by Frank Carey
"But the brain scan confirms..."
"Please. I know your kind can read my kind, so please, take a look, and let me know. Please."
With a small smile and a slight nod, she took his hands in hers and looked him in eye as her eyes went jet black. She sat like that while tilting her head, first to the left, then to the right. Finally, her eyes returned to normal as she gently released his hands. "You are the only one in there. Atmar was destroyed by MSgt. Royce Aymar while the doctors tended to you.
"Royce Aymar. Does he know who I am?"
"Not that I know of. Why?"
"It's a family thing and it’s best he thinks I’m dead or gone or missing in action."
"Mr. Aymar..."
"Harmon. Just plain, old, Harmon."
"OK, Harmon, we’ll keep your survival on the down-low. Do you need a job?"
Harmon thought for a moment. "Doing what?"
"Being a smuggler for OffSec. You'd work under my command. I need someone who knows his way around that world, and I hear that at one time, you were one of the top movers of illicit merch."
"You know the lingo! In that case, the answer is yes," he said with a smile. "Thank you. Your offer is very generous."
"You haven't heard it yet." She sounded confused.
"It doesn't matter. Do I need to be checked out?"
"No. The medical AIs checked you while you slept. You are free to go."
"Is there someplace where I can get some clothes?" he asked while tugging the front of his scrubs.
"Already taken care of," she said, nodding to a pile of clothes on a nearby chair. There was a knock at the door. "Come in," she said.
The door opened, followed by a tall, blond elf, only she wasn't an elf. She was a synth made to look like an elf from fantasy. He looked closer and realized he recognized her. She saw this and gave her head the slightest of shakes.
"Harmon Aymar, this is Gloria. Gloria, this is our newest employee, Harmon Aymar..."
"Smuggler and thief," he said as he stood up and kissed the back of her hand. "Enchanté, beautiful huntress."
"Wow, you recover fast. I think I'll leave you to it while I fill out the paperwork. Gloria, could you bring him around to my office after giving him a tour of the facility?"
"Of course, Director," Gloria said with a smile.
"Nice to meet you, Harmon. I look forward to working with you."
"The same, Director. Thank you for the opportunity."
Once Ciara was gone, Harm turned to Gloria and asked, "What the hell are you doing running around in a synth elf? Have you lost your mind?"
"Me? What the hell are you doing here in a post-recovery room?"
He explained what little he knew about what happened after the Spindrift. Snorting, Gloria walked over and typed commands into the room's terminal. She gasped, put her hand to her mouth, and backed away from the terminal before turning to Harmon and hugging him, hard.
"At least no living being was killed while I was a guest of Special Projects
"No, no one unless you include that Atmar creature. Harmon, I don't know what to say. Royce, Tannith, Marta, they all treated you like shit."
"They didn't know and I had no way to tell them. Look, they can't know I'm still alive. Just let them think I died aboard the Spindrift while playing Atmar."
"Why, in God's name?"
"I can't ever take the chance that I would hurt them again. Please, just let this one go."
Gloria sat down on the bed next to him. In an attempt at changing the subject, Gloria asked, "How are you handling the withdrawal symptoms from not linking with Tannith? I thought I was going to kill someone the first week I was away from Royce."
Harmon looked at Gloria and grimaced. "Tannith and I aren't related. I'm not her twin and have never linked with her. I don't remember ever linking with anyone. I have never been told I even have a twin."
Horror crept across Gloria's synthetic face. "I'm so sorry, I... We..."
"So, did you get a chance to talk to your brother?"
"Royce was here? In the Cube?"
"Wait, isn’t he in the report? He was the one who destroyed the nanorobot swarm.”
“No, the shooter isn’t identified by name.”
“Well, according to the medics, old Royce stormed in and flambéed that thing with one shot. By the way, where the hell is your body, why the synth, and why are you avoiding your identical twin brother?"
She looked around to make sure they were alone. "My body is in a ship down in the maximum security hold. I'm out of it to alleviate the withdrawal symptoms from being separated from Royce."
