Standing and moving still brought the Arbiter a lot of pain. But the Law’s grim enforcer couldn’t let anyone see that weakness. Especially not with the pirate before them and the very same assassin who had nearly killed them weeks before beneath that pirate’s foot.

The Arbiter had only just been cleared for light duty and decided to spend that time with the Officers in charge of watching the pirates Demon ship. They weren’t ADCU since those officers couldn’t be wasted on a simple stakeout. The Arbiter however had been assured the Officers in charge there were the best they had. But not two minutes within the stakeout tent the Arbiter had learned that the pirate Captain had slipped past the officers assigned to tail her. And more disturbingly that every pirate who left the Astaroth had slipped their tails with disdainful ease.

The utter lack of concern had further stoked their fury. According to the officer on duty every pirate that left eventually made a mess of something and stirred up a minor disturbance. And that only a few that left were unaccounted for.

The complete lack of awareness for how shady and suspicious all that should have sounded baffled the Arbiter’s mind. They knew crime and violence didn’t come so naturally to other species as it did for the Arbiter’s human mind. But the failure to make such a basic connection that the pirates were creating distractions so that other pirates could do their work covertly, screamed at incompetence.

That led to the Arbiter learning that all the officers in charge of the overwatch operation were actually low level beat cops and file clerks. Looking into the system used to select these officers the Arbiter learned that they weren’t just incompetent, but so incompetent that the staggering number of negative reports had confused the filing system and had placed them into the highest bracket of trusted officers. The system was made to calculate negative values but couldn’t properly place such incompetent people into their proper bracket because there wasn’t a bracket appropriately low enough to place them into. So instead it simply went past the lowest level and placed them into the highest level.

And of course such poor officers couldn’t simply be fired because the officers workers union would make a fuss. Which meant the SS couldn’t replace these idiots with any slightly more intelligent sapients.

The bureaucratic idiocy was so infuriating that the Arbiter had lashed out at a nearby pole before they could think better of it. The pole snapped at the impact, fell over, and collapsed half the tent with it.

After that little outburst the Arbiter decided to take a walk and calm down. Only to stumble upon the missing pirate captain locked in a life-or-death battle with the very same assassin who had ambushed them just weeks before.

The Arbiter hadn’t been there for the start of the fight, but simple deduction was enough to reason that the assassin had likely initiated the conflict. They had mentioned Astarte’s name on the night of the attack. And the Pirate had no reason to seek out and attack the assassin.

During that fight The Arbiter had barely survived their encounter with the assassin. The assassin’s prosthetic modifications presented a gap in power that the Arbiter just couldn’t bridge. But despite fighting what should have been a one sided battle, the pirate was doing surprisingly well. In fact if the Arbiter was any judge, Astarte seemed to have a slight advantage.

Not in speed, power, or endurance. The assassin’s mechanical body was simply too powerful for a human to matchup. But in skill Astarte out matched the mechanical assassin.

Astarte dodged and weaved without effortless ease, getting past the assassin’s guard to strike at their, or her, mechanical body. If the assassin hadn’t been a machine then Astarte would have won by now, even with the gap in power.

Rachel felt slightly ashamed at her own poor showing against the assassin when compared to Astarte’s fight. The shame then quickly burned into anger as the Arbiter gripped the rifle at their side and pulled it out to try and shoot the assassin. Unlike the Arbiter had been that night, Astarte was wearing that ridiculous dark red armor and had a sword like she was some sort of space samurai. The Arbiter had done well that night, and their lack of superior weaponry had been their only flaw. One that had been amended with the addition of a more powerful pulse rifle.

They tried to line up a shot on the assassin that wouldn’t hit Astarte, when Astarte began to speak. “You wanna know the funny part. Greyson didn’t even care that you were gone.”

Wait, did these two share a past. The Arbiter guessed that old saying about birds of a feather was true. Who was Greyson? Some sort of man they had both known?

“Didn’t even question me about. Just said ‘Zera’s gone, now you will guard my back’” the pirate continued. “Then not even a week later I was second in command and got to sleep in his comfy bed.” The pirate gave her attacker a sloppy lascivious grin.

