TROUBLED

SPACE

Volume 3: MAKing Trouble

By

A.K. DuBoff

TROUBLED SPACE: VOLUME 3 - MAKING TROUBLE

Copyright © 2018 A.K. DuBoff

All rights reserved. This book is protected under the copyright laws of the United States of America. No part of this publication may be used or reproduced in any manner without written permission from the author, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles, reviews or promotions.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

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Publisher: BDL Press

Cover Copyright © 2018 A.K. DuBoff

Table of Contents

CHAPTER 1: Shifting Focus

CHAPTER ONE: Poor Planning

CHAPTER TWO: Wheeling and Dealing

CHAPTER THREE: The World through Another’s Eyes

CHAPTER FOUR: Turning up the Heat

CHAPTER FIVE: Distractions

CHAPTER SIX: The Spice of Life

CHAPTER SEVEN: Infiltration

CHAPTER EIGHT: Eye on the Prize

CHAPTER NINE: A Job Well Done

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About the Author

TROUBLED SPACE

Volume 3: Making Trouble

Doing the right thing is okay—so long as there’s still a good payday.

Jack Tressler and the crew of the Little Princess II are bored. Despite repeated attempts to go legit, they’re drawn to the allure of black market dealings. Their latest venture: covertly transporting passengers.

With their spaceship not quite up to snuff for a high-paying client, they decide to get the vessel detailed. However, through a series of miscommunications, the crew inadvertently finds themselves taking on more passengers than they’d planned—and being the latest addition to a human trafficking ring.

With a dangerous pirate gang known as the Blue Rabbits expecting delivery of their human cargo, Jack and his friends hatch a daring plan to free the innocent workers. That is, so long as they get to take home some loot in the process.

CHAPTER 1: CHAPTER ONE: Poor Planning

— — —

After years of thievery, getting shot at, and running for his life, Jack Tressler faced the greatest danger of his life: boredom. Again.

In all fairness, the majority of his thieving attempts had gone terribly, he’d never actually been shot, and most of the running for his life had involved hiding, but the boredom was real, and it would consume him if he didn’t find an outlet.

He gazed at the faces of his crewmates on the Little Princess II as they lounged in the common room. “So, are we going to do this or what?”

Alyssa, the captain of their luxury yacht, rolled her eyes. “You’re insane.”

Jack brushed a lock of his sandy hair away from his cybernetic left eye. “You told me I couldn’t have the cabin near the common room because we were going to have guests, so it’s long overdue for us to have other people on board.”

Alyssa raised an eyebrow beneath her dark, side-swept bangs. “But human trafficking?”

“No, not trafficking. Covert transport, we’ve been over this.” Jack sighed as he repositioned on his favorite couch. “We’re going to be helping people.”

“This is going to backfire so badly.” Alyssa pinched the bridge of her nose between her fingers.

Jack was used to the captain shooting down his suggestions, but he’d learned during their past two years together that persistence paid off. The crew had been growing increasingly antsy over the four months since their last job, and they needed a new project for the sake of their sanity. Seeking out a job on the wrong side of the law wasn’t new to the crew, but they’d already accomplished what few had achieved: a payday large enough to set them for life. It had only taken two weeks for the first signs of restlessness to show, and Jack had known then that it was only a matter of time before they’d be back in the game. It would only take a little more nudging to get the rest of the crew rallying behind him.

“Let’s face it, we’ve been lucky in the past,” Jack continued. “Took out a few bad guys, made enough credits to buy this ship. But what good is that if we hang around here doing nothing all day? We have an opportunity here to make a positive impact on people’s lives.”

“Jack is right; there’s an important distinction here,” Triss said, tucking a length of her long, red hair behind her ear as she leaned forward. “People are going to hire us to bring them elsewhere. That’s totally not the same thing as trafficking.”

“Exactly,” Jack said. While it was unusual for Triss to side with him over Alyssa, considering the captain was her longtime partner, he welcomed the vote of support.

“Slight problem.” Finn half-raised one of his perfectly manicured hands. “How are we going to get people to pay us to do that?”

“Which brings me to the next point,” Triss continued. “We need a business plan.”

The notion of offering a covert transportation business for people looking to disappear had come about through a recent unfortunate incident involving a dissatisfied wife of a wealthy businessman. All of the shooting, running, and hiding had reminded Jack and his team that they actually enjoyed those things. As much as they aspired to become legitimate business people, that’s not how they were wired.

“I think ‘business plan’ might be a little too formal a label,” Finn pointed out while he swept his hand over his dark wave of hair styled on top of his head.

“Yeah, we’re more of a run-with-a-vague-idea kind of group,” Jack agreed.

Alyssa sighed. “Here we go again…”

“All right, we need a strategy,” Triss restated.

“How do you propose we get a customer?” Finn asked Jack.

“I dunno.”

“This was your idea!” Alyssa shook her head. “Let’s just forget it and think of something else.”

Jack rubbed his palms on his thighs. “Fine, you want a strategy? I say we head to Caleron and put up a ‘cabin for rent’ sign.”

“That’s it? That’s all you have?” the captain asked with obvious exasperation.

He shrugged. “What else would we need?”

“Jack, the entire purpose of being covert is undermined when you hold up a sign telling people what you’re doing!” Alyssa exclaimed.

“Okay, so not a literal sign, but we can ask around,” Jack said. “Either way, that’s the system where we can get our feet wet with this sort of thing.”

“I have heard gossip about it being a hub for shady dealings,” Finn agreed.

“I’m not sure that ‘shady’ is really the clientele we want to capture,” Alyssa cautioned.

“In all fairness, those are the kind of places where people—even respectable ones—go when they’re trying to disappear,” Triss pointed out. “We need to find someone at the midpoint of their journey looking to transfer to more comfortable accommodations for the second half of their escape.”

“You might be onto something there,” Alyssa agreed. “It was the part about getting Merica away from her home when we ran into trouble last time. Someone who’s already mounted the main escape and double-crossed their hired help would probably be much more agreeable.”

Jack nodded. “Yeah, they wouldn’t do more than one double-cross.”

“Definitely not,” Finn concurred.

“Okay, so we’re agreed we go to Caleron?” Triss asked.

Finn grinned. “Sure!”

Alyssa released a long breath. “Yeah, I guess.”

“I’m, like, ninety-five percent sure this is going to be easy,” Jack assured them. “You can find anything and everything in Caleron.”

“If you say so.” Alyssa rose from the couch and wandered to the bridge.

A moment later, Triss set down her tablet. “I guess I probably need to fly the ship, too.”

“That would help us get there, yes,” Finn said.

“It should only be, what, an hour from here?” Jack asked.

“Yeah, something like that,” Triss replied.

He nodded. “See you then.”

Triss departed.

As soon as she was out of the common room, Jack leaned forward on the couch toward Finn. “That gives us time to watch another episode of Space Rangers.”

“They’re going to yell at us,” Finn cautioned.

“We’ll keep the volume down. Besides, they can’t stop us while they’re piloting.”

“There’s auto-pilot, Jack. And even without that, one person can easily fly the ship.”

Jack thought for a moment. “I’m gonna level with you: I just really want to watch Space Rangers.”

Finn rapidly clapped his hands with a squeal. “Who am I kidding? I do, too!”

They grabbed pillows from the couches and dumped them in the middle of the floor. Jack turned on the broad viewscreen on the side wall of the common room, keeping the volume low. He pulled up the video queue for their latest reality show sensation.

He flopped down on his stomach next to Finn, resting his elbows on the pillows.

“Space Rangers! Bringing justice to all,” Jack and Finn sung along to the theme song in whispers.

“You’re watching Space Rangers, aren’t you?” Alyssa shouted from the bridge.

“Psh, no!” Jack shouted back.

“You’re too quiet in there—you must be up to something bad.”

“What do you have against the show, anyway?” Finn replied while the episode began.

“You start acting ridiculous,” Alyssa replied.

Triss snorted. “What do you mean ‘start’?”

“Well, they get worse.”

Onscreen, two soldiers wearing black armor were running through a spaceport after a shirtless man wearing clown pants. They tackled the guy and pinned his hands behind his back, slapping on a pair of cuffs.

“Busted!” Jack and Finn whisper-shouted in unison.

“Ugh, they are watching it!” Triss exclaimed in the bridge.

“That’s why,” Alyssa explained. “When you watch too much of that show, you always threaten to pounce on random people and shout ‘busted’!”

“In all fairness, that guy’s pants were really ugly,” Finn said.

“It’s not the fashion police.” Alyssa groaned.

“Well, it should be,” Finn maintained.

“I just want to tackle and cuff someone,” Jack said.

“More likely, we’ll be the ones getting cuffed.” Finn smirked. “Not that that’s always a bad thing.”

Jack shook his head. “Shh, we’re missing the show.” He focused his attention on the screen.

A new set of Space Rangers—not that they could be distinguished through their faceplates—were zooming across a dusty field on hoverscooters in pursuit of a woman on her own hoverscooter. She kept glancing over her shoulder at the two rangers in pursuit.

“Oh, man, they might not catch her.” Jack gripped his pillow.

“They always catch the perp,” Finn replied. “But this is a good one!”

The three hoverscooters reached a boulder field of rock monoliths standing seven meters high.

“They should have brought in a chopper when they had the chance!” Finn’s eyes were glued to the screen.

“She might actually loose them in there.”

The camera following the two rangers swung side to side as they wove around the treacherous boulders. Jack and Finn gasped and breathed sighs of relief with each near-miss collision.

After two minutes of intense pursuit, the boulders thinned out and the woman ahead of them gunned it on the straightaway.

A spark lit in Jack’s organic eye. “You know what time it is?”

“Time to boost,” Finn said in unison with one of the space rangers on the screen.

The two hoverscooters accelerated as blue electricity crackled around the rear engine port. They raced forward to either side of the woman’s hoverscooter. When they were abreast with her, they moved their vehicles into a slight ‘V’ to pin her control bar with the noses of their craft.

“Got you now,” one of the rangers said in a husky voice.

“I didn’t do anything wrong, officer!” the woman exclaimed.

“That’s for the jury to decide.” The second ranger grabbed the throttle of her hoverscooter and decelerated.

The three craft slowed in unison. When they came to a rest, the first ranger grabbed the woman from her hoverscooter and forced her to kneel on the ground with her hands behind her back.

He cuffed her. “Busted!”

Jack and Finn cheered.

“That was a great chase!” Jack grinned. “Man, I wish there were more like that.”

Onscreen, the scene transitioned to a rapid series of shots with space rangers chasing suspects on various vehicles and across different terrains. “Up next, we bring you highlights from the greatest chases yet!”

Finn melted. “This is turning out to be such a good day!”

The next hour flew by with a series of the most epic chases Jack had ever seen. While some of the spectacles were familiar, many were completely new, which underscored the need for them to marathon the forty-seven previous scenes of Space Rangers at some point, assuming Alyssa and Triss didn’t throw them out the airlock at the very suggestion. In the interest of self-preservation, Jack and Finn agreed to keep the plan to themselves for the time being.

As the episode wrapped up, the view out the window in the common room changed from the streaked stars of hyperspace to a standard starscape with a green haze shrouding the view.

The green gas clouds were a well-known feature of the Caleron System, notable mostly because the materials interfered with long-range scanners. This allowed the system’s activities to go largely unregulated compared to other areas in the galaxy. When it came down to it, despite the glorified Space Rangers shown in videos, the actual Galactic Space Force was understaffed and had no means of properly policing every system. Places like Caleron that were already headed two steps in the wrong direction were easier to let go than trying to rein in and continue managing.

Jack turned off the viewscreen and returned the pillows to the couch. As he was about to set the pillows back in their proper place, the green-hued light streaming through the window highlighted a sea of crumbs around the couch frame. “Did I do that?”

Finn seemed to have noticed a similar graveyard on his own couch. “Some of these look fossilized. I don’t think we’ve had the Little Princess II for long enough to have that happen.”

“Ew.” Jack scrunched his nose. “Did we not clean this ship when we bought it from the dealer?”

“I thought he cleaned it for us.”

“The state of the couch suggests otherwise.”

Finn stood motionless for a moment. “We’ve been sitting in filth for the past month, haven’t we?”

Jack crouched down and wiped his finger over the black baseboard. Shiny chrome was left in its path. He jumped back to his feet, hastily wiping his finger on his dark pants. “Yes. Yes, we have.”

