Astarte watched as the entire world view of two Union born humans was called into question. Both internally wrangled with what she just said.

“You can see why I’d like to get into contact with this half sister of mine. I want to make sure she gets off station as soon as possible.” Astarte said.

She always knew on an intellectual level that there was a none zero chance of her having other half siblings out there. But now that she knew of one for certain she would see that she was safe.

“That is a grave accusation.” Hanzo, her uncle, said grimly.

The man was so stereotypically Japanese that he sort of reminded her of her old Sensei. Straight backed, reserved, and above all solid in the way he faced the world.

“It is.” She said blithely.

“How are you so certain?”

“We just are.” She said. She didn’t feel like arguing with this man over what was obvious to her eyes. Time would prove her right.

He glared, “I will reach out to her mother, and see if she is open to introductions.”

Astarte nodded “That is appreciated. Now, down to brass tacks. We came to this station for a reason, and while Zera is a problem, she isn’t necessarily our problem.”

“Your kidding” Rachel spluttered, she was cute when she actually let herself react to things. “She tried to kill you, twice!”

“More than that if you include the beatings when I was a teen.” Astarte sad causally. “But I don’t really care. Lots of people try to kill me. Granted most of them are dead now, but Zera isn’t exactly the first to try, and she wont be the last.”

“You can’t be serious?”

Aster shrugged “I’ve gotten used to it.”

“So” Hanzo said sharply, “What do we need to give you in exchange for helping us bait Zera?”

Aster smirked, “As I discussed with Rachel last night we came here for a reason. Some thing very important to us went missing, and we want it back.”

“What was stolen, weapons, drugs, people?” Hanzo asked.

He really did have a low opinion of them. “Terraforming equipment.”

He blinked. “Terraforming equipment? What could pirates want with terraforming equipment?”

“Alleged pirates.” Astarte reminded him. “And its terraforming equipment specially designed to fix Earths climate decline. De-acidify the oceans, pull heavy metals out of the waters, clean the air and close the ozone hole. Reverse global warming and unflood the world.”

“The Union said that was impossible. Why would you want to do that?”

She rolled her eyes. “I’m not in the habit of believing obviously false lies from politicians. Earth is our home, and it can be fixed. We had the money to do something about our homeworld’s death. Its that’s simple.”

“And you want us to find your missing equipment?”

“Yes. Your resources should make that possible.”

“And that is all you want?” Her uncle asked cautiously.

The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

“No, your brother has to die. That’s not negotiable.”

He scowled “my brother’s crimes are heinous, but he deserves justice. He must be tried and judged in the eyes of the law.”

“No” Astarte retorted. “You talk about the law and justice as if they were something tangible, but if my mother were here she would tell that laws are just the means by which the powerful control the masses. And that Justice is a lie only brought up when its convenient, and ignored when its not.”

Rachel leaned forward. “Last night you said that your mother had arrived on Unity, where is she?”

Astarte frowned. “It was unanimously decided that she would not be attending this meeting as she could not promise that she wouldn’t kill you on sight.”

Highland chuckled “I wandered wha dae sound was.”

Heizer nodded. “It should not have been possible for me to hear her in engineering.”

Hanzo scowled. “You talk about murder with irreverence, as if life had no value!”

Astarte met his scowl. “That’s where your wrong. We respect life a great deal, we just recognize when one life has lost its value. Your brother is a cancer, spreading pain and misery. It would be a mercy to all his future victims to snuff him out now.”

“He must face justice for his crimes!” Hanzo insisted.

Karega put his hands up. “This isn’t going anywhere. Chief Gin, if you can build a case to bring your brother to face Union punition before a… tragic accident occurs, likely involving hand axes and katana’s, then we will leave it be. Expecting the SS to help us kill a man was an unlikely desire.”

“Well, a rich and powerful man at least.” Astarte added petulantly. “If he were a poorer man then we might have been able to make it look like self-defense without anyone looking too deeply into it.”

Hanzo let the jibe slide. “That is… acceptable. So long as you know that should there be any unfortunate accidents then you’ll be our first suspects.”

“That’s fair.” Karega agreed. “We do have means and plenty of motive. Though I’d argue that anyone who knew what kind of monster your brother was would also have plenty of motive.” He turned to Aster. “Do you think you could get your mother to agree to this?”

Astarte pondered the question. “Hard to say, its not easy to predict when she’ll be reasonable. But if not I’m confident I can set her straight.”