“And then you killed him like the deceptive whore you are!” the assassin spat, her attacks becoming sloppier with more openings.

Where these two quarreling over a man? The Arbiter felt bile rise into their throat. Two of the deadliest human women they had ever seen fighting over some man they had known. Pathetic. No man was worth that. Especially not whoever this Greyson bastard was given how quickly he had let the pirate into his bed after his first girlfriend disappeared.

Wait, Greyson, pirate, dead. Were they talking about the infamous human pirate, Byron Greyson? The one who had been a menace to the Femeri system, who was responsible for the disappearance of over thirty thousand humans and the deaths of many more? The one whose headless body had turned up one day aboard the drifting remains of the Black Saint? It couldn’t be, right?

But the rise of the Astaroth and Astarte had happened shortly before Greyson’s mysterious death. It seemed too coincidental.

“Of course I did, I refused to be the latest women he ruined and dumped into the gutter. Face it, your days were numbered. If it wasn’t me it would have been him.” The pirate said with a derisive sneer.

A bit callous and mercenary, but if they were discussing Greyson then likely not inaccurate.

The assassin however didn’t see that logic. “LIAR!” she screamed as she flew into a rage.

Then the Arbiter saw the reasoning behind Astarte’s taunts. This assassin was dangerously unhinged, and Astarte was using that to bait her into a trap.

The next sequence of attacks was too fast for the Arbiter to follow. A sword hilt to the face, followed by something launching out of the assassin’s arm. Then somehow Astarte had her other arm in her grip and flipped the assassin over a shoulder. With the assassin on the ground, Astarte quickly pressed one leg to their back, and with the arm in hand began to pull. The assassins sudden ultrasonic scream made the Arbiter vison darken at the edges, and maybe caused their ears to bleed a little.

Then the arm came out with a pop and the screaming stopped.

The pirate looked at the arm for a second, before lifting it above her head and swinging it down into the assassin’s head. The loud conk of metal on metal was enough to startle the Arbiter out of her awe and terror.

The barrel of their pulse cannon lifted up with Astarte centered in its sight “FREEZE!” the Arbiter roared with all their might.

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Astarte paused mid swing, looked towards the Arbiter, and then raised both of her hands above her head. As well as the assassins severed arm. “It was self defense.” The pirate said quickly.

The Arbiter could have sworn they saw a flash of red. But it happened so fast that they weren’t sure if it was really there. And if it was then why would the pirates eye flash red?

The eye crossed by a gruesome scar. Did the pirate have a glass color changing eye?

No, her eyes were both clearly moving around and focusing on things like they should. Could it be cybernetic? Those were supposed to be impossible, too complicated to properly miniaturize with current technology.

It was something to investigate.

The Arbiter had been so focused on Astarte that they hadn’t been watching the assassin close enough. In a movement the Arbiter hadn’t seen the assassin threw Astarte off her back before popping up to her feet. Astarte went down onto the ground and the assassin lurched forward to attack her downed foe. But before she could reach the pirate three quick blasts from the Arbiters rifle stopped her in her tracks.

One had winged her side, another went wide. But the third had caught her right where a liver should have been. The assassin stuttered, but wasn’t dead. They dodged the next shot by ducking and then the second by somehow leaping ten meters into the air and onto a window seal. The assassin looked down on the two women and was clearly judging their chances at victory. But with an, admittable impressive, one-handed springlike flip Astarte was back on her feet, sword ready for another round.

The assassin’s strange mechanical face scowled before another impossible jump sent her over a nearby building and out of sight.

The Arbiter relaxed once the assassin was gone, but Astarte didn’t. The pirate turned, grabbed the Arbiters gloved hand, and pulled her into a jog down the open alleyway. “Come on, there’s an open lot nearby. Can’t jump us from there.” She said without looking back as she dragged the Arbiter along.

For a stunned few seconds Rachel stared at the strong hand grasping her own smaller one. But then the Arbiter saw the logic in Astarte’s worry and forced their hand to release the pirate and ran alongside her.

A few times the Arbiter had noticed a thin humanoid shadow leap between the buildings above them, but a quick turn down an alley from Astarte had them moving away from the incoming ambush from the assassin chasing them via roof tops. In no time at all they made it to an open loading dock for a nearby warehouse. Astarte ran into its center and scanned the roof tops, the Arbiter followed suit.

