She figured the refitting work must be largely complete, because there was hardly a component of her ship that hadn’t been removed.
The bay was apparently absent of maintenance engineers, but there were hoses and umbilicals aplenty, draped over the KM-R horns and connecting the aft engineering section and the main engine to valves mounted in the bay’s bulkhead. The horns looked new, and indeed had been coated with an ivory finish that resembled organic horn. That was doubly impressive considering the technological principles behind KM-R emitters had supposedly been forgotten centuries ago. Fitz was always telling her there were plenty of ‘lost’ technologies that the Legion was hoarding for itself.
She stopped halfway to the ship and listened.
The hoses sounded dormant. All except one: a thin flexible tube gurgling fluid into the life support section.
Izza marched up the ramp and along the familiar passageways, with their unfamiliar scent of freshness, and into the chief mechanic’s domain.
Bylzak! She drew in a sharp breath at the sight. Catkins would not be pleased. The entire compartment had been rearranged. The Gliesan’s paintings of force keels interacting with higher dimensions, for one, were no longer taped to the bulkheads.
And one of the panels in the overhead was open.
“You should have seen the state of the transposition fluid in the air scrubbers,” suggested a gruff voice as a pair of legs, wearing similar overalls to Izza, dangled themselves out of the overhead crawlspace. “What were they doing? Smoking the fucking stuff?”
A Pryxian dropped down onto the deck: male, given the rolling ridges of leathery skin over his eyes, and the high pitch to his voice. He sounded vaguely familiar.
“When will they finish flushing?” she asked him.
“End of the shift.”
“Good.” Izza considered the bulky blue maintenance worker. There was a challenge in his eyes that she itched to snuff out. “I have come to assess how close the refit is to completion.”
The Pryxian laughed. “Now, that, I can believe, Izza Zan Fey.” He reached inside his overalls.
Izza lunged at him.
Pryxians were powerfully built, but short. Izza had him up against the bulkhead, with his head against the spot that normally boasted a tiny display cabinet containing Catkins’ favorite bone gaming dice. The Pryxian’s legs kicked against the interior wall, a foot above the deck, but he didn’t break her grip pinning him under his arms.
“Easy, green cheeks.”
“As you observe, I am Zhoogene,” she responded, adjusting her hold to rub her thumbs over his throat. “You have powerful muscles, but my body is powered by muscles and hydraulics. I can tighten my grip until the life is crushed from you.”
“There’s no need to threaten me,” he said. “I already know your reputation, and I respect your many kills, Del-Saisha. I was reaching for my token. It’s in an inner pocket over my right breast. Take it.”
He had addressed her using a secret Guild honorific. Del-Saisha was the correct usage for one of her gender and race, but that alone did not convince her of his Guild status.
And a genuine connection to the Guild would only make her even more wary.
Izza released her hold and he thudded to the deck.
“No,” she said. “You remove your token. Do it glacially.”
He cautiously removed the supposed proof of his Guild membership. She snatched it from his blue hand and paired it with her own.
Outer Torellian Commerce Guild tokens resembled enameled circular pin badges. Three vertical black slabs descended from the top of a backdrop of blazing red; two shorter lines rose from the bottom. Some said the token was a view through a tunnel that led to the underworld, a mythical place filled with danger and invaluable information. Others, Fitz among them, perpetuated the myth that Outer Torellia was a real place, an asteroid hollowed out and its interior filled with vertical habitation modules. All Izza could be sure of was that when she had both in the palm of her hand, they took on new life. The pair hummed to each other while flashing sequences of red and green lights inside the lower vertical slats. Every time her token did this, the sequence was subtly different, but she recognized her token’s vocabulary. Each person’s token was unique.
Were the tokens exchanging information? Izza had seen the inner workings of the Guild hierarchy in the Tej Sector, but she had never been privy to such secrets. The Pryxian’s token was real. That much she could trust. No more.
He had known her name too.
“What does Nyluga-Ree’s man want with me?” she asked, guessing that the sector boss was the only senior member of the Guild who would or could reach out to her here.
