The Star-Shark Interstellar Adventurers' Guild was the largest organization of interstellar adventurers in the Stellar Alliance.
But it had no notion of an actual interstellar territory to its name.
Everyone knew where it could be found, all the same.
Because it had a home base.
Sited within an asteroid belt in a system called Giant Shark, inside the Stellar Alliance.
It was the largest asteroid belt in the whole Stellar Alliance, and the most complicated in its terrain.
And at the same time — for reasons nobody knew — the magnetic field within this asteroid belt was unstable, and a starship's radar would fail inside it; so that unless one knew the place very well indeed, a warship steered in there would as likely as not lose its way.
"That's the reason the Star-Shark Guild chose this place for its base. Easy to hold and hard to attack. The Star-Shark Guild has always been the neutral sort of organization — whoever pays, that's who it works for. Interstellar adventurers, after all. But it can't be helped that a few enemies turn up along the way." Xue Xiaoxiao pointed at the great stretch of asteroid belt in the distance, laying it out for Zhao Chen and the rest.
"Then how do other people come to the Star-Shark Guild to have business done?" Chu Xuan asked out of curiosity.
Xue Xiaoxiao held up two fingers. "Two ways. One is dealing on the net: post the task on the net, pay the bounty on the net. But that sort is generally small business. The second is dealing in person. There's a planet out around the asteroid belt — a planet that will support life, granted, but poor in ecological resources, so its population used to be very small. But after the Star-Shark Guild was founded, a branch was set up over there, a place amounting to a business office. Every sort of Star-Shark Guild affair can be handled there. And little by little it grew prosperous."
"Then why have you brought us here? Why not to that planet?" Zhao Chen looked at Xue Xiaoxiao.
"My mother isn't there, and there's not much time left before Sister Xiaoxiao's marriage to that bastard. So I mean to go straight to my mother. And as for this asteroid belt — other people don't know it, but I, Xue Xiaoxiao, know it very well indeed. This young lady was daring enough at eight years old to run a shuttle in and out of here as she pleased. At 12, a pack of bastards came hunting me, and I led them round and round in here till they were dizzy out of their wits." Xue Xiaoxiao set her hands on her hips and recounted her own glorious record.
Though in point of fact nobody at all was listening to the latter half of it.
"Then the pilotage is given over to you. Chu Xuan, tell Su Lan and the rest to wait for us outside. The fleet is to stay hidden." Zhao Chen sat in the captain's chair.
"Yes," said Chu Xuan.
Xue Xiaoxiao pushed out her lip and went off to take up the work of pilotage.
"Here now — what is it you actually mean to have me do? You won't kill me, and you won't let me go!" Saint Cana looked at Zhao Chen from the side, out of temper.
She had been aboard this warship three days now.
And in those three days she had met with nothing of a prisoner's treatment; the interrogation, the threats, the ill-usage she had braced for — none of it had come.
Every day she could take her food in the starship canteen, and there was a single berth given her to rest in.
And once she woke, she would be arranged to come along with Zhao Chen to the bridge.
The feeling of it… was for all the world as though she, Saint Cana, were one of the women soldiers serving aboard this vessel.
Had she come in to work a shift?
"Mm… I don't know either." Zhao Chen shrugged.
He said that one line, and then took no further notice of the woman.
Saint Cana ground her teeth. Facing this man, she could never shake the feeling of a fist driven into cotton wool!
That task of keeping Saint Cana safe still showed no sign of being complete.
So Zhao Chen could only go on carrying Saint Cana about as an ornament on his keyring.
She was a great beauty in any case, and of another race besides.
To keep her about as a mascot and a work of art, to be looked over and admired, was pleasant enough.
At this hour, under Xue Xiaoxiao's pilotage and direction—
this Little Skeleton steered into the asteroid belt.
Conditions within being complicated, she ran very slowly indeed; a moment's inattention and she might strike one of the asteroids.
But Xue Xiaoxiao knew the place thoroughly.
"Slow down. We're here," Xue Xiaoxiao said suddenly.
"We're here?" Chu Xuan looked about her in surprise.
All around were the same barren asteroids as before — never mind the shadow of a person, there wasn't so much as the shadow of a ghost.
"We're under somebody's watch already." Xue Xiaoxiao smiled with an air of great mystery, and then went over to the comms department and had the comms crew send a string of garbled code out on the open channel.
And then, a few minutes later, several T1-grade interstellar warships appeared without a soul the wiser, and ranged themselves about the Little Skeleton.
And at the same time a comm request came in.
"Might I ask who you are, and why you've come blundering in here. And how you come to know our Star-Shark cipher." From the other side came a man's low voice, but with no image to it.
Hearing that voice, Xue Xiaoxiao called out at once in excitement, "Uncle Dog! It's me — Xiaoxiao!"
The other side, hearing Xue Xiaoxiao's voice, was plainly brought up short for a good long while.
"You… you're… Xiaoxiao?" The one on the other end was plainly of two minds about it.
Xue Xiaoxiao said straight out, "Uncle Dog, you don't know me! Your very greatest delight in life is eating dung-flavored chocolate! And if you still don't believe me, switch over to video."
A chill went through Zhao Chen.
This form of address — 'Uncle Dog'.
Wasn't that a bit too lacking in manners by half?
And whose respectable relation has dung-flavored chocolate for a hobby?
Were her tastes so very peculiar as that?
And then the other side switched from voice comm over to video.
A video window appeared in front of Xue Xiaoxiao.
And Zhao Chen found himself looking, of all things, at a yellow dog's head.
"It really is the young lady! Young lady, how is it you've come back?" This Uncle Dog — genuine article and no mistake — looked at Xue Xiaoxiao in astonishment.
Zhao Chen's feelings at this moment were somewhat 'complicated'.
He had been presumptuous.
This truly was an Uncle Dog. And… his liking dung-flavored chocolate did not, it seemed, amount to any very peculiar taste either.
Perfectly ordinary, that.
"Well? Not glad to have me back!" Xue Xiaoxiao set her hands on her hips.
That odd expression on Uncle Dog's face suggested he was indeed not altogether glad of Xue Xiaoxiao's return.
"Young lady… this isn't the hour for you to be coming back." Uncle Dog said it with his eyes sliding away.
Xue Xiaoxiao turned grave as well. "Uncle Dog, I know about Sister Xiaoxiao. Why has my mother arranged for Sister Xiaoxiao to marry that Qian family bastard under my identity! That's pushing Sister Xiaoxiao into a pit of fire!"
"This… this… it's because the president has difficulties of her own…" Uncle Dog said helplessly.
"I mean to see my mother this instant, and ask her plainly what all this is about!" Xue Xiaoxiao shouted.
Uncle Dog let out a sigh; he knew well enough that with the young lady come home, there was no possibility of her not seeing the president.
His eyes went to the man seated in the captain's chair behind Xue Xiaoxiao.
Perhaps knowing what Uncle Dog meant to say—
Xue Xiaoxiao spoke first. "This is my employer now. Someone who can be trusted."
"Very well then. Young lady, this ship of yours runs somewhat large; berth her at dock 071, and then transfer to a shuttle to go on to the president," Uncle Dog said.
"Good," said Xue Xiaoxiao.
And then Zhao Chen saw this region's true face at last.
For upon one enormous asteroid, an opening came apart in the surface of it — and within was a dock hollowed out of the rock.
So the insides of these asteroids held a hidden design after all!