Penny

Cinnabar Forever! (RCN)

As the cheering died down and the main course, some kind of baked local seabird, was bought out on large platters Sabatine looked around for Kaiden. He had made some excuse but she had imagined it was just to go the jakes. Naturally now there was work to be done, he was no where to be seen. She ate quickly, finding the spiced meat to be surprisingly good but wishing to get a head start on what looked to be a long night. If Welkins really did expect the corvettes to lift first thing in the morning they had better start preparations now. Micha seemed to be in no hurry to move, talking in hushed tones with Captain Harkins of the Grandwing with a great deal of head shaking. Sighing she tossed off the rest of her drink and stood, moving to the side of the room.

"Fi..." she paused and took a second to reorient her drink fuddled mind. She wasn't Ship 5 anymore, that was Kaiden now he was XO. Micha was Ship 6, Kaiden was 5 and she was, once again 4.

"Four to Bosun," she said into her lapel mike.

"Uhh Higgs here, go ahead ma'am," the bosun's voice came back a little bleary, as though he had been awakened from a nap.

"We are scheduled for lift off at 0600, I need you to start rousting the liberty party now," she told him.

"Is err Mr Carewalden with you ma'am I'd like to..." the bosun began. Sabatine felt a flare of anger.

"I don't give a good god damn what you would like bosun, take Klave and carry out my orders this second or I'll break you back to landsman," she snapped. The start that went through Higgs was almost audible.

"Ma'am, yes Ma'am! Higgs out!" he blurted. Sabatine twisted her head from side to side with a satisfied crack. She wasn't best pleased to have a new bosun she knew nothing about, but she tried not to let he fact he had arrived with Kaiden color her opinion of the man. It might be good to put him on notice now that she wasn't to be second guessed. Even with Klave's help it was going to take Higgs half the night to round up spacers who ranged from drunk to paralytic drunk in the various dives and brothels of the strip. At least if the Vickie got a head start, they wouldn't need to chase down runners in every rat hole in the city.

"Lieutenant Hickoring?" a voice came from behind her, she turned around a trifle unsteadily and was shocked and a little horrified to see Commodore Welkins standing a few feet away from her with an outstretched hand. Self consciously she sat her glass down on a sideboard and shook the officer proffered hand. Welkins smiled grimly.

"Not to worry Lieutenant, I don't trust an officer who dosen't spend time with a bottle when in port, will you walk with me a minute?" When delivered down a gradient of four ranks, that was not a request, but it was courteous of him to phrase it that way.

"Of course sir," she said, following the senior officer out onto the veranda in front of the armory. The complex stood on a slight hill and looked down over the embayments which held the vessels of the small flotila, running lights winking at various points on the starships hulls. From Grandwing there were the occasional actinic flash of a spot welder putting to right some minor imperfection.

"I see you are getting a head start or rousting your crew, good thinking that," the Commodore offered sounding genuinely approving.

"Thank you sir," she replied, the slightly chill night air and the presence of the squadron commander sobering her up faster than coffee and a cold shower.

"You have served with Lieutenant Micha for nine months now, how do you find him?" Welkins asked bluntly. Micha like Harkin's was a captain by courtesy though he held the official rank of Lieutenant, by using that rank Welkins was asking her to speak freely about a fellow officer rather than about her commander specifically.

"No complaints sir," she answered as truthfully as she could. Micha was well liked by the crew and able if a little uninspired. Certainly he had treated her well enough during their association.

"I seem to recall you felt differently about that pirate that gave you the slip of Tenacrous three months ago," Welkins observed. Sabatine flushed slightly. They had been chasing a pirate who had hit a shipment of medical supplies using the Vickie and a small anti pirate cutter. When the pirate had taken refuge in a dense asteroid field. Sabatine had been confident she could use the cutter she was commanding to smoke the pirate out and the Vickie could either finish her or force her to surrender but Micha had ordered her to stand down. She hadn't filed any official complaint though anyone who read the after action report could have listened into the transmissions. It was hard to credit the fact that Commodore Welkins had dug that deeply, except, apparently, he had.

"The Captain thought the risk of the cutter being destroyed was too great," Sabatine temporized unwilling to criticize Micha's actions to a superior.

"But not you Hickoring?" Welkins prompted. Sabatine shifted uncomfortably.

"I thought... and think that my gunners are faster and better than anything a half assed pirate sloop might have sir, unless the guns were dead amidships when we cleared the rocks, I think we could have taken her."

