"We're pretty sure his cover held, even in death. The message indicated that he'd kept the codes in a dataslip on a dataslug at his workplace. There's a pretty good chance that, even if the slug's been reused, it'll still have the dataslip on it."

"Your mission is to go to Mimiis, locate and recover the codes, and use them to retrieve whatever it was Milan was after. Follow it up. Given the current situation," he was referring to the inevitable war, "it's got to be worth the risk."

General MacAuley spoke up. ''A Harlequin class mission ship has been assigned to your group, plus standard field equipment, and some extras. You can indent for anything else you may feel necessary. Two sets of fake ID each have been prepared; one presenting you as the crew of a type SA free trader merchant, and one showing you to be Imperial civilians.''

"Are there any questions?"

Accustomed to this sort of thing, the four agents had only a couple of questions, clarifying the information they'd been given, and checking that Milan's home address at least was available. He was, it turned out, the only SolSec agent on Mimiis; the place simply wasn't a strategic location. Vasquez directed a question at Commissioner Conner; "Why did you turn the recorder off?" she asked. Conner looked serious. "If even a sniff of this gets out," he said, "your mission could be compromised. A substitute tape with a different briefing has already been made, and will be spliced into this recording, in case there's any sort of leak in this building."

Feeling this wrapped things up, Conner closed the briefing. "Get cracking then, men. Everything points to this being a big one. Humanity's counting on you."

Leaving the briefing office, the agents of mission KF-327 were directed to the Logistics office, where their equipment indent was prepared for them. As well as material equipment, they had been provided with two completely detailed false identities each. Each spent some time adding an assortment of equipment they felt would be useful, whilst wondering how on earth they were going to sneak all this into Imperial space while pretending to be harmess merchants.

They needn't have worried.

They were escorted to the building's hangar, where they were presented with the Harlequin class mission ship Nemesis. "Iron" Erwin handed them the spec sheets, and they read:

Adapted from the very common Solomani tramp trader Type SA Sundowner design, the Harlequin class is much more than it appears.

All the major systems have been gutted out and replaced at the maximum available TL 14. Drives, power plant, electronics and so on are equal to the best military ships of similar tonnage. There is considerable cunning devoted to concealing this; all the replaced systems resemble the originals almost exactly, with extra space provided by dummy "cargo crates" in the hold.

Similarly, all the systems have "stealth" settings, allowing them to be restricted to performance and sensor signature that does not exceed the original. Only very detailed external examination or extended densitometer sweeps can discern the difference when stealth mode is engaged. Large numbers of secret compartments are built into the bulkheads and floors of the vessel, allowing considerable amounts of equipment and up to three people to be concealed from even a thorough inspection.

The ship is armed, with twin triple laser turrets and two turrets each carrying two missile racks and a sandcaster. This is more than the original design, but many merchants upgrade their weapons and turrets are not unusual on this class of ship.

The standard computer systems are no different to those installed in the SA; the backup, however, while externally indistinguishable from a 2/fib, is actually rated as 8/fib, and loaded to the brim with reference, investigation, examination, cryptography and espionage software. The air/raft is not itself armed, but has secret compartments built into it in the same way as the ship. It also is equipped with maser commo, far harder to intercept than radio, and EM Mask to allow it to attempt to evade sensor detection.

The team eyed this vessel for a minute or two. Then Jeremiah spoke up, classic groundpounder. "It's silver. I don't like silver ships." he said.

"You don't? Then let's have another colour," said a voice, and the ship suddenly changed to a pale blue. A humanoid figure walked down the ship's ramp towards them, and even if the voice hadn't given it away, his appearance was enough to confirm his robotic nature.

"Ah!" said "Iron" Erwin, "excellent timing. Lady and gentlemen, this is the fifth member of your crew - Victor." Victor greeted each of the agents, by name, politely; it was clear he had been programmed with quite detailed emulation of human mannerisms. He explained that, like the Nemesis, he was not what he seemed at first glance. While being a standard Wilson and May valet droid in general appearance, he had a whole raft of programming to allow him to assist any espionage or investigative mission.

He led the team onto the Nemesis and showed them around its' compact interior. All their contraband equipment vanished into the concealed compartments, and they admired the massive secondary computer with its' array of forensic and investigative software, the military-grade EM mask and turrets, and the seriously upgraded m-drives.

Thinking ahead to cover stories on Mimiis, they decided to lay in a cargo to boost their credibility as interstellar traders, and settled on oranges. 50 d-tons of citrus fruit were duly procured and loaded into the ship's hold.

All now being ready, the team boarded the ship, sealed the hatches, and Fox lifted them off into the pleasant evening skies of Catania. The Nemesis proved to be a pleasure to fly in spite of its' artfully battered exterior, and she was soon skimming out of the atmosphere, and two hours later was at the jump point (the distance from the planet's gravisphere at which an interstellar Jump was safe to execute). Fox worked down the checklist, laid in the flight plan, and engaged the jump drive, shifting the vessel into hyperspace for its' journey to the first stop en route to Mimiis.

There being nothing to do for the next seven days, the team settled into their jumpspace tasks. Equipment was checked and tested, the mission and some plans for proceeding discussed, and excercise taken.

