"Should we ask for a deck of cards or something?" Nina asked while resting her head on the table in the conference room they were placed in. The others were sent to other areas of the ship. Seems they wanted to keep them separated from the other foreign guests.

    Nina had pulled her vocal device from her purse and was using it to speak. She kept it in her purse because she did not want to bother speaking before. But now that it was just the two of them it would have been more bothersome to continue making hand signals with her hands.

    "You can ask for them. Just remember the guards at the door are a bit jumpy." Jace reminded her. He tapped his watch communicator as he received a stream of encrypted lines from the Judas. He quickly began translating the message.

    "So what''s the message from the Judas?" Nina grumbled. She saw him sending an encrypted message earlier when they first arrived in this room. He was asking about the Judas'' status and giving them an update about his own status.

    Jace sighed as he read the message and quickly began sending a response. "Captain Arthur, that is the captain of the Judas, is a few days away. He understands the situation but the Inquisitor is attempting to countermand my order. Apparently he wants to bring a fleet of ships in to attack the Union. This is going to be annoying." Sear?h the novel(F~)ire.net website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.

    "You think the Inquisitor will go around you?" Nina asked with a chuckle.

    "Definitely, I read his file. He is eager to prove himself to the first prince, his sponsor." Jace explained as he sent out his message. "Seems I am going to have to make people understand that being a Spectre actually means something." He then quickly sent another message before putting his watch communicator in dormant mode again.

    Nina sighed and wrapped her knuckles against the table a few times before standing up. She walked over to the door and opened it up. Jace could see the guards in Infantry armor flinch in surprise. "Can you grab some playing cards for us? We need something to pass the time."

    One of the guards instantly responded almost on instinct, "Hexa style or four kings style?" Almost as if it was an automated response. The other guard glanced at Jace''s companion and then glanced at the other guard.

    "Four kings style. It is far more versatile. Thank you!" Nina then closed the door and walked back to her seat next to Jace.

    "That''s debatable." Jace told her as he relaxed in his seat. He would get a response to his message in about half a day. So there was no reason to fret over it.

    "Debatable? What''s debatable?"

    "Calling Four kings style playing cards more versatile." Jace answered.

    "Well it is, it has far more history attached to it. Therefore it has far more variations and types." Nina pointed out.

    "But Hexa has far more cards, so it can be used for some variations that four kings can''t be used for. Not to mention it can include more players and lessen the odds for card counting." Jace teased her back.

    "Well-"

    They both stopped talking and looked at the doorway as it opened up. Trentwood was standing there. But this time he was wearing a uniform instead of the Commando armor variation he had on before.

    Trentwood waved at them nonchalantly as he walked in, "hello there!"

    "Hello there?" Nina mimicked causing the man to glance at her in surprise. "You realize you are not just a terrorist but also a traitor to our nation and all you can say is ''hello there''?" Nina scoffed and leaned back in her chair. Amusingly enough she crossed her arms and caused her small amount of cleavage to become more pronounced, but Jace doubted she did it on purpose.

    Trentwood was momentarily distracted as he glanced at her cleavage before he cleared his throat and walked fully into the room with the door closing behind him. "Well, I have no issue with you two. From what I am aware, neither of you have abused your power or position. Not to mention you come from commoner backgrounds. Besides I doubt you two actually have much issue with me either."

    Trentwood looked between the two of them. Nina looked at Jace and Jace just shrugged. So Nina leaned back and relaxed.

    "Eh?" Nina stretched her arms above her head, "hey we getting food or what? We did not get a chance to chow down on those munchies at the party." Nina asked as her stretching caused cleavage to become pronounced again.

    Trentwood stared for a moment at her breasts before he looked at Jace. Jace was looking at Trentwood with an expression of disgust and shook his head. He was more than twice her age. How shameful.

    Trentwood scratched the back of his head, "yeah, I am having some food brought to you. Along with some drinks and those playing cards that Miss Diaz requested. I hope you do not mind if I join you. I wanted to hear about Fenrir and Dakota, well at least as much as you can tell me."

    Jace shook his head and waved at a chair. "We can share a bit but like you said we cannot talk about it too much."

    "I am surprised you were not going to poke around for information." Nina pointed out as the man sat down.

    "Ehh… I considered it but then I realized that I would be playing with fire. Just as I would get information out of you, there was also a good chance you would be able to get information out of me." Trentwood answered with a chuckle. "You are experienced interrogators, although I have heard that Mister Steel here has a rather bloody track record."

    Jace shrugged, "you wanted to ask about Dakota and Fenrir?"

    "I wanted to hear stories about them." Trentwood smiled back at Jace with a nod of his head.

    Jace went to start when the door opened. A guard in Infantry armor walked in, pushing a metal cart with food and drinks from what he could see from his sitting position. The food was on metal trays with metal covers. The drinks consisted of orange juice, applejuice , and some type of red juice. As well as a few different alcohols. The last thing that was placed on the table by the guard was a deck of cards.

    Nina grabbed the cards while the tray of food was pushed in front of her and uncovered. "What do you think? Poker? Blackjack? Or something else?"

    "We are going to be talking for a minute so let''s start off with something simple." Jace told her as he took a whiff of the uncooked meat and cold rice that was on his plate. "Do you guys have actual chefs aboard?"

    "Focus." Trentwood told him.

    "Right, let''s start off with Dakota." Jace told him and then began talking about his time in the academy. He started off by discussing Dakota''s harsh training schedule and annoying habits. Then he went to talk about his and Dakota''s still ongoing prank war.

    Trentwood in turn talked about his time in the military with Dakota as well as how they had constantly pranked each other to the point it became dangerous and they had to stop. He talked about his comrades and how the only time his unit suffered casualties was when a noble in a military position gave a nonsensical order.

    Apparently it happened quite often. It was much better now. But nobles used to be able trigger border skirmishes just because of an argument or disagreement. Sometimes they would even do it because of a grudge.

    Nowadays that was impossible. Originally the Inquisitors would be the reason to prevent foolish mistakes like that from happening. But the Inquisitors'' relevance lost meaning over time when they managed to obtain high speed long range communication methods. Eventually, around fifteen years ago, they also became in charge of investigating corruption and military crimes.

    Trentwood had left the military and even the empire at that point and time. But from what he heard the impact was immediate as a different form of corruption began taking route. Since it was not just the emperor appointing Inquisitors, some nobles began taking up the position. They took payments for coverups, or they actively committed crimes and used their position to get away with it.

    Trentwood explained that hearing about that was the moment that he realized the empire was irredeemable. But he was hoping that the new intelligence organization that Fenrir was in charge of would not end up the same way.

    They talked for several hours. Fortunately neither of them shared anything important to current events. They Just talked about the past. They even heard some embarrassing stories about Fenrir, Dakota, as well as the emperor.