As she strolled through the streets of Port Benjamin Sabatine wasn't entirely sure whether she should feel sorry for Kaiden or whether he was getting his just deserts. In the past several days she had come to an uneasy truce with herself in regards to him. Kaiden hadn't sought any opportunity to use his rank to discomfort her, so she had done her best to treat him merely as another RCN officer, albeit one she was not particularly fond of. It was harder to maintain that when he trotted out his blond reporter but she supposed she had done more difficult things during her career in the RCN.

Port Benjamin was not a picturesque city, it was cradled on three side by steep rises to shallow tablelands the sides of which were coated with thick green vegetation. Here and there she could pick out the lights of what she knew to be dumping stations, where tons of sugar cane, cut into billets was dumped into nearly but not quite vertical chutes to carry them down the steep escarptment to where trains would collect them and carry them to the mills. She paused to observe one of the locomotives pass by. It was small, the size of a tractor rather than heavier freight haulers she had seen. The cane itself was carried in cheaply fabricated wire bins, mesh stretched over steel framing on a pair of axels, filled to a protruding mound with short sections of cane. The clattered across the cracked roadway infront of her with the blast of a whistle to warn traffic, riding the rusty rails with a squeal. The traffic was not heavy and almost entirely composed of diesels with large wheels of woven wire. Sabatine suspected that the cliffs above channeled tropical rains down in torrents and that the residents of Port Benjamin were flooded out at least once a year. There were engineering solutions to that kind of thing, but almost all of them would be worth far more than anything in this city justified. The city itself was composed mostly of one or two story bungaloo style dwellings, walled with brick or an unappealing fibre board that might have been sugar cane pulp mixed with a plasticizing agent and put through a press. There were several administrative buildings made of stone and concrete in what passed for the downtown, though the tallest of those was four stories.

While most spacers spent their time in the dives the clustered along the waterfront of every spaceport in the human universe, Sabatine preferred to wander a little further afield for her entertainment. She like a bottle as much as the next RCN officer, but she also prefered to find a meal and entertainment that might let her feel like she had been to another planet, rather than to Harbor Three on some other dustball. Port Benjamin had a downtown that was lined with small shops, most of which sold foodstuffs of various kinds though there were vendors specializing in electronics and jewelry, she paused to look at their wares though there was little to recommend them and cabin space was already at a premium, especially now Kaiden had displaced her from the XO's bunk. At length she found a restaurant that seemed popular with the locals. It was beside a train line and sported a large sign in black lettering that declared it 'Victoria Hotel' she stepped inside to find the tropical heat cut by the shade and several slowly rotating fans. A dozen or so local turned to stare at her, doubtlessly finding her something of an oddity in her RCN utilities. The leave bag she carried over her shoulder attracted some eyes also but she ignored them as she slid up to the bar. Some kind of televised sport was taking place on a flat screen display but beyond the fact that their were men throwing a ball of red plastic to one another there was nothing to identify it for her.

"What'll ya have?" a barman in a stained apron asked as she took a seat at one of the stools. There was no menu she could see and she didn't much care one way or the other in any case.

"I'll have whatever the special is, and rum, something good," she told him. The barman vanished behind a door of plastic strips only to reemerge a minute later carrying a large platter piled high with fried potato chips and a pastry of some kind with a squirt of red sauce on top. He set it down and produced a bottle of rum from beneath the bar pouring two fingers into a glass.

"Leave the bottle," Sabatine advised absently. The barmen shot her a skeptical look.

"Its twenty piasters for the food and another twenty for the bottle," he declared, not quite pugnaciously but not in a friendly tone either. Sabatine pulled a florin coin from her pouch and slapped it down on the bar with an audible crack. Even at the inflated exchange rate in Port Benjamin she was overpaying.

"Leave the bottle," she repeated firmly. The barman flushed and offered a quick bow before sweeping the florin up and hurrying back to his business. Sabatine took a knife and fork and cut into the pastry, it was savory and filled with beef braised in a dark brown gravy that smelled delicious. There was a greenish layer on top of it, which turned out to be whipped peas that went well with both the meat and the spicy red sauce. Sabatine tucked in with a will eating several mouthfuls before picking up the glass and taking a slug of the rum. It was sweeter than she though but had a pleasant burn and a smooth finish, something that wouldn't have disgraced a fine table in Xenos. She picked up the bottle and poured herself a goodly measure before turning her attention to the denizens of the bar. Several of them were older men, and they were all men, but there were a trio of young fit looking fellows whom she judged might by navies or factory workers. One of them was handsome enough for her gaze to linger and he gave her a smile. She nodded in a friendly manner.

"Care for a drink?" she asked waggling the bottle of rum by the neck.

