The Supreme Commander reached out and Aaron approached and shook his hand. A crushing grip. He exited the office and was unpleasantly surprised to see Lieutenant Delaine waiting for him. He smiled. “Lieutenant.”
“Commander,” she nodded.
He walked past her and she fell in step next to him.
Three weeks ago, he was a starship captain. Now some cosmic joke placed him in the role of part-time spy. One revelation after another. First, an unknown belligerent ambushed and destroyed his ship. Now two of his shipmates are off on some secret mission which he was joining. And their ultimate destination was Atlas Prime a place not too far from where it all began—on the frontier—the edge of space from the perspective of the core worlds of the United Star Systems.
He was going home.
Chapter 5 – The Un-dynamic Duo
Abandoned Deuterium Processing Station
Luyten Star System
Luyten—an overlooked star system fifty light-years from Sol.
Apart from pockets of dense hydrogen clouds, it contained little other resources or any strategic value.
Two gas giants and an airless rock orbited the main star. The lone piece of human infrastructure was an abandoned orbital processing station.
The station was constructed during the twenty-third century to process and refine hydrogen for starship fuel, and was no longer necessary due to advances in propulsion technology, and the declining use of deuterium.
In the intervening years, Luyten became a refuge for a diverse gathering of interstellar scum. Not long after the corporations left, “new” tenants moved in. These new residents, although they lived outside the rule of United Systems law, had their own code of conduct. Total anarchy was never beneficial to any deviant enterprise, and that theme was alive and well, in the twenty-fifth century.
Fortunately, for these deviants, the arm of the law wasn’t long enough nor equipped to chase them around the galaxy. As long as they didn’t interfere with vital trade lanes, or commit acts of piracy against other civilian traffic, they wouldn’t even create a blip in the vastness of space. This particular hub of scum spread their tentacles in all manner of illegal endeavors from illegal slave trading to the sale of old starship parts and weapons. However, the “organizers” forbid launching raids from this location.
A peculiar pair of spacers eased their way through the thick mass of bodies on the neglected decks of the outlaw sanctuary. The first of them hailed from Alpha Centauri, the first and oldest Terran colony. A low haircut carefully parted at the side, slicked to the scalp and not a strand of slightly greying dark hair out of place. A strict diet kept his frame lean. He held a permanent half smile for curious onlookers. His pace wavered slightly. Attached above his left breast pocket on the grease stained, dingy blue jumpsuit was a nametag—Alvarez.
His partner of the day, illuminated by the dim light of the large sprawling deck, kept grizzly short hair, darker than the void beyond the station, and stepped with all the swagger of Rigel youth. His jaw lines resembled a flawless sculpture. Each arm bulged enough to stretch the fabric of his crisp maroon jump suit. He wore a near permanent scowl. One look at him and the crowd gave them a wide berth. Above his left breast pocket his name tag—Lee.
Sometimes the best cover for an operative was no cover at all.
They both had to suppress a sick feeling in their stomachs as they meandered through the large black-market deck. In this place, nothing was off limits. There were Imperial Slave auctions, and drug trafficking of the worst kind of brain-vaporizing drugs. Anyone with a little conscience had difficulty swallowing the sights.
As for the name tags, the “rules” of the black-market demanded each patron submit to a biometric data scan, and wear given name tags associated to the scan. This system enabled the “entrepreneurs” who skulked around this hellhole deck, to identify their clients, in case they had to enlist a bounty hunter to track double-crossers. But double crosses were rare. Outlaws knew if they stabbed each other in the back too often, they might compromise the location of this obscure haven. The Coalition of Independent Pilots would bar them from this station and others like it. No business means no profit.
And it’s all about profit for privateers and outlaws.
Given their recent “discharge” from the United Fleet—not an uncommon occurrence—facial recognition and names wouldn’t be a problem. Any resourceful security check would reveal them as former officers discharged for dereliction of duty. Such officers were in high demand by mercenary corporations.
Alvarez kept his head straight as he spoke. “Let’s get the package and get gone.”
“No objections here, Vee.” Lee voiced his agreement as they passed an Imperial Slave auction nearby.
Alvarez shook his head. What anguish and fate awaited those poor people at their destination?
They made their way around the sea of vermin swaddled across the deck until they came to an arms merchant in the furthest section from the entrance. To say the burley proprietor was huge would be an understatement. He was at least two full heads above him and Lee. With his head shaved to the scalp, the thick mass of beard the man sported looked like a full head of hair in itself. The bearded brute’s arms resembled a track and field athlete’s legs—an athlete juicing on muscle-enhancing drugs. He donned a faded space fatigue torn underneath the armpits. Maybe the merchant felt the grizzly appearance intimidated the usual scum.
The beast grunted from behind the counter on their approach.
“Lenny and Alvin. Cute.”
“Lee and Alvarez.” Lee corrected, smiling. He had the kind of smile you might see on a fox if a fox could smile.
Alvarez held his breath.
Gunther, as the locals called him, fixed his glare onto Lee. “What?” he thundered. The bass accompanying the big man’s voice assaulted Alvarez’s eardrums, and he felt sure it caused the deck to vibrate.
“Alvarez and Lee ya big oak. Get it right or I’ll come back there and smack you,” Lee said.
Seeing this might turn ugly and sensing Gunther had a fuse shorter than the sulfur on a matchstick, Alvarez interjected, his forced smile growing wider. “Don’t mind my friend here he likes too much yapping. Classic case of an under-developed brain. We’re here to collect item P-3123.” He put an electronic ticket down on the counter indicating the item in question had been pre-purchased. No ticket would state what it was, the merchant would have the reference.
The merchant tasted the words. “P-3123,” he said. “Not easy to come by. If I didn’t know better and I don’t, I’d say you two are USSI spooks. Yeah, we heard they’re making a big push in this sector. Our system . . . the last bastion of freedom for light-years. Looking to route us out. Alvin and Lenny, you two look fresh out of the spook academy.”
Alvarez’s fingers tapped the counter. They didn’t have time to argue with a big goof. “You really think United Star Systems Intelligence would send spies, looking like us, with these credentials and fresh out of the academy? Into this place?”
“Yeah, I do. Because they think we’re stupid.”