The Arbiter and the Pirate stood back to back, each searching for any signs of the mutual foe.

“There!” Astarte shouted while pointing her finger at a roof top.

The Arbiter stared up, but couldn’t see anything. But following the pirate’s direction they raised their rifle and shot at the edge of the building Astarte had pointed at. The blasts landed and then the crouched figure of the assassin rose up and backed away.

How had the pirate seen her? The Arbiter spared her a glance and saw a second flash of red before the pirate shifted her head.

“You should call for backup.” The pirate stated while still scanning the roof tops.

“To arrest the assassin?” the Arbiter asked before they could think better of it.

Astarte snorted. “Wouldn’t trust any SS to arrest a dead log, let alone Zera. But more witnesses might scare her off.”

Two things stood out in that statement, the assassin’s apparent name, and “SS, is that supposed to be short for station security?”

“Schutzstaffel actually, its just a strange coincidence they line up” the Pirate joked wryly.

The Arbiter scowled “You think the Station security are like the Nazi’s?” The Arbiter’s lessons about the various evil factions during Earths history had left her with nightmares for years. Crucifixion, death by a thousand cuts, blood eagles, and the like had disturbed their six-year-old mind. Their lessons had spent weeks on all the evils humanity inflicted upon each other, all the way until First contact.

“If the kinky boot fits.” Astarte said while examining the Arbiter’s own black boots.

The Arbiter swished their cloak to hide their boots, and the pirates gaze snapped back up to the rooftops. The Arbiter made the call, and the idiots in charge of the tent said they would need a few minutes to ‘locate’ their rifles and arm shields. Why they had to be located in the first place confused the Arbiter? They couldn’t be so incompetent as to not know where their weapons were, right?”

Tense minutes past before Astarte let out a sigh of relief. “I think she gave up.” she then shot the Arbiter an accusing glare “I almost had the bitch. If you hadn’t interfered we wouldn’t have to worry about her coming back.”

“You expect me to stand by while you committed murder?” The Arbiter growled, now stepping back from the pirate and reaching for a set of cuffs.

The pirate frowned, then glanced up as if recalling a distant memory. “I… ugh felt my life was in imminent danger, and feared for my life while facing down a clearly aggressive and violent deathworlder with a weapon. I used whatever objects I could find at the time…I carry no weapons and was forced to use ceremonial objects in crude, and ugh…unusual ways for self defense. I did not think retreat was possible so I acted to end the threat” she said in a bland staccato rhythm of everyone reciting words from memory. Her words obviously citing several different laws pertaining to self-defense.

The Arbiter felt an eye twitch. “The law pertaining to Deathworlder assailants was not intended to include Deathworlder victims.” The Arbiter said slowly.

Astarte shrugged “Union vs. Trevor Philips established that the enforcement of the law was done by the letter of the law, not the spirit. By that ruling and precedent I acted reasonably and was within my rights for self-defense. Any attempt to detain me would result in punitive measures from my legal representation.”

In all their time on the ADCU the Arbiter had never encountered a criminal so well versed in the intricacies of Union law. Some loop holes were well known, and easy for Officers to circumvent in order to attain an arrest. But the Arbiter hadn’t encountered something like this before.

The Arbiter looked down and noticed the sword she still held, red blood from the pirate running down its blade. “So that sword isn’t a weapon?” The Arbiter asked pointedly.

The feline smile that covered Astarte’s face sent shivers up their spine. “My dear officer, as you can notice I am of half Japanese heritage, a hafu if you will. I am dressing in the traditional fashions of my people. The armor, the katana, and the wakizashi are all hallmarks of the samurai I am descended from. None of these are worn for anything beyond cultural heritage. And for that matter, my crew wear the same to honor my ancestry.”

The Arbiter sighed. Astarte’s defense, though blatantly false, was airtight. Arresting her now would only give her ammunition to legally strike back. And with the recent backlash of the Deathworlder crack down the Arbiter could doom Judge’s career. It had been a celebrated move of the last chief, but the knock-on effects of it had resulted in several months of rioting, looting, and political discourse in the heart of the Union. The last chief was forced to step down and Judge took his place and was still trying to reverse the damages. Which was hard with all the precincts fighting him on it. Those officers had too many friends torn apart by Terran criminals to ever let that grudge go.