“Nyluga-Ree’s man?” The alien spat against the bulkhead. “I am no man, but you have been around that human of yours so long you’re becoming one.” He considered her. “Nyluga-Ree is both generous and merciful. Despite the numerous disappointments you have inflicted upon her, she remains fond of her favorite pilot-navigator and she offers you one last chance.”
“We’re going to pay the boss back,” Izza insisted. “That’s why we’re here at JSHC. But since I have a little time to kill, why not tell me this offer?”
“Return to the clan. You, Fitzwilliam, your crew and this ship. After a decade of indenture to pay off your many debts, you will be free of obligation to Nyluga-Ree, and the Phantom will be released to you.”
“I don’t believe it. The boss will never give this ship up again once she has her hot, pink hands on it.”
“You are in no position to bargain. You know that Nyluga-Ree holds you in high esteem. This is why you are still alive and why this is your best course of action. It is also why she will release the Phantom back to you. She feels you have a special affinity to the vessel, and it amuses her to think of her former ship becoming the stuff of legends once you have served your indenture.”
“What if we refuse?”
“Zan Fey, you know how this works. It is through your human mate that Nyluga-Ree would deliver your greatest torments. Fitzwilliam is flamboyant. Hiding is not in his nature, and so you know that if you run, we will find and take him. He shall be tortured before you. First a fingertip, then an eyelid. A lip will be removed and then an ankle crushed. Fitzwilliam will be demolished body part by painful body part. As the man you love reaches each new plateau of agony, you will regret rejecting today’s final offer.”
“Today? Nyluga-Ree is impatient if you expect my answer so quickly.”
“I misspoke, Zan Fey, when I said today. I fly out of here at the end of this maintenance shift. The offer expires with my departure.”
“Impossible. I won’t leave without Fitz.”
The dog of a Pryxian licked his thin, gray lips at her predicament. “You don’t know where he is, do you? I’m disappointed. I had heard you two were inseparable. He’s in Beta Hub. In fact,” – he unstrapped a wrist slate and handed it to Izza – “he’s right there.”
The filthy device showed a yellow dot slowly moving through a detailed map of the station. If this was Fitz, he appeared to be walking through a commercial zone in an area called District Metz.
Nyluga-Ree’s man gave a low whistle. “Metz is a bad place. The kind where bad people go to meet worse ones.”
“How is it that you know of his location?”
“He’s been flashing his token all day, asking to put a message out to you.” The Pryxian grinned, showing sharpened metal teeth. “You’re speaking to Fitzwilliam’s paid messenger. It amused me to take your human’s credits while being paid by the boss to pass on her own message.”
“Well? What did Fitz say?”
“To give you that slate with the tracker, mostly. He also said to stay cool and don’t let anyone aboard Phantom.”
Stay cool? That was easy for Fitz to say. She was the one he would be expecting to rescue him when the wheels fell off whatever foolhardy plan was inside his human head.
As her thoughts moved to the weapons she would need, the
Pryxian sat himself down on Catkins’ seat and fished a drinks flask out of a small rucksack.
“What are you doing?” she snapped.
“Coffee break. What does it look like? Why, are you thirsty?”
“Yes.” She advanced on him. He recoiled. “For blood.”
“Woah! I’m just a messenger, Zan Fey.”
“And the power of any message I send would be amplified greatly if I wrote it in your blood.”
She took another step toward him and enjoyed the sight of his skin drain of blood, transforming into a translucent blue sapphire. “You are a Pryxian male. Properly treated, your skin can be fashioned into works of art once drained of blood. It would amuse me to make a profit from your corpse while using you to send a message to your mistress.”
The Pryxian’s skin lost more blood, beginning to gleam like an uncut stone. “And… and you too, greenie,” he squeaked. “I’ve seen your kind flayed alive and your photosynthesizing skin used as power sources and sugar generators.”
Izza pushed a finger against the messenger’s brow fold. “Are you going to flay me, bad boy?”
“No!” he yelped.
“Good. Then you can answer some questions instead.”
