"If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle." - Sun Tzu, The Art of War
Schnee Manor outskirts, city of Atlas, 7:22 am local time
Sophia was scouting out the Schnee family manor in preparation for the negotiation and to just get the lay of the land. The security surrounding the manor was laughable, only having a couple of guards in light armour and firearms who were woefully undertrained for such an important position as she took out two within three minutes, non-lethally of course. Andreas meanwhile was probably at a local bar, giving anyone who challenged him to a drinking contest alcohol poisoning. The mansion itself was massive, roughly the size of a standard imperial academy on a planet owned by the Technocracy, but much more modern. She was walking around the manor for the third time when she detected a commotion originating from one of the hallways.
"And...don't...think...here!" The voice of a man came through her helmet, broken because of the numerous walls blocking the sound.
"I...but...uphold...family...name...married...!" The voice of Weiss Schnee followed.
Intrigued by this development, Sophia decided to follow Weiss across the manor, sneaking along the walls and hanging off windowsills. She was halfway across a wing of the manor when another pair of voices came through.
"Did...this?" Weiss's broken voice said.
"If...some sort of crime...guilty." Another broken male voice, noticeably younger, replied. Was this a younger brother of Weiss?
Sophia then followed Weiss to the window of her room where she heard her sobbing lightly. Thinking that this was an excellent time to sneak in, she jumped and grabbed onto the windowsill where she dissolved the lock with some nanites before opening the window and silently slipping through. She also released some nanites that moved toward Weiss. Now all she had to do was lean back on a closet and wait for Weiss to turn around and notice her.
After crying into her bed for some time, Weiss decided to finally get up and train with her weapon. As soon as she turned, however, she spotted a tall figure covered head to toe with black armour, wearing a black and red cape leaning on her closet. Its fist was clenched.
"Hello Ms. Schnee," The figure said in a feminine and slightly robotic tone.
Before Weiss could scream or do anything else, she found that her body would not respond and was stuck in a position where she was facing directly at the figure. All she could do was move her eyes frantically as the figure spoke again.
"You're probably wondering what I am doing here, correct?"
Weiss looked directly at the figure, tears in her eyes.
"I'll take that as a 'yes.' Now, before I tell you anything else, I will allow you to move again. Before I do, however, promise me you will not scream or make any loud noise or I will paralyze you again. Blink twice if you understand."
Weiss blinked twice.
"Perfect." The figure released its clenched hand and Weiss then leaned down and retched.
"Apologies for that," The figure said Weiss gained her breath.
"What even are you?" Weiss asked in between breaths.
The figure chuckled and seemingly absorbed its helmet. It revealed the head of a woman with red hair and brown eyes and was almost human except for her pointed ears. She had a device attached to the lower part of her face and neck.
"You're not human..." Weiss said in disbelief.
"No, I am not Ms. Schnee. My human name is Sophia and I am a Hesukari." Sophia described.
"So you're an alien?"
"You could say that. Now, the purpose of my presence. The reason I am here is because for some reason my superiors have deemed it important to secure a constant supply of a substance known to you as 'Dust.' It falls upon me to obtain the layout of your family mansion in preparation for a representative for a meeting with your mother and father. You have a... strained relationship with your father, no?"
"Strained is an understatement... May I ask how you plan on getting that information?"
"I originally wanted to kill one of your guards, who may I say are woefully under-trained, and just roam the manor," Sophia said matter-of-factly as Weiss stared in horror. "But since I discovered your brother, my job has become much easier. Where is he now?"
"If he has any sort of dignity, he should be far away from my room," Weiss said bitterly.
At that, Sophia bore a devious smile and left while materializing her helmet. Weiss then sat alone in her room, trying to make sense of her situation when she heard Sophia's voice again.
"Whitley Schnee?" She asked before a paff sounded, followed by the sound of a body crumpling. Weiss then heard running footsteps approaching her room.
"Well then," Sophia said as she ran through her door, pistol in hand. "That was easier than expected."
"What did you do?!" Weiss asked in a panic. "Is he-"
"He is not dead," Sophia said while laughing. "He'll be up in about an hour with a pounding headache, I installed a camera in place of one of his shirt buttons. By the galaxy, he fell most hilariously."
Sophia then heard footsteps rapidly approaching Weiss's room.
"Well then, seems like my time is up. Until we meet again, Ms. Schnee." With that, Sophia leapt through the still-open window just as the family butler, Klein Sieben, appeared in the doorway.
"Miss Schnee! Are you alright?!" He asked in a panic. "I saw something leave Whitley's room!"
"I'm uh... I'm fine," Weiss said, looking out of the open window.
"Klein, I need a favour." Sophia heard Weiss talk to her butler.
"Andreas, did you get all of that?" Sophia asked her partner.
"Loud and clear Sophia," Andreas replied. "I'll ask Johnathan to keep tabs on Ms. Schnee as she moves. You got the floor plans?"
"Even better, I knocked out Ms. Schnee's younger brother and planted a camera and micro-drone deployer on him. We'll be getting the data soon."