“Then you may leave the arm behind and be one your way.” The Arbiter ordered.

Astarte blinked, “the arm?”

The Arbiter pointed to the severed arm still within the pirate’s grasp “That is evidence in an on going investigation. LEAVE. IT. BEHIND” The Arbiter explained, growling out the last words slowly. Just because Astarte had likely saved the Arbiter’s life with some quick thinking didn’t erase the fact that she was a person of interest/suspect in the same case.

Astarte glanced down at the severed arm and blinked as if surprised she was still holding it. Then tossed it carelessly onto the ground. “All yours, make sure to check for bugs before plugging it in.”

“Bugs?”

“Computer viruses hidden in its OS. Thing could have all sorts of things hidden within.”

“And how do you know?”

“I don’t. It’s just the sort of thing I would do myself. Try loading it onto a separate server. Oh, and check for small explosives.”

“Danm Deathworlders” the Arbiter growled as they now considered the severed arm on the ground next to a small splatter of Astarte’s blood. She was right, Deathworlders were known for their tricks and traps. Humans especially. During one investigation a load of seized morphine from an illegal clinic had been stored next to an unstable chemical that reacted poorly to the jostling of the transport and destroyed the evidence in a fiery explosion.

Astarte chuckled “Glass stones Arbiter.”

“What?”

“Glass stones, it’s a human malaphor of sorts. I’ll leave the details for you to figure out. Good luck with tracking down Zera, I’d recommend starting with the prison records on Union Station Parox.” She said as she turned aways and strode off. Walking in the opposite direction of the arriving officers, half of which were missing their weapons or shields.

The Arbiter let out a sigh as she observed the most incompetent idoits she had ever seen strut onto the lot without a care in the universe.

“You called us Sir.” The lead Voral said.

The Arbiter took in a deep breath “Yes I did. Ten minutes ago.”

“It was a long walk.” The officer said defensively, no care for the Arbiters growing anger.

“Its only a few hundred standard meters. But that doesn’t matter I encountered an assassin in the midst of their crime. That’s their arm.”

The Voral looked panicked and began to look from side to side.

The Arbiter felt an involuntary eye twitch and clenched her fist. “The assassin is gone.”

The Voral relaxed “So you want us to secure the evidence?” he asked.

That had been the Arbiters plan, but now seeing them mill about aimlessly they changed their mind. “No, secure the area and stay out of CSI’s way. Understood?”

The officer looked offended. “Sir, its just an arm. We don’t need to wait around for CSI, one of my men can bag it right now.”

Patience wearing thin the Arbiter marched right into the Voral’s face. The fact the Officer loomed over her by two meters did little to diminish the Arbiter’s menacing aura. “AM. I. UNDERSTOOD?”

“Yes Sir.” The cowed Voral officer answered with a nervous buzz of his wings.

“Then go.”

Ten minutes later six medium shuttles from the CSI unit, and two small shuttles from the ADCU were on the scene of the lot and in the alley where the Arbiter had stumbled upon Astarte. Edict and Prosecutor began to jump along the rooftops, recreating the assassin’s movements and collecting more evidence.

The assassin’s arm, and the dried sample of Astarte’s blood was collected. As well as fragments of what looked to be a broken glass eye with a micro camera.

They lost the assassin’s trail after they ducked into the inner hull of the station and escaped across the pipes, wires, and support structure of Unity.

Thirty minutes after that they departed for the central precinct. The Arbiter within the darkened confines of the ADCU shuttle felt safe enough to take off the hood. Caleb and Bartolv did the same. They noticed her pensive mood and didn’t disturb her.

It wasn’t lost on her that Astarte knew exactly who this assassin was. And if she hadn’t left those pretty blatant clues about how to identify her then then Rachel would be trying to acquire a warrant to bring her in for questioning. But that still left her with a lot of questions.

And despite the answers she might get, she had the sinking feeling it wouldn’t be enough to see the whole picture. How big was this whole thing?