Taking stock of the situation.

Seren sat back in her new chair within the council chambers. Her office was small and without natural light, save for the entrance where a beam of sunlight from the landing cut across the darkness. There was a faint cinnamon-esque tincture that she immediately recognised as the spice, Raqismanna. There were other odours, the smell of beeswax on the desk, a waft of floral scent she didn't recognise and others she put down to the age of the building. She surveyed the desk she'd just laid out. To her right, a small curiosity box she'd picked up many years ago and yet had never found use for and the holo-monitor she'd picked up on her last trip home. She'd had problems with it up at the Highport Station - Rettian and Araxian power couplets weren't immediately compatible and it had taken a while to complete the conversion process. Still, other than a few visual glitches it seemed to be working satisfactorily.

To the left, the computer terminal. She anticipated that she'd be spending a lot of time with the touchpad and had taken a few moments to get acquainted with it. A classic Rettian vase-lamp sat beyond that. It used a flammable substance to illuminate the room. Archaic in a time when various forms of electricity existed but she preferred the gentle glow to the harsh bright lighting systems she'd experienced elsewhere. Even on the Persephone, she usually had the lighting dimmed preferring the light from the stars and instrument panels to the unrelenting glare of artificial illumination. Although the room was dark, it wasn't something unusual and she found the lamp light comforting and intrinsically right.

She flicked the monitor on, danced her fingers across the terminal and pulled up the other Beit Dawla delegates. She didn't have access to their personnel files but she'd made a few notes along the way. A suspicion nagged at her. She knew all of them, bar the native Willard Deerhunter and as the natives were known to keep to themselves, that didn't surprise her. Of course, during the election process, it would have been natural to meet the fellow candidates but something still gnawed at the back of her mind.

Baronetess Jai Raghilda Lordhunter was someone Seren had encountered on and off for a few months. Initially she hadn't thought anything of the petite, unassuming but elegantly attired lady she first met  at the bar at the Water's End. They'd spoken casually and drank together. It was only in the coming months she learnt she was a Baronetess and Consulari of House Zenobia and the Zenobian Trade Consul. The last time she'd met Jai was on a personal invite to the Zenobian Consul in Al Raqis. It had been a warm autumnal evening, or at least was passed for autumn on Araxes, and Seren had enjoyed the stroll from the Persephone's berth, through the thinning crowd of Al Raqis to the Consul building. Jai had been watching her from the roof and beckoned her up. She proposed a trade of goods, Seren had agreed and they'd shuttled up to Jai's vast frigate in orbit. Once there, Jai had given her a thorough tour of the ship and what stock she had available.

It had been something of an epiphany. Seren had glanced from one side of the ship to another and estimated how many trips she'd have to make in the Persephone to carry the same load. The answer was more than she 'd care to admit. In fact, it had pricked Seren's ego more than she'd thought and when the Consulari had asked how big her hold was, she had exaggerated. She remembered Galewind's perplexed look the following day when the goods were delivered to the landing platform. They'd had to hire storage space in the city until such a time they could ferry the goods offworld. But something else had troubled her. Half way through the tour, the news had broken that the Highport voting terminal had been tampered with and there were suspicions of vote rigging.  It struck her as more than coincidental that she was with the Beit Dawla's appointed chairperson at the time it was announced. She'd considered the possibilities. One, it was pure coincidence. Two, was there a conspiracy to implicate her as the vote rigger? Plenty of people had seen her leave orbit with the Magistrate appointed leader of the Beit Dawla and the Laandsrat was still suffering from a credibility issue following their imprisonment. Three, someone was trying to get her off world when the story broke to protect her from the controversy. And four, her ego was getting the better of her again and she was jumping to all sorts of conclusions.

Dave Gaffer she knew as a competitor. Vulture Gear and Shipping had emerged recently onto the Araxian scene and had certainly made an impact securing contracts that Seren herself had been keen to get her hands on. Initially he'd had the backing of the CFTA (subsequently the SFTU) but internal strife had lead to them parting the ways. Waypoint X had closed down but there wasn't necessarily any correlation between the two events. In any case, Gaffer was a skilled negotiator with a pool of contacts across the Imperium and the Federation. During the Black Pox Blockade, he's managed to secure special dispensation to ferry medical goods to and from the planet, something she'd wished she'd done herself. Since then, she'd heard he'd taken on a position as professor at one of Starfleet's academies and was splitting his time between there and his trade business on Araxes. He led a busy life and could clearly juggle his responsibilities.

Arnold Gustav she'd met only recently. He ran the Kaden Personal Security company. They'd first met at the Reverend Mother's function at Nyce. Unexpectedly, he'd managed to circumvent Seren's distrust of the military. He spoke openly and at great length and displayed a tactful, thoughtful approach to defusing the Myrmidon's suspicions on their arrival. That was reassuring. He'd also suggested that Persephone Trading could make use of his services. She'd been unsure of how to proceed but suggested he look into the protection racket that was currently causing problems to a few of the traders on the 'Rock. Hopefully they might be able to get Gulgus off her back long enough to figure out what he was up to. Since then, they'd met a few times. Once in the Oasis Winds Tavern where she'd let slip she knew something she shouldn't. He hadn't liked that and began to interrogate her albeit in the nicest possible way. Most recently, he'd found her on the Persephone itself after she'd woken from a brief nap. He'd warned her that the information she knew could be potentially dangerous to her and although she was dubious, she had no reason to doubt his sincerity.

Captain Sisko she had known longer than anyone. They'd first met when he mistook her for a former colleague with whom she had a striking resemblance. Galewind didn't like him. When she'd ran scans, the computer had been unable to identify his DNA and that troubled her. Seren had put it down to a computer fault and hadn't thought any more about it. Since then, they'd met and chatted a while over the occasional drink at the former colony beyond the deep desert. They'd had the occasional falling out, the Narstrom Incident has shocked her but it had been a complex affair and Seren had softened her views since then. As it was, the colony had since been reclaimed by the sands and they hadn't spoken as much recently. Sisko had been having a rough time. The UFS had disavowed his organisation claiming they were impostors and terrorists. In the following months they'd run into problems with one of the many militias, the SSFS. When he entered into the running for the Beit Dawla she'd been surprised but she was satisfied he knew what he was doing. She didn't know much about the situation with the SSFS but she made up her mind she would ask him and find out what was going on.

That left the native, Willard Deerhunter. She didn't know anything about him at all but he was a native and suspected he might make a good ally. She would need to talk to him and discuss his position and see if there was a mutual benefit of them working together or if they were destined to argue across the chamber.

In truth, she still couldn't believe she'd won a position in the Beit Dawla. She knew that it was going to limit her trading capabilities. It was bad politics to spend most of your time offworld, she'd thought. For that reason, she'd given the every day running of the Persephone to Galewind who would fly the trade routes in her absence while allowing Seren to conduct business deals around her role with the government.

She flicked the monitor off and lay back in her chair listening to the hustle and bustle of the city outside. Without doubt this was a major change in her life and she wondered where it would lead. Then she remembered Ms. Moonkill and sighed, looking up to the ceiling before putting her feet up on the desk and opening the bottle of rum she carried in her belt.