Vasquez spent some time preparing some possible covers for her Meliina persona, researching a human-interest story on the survivors of the G-Bus crash Milan died in, or a story on worker oppression by the Koburg Combine.

Victor proved extremely useful. Not only did he take care of all the domestic chores aboard ship as his alias model would have done, he was quite happy to take classes in the specialist security skills he was programmed with. His knowledge of these was encyclopedic.

053/989 Urizen/Banasdan, Solomani Rim

Having read the library data on Urizen, they had decided that stopping there was something they could happily miss out on. Their life support supplies had been fully stocked for a complete crew to start with, and they were thus able to make two Jumps without needing resupply, although with slightly more risk of malfunction in the ship's systems.

They therefore flew into the Urizen system only far enough to skim hydrogen fuel from the atmosphere of the outer gas giant before jumping again, this time to Mimiis itself.

006/989 Mimiis/Banasdan, Solomani Rim

"Mimiis is a heavily industrialized world, mainly because it's not much use for anything else. There is a government, but real power rests in the hands of the Koburg Combine, a sector-sized corporation with a tough reputation in business.

40% of the mainworld's surface is occupied by the huge, largely automated factories owned by Koburg, and which produce ground cars, building parts, civilian air/rafts and boats.

The mainworld of the Mimiis system is a dark, cold place, bereft of vegetation or much sign of human occupation. The vast sprawl of the automated factories run by the Koburg dwarfs the downport, which is itself almost entirely cargo facility.

The majority of the population - and indeed the bulk of the iceberg-like factories - is housed underground. The subterranean cities are linked by a rather antiquated MagLev monorail, and in fact the Koburg discourages citizen travel between cities. Materials from and products to the downport are transported on a much superior underground GravLev, not accessible to passengers.

The capital, Transom, is located adjacent to Sanano Down Starport, and is the site of Koburg's main HQ. The other two major cities are Deeperdown and Versquel.

There's no atmosphere and no native life.

The average interstellar traveler coming to Mimiis will generally take the MagLev from the starport to Transom, stay in a hotel there, conduct his business, and leave the way he came. Travel to the other cities is not encouraged for offworlders either."
- Solomani Travel Services library data

Another week saw them into the Mimiis system, their target destination. As the ship swung around the highport and headed down through the atmosphere towards Sanano Down starport, Vasquez turned to Fox.

"We need more than a week here, I think," she said. "Can you fake a fault, something to keep us here legitimately?" Fox grinned, and, handing the controls to Jeremiah for a moment, strode to the rear of the upper deck where the jump drives were located. He reached in, and dismantled a small pale blue crystal in a metal holder from the mechanism. This he rapped smartly on the bulkhead.

"There." he said with satisfaction. "We've cracked a Zucchai crystal; we can't jump until it's replaced. Unless, of course, I put this in," he continued with a grin, picking a spare crystal up from its' padded case, and stashing it away in one of the ship's concealed lockers.

As they landed, Victor was already combing the trading sections of the planetary datanet, seeking buyers for their cover cargo, and more information about the world they were visiting.

Before landing, the crew of the Nemesis made sure that all their equipment that didn't fit with their trader identities was safely stowed in the hidden compartments.

As the Nemesis settled into a docking hangar and the pressure-doors closed, Victor had already approved payment of the berthing charges - Cr100 for the first five days, which was usually sufficient for a  travelling trader. Vasquez leaned over his shoulder. ''Get a receipt," she instructed. Fox looked at her a little strangely. "We're honest merchants,'' continued Vasquez, "we need that to claim the tax back."

Once the drives were closed down, Fox contacted the starport supplies office and ordered a replacement for the 'damaged' Zucchai crystal. Cunningly, he requested an obscure and difficult-to-obtain type, which was actually the wrong rating for their drive. "That should give you plenty of time'', he commented.

The next step for legitimate merchants would be to sell the cargo, and so while Fox and Hum organised restocking of the ship's life support and supplies, and started the 'repairs', Vasquez and Jeremiah loaded a sample of the oranges into a box and set off for the starport trade hall.

This was bustling with merchants and brokers, doing business at a good rate. Jeremiah played the 'dumb porter', holding the sample box and looking blank, while Vasquez, dressed in something a bit low-cut and flattering, did the negotiating.

Unfortunately, her experience of deal-making was more than twenty years in the past, and was of a less legal nature. Whether it was her lack of experience with this kind of deal, or the nature of the cargo, or even just that the trader didn't like Solomani, but she couldn't close the deal.

While this was going on, Jeremiah had his figurative ear to the ground. The talk was mostly commercial, but also touched on conditions locally. It confirmed the impression given by the library data, that the Koburg had the whole planet effectively under corporate control, and that the 'government' was little more than a figurehead.

While Jeremiah was picking up this, Vasquez was doing rather better with her second attempt at finding a buyer for 60 d-tons of oranges. A short, fat, greasy Vilani merchant haggled fiercely, driving a pretty tight bargain, but ending up with a reasonable price considering that the only purpose was to provide a cover. The deal was struck, and a deposit paid over.