"Great work. Want to get something to drink?"
"Maybe later, I have one more stop." With that Sophia wandered into the city of Atlas in her civilian outfit, drawing attention on account of her pointed ears.
Xiao Long residence, island of Patch, 11:22 am local time
"C'mon, are you even trying?" Yang asked Angelica's partner, whose name was Joseph. He along with her father were in the process of training her following the installation of her prosthetic and were in the middle of some basic hand-to-hand combat, with Yang doing all the punching and Joseph mostly blocking.
"No, I'm not trying," he said, dodging another one of Yang's punches. "If I fought back, the first punch would break your Aura and the next one would decapitate you."
"Now you're just being dramatic," Yang said with a laugh. Joseph then walked over to a boulder and punched it, destroying half of it, to the surprise of Yang and Taiyang. "Okay, not being dramatic..."
The three then heard Angelica laughing on the rooftop.
"Oh please, he may look tough but in all actuality, he's clumsier than a newborn." Joseph grimaced at that.
"How did you even get up there?" Taiyang asked, bewildered.
"I jumped."
"That high? How is that even possible?" Taiyang then looked at Joseph. "And how are you that strong?"
"Nanites," Joseph said. "Imagine the most advanced robot you can think of, then imagine it being as small as a molecule. Now imagine billions of those molecule-sized robots swimming around our bloodstreams, enhancing both of us with untold amounts of power and also allowing us to do this," Joseph and Angelica then manifested their armour and weapons. "If you haven't pieced it together yet, this armour allows us to do superhuman feats."
"...Wow," Yang said in disbelief.
"Now, something we need to get out of the way is the fact that we aren't-" He was interrupted by a beeping noise. "Excuse me. Yes? Right now? I'm kinda in the middle of- really? That bad, huh? On it." Joseph then looked at Angelica. "Something came up, it's urgent. We've got to move."
The pair then ran off, leading the father-daughter pair behind in the dust.
City of Atlas, 2:22 pm local time
"Okay, you can hide out back in the cargo hold. I'll take you as far as I can, but if we get caught, you're on your own. Understand?" An airship pilot said to a waiting Weiss, to which she nodded. "Also, someone gave me this," the pilot said as he went into the airship, coming back out with an envelope. "They said to give it to you when I saw you, don't know what it is though."
"Who was this person?" Weiss asked.
"They said their name was Sophia and they had these weird pointed ears. They also said you knew them."
Weiss shuddered at the name, not expecting the woman she encountered in her room to contact her so soon. She took the envelope from the pilot and opened it, revealing a note and a weird bracelet within. She read the note;
Greetings Ms. Schnee,
As your safety is vital for the success of my superior's negotiation with your family company, I have deemed it necessary for a method of pinpointing your location. While one of my compatriots did tag you with a tracking bullet (apologies) it does not meet my superior's criteria and as such, I have provided you with a device that will monitor your vitals and inject a substance should you become mortally injured.
The device will resemble a bracelet and will be cool to the touch, and it will inject a substance to bring you from the verge of death should you be injured enough. However, it only has enough of this substance for three activations so still exercise caution. It will not automatically heal minor wounds or re-attach limbs.
I wish you luck on your travels and may we meet again.
- Sophia
"Um, Miss?" The pilot asked, bringing Weiss out of her thoughts. "We should get going."
"Yeah, let's," Weiss said, still unnerved at the whole situation.
Information Data Logs
Imperial Internal Affairs division: Running a galactic empire is no different from running a nation-state on a planet except everything is scaled way up, including the paperwork. Countless orders, requests and complaints file nonstop across every channel, each one needing to be approved, denied or suspended on top of the daunting task of making sure everything is at peak efficiency making running an empire a task seemingly fit for no one. This is where the men and women of the Imperial Internal Affairs division come in. Based on the paradisical atoll world of New Hainan, the IIA has offices in every city on every planet, and every habitat in the Technocracy, each housing numerous unthanked workers logging various requests and complaints made by all citizens. As the Technocracy is a multicultural society, they must learn the languages of every species residing within the empire, although most just need to learn one or two and pass the ones they don't know to someone who does. Each member is paired with a moderately sentient AI partner to further simplify the process.
Imperial Foreign Relations Office: Similar to terrestrial nation-states, your empire's reputation is carried on the backs of the people you sent to represent it to foreign lands and as such, they need to be highly disciplined, respectful and completely tolerant of other cultures. The Imperial Foreign Relations Office is tasked with making the Technocracy seem as pleasurable as possible, handling new citizens for integration purposes, opening new embassies when appropriate and diffusing any incidents with tourists, temporary citizens and officials. It also serves as a neutral host to negotiations between two warring nations who want an unbiased host for their situation. The envoys and ambassadors of the IFRO are some of the best negotiators and representatives in the galaxy, second only to the Hesukari in terms of persuasive power, and they are well suited to the Galactic Community to "nudge" votes in the Tecnocracy's favour and also maintain coherence in the Pangalactic Co-prosperity Pact, the Technocracy's hegemony.