by Sandra Bard
The gazes directed at him were mostly neutral, openly curious but not outright hostile. At least not from the group he was facing. Not yet.
"Everyone," Green announced loudly, well behind a table. "This is Inspector Hideki Takamura from the International Space Foundation and—"
"You're here to shut us down," said a voice to Hideki's right. Hideki braced himself as he turned to face the voice, ready to offer them his usual spiel, that he hadn't looked at the station to make a proper assessment and that it took time and consideration from the higher ups—
Hideki blinked.
The person who had spoken wore the one piece grey overall and black, magnetized boots that identified pilots the universe over. He was leaning against the edge of a table, hip canted forward in a provocative manner, his dark hair shorn close to the skull the way most spacers' was.
But what got Hideki's attention was the pilot's looks.
He looked impossibly young, though that had to be artificial. His eyes were breathtaking, artificially enhanced blue, older than his face suggested, with long eyelashes and carefully shaped brows. The mouth was perfect, just a little wider than normal, and for Hideki, that mouth fuelled an instant fantasy. Those lips were meant to—
The mouth smirked. "Cat got your tongue, Mister Inspector?"
"There's no need for that, Ty." Green stepped in between the two of them as if to mediate a physical fight. "This is Tyler, our best pilot and the person who has saved Marion singlehandedly several times."
Hideki had read the files, but he couldn't remember the station employing any pilots or owning any fighters. There had been several Tilors and Ty-lors, but none of them matched the physical build of this Tyler. While Hideki knew people could change their physical appearances, it was very rare for them to change height. Even with cosmetic medicine, no one took kindly to chopping off inches from their legs.
Perhaps it was something he'd missed out on. Civilian stations were probably not as anal about recording all their newcomers as military stations were. He needed to go over his files again, but he wondered if the change in management was the cause for the deterioration of the station or if it was the other way around.
Tyler gave Hideki a once over and Hideki's body, no matter how tired, stood up and took notice.
"I bet he's already formed an opinion," Tyler snapped. "He's seen the sorry state we're in. I mean, he must have noticed we don't even have proper gravity, so really, don't bother pretending our station isn't broken." Tyler moved forward a little, and Hideki wondered if increased libido was a side effect of long distance space travel.
Hideki tried to get his thoughts in line. It was rather inconvenient that his hormones were out of control when he was so close to his goal. It wouldn't do to—
"I suppose all the money went into your facelift."
Which was not what Hideki had meant to say. It was unprofessional of him to attack people for their looks, no matter how artificial, and it wasn't as if he had cause to talk about medical expenses.
Tyler flushed at the insult, and Hideki had the pleasure of watching those tempting lips thin in surprise, though he felt a stab of shame at his verbal parry. He wondered what Tyler would look like flushed in pleasure—he was in dangerous territory.
"As if you have cause to speak," Tyler snapped back, pushing himself off the table.
Hideki, painfully aware that the two of them were drawing a lot of attention, tried to keep his composure as Tyler sauntered forward in the way only a spacer used to low gravity could, a smirk gracing his features.
"You don't look like any ISF inspector I've ever seen," Tyler said. "That pretty face of yours is all wrong for you."
"Pretty?" Hideki countered, raising an eyebrow. It was his face, but he'd requested a few quirks his original face hadn't been equipped with during modification, such as the ability to raise a single eyebrow.
Tyler snarled and took another step forward. He wasn't as tall as Hideki had previously imagined, and the swagger brought attention to his bowed legs. Typical pilot.
"I suppose you think you're some hot shot—"
"Ty," Green warned, and the others started to move restlessly, pulling away from tables. "Please, not now."
Hideki took in the tension in the people surrounding him and knew he had to back out of the confrontation. Space station crew were a close bunch; they had to be, since they lived in each other's pockets for a long time. Even if there were differences, spacers didn't like it when an outsider called out one of their own.
Hideki should have known better than to challenge someone without learning the hierarchy of things. He squared his shoulders and walked past Green and Tyler to the food dispenser, relieved to see that it was the standard one he'd seen in many a space station. He punched in a familiar code, hoping it was the same, and took the container that was spat out without confirming the contents. He then walked towards Green, who was having a quiet argument with Tyler.
"I'll have this after I've showered," he told Green, who'd broken off the conversation when he'd seen Hideki approach them. "Can you please show me to my quarters?"
"I'll do that—" Tyler started but Green stepped in firmly.
"This way," he said, cordially but forcefully.
"Thank you," said Hideki, feeling a little disappointed at missing an opportunity to see that perfect face flush.
"Well."
"He came in a Palomino, has a hyperdrive—but not meant for long distance travel. Either the ISF has moved closer or—"
"Don't tell me he came all the way in a single pilot spacecraft."
"He couldn't have survived such a flight."
"You tell me."
"I am you."
THEN
Kaishi became conscious in stages.
