Andromeda's Gates: The story of Yseult Brenneaux

Chapter 22: Yseult Brenneaux

"You look different." She replied.

"Four years is a long time." The Forwarder responded, apologetically. "A lot has changed."

"Not so much." the woman calmly replied with definitive confidence as she took a step towards the Forwarder. His nerves jolted.

"I don't do business with you anymore." He said in instinctive reaction, a cautious assertiveness in his voice. The woman looked around the confined container that had become his office, that had become his life.

"Everyone does business with us." She responded calmly, her eyes inspecting every corner, every nook, every shadow. "The only difference..." She added, her eyes returning to the Forwarder. "Is whether or not they know." She placed her helmet on the table and activated a control on her suit. A moment later, two additional figures entered the container behind her. One had already removed his helmet, A man the Forwarder didn't recognise in a similar suit to the woman. The third wore a different black suit with piping and metal work around it. Its helmet was still on but the visor was opaque black and unlike the other two, it wore respirator tanks on it's back. The woman sat down in the chair beside her while the man surveyed the container with equal attention to detail. The third figure stood in the entrance, sentinel-like. After a moment, the man nodded to the woman who in turn nodded to the third figure. A variety of quiet gentle electronic whirrs went silent and the figure reached up , activating a control on its helmet. The black visor raised, allowing a thin cloud of super-chilled air to woosh out and curl into a feint mist in front of it. As the mist dissipated in the warm air, the face of the figure became seen, or some of it did, being mostly covered in metallic augments and devices. Sections of exposed facial skin contorted and pulsated as it breathed. It's still alive under there. The Forwarder thought as he viewed the assemblage of metal plate and technology that now constituted the wearer's face. He wasn't sure if it was looking back, it just stood there, watching presumably. The Forwarder knew about cyborgs and AI mechanoids, Kawashita were known to utilise them for their most dangerous missions and assassinations but he'd never seen one integrated like this... He'd heard stories though, about experiments that left the subjects in such pain, only constant supplies of anaesthetics allowed them to function. This one, he noticed, was using a respirator and he wondered what gaseous concoction was within those tanks.

"So." The woman said in a contemplative tone, her gaze fixed upon the Forwarder. "Tell us about the pilot." The question caught the Forwarder's attention and brought his gaze back from the augmented cyborg in the corner. He sat down and cautiously replaced his pistol into its holster under the table.

"The Galaxy is full of pilots." The Forwarder replied, trying to be clever.

"Unfortunate incident." The woman said, appearing to change the topic. "Those two Octan ships over New California... What were they doing out there?" The Forwarder opened his palms into a gesture that said 'I don't know'.

"The minutiae of the corporations is beyond my ears." He said.

"They weren't lost to a malfunction." The woman said in a stern tone, her eyes fixated on the Forwarder. "They were pursuing a MANTIS ship... Which was pursuing our consignment." That caught the Forwarder's attention. The woman was right, the difference was whether or not you knew. He liked to think that he was the one in the know, that he had more information than whoever was across the table from him. He didn't like being out manoeuvred, out strategised. Maybe that's why he stopped doing business with them, or had tried to at least. "The pilot was a red-haired woman." The woman added. "We're interested in her." That's bad news. Thought the Forwarder. "So." The woman continued. "Tell us about the pilot... Tell us about Yseult Brenneaux."

"Brenneux." The Forwarder corrected her. The woman stared at him, silent, considering her next move. Her eyes thinned again.

"There is no Yseult Brenneux." She replied. The Forwarder's face changed. Following his meeting with Yseult, he'd done his research having been corrected himself. At first, probably like so many would, he just assumed he'd been pronouncing it wrong or spelling it wrong, the name using a French letter combination, a language of which he had only the most rudimentary knowledge. But the Forwarder was suspicious. He didn't like that he'd got it wrong and rather than just write it off, he checked it out. That one little letter had allowed the red-haired woman to all but eliminate her past when she joined MANTIS less than a year ago, appearing out of nowhere on Marphacia.

The woman repositioned herself in her chair. "Yseult Brenneux." She began. "Appeared in a MANTIS flight training schedule on Aeristus last Junali. She has been connected to MANTIS activity on Donwarr and Freegate but before all of that... She never existed... There isn't even a record of her arrival in Andromeda... Yseult Brenneaux, on the other hand, was one of your regular freight pilots who captained a ship with a certain... Reputation. Until three years ago, that is... When they both apparently disappeared." The woman was right, Yseult had just vanished. It wasn't unusual for that to happen, between accidents and Dust Demons, there were plenty of reasons a ship and its captain could go missing. The captain's just don't usually turn up three years later on some classified corporate mission acting like no more than a day has passed.

"So." The Woman said, confidence behind her voice. "Tell us about the rad-haired woman... Tell us about Yseult Brenneaux."