"What about Royce? Won't he have symptoms?"
"Only one member of the pair, the prime, has withdrawals, and I’m the prime."
"Not to pry, but why don't you two patch things up?"
"I don't want to talk about it," she said.
"He’s your brother. I know what loneliness can do to our kind, so I suggest you rethink that decision. This exile thing really sucks."
They looked at each other. "I will rethink it, I promise. Now, get dressed and make yourself look presentable. You have a life to get on with."
Chapter Seven
The big rock orbited a non-descript star in a mostly unexplored section of the League. Around it, and in it, commerce both legal and illicit flourished in the darkness of space.
A now-defunct mining company had hollowed-out the asteroid decades ago. A few years later, some enterprising souls had found it and added all the comforts of home—air, water, waste disposal, airlocks, and landing bays—in the hopes of turning it into a hotel. Unfortunately, there were no amenities or attractions within light-years which could attract paying customers, so the hotel went bust and the enterprising souls went broke.
Such is life.
Then a funny thing happened. Capt. Norta, a master smuggler out of Altura, stumbled upon the asteroid while evading a League patrol craft intent on executing several outstanding warrants for crimes of smuggling, tax evasion, and grand larceny, all of which were mistakes or misunderstandings, at least to Norta. With the cops closing in on her, she ducked behind this large rock and found herself parked in front of a large, cozy, open landing bay door. As she sat there in the darkened bay, she had an idea. Wouldn't it be nice if me and my associates had a place to hold up? A place off the space lanes were we could conduct business unseen by prying League eyes. And so the Smuggler's Cove was born.
Harmon Aymar, elf and captain of the freighter Conquistador, walked down the long corridor on his way to a meeting with a potential client. Its seems a Tralaskan chef who needed some rather illegal ingredients for a dinner service she was hosting, was looking for someone who could both obtain said ingredients and deliver them to Tralaska, no questions asked. Harm only hoped the ingredients weren't sapient.
"Harm!"
Harm turned and saw the head of communications running up. "Toby! Hey, I was going to stop by later," the elf said as he reached into a pocket of his duster and pulled out a small, gift wrapped box and handed it to the human communications director. "One dozen orthorhombic control crystals. These babies will allow you to triple your monitoring capacity."
A smuggling station like the Cove needed as much monitoring capability as it could get its hands on since the League was always sending out search patrols.
"Dude, thanks. What do I owe you?"
"You're a friend and this is my home. This one is on the house."
A tear appeared in Toby's eye.
First rule of smuggling: Make friends.
"Hey, we're getting comm traffic you might be interested in," Toby said as he took Harm's arm and led him to the radio shack.
"What kind of traffic?" Harm asked.
"Distress signal from Maranta Five. A shuttle is down, and its mother ship isn't responding."
Harm's blood turned to ice. It had started. "Any names?"
"Yeah, they transmitted a complete roster of the shuttle's passengers and crew," Toby replied whi
le handing Harm a clipboard. "That's why I called you. The woman sending the message is Tannith Aymar and one of the passengers is Aerith Aymar. I figured they might be your relatives."
Dammit, Harm thought as he handed back the clipboard. "Toby, is Clystra on station?"
Toby typed a command into a terminal. "Yep, she's in her quarters."
"OK, call her and have her kick her friend out. I've got a job for her and I'm heading over there. Can you call Bay Eight and have them prep Conquistador for immediate launch."
"Sure. Hey, what's wrong?"
Harm looked at his friend and wondered, how do you tell someone goodbye? "Nothing. Nothing at all," he said as he ran out of the shack.
###
Harm steeled himself before pressing signal button. Instantly, the door opened and a half-naked Clystra grabbed him by the collar and dragged him into the room. Inside the room, Harm found a newb pilot hurriedly getting dressed. "Out!" he said while hooking a thumb—and his tail—at the door. The pilot finished getting dressed before running out of the room.
"Be nice! He was cute!" Clystra said as she finished putting on her robe. "What the hell is so damn important?"