The annoying beeping sound in the background was followed by soft dripping noises, the swish of doors swinging open, and the tapping of hard heels against the tiled floor. He wasn't on a comfortable bed; he was actually floating. He became aware of the tubes through his mouth and his nose, the tightness of the goggles over his eyes.
He opened his eyes slowly and was rewarded by the sight of his mother, standing over his healing gel chamber, her face devoid of expression. She looked like an angel, impossibly young, impossibly beautiful, dark eyes hooded, focused on a distant point over his head. He wondered how long she had been standing there, watching over him. From experience, he knew better than to try and speak, but he tried to move his head to indicate to her that he was awake.
It was harder than he'd imagined, but he must have succeeded in doing something since her eyes flicked down and her expression changed from blankness to—horror. Then the expression was gone in an instant, so swiftly he wondered if he'd imagined it. She leaned over his glass cage and smiled at him, as loving as ever. 'Kaishi knew his mother had changed a lot since his father's death; she'd transformed from a loving mother and devoted wife into the iron fist that ruled over the entire Luna base, but just then, she seemed as loving as ever.
She keyed in the mike and spoke into it.
"Kai, don't try to talk, I know you can hear me." She turned around and signaled to someone, probably a medical staff member, to leave the room.
"Who knew commercial shuttles were so dangerous?" she said with a faint smile. "You know those things are unreliable. But you are alive, that's all that matters. I want you to just concentrate on getting better. Mark—he goes by Dr. Stevenson these days—is the best in his field and he'll have you back on your feet in no time. "
Kaishi felt reassured. His mother would have Dr. Stevenson's balls if he failed.
It was only after his mother had left that he started to wonder who exactly Dr. Stevenson was. What field he was the best in—nerve regeneration? And how badly hurt was Kaishi to require this level of medical attention? He couldn't feel his body, which was normal for healing gel suspension, but something felt off. This was not his first time in the gel tank.
When Kaishi was seventeen, he'd gone spe
ed biking with his friends. He'd lost control, flipped over a guard rail and did considerable damage to his body, including his spine—so much so he'd earned a week in the healing gel. His mother had been furious, had suspended his allowance for a month and had barred him from accessing the Gaming-net for a much longer time.
Then she'd been angry, but now, she'd been … pretending to be angry.
Kaishi waited in suspension, drifting in and out of consciousness, bored and feeling tired. Unlike last time, no one had come to offer him an audio novel or a vid-film, which was puzzling. It was standard hospital procedure to offer the patient something to occupy themselves with.
The gel chamber was transparent, with medical instruments streaming in from the top, and was designed to have no reflection. But Kai had learned the art of looking at himself from his last stay in the gel chamber. He had to turn his head just right, which was difficult since there seemed to be something dragging at him from behind, but having done that, he just had to wait for something or someone to move across his line of vision.
He was the only occupant in the room, as far as he could see. It was, however, constantly patrolled by humans in white scrubs, who he assumed were medical personnel. They never looked at him directly, but one person—a woman —had stopped to read something off his medi-screen and had transferred some data to her wrist unit.
The lights had been bright throughout the 'day', but at 'night' they turned down the lights and Kaishi braced himself as a cleaning droid rolled past. He waited until its matte grey body was aligned with his body and looked. At first he couldn't see anything—would have imagined he was looking at another gel unit since the reflection showed an empty chamber. Then, as the cleaning droid rolled up, he finally caught a glimpse of himself.
It was a nightmare. If his mouth hadn't been filled with tubes, he'd have screamed in horror at what had become of him.
NOW
Hideki looked at the screen in front of him and sighed. Though the glare was reduced to almost nothing, his head pounded and his eyes smarted, an indication that he'd being reading too much. But there were endless documents to go through and he needed to be up to date before he started his physical inspection of the station.
There were things missing in the hard notes, and he needed to cross-reference them with his own documents before he could figure out what was not adding up. He also needed access to personal records. The current records for Marion just didn't tally with the old ones from head office, something he had been expecting. But he still needed to double check and figure out who the odd man—or men—were.
Hideki had started off by going over the history of Marion. Each sector of space was divided and given a reference number by the initial surveyors. There were no borders in space, but humans felt comfortable with the idea. The usual spiel about surveys was that they ensured there was no alien life and made sure the actual surrounding space was safe for the next wave—the prospectors. But everyone knew it was to safeguard anything precious, such as rare metal and minerals, from the second wave and for governments to book the best piece of space all for themselves.
After the surveyors came the prospectors, the frontier explorers, those who were brave enough to want a slice of the universe as their own. Deals had to be made and invisible boundaries had to be settled before someone could own a piece of space.
Most of the time, the buyers were a world government with enough money and people to spare, but once in a while it was a very rich businessperson with the need to rule something larger than an Earth-side empire. There was a third type, people like Cheng Wang Tan, Danielle Ackryl and Dominic Trox, friends who pooled together their savings to pursue a dream. They had bought a piece of the universe for themselves and started to build a space colony, or a space station to start off with, where they could live the rest of their lives. This meant they were independent of the world government, monitored only by the ISF. The downside to it was that they were also financially independent … with nowhere to turn if things went bad.
