by M. D. Cooper
I wondered at the colonel’s choice of words, but decided not to pursue it. If she knew, she knew. If not, then there was no need to inform her.
Then my mind backtracked and latched onto the fact that I had not been the only agent sent in to make a deal.
“Shit…really? Was I a decoy or something?”
“Sherry. Seriously,” Jacy straightened her hotel staff uniform. “Do you really think that we’d only send in one junior agent, on her first mission, to get the most important data the IS has had the chance to lay hands on in over a century? People like Korinth expect agencies to try and get valuable data whenever it pops up. If no one made a clumsy play for what he’s selling, he’d get even more suspicious than he normally is.”
I shook my head and crossed my arms. “You could have at least warned me. I felt like shit that I’d botched the job.”
Jacy wasn’t even remotely bothered by my show of defiance.
“Good, because you weren’t exactly smooth. I expect better next time.”
“What next time?”
Her façade cracked, and the colonel winked. “Well, if this all goes off without a hitch, it makes sense to keep you in the field. Making a major buy with Korinth will establish you as a mover here in Delphi, and there’s a lot we can do with that.”
I walked to the table where she had laid out the meal I’d ordered. A particularly appealing tart sat on the edge of a plate, and a moment later, it was in my mouth. “Well,” I said around the food as I chewed slowly. “I suppose I can suffer like this for a while longer.”
“Don’t get too used to it,” the other woman warned. “Missions like this keep going while they work. But when they don’t…well, let’s just say that when things come to an end, they do so abruptly. You need to stay vigilant so you make it out the other side.”
I nodded, the idea of Korinth bursting through the door and pounding me to jelly coming to mind. That was just one of the ‘abrupt’ endings that could come about.
“So, what’s the word on the Kerrigan?” I asked.
“They’re making good time,” the colonel replied. “Just under three days out. You should expect the big guy to set up a meet sometime around then.”
“Yeah,” I grabbed another tart. “I suspect he’ll do it through Penny. She indicated we’d be in touch again.”
The colonel got a knowing look in her eye. “Think she was talking about an exchange of goods, or was it perhaps something else the two of you would be swapping?”
I’d taken a bite of the tart, so I nearly inhaled it, coughing violently before recovering enough to speak. “Um…pardon?”
“Sherry,” she placed a hand on my shoulder. “Did you really think I’d put you in the field without keeping an eye on you? Don’t worry, I’m not watching the nitty-gritty, but I have to make sure our new star is safe.”
I was certain my entire body had turned red as the nebula. “What?! You saw all that?”
“No, not all of it. I mostly just listened to the audio. I have to hand it to Penny—she’s one hell of a woman in bed. I’m a bit surprised that she kept her servitor’s disguise in place for the duration.”
I nodded. “I was too.”
I didn’t add that I’d enjoyed it like that, though I had no idea why.
“I’d better get on my way,” Jacy replied. “A lot to do, contingency plans to establish and all that. Cynthia is trying to find out who other buyers are—we’re going to see if we can buy more of the cores from them as well. I don’t harbor any illusions that we can get our hands on all fifteen, but a few more would be nice. Each one was destined for different ships and stations. So they’ll have some differences in data and capability.”
“Good to know,” I said. “And the DSA still doesn’t know they’re lost?”
“If they do, they’re keeping that info under wraps better than normal.”
I breathed a slow sigh. “Good, because if they knew…”
“Yeah, they’d come down like a hammer on any sale Korinth makes.”
Jacy patted my shoulder one more time, and then turned and pushed her cart out of the suite. I was left with my thoughts of the prior night’s encounter with Penny, and the fear of someone—Korinth or the DSA—bringing down the hammer on me.
“Shit,” I whispered, looking down at my bathrobe.
Penny ended the connection, and I wondered what exactly the woman would be wearing; not that it mattered. From its listing on the networks, Chamile’s was not a large restaurant, so it should be easy to locate a dinner companion.
Jacy had set me up with a number of outfits, and I chose a white sheath dress that hugged my curves, and paired it with black heels and belt, and some bangles. Style wasn’t something I was skilled in, but I’d noticed that black and white always looked sophisticated and tasteful.
I straightened my hair and let it fall over my shoulders in gentle waves, then let the room’s beauty station apply light makeup to accent my eyes and lips.
“Here goes nothing,” I whispered as I walked out the door and into the short corridor that led to the lift.
It occurred to me that I should let Jacy know where I was going, but I decided not to. If she was watching my every move, let her see that I’d left, and figure it out herself.
The small voice in the back of my mind told me that my behavior was petty, but Jacy hadn’t been entirely honest with me, so why should I be any different with her?
That same small voice also hinted that after growing up on a mining rig and then going right into the military, I was enraptured by a lifestyle I’d never even imagined that I’d get to taste. It was like a drug, and I was loving it.
Besides, this is all what needs to be done to get the cores for the IS. I have to go on a date with Penny.
