Book 1: Innocently Enough
Chapter 1: The Glory of Peace! Who Is This Strange Woman?
Until I met with Hector Hagren in person, the most unusual thing about the job he had for my crew was how vague he was about the whole thing.
Then I saw what he looked like.
Granted, he had told me that he was a full body cyborg, but what he didn't mention, was that his ‘skin’ was made of bits of scrap metal that had been welded together, which, combined with his impressive size, gave him the impression of a suit of armor. Hector’s imposing visage monopolized my attention, to the point that I didn’t even realize there was a woman next to him until she spoke up. “Captain Yadlei, I presume?”
“Yes, I am.” I gestured towards my bodyguard, who had entered Mr. Hagren’s office behind me, “And this is Daburin.”
“Nice suit, wanna fuck?”
And this is Daburin.
“Please forgive my bodyguard. There’s a reason I don't pay him to talk,” I covered, as the woman walked up to Daburin and... kissed him? I turned to the windows on the left wall, the pictures and other decorations on the other three walls, Hector‘s desk, anything but the two people making out beside me. “Before we get down to business, I‘d just like to say that I‘m honored that you would choose me and my crew specifically for this job, whatever it is.” Raharu, they’re still at it! “Who is she, anyway?”
“She’s my assistant, Neisha.” Third surprise of the minute: Hector had the voice of a little boy.
Neisha unlocked her lips from Daburin so fast that he lost his balance. “You forgot to use your business voice again!” she scolded. After Daburin got up off the floor, she added in an joking tone of voice, “and you know how I feel about being called an ‘assistant.’”
The chunk of metal that I took as being Hector’s brow lowered slightly with a small creak. “I am not calling you a genie,” he told her in a much deeper, and slightly metallic, voice.
“As entertaining as your bickering is,” I interrupted, “I’d say it’s past time for you to tell me what, exactly, the job you have for me is.”
“I’d love to, but I have to delegate that to Neisha,” Hector responded. “It’s her idea, and she’s only explained it to me through some pie metaphor that I completely didn't understand.”
Neisha smiled. “There are approximately three thousand people throughout the universe that might be... of a condition that is necessary for a plan I have going as a special gift for Hector.” The smile disappeared from his face. “Unfortunately, I’d be utterly surprised if more than... forty-seven of them actually do have what I need, and I can't rule anyone else out except in person.”
“I see where this is going,” I sighed. “A hundred creds a jump and I reserve the right to kick you off on any planet.”
“I’m not talking about being a passenger, I’m talking about being part of the crew.”
“You’re leaving me!?” Hector whined in his ‘casual’ voice. “You can’t leave! I’m nothing without you!”
“You were nothing before me, but I’d consider it a failure on my part if you couldn’t at least maintain the status quo on your own for a few months after three years of my advice.”
I narrowed my eyes. “You two staged that to ‘prove’ how valuable an employee Neisha is, didn't you?”
“No, no, no, not at all,” Neisha assured. “Hector wasn’t in on any of the staging that has occurred here. Besides such inelegant deceptions aren’t needed when a simple demonstration of skill can bring the same results.” She pushed open one of the room’s windows, and pointed out the window. “See that balloon?” I walked over to get a better view of the direction she was pointing, and sure enough, there was a black balloon tied to a flagpole, about four or five blocks away.
“Yeah, I see it.” The moment I confirmed the balloon’s presence, Neisha pulled a gun out from her right jacket pocket and fired. A bolt of yellow flew from the gun, too narrow to follow more than halfway to the target, and then the balloon disappeared.
I turned back to Neisha, expecting a smug expression, but finding her face in a shape better described as shock. “Energy pistol disguised as a mundane slug chucker,” Neisha chuckled, before turning to Daburin. “Wherever did you get such a wonderful toy?”
It Daburin a good two or three seconds to fully parse what she had said. I could tell because that was how long it was before he started furiously patting himself down. “Hey! That’s Serena!”
“You name your guns?” Neisha asked. “How creepy of you.”
“Not all of them,” Daburin protested, “just the ones that ain’t museum pieces.”
“Guns like this are illegal for the general public,” Neisha smirked. “So where did you get this juicy bit of rebellion?”
Daburin sighed and bowed his head. “It was a goodbye gift from someone I used to work with before joining up with the Cap’n.”
“Did you have sex with her?”
“Serena?”
“Little Kasuga. Did you fuck her?”
“How’d you…” Daburin’s face twisted with revulsion. “She was like a sister to me!”
“Calm down, it was a joke!” Neisha assured, while doing that ‘patting the air’ gesture people sometimes tend to do when trying to calm others down. “I didn’t think you’d be so mad, okay?”
“How’d you know Kasuga gave Serena to me!?” Daburin asked. Shouted. Shout-asked. “How’d you know I even fucking knew her!?”
“Spiegel Bounty Tracking lists fifty-two captures credited jointly to the two of you,” Neisha recited. “As to the connection between Kasuga and Serena, you wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”
I smiled and put my hands on my hips. “Try us.”
“Well, once I figured out the link between Julia and Fei, the only problem was narrowing it down between her and the big C.”
