As the Gaze of Wrath approached the station, Jason followed Qaki and one of the Forstager leaders into one of the forward airlocks; the one which would, soon, be braced against the station. The two had been talking since they were introduced, mostly about Forstager life and ecology before the Republic arrived... and then moving on to the circumstances of Forstager life under them.

"And so, I've spent most of my life dimly aware that I was being raised to be eaten, but not really wise enough to do anything about it. I entered a chrysalis; beginning the process by which my species become competent, thinking adults... and that was when I met the Seer."

The airlock was a bit tightly packed; Eyeball, Qaki, the Forstager, and the two guards took up all available space, putting them practically within touching distance.. and Eyeball kept catching himself admiring Qaki... and wondering how human she would look outside the suit.

The Forstager glanced at Eyeball with a chirp. "The Seer and the Jernal wiped out all of the Marrick. The Jernal handled most of them; my brothers tell me that while the Seer killed a few of the normal ones, they mostly called him in for those truly heavy, dangerous ones, who were armored like your friend here." He nodded toward the heavily armored alien; possibly a member of Qaki's species, but they had seen nothing but the armor yet. "We have a few videos from the surveillance of them if you'd like to see them. When the children have nightmares and we sooth them, I like to watch the creatures die."

He glanced at the floor of the airlock. "I... don't like to torment them, the way the Jernal do."

Qaki nodded, frowning. She hadn't thought of the friendly three-eyed alien as being that dangerous; but the heavy armor her guards wore was extremely expensive, powerful, and made to let them compete at an even level with some of the extremophiles among the Republic, ones that normally required either extreme luck or even more expensive weapons to kill otherwise.

As the man put his helmet on, and the airlock made a distinct 'clank' sound as it attached to a door on the other side, she smiled. "Well. We have had need to kill the armored ones quite a few times ourselves. What are your preferred weapons for dealing with them? My own heavies have a rifle that's good for the joints, something called a 'Molecular Disruptor' that I believe the Republic uses something similar to as well; though a big enough ship or vehicle-mounted laser does just as well."

Eyeball laughed; the sound was a bit off, now digitized, from the helmet. "Well. This gun here does the job on them well enough.." He patted the handgun strapped to his hip. "But a knife does the job when I don't want that sort of secondary impact. You know... collateral damage."

Qaki frowned. Why had he put the helmet on when they started to dock, anyway? "That gun? You've got something dangerous enough to take... wait. A knife?"

"Sure. Dense metal, sharp point. Wedge it in through the joints, tear open a hole, tear the armor apart, or slit the throat."

The guard spoke for the first time since he'd begun following. "Bullshit. Can't take one of them out with a knife."

Qaki snapped her fingers. The guard immediately fell silent. "Apologies for the rudeness." The airlock gave a brief hiss as pressure equalized with the station outside; and began to open. "But welcome to Knife-7. One of my agents will be by to interrogate your prisoners. I would appreciate your cooperation."

"Of course. The ones captured in battle, you can do whatever you'd like to; I'm currently using them as forced labor, and they're begging for death. The one I liberated from a Republic prison, and the one who surrendered when I captured his ship, however, I'll have to ask for a bit more discretion; I'll be letting them go, either here or somewhere else, so while you can speak with them, actual torture would be off the table."

She frowned.. but nodded. "So be it. Feel free to take advantage of the various shopping opportunities the station offers. I assume you have no Confederate credits?"

"Republic ones and plenty of trade goods, including some neutronium cores from dismantled Republic ships. I've actually got a lead on a truly massive possible neutronium source I wanted to take up with someone who can put a serious fleet together."

A brief nod. "We have some people who trade in Republic credits who can get you started I can introduce you to, and I will buy any cores you've got. The Shoork navy has a production capacity that vastly outstrips our neutronium harvesting ability; we usually have dozens of ships waiting for them, and every salvaged core lets us bring another online within hours."