A date? I supposed that perhaps it was such a thing.
Chamile’s was on the same deck as the hotel, just a few kilometers down the concourse, past a cornucopia of wares on display in the windows of shops that only the ridiculously wealthy could afford.
Even though it wasn’t my first time strolling past the rows of stores, it hadn’t become anything close to normal yet. That I was moving through society at this level was mind-blowing. Even more so that my government was allowing me to spend more money than the cost of a dreadnought on a few NSAI cores.
Madness, I thought with a laugh.
I considered flagging down a dockcar, but the walk was pleasant, and I enjoyed watching the denizens of Myka Station’s upper crust as they passed.
Flamboyant styles and mods were all around, but I had to admit that they weren’t as decadent as the propaganda back home tended to paint the Delphians. While they certainly were more extravagant than was the Paragonian norm, it wasn’t that much different. Despite the more austere society around my home star, I didn’t labor under the illusion that Paragon’s upper crust lived so differently from the people around me.
What’s the harm?
Before long, the restaurant came into view, a quaint single-story building set back from the concourse and surrounded by lawn and trees.
That was probably the thing that took the most getting used to. Paragonian stations had parks, but outside of those, there wasn’t a lot of greenery. Here, the station archi
tects covered things in as much greenery as possible.
A man in a crisp black suit stood at the front of the property, and as I approached, he stepped aside. “You are expected, Madam Sherry.”
“Thank you,” I stammered, not expecting his immediate recognition. He also pronounced my name with an interesting accent, making it sound more like ‘Chair-ee’.
I rather liked it.
The path wound through the trees and brought me to the restaurant’s front door, where a woman also wearing a crisp black suit stood.
“Miss Penny is inside,” she said and pulled the door open.
I nodded wordlessly and stepped inside to see a dim interior with only two dozen tables, each supporting a flickering candle and nothing else.
There was only one patron in the room: Penny, resplendent in red, just as she’d promised.
She stood next to the table in the center, her body sheathed in a red catsuit that covered every part of her, barring her head. Yellow lines streaked up the fabric, tracing patterns around her curves, flowing toward the outfit’s high collar, giving the impression that her entire body was an eruption of magma spraying out of the floor.
“You’re on time!” Penny exclaimed, raising her hands above her head and sending a holographic spray of molten rock into the air. “What do you think of my outfit?”
I laughed and shook my head. “Well, it sure looks hot.”
She joined in and stepped around the table to wrap me in an embrace, and I was surprised to find that the outfit was hot. Not so much to be uncomfortable, but certainly noticeable.
“You always make me feel underdressed,” I said with a crooked smile.
“It’s not a competition. I think everyone should wear what they enjoy, what’s comfortable for them.”
“And you find that to be comfortable?” I asked as we sat.
“Of course!” Penny exclaimed. “I wouldn’t wear it otherwise.”
A man in the establishment’s immaculate white uniform appeared and set a paper menu in front of Penny, then myself.
“Thank you for choosing to dine with us today,” he said. “May I select a wine for you?”
I’d only had a few red wines in the past and never liked any of them. I was looking over the list, hoping to find something that sounded tasty with little alcohol, when Penny spoke up.
“We’ll have a bottle of a sparkling white…let’s do the Delores Fuente.”
“An excellent selection,” the man said with a gracious nod. “Would you like an antipasto board?”
“Gregory, why would you ask such a thing? You know I love your antipasto. I’m shocked it’s not here yet.”
For a moment, I thought Penny was upset, but then she winked at the man, and he quirked a smile in response.
“Someday, you’ll change your mind,” Gregory said. “And that day, I’ll be ready.”
“Sure, sure,” Penny waved him away. “Let us girls have a bit of time to get settled.”
“Of course.”
With the waiter gone, Penny turned her attention fully onto me, and I realized her eyes were glowing red along with her outfit.
“Stars, that’s all rather distracting,” I commented.
She held up her hands in mock apology. “You’ll get used to it.”
“Oh?” I picked up the glass of water that was already on the table. “Do you mean tonight, or in the future?”
“Perhaps both,” Penny replied. “But let’s start with tonight. The future will arrive soon enough.”
Gregory arrived a moment later with the wine and appetizer, and Penny went through the ritual of sampling the wine before declaring it to be “Most excellent.”
I had to admit that it wasn’t bad, fruity and light, though my mods told me the alcohol level was much higher than the taste would have led me to believe.
“To new beginnings,” Penny said as she held up her glass.
I responded in kind, and we tapped the rims before taking a drink.
The meal felt like it both raced by and swam by. We talked for hours about dozens of topics, laughing and almost crying more than once as conversations ranged all over the L. I thanked my years of study for keeping me from rarely tripping up, and even impressing her a few times with my knowledge of esoteric topics.
Penny revealed that she’d traveled to every corner of the L. Not just Paragon and Chal, but also each of the four red dwarf stars that traipsed through the edges of the nebula’s dense clouds.