Welkins nodded and seemed to file that away without further comment. For a few long moments he merely stared at the ships in harbor, perhaps wondering how they would fair if the Alliance came as he suspected they would. Dispersing his ships was a bold move, the orbital minefield would keep the Alliance out for a while, but they could easily blockade the squadron while they slowly chipped away at the constellation of orbital defenses.

"And what about Lieutenant Carewalden, I understand you too know each other? What is your opinion of him?" Welkin's asked. Sabatine was tempted, truly tempted to deliver a backhanded compliment which would leave Kaiden's reputation in ruins with her commanding officer. It would be so easy to craft a few sentences which seemed polite on the face of it but dammed her one time lover to the dog house for the rest of his commission. In the end she couldn't quite bring herself to do it.

"He is a competent officer sir, I've not served with him, but from what I know of him he will make a good XO," she stated somewhat grumpily. Welkin's arched an eyebrow.

"You don't sound that confident of that Lieutenant," Welkins commented cooly. She shook her head.

"I knew him at the academy sir, we weren't well you know we are very much not old school chums, but he is or at least was an able spacer and a good officer," she replied, the words tasting like ash in her mouth. Welkins nodded and something in his eyes told her a door had been closed.

"I'm glad to hear it Lieutenant," Welkins told her. Down at the docks white and blue lights began to flash. Welkin's chuckled, and she was reminded that he had started his career as an enlisted spacer.

"It looks like your spacers are just getting the word that their leave is canceled," he commented with a smirk.

"Or the shore police are getting the word that they just got the word," Sabatine agreed.

"Well as a senior officer I suppose I ought to express the wish that law and order are quickly restored, but as a spacer I can't say I've ever had much use for the shore police," Welkins admitted. He turned and offered her a slight bow.

"Good night Lieutenant, and good fortune," he said simply.

"You too sir," Sabatine replied, but Welkins was already vanishing back into the knot of officers inside the Armory doors.

The Sunday Group - Bumps in the Night

I will be cycling through and giving everyone a chance to add their own clues/leads. The designated clue giver this round is Poohead, that dosen't mean you shouldn't feel free to float your own theories just that his is likely to be at least somewhat on the right track or at least to move in a productive direction.

The Sunday Group - Bumps in the Night

Eleanor arrived at the office 37 minutes after her phone call had ended. The sun was beginning to rise but the chill of Lake Michigan didn't give much hope for any warmth to day. She checked herself in the mirror making sure she was the presentable face of a bland organisation. Dressed in a dark grey pencil skirt with a conservatively buttoned white shirt and low practical heels she looked like a thousand other attorneys, CPA's and COOs who would be making their way to whatever outpost of modern industry at which they choose to toil, doubtless believing that their work was both valuable and vital. As she gazed at the three story red brick office building that served as the Sunday Groups Chicago offices she wondered if she was, in her own way as deluded as they were. That seemed depressingly likely. She twisted the key in the igntion, shutting off the purr of her Audi's engine and cutting of the music that had been playing in mid chorus. For a few long moments she sat in place, hands on the wheel, willing her body to move without achieving any result. At last she managed it and steped out of her car into the cool march morning. She pulled her black leather coat up over her shoulders and lifted her briefcase from the passenger seat before heading for the front door. Straights seemed to almost go out of their way to ignore the magical world around them, but a little bit of theatre went a long way. One jogger who saw a well dressed woman with a briefcase enter the building would immediately discount every instance of a hunched figure, or an unkempt man with a duffel bag that looked suspiciously like it might contain weapons. She climbed the granite steps and pressed her key to the door, allowing it to swing open before stepping into the warmth of the heated interior.

The inside of the building was tastefully decorated in a modern style, soft carpeting with soothing neutral tones. The receptionists desk stood empty, which was unusual, and one of the chairs in the vestibule appeared to be speckled with glitter. Eleanor pursed her lips, but as no pixies appeared to menace her she let it go as unimportant. Walking around the desk she pushed open the glass doors stenciled with the rather unimaginative logo of the Sunday Group, a stylized S entwined in a G and headed down the hall into the main annex. A dozen or so offices encircled a central common area in which photocopiers and the other essential tools of modern office life were located. To the rear of the building was another hallway in which the restrooms, break room and several conference areas, set off with semi transparent windows. At each end of the rear hallways were stairwells that led to the upper floor. The second floor was given over to rather extensive storage and in some cases containment areas while the third floor, accessible only through an elevator off a separate entrance on the other side of the building, housed what few administrative staff were required to support the actual working members. Largely this was a case of ordering equipment, dealing with payroll and occasionally notifying next of kin. To Eleanors knowledge none of the admin personnel had any idea what the actual purpose of the Sunday Group was, other than the vauglely worded mission statements, 'making tomorrow better today' and other such nonsense, that appeared in the companies few public listings. That was not her department.