Finn scowled, holding his hands in fists against his chest. “Now I’m afraid to touch anything.”

“We were just on the floor!”

“I don’t want to think about it.” His friend shook his head.

“What’s going on in there?” Alyssa shouted from the bridge.

“We just realized the baseboards are supposed to be chrome,” Jack replied.

“That’s not possible,” Triss replied after an extended pause.

A moment later, she appeared in the corridor that led to the bridge. She knelt down and ran her finger along a different section of baseboard.

“Oh, stars!” She recoiled with horror.

“Yeah, like we were saying,” Jack said, still unable to move from his standing position. He shifted his cybernetic eye to the ultraviolet setting—something he’d learned to avoid under normal circumstances—and was greeted by the sight of several pools and splatters on the furniture and walls. His mouth dropped open. “I think someone died in here.”

“What makes you say that?” Triss asked.

Jack swallowed the bile rising in his throat. “You don’t want to see what I see.” He hastily cycled the image back to normal, but the gruesome image was burned into his memory.

Triss held her arms to her chest in much the same manner as the two men. “We can’t have a passenger in here until this ship gets cleaned up.”

“A passenger?” Finn wailed. “What about us?!”

Jacked stared at him with wide, haunted eyes. “I can’t un-see what I saw. You don’t want to know what’s invisible to organic eyes.”

Finn shuddered. “I need to get out of here!”

“What’s going on?” Alyssa asked from the bridge.

Triss wrapped her arms around herself. “Alyssa, find us a detailing service!”

CHAPTER 2: Wheeling and Dealing

— — —

The moment the Little Princess II was docked at the Caleron Station, Jack dashed to the main access hatch. “Blood… So much invisible blood…” he murmured.

“I can’t believe we’ve been rolling around on the floor.” Finn took a shaky breath. “I thought they were black. I really did.”

“I don’t understand how it could be so filthy,” Triss said. “I mean, we’re in space. It’s not like we’ve been tracking mud in from outside.”

“Dead skin, grease, smoke…” Jack paled. “Do you think they burned the bodies?”

Triss cast him a sidelong look. “What are you talking about?”

“There’s the blood, but where are the bodies?” he replied.

“I think Jack is going to be checked out for a few,” Finn commented. “Whatever he saw, I’m happy not to have a cybernetic eye. I like seeing things through my own filter.”

“Yeah, I know what you mean,” Alyssa agreed.

The access hatch control console beeped that the seal was solid with the station.

Jack unlocked the door and shoved it open. He took a deep breath of the fresh station air, only to realize it smelled like burned fish tacos. The scent hit the back of his throat, and he collapsed in a coughing fit.

“Are you all right?” Finn asked, helping him to his feet.

“I won’t go back in there until those stains are gone,” Jack replied. He backed down the gangway away from the ship.

Triss stepped out, followed by Alyssa.

“What’s going on?” Alyssa requested again. “You just started shouting about grime and blood, I think? I’m confused.”

Triss swallowed. “So, um, remember when the shipyard manager said the yacht had been detailed?”

Alyssa nodded.

“Well, it wasn’t. In fact, I don’t think it has been properly cleaned in years.”

“That’s impossible,” Alyssa replied, but her tone was lacking conviction.

“You can inspect it for yourself or take my word for it,” Triss said. “I’m with Jack, though: now that I’ve seen it for what it is, that entire place needs to be sterilized before I go back in there.”

Alyssa frowned. “When you told me to look for a detailer, I didn’t think it was that serious of a request.”

“There has to be someone around here who can do the work,” Finn insisted. “I mean, even criminals need housekeeping services on occasion.”

“The docking aid suggested one, but from their name, I think it may have been misclassified,” Alyssa went on.

Triss cocked her head. “What are they called?”

“Perfect Touch.”

Finn snorted. “That totally sounds like the front for a brothel.”

“Or maybe an escort service.” Triss sighed. “Maybe there’s an information kiosk that can give us some more leads.”

The four intrepid travelers set off down the gangway to the main concourse through that branch of the station. As soon as they reached the corridor, it was apparent the station’s culture fully embodied its seedy reputation. Shops lining the interior of the concourse boasted sales on all manner of weapons from unregistered handguns to high-powered explosives, thinly veiled drug euphemisms were listed in conjunction with ‘ask us about…’ bonus offerings, and most ads involved a nearly topless woman or shirtless man.

In the case of the store across from the ship’s gangway, they had a trifecta of sales messaging. A hologram by the front door depicted a woman wearing a tiny bikini top and a shirtless man perched atop a hoverscooter inexplicably traveling through space with no shielding. They each carried a ridiculously over-sized weapon and had rainbows shooting out of their eyes while they grinned in bliss. Jack wasn’t sure whether to be intrigued or horrified.

“No,” Alyssa stated when she saw him eyeing the ad. “Just no.”

He shrugged. “Lead the way.”

She set off to the left branch of the concourse, doing her best to navigate the group around the occasional pedestrian who blocked their path. The other people in the station all seemed to be in their own little world, and whenever Jack approached someone, they made no attempt to get out of his way.

“What’s with these people?” he whispered to Triss.

“I think they’re seeing rainbows,” she replied in a low voice.

“What does that even mean?”

“I dunno, some new drug that hit the street a while back. Apparently, it burns on the way down, but then you get this fantastic high that’s like you’re living inside a rainbow.”

“That sounds… intense.”

Triss nodded. “I think we have enough going on without getting involved in something like that.”

“Agreed.”

A hundred meters from the Little Princess II’s berth, Alyssa deviated from the main walkway to access an information kiosk marked with a holographic ‘i’ floating above it. She scrolled through the directory entries with a swipe of her hand. “Ugh, I hate this kind of directory. They don’t offer suggestions for businesses in similar categories. It’s a guessing game for what it might be filed under—detailing, cleaning, hazmat…”

“I’d think ‘cleaning’,” Triss suggested.

“Yeah, I did, too,” Alyssa replied, “except the category list goes straight from ‘caretaker’ to ‘coroner’.”

“No ‘clergy’?” Finn asked.

“Might be under ‘priest’ or ‘minister’,” Jack suggested.

“Or they don’t have it. There’s no way of knowing.” Alyssa sighed.

“How did you find out about Perfect Touch before?” Triss questioned.

“Verbal referral from the docking aid when I asked about any cleaning services.”

Finn nodded. “That would seem to indicate ‘cleaning’ is the appropriate term.”

Alyssa threw her hands in the air. “That’s my problem!”

“And you tried detailing already?” Triss asked.

“Yes!”

“Washing?” Finn offered.

Alyssa rolled her eyes. “That doesn’t make sense.”

“Uh, guys,” Jack tried to get their attention.

Triss waved him off. “We’re thinking.”

“I don’t think we need the directory,” Jack tried again.

Alyssa made an entry on the screen. “Nope, not ‘washing’, either.”

“No, guys, it’s right there.” Jack pointed at the establishment seventy meters down the corridor.

“Oh.” Alyssa dropped her hands to her sides. “I guess that’s why the docking attendant sent us to this section.”

“Come on. We need to get the ship scrubbed.” Jack set off toward the storefront.

The shop was one of the few establishments on the side of the concourse that had gangways leading to docked ships. Based on what Jack could tell as they approached, its placement was so the craft they were working on could be berthed directly at the shop. A small cargo vessel presently occupied the slip, and three workers in EVA suits were maneuvering around its hull.

Inside the station, the storefront was distinguished by a four-meter-wide holographic sign reading ‘Perfect Touch’ with a looping image of a woman blowing a kiss. At the front of the suite, a bored-looking man in a dark blue jumper was playing solitaire with a deck of physical cards. Behind the front counter where he was seated, racks of various electronic and mechanical components were arranged around a central walkway, which appeared to lead to a private gangway for the docking berth.

“Hi, do you offer cleaning services for ships?” Jack asked as he approached the counter.

The man looked up from his card game. A badge on his jumpsuit read ‘Greg’. “We do,” he replied.

“Great! We need that. Badly.”

“You know, we had a hell of a time finding you,” Finn said. “What is your business filed under in the directory?”

The receptionist nodded. “Ah, yeah, we get that a lot. You need to look under ‘undirtying’.”

“Uh…” Alyssa looked around at the faces of the other crewmembers.

“Is that even a word?” Jack asked.

Greg shrugged. “Well, we kept getting mistaken for an escort service, because of the name, so we wanted something that couldn’t be read as an innuendo.”

“Ah,” Jack replied, though it didn’t make sense why they wouldn’t just change the name rather than bury the business in the station directory. “So, about cleaning our ship…”

“Right.” Greg nodded. “Well, we’re finishing up a service request at the moment. We might be able to squeeze you in afterward if it won’t take too long. What do you need done, exactly?”

“Complete interior detailing,” Jack replied. “We need to make it ready for passengers.”

Greg came to attention. “Oh, passengers! Yes, we can help you with that. Let me check with the boss, hold on.” He hopped off of his swiveling stool and jogged into the back area of the shop, disappearing from view.

“Good, we should be out of here by this evening,” Alyssa said. “I don’t like the idea of spending the night in a place like this.”

Triss crossed her arms. “Agreed.”

A minute later, Greg returned to the counter. “The boss will see you now.”

“Oh, uh, okay,” Alyssa said, taking the lead.

“This way.” Greg opened a flip-up portion of the counter and motioned them to the back of the shop.

The rear storage area was messier than Jack had realized when viewing it from the outside, with numerous components littering the floor between the shelves. Strangely, there were a number of crates stored on the racks, which were marked with a series of blue rabbit silhouettes in groupings ranging from one to five. Jack had never seen markings like that before, especially on wingnuts, but he did need to give the shop credit for maintaining an impressive inventory of such an archaic component.

At the back of the shop, Greg passed through a doorway into a back office space with a view of the ship berth.

Seated behind a metal desk cluttered with spacesuit-wearing bubbleheads was a broad, bearded man wearing a black t-shirt that displayed a white lollipop and the words ‘Suck it’. He evaluated the group as they entered, his brown eyes slightly narrowed and his fingers steepled as he leaned back in his seat.

“I hear you would like to have your ship detailed in preparation for taking on passengers,” he stated in a thick accent that Jack couldn’t place.

“Yes,” Alyssa replied. “You’re the owner of this establishment?”

“Yes, I am Bettino, but you may call me Betty.”

Jack bit his tongue.

Finn, however, snickered, but attempted to hide it with a cough.

“Thank you for seeing us on short notice,” Alyssa said at an elevated volume. She kicked her foot behind her toward Finn. “We decided today that the ship really needed to get clean, you know? Gotta up our business game.”

“Yes, we can detail it to get you ready for passengers. You will pay a security deposit now and then there will be full payment upon delivery,” Betty continued.

“Right, of course,” Alyssa agreed.

Betty grabbed a tablet from a shelf behind his desk and made entries on the screen. “You go to Rufan.”

Alyssa glanced back at the others and they shrugged. “Sorry, was that a statement or a question?”

“You go to Rufan?” Betty repeated with almost identical inflection.

“I think he’s asking if we’ve ever been there,” Jack suggested in a whisper. “Yes, I’m familiar with it,” he replied to the proprietor. “Lovely system. Lots of business.”

“Good.” Betty nodded.

“So, about getting our ship cleaned…” Alyssa said.

“Bring it here and we will prepare it for you,” Betty told her. He thrust the tablet toward her. “Pay deposit.”

Alyssa looked at the amount. “A thousand credits is a little steep for cleaning, isn’t it?”

Triss took the tablet. “And that’s per unit. How many units are there?”

“One ship. We will make it very nice for passengers,” Betty said.

Alyssa shook her head. “But what about the total payment? If the thousand is just the deposit.”

“That’s all of your portion, don’t worry,” Betty said. “You will make ten times more with passengers.”

Triss leaned in to whisper in Alyssa’s ear just loud enough for Jack to overhear. “A thousand credits isn’t terrible given the size of the ship. I’m surprised he didn’t want to do a walkthrough before bidding. I say we take it.”

The captain thought for a moment. “Okay,” she agreed. “I’ll need to authorize the payment with the bank, just a moment.” She stepped out of the room.

“Is something wrong?” Betty asked.

“No, we just haven’t done business at this station before—need to clear it with the bank,” Triss replied.

Betty frowned. “If you wish to work with places like this, you will need to stay away from institutions.”

“Well, this cleaning need was unexpected. We didn’t have time to withdraw physical currency.”

