<div class="floatleft">(https://i.imgur.com/0kQTA1Z.png)</div><table class="bbc_table"><tbody><tr><td><strong>Name</strong></td><td>Countess Lieutenant Kathryn Foss</td></tr><tr><td><strong>Date</strong></td><td>May 3025</td></tr><tr><td><strong>Location    </strong></td><td>Siege Perilous: Karnov Transport</td></tr><tr><td><strong>Tagging</strong></td><td>Open, Edward DuPierre, Alaric Whitecliff</td></tr><tr><td><strong>Content</strong></td><td>Arrival</td></tr></tbody></table><hr/><br/>Kathryn half-listened to the Viscount and the Marquis, barely interested in the discussion. They'd been on this planet for less than a day and already there were suspicious goings on; so what? It always seems like somethings going on, because there always is. Separating signal from noise was a vital skill, and so far there wasn't enough of anything to begin to hope to figure out what was going on. Chasing down hunches and suspicions now would only lead to obsessing over phantoms. The pilot may have separated the Tai-i to begin an elaborate and subtle scheme against them. Or he may simply have hoped for a better view of her assets (just because someone was up to something did not mean they were up to something grandiose; petty revenge and cheap thrills drove most intrigues). At this point, there was no way to tell.<br/><br/>No, she was going to wait until after she'd slept before she even attempted to untangle the local political scene.<br/><br/>It didn't help that her most likely allies were a hopelessly green newbie and an arrogant fop. She would bemoan her situation and demand that the universe tell her why she was being put through this, but she already knew the answer.<br/><br/>After responding with a non-committal 'hmm' to the Viscount, Kathryn eyed the Marquis again, trying to place him. He was irritating. Unnecessarily so; she should've long ago been rendered immune to dealing with shiftless layabouts who outranked her. It was practically all she did at court. Eventually, she reached for the comms.<br/><br/>"Marks."<br/><br/>"Your Marquis is familiar to me; have we encountered one another before?"