Her own office sat in the right rear corner where she could view the other office and the common area. It had a window of frosted glass and a name plate that read: Eleanor Tregellan - Operations Manager. A decade ago, before things had gone south in Fayetteville, this had been Dan's office. Management had told her that she had earned it, but steeping through the door always felt a bit like drinking the blood of her former teammates. The interior of the office was not particularly impressive. A large modern desk with a small but powerful laptop computer set off to one side. A comfortable leather chair and several tasteful pieces of modern art. Book shelves lined the three walls that did not look out over the other offices, each one piled with bound folios of A4 paper, printed pdfs of works on subjects ranging from the construction of non-euclidian algorithm generation, to Folklore of the American Southwest. While Eleanor had a fondness for the aesthetic of old grimiores, she preferred to keep her working documents in easy to use, and magically sterile formats. Besides her Latin wasn't that great and the translations were a damn sight easier to manage.

Walking over to her desk she sat down and took a deep breath. Partly to distract herself from her next task she drew out her cellphone. Sure enough there was a text from Emmaline.

Liebhaberin, curve is now two Fourier transform from baseline Silenas. I'm shutting down the rig. Be careful. I love you.

Eleanor sighed. The auguries had indeed gotten worse since she had looked at them over breakfast. That wasn't a good sign, personal observation really only changed forecasts when ones own fate was tied up with the outcome. Continuing to predict the future in such cases always created a dangerous feedback loop with results worse than the original predictions Right now Emmaline would be destroying the glyphs they had painstakingly etched into the soft stone of their ritual space before laboriously smashing each of the CPUs they had used to monitor the spell, otherwise the forecasting algorithm might continue to operate within the silicon hearts of the microprocessors even in the absence of the rest of construct. She quickly texted back that she would be careful then drew a phone from beneath her desk. It was old, a black bakelite model dating from before the second world war, complete with old fashioned rotary dialing. No cords connected it to anything, but she knew by now that didn't matter. It took her an additional moment to steel herself before she reached out and laid her hand on the receiver. The call bell rang unmusically. She allowed it to ring twice more before lifting it to her ear.

"Operations..."

The team was finally assembled when Duclair at last decided to join them. Eleanor refrained from grinding her teeth. Management had told her she should think of herself as a handler rather than an employer, unique people lost their value if you tried to hammer them into a shape of your own devising. She let her eyes slide off the tall man and sweep the rest of the room. Edgar Stormraven sat nursing a cup of coffee that appeared to have personally offended him. Talents like his were rare, most people born with magical gifts died young and horribly but those that survived could wield tremendous power. It was hard to imagine Edgar wielding the power of the cosmos as he sat in his threadbare coat looking for all the world like a decrepit pensioner who had forgotten to shave these past twenty years. Beside him sat Davidson, looking as though he had slept in a bush and enjoyed the experience. His bearing reminded her uncomfortably of Dan and seeing him bought back the memory of that long ago night when she had found him kneeling in a ditch tearing at his face with bloody fingernails. She had opposed his recruitment but had been overruled by Management. People with outstanding warrants were always a risk, the best false identities in the world could be blown away in a heart beat if someone from the old days was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Still it was always a benefit to have someone handy with a weapon to hand when things dropped in the pot. Across the table and a study in incongruity was Val looking like a wide eyed bush baby and still yet to rid the lace traces of glitter from her skin and hair. She had entered with a giggling Johanna Blumenthal, the normally reserved secretary having flushed several shades when she saw Eleanor before retreating back to her desk in reception. Eleanor was yet to make a determination about Val, people with both the technical knowledge and skill for brewing potions were rare, and she was a potential asset if she didn't manage to kill or maim herself in the process.

"Now that we are all here," Eleanor began, unable to resist a slight jab at the tardy, we can be about our business. She touched a control and the lights dimmed, causing Val's eyes to dilate and narrow uncontrollably for a few seconds. A ceiling mounted projector through a photograph up on the rear wall. In it a man, perhaps thirty five years of age lay in a few inches of brackish water. His body had been opened from his Adams apple to his groin and ropes of intestine spread out across the surface of the water like enormous snakes. His clothing, while soaked in blood, had obviously once been of a very high quality.

