by M. D. Cooper
Cargo nodded in agreement. “I’ll see if Iris can help us with surveillance.”
“Send in the A—” Trevor stopped himself as Cargo raised his eyebrows.
Cargo shook his head as he reached out to Iris.
Cargo wasn’t sure if Iris was messing with him or not.
Iris snorted.
Cargo shook his head. He certainly wouldn’t have.
“No network up there. Hank’s getting us satcomm time.”
Cargo nodded, and they rode the rest of the way to Killashandra Mountain in silence, each wondering what they were going to encounter, and whether or not it would be worth the time it took to get out to the resort.
* * * * *
The train made its final stop in a quaint town named Spyglass and the two men exited the maglev car and looked up at the towering peaks around them.
“These are some damn tall mountains,” Trevor said, moving aside to clear the way for other passengers. “They have to be at least four kilometers above us.”
“All the better to ski down,” a man said with a wink as he walked past.
“Sure is beautiful down here, too,” Trevor said with an appreciative smile as he looked around at the snow-covered town.
“It’s freakin’ freezing is what it is,” Cargo muttered and wrapped his arms around himself. “Can you believe that people actually live here? Of their own free will?”
Trevor laughed and slapped Cargo on the back. “You got some meat on you, should be enough to keep you warm.”
Cargo snorted. “Trevor, you have the metabolism of this entire town combined. Of course, you’re not cold.”
“It’s just a five-klick walk out to the resort, if we jog it’ll keep us warm.”
“And what if we have to go hunting for them all over a mountain?” Cargo asked.
Trevor sighed. “You’re such a baby. I see a store across the plaza there that looks like they sell cold-weather gear. Let’s go see what they have to offer.”
The store turned out to specialize in all sorts of winter gear, unsurprisingly focused on skiing. They had everything from puffy, down-filled coats to three-millimeter-thick skinsuits rated to keep a person warm clear down to minus eighty degrees.
Cargo grabbed one of those, a large jacket, a long scarf and a thick woolen hat.
“You’re gonna boil,” Trevor said as he tried on his seventh jacket. Even the store’s largest size couldn’t make it around his shoulders.
“I’d rather boil than freeze,” Cargo grunted as he walked to the front of the store to pay at the counter. The woman working the checkout quickly scanned the items and gave him a warm smile.
“You must have been cold out there, its minus-thirty today.”
Cargo nodded. “Tell me about it. Coming up here was a spur of the moment decision. We’re gonna throw ourselves down the mountain and see what happens.”
The woman laughed and fingered a lock of her black hair while looking Cargo over. “You’re not…modded to look like that, are you?”
“To look like what?” Cargo asked.
“Your skin, it’s so dark, but it looks creamy too. I’ve never seen anyone with skin like that. Folks down south are kinda red, but no one is like you. You’re almost black!”
Hank chuckled softly in Cargo’s mind.
The woman was starting to look embarrassed by Cargo’s silence, and he gave her a tired smile. “Totally natural. You must have heard of what happens if your ancestors stay in a place that gets a lot of sunlight for a few thousand years. Non-adaptive melanin.”
“Oh, I know,” the girl said with a vigorous nod. Then she leaned forward and whispered. “Is it true what else they say?”
Hank burst out laughing in his mind, and Cargo was glad his blush was hard to see. A half-dozen responses flowed through his mind before he finally sputtered. “Girl, I’m old enough to be your great grandfather.”
“So was my last boyfriend,” the girl said with a wink. “I like older men, they’ve got the right kind of experience.”
“Uh, yeah, lots of that, enough to know when to keep our pants on.”
“Yeah, but you have to take them off anyway,” the woman continued unabashed. “I mean, you bought that nice, tight skinsuit to keep you warm. It won’t fit over what you’re wearing. Why don’t you go into one of the changing rooms and put it on while you’re here?”
