The blue sun rose over Bonavera, lighting up the Studio City of Lake, glittering off the almost-frozen surface of the artificial body of fresh water that half encircled it. The planet wasn't warm enough to have a natural water cycle, yet.
Figaro, two fisted editor and House mentat to the Viracocha dynasty, summoned four people to his office for a secret mission:
- Tost Alejandrez, Superfluous offspring of Earl Viracocha
- Sister Victoria, Bene Gesserit Bodyguard
- Huascar Quilago, Stunt man but for real
- Doctor Saman Ichuri, Slumming Suk Doctor
Figaro didn't turn to greet his visitors, watching them in the rear view mirror of his editing desk with one eye, while the other focused on his work. He was cutting together three movies at once, hands flicking across the controls as he put the finishing touches on a documentary, an investment pitch and a porno. He cursed the director's sloppy work, then remembered he had company.
The situation was this: House Runasimi, to which House Viracocha owed fealty, was at war with House Orlok (and by extension House Nuntius). House Runasimi was good at political maneuvering, not direct combat, and needed mercenaries. Runasimi gave the procurement to Viraccha, and now the mentat was giving it to the four agents. They were competent enough that they might actually succeed, expendable enough that it wasn't a big deal if they failed, and low profile enough that they wouldn't instantly be recognized on the covert adventure they were about to embark on.
The specifics of the mission: there was a convention on Gamont, where a number of mercenary armies would be holding demonstrations and soliciting contracts. The agents had the dispensation of the house to initiate a contract with one of these armies in order to defend the house. Figaro stipulated that the ideal mercenary army would be
- Effective
- Loyal
- Within House Runasimi's budget
He understood that in procurement, you rarely got all three of "good, loyal, and cheap". He counted on the agents negotiating aggressively and using their heads to get a good deal.
The agents concurred with Figaro's plan for the expedition: they would travel as tourists undercover, using a commercial shuttle to board the Guild Heighliner and staying at a hotel on Gamont prior to attending the conference. They decide to bring three retainers with them:
- Lydia Maru, makeup artist and master of disguise
- Mentat Joe, ageing human computer with a drug bug addiction and a phobia of insects
- Jasper the Bodyguard, alcoholic House Ginaz fanboy
The group picked up some minor equipment from the House reserves, and away they went.
The shuttle was a two decker ferry, with a small food court and bar. There weren't any private rooms since it was a short haul fold. The agents boarded the shuttle mixed in with the other tourists and business travelers, the shuttle took off and docked inside the Guild Heighliner, and the Heighliner folded space to Gamont.
It wasn't as instantaneous as all that. Tost Alejandrez went straight to the bar, where he ordered a genever with coffee and sweet cream. He was quickly beset by Well, a pretty lady wearing a Horned Mother pendant, who he surmised was a servitor of House Nuntius. She tried to extract information from him, but he turned the tables on her and figured out two interesting things:
- House Nuntius was forced off the planet Bonavera after their masters in House Orlok declared a War of Assassins against House Runasimi. Well had a layover on Gamont before the trip home to the Temple City on Rulag.
- House Nuntius sent a delegation of "mediators" to the mercenary conference the agents were headed to, lead by Deaconess Varvara.
Tost extracted this information without revealing that he was a member of House Viracocha.
Meanwhile, Mentat Joe attracted a little too much attention by snorting down a drug bug and absolutely shredding at zero gravity pinball, while the rest of the House retainers looked on. A group of off duty soldiers approached, interested in what the old man had to say for himself. They were bowlegged like they spent lots of time riding horses or bikes, and some of them were missing fingers and suffering from noise induced hearing loss. They wanted to know who Mentat Joe worked for, but Huascar diverted their attention and got them off the old guy's back. Even got some clandestine pictures of the toughs using the minicorder he borrowed from Tost. After they left, Joe warned the agents that those were Flame Dragoons, janissaries of House Orlok.
The Heighliner folded space into a parking orbit around Gamont. The shuttle landed at the spaceport, a big pyramid on Grand Island. The view was impressive and the weather was a treat. The agents saw people in the crowd with the "Gamont smile" - cheeks slit ear to ear, with piercings holding the upper and lower halves of the face together. Once used for vulgar sexual purposes, this body modification had become fashionable among the upper echelons of society, and subsequently imitated by the middle class. The off duty Flame Dragoons wandered off. The agents went to the arrivals lounge to catch a ride. Waiting for them was the slave Reb, with a jet powered suspensor boat to take them to their island. The gang knew a little bit about the most common Gamont slave religion: a form of Buddislam with a hierarchy of universes where a soul could be sent on reincarnation. They also knew that Gamont was having problems with periodic slave revolts.
The island that Figaro booked the agents had a pair of powerboats, rooms for the whole party, quarters for their servants, and a pair of slaves: Dario and Luria. Lydia was immediately suspicious that the pair was a plant. The agents did a preliminary sweep of the grounds. They found a listening device in the suite of rooms, and figured out that the slaves were probably planted by House Thoss, the House Minor in charge of the conference, to spy on them. Not because they knew that the agents were really working for House Viracocha, but because that was their standard operating procedure. The agents decided to only discuss false information while in earshot of the bugged rooms, pretending they were filming a documentary.