"I've got a client waiting in the bar. She's got a marshmallow job, and she's willing to pay dearly for it. Here are the details," he said as he handed her a contract. Yes, smugglers used contracts when dealing with civvies.
"Why aren't you taking it?" she asked as she poured herself a stiff one.
“My daughter’s in trouble and my ex-wife is in the middle of it. I can’t just stand by and watch from the sidelines.”
“Isn’t your ex a Marine?”
“Now that you mention it, why yes she is. Her commanding officer is my cousin.”
“They wear armor, don’t they?”
“Yes, yes they do.”
“And you don’t even carry a weapon.”
“I have a pocket knife with a nail file.”
“Right. A nail file. What aren’t you telling me, elf?”
“Nothing, Clystra. I just have to go, OK?
"You are going to come back, understand me? You're the best damn operative OffSec ever fielded, and I'm not going to train a new one to replace you, got it?"
"Yes, ma’am. I love you too," he said as he walked out of the room. Seconds later, there was another knock on the door. Clystra opened it and found the young pilot standing there, a bouquet of flowers in one hand and a fistful of cash in the other. "He said I was to take you to a nice dinner and a movie."
"How the hell does he do that?" she asked with tears in her eyes. She dragged the pilot inside and slammed the door behind her.
###
Harm made a quick detour on his way to the Conquistador. Squirreled away throughout the Cove were small storerooms which were rented out by the freighter captains. Inside this one was a large pallet holding a tall stack of crates. Harm walked over to the crate and typed a series of commands into a terminal attached to the pallet. Moments later, a robotic handler carried-off the pallet which would be quickly delivered to the Conquistador and loaded into the freighter's aft cargo hold.
After stopping at his quarters, Harm made his way to Bay Eight where he found a large crowd of people waiting for him. They watched him in silence as he made his way to the Conquistador's ramp. He watched as the robohandler left the aft bay having delivered its load. A cargo handler sealed the ramp before giving Harm the thumbs up, a signal that the Conquistador was ready to go.
Harm looked around and saw people he had worked with for years. Good and honest people despite the illegal work they did. Though they would never know it, he had worked hard these last ten years to protect them. He was honored to have been given the chance.
He reached up and tipped his nonexistent hat, a sign of respect leftover from the days of sail and sea. As one, they returned the salute while he walked into his ship and sealed the hatch behind him.
###
Once into other-space, Harm called his ex-handler, Cube Director Ciara Devlin to give her a status report.
"Go for Devlin," she said as an image of a raven-haired human woman formed on the screen.
"Good morning, Ciara. It's Harmon. Love the hair," he said.
"Harmon! Not even a year into retirement and you're looking for work?"
"Not quite. Listen, there's a rescue team being sent to Maranta Five, and I need to be a part of it."
"How the hell... Wait a minute," she said as the screen changed to a spinning Cube logo accompanied by some real bad music. "Sorry about that. OK, here it is." She read a bit then looked sharply at Harm. "Your daughter?"
"And sister."
"Sorry. Septar is responding along with Elf Marine Expeditionary Force Team One. Harm, your ex-wife is the executive officer of Team One. Are you sure you want to do this?"
"I have to do this. There is no option."
"What aren't you telling me?"
"Everything. Look, I know I retired, but I need to be there, so I'm willing to offer you this," he said as he held up a flash drive, “and I’ll even come back to work for you, assuming I survive.”
"What is it?" she asked as she peered at the drive.
He plugged it into a secure port on the communications console. "Access codes and design specs for the computer systems belonging to several big crime families. Each system has a back door which could be used for covert surveillance.
"Shit! Where did you get those?"
"I designed them on weekends when I was bored."
"You know, they'll kill you if they find out it was you who gave us the info?"
"Yeah, it doesn't matter. I have to save my kid and sister."
Ciara looked at the data scrolling across her screen and gave a low whistle. "Wow. OK, you have permission to join the rescue mission. Septar is at Albion Station. Liz just got the information, so I'm assuming she'll find Team One and get the show rolling. Just have her call me when you get there. And Harm."
