by M. D. Cooper
If she was careful, it wouldn’t throw up any flags.
Katrina used the connection to access the tap she had placed inside Juasa, and found that the woman was in one of the ship’s maintenance bays, reviewing the Havermere’s stock of graviton emitters.
Juasa’s heart rate was elevated, and she had been crying recently.
It felt dirty to spy on Juasa like this. Katrina had hoped that she wouldn’t have to use the tap she had placed within the crew chief, but having the woman on her side was more important than anything else right now.
With a few commands, Katrina established a bridge between her personal Link and the desk. Provided that she didn’t overuse the bandwidth, it shouldn’t raise any suspicions. It would, however, allow her to tap into Juasa—and Captain Ferris, should she need to—whenever she wished.
It took twenty minutes to reach the maintenance bay where Juasa was working. Along the way, Katrina queried a few of the ship’s crew as to Juasa’s location so that it wouldn’t appear as though she just magically knew where to go.
Once she arrived, Katrina stood at the entrance to the bay for some time, watching Juasa as she pulled down a crate and opened it. She reached in and began rummaging through the contents, pulling a few disparate components out and placing them on a nearby bench.
It wasn’t true; she didn’t like it. But what Katrina had to say and what she wanted to say, were not the same thing.
Juasa spun, her expression one of surprise—but that was fleeting. It only took a moment for anger to darken her features, and then she turned her back to Katrina once more.
Juasa’s mental tone was clipped, and she slammed the crate’s lid closed for emphasis.
Katrina stepped inside the maintenance bay and closed the door. Then she tapped the feeds and altered them to make it appear as though the door was still open, supplanting the images and audio with a script she had prepared of she and Juasa discussing the repairs to the Voyager.
“You knew this would happen,” Katrina said softly as she approached Juasa. “Stars, you proposed it.”
Juasa’s shoulders slumped and she turned to Katrina with her brow raised high. “I proposed that you sleep with Ferris, yes. I didn’t expect you to do it the first night—and I really didn’t expect how much it would hurt to see his hands all over you.”
Katrina nodded. “I had to allow it…to do it. It became apparent that if I didn’t give him what he wanted—his conquest—then I ran the risk of earning his animosity.”
“You’re very calculating,” Juasa said, her expression revealing none of her thoughts. “I hadn’t realized how much ‘til last night. It kept me up, and got me thinking.”
“Oh?” Katrina asked as she walked closer and leaned on one of the crates. “About what?”
“For starters, your ‘pinnace’, as you call it.”
Katrina braced herself, this was the weakest part of her plan. She had hoped to fully win Juasa over before the crew chief put two and two together.
“What about my pinnace?”
“It’s brand new. Well, sort of. The tests I ran showed that the hull is only a few decades old…give or take a bit, depending on what it’s been exposed to. But it’s easy to tell from the drives that your flight into Tsarina was the skiff’s maiden voyage. I mean…you could have replaced them, but I’ve been inside that skiff, it’s pristine.”
Katrina shrugged. “I’ve never had the need to use it before.”
“And what about the previous owners? Your ship, the Voyager, it’s an old model. Centuries. There’s no way that craft sat unused for that long—and it’s another thing that doesn’t match.”
“What are you suggesting?” Katrina asked, her tone measured, revealing nothing.
“I assume you’ve secured this room somehow,” Juasa said, glancing over Katrina’s shoulder at the closed door. “You wouldn’t be talking aloud if you hadn’t.”
Katrina nodded. “We should be in private right now, yes.”
“Then I’ll lay it out, plain and simple; you’re a Streamer,” Juasa said, her eyes narrow and her tone accusing. “I don’t know why it took me so long to guess. I suppose it’s how well you blended in at the bar. If I hadn’t known better, I could almost have taken you for a local.”
Katrina looked long into Juasa’s unblinking eyes and knew there would be no way to dissuade the woman from her conviction. Especially since she was right.
Now it was time to turn her back into an ally.