Astarte’s knuckles tingled at the oncoming fist fight in her near future. It might be a good way to relieve tension.

Hanzo stood up. “Then we are done here, I will reach out to you with what we’re able to find of your missing equipment.”

“And I’ll prepare some thermite to melt Zera’s face off.” Astarte said also standing.

“Rachel, do you need the chair, or can you walk?” Hanzo asked.

“I can walk-” Rachel began

“-No she can’t” Alwen interrupted. “I spent most of last night making sure she didn’t spend the rest of her life in a wheelchair, I’ll be dammed if she gets reinjures herself by being stubborn. She’ll use the chair for the next day, or else I’ll have to make sure she stays off her feet personally.”

“I’m fine.” Rachel protested.

“No” Hanzo snapped. “You heard the doctors orders, you will obey.” He commanded. He turned to Alwen and bowed, deeply. A sign of appreciation and gratitude. “You have my thanks for taking care of my subordinate.”

“It is my job. I’ll print out the full list of treatment and when she’ll be ready to walk on her own.” Alwen answered, a smile on her face as she finally met someone who didn’t argue with her.

Astarte stood up “Actually, there’s one last thing we need to do before you go.” She said firmly. “Come, I had the room set up in advance.”

Hanzo frowned in confusion, “What room.”

“Staff training room. I promised to have Rachel watch a few lectures on sexual harassment and the such.”

His frown deepened “You pirates have… sexual harassment training?”

Astarte put her hands on her hips. “Allegedly, and why does everyone ask that. Of course we do, it’s a large ship but we often spend long stints in deep space. Since introducing the formal training cases of unwanted sexual harassment have decreased by 90%, and everything else seems to just be misunderstandings.”

“And why do you insist on making my officer take one of these courses?” Hanzo challenged.

“Because it seems like she has dangerous gap in her knowledge of what is and isn’t rape. I intend to correct that.” Aster said firmly. “I’ll probably throw a diversity and acceptance slide show in there as well, might be able to correct some of that self loathing and Union misinformation.”

He blinked, but Astarte just took hold of Rachel’s wheelchair and began to push her towards one of the rooms they used for staff training. He followed behind, probably morbidly curious about what she had in store for them.

~~~*~~~

Ozzath stood next to the monitor, the camera pointed at the Pirate’s strange vessel. Next to him was his loyal informant in the Central precinct.

They watched Chief Gin and Officer Heart, who was seated in a wheeled-chair, exit the pirates vessel.

“As you can see from the time stamp they were in the pirates ship for over four hours.” Ozzath said.

“I still don’t believe what your implying.” The Officer rumbled. He was one of the few high gravity deathworlders that stood as tall as Ozzath. And every part of him was corded muscle and enviable power. He out massed and outclassed a human’s strength several times over, and yet Ozzath knew that humans were still more dangerous.

“Do you really?” Ozzath intoned. “It seems obvious to me. Chief Gin had his little protégé by the pirates side at every opportunity, the pirate even went out of her way to protect and save Miss Heart.”

“I still don’t believe it” the Deathworlder rumbled. “I know Judge, he formed the ADCU specifically to deal with threats like these pirates.”

“Yesss” Ozzath said softly. “But as Chief he had done nothing but show Terrans favor. Ordering our brave and loyal officers to not actively police the Terran quarters, he ended the mandatory Terran search and seizure laws. He turns a blind eye to their illegal stores and shops. And what’s worse, is that he has been using Station Security resources to investigate his own brother. Likely in an attempt to seize the power and authority that was denied to him for his… deviant nature.”

“Truly?”

“Yes. I can show you the evidence.” Ozzath said. His men didn’t even have to doctor the evidence, just remove a few key unsavory portions.

“I still don’t know.” The man rumbled.

“Come now Ben’kodic, you know that all the corruption and crime on this beautiful station comes from the Terrans. Their world is too crime ridden, and their species too fractious to ever be truly upstanding members of the Union. We need to contain them before they spread crime and disorder to every part of the Union.”

The massive Kaydic looked at Ozzath with one sidelong eye. He sighed. “I’ll watch Judge, if I see anything that looks like blatant collaboration then I’ll do what must be done.”

Ozzath patted the Kaydic’s shoulder “That’s all I can ask for, we are the side of law and order, it would not do for us to discard justice.”