The man looked at him like he didn’t believe him and asked, “Why are you out so early?”
“It’s my first day off and I wanted to get there early. I hear they have a flea market and I wanted to see if I could find uniform insignia. I collect them.”
The man softened his stare as he listened to him. “Man, you are all messed up. The flea market is on Fifth Day. The only thing you’ll find in the park today is people flying kites.”
Alistair stood up, looked down, and kicked the ground.
“There you go. My day off is wasted. I know my boss won’t let me change days. If it wasn’t for bad luck, I’d have no luck at all.”
The man laughed and said, “Come with me. We were just getting ready for breakfast. You look like you could use a meal.”
Alistair, realizing he had no local currency, tried to beg off. “I can’t afford to eat here and I never accept a gift when I can’t give one back.”
The young man held out his hand, “I’m Russell. I work here and my woman is the chef. Breakfast is on the owner, who is probably sleeping off last night’s drinking. What he don’t know won’t hurt him.”
Alistair went with the young man into the restaurant, not knowing how to get away without raising further suspicions than he had already.
Inside he was introduced to Sally, the chef. She asked him where he was from.
Alistair answered truthfully, that he was from Archimedes. This elicited a strong reaction from Sally.
“So you’re from the lost settlement?”
Alistair answered that he was.
She asked, “What was it like to quickly go from the 19th Century to the 23rd?”
He responded that it was easy for some, not so easy for others. Some embraced it. Others ran from it. Those that couldn’t make the transition were allowed to stay on Archimedes in a nineteenth century enclave, protected from the outside universe. He occasionally heard of people leaving the enclave and of others entering the enclave who could no longer cope with outside. Himself, he enjoyed the future.
She asked him how he got here on Barataria and he changed the subject by saying that he had been invited in for breakfast, not twenty questions. Sally apologized and started heating three skillets. A handful of eggs were set next to the first. Bacon went in the second. Potatoes went into the third.
Alistair asked if there was someplace he could wash up and was directed to the staff restroom. He closed the door behind him, pulled out his communicator, uploaded the report, and sent it. After he put away his communicator and washed his hands, he went out to the smells of glorious food cooking. It was real food, not anything processed or manufactured.
“My, but that smells wonderful. I haven’t had real food since I left Archimedes.”
Sally spoke up, “Well, that’s all you’ll get here. We don’t use replicators or ready-made meals. Everything is made fresh.”
Sally moved over to a prep table, scooped out equal quantities of eggs, bacon, and potatoes onto three plates. Alistair was handed a plate and flatware and they all sat down at a small table in the kitchen. She let Alistair get his first fork full of eggs then asked, “Now who are you really? You may be from Archimedes, but you sure as hell aren’t from here. Are you from security checking up on us?”
Alistair took a bite of bacon chewed it and asked, “What makes you think I’m not from here?”
She looked at him like he was an idiot, pointed at her neck, and said, “First thing, you don’t have a scar on your Adams apple where they put the chip in. This means you are either slumming or from security. Which are ya?”
“Neither. Let me ask you something. Do you like it here living in slavery?”
Sally exploded, “Do I like it? Do I like it? What are you, a moron? Of course I don’t like it. Who the hell would like being someone else’s property?”
Alistair let her calm down some and said, “I’m with the cavalry. In a day or two all hell is going to break loose. This pirates’ den is going to be turned upside down.”
She looked at him with wariness in her eyes, “What are you trying to pull?”
“I’m not trying to pull anything. These pirates thought they were invulnerable in this star cluster. That is no longer the case. The Galactic Republic is tired of their raids and retribution is coming. You say you have a chip. Show me where.”
Sally put down her fork and stood up. She pointed to where her Adam’s apple would be if she were a man. “See the scar?”
Alistair pulled his hand sensor from his pocket and waved it at Sally’s throat. He did the same for Russell.
“I don’t know what they told you, but there is no chip in your neck. I bet it hurt like hell when they poked you, too.”
“What do you mean there is no chip? If I didn’t have a chip I couldn’t travel to the moon and I’ve been there twice.”
“There is no chip in your neck.”
“But I could feel it after they put it in!”
“What you felt was probably a grain of rice or the scar from them poking you with a big damn needle.”
Russell said, “Wave that thing at my neck again.”
Alistair did the same for him and said, “No chip.”
“This is what they use in some prisons to cut down on escape attempts. They’re cheaper than using real chips that prisoners sometimes cut out.”
Sally asked him, “Okay, now that that is settled, why are you here?”
“I’m looking for three recent captives. These are three women that are worth a lot of credits in the form of ransom.”
Sally and Russell looked at each other and exclaimed at the same time, “That’s what that was.”
Alistair looked at them and said, “That’s what ‘what’ was?”
Sally started off. “We got three special orders in here a few days ago. One of the orders was for pearlfish fillets. I thought, what moron thinks we can get pearlfish here? It had to be someone new and rich or showing off. I substituted another local fish and fixed the meals. The guards were in a big hurry, so I had to drop everything and make those meals. Well, we plated and packaged the meals, but the Ascetics guards were scared they would spill them, so they took Russell along to wrangle the meals. Russell, you take it from here.”
“They took me to this big house up on the ridgeline. This house looks like something out of Pride and Prejudice. It comes complete with liveried servants in powdered wigs and the long coats and short pants. I spoke to one of them and he told me there were three important women there.”
Can you show me on this screen where the house is?”
Russell looked at the hand sensor screen and pointed to the general vicinity. Alistair zoomed in until Russell was pointing at the exact house.
Alistair finished his breakfast and thanked them for saving him a lot of useless walking. He warned them to stay away from military facilities for the next few days and wished them luck. He would look them up after this was over.
Alistair set off to the northeast in search of the big house. He stuck to the alleyways as much as possible. While the chips were a fraud, the neck scars were not and he didn’t have one. When he left the northern outskirts of town he sat behind a tree and sent out a special report. He told the Vigilant that he had probably found the women, but he was going to verify they were there.
Captain Ben Alden arranged his ships in the formation he wanted for the initial assault on the pirate world. He led with five missile boats, followed by the two corvettes. The fighter carrier came next, followed by the medium gunboats. The armed cargo ships with their troops trailed in the rear, protected by the remaining missile boats. His four special operatives were on the fighter carrier, ready to ride in the jump seat behind the pilots.
His plan was to go in and just tear things up. He assumed there would be additional patrols, seeing as how the scout ship had gone in and kicked over the hornet’s nest. He needed to tear up their defenses so the fighters could get his operatives down on the planet. He needed them to find the women.