“You understand there will be credit chips for future transactions, yes?” he asked.

Triss nodded. “Not a problem. I hope we won’t need another cleaning anytime soon, but you never know.” She smiled.

Betty crossed his arms. “I hope you intend to deliver.”

“Yes, Alyssa will be right back with our deposit,” Triss assured him.

On cue, Alyssa reentered the office. “All set,” she said.

“Good, here is the contract.” Betty handed her the tablet with the terms.

“Anything unusual I should be aware of?” Alyssa asked.

“Very standard. Payment for services rendered,” the proprietor replied.

Alyssa scanned over the text on the tablet, not seeming to read very carefully. She placed her hand on it as a biometric signature.

The screen flashed green, and she handed it back to Betty.

“Bring the ship here in ten minutes,” he said. “We are almost finished with this job.”

“We have to move the ship over ourselves?” Alyssa asked with obvious disappointment.

“Is that a problem?” Betty tilted his head.

“I guess we were hoping it would be all clean next time we stepped foot on board,” she murmured.

“Where is it now?” the proprietor asked.

“Just a quarter kilometer down this concourse,” Triss said.

“Oh, yes, we will bring it over for you. Leave the command keys.” Betty nodded.

“Uh, should we really hand over the command access codes like that?” Jack asked in a low voice to Alyssa. “They could make any changes to the ship and it wouldn’t set off warnings.”

“Do you want to go back on the ship and fly it over?” she replied.

Jack frowned. “Not really, no.”

Alyssa removed a chip hanging from a chain tucked inside her shirt. “Here it is, for the Little Princess II.”

Betty gave a quizzical look to Finn and Jack. “You travel on a ship with such a girly name?”

“Yeah, go figure…” Jack muttered.

“Come back in four hours. The ship will be ready,” Betty told them.

“Thank you. See you then,” Alyssa said.

The group exited the shop the same way they came in. When they were back in the main concourse, they looked at each other.

“What are we supposed to do for four hours?” Jack asked.

Finn rubbed his hands together. “Shopping!”

CHAPTER 3: The World through Another’s Eyes

— — —

“This is so exciting!” Jack exclaimed. “You haven’t let me wander around a station for weeks.”

“Usually because you always get yourself into trouble,” Alyssa replied.

He cast her a sidelong glance. “Hey, don’t forget that my antics saved us not too long ago.”

“It’s true, Alyssa,” Triss interjected. “We did promise to occasionally acknowledge that he was a hero.”

“I thought we had agreed on ‘performed a heroic act’?” she replied. “Full-on ‘hero’ sounded too, you know, competent.”

“It wasn’t by dumb luck that I saved you,” Jack countered. “I did plan ahead, and that saved us.”

Alyssa raised an eyebrow. “You bought a confetti insert for your jacket collar. Pretty sure you were planning on a rave, not a daring escape.”

“But I used the tool effectively in the moment,” Jack pointed out. “Everyone appreciates tasteful applications of glitter.”

“I do like shiny things,” Finn admitted.

Jack spread his arms with vindication. “See?”

Alyssa sighed. “All right, you heroically came to our rescue. Happy?”

Jack beamed. “Yes.”

They continued down the broad corridor. Up ahead, to the right, Jack spotted the opening to a SpaceMall store. While the online catalog was the main business operation, there were a handful of physical locations where one could sample the wares.

Jack had previously ordered his confetti-collar, gold rainbow light-up shoes, jacket speakers, and button-sized micro-cutters from the online platform, but there were a handful of products he’d been meaning to check out in person. Caleron was likely the only system they’d visit in the coming months that would have a physical store, so there was no question in his mind that this was a prime opportunity to assess the products.

“We’re going in there.” He pointed at the storefront.

Finn’s eyes lit up. “I think the Toastmaster 10,000 was just released.”

“No, Finn,” Alyssa said with a hint of panic in her tone. “We already have enough toasters.”

“Like I’ve said before, toasting technology is always evolving. You can’t expect me to stick with last month’s model!”

Triss frowned. “I can’t imagine it’s evolving that much on a month-to-month basis.”

“The 10,000 toasts while it bakes. Can your toaster do that?” he asked.

“Uh… I slice the bread and then stick it in the thing, then it pops up when it’s done,” Triss replied.

Disgust twisted Finn’s face. “I knew you hated modern technology, but such archaic toast-making methods—”

“What makes you think I hate modern technology?” Triss interrupted.

“The fact that you still have one of those toasters, for starters.”

“How have you not seen it in the galley?”

Finn shrugged. “I have a selective visual filter. If something is too discordant with my preferred perception, I see it as something else. I must have been perceiving it as a different item.”

“That explains why I kept finding credit chips in the toaster,” Alyssa mused.

“Huh.” Finn pursed his lips. “And that explains why the piggy bank shocked me every time I tried to retrieve my change.”

Jack eyed him. “You’ve been electrocuting yourself on a toaster for a month and you thought it was a piggy bank doing it?”

“It may have been a sibling tamper-proof model,” the other man replied. “I also thought it was possible that it was one of the electric eel hybrid models.”

“You can’t put electric eel DNA in a piggy bank, Finn.” Jack sighed.

“Why not? They’re both organic. If we can have a kangaraffe, why not an electric pigeel?”

Jack held up his index finger. “Wait, are you saying you thought the piggy bank was an actual living pig?”

“Well yeah,” Finn stated.

“When you said you were putting your credit chips in it, I thought you were dropping them in a slot on the back of a ceramic or metal thing.”

“What?” Finn laughed. “No, that would be ridiculous.”

“How did you think you were depositing the chips?” Jack asked.

“Obviously, I was putting them in the—”

“Not important!” Alyssa cut in. “I think we’ve spent enough time looking through Finn’s eyes. I can’t say I ever want to see the world that way again.”

“I found it fascinating, personally,” Jack countered. “I could have had a pet pig this whole time.”

“Electric pigeel,” Finn corrected. “They’re rather sensitive about their classifications. Hybrids can be elitist bastards.”

“I wouldn’t have expected that.”

“Well, think about it, they are the combination of the best traits from multiple genetic sources. They argue that hybrids are better than any one species on its own.”

“I guess they do have a point,” Jack realized.

“Except that your pigeel was actually an old-fashioned toaster,” Triss pointed out. “And kangaraffes aren’t real, either.”

Finn snorted. “Yeah, try telling that to the panthericorn over there.”

Jack looked in the direction Finn had gestured, seeing only an instant lottery ticket kiosk. “I don’t see a panthericorn.”

The other man groaned. “It’s right there!” He pointed at the kiosk.

Jack, Triss, and Alyssa exchanged worried glances.

“You know, Finn, I don’t think you ever told me how you ended up imprisoned at Hellena,” Jack said.

“It was ridiculous. I was just trying to milk a panthericorn,” he replied with a dismissive flip of his wrist. “They’re shy at first, but if you can catch one and touch it just right, it shoots out stars and your savings account gets an extra decimal place.”

The others stared at him with abject horror.

Unfazed, Finn clasped his hands together when he noticed the window display for the SpaceMall store; the centerpiece was a Toastmaster 10,000. “It’s here!”

“So, um, what do you think the Toastmaster 10,000 is, Finn?” Alyssa asked cautiously.

“A super-fancy toaster, obviously.” He scoffed. “Why, what else would it be?”

“And you thought I was the weird one,” Jack muttered.

Alyssa patted him on the shoulder. “Jack, I suddenly have new appreciation for you.”

Finn ran into the store toward the toaster display, giggling.

“Did you know about this?” Alyssa asked Triss.

The other woman shook her head. “I was aware he had some strange perceptions about things, but he was so good at safe-cracking that I never asked questions.”

Jack crossed his arms. “Makes me wonder what he thinks he’s doing when he cracks a safe.”

Alyssa shook her head slowly. “I don’t want to know.”

“Is he, like, dangerous?” Jack asked.

Triss shrugged. “We went this long without noticing anything. I’m inclined to say we just forget about this whole exchange and pretend everything is normal.”

Alyssa nodded. “Works for me.”

“Well, in that case, I have some shopping to do,” Jack said.

The two women followed him into the store.

The interior was more magnificent than anything Jack could have imaged. Countertops on islands in the center of the store were covered with a spread of completely random items, most of which filled needs that were entirely imagined. One notable example was a butterfly-shaped waffle maker that Jack realized he needed the moment it caught his eye.

“Alyssa, why haven’t we been eating butterfly waffles for breakfast?!” he exclaimed.

“I don’t know, but I think this is a must-have.”

“Wait a minute,” Triss grabbed Alyssa’s upper arm while she lunged for the product display. “Shouldn’t we look around at everything before deciding what we want to buy?”

Alyssa scoffed. “What does it matter? We have more money to spend than we reasonably will ever get to.”

Triss frowned. “Just because we have a lot of Spacecups stock, that doesn’t mean it will convert to disposable income.”

“But Triss… butterfly waffles.” Alyssa looked longingly between the waffle iron and her partner.

“Okay, but let’s pick it up on the way out,” Triss conceded.

“Stars! This is more amazing than I imaged,” Finn crooned from the front display case. He stroked his hand along the upper bevel of the Toastmaster 10,000’s red ceramic finish.

Jack, however, had his own mission in mind. Ever since the latest edition of the SpaceMall catalog, he’d been curious about the astronaut onesie. As a loungewear connoisseur, a proclivity his comrades had no doubt realized by that point, he had been on the hunt for the most comfortable, useful clothing items to satisfy his lounging needs. While loose pants and a shirt were sufficient, onesies offered the distinct benefit of having no possibility for a breech at the waistline when bending over. Considering the cool temperature of life in space, maintaining lower back temperature control was a key consideration.

He located the astronaut onesie model in a section of the store labeled ‘Kid at Heart’, located at the convenient intersection of kids clothing and adult toys. The jumper was predominantly off-white with black accents along the seams and the contrasting panel for the butt-flap.

Jack examined the floor sample, rubbing one of the sleeves between his thumb and forefinger. “Stars! The microfiber is even softer than the advertising claimed.”

He decided he needed three pairs.

With three packages of the onesie in his arms and a growing list of must-have running through his head, he realized that he’d need a strategy to make it through the shopping expedition. “I’m going to need a cart.”

The hours passed quickly as he perused the store, occasionally running into his friends. Alyssa had to talk him down from getting the complete rainbow of light-up sneakers, so he limited his acquisition to just the electric blue and red to alternate with his current gold. All told, he ended up with three onesies, two pairs of light-up sneakers, a butterfly waffle maker, four alarm clocks, and an automated vacuum that purred like a cat when its catchment bag needed changing.

After the requisite four hours for their ship to be cleaned, the crew checked out from the store. Purchases in hand in the store’s signature blue shopping bags, they returned to the Perfect Touch storefront.

However, the berth was empty.

“Uh, where’s our ship?” Alyssa asked Greg.

“Oh, we have another customer coming in. We returned it to an open berth at the end of the concourse,” he replied.

Alyssa sighed. “Where, exactly?”

Just down the concourse—two kilometers,” Greg stated.

Jack shifted the bundle of items in his arms. “Maybe we shouldn’t have bought so much.”

“No!” Finn snarled, hunching protectively over his Toastmaster 10,000 box. We needed these things.”

“I’m excited about the butterfly waffles,” Triss said with a nod.

“Oh, that.” Greg nodded behind the counter. “They come out looking more like moths.”

“It’s never quite like a demo, is it?” Alyssa sighed. “Well, I guess we should get back to our ship. Where’s my access chip?”

Greg rooted around on the desktop, then handed the item over to her. “You’re all set.”

“What about the final payment?” she asked.

“After inspection,” Greg stated.

“Right, of course.” Triss turned to go. “Thank you for helping us out.” She hoisted her giant purple bear pillow.

“Welcome to the Blue Rabbit family,” Greg replied.

They hurried down the concourse as best they could with their arms full of shopping bags and lose items, garnering only the occasional sidelong glance from passersby. A fair number of other pedestrians seemed to be facing their own challenges carrying life-sized dolls. At first Jack wasn’t sure why adults would be carrying life-sized dolls back to their ships; when he saw the adult ‘toy’ store, however, it became much clearer.

By the end of the two kilometer hike, the crew of the Little Princess II was panting and about ready to drop their new purchases on the deck.

“I can’t feel my arms,” Finn moaned.

“That is one hell of a toaster,” Alyssa commented.