Hank was still laughing in Cargo’s mind, which wasn’t helping his concentration much. Despite the fact that the woman wanted to check out his equipment, she was right. He did buy the warm clothes to wear. Changing here would be ideal. It would also get him away from the clerk.
“Yeah, good idea,” Cargo said with a smile and walked back toward the changing rooms.
Once inside he locked the door and quickly stripped down before pulling on the skinsuit. The chill that had set into him during the brief time outside was instantly forgotten as the suit’s warmth embraced him.
“Damn, that feels a lot better.”
The door rattled, and suddenly opened, the woman from the front counter standing before him
.
“Uh…that was locked,” Cargo said.
“I have the codes,” she replied with a wink and stepped toward him, her eyes trailing down his body and stopping on the bulge at his crotch.
A smile grew on her lips and she asked, “Is that natural too? No mods? I don’t like mods.”
“Yeah, of course,” Cargo said as he took a step back biting his cheek as he stared down at the lithe woman before him.
Ten minutes…
“Good,” the woman said with a lascivious grin as she took another step forward, her breasts brushing against Cargo’s chest. “I like to do things one hundred percent natural.”
Ten minutes later, Cargo and Trevor stood outside waiting for the car that would take them to the resort.
“Hey Cargo,” Trevor said as he leaned over.
“Yeah?” Cargo asked, feeling too warm in the skinsuit, his clothes, the jacket, scarf and hat. He wasn’t sure if the clothing—or the events preceding getting dressed—was to blame.
“You’ve uhhh, got something on your face.”
“Where?” Cargo asked quickly.
Trevor chuckled. “Left cheek, a bit more rouge then you normally wear.”
Cargo wiped at his cheek. “Says the man in the pink jacket with blue flowers.”
Trevor looked down at his jacket and grinned. “Not every man can rock pink with flowers. But an elite few can. I am one of those few.”
It was Cargo’s turn to laugh. “You really believe that?”
“Cargo, seriously. I hooked up with the hottest woman in the galaxy on the first night I met her.”
“Really?” Cargo asked. “You and Jessica? That first night?”
“What? No! She was beaten to a bloody pulp. I mean we were an item that first night. Even before the cage match. It’s why what’s-her-name pulled a fast one on Jessica in the first place.”
“‘What’s-her-name’?”
“Yeah, I’ve forgotten it. She shall never be named again.”
“I’ve got a few of those in my past too,” Cargo replied with a nod.
The men stood in silence for a minute before Trevor leaned in close again
“There’s still a bit there on your cheek.”
“The flowers look stupid.”
* * * * *
Cargo had to admit he was impressed by the Killashandra Mountain resort. The main building was massive, constructed from stone with towering wooden pillars supporting the roof.
The overall look was one of a hunting lodge from ancient stories—if that hunting lodge had been built by giants.
The car let them out at the resort’s front doors, and the two men stood on the curb considering their next move.
Trevor said.
Cargo nodded absently.
Hank added.
“Let’s check out the bar, first,” Cargo said aloud. “Why jump through all these hoops to figure out where they’ll be if they’re just having a drink.”
Trevor shrugged. “Sure, I could use a drink anyway.” Then he asked privately,
A SHIP BY ANY OTHER NAME
STELLAR DATE: 03.10.8948 (Adjusted Years)
LOCATION: Parda City Spaceport, Ferra, Sullus System
REGION: Midway Cluster, Orion Freedom Alliance Space
“Stars, this is miserable,” Misha complained as he looked over another series of flagged ship builds, and matched them against the vessels from the last seven ports.
“No, I think it’s just as bad either way,” Misha countered. “You’re a freaking AI, a damn smart one too. How can I help?”
“You’re still way faster at this than I am,” Misha muttered as he compared one of the ships currently at the space port with other vessels of similar builds they’d encountered in the past.
“We’re all double checking each other’s work,” Finaeus said from his console. “And I’m feeding every one we flag through a more detailed pattern-matching system. We have to look at them from every angle.”