"Yes, Ciara."
"Be careful. Cube out."
Harm closed the connection, hoping that Ciara could someday forgive him for not telling her the truth. She had a lot of stuff on her plate, being Cube director and all, and he didn't want to add to it. This was something he had to do alone. He grabbed a comic book from the pile between the pilot and copilot seats and opened it to the first page. He would be at Albion in less than an hour.
Chapter Eight
Space Station Albion hung in orbit around a planetoid at the edge of League space, near the entrance to the New Frontier. Here, hundreds of ships passed on their way to explore, and hopefully exploit, the riches rumored to lie beyond the station.
Albion was the latest of the frontier stations servicing the expansion of the League. Designed to cater to explorers and developers, Albion carried fuel, provisions, spare parts, and repair facilities second to none. It also housed the Offices of Starguard, the League's premier space search and rescue service.
The Starguard control center is manned twenty-four hours a day, every day. It monitors every official emergency channel as well as all other channels. No problem was too big or too small for Starguard to respond to.
Operator Clanth sat at its console and read the morning news feed while the computers sorted through thousands of transmissions, searching for cries for help from the vastness of space. One hour into his shift, the system found just such a call and sent an alert to Clanth's console.
"Mayday, Mayday, Mayday. This is Instructor Tannith Aymar of the League Research Vessel Tung'We in orbit around planet Maranta Five. Tung'We has been destroyed by hostile fire. Shuttle Asgard on surface of planet Maranta Five has also been destroyed. Seven survivors on planet. Unknown if any survivors in orbit. Our coordinates are encrypted in message. Be warned that hostile forces are still active. Details encrypted in message. One survivor is in need of medical assistance. He has an estimated sixty hours life remaining. Mayday, Mayday, Mayday."
Clanth dropped everything and slapped a large red button on its con
sole, signaling it had an emergency in progress. As the room went red and klaxons sounded, Clanth decrypted the data in the stream, collecting it, the message, and any relative data on the Tung'We, Asgard, crew, and passengers into a single report which it forwarded to the supervisor. Clanth set the computers to scan for any other messages from Tung'We or Asgard. Finally, it tried calling Tung'We, then Asgard. After several fruitless minutes of trying, Clanth fired off another message to the supervisor informing them that it could not raise either ship. Once the supervisor acknowledged the messages, Clanth returned to its normal duty.
The supervisor received and collated all the data from Clanth, then put two rescue ships on standby alert before calling Space Command. For a normal rescue, the supervisor would send the two ships, but this wasn't a normal rescue since it involved hostiles and destroyed ships. A call to Space Command was mandatory. The call was routed to the Space Command station closest to Maranta Five, The Far Horizon in orbit around a nondescript white dwarf star. When the watch commander got word of the fate of the Tung'We and the Asgard, she immediately put the League War Ship Septar on alert and briefed Capt. Elizabeth Benson on the situation. As the captain scanned the sitrep report, she saw two names which made her stop. "Shit," she said as she closed the folder and turned to her first officer. "Jackson, continue preparations for launch. I have an errand to attend to. Inform the quartermaster to prepare the squad bay for occupancy."
"Aye, aye, Captain," Cmdr. Sam Jackson said as he grabbed for his headset.
Elizabeth disembarked the Septar and headed toward the station’s military housing unit. Without knocking, she walked in and stood near the entrance, waiting for someone to notice her presence.
"Atten-shun! Captain on the deck!" someone yelled from nearby. Everyone in the room stopped what they were doing and stood at attention.
"Stand easy," she barked while walking up to a big elf and a smaller, though no less dangerous looking human woman. "You two, with me," she said as she headed to the attached conference room.
Once inside, she shut the door and handed the big elf the sitrep. Major Royce Aymar, Commander of the Elf Marine Expeditionary Force team assigned to the station, opened the folder and read it. "Shit! How is this possible?" he said as he handed it to the woman.