“You’re right, I am,” Katrina replied, losing the haughty tone she had affected since arriving at Tsarina. “I came out of the Streamer a few days ago.”
Juasa’s eyes grew wide. “I knew it!” she whispered loudly, spreading her arms wide. “I knew there was no away a pinnace like yours would never have had a-grav. But why did you lie about—never mind, stupid question.”
Katrina took another step toward Juasa, who in turn took one back, bumping into a crate and stopping.
“I don’t want to cause you any harm, Juasa. My only goal was to upgrade my ship with FTL and get the hell out of here.”
Juasa’s eyes narrowed. “Was?”
Katrina looked down at her hands, sheathed in blue, gleaming and flashing. She folded them and clenched her fingers. “Well,” she said, looking back up at Juasa as she spoke. “I still do want FTL—and to get out of Bollam’s. This really isn’t my kind of place.”
“So what’s changed?” Juasa asked.
“In a word? You.”
Juasa’s face softened and she took a step forward. “You can’t be serious, Verisa, we only just met.”
Though Juasa’s words dismissed the notion of Katrina wanting to be with her, the woman’s eyes said something else entirely.
“I feel the same way you do,” Katrina said. She took another step toward Juasa and extended her hand. “Is it rational? No. You work for a company that will seize my ship and sell me as a slave—or maybe worse—if they learn I’m a Streamer.”
“I know! What were you thinking?” Juasa said as she took Katrina’s hand. “My teams are going to figure it out! When the Captain…”
Juasa’s eyes widened and she stepped back once more, pulling her hand from Katrina’s
“You knew all along. You didn’t need my suggestion to seduce and control him, it was your plan from the start. If you were so calculating with him, what part of your scheme do I fit into?”
“None whatsoever—well sorta.”
Juasa’s lips tightened into a thin line. “Sorta?”
Katrina sighed. “I knew I’d have to sway the workers in some fashion. I figured I’d go through the captain for that. I didn’t plan on meeting you—you sought me out, remember?”
“For a ride!” Juasa retorted. “Took a good bit to work up the courage to approach you, too. All aloof in your expensive clothes.”
“This isn’t me,” Katrina said and gestured at her body, perfectly outlined in the azure skinsheath. “This is someone who will impress KiStar and Captain Ferris. My only plan was to seduce him, and then offer him a stasis pod to keep his mouth shut. It would be enough to get him a leg up.”
“You’re going to have to offer a lot more than that. You may get Ferris on your side, but I don’t think you have enough time to get Anna between the sheets as well.”
Katrina nodded. “Anna wouldn’t require that treatment. I could get her with the pods, no sexual favors required.”
“Is that what you do?” Juasa asked sharply. “Just fuck whoever you need to get whatever you want?”
“Oh, you have no idea…” Katrina’s voice drifted off. “I used to, a long, long time ago. I was a spy for my government, but I changed sides when I met a man that captured both my heart and my mind. He was the strongest, b
ravest man I ever met. I spent a century with him.”
“Why did you leave him?” Juasa asked, her tone sharp, but her expression immediately apologetic for sounding so harsh.
Katrina could tell that Juasa was wavering. She still didn’t trust the story being related, but she wanted to. Lucky for Katrina, the truth was all Juasa would need to hear to understand—she hoped. Then she could stop lying to this woman who strangely meant so much to her.
“I didn’t,” Katrina said. “He left me—died of old age, the stubborn old fool.”
“Really?” Juasa asked. “He must have been robbing the cradle. You don’t look old at all, I mean, there are some wrinkles in the corners of your eyes, but those look sex—” Juasa stopped herself before continuing. “How old was he when he died?”
Katrina laughed and ignored the question. “Sexy, you say? Thank you. I was trying not make too drastic a change during my last rejuv.”
“Yeah, well, I liked the older aristocratic thing you had going on. Now I wonder how affected it was.”
“Maybe I should start from the beginning.”
“I think that would be a great thing to do.”