The trio had hired the necessary workmen from Space Builders International and had started work on their new home in a part of space called the Sherwood Forest, named after the oddly shaped asteroids floating around, a leftover from a dead star explosion in the system. Their space station was registered as Grand Adventure—the adventure of a lifetime for them.
There was another station being built next to them, also by a private investor, as a tourist resort—relatively close, visible through high powered scans, perhaps a two day trip away by light cruiser. Though it was not officially named, the workmen referred to the tourist resort as Robin. Grand Adventure, next in line, had been dubbed Marion, after Robin's lady love.
There had been a series of space stations planned through that sector of space, but the economic crisis plus the prospectors announcing a lack of mineable material had meant everyone had lost interest. Robin Hood had been towed away before construction was completed and Grand Adventure, now Marion, had been left alone.
It had become a halfway station, a place where ships could dock to get repairs done before the next leg of their journey. Hovering on the edge of the empty space where the planetary systems were further apart than usual, Marion provided a vital link in the exploration of unknown space.
Until the invention of 'super-hyperdrives', engines that could travel further, faster and cheaper.
Still, Marion wasn't clientless—there had to be enough customers bringing in trade to keep a station running. She was in a system with hospitable planets and a blue dwarf sun at a distance, all further away than Earth was from the Sun, but close enough to harvest the solar energy. She got her water from ice asteroids. The planetary systems nearby were inhabited, at least according to Hideki's documents, and five out of the six planets concentrated on farming. He supposed two of those planets were now called Orange and Way of the Will. The sixth planet was a woodland park reservation for some exotic flowers, but Hideki lost interest in that quickly when he realized the flora and fauna on that planet were lethal to humans.
Which left him with the asteroid cluster in between the planets and Marion.
Hideki rolled off the bed and got to his feet, waiting for the bed to fold itself into the wall space. It had been a boring read, and after almost twelve hours of resting while waiting for his meeting with Manager Tan, his body had recovered enough for him to want to move around. He slipped his feet into his boots and waited for the form to comfortably flow around his toes before opening his room door.
He looked at his possessions strewn about in distinctly non-spacer fashion and sighed. He knew from experience leaving data cubes and half-eaten food containers on the side stand was dangerous. Anything not fixed down would float away if the gravitational generators lost power and liquids and zero g just didn't mix. He probably should have stored away his spare change of clothes in a sealed drawer instead leaving them draped over the flexi-chair provided, but he didn't want to get too comfortable in his room. . He'd been assigned a room of his own, which was useful, but he wasn't sure if it was good thing. Maybe he was being monitored, but that was to be expected. If they'd been watching him, all they would have seen would have been him sleeping, showering, sending his clothes down the laundry chute and reading documents about the history of the station. Nothing interesting, nothing out of the ordinary.
He hadn't walked two feet when he ran into the pilot from the dining hall, Tyler, dressed in his flight uniform, looking very pleased with himself. At least now Hideki had confirmation he was under observation. Again, Hideki was struck by just how good looking he was, how he made bowlegs in a tight suit seem like a sexual invitation. He wished he'd worn the emergency depressurization suit before leaving the room; the tight fit would have made surprise erections impossible.
"You sure do need a lot of sleep," Tyler told him, handing over a few things. "Sure you were alone in there?"
Hideki frowned as he took the emergency helmet, which was in its default folded state, a sim
ple ring that could be snapped around the neck. It was usually programmed to activate a force field around the head of the wearer if needed. It was only good for a short amount of time, and not always one hundred percent foolproof when opened into the vacuum of space, but it was better than nothing and much easier to carry around than a full helmet.
"Why?" He gestured towards the emergency helmet.
"For a man on a mission, you spent far too much time in your room. You must have at least jerked off in there; enough to work that stick out of your ass?" Tyler leered, clearly misunderstanding the question on purpose.
"If I weren't allergic to stupid, I'd have invited you."
"Too bad I don't fuck with ISF drones."
"Why the helmet?" Hideki asked again, not willing to settle for a childish taunting competition, no matter how tempting.
"We all have one of those. It has everything in it from a tracker to keep us informed of your position to a small chip that'll allow you to access all the terminals."
"Thank you," Hideki grunted as he snapped it on, noting that Tyler was also wearing one. He wished he'd had the foresight to bring his own emergency helmet. The tracker probably provided a way for everyone on Marion to monitor him to make sure he didn't wander too far out and the chip most likely limited his access to the terminals. Every space station had a secret, no matter how trivial.
"So," said Tyler. "When are you leaving?"
"What happened to Mason Green?"
"He's experiencing a door malfunction."
"I'm not leaving, at least not until I've seen what I need to see."
"Vincent made a mistake when he spoke to the ISF," Tyler said. "The station was experiencing a bit of bad space dust, but now we're fine. We don't need the interference of some pretend philanthropic foundation that's out to make money from other people's tragedies."