“I’m going to miss those incomprehensible explanations,” Hector lamented in his business voice.
“Yes, the offer,” Neisha chirped as she tossed Serena back to Daburin. “Do I get the job?”
“Tell you what, If you can find me enough passengers and/or cargo to make back the money I spent on this little detour and you have yourself a job.”
Neisha pulled some flat, narrow container out of her left jacket pocket, and opened it. Maybe a makeup case, or… “Call Sanandras.” Ah, so it was a PIN.
A hologram of an insectoid face appeared above the PIN. “Neish-a. To wh-at do I o-we this ple-asure?” The face asked, with all the tell-tale choppiness of an interstellar call.
“Hector is thinking about sending next month’s shipment of red mama a week early. What’s your opinion, San?” Neisha smiled at San.
“As l-ong as I do-n’t have to s-end my pa-yment early, I’m a-ll for it.”
“Mahi. See you soon. End Call.” The hologram disappeared as Neisha closed her PIN. She turned to me while she put it away. “Minute twenty-three with a few thousand creds to spare.”
“So where are we taking a month’s supply of whatever ‘red mama’ is?” I asked.
“Sahne,” Neisha answered, “in the Dal system. And red mama is one of the more popular recreational drugs among San’s species.”
“Raharu,” I sighed, “a drug run. That crap is usually a bit risky for my tastes.”
Neisha chuckled and started walking to the right side of the room. “The key is to put the cargo somewhere Customs wouldn’t think to look.” She put two fingers on the forehead of a mask hanging on the right wall. She whispered something, and, as she took her fingers away from the mask, a point of light appeared on the tip of the mask’s nose, expanding until…
It was a spitting image of a Jumpport hole, except for three differences. First, it was small enough to fit in the room. Second, the ring of yellow around the edge was covered in purple blotches. Finally, instead of leading to the indescribably barren void of Jumpspace, beyond this was a large room filled with crates.
“A mind bogglingly huge complex accessible from anywhere I can take this mask. I call it the Noh Place, Get it?”
“You’re offering to store the shipment in this ‘Noh Place’ so Customs doesn’t find it?” I guessed.
“That is what those crates are, but I meant the pun”
“Sorry,” I replied, tapping my ear, “Auto Translators choke on wordplay.”
“I know. That’s why I don’t like using them.” It wasn’t until after she had finished talking that I noticed she changed languages.
“You’re speaking Barala,” I observed. “Why did you learn Barala?”
“Picked it up narrowing my itinerary down to three thousand, actually.” She stroked back her hair and gave me a look that unnerved me, despite, or maybe because, I couldn’t place the emotion she was trying to convey to me. “Some of the sources I used for the profile were in Barala.”
“Wow, what a coincidence.”
Neisha gave me that look again. “If we’re done here, I should go say goodbye to my drinking buddies while most of them are still sober enough to remember in the morning.” She turned to address me and Daburin at the same time. “You two want to come?”
“Fuck yeah!”
“Might as well,” I agreed. “Nothing better to do but be at the ship when Lang and Lev get back from picking up supplies.”
“Great. I suggest you make the Port reservation while I slip into something more comfortab-,” Neisha advised, as she walked the hole to Noh Place, and was cut off by the hole closing behind her.
Good advice, now that I’d thought about it. I took out my PIN, a small one with a black casing, and spoke into it. “Call DIT.”
The PIN’s holo-emitter projected a cartoony, painfully familiar pair of eyes and a mouth. "Thank you for calling the Matek Department of Interstellar Travel, the universe's only-"
"I'm calling to make a Port reservation for a jump from Sorob Oro to Sahne Dal," I interrupted. Hey, I'd called DIT two to three times a week for a decade. You'd be sick of that spiel too.
"The next opening is Gerrisday at 9:22," the semi-automated operator said. "Is that acceptable?"
I shrugged. "As acceptable as you're gonna be able to give me."
"Please state your ISC security code, please, to prove that you are Captain Yadlei, please."
"Bih, ese dio are dih," I recited
"Thank you, Captain Yadlei. Your DIT account has been charged for 1000 credits."
"End call." I turned to Hector. "I'm not familiar with the local calendar, when's Gerrisday?"
"Tomorrow."
I noticed a clock on one of the walls. 7:73. "Are the days here that long, or is the traffic that light?"
The mask produced the path to Noh Place, this time a room filled with clothes. As Neisha stepped across the ring, she chuckled, "A bit of both, I'd say. By the way, 'please, an idiot says three times'? You've got some wit on you, girl."
"What's she talkin' 'bout, Cap'n?" Daburin asked.
I said, "My ISC translated from a dead language called Tinala," before turning my attention to Neisha. "Just how many languages do you know, anyway?"
Neisha shrugged. "Stopped counting around a hundred." She took the Noh Place mask off the wall and shoved it in the handbag she had hanging off her shoulder, smoothed out her dress, and headed out of the office. "So long and thanks for all the fish, Hector."
After Daburin and I followed Neisha out, I asked, "So what is this surprise gift for Hector?"
Neisha stopped, turned, and looked at me. "October." Apparantly considering that explanation enough, she turned back and continued walking.