Triss shook her head. “I don’t know where we’re going to fit it in the galley.”

“Plenty of time to figure that out,” Jack said as he began scaling the gangway back into the ship.

When they reached the main hatch, Alyssa unlocked it using her command credentials. “Oh, wow.”

Jack followed her through the hatch. The common room, which jack had always assumed had a dark floor and baseboards, was now gleaming stainless steel. Above, the walls and ceiling were still the grass green Jack had painted them in an attempt to make it feel like they were lounging in a meadow, but the room felt significantly lighter and airier with the flooring improvement.

Likewise, the galley and dining area had new life with gleaming metal finished on the surfaces that had previously been covered in unnoticed grime.

Alyssa popped her head into one of the washrooms. “I’m going to try to forget what color I thought the shower tiles were.”

“How did they do all of this so quickly?” Jack piled his purchases on the dining table.

“Must have a huge team,” Triss speculated.

“Think they took care of the lower levels, too?” Finn asked.

“I guess we didn’t really specify a scope of work beyond detailing the ship,” Alyssa replied. “I’d think it would cover everything.”

“Four hours and a thousand credits? I dunno.” Triss crossed her arms.

“One way to find out.” Jack headed for the ladder down to the belly of the yacht.

The aroma of sweet spices greeted Jack as he descended the ladder. A unique cleaning product fragrance to be sure, but he liked it.

As his head cleared the deck, something else jumped out at him: there was someone moving down below.

“Morey, is that you?” he asked, wondering if the ship’s robotic mechanic was in the middle of some maintenance activities.

“I am so relieved you have returned!” The robot rushed to the bottom of the stairs with a metallic clink of his feet on the deck. “Did you order the renovations?”

“Yeah, the ship was in bad need of some cleaning,” Jack replied while he scaled the remaining portion of the ladder.

“That’s an understatement.” Alyssa followed Jack down the ladder. “I hardly recognize the place.”

“You could have asked me to buff the floor for you,” Morey said.

Jack scrunched up his nose. “That feather suit of yours is weird.”

“But highly effective,” the robot replied with one of his clawed fingers raised. “However, the cleaning is not the renovation activity to which I was referring.”

Alyssa frowned. “What do you mean?”

“I was referring to that.” Morey pointed toward the far side of the cargo area.

What had previously been a section of open deck to hold extra supplies or crates now appeared to be a dormitory, complete with a dozen bunks, two couches, and a dining table. More surprising, however, were the dozen men and women occupying the living area.

Jack placed his hands on his hips. “Well, that’s unexpected.”

CHAPTER 4: Turning up the Heat

— — —

“Um, Alyssa…” Jack began tentatively. “Why are there a dozen beautiful people in our cargo hold?”

She crossed her arms. “I don’t know, Jack. What the hell did you say to Betty while I was out of the room?”

“Nothing! It was just going over the same terms we’d already discussed.”

“Something clearly changed. A dozen people was not part of the deal.”

He gaped at her. “Ya think? I didn’t do this. You were the one who signed the contract!”

“I guess I should have read that more carefully.”

“There was clearly a misunderstanding about what services we wanted. We’ll just have to get rid of them.”

She raised an eyebrow. “What, like, return them?”

Jack shrugged. “I dunno. What do you do when your cargo hold gets turned into a dormitory and a dozen random passengers come on board?”

Alyssa surveyed the new arrivals. “I don’t think these are just random passengers. Pretty sure these are, uh, ‘workers’.”

He evaluated the checkered pants and white jackets. “Like, restaurant workers?”

“No, like ‘people of the night’.”

Jack finally took the hint. “You told me Perfect Touch wasn’t an escort service!”

Alyssa shrugged. “They claim not to be. You know how a business will try to defend its image.”

“Then why are they dressed like a bunch of cooks?”

“Either for cover or for some sort of fetish thing. You know how it goes. Being into certain… types,” she replied.

“What do you mean by that?”

“Well, I mean, your girlfriend is a droid.”

Jack frowned. “First of all, Latrina isn’t my girlfriend.”

“But you’d like for her to be your girlfriend.”

“We haven’t even gone on a date yet.”

The captain smirked. “Don’t deny your interest, Jack. I saw you go all googley-eyed when you saw her.”

“Oh, like you didn’t.”

“She is pretty hot, especially considering what she is,” Alyssa agreed.

“I think you’re jealous I made the first move.”

“No, Jack, I’m really not. Even if Triss and I weren’t together, I don’t see her being my… type.”

“Just because she’s a droid?”

“It’s not just that. Her specialization doesn’t exactly make me want to get intimate.”

“Well, she saved my life,” Jack insisted. “You said you would be nice to her and not be weird about this.”

Alyssa scrunched up her nose. “I can’t imagine I would have said something like that. I may have encouraged you to go for it, but I would never have said I wouldn’t poke fun. Seriously, if there ever was a textbook definition of a situation to constantly bring up and tease someone about, it would be dating the ship’s waste processing droid.”

“Uh, hi,” a male voice said from Jack’s right.

He turned to see that the speaker was half a head shorter than himself and slightly fuller-figured than he would have expected for an escort. However, the man had a pleasant face and gave off the energy of someone who’d be easy to talk to, so Jack set aside his preconceptions.

“Hello,” Jack replied. “What can we do for you?”

The man looked to Alyssa and then back to Jack. “You bring us.”

Alyssa let out an awkward chuckled. “Yeah, see, there was some sort of misunderstanding. We were just looking to have the ship detailed, not take on a bunch of people to transport.”

“But that was the deal,” the main said.

“I’m sorry, what’s your name?” Alyssa asked.

“Ramone.”

“Well, Ramone, I know it’s unfair for you to be caught in the middle of this, but we’ll need for you and the others to leave the ship. We’ll get this sorted out with Betty.”

“Oh, no.” Ramone shook his head, his eyes widening with apparent fear. “You can’t change the deal.”

“We’re not changing the deal—it was a misunderstanding about what we wanted,” Alyssa replied.

“You must take us to Rufan,” Ramone stated. “You agreed.”

“Oh, that’s what Betty meant!” Jack realized. “See, I wasn’t sure if there was a question mark there or not. I guess it was a statement—an instruction— after all, not a question about whether or not we’d ever been.”

“Huh.” Alyssa nodded. “I can see how that misunderstanding happened.”

Jack sighed. “You never valued a good debate about the use of spoken punctuation. This is why.”

“Unless you have a time travel machine, we can’t go back to that conversation and do it over,” Alyssa replied. “The only path forward is… well, forward.” She turned to Ramone. “And on that note, how do we get out of this contract?”

Ramone waved his hands in front of him and shook his head. “No. No, no. I don’t know. I just do my job.”

“And Betty wants you to go ‘work’ in Rufan?” Jack asked.

“Yes, we work in Rufan.”

Jack beckoned Alyssa away from Ramone and the other workers. “We need to help these people.”

“Whoa! What the…?” Triss came down the ladder, frowning at sight of the dormitory.

“So, um, apparently we agreed to transport a bunch of Perfect Touch’s workers to Rufan,” Alyssa said.

“Yeah, I was wondering if that was a question mark or a period at the end of his statement,” Triss replied.

The captain rolled her eyes. “Why didn’t you say something?”

Triss shrugged. “Didn’t seem important at the time.”

“Doesn’t matter now,” Jack continued. “We have people here who are actually being trafficked. Don’t we have a moral obligation to help them?”

“As much as I don’t like the idea of people getting forced to do anything against their will, I don’t know that we’re in a position to do anything about it. We clearly got involved with the wrong people. It was an accident, but it’s not our problem,” Alyssa replied.

“How can you say that?” Jack gaped at her. “You were personally wronged in ways way less severe than sex slavery and you still fought for justice. Maybe we should start thinking about people other than ourselves.”

“He does have a point. We need to do something,” Triss agreed.

Alyssa looked over her shoulder at the workers mingling in the new dorm area. “Do we know that they’re being forced to do this against their will? There’s no law against that kind of work.”

“Hey, Ramone,” Jack called out as he stepped away from Triss and Alyssa. “So, how did you come about working for Betty?”

“Well, I guess that’s one way of finding out,” Alyssa said as she and Triss followed him back toward the group.

“Betty has been good to us. He makes sure we have work even after he acquired us,” Ramone replied.

“That’s not what I asked. Are you free to stop working for him at any time? Are you doing this by choice?” questioned Jack.

Ramone glanced toward his comrades. He swallowed. “He says if we do this last job in Rufan, then he’ll let us go.”

“Why don’t you just stop if you don’t want to do this?” Alyssa asked him. “We can drop you anywhere you want.”

The man shook his head. “No, we can’t. He’s holding our IDs. That was the agreement.”

Alyssa’s eyes widened. “Wait, he removed your chips?”

Ramone nodded.

Triss’ face twisted with disgust. “Aside from being so illegal it makes even me feel wrong about it, that’s so unethical.”

“He found us and liked our work, so he said we needed to come work for him.” Ramone looked at his feet. “It’s not the worst way to make a living, but I’d like to have some control again over what we make.”

“Alyssa, we have to do something,” Jack urged.

“Yeah, I guess we’re invested now.” She rubbed the bridge of her nose between her thumb and index finger. “Do you have any idea where your IDs might be being held?”

“Betty didn’t tell us, but he did mention doing business in the Antaeran System,” Ramone replied.

“Oh, that’s not good.” Triss paled.

“I’m not familiar with that system. Have you heard of it?” Alyssa asked her.

Triss nodded. “It’s infamous in the hacker circles. There are some powerful organizations dealing in those parts. If Betty is connected with them, we’re in deep.”

The captain frowned. “The kind of deep that doesn’t let us kick these passengers off our ship so we can be on our way?”

“Yeah, they’re the kind of people that will follow you halfway across the galaxy and torture you if you don’t laugh loud enough at their jokes.”

“And they’re never funny,” Ramone added solemnly.

Jack groaned. “Ugh, that’s just the worst.”

Alyssa spread her hands. “Okay, so they’re vengeful asses with bad senses of humor. How are we supposed to get out of this?”

“Destroy their organization from the inside out,” Jack stated.

Alyssa rolled her eyes. “Right, yeah.”

“I’m not joking,” Jack insisted. “If we can locate their base we could tip off our, you know, ‘friends’.”

While ‘friends’ was exaggerating the relationship considerably, the legitimate side of their business dealings did afford certain advantages when they found themselves in a tight spot. Through a series of bizarre circumstances, the crew had established a trade agreement with a galactic corporation known as Competron; what complicated matters was that Competron also masqueraded as a group of radiation-sick space pirates, known as the Vorlox, but in reality the organization was rather benevolent and was working toward a goal of reducing crime and making sure all people had access to the tools to better their lives.

While Competron’s activities under the guise of the Vorlox had produced positive results—including the disbandment of the crime ring that had originally subscripted Jack for the Little Princess II’s crew—the actions weren’t officially sanctioned. As such, the Little Princess II’s crew was sworn to secrecy regarding Competron’s ties to the Vorlox, so any reference therein required some talking around. The vague reference to ‘friends’ was the go-to, despite the distinct lack of friendliness in the relationship.

“This does seem like the kind of case they’d like to take on,” Alyssa replied to Jack’s suggestion.

“But we’ll need to just leave the clean-up to them,” he continued. “If we disclose the location of the base, they’d likely just blow it up. We need to retrieve the IDs first so we can make sure the bystanders don’t get caught in the middle.”

Triss nodded. “We’ll need to do some recon on the facility, but between the four of us, we should be able to break in and get what we need. As long as we time the tip to the Vorlox right, we shouldn’t have to worry about anyone in the gang coming after us.”

“Maybe not from the Antaeran System, but what about Betty and his people here?” Alyssa asked.

“We’ll need to get all the division heads gathered in Antaeran,” Jack said.

Alyssa sighed. “So, you want to have more people converge right where we’re doing a dangerous, sneaky thing?”

Jack was silent for a moment. “Well, having them get there after we leave would be better.”

“This sounds way too risky.” The captain shook her head. “If we can’t get out of the deal with Betty, then we follow through and then go our separate ways.”

“It’s never just one job with these kind of people,” Triss countered. “We can either make a stand now or do it ten jobs from now when we’re sick of it.” She turned to Ramone. “Do you want to work for Betty and his associates, if you had a choice?”

The young man shook his head. “I want my own restaurant.”