Katrina took a deep breath. “I was born with the name Katrina in 4122, on Incandus, capital world of the Sirius System. I grew up in the house of a government CEO, and eventually joined the Luminescent Society’s spy organization that kept an eye on the Noctilucent workers around Sirius.”
“Fucking stars in the black, you’re an ancient,” Juasa whispered.
Katrina laughed. “Not quite that old; I’m not yet two-hundred in biological years.”
Juasa shook her head and looked around the bay, her expression growing worried. “I mean you’re from the time of the ancients, at the height of civilization, the golden age of humanity,” Juasa’s voice dropped to a whisper as she spoke. “If anyone learns of this, you’re screwed. We’re both screwed!”
Katrina reached out and put a hand on Juasa’s arm. “Remember, I have the room secured. Our activities and conversations in here are being faked and fed into the ship’s monitoring logs. We’re safe.”
Juasa nodded, and a look of curiosity came over her. “So, Ver— uh, Katrina, how did you end up in the Streamer?”
“I hit it not long after leaving Kapteyn’s Star,” Katrina replied. “I was searching for some friends, who I now believe also fell prey to the Streamer.”
“Kapteyn’s…” Juasa said and tilted her head, looking off as she accessed the Link. “Katrina, if you were at Kapteyn’s… noooooooo.”
Juasa’s eyes met Katrina’s, wide with amazement.
“Holy shit, you don’t look quite like her, but there was a Katrina who was governor of Kapteyn’s; the wife of the first leader, Markus.”
“That was me,” Katrina replied.
“You…you were the president of a star system? What are you doing here? Are you alone?”
“Yes, I was the president for a time, and I’m here searching for some friends, remember? Lastly, yes, I came alone, well, sort of.”
“Sort of?”
“There’s an AI with me—on the Voyager.”
Juasa whistled. “This is a lot to take in— Wait. You knew that I would figure this out, didn’t you?”
Katrina nodded. “I did. I mean, anyone would have the moment they realized that I didn’t have broken a-grav systems. I have no a-grav systems.”
Juasa’s hands perched on her hips and her brow lowered. “So if you were going to trade pods for the repairs, and buy off the captain with pods, what did you think my price would be?”
“After I met you, after what we got up to on my pinnace…I was hoping maybe nothing.”
“Nothing?” Juasa asked, her tone growing acidic. “Am I that much of a cheap date? One round—albeit a really good one—between the sheets, and I’m bought and paid for?”
Katrina shook her head, and reached for Juasa’s hand once more, clasping it between hers. Juasa’s expression didn’t soften, but she didn’t pull her hand back, either.
“No, Juasa, I was going to ask you to come with me.”
The words hung between them. This was it, the moment where Katrina gained an ally or made an enemy—or at least someone else that she had to buy off.
Juasa’s eyes narrowed. “How do I know that you’re not just playing me? You seem to be an adept.”
Katrina lowered her eyes. “Juasa, I have hundreds of stasis pods. I have other tech that would make you a queen here—from what I can see of modern tech, at least. Do you want it? It’s yours.”
She looked up and met Juasa’s eyes. She could see that the woman was considering what life could be like with whatever ungodly amounts of credit such technology would earn her.
Katrina hoped Juasa wouldn’t take that offer.
“Until a day ago,” Katrina continued, “I had one goal in life: to find my friends. But yesterday…after so long since Markus…. Let’s just say that I wouldn’t mind adding you to my list of things to live for. Stars, that’s so corny—if you think that I’m saying this to win you over with my spycraft, you’re wrong. There are a hundred better options than to make an impassioned plea for you to run away with me.”
Juasa stretched out her other hand and wrapped it around Katrina’s. “I don’t think it’s corny at all. Though I’ll admit that I, too, feel silly for falling head over heels for someone so quickly. What does that make the two of us?”
Katrina laughed as she stepped in and lowered her lips to Juasa’s. “I think it makes us lucky.”
