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"All clear."
Isabelle turned away from her comm, looking behind her as the captain of the Amaterasu came out from a secondary door and bursted into the bridge, blaster at the ready. His astonished face made her smile lightly.
"General!..."
"I did say, all clear, didn't I?" Isabelle replied, smirking as she sheathed back her titanium blade. On the ground laid 7 dead bodies, some with blaster burns, some with severed limbs.

Captain Kaito ran to her, looking around making sure there were indeed no one else hiding around. But all there was around was death and devastation in a weak and dimming flashing red light.
"Taisho Mitsurugi, it is rickless of you to be alone in the front of the battle...!"

Isabelle dismissed the statement with a little hand gesture.
"I'm well, and the objective has been reached. We better get out of here first though. This smoke doesn't seems too friendly to human lungs." she replied casually. The bridge of the ship was indeed damaged to the point some cable were now burning into some toxic black cloud.


The fast-attack destroyer Ryujing of the 7th Kusari Konoe Shidan fleet standing guard over the unknown smuggling vessel.

The air became much better as they stepped outside.
"Report, captain?" Isabelle ordered as they walked back toward the storage area of the vessel. There were still some Imperial Marines running about their businesses, some dragging corpses from the ship' crew, other' performing first aid to fallen comrades.
"Ah yes Taisho. The 48 crewmen of the smuggling ship, of which ID we haven't yet managed to decypher, has all been neutralised. Only 9 survivors, 4 of them in dangerous condition."
"Are the 5 others fit for interrogation?"
"Not immediately, taisho. Why such a haste, if I might ask?" Kaito said, somewhat disturbed by the cold tone of the general.
Isabelle smiled, somewhat embarassed
"Sorry... sometime, that part of myself surface back from time to time... continue, please."

They walked past the living quarter of the vessel and went within the cargo bays. On each side of a long, slim corridor, 8 large shutters could be seen. Captain Kaito continued,
"Ship damages are minimal. It seems to be a very heavily modified advanced train of Kishiro built, multiple armor plating, superior weaponnery, etc. Cargo completely intact."
"Which is, of course, why we are here..." Isabelle said with some anticipation. KSP labelled this vessel as a priority target after months of espionnage operations... it was a miracle her fleet managed to intercept it at all, and they couldn't even determine what it was carrying. Probably these heavy shutters were rpotecting it from radar scan...
Kaito punched in some entry codes on his datapad, and the shutters openned up.

This time, Isabelle was the one surprised.
"This is..."
Kaito nodded grimly,
"Over 7500 tons of artifacts."



-To be continued

"Hogoshas?"
The little KSP officer nodded as he displayed a little hologram played by his datapad. It showed multiple previous reports on smuggling activities.
"Most of the case has never been directly traced back to their organisation, but, we all know they are behind it. The imperial black market is entirely generated by them. They are the primary artifact sale in Kusari. Of course, we lack evidences to bust the Hogoshas because they hide so well and keep the emperor in their favor."

"Mostly, because of people in the imperial navy who kill our suspects before they can be caught, we have no conclusion."
"As to the men you've captured, taisho, they are worthless lowly crewmen of no interest. Take them to interrogation if you wish, but they are of no use to us."

Isabelle sighed slowly as she maintained her patience. The Kusari people were sometime wearing on her, constantly trying to find a way to put shame on her...
But, it was true, she was careless and killed the captain of the vessel with her own hand... She didn't mind the cold massacre on the smuggling ship. Once you've learned to kill, you get accustomed to it, especially violent murders. You had to, or you died, be it by the hand of your enemy, or your own head, it didn't really matered.

She left the state police headquarter of Honshu escorted by her guards - she didn't really needed any, but she knew they were there on the request of other imperial admirals to keep her under their eyes.

Hogosha. It didn't made sense. Hogoshas wouldn't use such a strange route. It was a completely random plot course. Beside, they weren't exactly the ones to defend themselves with the agresivity shown in that smuggling vessel. Instead, they mostly won their case in courtrooms.
And of course, something imperial police completely disregarded;
the men weren't kusarese at all.

But, their word had been said, no action would be made.
She sat in her hovercraft, wondering as arranged her cape without really noticing.
Maybe - no, it was a certainty. Uncle Daitetsu was right, it was most probably the Corsairs who were behind this scheme...
But just to where was this going to lead her? she thought as her craft flew away toward her residence.