Triss flourished her hands. “See? It’s time we actually help some people for real rather than saying we’re going to help them and instead doing something for ourselves.”

“I do like my new shoes, though.” Jack admired his newest pair of blue light-up shoes he’d worn home from the SpaceMall store.

“Helping others and making sure we can satisfy our shopping compulsions aren’t mutually exclusive,” Triss said.

“Okay, fine,” Alyssa agreed. “We’ll help out these people and get their IDs back so they can go free. I still don’t know how we’re going to do that, but we’ll figure it out.”

Triss smiled. “I can’t wait to tell Finn. I bet the IDs are being kept in a fancy safe he’ll need to crack.”

“Be sure to lead with that rather than a pitch about how we’ll be helping people,” Alyssa advised.

“Right,” the other woman acknowledged. “To the Rufan System, then?”

“Yes.” Alyssa’s stomach growled, and she placed a hand on her stomach. “On the way, we need to stop for a snack. All that shopping made me hungry.”

Triss’ eyes lit up. “I know a taquito place on the way.”

CHAPTER 5: Distractions

— — —

“We’re doing what?” Finn raised an eyebrow when Jack and Triss finished relaying the plan to him.

The three of them were standing in the common room while Alyssa calculated their flight path options on the bridge.

“An operations base like that probably has a ton of valuable things we can take,” Triss continued. “The fact that we get to help these people start a new life is secondary to us getting a good payday.”

“Plus, not having vengeful thugs after us until the end of time,” Jack added.

“That’s assuming Ramone was telling the truth. Have you talked with any of the other workers to get their story?” Finn asked.

Jack and Triss looked at each other.

“Well, no…” Jack tentatively replied.

“This base might not even exist. Or we could be walking into a trap,” Finn continued. “Since when do we care about anyone enough to take that kind of risk?”

“For me, it was when Latrina saved me,” Jack replied.

Finn rolled his eyes. “Oh, stars, her again…”

“No, really,” Jack continued. “I had a gun pointed at my head and was about to die, but she selflessly showed up and saved me—saved us. Seeing someone risk themselves to help others reminded me that we had wanted to give back before we got derailed with Trent and Merica.”

“And before Alyssa and I joined up with Svetlana, we were scientists. We were trying to make life better for people—and that’s why we stole the MEC and started Spacecups,” Triss said. “Yeah, we’ve killed some people along the way and stolen things, but we’re living in an imperfect world. You need to pick which lives you’re going to improve. Right now, we have a ship full of people, and we have a chance to help them follow their dreams.”

Jack leaned in. “And, frankly, I think we need some good cosmic karma.”

Finn sighed. “You’re right, we probably need to help some people to cancel out the guard deaths at the GiganCorp lab.”

“They went down so easily…” Triss shook her head and tsked.

“I know! I wasn’t even aiming and they’d fall down dead.” Jack chuckled. “You know, I wonder if we even shot them.”

“What do you mean?” she asked.

“Well, there were singe marks on their white armor, but do you recall any blood?”

Triss thought for a moment. “Come to think of it, I don’t.”

“I had always figured the laser blasts cauterized the wounds, or something, but earlier this month I started wondering if maybe they were faking it.”

“What are you talking about, Jack?” Finn questioned, crossing his arms.

“Well, we all know how difficult it is to get good help, right?”

His friends nodded.

“So, if you’re going to be terrible at your job, would you actually die to perform your duty?”

“No, I suppose not,” Finn replied, his eyes narrowing as he considered the proposition.

“What if they were just dropping to the ground pretending to be shot?” Jack continued. “I mean, if I was getting shot at, I think I’d put on a show, then play dead. As soon as the danger had passed, I’d get out of there and find a new job.”

“Or, maybe that’s what GiganCorp tells them to do,” Triss hypothesized. “They might all go back to work the following day and pretend like nothing happened.”

“Huh.” Jack nodded. “You may be onto something.”

Finn scoffed. “No, that’s crazy. Right…?”

Jack shrugged. “One way to find out.”

“No, we can’t go all the way back there. If we’re wrong, they’ll arrest us on the spot,” Triss protested.

“But, the taquitos at Mexcelente were really good,” Jack pointed out.

“I already had another place in mind.”

“Are those two things mutually exclusive?”

“I guess not,” Triss admitted. “Now that you mention it, it’s not that out of the way.”

“No. No!” Finn stepped between Jack and Triss, spreading his hands. “We get way too distracted by random things. If the situation is as serious as you indicated, we need to get these people to the Rufan System before Betty or his associates suspect anything is amiss. We break in, get the IDs, and then we can be done with this. No random side-ventures to places we’ve already been. Maybe the guards died, maybe they didn’t, but it doesn’t matter.”

“Okay, fine, we’ll stick with the original taquito place,” Jack conceded.

Triss sighed. “I was getting all psyched for Mexcelente.”

“Another time.” Jack patted her arm. “We should get moving before we get too behind schedule.”

“Yeah, okay.” Triss headed for the corridor that led to the bridge.

“I hope this place is good,” Jack commented to Finn when they were alone.

“Triss has good taste when it comes to these things. It’ll be fine.” Finn settled into his typical place on his favorite couch.

Jack remained standing. “You brought up a good point about us only talking to Ramone. Maybe we should interview the others?”

“That sounds like it would require standing. And effort.”

“Well, yeah.”

“Pass. Maybe after I’m fed.”

Jack groaned. “You were the one who brought it up.”

“Oh, like we have such a great track record of following through on our own suggestions.”

“Fine, I’ll do it myself.” He descended the ladder.

When Jack entered the cargo hold, he found the workers had arranged themselves in a circle in one of the open areas, with eleven people seated cross-legged facing inward and the twelfth person in the group tapping each person on the head as they walked the circumference of the circle.

“Oh, hey! I know this game,” Jack said as he approached them.

“Game?” The woman circling the group stopped in her tracks. She was closer to the body type Jack expected for a worker such as herself, with curves in the right places and slim limbs, from what he could tell through her loose, checkered pants and white button-up jacket.

“Yeah. You walk the circle, then pick someone, and they chase you around until they tag you,” Jack replied.

She tilted her head quizzically. “That isn’t what we’re doing.”

He crossed his arms. “Then what?”

“It’s our daily booping.”

“Pardon?”

“We take turns walking around the circle and boop each other on the head.”

Jack raised an eyebrow. “But why?”

She shrugged. “Tradition.”

“Um, okay. Well, don’t let me interrupt you.”

She tapped one more person on the head, who happened to be Ramone. “We’re finished now,” she said.

The others in the circle stood up, then placed their palms together and bowed.

“What can we do for you?” the woman asked and the group turned to face Jack.

“I wanted to see if you knew any more about where we’re going.”

“Rufan?” Ramone asked.

“Yes, do any of you have information about the headquarters facility for the organization you work for?” Jack questioned the group.

“I heard them mention a station inside a pink star,” a good-looking man in the back row said. “They always find the delivery ship when it arrives in the system, then escort.”

“Yes, and something about a blue rabbit,” another woman added.

Jack frowned. “I can’t say that makes any sense, though I have seen and heard blue rabbits mentioned back at Perfect Touch.”

Ramone stepped to the front of the group. “These are dangerous people. They demand a high-quality product to serve their clients. They will be angry if you do anything to jeopardize the merchandise.”

“We’re going to find a way to get you to safety and take them down, don’t worry,” Jack assured him.

“It’s not us I’m worried about,” Ramone replied.

Jack smiled. “You don’t have to worry about us. We have a way of getting ourselves out of trouble.”

“Sounds like you are walking into it,” the other man responded.

“Only for the greater good. It’s time we made a difference.” Jack looked around at the workers’ faces. “Is there anything else you can tell me about where we’re going or what we might find?”

They shook their heads.

“None of us were seeking this life,” the woman who’d been doing the booping said. “If you are indeed able to get us our freedom, we will be in your debt.”

“No.” Jack clenched his hands into fists. “If you are free, then you’re free. No debts.”

The workers smiled back at him. “You are a good man, thank you.”

Jack thanked them for the little information they’d been able to provide and then excused himself to the upper deck of the ship.

Finn was still lounging on his couch. “We have another two hours before we get to Triss’ taquito place, I just checked with her. Want to watch a couple episodes of Space Rangers?”

“Yes!” Jack grabbed pillows from the couch, pleased to see that the crumbs had been vacuumed and everything appeared to be a shade or two lighter.

They were soon absorbed in their show, interrupted by only the occasional shout from the bridge as Triss and Alyssa bemoaned Jack and Finn’s theme song singing. When the ship dropped out of hyperspace, the end credits for the second episode had just started rolling.

Jack rose to his knees from his lounge position on the floor. “Food?”

Finn grinned. “Food!”

“Don’t get ahead of yourselves,” Alyssa cautioned from the bridge. “Someone needs to stay and guard the ship so our passengers don’t try to take off without us.”

“How is one of us—or even the four of us—supposed to stand up to a dozen people?” Jack questioned.

“Best not to dwell on those details,” Alyssa replied. “Decide which of you is staying behind.”

Jack turned to Finn. “There’s only one fair way.”

Ten seconds and one successful throw of ‘scissors’ later, it was decided Jack would get to go on the outing.

He waited in the common room while Triss and Alyssa maneuvered the Little Princess II into the rest stop along the hyperspace thoroughfare. Such stopover points were invaluable for fueling and provisions on longer treks. However, for a crew with an addiction to fried foods, the stop was perceived as being every bit as necessary during the short hop to Rufan as it may have been to others as a midpoint on a month-long journey.

Based on Jack’s view out the side window, there were two dozen ships gathered around the space station, which was equipped with docking arms protruding from its central cylindrical form. The Little Princess II pulled into one of the open berths, and a slight shudder indicated the docking clamps had locked on.

“Want anything in particular?” Jack asked Finn.

“Triss knows my usual,” the other man replied.

Alyssa and Triss emerged from the bridge.

“Who’s with us?” the captain asked.

“Me.” Jack stepped toward the exit hatch.

“All right, let’s go.” She led the way off the ship.

The gangway was longer than most, given it was designed to accommodate vessels of all sizes. At the end, it opened into a corridor, which curved around the circumference of the space station. The structure was only six decks tall, and all amenities were in the core along the central axis of the station. Holographic signs above the stalls boasted the services and wares offered at each.

“I think we’re on the wrong deck. This way.” Triss took off toward the escalator, which zig-zagged through the central core, providing an easy means for pedestrians to access the different levels.

They rode it down two decks, and then Triss headed to the right.

“Ah, there it is!” She pointed up ahead.

A sign with red lettering and the silhouette of a surfer wearing a sombrero glowed above a stainless steel counter stamped with a maple leaf motif. Based on the sign, the establishment was called Cali-hint-eh.

“Uh, Triss, what is this place?” Jack asked.

“A fusion place, like all Mexican food restaurants should be. It’s Cali-Mex with a touch of Canadian maple.”

Alyssa wrinkled her nose. “That sounds awful.”

“No! The maple is great, trust me. Really complements the spice.” Triss approached the counter.

A worker wearing a moose-head hat with mini-maracas dangling from the antlers smiled at her. “Hey, dudette! ’Sup?”

Triss seemed taken aback for a moment, then turned to Alyssa and Jack. “I forgot about the surfer lingo. How much should we order?”

“Finn said to get his usual,” Jack replied. “What about the workers?”

“Erm.” Alyssa’s brow knit. “I don’t know. How much do normal people eat?”

Jack crossed his arms. “Can we assume these are ‘normal people’? I saw them doing this weird ‘booping’ ritual earlier.”

“What did it entail?” Triss asked.

“They sat in a circle and took turns walking around patting each person on the head.”

Alyssa raised an eyebrow. “That’s odd, not going to lie.”

“That doesn’t mean they aren’t regular people in other ways,” Triss pointed out.

“But what does that even mean, to be ‘normal’?”

“Human, I guess?”

“But are they human?”

Alyssa shrugged. “Looked human to me.”

“But so do Andellans,” the restaurant clerk interjected. “One of them can eat an entire hoslonger.”

Jack stared at him blankly. “I have no idea what that is. I take it from your tone that’s an impressive feat.”

The man’s eyes widened. “Well, yeah! That’s like saying a somlagon flooped a nigglewag.”

“Still not following…” Jack replied.

“Malanging a noompu?”

“I’m just gonna stop you there and say we have a difference in vernacular,” Alyssa cut in.