Eyeball nodded. "I'm surprised you've got anyone who deals with Republic money, honestly. Aren't all contacts with your people hostile? Their government refers to you as 'the Swarm'."

"Smugglers, drug dealers, mercenaries... I'm sure its all illegal, on the Republic side, and on the Shoork-run stations its illegal to sell those people anything military. But... what sort of massive neutronium source are we talking about?"

They had stopped just inside the station proper; a massive, open space with a variety of carts and stalls; a familiar-looking marketplace-like region that he'd seen much the same of at the central hub back in Imperial space in the milky way; for the first time, he saw some crab-like aliens talking to a group of the spine-covered Yogg; something that, crazily enough, made him nostalgic for back home. "Alright, so. When I first showed up in this galaxy I was riding inside the skull of this creature I had just killed....."

***

Royal Interrogation Specialist Ilhank nodded thoughtfully as he looked at the miserable lump of Marrick flesh, standing perfectly immobile in one of their suits of light powered armor. The man was sweating, clearly miserable, crying, and had apparently been tortured for days, sealed in his armor, unable to see or hear anything as someone remotely guided his body like a puppet through a series of agonizing wires embedded in his flesh.

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He was only a low-grade soldier; but he'd been begging for death the moment the pirate crew had given him permission to speak; and had given every tiny scrap of information he thought might buy him mercy. He looked dramatically different from Ilhank himself; far more slender, shorter, with six tiny, beady black eyes instead of Ilhank's own well-muscled, blue form and more normal pair of eyes; but then, one could never judge an alien by its looks.

Even knowing how terrible and vicious the Republic was, and the sort of means he himself would employ to torture a captured officer... Ilhank looked at the tall, lean figure in modified armor beside it. Whoever it was, it was more slender and lean than a Jernal, but had absolutely perfect reflexes; and some sort of device that let him puppet the prisoner. "I'm through with him. Can you take me to the next prisoner?"

"Of course." Every word was smooth, perfect. He'd dealt with pirates before, a hundred, a thousand times. He'd seen shoddy, piecemeal ships, and ships from the navies of smaller confederacy members, here to win loot and technology to take home. These...Ascension people, though? They were more competent and efficient than any Royal crew. He'd met at least six distinct members of this Ascension organization, and aside from them being masterful drone pilots he knew nothing about them; he was reasonably sure that even these bodies he dealt with were drones.

"The next prisoners voluntarily surrendered; the second one, in fact, was a Republic prisoner herself until very recently. I am aware that, by your own rules, any Republic prisoners are fair game to be tortured until death; however, our organization only allows that for the lower-tier Republic officers or those captured in active combat operations, or as punishment for a crime."

Ilhank nodded. These people weren't the first to have such rules; and they made sense, to encourage surrender, except that lower-ranked Republic forces almost never surrendered; he'd seen only a handful in his two centuries of service to the Queendom. "So this is the first time your organization has encountered the confederacy, yes? How did you learn so much about us, so quickly?"

The tall figure didn't miss a step as he guided Ilhank down the hallway to an armored, secured door; and stopped. "Even as we speak, we're reading everything publicly available about your kingdom, and passing the relevant bits to those who need them."

After a moment, the door slid open; revealing a green-skinned, four-eyed humanoid wearing a simple grey vacuum suit, inside what seemed to be a comfortable prison cell. As he stepped into the room, the Ascension soldier... tech.. whatever it was.. followed him. Ilhank crossed his arms behind his back, looking down at the prisoner. "Engineer Lert. I am Royal Interrogator Ilhank, of the Shoork Navy. Are you familiar with us?"

The man looked from the armored figure to Ilhank's blue face. "...No. Honestly, the broadcasts I've seen just list you as a semi-aquatic group of rogue descendants, and the internal memos just talk about the weaknesses of your ships, and how to kill you if we see you. There was one movie with a... I think fictional... account of your people being dominated and ruled by some sort of tentacle monsters on the world they settled on, and used as their puppets to fight us."