Sabatine was feeling pleasantly warm as she leaned over the ancient pool table and lined up her shot. Several of the locals called encouragement as she struck the que ball smoothly sending it in a long graceful slide down the table to ricochet of the banked edge, just tapping the corner of her target ball. There was a collective whoop from the patrons as the ball hung on the edge of the pocket for a moment and then tumbled in with a solid clack as it hit another ball still in the mesh pockets that replaced any kind of automatic return. There were cheers and groans depending on who was betting on whom. Ven, the handsome man she had invited to drink with her and her partner in this game patted her approvingly on the ass as he grinned at the other pair of navies who made up the opposition as they debated whether it was better to play for a safe shot and attempt to snooker Sabatine and Ven or whether they should risk a tricky long shot that would put them even again.

"So you want to get out of here after this game?" Ven whispered in her ear as he stepped up behind her deliberately brushing against her. Sabatine smiled and took her tumbler of rum from the edge of the table where it was adding to the collection of moisture rings and took another drink.

"Sounds like a plan," she murmured and slightly sideways to allow him to kiss her neck when the doors of the bar burst open. Two spacers in liberty suits rushed in, Capereill and one of the engine wipers, Vitzov, both men were sweating and clearly drunk but it would have been more surprising if that weren't the case.

"Ma'am!" Capereill cried with obvious relief, his face slackening from its expression of pent up anxiety.

"Hey you can't just bust in here!" one of the bouncers declared, stepping threateningly into the path of the pair and grabbing the power room tech by the shoulder. Capereill drove a fist into the man's stomach doubling him over then kicked his feet out from under him, displaying all the emotion of a fisherman clearing a tangled line. The local's chin bounced on the tiled floor, his teeth clacking together loud enough to make Sabatine flinch. Truthfully the fellow as lucky it hadn't been riggers who had come through the door. Klave certainly would have had no hesitation in putting the boot in. There was a general surge of the patrons towards the two spacers, who looked both frustrated and perplexed. A gunshot crashed through the bar freezing everyone in their place. Sabatine lowered the smoking pistol waggling the barrel to cool it down as well as to make her point.

"It's ok," she pronounced with the exaggerated dignity of someone who is sober enough to function but still not very sober.

"These are my shipmates," she told the bar as though that explained everything. And it did explain everything as far as she was concerned.

"Ma'am we have a situation," Capereill said urgently stepping towards her with his wiper watching his back. Sabatine blinked, adrenaline clearing the alcohol fumes from her brain faster than a cold shower would have done.

"Report," she directed, unsure as to why they had sought her out rather than reporting whatever it was back to the ship, well she had a commo helmet in her bag if she needed to make that call.

"Its Mr Ottis ma'am, he has been taken," Capereilli declared looking both angry and miserable at the same time, "the bloody wogs have snatched him!"

Sabatine looked around the bar, and at all the men who were staring at them in shocked puzzlement.

"On me spacers," she snapped and marched out into the beer gardern which was empty and provided some privacy. She had asked Capereilli to watch Ottis and make sure the young gentlman didn't get into too much trouble.

"We was down at this brothel on the strip," the tech began without preamble, "Ottis had just paid the socket fee for this whore, good looking girl but just a whore you know." Sabatine nodded, unceratin exactly what the tech was getting at with the statement but willing him to get to the point.

"Anyways she takes him back to her crib, next minute locals with stun batons and wearing uniforms swarm the place, screaming that Ottis is raping some bigwigs daughter and dragging him out. Look we tried to stop em, we aint yellow you know that but they had batons and guns and me and Vit here with nothing but knives and cudgels you know." Sabatine nodded. The RCN had its share of idiots but it wasn't a career that attracted or tolerated cowards.

"These were local cops?" she asked.

"If they was cops I'm a bloody senator," Vitzov declared. Vitzov was from Novi Svirdlosk and his accent still clipped his words to the point Sabatine had to struggle to understand.

"Ain't no cops in the universe that respond that fast, even to a real crime, which this sure as hell wasn't, and their must have been a dozen of them," Capereilli agreed nodding to his companion.

"It had to be a setup ma'am, they grabbed the kid and bailed, drove him off towards one of those big houses up in the hills best we could tell, which wasn't very bloody well." Sabatine nodded again, giving herself a minute to think.

"And you reported this to the Captain?" she asked, hoping that was true.

"Aye we reported it, Captain Micha says we will hash it out with the cops in the morning, only these weren't cops ma'am I know they weren't," Capereilli cried all but wringing his hands in frustration. Sabatine cursed Micha mentally, even if a spacer committed a crime he should be tried by a military tribunal not turned over to the locals and from what the men described, this sounded more like an abduction than an arrest.

"Fuck," she muttered more affected by the rum than she realized.

"That was about what we figured ma'am, what should we do?" Capereilli asked, growing calmer now he had someone in the chain of command actually listening to him. Sabatine hesitated for a moment, the situation was uncertain but she couldn't wait for all the facts to make a decision, and no decision was worse than not making a decision.

"Right, I need you to find the XO wherever he is, probably at some local fancyman's shindig, round up Klave and anyone else you can find who is sober enough to walk a straight line, riggers for preference. See to it Capereilli, Vitzov, take me to this knocking shop if its more than a five minute walk we will rent a car. Hop it spacers." The three of them strode out of the bar without a backward glance, all looking a great deal more sober than they had a few minutes before.