“Plus, you’re breaking character,” Triss pointed out.

“C’mon, isn’t it enough that I’m wearing this hat?” he objected.

“The hat is pretty bad,” Jack agreed.

Triss sighed. “I’m not sure if the surfer-speak or… whatever that was you were just saying is more incomprehensible.”

“The question stands, what do you want to order?” the clerk asked.

“Four regular orders of taquitos, and whatever else would be good to serve a dozen additional people,” Triss replied.

“How about a caliente grizzly bear pack? It’s like three hoslongers.”

“Uh, sure. We’ll go with that,” Triss agreed.

“Do you have any idea what we’re getting?” Jack whispered to her.

“Haven’t the slightest clue, but it’s guaranteed to be tasty.”

They paid and were told it would take twenty minutes to prepare due to the large order. To pass the time, they decided to walk two stalls down to a walk-up bar so they could grab a quick drink.

Two other patrons were already at the bar, absorbed in their own conversation.

“No way,” the larger of the two men said. “They’re going to have that system locked down in another two weeks.”

“I still think we have a chance to make a move,” the other countered, swirling the amber liquid in his glass. “If you don’t want in, I’ll do it myself.”

“You’re crazy,” the first man scoffed.

“Reputation or not, how tough can they really be operating out of a pink star?”

Jack perked up. “Excuse me,” he said to the two patrons while Triss and Alyssa ordered drinks. “I couldn’t help overhearing you mention a pink star. Do you know where it’s located?”

The two men glanced at each other, then turned their attention to Jack.

“Why do you ask?” questioned the large man.

“I’m, uh, planning to open up a coffee stand with a similar star-shaped exterior,” Jack replied. “You know, branding. But I don’t want there to be any confusion with the other one—make sure my stand is far enough away, you know?”

“Oh, yeah, have to do that market research,” the second man said. “It’s on the outskirts of Rufan, anchored to the icy moon of the outermost gas giant. Not real scenic; most people avoid it.”

“Sounds like I won’t have to worry about people confusing my stand for that,” Jack replied.

“Yeah, no. But you might consider your branding, because most people would avoid anything related to the pink star, not go to it,” cautioned the larger man.

“Why?”

“Because people who go in there don’t tend to come back out again,” he continued. “They have a corner on the market, and anyone who stands in their way is soon… not a problem.”

Alyssa handed a drink to Jack. “Who’s this now?”

“The Blue Rabbits,” the second man whispered, glancing over his shoulder to make sure no one was listening. “We were just advising your friend that using a similar brand wouldn’t be a smart move.”

“So, pink stars and blue rabbits, huh?” Jack said.

“Well, the pink star is just their base. They called themselves the Blue Rabbits and use the emblem as sort of a code—a symbol to verify product is legit,” the first man explained.

“That doesn’t seem very secure,” Alyssa replied. “If it’s a visual symbol, can’t anyone copy it?”

“No one has seen it detailed enough to replicate,” the large man said. “They know exactly what it looks like. If the ears are even a millimeter too long or the tail a little too fluffy, they’ll know it’s a fake.”

Jack took a sip of the drink Alyssa had handed him; it was about as tasty as rocket fuel, but he drank it anyway. “Well, sounds like quite the organization. I think I’ll rebrand my coffee stand.”

The second man nodded. “You better. And avoid having anything spicy on the menu. People might take it the wrong way.”

The large man chuckled. “He’s just saying that because he wants to move in on the market.”

“You mean, uh, ‘detailing’?” Jack whispered.

“Sure, if you want to call it that,” he replied. “I normally just say ‘bring the heat’.”

“Well, we all know we’re talking about the same thing,” Jack said.

“Yeah.” The second man nodded. “Just be sure to stay in your own territory.”

“You’ve got nothing to worry about.” Jack took another sip of his drink. “Thanks for the tips.”

“You bet.” The large man saluted with his own drink, and the other patron did likewise.

Jack turned back to his friends. “Well, that was interesting.”

“What was that about?” Alyssa asked.

“I’ll explain later,” he replied.

They finished their drinks while making small-talk amongst themselves, then headed back to Cali-hint-eh to pick up their to-go order. Piled on the counter, when they arrived, were six translucent bags containing stacks of white clamshell containers.

Jack’s jaw dropped. “Is that all for us?”

“Uh… that looks like it’ll serve more like thirty people,” Alyssa commented.

Triss sighed. “Well, I guess it’s good three of us came or we wouldn’t be able to carry all of this.”

They each took two bags and took the escalator toward their ship.

“So, what was that you heard at the bar?” Triss asked while they rode up.

Jack smiled. “I think I know how to get inside the pink star base.”

CHAPTER 6: The Spice of Life

— — —

“Blue rabbit pictures? That’s your idea?” Alyssa asked with obvious skepticism in her tone.

“See, no one has been able to replicate the symbol,” Jack continued, “but I have a recording.” He pointed to the cybernetic implant in his head as best he could while carrying the bags of food. “It has a twenty-four-hour log, which we are still within.”

Triss pursed her lips. “You know, that might actually work.”

“Yeah,” Alyssa mused, “if they use that symbol as a safe passcode, we could probably get ourselves inside.”

“And, we can send a message summoning everyone in the organization to the base, if we can get a contact list,” Jack added.

The captain’s eye lit up. “We have a list of the Perfect Touch locations. The branches were all listed in the contract—I read over it while we were in transit.”

Jack raised his one good eyebrow. “Oh, sure, now you read it, after it’s signed.”

“Do you ever read those multi-page documents filled with legalese?” she asked.

He shook his head.

Alyssa flourished her hand. “Well, there you go.”

“At any rate, we can send a message to those locations now using a blue rabbit digital stamp to verify authenticity,” Triss said. “That way, the associates will all be there when we tip off the Vorlox.”

“Is there enough transit time for them to get there?” Alyssa asked.

“Well, we stopped for a while, and we aren’t going at maximum hyperspace speed,” Triss said.

“Maybe set the meeting for an hour after our expected arrival? That would give some extra time for the associates to travel,” Jack suggested.

Alyssa nodded. “Okay, assuming this works, we’ll still need to figure out where they are keeping the IDs and anything else valuable enough worth the time and effort to steal.”

“We can figure out the internal layout once we’re in the computer network,” Triss told her. “Get me inside and I’ll take care of it from there.”

Alyssa adjusted her grip on the bags of food in her hands. “I imagine there’s no talking you out of this.”

“Not likely, no,” Jack replied. “May well save the time and energy and just embrace the plan.”

“It’s not a plan. It’s an idea,” she countered.

“It’ll be a plan by the time we do it.” He smiled. “Just think of all the good loot that will be in there, given a gang of this caliber.”

“Yeah, that’s what concerns me. If this doesn’t go well, we’re dead—or worse.”

Triss shook her head. “You should know by now that the tough guys are never as tough as they want you to think, the guards are terrible at their jobs, and we have stupid-good luck that always seems to see us through.”

“I worry about that luck will run out.”

“Not anytime soon. Not so long as we have each other.” Triss grinned. “Let’s get our people fed and then we can worry about the details.”

Alyssa sighed. “All right. I guess I have at least one more crazy venture left in me.”

Jack grinned. “Good, because we were going to make you go anyway.”

They traversed the remaining distance to their ship and boarded with the food in hand.

Finn was waiting in the common room. “Whoa! I thought we were just stopping for a snack?”

“We ordered for everyone, and I guess the portions got a little out of hand.” Alyssa set down the two bags on the deck and flexed her fingers. “Really out of hand.”

“But it’ll be delicious!” Triss’ eyes lit up.

“There’s maple in the Cali-Mex food, Finn. Did you know about this?” Jack asked.

Finn wrinkled his nose. “No, I did not. When I said ‘the usual’ I meant synthobeef taquitos, not… whatever madness you’re describing.”

“Why does no one want hints of maple with jalapeno? Just try it and you’ll stop complaining,” Triss groaned.

Alyssa grabbed one of the two bags she’d carried, which contained their portion of the feast. She handed out foil-wrapped bundles to each crew member. “Well, it smells amazing,” she admitted.

Jack sniffed his own. “That maple does bring a certain sweetness.” He took a tentative bite. The taste of peppers and a hint of caramel exploded in his mouth. “I had my doubts, but I have to say this is actually really good.”

“I know, right?” Triss dug into hers. “I think the moose antler hats are a turnoff to customers, but they’ve got the cuisine down.”

The four members of the crew plowed through their taquitos.

“Those workers we’re transporting are going to love us after they try this. They’ll never want to leave,” Jack said between licking his fingers when he was finished.

“Please don’t say that,” Alyssa said under her breath.

“You know, it’s strange that they installed bunks for this trip—it’s barely over a day to get to Rufan from where we set out.”

“I bet that goes along with what Ramone said about this not being a one-job deal. They probably want us to transport others as soon as we’re done with this run.”

“This is not what I had in mind when I agreed to covert transport. I thought we’d just have one snooty rich person looking to get away.”

“Does this mean I can move into the nice cabin?” Jack asked.

“No.”

Jack sighed. “Worth a shot.”

“Aren’t you settled into that one by now? It’s been over a month,” Finn said.

“Yeah, but now it’s awkward with Latrina. That washroom is right above the waste processing tank, so she’ll always know when it’s me.”

Alyssa’s face slowly twisted into an expression of utter disgust. “Jack, if she still accepts you anyway, hold onto her. And she’d be wise to do the same with you.”

“Yeah, I think we could have something really special.”

Finn patted him on the shoulder. “It most certainly is. A very specific kind of ‘special’.”

“Let’s get this downstairs before it gets cold,” Alyssa said, grabbing two of the food bags.

Jack took another two and followed her down the ladder, with Triss taking the last one close behind him.

“Snack time!” Alyssa announced below, hoisting the two massive bags of takeout.

The workers rose from their bunks and seats on the couches.

“Why a snack?” Ramone asked.

“We’re still on our way to Antaeron,” Alyssa replied. “We picked up some food to hold you over until we arrive.”

The man tilted his head. “But why?”

“Because that’s how we do things on the Little Princess II.” She approached the table that had been erected next to the bunks, placing the bags in the middle.

Ramone took one sniff and frowned. “What is this?”

Triss grinned. “Takeout from Cali-hint-eh, the Cali-Mex restaurant with Canadian flare—one of the best taquito places around.”

The workers didn’t share her enthusiasm.

“Those hybrid places never understand spice balance,” a young woman stated. She shook her head with disappointment. “Is that maple?”

“Don’t pass judgment until you’ve tried it,” Jack said. “I thought Mexelente was good, but these taquitos are divine.”

Reluctantly, the woman opened the bag and began handing out foil-wrapped bundles to her comrades. When everyone had one in hand, she unwrapped her own and waved it under her nose. She shook her head again. “No, nothing with Vuresian peppers can ever hold up to an onion pairing like this. And that maple… no.”

Ramone took a bite of his taquito, then appeared to roll the half-chewed mash around his mouth. “Are they Vuresian or Santilan peppers?”

The woman took a bite. “You’re right, the taste is more Santilan. So what was that hint in the aroma?”

“It may be an interaction with Frugart tomatoes,” a red-headed woman chimed in.

“Yes, that’s it!” The first woman nodded. “I can’t believe they’d so carelessly mix stock like that.”

Jack’s mouth fell open slightly. “You seem to know a lot about peppers…”

“It is a passion, you might say,” Ramone replied.

“That’s right, you did say you wanted to start a restaurant,” he remembered.

Ramone nodded. “We have a new idea for our own chain.”

Jack smiled. “Good for you. Once we get you your IDs back, hopefully you can make that a reality.”

“Speaking of which,” Alyssa said, “we need to finish formulating our entrance tactics.”

“Right.” Jack shifted his thoughts back to the information he’d gathered at the bar. “Let’s pull the image records from my eye and we can take it from there.”

“I’ll get us underway,” Alyssa said. “Triss, can you help him with the eye? As soon as you get the image, I’ll send the summons to the associates.”

The other woman nodded. “You’ve got it.”

“I’ll see what research I can pull on the pink star’s location,” Finn said. “Alyssa, I’ll let you know what I find.”

“Perfect.” The captain nodded. “Let’s get to work.”

It took less than ten minutes for Triss to access the necessary information from Jack’s visual log and render the image in a suitable way. The rabbit emblem was, indeed, precisely reproduced in each of its versions within the Perfect Touch store area.

