious in daylight hours. There was an ominous illumination dancing behind the smokey windowpanes of the lower floor and it would not take long for the residence to make a spectacular conflagration. Elite citizens of the empire generally favored fine metals and gems over the collectibles gathered by the plantation's owner. Ironically it was his indulgence in the bizarre that had made it even more susceptible to being eradicated quickly by blaze than another's. New building materials would have been much more resistant if not invulnerable in the most extreme cases.