"This was Gregory Tailor, a mid level executive with a commodities trading company called...." she glanced down at her notes.

"Northern Vista Inc," she explained, clicking forward to another image that listed some particulars about the company. Like the Sunday Group it was vague, something to do with trading in oil, soybeans, corn and pretty much any other resource being moved in North America.

"He was found dead in a pond in a Seattle park two days ago by the local PD. Before he died he called his ex-wife Olivia Tailor in a panic." On queue the call, obtained by shady means Eleanor was not privy to but delivered to her, like the rest of the information, on a usb drive in a FedEx overnight bag.

Sleepy Female voice: "Hello..."

Greg (clearly panicked):"O...Olivia,"

Olivia: "Greg? What the fuck its three in the god damn..."

Greg: "Oliva I need you to call 911 tell them I'm in the park west of..."

Just before the line went dead there was an eerie chuckling and snuffling sound. Eleanor rewound the track and played it twice more.

"Local PD have no idea what to make of it and we might just shrug our shoulders and move on... except." The slide shifted on the projector to reveal another man. This one in jeans and a winter parka. The red fabric of the parka had been torn open and stuffing, now matted with blood covered the body. The similarity to the wounds suffered by Gregory were striking. This corpse too lay in a pool of water, though ice had began to form around the body in small clumps that made his outline look hazy.

"This is Jason Talbot, reported dead this morning in Fargo" Eleanor explained.

"Talbot worked on the oilfields during the boom, but with the slow down has been out of work. There dosen't appear to be any connection between the two men prior to this, but we aren't sure of that."

"Any thoughts?" she prompted, careful not to prejudice the team with her own ideas.

Guide

Clue = Two bodies, hundreds of miles appart, same cause of death.

Synopsis - Everyone gets to work to discuss the case.

Prompt - Discuss the case

Next clue = @POOHEAD189

Cinnabar Forever! (RCN)

Sabatine refrained from snorting which would have been unlady like. Few officers would make lieutenant commander before 30 and fewer still without a war to open slots both on new vessels and through casualties. She took the decanter and poured herself another generous measure of the minty liqour. It was probably vodka of some sort, though that was a fairly broad designation given to most vegetable alcohol rather than implying it was made from potatoes. She raised her glass.

"Well you know what they say, to a bloody war or a sickly season," her gaze making it clear whose slot she hoped either of those dooms would empty. she knocked back the alcohol just as Commodore Welkins stood and rapped his fork sharply against his glass several times in quick succession. The general buzz of combination quited save for one midshipmen, wearing an improbably number of commendations continued an animated description of what was either a space battle or an amorous encounter. One of his mortified fellows cuffed him over the back of the head to silence him to which Welkins nodded his approval.

"Fellow Spacers," he began, "as you have no doubt heard tensions with the Alliance are coming to a head." There were grumbles from the assembled officers, uniformly bellicose variations of let us at them. Welkin's smiled his eyes glinting like agates.

"We have been in the past twelve months, largely on a passive footing, lifting out to deal with crisis and incident as the develop." Welkins had the trick of making it seem like he was taking his officers into his confidence, despite the fact that everyone of them, with the possible exception of Kaiden, already knew that.

"No longer, with the base secure under the protection of the mine field, we are going to spread our patrols far and wide, show the locals that the Cinnabar flag sill flies and let them that if they are thinking of exchanging our friendship for Guarantor Pora's chains they had best reckon on what the RCN has to say about it!" This raised a round of cheers from the officers, most of whom were at least buzzed on whine or strong liquor already, but the RCN was no place for abstainers. A sober part of Sabatine's mind recognized the other unspoken factors that went into the Commodore's decision to disperse his fleet. If war did break out the first they would hear of it would likely be the arrival of an Alliance squadron extracting from the matrix and launching missiles. A small force like that which operated in the Rayleigh stars could be gutted in minutes if it were caught in orbit by an enemy likely to boast many times their missile tubes. Dispersed the squadron had a better chance of avoiding a crushing defeat and could remain a force in being even if an Alliance task force arrived to attack Herculaneum. Ships would return from their patrols to find the enemy in the system and could fade away if they were too strong or attack from the rear if they were unwary.

"To that end," Welkins continued, cutting through the excited babble once again, "I'm ordering Vicount and Grandwing out at 0600 and 0700 tomorrow, Cadbury will follow as soon as her refit is finished, certainly within the next 24 hours." Officers were begining to reach for recall plates to call their crews back from liberty and Sabatine watched Captain Micha whisper into the ear of one of spacers from the Vickie, doubtless passing his own orders to start rounding up the crew.