His eyes swiveled up to stare at the finger pushing into his head. There was a knife hidden flush against the bulkhead behind him. Of course, he hadn’t noticed that particular weapon, but he knew the dangers of confronting a Guild member on their home territory. He knew that finger could easily be replaced by something more lethal.
“What is the state of the Phantom, and what has been added to the ship that I should be aware of?”
“Nothing’s been added. Not by me or anyone I’ve talked to. Doesn’t mean military intelligence hasn’t run their hands through this place and left a few surprises. I’d be disappointed if they hadn’t. But she just needs to finish flushing the scrubbers and disconnecting the hoses. I’ve even screwed with the bay security portal so everyone passing through is registered as maintenance personnel. As humans. Because, Zan Fey, you acquiring fake ID for a Zhoogene female made it very easy for me to track you down. You can load up with your crew and fly out of here unmolested.”
“We still have to make an unauthorized flight away from the most heavily fortified base in the sector, and then evade the 4th Fleet.”
“Yeah, well, greenie. I can’t solve all your problems.”
She withdrew her finger. “One last thing. When does your shift end?”
The Pryxian grinned. The blood returned to his outer body. The process looked like antifreeze pumping into an ice sculpture. “Just over two hours.” He unscrewed the cap of his flask, unleashing rich coffee aromas. “Better hurry if you know what’s good for your darling human hubbie.”
Stabbing daggers, slashing knives, knuckle disruptors, and her man’s awesome F-Cannon: weapons and the effect each would have on this disrespectful Guildsman flashed through her mind.
Civilians were not permitted to carry weapons anywhere on the station.
Fitz’s instructions to stay cool made her hesitate. But only for a moment. Then she marched off to the armory to gear up. Her instincts said Fitz wasn’t in imminent danger, but he would be very soon.
VERLYS SINOFAR
“The Lieutenant orders that you remain contactable and ready to return to the Phantom at short notice.”
“Are we leaving?”
Sinofar frowned at her Gliesan crewmate. In their own individual ways, all the Phantom’s crew were outcasts from society, and in most cases that shared experience bound them together. Not so the chief mechanic who had no notion of how a spacer should behave, and often appeared bewildered by his crewmates.
“I do not know,” Sinofar explained with a patience she didn’t feel. It had been so much easier relaying Zan Fey’s message to Fregg. “You are ordered to be ready and that is what I expect you to do. Anything more is speculation.”
“Oh, that’s all right, then. Only, I have found employment and would not wish to disappoint my new employers.”
“Look around.” Sinofar gestured over the extent of Catkins’ new dwelling. He had rented a five-foot segment of a large air duct that run along the bulkhead marking the edge of this zone. It smelled as if its many residents were living, dying, and conceiving new generations along its length, and had been doing so for many years now.
Catkins looked over his pipe section too, but he didn’t seem to understand what Sinofar was driving at.
“Your natural environment is to be buried inside a starship’s systems,” she explained. “This is a pipe, not a starship.”
“That is true. However, it is a very fine pipe. I am pleased with my new quarters.”
“Your temporary quarters. From which you have secured temporary employment. You have done well, Catkins, but do not forget where you belong.”
“On the Phantom with my friends. There’s no need to treat me like a child, Verlys.”
Sinofar’s retort was interrupted by her vibrating pocket slate. “Go for Sinofar.”
“It’s Kantosh.”
“How may I assist, Mr. Kantosh?”
“Other way around, my friend. I wanted to give you a heads up. You’re close to Captain Fitzwilliam of the Phantom, aren’t you?”
Sinofar pictured the human Guildsman and tried to decide from his voice alone whether Raylat Kantosh’s mood was benign or murderous. It wouldn’t be the first time that apparently friendly humans had led her into a trap. On the other hand, she had saved the man’s life two days ago when Kantosh’s team had been ambushed during a raid on the Zone-31 fuel depot. In Sinofar’s experience, humans were prone to bouts of gratitude that lasted for weeks. In her mental image, Kantosh was smiling.
“That is correct,” she told Kantosh. “Is Fitzwilliam in trouble?”