Ilhank nodded. "Interesting. We do share a world with some squid-like creatures, albeit in a friendly manner. My people are at war with your masters. I would be interested in any information you have that we might not; anything about deployments of ships or persons, tactics, weaknesses. You are not one of the masters yourself; we would be willing to offer citizenship and of course monetary rewards for any useful information."

Lert blinked... and looked at Ascension. "...Am I even allowed to leave with him? Aren't I a prisoner?"

"I have spoken to the captain regarding you and the Marrick. The only place we won't release you is back into Republic hands. You may accompany the Interrogator if you wish, and be offered the choice to stay or leave when the ship departs."

Lert stared at the machine for the moment... then back to Ilhank. "I... The Purge will reach this world within my lifetime. I... I wouldn't mind working for you, but I'd want to get somewhere far, far away from the war. I'll tell you anything I know, if you can make that happen."

***

When Eyeball and the Duchess stopped at a stall a few hundred meters away from the entrance, she was nodding along with his story; though she seemed confused at times; Eyeball seemed to keep glossing over how he'd managed to get things done, and just who Ascension was; aside from a group that had been inside an extradimensional space, smuggled from back home. His story sounded fantastical; but if it were true, and that was in fact a mass of neutronium as heavy as a small planet buried in that star... she would need to gather a fleet.

The stall they stopped at was manned by what appeared to be a vivid orange creature with five subtly glowing orange eyes, in the classic humanoid pattern of most descendants; wearing a vacuum suit covered in strange, jarring color patterns. It nodded as they approached.

Qaki gestured at the creature. "Eyeball, this is Heerv. Heerv is a Republic citizen, but also a Royal citizen. He claims the Republic doesn't know what he's doing out here, but we assume he's an intelligence-gathering operative; or at the very least, paid by them for information when he goes back."

The creature shrugged. "Ahh, we all live how we live, yes? I sell things here for Confed creds, buy things to take back, do a bit of exchange, make money... and whoever wins, well, I keep trading, yes?" He looked Eyeball over for a moment. "I like the helmet, very fancy. What brings the Duchess herself down to see us?"

The duchess chuckled. "I was talking to a new friend, who happened to need to speak with someone of your sort. As unsavory as you are, you've done the crown some favors in the past, and so..."

"Ahh. I will remember, of course." He smiled. "So, shiny helmet. What brings you to see Heerv today?"

Eyeball casually picked up a bulky pouch; unfortunately more of a fanny pack; at his hip; unzipping it, and a faint hiss of escaping air from the pressure difference sounded. "I've got a giant pile of credits looted from fallen Republic forces. More than this, but I want a bit of local spending money to use if I see anything interesting."

He glanced around. His helmet highlighted a variety of completely unidentified, unknown technologies that were being sold, and a variety of pirate captains moving through.. as well as uniformed members of navies he had no information on. "You never know what could have interesting applications, so I plan to buy a bunch of random tech samples from whoever's selling."

The orange broker stared at the pile inside the pouch for a moment. These were all large-denomination credit chips; thousands, tens of thousands. Enough to buy a smaller pirate ship, at least. "...Well, I can definitely arrange some meetings, and give you a good exchange rate. Do you have many more credits to trade?"

Eyeball frowned. It hadn't felt right to take all of the credits with him. Most likely, that meant there would be a time someday in the future it would be useful to have some. "Not that I'm going to part with just yet. I'll be trading in a few cores from Republic ships I took out in to the Duchess for credits later."

The man looked at Eyeball in what the translator interpreted as a gesture of confusion and surprise. "Really? You took out more than one? No wonder the Duchess was with you. Well. If you want a competing offer for those cores, I can get ten percent more for you than she usually pays."

"...Yeah, no. Not going to piss off the lady who owns the place. I believe Confederate credits are about four to each five Republic credits. Make me a fair offer and I won't mention to the Duchess that you're trying to cut her out of the deal on the cores."