"Vesper and Solidad," he went on, referring to the two small sloops, small pocket warships with guns but no missles, "Will remain on station in case the enemy does arrive in force. In such a case Vesper will run for Cinnabar and Solidad will be tasked with attempting to alert the rest of us. Orders have been transmitted to your ships regarding patrol routes." Welkin's grinned wolfishly.

"Perhaps we will finally get our chance to show those goons from the Alliance what real spacers are like! RCN forever!"

"RCN forever!" the assembled officers roared. Sabatine happened to be watching Micha when the cheer went up, the Captain did not join in and looked a little queasy. Well perhaps the booze hadn't quite agreed with him.

Cinnabar Forever! (RCN)

"It has been a while," she admitted acting as though she hadn't seen the jibe in the words.

"Of course we are poor west country folk, he doesn't have the wealth and position necessary to buy me my commission, I had to earn that myself," she rejoined with a very slight, and completely deniable emphasis on 'my' commission. The implication was clear enough. Though it wasn't exactly possible to buy ones way up in the RCN, wealth and position certainly accounted for alot.

"As for being transferred sooner, I'm amazed that you couldn't just snap your fingers and have it arranged," she added with a chuckle that all but dripped a good humor that was as bright as it was artificial. She covered a smirk with a sip of the wine. It was too cloying for her taste but she had drunk pure alcohol from the power room cut with water in the past and the experience had lowered her standards for booze considerably. Setting the wine down she tried a little more of the spicy soup, finding it pleasing. A small chime rang and spacers stepped forward and lifted away they soup bowls replacing them with small cups of mint liquor which served to cleanse the palette. Sabatine downed hers at once, as did a dozen other officers for whom wine didn't have enough of a kick.

The Sinful Stars

The cold pierced to her very soul, freezing and burning her from the inside out. As Engel's dark tendrils coiled around her and crushed her, she felt the very light of the Pancreator being stripped away from her as though salvation was being torn away from her by the dark forces that permeated the air. Vistas of infinite and terrible darkness seemed to open up before her, and something dark and demonic leered upwards above her. The skeins of the future seemed to spool out in front of her, stretching away to a multitude of futures. In each future she saw Orion striding forward against the darkness, towards a vast statue an a blasted plain. From the statue he seemed to multiply striking out in various directions. She saw him commanding fleets, leading armies, kneeling before the thrones of Emperors and Patriarchs, each threat that was spun from beyond the statue glowed with the light of the Pancreator. In an instant she fathomed the things purpose, at least as much as any human could understand such a thing. It wanted to sever Orion's thread now. That wasn't its only puprpose, there were glimpses of other designs, dark and terrible yes, but each secondary to the goal of snuffing out the life of an insignificant knight. And it had succeeded. Succeeded because she had failed, because she had been unable to overcome Engel and his antimony to fulfil her part of the plan. Guilt, darker and blacker than any she had ever experienced washed over her and she leaned forward, wishing for the release of death as completely as she had ever wished for anything.

The darkness around her shattered with the suddenness of a lightning strike. She fell to the ground in a half swoon, her limbs and core suddenly burning with the absence of the chill of damnation. As the light faded from her eyes she caught a brief glimpse of Orion, shining with the same light she had seen in her vision, only for a moment before it faded and he was just a man with a bloody sword in his hand. In her last moment of consciousness, her lips curved into a smile.

"What did he hope to accomplish?" the Duke declared as he paced the great hall. Orion was shocked by the change he had seen in the nobleman in the two days since Engel's death. Eyes that had been filled with confusion had cleared, and though the Duke seemed physically weaker, his resolve had evidently been strengthened by enduring whatever ordeal he had face while under his chamberlain's heretical spell. The palace guard had arrested Orion and Ragnar as they carried the unconscious Annika from the bowels of the palace. The Priestess had been taken for medical treatment by the Sanctuary Aeon, under guard but treated well. Orion and Ragnar had been thrown into prison cells and might have rotted there if salvation hadn't come from the most unlikely of souces. Brother Mobian had strode, bloody and limping from the catacombs and, with flame gun in hand, ordered the guards to release Orion. Ragnar had been freed too, though this was likely an oversight. The Avestite had then marched them into the presence of the Duke who while evidently free of Engel's witchcraft, had still been dazed and confused. Within minutes of Orion explaining himself, the Duke had mobilized not only the remainder of the cities garrision but also his own well equipped palace guard, and hurled the Vuldrock, alreadly bloodied by Orion, back in full retreat. Allies of Engel's had been rounded up to be questioned by Mobian as well as a Reeve in order to ensure the Inquisitor did not let his faith get the better of him. Of Annika little was said, other than she was alive and recovering and that the sisters would not countenance her being disturbed at this time. What Mobian's opinion of this was remained unknown, though his face twisted in distaste whenever the subject was mentioned.