“Why the different numbers of rabbits on the crates?” Triss mused.

“I don’t know. Must be some other layer of code,” Jack replied.

“Do we use one or multiple for our message?”

He shrugged. “Five seems like it would be more important, right?”

“Yeah, I guess.”

“Then let’s do that.”

“Okay, I’ll have Alyssa set the fake meeting with the Blue Rabbit associates so they’ll be there when the Vorlox swoop in.”

“Good, but there’s one other challenge. Ramone said that the Blue Rabbit peeps locate the transport ships when they arrive in-system, so we’ll need to have some credentials for us to dock directly at the pink star base, assuming they try to escort us somewhere else.”

Triss frowned. “Sending some forged emails is one thing, but we have no idea what their certified orders might look like.”

“But we do have a contract from Perfect Touch.”

“I guess it might be based on a similar template, but that’s a big gamble.”

“Yes,” Jack agreed, “but we should have a document prepared just in case.”

“All right, I’ll see what I can do.” Triss drummed her fingers. “There are a lot of moving pieces here. I think we need to do a briefing.”

Jack lit up. “At the conference table? Like a real op? Do I get to run the meeting?”

Triss sighed. “Yes, Jack, you can run this one.”

He clasped his hands. “This is so exciting!”

“What’s going on over there?” Alyssa called from the bridge.

“I told Jack he could run a briefing,” Triss replied.

“Oh, stars, now you’ve done it…” the captain mumbled. Then, louder, “The hyperspace path is almost set; I’ll be there as soon as I can put it on auto-pilot. Do you have the image ready?”

“Yes, forwarding to you now,” Triss replied.

Jack went ahead to the dining room, which also functioned as their meeting space for op planning.

Finn moseyed in after him. “Did I hear something about a meeting?”

“Yes! I get to run it.”

“Good for you.”

“Yeah!” Jack grinned, then his smile faded. “What am I supposed to do, exactly?”

“You’ve been to meetings, Jack. Do what Alyssa normally does.”

“Yell at everyone?”

Finn shrugged. “Yeah, or you can just tell us what we’re supposed to do.”

“That seems nicer.”

“Making these decisions is the burden of leadership.” Finn eased into one of the seats.

“What did you find out about the base?” Jack asked.

“Located the coordinates of the gas giant and Alyssa is taking us right to it.”

“All right, that’s one step down.”

Triss and Alyssa joined them in the meeting space soon thereafter.

“Welcome to the official briefing for Operation Starbreak,” Jack announced, leaning forward with his hands on the table.

The captain raised an eyebrow. “Did you come up with that name?”

“Yeah! Do you like it?”

She shrugged. “It’s actually not terrible.”

“There’s a star-shaped base and we’re breaking into it, so—”

“Yes, Jack, we got it,” Finn interrupted. “Now, what are each of us going to do, exactly?”

“Well, the summons has been sent to the associates, yes?” Jack asked.

Alyssa nodded. “Done.”

“Okay, when we arrived at the base, we’ll need to get access to the network so we can get a lay of the land and override security controls,” Jack began. “One we’re in, we’ll enter and go after the loot and the IDs. We might encounter guards, so we have to be prepared for a fight. Since this is a big place, we’ll likely need to break into teams—possibly three, depending on if the IDs and the loot are being held in the same place.”

Triss nodded. “We won’t know until we get network access.”

“We shouldn’t have anyone go in alone,” cautioned Alyssa.

“But there are only four of us. We might not have a choice,” Triss said.

“What about Morey and Latrina?” proposed Jack.

Alyssa frowned. “They’re not exactly members of the crew.”

“They’re not not members, either. And they aren’t human, so we don’t need to give them a cut,” Triss pointed out.

Alyssa raised an eyebrow. “Is this just an elaborate way to go on a date with Latrina that’s not a real date so you can see if you actually like her?”

“I will not confirm or deny that statement,” Jack replied.

“Really smooth, Jack. Real smooth.” Alyssa shook her head.

Jack shrugged. “Hey, if this gets us the loot, may as well multitask.”

“Fair point.” Alyssa turned back to the plans. “Okay, so we should set up Morey as a distraction—something that will get him inside to a place with network access.”

Jack thought for several seconds. “Well, there are a bunch of workers in there, right? I bet they get tired from, you know, working. What if we send in a masseuse to relieve some tension?”

“You have seen Morey’s claw-hands, haven’t you?” Triss said. “I wouldn’t let him touch me.”

“Then we’ll just need to do a quick retrofit,” Jack told her. “I have something in mind; I’ll take care of it.”

She waved a hand. “If you say so.”

“So, Morey will go in to get access to the network and Triss will stay with the ship to monitor our progress and help with remote security overrides,” Jack continued. “The rest of us will go after the IDs and loot, dividing up if we need to. Finn will take care of any safe-cracking needs we may encounter.”

“My pleasure.” Finn mimed tipping a hat.

Jack rubbed his hands together. “All right. We’ll arrive in two hours. Let’s get everything prepped.”

No one moved.

“I guess we’re listening to Jack now,” Alyssa said. She stood up.

The others rose from the table.

“Okay, then,” Finn agreed.

Jack went to his cabin, where he accessed the workstation in the corner. To date, it had only been used for digital correspondence and placing his SpaceMall orders, but he now got to work modeling his vision for Morey’s retrofit. When he was satisfied with the design, he sent it to the 3D printer in the hangar and relayed instructions to Morey for how he should install the new attachments.

Next, he sent a message to Latrina explaining they had an op and he’d like her to accompany him. He tried to word it as non-date-like as possible without it sounding like strictly business. After numerous iterations, he settled on the phrasing: <Us do the work together. You go with me?>

He admired the refined words. “Yes, that’s perfect.” He sent the message.

Ten seconds later, a reply from Latrina popped up on his screen. It simply read: <?>

He sighed. His original message couldn’t have been clearer. <We do a thing together. Come out of tank be with me,> he replied to emphasize the business-portion of the meeting.

<Really?!> Latrina responded.

<Yes, need you.>

<Give me twenty minute to finish this cycle,> she wrote back. <See you soon <3.>

Jack stared at the heart. “Uh oh.” He decided it was better to not write anything else. Clearly she wasn’t understanding his messages.

With the preparations complete, Jack took a quick shower and changed, then headed down to the hangar to wait for Latrina to emerge. When he arrived, Ramone wandered over.

“Are we almost to Rufan?” the other man asked.

Jack nodded. “We’ll be there within half an hour. We have a plan to get you your lives back.”

Ramone beamed. “I don’t know how to thank you.”

“There’s no reason to thank us until you have your IDs.”

“Still, you are trying. No one has cared before.”

“Everyone deserves to have control over their life,” Jack told him. “I spent plenty of time without that. I know what it’s like.”

“You are a good man,” Ramone said.

“I don’t know about that.” Jack smiled. “Maybe I have moments.”

Ramone nodded. “You try. That’s what matters.”

“I suppose.”

“Do you need any help with your preparations?” the other man asked.

Jack shook his head. “No, I’m just waiting for my date for the op.”

“Who’s that?”

“Latrina.”

“And she is…?”

“The ship’s waste processing droid.”

Ramone’s eyes narrowed and his head tilted. “I thought you said this is a date?”

“It is.”

He crossed his arms. “So, wait, you’re dating the robot that recycles your excrement?”

“She’s very industrious,” Jack replied.

Ramone let out a long breath. “Sorry, I don’t think I could do it.”

“A lot of people have responded that way. I guess I don’t need to worry about someone trying to woo her away from me.”

“Yeah, I can’t imagine you would.” He bit his lower lip. “What about the, er, smell?”

Jack waved off the question. “It’s not a big deal. She has a special spritz.”

“Sure, that must take care of all the issues…”

“Hey, make fun of me all you want, but she saved my life—and she’s not bad to look at, either.”

“If you say so.”

A clang sounded near the left bulkhead in the hangar, and a hatch swung open, releasing a cloud of mist carrying an aroma of honeysuckle.

Out stepped the magnificent android beauty who had captured Jack’s attention in their brief meeting only a week prior. Her brunette hair framed a striking face with bright green eyes and cherry lips. A black latex suit hugged her perfect curves, terminating in a set of flippers. The fins retracted into her ankles as she stepped out from the hatch, replaced by high heels.

She beamed at Jack. “I wasn’t sure you’d write me.”

He smiled back. “Not many ladies return my messages, so I’m equally surprised and happy to see you.”

Ramone gasped loudly, as though taking in air after holding his breath for an extended period. “You’re… Latrina?” he managed after a moment.

She turned to him, tilting her head. “You are not a member of this crew. Who are you?”

“R-Ramone,” he stammered, struggling to keep his mouth from falling open.

“Ramone and several of his friends are being forced to work against their will,” Jack explained. “We’re going to break into the bad guys’ facility, steal back their ID chips and some other bounty, then tip off the Vorlox so we don’t have to deal with retribution.”

Latrina frowned. “That sounds like a dangerous plan, Jack.”

“It is, which is why we need you and Morey to help.”

Morey stepped out from behind a crate sporting the attachments Jack had designed for him. “They’re making me wear this,” he stated in his flat monotone.

Latrina burst out laughing. “Stars, what is that?”

The robot gathered himself. “I am a massage bot. Apparently, my buffing mode has other applications.”

Morey’s new additions consisted of a set of wheels attached at the joint where his claws normally were. Around the circumference of each wheel were eight silicon hands arranged palm outward. He revved his arm motors in his buffing mode warm-up, and the hands flopped forward in a patting motion.

Jack grinned. “It’s perfect.”

CHAPTER 7: Infiltration

— — —

“Moment of truth…” Alyssa said under her breath.

Jack stood behind her looking out the front viewport of the Little Princess II’s bridge. They were moments from dropping out of hyperspace at the destination. If the Blue Rabbit gang was indeed waiting for them, they’d have only minutes to act to make sure they could follow through with their plan.

The blurred starscape out the front viewport snapped back to normal space. A gas giant loomed in front of them, with a nearby icy moon in orbit.

Alyssa directed the ship toward the moon. “No sign of the ‘pink star’, but we’ll figure it out.”

The front console chirped with an incoming communication.

Triss, seated next to Alyssa, answered it. “This is the Little Princess II.”

“We have been expecting you. Do you have our product?” a man with an accent similar to Betty’s replied.

“Yes, intact and ready to work,” Triss responded.

“Meet us at these coordinates.”

A datapacket downloaded, and a flight path appeared on the HUD overlaid on the front viewport. The path led away from the moon.

Triss muted the comm channel. “Do we follow the path or trust the intel that the base is by the moon?”

“I say we shoot for the moon,” Jack said.

Alyssa sighed. “Terrible phrasing aside, that does seem like our best bet. I imagine they’re having us rendezvous at a freighter or something to keep traffic away from the base.”

“Do you copy?” the man asked over the comm.

Triss held up her finger to silence Alyssa and Jack. “Yes. We have instructions for a different flight path.” She sent a datapacket of the forged orders based on their best guess of what such instructions might look like.

The man was silent for twenty seconds. “Ugh, did they change the template again?” he said at last.

“Yeah, you know how they are,” Triss replied, relaxing the slightest measure.

“Well, this is way better than the old one,” the man said. “Proceed. I’ll let the base know to expect you.”

Another set of nav instructions downloaded and appeared on the HUD, this time heading to a location behind the moon.

“Acknowledged.” Triss severed the link. “Well, that was surprisingly straightforward.’

“Good work on the template, Triss,” Alyssa praised.

“Lucky guess. I hope the summons we sent to the division heads gets the same results.”

The captain checked the time counting down on the HUD. “The requested meeting time is just under an hour from now. That should work out just about right with our looting and escape.”

The ship glided through the black toward the icy moon, the course progressing along the HUD overlay for the nav instructions. As they rounded the moon, a space station came into view—an eight-pointed pink star.

Jack cocked his head. “When they called it a pink star, I was thinking that was an exaggeration.”

“Nope, that is exactly what the name implies. Huh.” Alyssa nodded.

“Looks like they want us to dock at one of the central points,” Triss said. She directed the craft in for the landing.

The Little Princess II shuddered slightly as the docking clamps locked into place.

Jack took a deep breath. “All right. I guess now we find out how well the rest of this plan is going to work.”

The three of them exited the bridge and met Finn in the common room by the main hatch.

Morey poked his head up from the ladder shaft. “Have we arrived?”

