The Temptress and the Hunter

Part 1: The Scent

In which Federal Agent Dorm Harkaway receives his mission and begins to gather evidence in order to carry it out.

The countryside blurred into a smear of greens and browns as the train accelerated away from the station. Federal Agent Dorm Harkaway, formerly Captain Dorm Harkaway of the Alliance Army stretched uncomfortably on the narrow seat, earning himself a reproachful look from the elderly woman on the seat next to him. He glared at her, daring her to open her mouth but she looked away. Dorm felt a small moment of disappointment. A large part of him wanted to get into an argument, even if it was with a woman probably twice his age. He was jammed back here with the civilians, and the poor civilians at that, so his temper wasn’t exactly in the best shape. This train apparently had only one decent guest cabin and the pompous son of some wealthy landowner filled it. There was rarely more than one important person on a train like this heading to the backwater province of Lhasan as it was and so no one had ever thought to put more than one guest carriage in. Of course he could have simply commandeered it in the name of the Alliance but that was a good way to get demoted or wind up behind a desk as a pen pusher. Most of the landowners were former Alliance High Official’s or Generals and still had friends in high places. No, for this one he would keep quiet and do his best to tolerate his present surroundings. It wasn’t that he especially needed he cabin; he had slept rough a thousand times and likely would a thousand more before he retired but he just didn’t like discomfort when it could be avoided. And lots of civilians, that was always a problem. He couldn’t stand their idiocy; the way they just lived their lives, never giving a thought of the greater good of the society, of the government that sheltered them. Such an ungrateful lot, this lot as much as any other he thought, looking around disdainfully at the sea of empty face, staring blankly into the same n