“Sounds that way. I’ve got ears in Alpha Hub, see, and they heard something very unusual. Jacks and troopers plotting together, safe from prying eyes and ears. Or so they thought. Whatever they’re up to, it’s as legit as Nyluga-Ree’s tax statements. Now, that’s not unheard of for the Militia, but the hammers teaming up with the jacks. That’s definitely something new, which is why I was informed about it. Lucky for your captain that I was, because I also hear they were plotting a hit on Fitzwilliam. It’s going down in the Cordovan Room this evening. We think that’s part of a place called Howell’s in District Metz. That’s all I know. My debt to you is paid off. Tell anyone what I just said, and I’ll kill you.”
“Cordovan Room. Howell’s. You’ll kill me. Understood, Mr. Kantosh. Thank you for your advice.”
“Just don’t use it to get yourself killed, all right? You’ve become a valuable part of the organization.”
“I won’t. Sinofar out.”
Catkins was practically dancing with excitement. “Howell’s in District Metz?” he repeated.
“Correct. Do you know the place?”
“I do indeed. It’s one of my clients.”
Sinofar raised her brow ridge. “Tell me again what your new job is.”
“Gaming consultant.”
“Hmm. I do not understand why one would pay to consult an expert on a frivolous waste of time. However… maybe your employment is not utterly worthless. Would a gaming consultant mingle with the patrons of this establishment?”
“Oh, better than that, sister. I get paid to wear a disguise.”
“A disguise? That sounds highly unlikely.”
“You’re so ignorant, Verlys. You should get out more. Yes, of course there’s a gaming disguise. It’s called cosplay.”
“Very well. Catkins, you will observe events from inside Howell’s while I update the lieutenant.”
She hesitated, watching the Gliesan engineer bounce around his section of pipe, propelled by a surfeit of glee. Better, she supposed, than his periods of deep depression, but Catkins simply did not fit in with the rest of the crew. One day that would become a problem.
Hopefully not today. Sinofar contacted the lieutenant
to tell her that they were back to business as normal: someone was planning to kill her husband. She smiled while she waited for the link to establish. The situation felt like putting on a pair of comfortable old boots. A pair booby trapped with a poison spike in the heel that had so far failed to go off. Danger was a familiar and welcome spice, but she had no doubt it would one day kill them all the same.
TAVISTOCK FITZWILLIAM
The admiral’s meeting point was an entertainment venue located in District Metz: a noisy neon madhouse of bare-skin fighting theaters, whore droid tube farms, zealot baiting pits, and street kitchens specializing in frying the flesh of Federation citizenry.
Fitz didn’t need to be told that the exotic local cuisine would be connected with a sky-high level of missing persons in this area of Beta Hub. Every major space station and ground city had their equivalent of Metz, each with their own specialty vice. He’d seen far worse than this. Lived there too.
He hadn’t time to judge these people. It was enough to be grateful that Izza wasn’t with him. As a human, Fitz was too commonplace to be a target, but a Zhoogene… Chunks of something green had been sizzling away in some of the higher-priced sidewalk frying pans, and Izza wasn’t as tough as she liked to think.
“Green beans,” he explained to a couple of passing Gliesans as he stood on the threshold to the location Nuysp had given him. “They were only green beans.”
The Gliesans hurried through the doorway, triggering the venue’s holo-sign to project itself out of the simulated night.
Welcome to Howell’s: Gourmet Gaming for Every Taste.
The establishment’s avatar was a dark-bearded human man in primitive robes and spectacles rolling a gaming icosahedron. As the die rolled, it grew in size until it was as large as Fitz’s head. Each face bore an arcane sigil carved in hellfire, which writhed as if in agony. Then the sigils transmuted into tasty cooked treats loaded with spices and sauce, and labeled with apparently unbeatable prices.
Holo-Howell watched the gaming die transform through eyes glazed with sheer mischief.
What kind of degenerate would be attracted to a joint like Howell’s? Fitz asked himself. Then he laughed because the answer was obvious. Degenerates like me.
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