Weyland was sitting inside the Restaurant, waiting for his drink.

The Colonel was late.

He was already waiting fifteen minutes, and had now, reluctantly, ordered a drink. He had to keep his displeasure in check.

This piece of information better be worth it.

The drink arrived, and he nipped it, staring out of the windows onto the busy street.

A transport arrived, dropping off a medium-sized, round man in military attire, and a soldier armed with a pulse rifle.

At last.

The colonel entered the restaurant, and quickly made his way over to Weyland's table. The soldier stayed at the door.

"Mr. Weyland! Sorry I am late."
Weyland got up, and shook the man's hand "No problem Colonel."
"I'm Mario."
"Frederic."
The colonel nodded, and they sat down

"I'm unsure what to order, any advice?"

"Try the baked salmon. They are exceptionally good."

Weyland beckoned to the waitress, and they both ordered the salmon.

The Colonel folded his hands "Frederic, this is certainly a meeting on short notice."

"I'm sorry. I've been checking on some company archives, just as I was leaving, and I noticed something"

"What did you notice?"
He wouldn't mince his words. Military types rarely responded well to talk.

"You have something of ours."

"I'm sorry?"

"It's a prototype, one you confiscated recently. A ship."

"We do confiscate quite a lot of ships these days. There is a lot of smuggling going on around this system."

Weyland pulled a photograph out of his overcoat pocket, and passed it to the other man.
"This is it."

The colonel wanted to reply, but was interrupted by the food arriving. The salmon was of comparatively small size, but it look delicious.

The photograph returned to Weyland. "I'll tell you about it after the meal."

He nodded, and they both started cutting their meal.

Weyland wiped the plate clean with a slice of bread, then dabbed his mouth with the napkin. The fish had been good, certainly an improvement over the food he had in his ship, but he had eaten better on earth. The colonel seemed happy, and he made a positive remark on the food's quality.

"Now, back to the ship. I've heard you confiscated it."

"In fact, we have. It was filled to the brim with certain types of synthetic drugs."

"Well, it's actually stolen property. It got stolen at least eight years back, and we've been looking for it ever since."

"Eight years is a long time."

"I agree. But it seems that you have found it for us." Weyland smiled

"Hold it there, Frederic. We haven't found it for you. It's part of an ongoing inquiry."

"Inquiry? Ongoing?"

"We had the pilot in custody, and she has apparently escaped. As long as she isn't brought to justice, we can't release the ship. And besides, we couldn't release it to you simply on your word. You must be aware of that…"

"Oh, I have proof of ownership all right. It's probably even in one of your crime databases."

"No matter of that, I still can't just hand it out to you. There will be a court of law, and after judgement has passed, I may be able to secure its release. But before the pilot isn't back in our custody, I'm afraid I cannot release it."

"Very well." Weyland bit his lip. "Two-thousand credits then. Will that change your mind?"

"This isn't a question of money." The Colonel's face slightly reddened.

"All right, eight thousand."

"No. This is about justice, and I'm not going to let you and your money pervert it." He had gripped the sides of the table hard.

"Very well then, suit yourself. Can I at least have a look at it? Check if it still contains the original engine?"

"I suppose you can, but you need to be accompanied by one of my men."

Weyland nodded, happily. The waitress arrived, asking them if they required anything else.

"We'd pay" Weyland said, passing the waitress his pocket change.

The colonel turned to her, but Weyland had already paid his share.

"Thank you." he said, more a ritual than honest thanks.

"When can I see the ship? Is it possible this afternoon?"

"I'm afraid not. It isn't here."

"What do you mean?"

"The ship isn't on the ground."

"You mean it's still in orbit?"

"Not quite. There's a gas giant two planets out which has a station orbiting it."

"A station?"

"Yeah. It's the Odessa."

"Why do I hear this for the first time since I'm here?"

The colonel laughed "Well, the Odessa is one of the last assets the Seegson Cooperation has in this part of space, and it's currently being decommissioned."
"Why wasn't I informed? Even the mayor didn't mention a word of it."

"Because of some of the things that had occurred up there a year back. I'll not go into detail, but a few accidents happened with androids. The Station is currently in disuse, there's only a few hard-headed people up there, those who didn't want to move to the planet, and a detachment of marines. It's been quite handy at storing confiscated ships and materials."

Weyland's brow furrowed. "So the ship is up there?"

"Yes it is. But the next transport up there is due next week. You-"

"You do realize that I have my own ship. Radio your men up there to receive me."

The Colonel was unhappy, but he nodded "I will radio them."

Weyland's ship was already rising from the spaceport. Aki had joined Jeanne and Weyland on the bridge, as they watched Cabe at the helm, having replaced Smyth.

"The Odessa? Yeah, there's been an accident with a few androids a year back. Rumour has it that you guys were behind it." Jeanne said.

"Please?"

"Well, Weyland-Yutani has been interested in the station. At least it's what they said"

Weyland shook his head "Why would we be interested in buying a station? Most of our colonial effort centres on terraforming."

"You should know, it's your company."

Weyland shook his head again. "I'll have to check that up"

He departed the bridge, leaving Aki and Jeanne.

Aki shook his large head. "He is strange."

"Yes, he is." She smiled. "But so are you. I've never met one of your race before."

"I have not met many human females either."