The next day, the agents took one of the boats to the shuttle pickup. They brought Jasper, but left Joe and Lydia at the rental. Among the crowd at the shuttle pad were representatives of Farming House at Tam and Drama House Rashomon. A lifter flew down and took them up to the convention. The conference wasn't being held on the continent of Scythe, but above it, on enormous floating platforms held up by suspensors.
There were several floating islands, linked by bridges. Some had walls and roofs, others were covered with booths selling weapons, equipment, and mercenaries. The agents checked the conference itinerary to see which mercenary outfits they might be able to recruit. There were six offering demos:
- The Minor Iris
- The Eels
- The Eyeflash Miracles
- The Bomb Knights
- The Watchers
- The Iron Maidens
The rest of the mercenaries were showing off in the arenas and tents set up on the smaller islands. The agents split up to efficiently examine them.
Sister Victoria took Dr Ichuri to the arena where the Watchers were performing. The posters explained that the Watchers fought by observing their opponents carefully before striking, exploiting their weaknesses and avoiding their strengths. The salesman, Jumping Spider, offered anyone in the stands a chance to pit their own personal guards against a Watcher, as a test of their abilities. Victoria decided to put the mercenary's ability to the test. She set up the conditions of the fight with Jumping Spider: a fight to "first blood" with shields and training knives. She leaped into the arena and the combat began.
Victoria and her opponent, Newman the Watcher, observed each other, assessing strengths and weaknesses. The Watcher calculated Victoria's exact range of motion by observing her posture, allowing him to neatly dodge most of her strikes. She forced her blade past his guard twice, but was unable to penetrate his shield before he threw her back. The pair grappled and Victoria whipped the crowd into a frenzy, creating a distraction that let her dislocate Newman's shoulder. She realized then that, with prana bindu on her side, her far greater strength was the key to victory. Moving fast to keep his blade out of her shield, Victoria bullrushed Newman, shoulder checking him and physically pushing him out of the arena - and through the exterior wall of the platform. They ended up dangling from the edge, hundreds of feet above nothing but open ocean and scattered islands. Only Dr Ichuri's timely intervention hauled them back onto the platform. It was a win for Victoria by ring-out. Dr Ichuri reset Newman's shoulder. Victoria judged the Watchers' combat prowess to be adequate. She took a business card off Jumping Spider and they left.
Litho went to observe the Bomb Knights. These were mercenaries in service of House Orlok, and he didn't seriously expect to convince them to serve House Runasimi. But if the agents could somehow arrange it, such as through blackmail and bribery, it would be a major coup for House Viracocha. The Bomb Knights fought with explosive weapons, which they detonated on penetrating the enemy shield to quickly kill their target regardless of armor or poison immunity. The large arena was surrounded by a shield to prevent the spectators from being injured by errant shrapnel.
The Bomb Knights were showing off their abilities against Gamont's finest slave gladiators. In the most opulent box in the arena stands was Zulima Thoss of House Thoss, organizer of the entire event. She was flanked by two Iron Maidens - warriors in heavy spiked armor, held up by suspensors. But she had an empty seat next to her, and Huascar was confident enough in his charm to walk right in and strike up a conversation. That confidence was misplaced. He startled one of the Maidens, who reflexively extended an armor spike and stabbed Huascar. Zulima was perturbed, and assumed he was a random conference goer who had gotten lost. She told him to visit the medical tent on the lounge platform, then dismissed him. Huascar tried to leave quietly, but ran into a mustached dignitary carrying several pitchers of beer in each hand. That man was Hetman Alan Nomad, leader of the Bomb Knights. He recognized Huascar as a stunt man of great skill, complemented him on his work, and swore to eradicate House Viracocha from existence. Then he went up to the box where Zulima was waiting. Huascar got the hell out.
Tost took Jasper to investigate the Eyeflashes. They were in a big carnival tent, with subdivided rooms and lighting systems to show off the Eyeflashes' powers under any lighting conditions potential buyers wanted to test. The hawker said the Eyeflashes could give anyone they made eye contact with seizures, and Tost decided to put that to the test. He sat down in the soft chair, accepted the offered bite block, told the technicians to set the background light to blue in imitation of Bonavera's blue star, and told Jasper to be on the alert in case anyone tried anything while he was stunned. Then the curtain went up.
Tost looked the mercenary behind it in the eye, and had a grand mal seizure. It didn't inflict any permanent damage, but it stunned him completely and was also super unpleasant. He also got a secret recording of the mercenary's eyes when it happened, using his hidden minicorder. When he recovered his powers of speech, and washed the vomit out of his mouth with the offered glass of water, Tost asked the mercenary to explain what just happened. The Eyeflash explained that it was a form of hypnosis, which "crashed" the viewer's brain with an infinitely repeating visual signal. The induced seizure was actually a defense mechanism, which broke eye contact and allowed the brain to reset itself. If immobilized and forced to look an Eyeflash in the eye while they were using their powers, the electrical storms between the hemispheres would build until the viewer's brain cooked itself in their skull.
The agents regrouped in the lounge to order drinks and plan their next move. The conference would last for another day, and they had identified some obvious front runners for the House Runasimi defense contract. Now they had to figure out which of the candidates could actually be trusted, and how to get leverage over them to get a price that wouldn't break the budget. All while avoiding the machinations of their rival houses Orlok and Nuntius, who had identified one of the agents by name.
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