Poleconomy

Cato wandered in after Brumal, her eyes trailing from hallway to hallway, and room to room. It was fairly sparsely populated tonight, with just a few solitary souls drifting between the mess hall and the showers here and there. Most were either still on duty throughout the station, or catching must-needed rest before their next odd-hours shift.

It was a familiar enough space for Cato, and she gestured to Brumal to guide him into the mess itself, and then around a corner into the all-ranks drinking mess. There were a few more gathered mercenaries and soldiers here, pouring over low-stakes gambling tables and game tables, or else watching the broadcast of some locally popular sport or another. It was a place of relaxation, and Cato knew they might not like it being disturbed--but it was chance to talk to people who had their guard down, in a casual environment.

She leaned over closer to Brumal to murmur to him.

"Right, I won't engage anyone... but I doubt they're going to try to jump their Emperor when half of them are two beers deep. My advice--go talk to a couple of them. Make it sound like you're doing the whole 'I'm interested to learn about my soldiers' thing, and get into the Destron part after. They'll be more likely to want to help once they know you aren't here to send them off to work in some horrible spice mine."

---

Cato startled as the voice entered her head, and she looked around as if expecting to see Brumal looming right in her ear. She blinked, and opened her mouth to question him -- but her better sense won out. She eventually looked away, doing her best to not look unsettled or startled, and instead wandering into the drinking mess to talk to a separate idle soldier, away from the rest of the group.

The bar largely came to attention when Brumal spoke, though unevenly. A couple soldiers recognized the Emperor right away, and snapped upright as if they were under inspection. A few more followed suit, clearly not recognizing Brumal but probably deciding it was better to follow their friend's lead rather than risk getting into trouble over it. Slowly, the rest of the bar -- save the one Cato was talking to, managed to be focused squarely on Brumal and his reprimand.

"S-sorry, sir!" squeaked one turquoise alien with a 'captain' insignia on his armour, apparently the ranking officer on the scene. "Most of these men and women came in from long guard and patrol duties. Security on the lower floors was relaxed three months ago as part of the commander's new 'efficiency' plan, to keep us guarding areas of the station important for defense, as well as, erm, VIPs."

The alien gulped noticeably. 

"Apologies for any disappointment, or, ah..." he trailed off.

---

Cato continued to talk to the one soldier she'd narrowed out from the crowd, though it didn't get her very far. He seemed to know basics about something wrong--he spoke a lot about the patrol patterns changing randomly every couple of weeks, and something about odd merchants in black robes, but they were barely puzzle pieces--if they were at all. For all she knew, he could be talking about innocent merchants selling foreign spices.

The captain followed Brumal along, seemingly growing more and more uncertain by the moment. A private discussion with the Emperor was more than he seemed to think he was getting from a night out drinking, and he all but quivered in his boots as the questions were levelled upon him.

"U-uh, something going on with this station..." he repeated, dully, his eyes widening faintly.

"There's nothing I can think of that stands out that'd--but, I mean, a promotion..." he closed his eyes, as if wracking his brain. "Well, there's something. I mean, the guy in charge of the station, he likes to ship people in and out a lot. I mean like, soldiers. Someone will be here on a six month posting, and they'll get sent home after three weeks or something. You know, real minor soldiers, not like people he should be talking to."

The captain shrugged.

"He'll just barge into your office or send someone to do it for him and say, hey, Corporal So-and-So needs to be transferred off right away. I figured it was because they nosed into his business, but questioning higher-ups can be dangerous around here, you know?"

---

The man left in Brumal's wake looked to be sorely tempted, though he made no move to stop the Emperor. He had a limit to how much he could really help, but glanced aside to his fellows in the hopes that one of them might provide something more for him to say.

Cato, on the other hand, pushed her way off of the counter and wandered out of the drinking mess, leaving the warrior she had been speaking with to drink on his own. She didn't speak until she made it outside of the drinking mess, and turned to speak with Brumal -- who she assumed would follow her out.

"My guy didn't really know much," she began, folding her hands behind her back casually. "But he did know that the governor or whatever has a habit of calling intermittent curfews when big ships come in from out far away, and using his handpicked mercenaries to guard the unloading. That's pretty suspicious, but they all seem to think he's smuggling in personal stuff -- you know, fancy wine or something."

She shrugged a shoulder.

"I dun'no. I know I said this was going to be my way of seeing how you handle things, but I'll give you my suggestion--" she gestured upwards, to indicate the ceiling. "Go detain the guy in charge and replace him with someone you know you can trust to really purge this place of the Destron trade, and to track it back to the source. This could be a months-long thing, so pick someone you know won't get corrupted."

---

"I can get to the ship quickly," Cato said. "But if you want to make this as safe as possible, maybe we should split up here. I'll head down to the hangars and see what I can find, you go to the top floor and deal with things there. Maybe I'll cause a little security disturbance down there just to make sure as few people see you going in to talk with the governor or the colonel or whatever he calls himself as possible."

It wasn't the best plan Cato had ever made, but the idea of the vacuum of space made her hesitant to go accompany Brumal. Even so, now that she had tacit permission to investigate, she would be able to be a little rougher about the whole process--break into more, bully her way past security doors, and everything else. She had an inkling there was more to find, though she hoped it wasn't more Destron.

"Tell you what--" she paused a moment. "I'll try to commandeer one of their merchant ships... I mean, I'll bring it back! But I'll try to take it, loaded up with whatever I find, and you can meet me aboard it with your fancy little teleportation trick after you've settled things with your wayward underling."

She tapped on her scouter, setting a timer for herself. She would need to be quick, in-case Brumal ran into trouble.

"If you end up needing to take longer, just send a message to me. If I need to wait, I'll just go into orbit around the nearby moon. But taking some of this stuff away might be useful, in-case there's any way to figure out where it was manufactured."

With that, Cato turned to leave--unless Brumal stopped her. She had an investigation to borrow, down nearer to her space-pod where she wouldn't risk having to learn whether Saiyans could breathe in space or not.

---