She giggled "We are called women, you know."

Aki nodded.

"So why are you here?"

"We had an accident with our ship."

"Oh, what happened?"

Aki stopped for a moment. "Life support failure. I was the only one who escaped."
"I'm sorry" Jeanne said.

Aki nodded, and turned to the door

"Why do you want to meet Akkan and Paul?" she asked

The yautja turned around again. "Why do you humans always pry?" he asked "What we must do concerns us, and only us." He growled.

Eran was in their quarters. After having rested some time, they had showered, and Aki had patched up his jerkin, until it was in a wearable condition again.

Now, he returned to see the xeno curled up on the bed.

"Eran?"

The xeno uncoiled, hugging him. "Hello."

"What is Blood Moon?"

Eran shivered slightly, and checked over his shoulder. "I'm not sure."

"If we hunt it, we need to know it."

"It's not that easy."

"Will Akkan know?"

The Xeno started "Where do you know that name?"

"You told me. The first time we met on my ship."

"I don't fully understand it myself." Eran shook his head, as if to clear cobwebs. "It's just there, this name, every time I try to dig down into the back of my mind. I only know he is one of us."

"Us?"

"He's like me."

"Well, I know where he is."

Eran hissed "Where?"

"There's a planet. He's there with a human called Paul. Weyland will take us there."

"Good."

"Why?"

"Because I have the feeling he might have information we need. Perhaps even be of help."

"I don't need help. This is our hunt." Aki clicked.

Shivering, the xeno moved closer to the yautja. "I'm not sure. I think this is one of the situations where you can never have too much help." There was genuine fear in his voice.

"If Akkan can tell me what Blood Moon is, he can come along. But it is ours to kill."

Eran nodded. "It must be destroyed."

"What's your opinion on Weyland, Eran?"

The xeno curled his tail around the two of them "I think that Weyland is the second most dangerous thing in this world."
Aki chuckled "He's human, how bad can it be?"

"He is not afraid of me." Eran said

"What do you mean?"

"All humans are afraid of things like us, and yet Weyland looks at me as if he knows me. And he is fast."

"He doesn't look too fast to me. No faster than the regular human."

"It's just a feeling, perhaps I'm wrong. I just think we should be careful around him."

"I agree. He seems double-sided."

Eran nodded. "When are we going to leave for the planet?"

"I don't know. I'll ask someone, if you'd wait here."

"I wanna come..."

"Everyone is going to panic."

"The Jeanne female won't. She didn't panic the first time."

"Please. Just stay here."

"But it's boring…"

"Please, Eran."

"Okay…" Eran rose up, kissing Aki on the mouth.

"NO, this isn't just fine." Weyland complained into the mouthpiece. "And yes, I WILL take it up with Mrs. Yutani. In fact, I'll call her right away."

He terminated the conversation, selecting another contact from his caller's list, this time on loudspeaker.

The computer worked on connection him, and after a few seconds, the line stood.

"Mr. Weyland! So nice to hear from you!"

Mrs. Yutani's voice dripped sarcasm.

"Mrs. Yutani, I am rather in a hurry."

"So I heard. Gambolling around the outer rim. There's people waiting for you here. You should return."

"Bullshit. They know my communicator's number and besides, we have state of the art video equipment for video conferences."

Mrs Yutani shut up for a moment, and then replied drily. "Point taken."

Weyland laughed a short laugh "Anyway, I'm not calling on personal matters."

"Personal!" she exclaimed angrily "Why are you calling then?"

"I'm calling because you are the person most likely to know certain things."

"You do realize you fired me, don't you?"

"I didn't fire you."

"As close as."

"I bought you out. And you agreed, remember. Besides, you are the leader of the board of supervisors. That puts you on second place to me."

"Yes I know that." The spiteful reply came "But I still think the buy-out was unfair."

"Take your trouble to the accounts, have them check the transaction or whatever."

"Weyland, you are a prick."

He had bought out half of the Yutani's family share a few years back. The now deceased Mr. Yutani Senior, Mrs. Yutani's father had developed a gambling addiction in his last years, indebting the family until he had been forced to sell some of the shares of the company to cover his debts, with Weyland buying them to increase his leverage in the firm. It had conflicted with some old statues from at least seventy years back, and Mrs. Yutani had hated him ever since.

She was now heading the board of supervisors, and was being a royal pain in his backside from time to time, but they had developed a working relationship that allowed them to lead the firm with great efficiency.

Mrs Yutani lacked his ruthlessness, but she was an intelligent woman, and he relied on her, and she on him more than they would both admit.

"Weyland, what's the question? I don't have all day"

"Were we interested in buying the Odessa? It's a space station built by Seegson some time ago."

"Wait, let me check this." He heard her hands flying over her computer. "There's nothing in the files. We bought loads of stuff off Seegson, back way before our time, but a space station in your area wasn't amongst them. We bought one back then that was called the Sevastopol, but it seemed to have been defective. There was a lawsuit against Seegson which we won."

Weyland nodded. He had come this far already by scanning company archives. "And you are sure we didn't send anyone here?"

"Why should we? What should we need a space station for? Why do you ask?"

"I'm currently underway to the Odessa, and it seems like someone from our firm had been poking around up there."

"Perhaps it's just a rumour"

"I'll check it out. Good Day, Mrs. Yutani."