Misha nodded silently and went through another batch, ruling out ships that could never be disguised as any of the ships currently on, or around Ferra.
“I’m going to stretch my legs,” Misha said as he rose. “Starting to cramp up—don’t worry,” he added quickly. “I’ll still do ‘em in my head.”
Finaeus nodded and Sabrina sent a mental acknowledgement as Misha walked off the bridge, slowly moving aft toward the lounge on the ship’s upper deck, a nice glass of brandy his goal.
The door slid aside and he was surprised to see that afternoon had turned to dusk. They’d been at this longer than he’d realized.
Ferra’s larger moon, Ur, hung low over the horizon, and Misha wondered why it was such a strange color of blue. He shrugged the question off and walked to the liquor cabinet where he pulled out his favorite brandy. It was a label they’d shipped a year ago, but one crate had never been delivered due to ‘breakage’.
Courtesy of his ocular implants, another set of ships appeared in front of him to examine, and he flipped through them with eye gestures while pouring his drink.
“Stars, so many damn ships,” he muttered as he took a sip and then sat on one of the seats, looking out the window.
A batch of local shuttles were next, and he flipped through them quickly. They were just insystem transports, but then he looked past them to the moon and an idea came to mind.
Misha pulled up all the schedules of all the ships running shuttles from Ferra to Ur, cross-referencing them with the STC’s arrival time logs.
One stood out. A shuttle run by a company called Peerless Transport had arrived an hour early on its last flight down from Ur. That had been at 0912 this very morning.
Misha checked the current status of the ship. It was still on Ferra. Not at Parda City’s spaceport, but at a spaceport five hundred kilometers to the west; one not listed as the shuttle’s normal destination.
His curiosity was piqued. Peerless Transport’s information feed listed the shuttle’s flight from the moon as cancelled, but there it was, resting not far away on the planet’s surface.
He pulled up the public logs of ships docked on Ur. Neither of them had reviewed vessels on the moons yet, but something about this stood out to him. Sure, there were a thousand legitimate reasons why the shuttle could be down on the planet. Anything from needing a cheaper planet-side repair, to the CEO needing a ride for a meeting.
But if Misha were looking to get onto Ferra—while still having a reliable, non-public way off—that’s just the sort of thing he’d consider.
Then he looked at all ships that had landed in the last two days at Yessen, the city on the moon from where the shuttle had departed.
A minute later, he was back on the bridge, tossing the visual and specs of a ship on the main holo. “Sabina, Fin,
check this ship out.”
“Where’s that ship docked?” Finaeus asked. “Doesn’t look like any in our queues.
“It’s on Ur, the moon.”
“Just look at the ship. It matches one we saw four systems ago, back in Mercer.”
“OK…it’s close,” Finaeus agreed. “That ship was the Flying Srian, and this one is the Sierra Echo.”
“See, Finaeus, not wasting time,” Misha said with a smug smile.
“You were the one whining that it was a waste of time,” Finaeus said with a sigh. “Don’t exp—shit!”
Finaeus was concentrating on his display and waved a hand behind him. “Just give me a sec, kay?”
Misha stood silently while Sabrina made a soft ticking sound over the bridge’s audible systems.
“Dammit, Sabs, can you stop making that sound?” Finaeus asked irritably.
Finaeus stood and turned to Misha. “Well shit, Misha. You just found us a BOGSY.”
“A Bogsy?” Misha asked with a frown.
“Bad Orion Guard Ship.”
Finaeus shrugged. “Just seemed better with a Y.”
“So it’s an Orion Guard ship?” Misha was perplexed. “We’re in Orion space, that’s not a surprise.”
A second ship appeared on the main display. “Notice any similarities?” Finaeus asked.
“The ship I put up is one of Orion’s new stealth scouts. Well, it was new forty years ago,” Finaeus said as he leaned against his console. “They were using those ships for their Inner Stars infiltration work.”