"Who can say what a heretic plans my lord," the Inquisitor responded.

"Especially after you burned all his papers," Ragnar guffawed. The zealot spun on the pagan with a look of cold fury on his face.

"You dare insult the...!" Mobian began eyes wide and filled with indigation but the Duke quelled the outburst by stepping forward and placing a hand on the Avestite's shoulder.

"He means no insult, he is a pagan and thus unaware of the proper way of things," the Duke consoled the priest.

"For myself, I find myself pleased that his heresy was cleansed so thoroughly. You have my thanks Father." The Duke smiled and stepped past the priest to stand before Orion.

"And you Sir Pentecost, we find ourselves in your debt, how may we ever begin to repay your valiant aid in this dark time?"

Cinnabar Forever! (RCN)

Sabatine fidgeted in her dress uniform trying to get it to sit right. The uniform was brilliant white with gold at the seams and a saucer hat. As was traditional they wore decorations, which in Sabatine's case amounted to little more than a couple of colored ribbions for her previous postings and a pair of rifles crossed over a star, no larger than her thumbnail, that symbolized she had been on the academy rifle team. Not that Lieutenant Micha could boast much more the the way of fruit salad which, given the fact, he was a decade her senior in the service, must have been particularly galling. Though he bore the bars of his many posting, there were no citations for bravery or courage under fire, merely citations for good behavior and long and faithful service to the Republic. Sabatine had read his service history when she had been assigned to him, and the man had almost uncanny luck for avoiding action. It must have chafed him to have been denied the one thing that could trump any amount of interest, success in battle. She felt sympathy for him, but she dearly hoped that his unlucky streak would end so she would have a chance to prove herself.

They sat at dinner in the large open hall known as the Armory. The Armory had once been just that, a magazine in which anti ship missles had once been stored back in the days when Herculaneum had been a minor regional power. After the world 'accepted' the Friendship of the Republic and the base had been built, RCN planners had determined that the ammunition lockers needed to be situated below ground to prevent accident and attack. The resulting empty building had been converted into a function hall for the purposes of the RCN. Largely this was formal dinners like tonight, occasionally balls to which the local aristocracy, such as it was, were invited, and of course pay parades when ships came in from patrols. Large banners hung from the wall at regular intervals, stretching from the polished wood floor to the timbered ceiling in rippling walls of silk. Whether they represented actual battle honors, wog or RCN, Sabatine had no idea, but they did provide a convenient screen for the spacers who had been pressed into service as cooks and wait staff to operate behind without spoiling the tableau.

The table was set with white cloth and expensive looking, although probably fairly cheap silverware and laid out with laurel in proper RCN tradition. Unfortunately tradition also dictated that the officers were seated in strict and alternating order of rank, with the commodore at the head of the table, surrounded by the captains of the various ships, all the way down to the midshipmen at the foot of the table who were officers by courtesy and were expected to improve their social graces in silence. This meant that Sabatine was seated across from Kaiden, and thus required, by courtesy to interact with him. Cinnabar social etiquette required that business, in this case naval matters, not be discussed until after the main course had been served which robbed Sabatine of any topic in which she had any interest. Discussion of politics was faux pax as the RCN was required to remain above the partisan bickering of the Senate and she knew nothing of sports or current affairs back in Xenos that might fill up the idle minutes. The awkwardness began to grow acute as they were the only silent pair at the long table. There was a momentary relief as the waiters bought out the ox tail soup which formed the first course but eventually common courtesy and the notice of her neighbors compelled Sabatine to speak. Fortunately, she knew enough about Kaiden to pick an uncomfortable topic.

"Your father is in good health I trust Sir?" she asked sweetly.

The Sunday Group - Bumps in the Night

When Ellie realizes she only has a finite amount of employees:

@POOHEAD189

The Sunday Group - Bumps in the Night

Ellie: "Welcome..." looks down at card "valued employee!"

The Sunday Group - Bumps in the Night

How Ellie views the rest of the team