“Do you ever wonder what it’s like outside the L?” I asked at one point. “What has become of humanity?”
The woman in red laughed and shook her head. “Stars, no. You’ve certainly read the histories. You know what the original colonists fled. It was chaos, every system at war with every other system, worlds burning, machine fleets laying waste to entire star systems.”
“Yeah,” I nodded. “There was nothing but war for a thousand light years, but that has to have subsided by now.”
“If it has, it’s because everyone died. Blew themselves back to pre-spaceflight tech. That’s what’s so great about the L. Things in here are practically made to keep us from having all-out war. Everyone knows that the cost is too high, and there’s nowhere to escape to, now that the nebula has grown too active for passage.”
“Do you think it really is?” I asked.
“Pardon?” Penny snorted out the word. “Are you suggesting that ANSWON is lying about the nebula?”
I shrugged. “I’m not suggesting anything, I just don’t know how often people actually try to pass through it. Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad.”
“I do wonder,” Penny mused, the words trailing off as she stared at a point past my head.
“Wonder what?” I prompted.
“Well…what if the governments of Delphi and Paragon know how things are outside and are actively keeping anyone from going out…?”
“Like some big evil fleet would come in and crush us?”
Penny laughed again. “Yeah, crazy, right? I mean, even if there was, at the thinnest point, the nebula is seven light years thick. We’d have over a decade to prepare for an attack…and frankly, there’s nothing in here worth spending a decade of travel worth taking.”
I couldn’t help but agree. The L was rich in resources, but it wasn’t unique in any way. There were thousands of star systems with as much or more mineral wealth, that weren’t cut off from FTL routes.
“Penny for your thoughts,” the other woman asked after I’d remained silent for a minute.
“Ha. You’re a riot.”
“Not many people get the reference.”
“I had a lot of spare time in my youth to study things.” I could see that Penny was going to ask about my early years, and I steered conversation away. “I was just wondering how many places there might be like the L. Places that take too long to get to where people can hide in plain sight.”
“A lot, I bet,” she replied. “Lots of clusters must be inaccessible via FTL, places like the Pleiades and Praesepe.”
“Would suck to be in those,” I shook my head in dismay. “The tidal cores of those clusters are dozens of light years across. It would be like pre-FTL days in there. Sublight to get anywhere.”
Penny raised her glass. “And that is what makes the L so special. We have the best of both worlds. We’re tucked away and safe, and we still have FTL.”
We toasted again, and conversation moved to different topics as another course was served.
Eventually, Penny begged off, citing a need to attend Korinth. I checked the time and saw that we’d spent almost four hours chatting—dancing with words, in most cases.
It had been more than a little enjoyable. It had been an utter delight.
We shared a long kiss under one of the trees in front of the restaurant before parting ways, and I couldn’t help but wonder what life would be like if I could spend the rest of it in the arms of someone like Penny.
I’d never even seriously considered a long-term relat
ionship before, and here I was falling for a mark.
“Fuuuuck,” I whispered as I walked onto the concourse.
I knew that if Jacy found out that I had real feelings for Penny, she’d yank me off Myka Station so fast my head would spin. I’d find myself commanding a company of groundpounders, endlessly training for a war that we all hoped would never come.
I used to think that would be an acceptable future. Now, in the space of just a few days, the very thought of such a destiny felt like a living hell.
An incoming message from Jacy appeared on my HUD, a request to visit a shopping district on a lower deck to provide an update on my meeting with Penny.
I guess she figured out where I got off to. I laughed and then sucked in a steadying breath. “Game face, girl. Don’t screw this up.”
15
SCHEMES AND PLANS
“I’m surprised that Korinth himself isn’t here,” I said to Penny as she sat across from me in a darkened corner of one of the many nondescript bars that were dotted across Myka Station’s merchant ring.
She took a pull of her beer before replying. “You’re a hot ticket right now. Tried to kill Skip on Barras, blew up his brother’s ship, got a visit from one Commander Sinclair on the way in. Best if you and he aren’t seen together right now.”
I chuckled and signaled the bar for a brown ale via the Link before replying to the obvious question tucked into Penny’s words. “Yeah, this was a shit run, but we made it. Not even going to charge you extra for the wear and tear.”
A snort burst from Penny’s nose. “I should hope not. You know Korinth doesn’t work like that. The job is the job.”
“Hey, I’m not fighting it. I was just letting you know that the Kerrigan gets shit done. So, how are we going to do this?”
“I want to see the cargo,” Penny said. “Then we’re going to set up courier runs making deliveries to your ship. The couriers will take the items out as buyers complete their transactions.”
It was the moment of truth. Either I told Penny now that seven of the cores were duds, or I let it ride. Fledge insisted that he’d been discreet. No one would know until they tried to use the data. By then, the DSA would have moved in on everyone, and there would be no one to come after me and my crew.