Whatever else Alayla Thorne had instructed her protege in the culinary arts clearly were not among them. Rosaria seemed perplexed as Rene handed her a knife and instructed her to dice some of the fresh vegetables Ten had included among the more stable long term rations. The Bonaventure’s galley was small, little more than a food preparation unit, a central table and a sink but it was sufficient for the task. Rene diced the frozen meat into cubes with a powered knife and then took pity on Rosaria and sliced the remainder of the tubers and pavalo into strips before pouring it all into one of the metal inserts that fit into the prep unit. That accomplished he added some salt and pepper and activated the unit. It hissed for a moment as high pressure steam filled the chamber and then a counter began to tick down.

“We could just heat up the frozen food,” Rosaria complained as Rene took the knife from her hand and rinsed it off.

“We could,” Rene agreed, “but fresh food will only last so long, and it might help our new friends to feel that they are all in this together if we share a meal we actually cook.” Communal meals were an important part of Syshin culture as the aliens didn’t express the same extreme individualism that many human societies embraced. A stew might be a simple meal but it sent the message that Solae didn’t look down upon her new retainers. That idea might be hard for the brutalized Syshin to internalize and thus it bore repeating. Rene was reminded of the way that Marine’s tended to eat together, though the thought made his stomach tighten. During basic training his high caloric requirements meant that he had constantly been hungry on the meager rations the corp deemed acceptable, even scrounging food from his friends he had lost more weight than had been healthy. Although the medics had been aware of the problem they had been reluctant to engage in favoritism towards someone of noble birth.

“You people think of everything in political terms don’t you,” Rosaria observed. Rene offered a tight smile.

“Not quite everything no, but life is politics, no matter where you are or what you are doing,” he observed.

“Let’s go find the others.”

Found Solae and the Syshin in the cargo hold, the appeared to be finishing a tour of the small ship. Rene glanced at the information display as he stepped through the hatch. Although Mia would inform them of any changes he found it comforting to echo the main bridge display on at least one screen in each major compartment. The voyage into Kaldorei space required three jumps, or at least Rene had approved a three jump route. It would have perhaps been possible to make it in two but speed and jump duration were not the only considerations. As a practical matter ships jumped between gravity masses, suns and blackholes for the most part, following the contours in space time. Though it was theoretically possible to jump between any two masses, the jump drives worked by exploiting differentials in the fabric of spacetime, and were orders of magnitude more effective when the masses they used to anchor the jumps were closer in astronomical terms. Exploration vessels were spherical and carefully uniform in density to allow them to make longer jumps, that wasn’t practical for freighters or warships and thus they tended to make short hops between systems that were relatively close. The Bonaventure was a tramp freighter whose drives, like the rest, of her were of questionable quality regardless of what Mia’s automated diagnostics. Rene had, therefore, selected a fairly conservative course. The first jump was to an unnamed system, simply an alphanumeric designator for a star orbited by a couple of unimpressive gas giants.  The jump was in the general direction of the core worlds, a ruse to conceal their real destination, though Rene couldn’t imagine anyone would guess they were headed for  Kaldorei space. From there they would dogleg back towards the galactic east, stopping to replenish air and water and to normalize the quantum inconsistency that jump drives eroded,  before jumping to one of the gateway worlds where they could expect to encounter Kaldoeri and start whatever negotiations would take place. The first jump had a little over twenty eight hours left to go.

“This ship carried captives off New Concordia?” Yarue was asking, sounding understandably agitated. The hold smelled considerabley better and looked considerably cleaner than it had when they landed on Zatis. It occured to Rene that Mia had been making rudimentary attempts at housekeeping, probably by bastardizing plumbing to rinse the cargo hold of the stink of slaves. It was easy to forget that Mia was, at heart, a housekeeper.

“What happened to the crew? Yarue pressed, not quite glaring.

“All dead during the change of ownership,” Rene said as he came through the hatch.

“As Solae has told you, we have no tolerance for slavers,” he explained. Rene wouldn’t have executed the men out of hand, but he couldn’t have claimed to have shed any tears that they were gone.

“Do they have records of their transactions?” Yarue demanded. Rene exchanged a look with Solae.

“I don’t know but you are certainly welcome to look, or we can help you if you need it,” Rene said carefully.

“I was taken from New Concordia, I would learn the fates of my clan mates if I can,” Yarue declared.