Leaving the trade hall and returning to the ship, the pair assumed their Imperial identities as Meliina and Amlukhu, and headed out for Milan's last known address. Vasquez had spent a little time creating a letter, purporting to be from Viator Milan's aunt Dorothy to his distant cousin (Meliina Kesserin) apprising the latter of Milan's tragic death and begging her to travel to Mimiis to make the necessary arrangements. Artfully crumpled and "aged", it wasn't backed up by any verifiable facts, but if - as seemed to be the case - Milan's cover had held, it was unlikely to be followed up in detail.

They took the MagLev from Sanano Down starport to Transom city, travelling for some distance across the barren, airless surface of Mimiis before suddenly plunging below the surface into the underground warrens of the capital city.

As they travelled, the excellent Victor was reserving them accomodation in the local equivalent of a Travel Inn, a budget-priced hotel named the Shawcross.

Arriving at Transom MagLev station, the pair disembarked and looked around. The station was down at heel, and the travelling citizens appeared quiet, careful; not exactly downtrodden, but aware of their place and the hazards of stepping out of it. The population was a mix of general humans, a few Vilani-looking humans, and the odd Aslan.

Here and there were security personnel, and these attracted the SolSec agents' attention. There were two distinct groups; the first and least numerous were the planetary police, reporting in theory to the authorities controlled by the 'government'; the other had better equipment and small blue badges bearing the insignia "K-Secure". This the agents correctly deduced to mean Koburg Security.

The pair approached one of the planetary policemen, and Vasquez squeezed a few tears from her eyes. With a catch in her voice, she brandished the letter, and begged the cop for some directions to the address shown. This was a good approach; with the K-Secure handling all the real security issues on Mimiis, the planetary police had little else to do beyond this sort of thing, and as a result were far more used to helping people than harrassing or arresting them.

Moved to sympathy by this petite female's obvious distress, the policeman was only too happy to give directions to the residential district concerned, and the pair were soon riding a G-Bus through the link tunnels. This delivered them to a cavern containing what were clearly blue-collar residences. As with other "buildings" in Transom city, these were actually bored into the walls of the cavern which formed their "courtyard", overlooking it in a rough semicircle.

Disembarking from their bus, they approached the building in question, and discovered an old man sweeping up near the entrance. This turned out to be the caretaker, and some careful enquiries elicited the information that the flat they were interested in hadn't seemed to be occupied 'for a while now'.

"Can we get a key?" they asked him. "Building Management would have a key," answered the old man, rummaging at length and finally passing them a grubby business card for the Building Management office; a glance confirmed that that was a division of the Koburg Combine...

Leaving the old man, the pair ascended to the fourth floor. Milan's flat was locked, and the windows looking out onto the access deck were darkened. The pair checked they weren't observed, and then Jeremiah went to work.

He checked there were no cameras watching them; the door was locked; it seemed not to be booby-trapped; no sounds were discernable from inside. Unpacking his lockpicking kit, he cautiously unlocked the door and eased it open.

Inside, they found a rather dingy, deserted flat, clearly the habitation of a bachelor, and with every surface coated in dust.

Wearing gloves, and with drawn but unlit energy blades, the agents cautiously entered the flat, relocked the door, and began to comb it for clues, watching each other for confirmation.

As they worked through the small office area, Jeremiah examined and opened the filing cabinet. As he did so, he heard a faint click. Instincts honed by years of experience, the pair dived for cover, but too late; a muffled but powerful explosion demolished the entire filing cabinet and most of its' contents.

Vasquez was wearing a ballistic cloth jacket, which absorbed some of the impact, but Jeremiah was badly shaken and cut and bruised as well. The injuries were of minor significance; the main loss was the probable contents of Viator Milan's filing cabinet. A careful sifting through produced only half of one payslip, which bore on it a payroll number - and an address: HazMat Cargo Administration Office, Factory KV98, Sector 38, Versquel. Milan's workplace!

While Jeremiah was discovering this, Vasquez had sprinted across the flat and switched on the TV, cranking the volume right up. When a neighbor came and banged on the door to query the orginal noise, she opened it far enough to reveal the blaring unit and apologised profusely, ostentatiously turning it down to mollify him until he went away.

Once the coast was clear, the pair cleared up and erased as much of the evidence of their presence as possible. A last sweep around turned up a sheet of passport/ID card-sized pictures of Viator Milan (one missing). These they pocketed - they might be useful at some point. Vasquez also assembled a small box of the sort of items a grieving relative might collect to remember 'poor uncle Viator'. They had been keeping an eye open for anything that might have indicated the presence of companionship, permanent or temporary, but there was nothing.

Turning everything off, they left the flat. There was a discussion as to whether they should kill the neighbor and the caretaker who had seen them, but in the end they stuck with the low-profile approach and abandoned the idea.

The box of odds and ends sparked an idea, though, and they stopped off at the local planetary police station, where Vasquez turned the same pitiful relative routine on the desk sergeant. Sure enough, he was only too happy to help them locate where 'Uncle Viator's' remains and effects had ended up.

Planetary Police Morgue, Sector 51, Versquel; not far from his workplace.