Juasa’s arms encircled Katrina and slid down her back, while Katrina reached up and pulled the smaller woman into her, sliding her fingers into Juasa’s hair, gripping it tightly.
“Oh, stars, how do you do this to me?” Juasa asked as she pulled her lips far enough from Katrina’s to speak. “I want to kiss you everywhere right now, but we can’t. Eventually someone will come in here—plus we’ll have to leave and not look like we….”
“You’re right,” Katrina said and pulled her hand from Juasa’s hair, smoothing it carefully. She did not, however, remove her other arm, nor did Juasa unwrap hers.
“Am I enough? Enough of a trade?”
Juasa snorted. “Do you have any idea how much I hate this star system? You could have told me back at the bar that you wanted a fuck buddy for long interstellar flights, and I would have bailed on KiStar in a heartbeat—not that that’s all I want out of this.”
“Me either,” Katrina replied. “I was fully prepared to spend the rest of my life without taking another lover…just to search for my friends and settle down with them.”
“Wait…” Juasa looked into Katrina’s eyes, though they were unfocused as she searched over the Link. “These friends… they’re not…. No! They must be! You’re looking for the Intrepid!”
“You know about it?” Katrina asked, her voice rising in pitch. “Has anyone seen it?”
Juasa shook her head, her lips parted with wonder. “You were governor when the Intrepid was at Kapteyn’s, it’s in the history records—you set foot on that ship. You saw their picotech!”
“That cat’s out of the bag then, is it?” Katrina asked. “Was probably too much to hope that the picotech would stay a secret forever.”
Juasa drew her hands up Katrina’s back and rested them on her shoulders. “Katrina. The Intrepid is the most sought after prize of any system along the Streamer. Everyone knows that if they find the Intrepid, they’ll be set for life.”
“Ha! They think that they could just seize the Intrepid?” Katrina asked with a laugh. “Now that is something I’d like to see.”
Juasa frowned. “Why’s that? I thought they were your friends.”
“Oh, they are,” Katrina answered with a chuckle. “I just pity whoever tries to take that ship. Tanis will not go down without a fight.”
“Tanis…”
“She’s the XO on the Intrepid, and the commander of its fleets. More importantly, she’s the one with the guts to use p
icotech when she must.”
“Then it is real,” Juasa breathed. “The ship really does have picotech. Do you?”
Katrina shook her head. “No, and I’m glad I don’t. I don’t want to have that kind of power.”
Neither woman spoke for a minute and then Juasa laughed. “I can’t believe this. I meet an ancient at some bar and beg a ride from her. Turns out that she’s from the place and time with the most coveted technology in the galaxy, and she’s on a quest to find the ship that possesses it. It’s like I’m in some sort of fantasy story.”
“Well, it’ll be a horror story if we don’t figure out how to get the Voyager upgraded and get the heck out of here,” Katrina replied. “I hope you have an idea about how we can upgrade the ship without tipping off that it’s a Streamer vessel.”
“I have a plan,” Juasa replied. “But it’s going to take Carl’s help.”
* * * * *
Carl looked at the pair of women, raised an eyebrow in disbelief, and then began to laugh.
Katrina looked at Juasa and the crew chief sighed.
“Carl, it’s not a joke. Look at Katrina. Does she seem like the sort of person who flies around space pranking people?”
Carl’s laughter only increased and before long he was gasping for breath—trying to speak, but failing miserably.
“I think we’ll have to let him get it out of his system,” Katrina said.
Eventually Carl’s laughter died down, and he straightened up and placed his hands on his hips, looking back and forth between Juasa and Katrina.
“OK…I just want to make sure I get this straight,” he began, and another laugh escaped his throat before he quelled it. “You, Verisa; your name is actually Katrina, and you’re an ancient in search of the Intrepid. Your ship doesn’t have FTL, so your plan was to get a repair ship out into the black to install grav emitters, and hope you could somehow swindle everyone not to just take your ship and sell you off?”