A Corsican's Gift

[Eppy]

Sarah stepped off of the shuttle craft onto the deck of Corsica's Shuttle Bay Nine, right behind the Ammiraglio. She was no longer garbed in Naval attire; it was a simple black ops uniform, skin tight, shock absorbing, layered with neural circuitry on the inner layers and displaying nothing but rank insignias. Very austere next to the traditional red-and-gold travelling greatcoat of the Ammiraglio and the other officers, but it certainly implied as much purpose and was considerably more lightweight. She followed Barilla towards the lifts as the honor guard flanked them silently, nodding her head as he spoke.

"I've had a collection of Santiani's entire information library organized and packaged for you as soon as you have time to look at it. We're touring his yacht right now, and then you can have that look at his corpse in the morgue immediately after. Acceptable?"

"No objections, sir," she said as the guard broke away and opened the door to the lifts.

"Good. We'll be there shortly." They stepped in and the lift began to accelerate upwards towards the greater internal drydocks. He handed her a pad.

"This is a list of all the available vessels in dock or under construction. Review them at your leisure; you can have anything on that list as a private command and any Naval personnel to staff it you desire. If you feel any support craft need to be added to your staff you can request those as well, but don't go calling for any capital warships as hitsquads," he chuckled.

"No sir," she grinned as the lift doors opened and exposed them to the cool atmosphere of one of Corsica's massive Internal Drydocks.

Internal Drydock Two (of six) was a large room, a 450-meter cube. It could barely fit four Outcast Destroyers at once; one end was a clear repelling force field to keep the techs from flying out; the others were covered with, bluntly, whatever was necessary for the task at hand. The Internal Drydocks were good for doing lots of fine, detailed work on a ship's external components - something that would be difficult in a spacesuit - and for detailed go-overs of a given ship. Today, though Internal Drydock Two only had three ships in it - the lower third was occupied by the MNS Sicilian Gold, one of the prototype RM-2A - and an unusual one, in that its engines were doubled up - in conjunction with the AQS Indirect Ion Ignition engine it had a fully functional conventional fusion drive - which was in for some moderate work on her power grid, notoriously finicky on that particular vessel; the second ship was a Tridente, nothing special, in for, of all things, a paint job.

The third vessel, and their point of interest, was the 794 A.S. Democritus-class Yacht, 350 meters long, sleek, fast, luxurious, and the scene of the not-necessarily-unfortunate death of one Arturo Santiani. Sarah stepped over towards the edge of the Internal Drydock Two's observation deck and, foregoing the walkway extending to the Yacht's moorpoint and hatch, stepped up onto the rail and used the burst antigravs in her black ops skinsuit (hence the flared calves) to propel herself upwards to the top of the vessel, landing gently and promptly striding over to have a look at the sensor equipment.

"Senorita Whitacre, really now!" Barilla puffed as he climbed up the side of the vessel "I am not as young as I used to be."

"We have a dozen Lane Hackers on staff to enhance our sensor equipment for us, and this vessel doesn't even have full Discovery-rated suite," She frowned angrily "No wonder we've always had problems. They're not even trying."

"I will not disagree, Senorita...a man of pleasures, eh? This hulk" he kicked the ship's hull "is not suitable for his position at all, but eh, he was an independent entity with Carte Blanche'. Why exactly is it you wanted to see this ship and the body?"

She started towards the ladder where Barilla had climbed up. "Simply put, I don't like the look of the coroner's report." She slid down the rail with an 'mph.' "It lists the cause of death as a coronary, but why did the ship's internal health sensors not report anything? The coroner also doesn't list what caused the coronary - there should be a broken clot somewhere." she stepped inside the hatch, surveying the opulent corridor. "The coroner rules out poison or other unnatural cause of death - no needle punctures, abnormal compounds in the tox screen, no hypospray compressions, and nothing out of the ordinary in his internal circuitry, what little there was. I'm expected to believe his heart just seized."

Barilla strolled close behind her as they headed towards the bedroom where Santiani had died. "These are true points, Senorita, but such things have been known to happen. I wouldn't put so much stock in them."

She stopped cold and turned. "Sir," she said "That's my job."

He laughed. "Good point!"

She pressed the door lock and they stepped inside.

*****

Brother Bonello finished reciting the last stanza of the Rosary and placed his beads inside the volumes of his robe as he stood back up, backing away from the large crucifix on the cathedral wall. He started out of the apse, heading for the door into the dedicated monastery when it happened again.

***follow***

***brightmind follow***

Will groaned, blinking his eyes hard, and pushed his way towards his small, bare room on the next floor.

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Quick comment - we thought that Panzer was the Leader, Swift. -Agmen

Which Dreadnought was that?

One of your nine.