“Yes, are you ready?” Jack replied.

The robot spun one of his hand-wheels. “You have made me into a mockery.”

“A useful mockery that will be an asset to our cause.”

Morey finished climbing the ladder. “A role I will fulfill, so long as you return me to my proper form when this is over.”

“You installed those hand-wheels yourself, can’t you get them off?”

“No, I could place my arm on the attachment peg, but I have no way to manipulate the necessary components to get them off. I am trapped in this form, and it is utterly useless for fulfilling my other duties.”

“We’ll get you back to normal after this, don’t worry,” Jack assured him.

“I suppose I have no choice but to trust you.”

Alyssa released the hatch in the side of the craft. “Then it’s settled. Game time.”

“Lead the way.” Jack motioned toward the open portal to the gangway. He slung an empty duffle bag over his shoulder and patted his hip to make sure his laser pistol was in place.

“This is your idea. You go.” Alyssa nudged him forward.

“Fine,” Jack agreed.

He led Morey down the umbilical to the station. Waiting for them at the bottom were two armed guards dressed in white plastic molded armor, who were sporting expressions somewhere between confusion, amusement, and fascination.

“What is that?” the left guard asked, eyeing Morey.

Jack smiled. “That, my friend, is a Massagebot 6000.”

The guard cocked his head. “Haven’t heard of them.”

“Well! You’ve been missing out.” Jack flourished his hands, presenting Morey as a showpiece. “The sixteen hands offer the massage power of eight masseurs, giving you maximum relaxation in a fraction of the time.”

The guard on the right squinted. “That sounds interesting.”

Morey gave a test-whir of his hand wheels, sending the hands flapping wildly around. “You won’t know what you’ve been missing until you try it.”

“The 6000 offers the latest innovations in massage technology,” Jack continued. “As thanks for your good work, we are offering you complimentary massages during this shift.”

“What about the cargo?” the first guard asked.

“We’ll handle the offloading and check-in for you,” Jack told him in his best salesman voice. “You’ve earned a break.”

“I don’t know about you, Ed, but a massage sounds great to me,” the second guard said. “My left shoulder just hasn’t been the same since the koala incident.”

“Frickin’ drop bears.” The first guard shook his head. “Yeah, you know what? We have earned a break.” He nodded to Jack. “Thank you.”

Jack smiled back. “You’re very welcome. Massagebot, work your magic.”

Morey whirred his hands again. “Bliss awaits. Could you direct me to a quiet place where we might create a more relaxing mood?”

“Well, there’s a communications room down the corridor,” the second guard offered.

“That would be perfect.” Morey followed the two guards.

“So difficult to find good help,” Jack murmured as they disappeared around a bend. “Okay, we’re clear,” he said into his comm. Triss, let me know when you have access to the station layout via Morey’s network link.”

“I’m tunneling through the firewall now,” she replied. “This network security is a joke.”

“You’re also very good.”

“Yes, I am,” she replied with an audible smile. “Aaaand I’m in. Loading up the map.” She paused. “Okay, looks like there’s an administrative office two decks up, which has some blacked out areas on the map around it. I’m guessing that’s a vault.”

“A vault sounds like a good place to start,” Jack said.

“Oh, but there’s also that,” Alyssa chimed in.

“Why, yes there is!” Triss’ tone brightened.

“What do you see?” Jack asked.

“They have a trinium reactor,” Alyssa replied. “With six nodes, no less. I don’t know what they’re manufacturing that requires that kind of power, but that amount of power brings matter conversion to a whole new level.”

“You’re thinking about combining this with the MEC to create some new coffee-brewing monstrosity, aren’t you?” Jack asked.

“You know I’m always trying to advance the coffee arts.”

“I admire that about you. But, we need to get a move on. Get out here,” Jack urged.

A minute later, Alyssa, Triss, Finn, and Latrina jogged down the gangway.

“Okay, so I’ll go after the trinium reactor thingy with Latrina and Alyssa will go after the IDs with Finn,” Jack instructed.

“Jack, do you know how to decommission a trinium reactor?” Alyssa asked.

“No.”

“Do you even know what one looks like?”

“No… But—”

“I’m going after the reactor with Latrina. Triss will stay here to keep an eye on the ship and monitor the computer network,” Alyssa stated. “You go with Finn to break into the safe.”

Jack frowned. “But Latrina and I were supposed to—”

“You can get time together later,” Alyssa cut in. “Come on. We have no idea how long Morey will be able to keep the guards distracted with his weird massage.”

“We will have other times, Jack,” Latrina said. She smiled at him and batted her green eyes. “All the time, forever.”

“Right, yeah.” He backed away. “See you afterward.”

Jack motioned Finn into the facility. They headed to the left while Alyssa and Latrina went to the right on the path to the reactor.

“What was that all about?” Finn asked when they were away from their female companions.

“Uh, I think Latrina got the impression we’re an official item now.”

“What makes her think that?”

“I dunno. I just told her we were working together.”

Finn took a deep breath. “Well, knowing you, your phrasing wasn’t the best.”

“All I said was that I needed her.”

“Dude, no,”

Jack glanced at him while they jogged down the corridor. “What?”

“That’s kind of android code for you want to spend your life with her.”

“No. That’s not—”

“Whatever you meant, that’s how she took it. Did she send you a heart emoticon right after?” Finn asked.

“Yeah…”

“Heh.” Finn chuckled. “She wants to have your sewage tank babies.”

Jack’s stomach dropped. “Stars!”

His friend patted him on the back. “Oh, this’ll be fun to watch!”

They reached the end of the corridor, which terminated in a locked door with a biometric scanner.

“That’s rather sophisticated for a bunch of space pirates,” Finn said, examining it.

“Hey, Triss,” Jack said into the comm, “can you give us a hand with this door?”

“Yeah, just a sec.” The light on the lock turned green.

“Thanks,” Jack told her.

Finn reached for the door handle.

“Hold up,” Jack stopped him. He cycled his vision to the electromagnetic field setting to look for any hidden traps. No anomalous wires stood out in the walls that might be connected to a pressure sensor. “Okay, it’s clear.”

The two men proceeded through the doorway into a stairwell.

“There’s no getting out of this Latrina situation, is there?” Jack asked Finn.

“Yeah, no. You’re in deep shit with this one.”

Jack glared at him.

“Sorry, it was too easy.”

“Based on the facility map, the office area should be up two decks and near where these stairs will dump you out,” Triss said over the comm.

Jack paused mid-step. “You know, we didn’t plan this at all. We have perfectly good stealth suits in storage, and instead we’re waltzing in here with only a couple of laser pistols against who knows how many guards.”

Finn frowned. “Huh, I forgot about those. That would have been a way better plan.”

“Oh, right. I always forget about those, too,” Triss said.

Jack shrugged. “Well, we’re committed now.”

“Yeah, no time for you to come back to get them,” Triss agreed. “Head up the stairs. At the next landing, exit the stairwell and head left. I don’t see any guards on the internal sensors.”

“Okay, on our way,” Jack jogged up the steps after Finn.

At the specified landing, Finn swung open the door and looked through. “Looks clear,” he reported into the comm.

“Finn, you there?” Triss asked.

“Yeah, he’s right in front of me,” Jack replied.

Triss took a sharp breath. “Uh oh.”

“What?”

“It must be some kind of dark zone. I have access to everything in the system, but if they don’t have any sensors or other input systems set up, then I can’t see what’s going on. There also appears to be a comm block,” Triss said.

Jack pulled Finn back into the stairwell. “The comms don’t work in there.”

Finn frowned. “Then how are we supposed to know if anyone is coming?”

“I can tell you if anyone new is about to enter the zone, but we won’t know who’s already inside, if anyone, until you encounter them,” she responded. “The good news is that the blackout works both ways; they won’t know you’re in there, either, when you’re walking around and not touching anything.”

Jack thought for a moment. “But how will you tell us that if our comms don’t work inside?”

“Oh, right. That’s a problem.”

“So…”

“Well, looks like you’re on your own,” Triss told him.

Jack sighed. “Great. Really wish I’d remembered those stealth suits earlier.”

“Are Alyssa and Latrina facing the same challenge?” Finn asked.

“Not yet,” she said, “but we’re going to have a whole other set of troubles as soon as Morey is finishes with his massage. Hurry up!”

“Okay, talk to you on the other side,” Jack acknowledged.

“You go first,” Finn said, motioning him toward the door.

Jack’s heart leaped with pride. “Really?! You want me to lead the way?”

Finn smiled. “Well, coming in here was your idea, so I figure if we’re going to get shot at, it makes sense for you to be the human shield.”

“Oh, thanks.”

Finn patted him on the back, which turned into a shove after two pats. “Go forth, intrepid leader.”

Jack cautiously stepped through the doorway. The space beyond appeared to be a cross between a lounge room and a reception area, with two couches, an assortment of comfortable-looking chairs, and a workstation behind a partition wall. Archways to corridors were centered on both the right and left walls. No one was in sight.

He jogged across the room as lightly as possible to the corridor on the left, which extended for eight meters before terminating in three doors—one straight ahead and the others on either side.

“Which door?” Jack asked Finn.

“Center?”

“That does seem like it would be the most important.” Jack scanned over it with his eye in its various modes. On the electromagnetic view, the door shined with current running to multiple hidden sensor points, likely connected to an alarm. “We have a problem. It’s wired.”

Finn smiled. “Well, safe-cracking isn’t my only skill. I’m not Triss, but I’m not useless.” He pulled out a device from his carrying bag and then placed a suction cup on the door, which was affixed with an electrode.

Jack stayed quiet so his comrade could work.

After a minute, Finn let out a long breath. “Okay, I think I’ve disabled the alarms. I won’t know for sure until we open the door.”

“All right.” Jack turned the handle.

The door opened easily, revealing an office space with three desks. On the back wall, the door to a walk-in vault was framed by two photographs; each showed a smiling businessman with an arm around two people dressed in similar attire to the workers they had transported on the Little Princess II.

“Man, they are really into the chef fetish thing,” Jack said.

Finn didn’t respond, already having become absorbed in an examination of the safe door. He jogged across the room to get a closer look.

“Okay, good.” Finn nodded. “This is one of the older models. Shouldn’t take long to crack at all.”

Finn hooked up a piece of equipment the size of his hand to the front panel of the safe and began making inputs. One-by-one, the indicator lights on the front of the safe turned to green. When the last one changed, a set of interior bolts retracted with a satisfying click-clang.

“I really hope you’re right about what we’ll find in here…” Finn said.

“Only one way to find out.” Jack swung open the thirty-centimeter-thick door.

The vault was half the size of the office, with a combination of racks and filing cabinets. Half of the drawers were marked with the blue rabbit emblem and the others a red worm.

“Really? A worm?” Jack commented.

“Pretty sure that’s a snake,” Finn said.

“Oh, that makes a lot more sense.”

“It’s going to take forever to find the IDs for our group in here.” Finn looked around the room. “I don’t know where to start.”

Jack assessed the filing cabinets. “Probably that one with the blue rabbits on the front labeled ‘Worker IDs’.”

“Fine, if you want to be all logical about it…”

Suspecting Finn would keep complaining no matter how he responded, Jack elected to begin rifling through the cabinet without further comment.

The contents were exactly what the label implied, but the four drawers each contained at least thirty ID chips arranged in horizontal holders. Considering the Little Princess II only had a dozen workers on board, that meant there were additional people out there. His plan had been to get the IDs only for those under their care—thinking that those would be the only IDs being held—but faced with over one hundred sets of credentials, he didn’t know their workers versus any others.

“I guess we should have gotten their names.”

Finn wiped his hands down his face. “You didn’t think through any of this, did you?”

“No.” Jack’s cheeks flushed. “I was just excited to be in charge.”

“Ugh. I guess we’ll have to take all of them.”

“Sounds like a plan.” Jack dropped the folded duffle bag on the floor. He began dumping the ID chips into it.

“I’m going to see if there’s anything that looks valuable,” Finn said and began digging through the other cabinets and drawers while Jack worked. “Ooo!” he exclaimed twenty seconds later.

“Find something?” Jack asked.

“How do gold bars strike you?”

Jack turned around. Finn was hefting a gold bar with both hands, and the cabinet behind him held another seven.

“Stars!” Jack’s jaw dropped.

“I think we can finally get that new spaceship we’ve been wanting.”

“How are we going to carry all of that out of here?”

“I don’t know, but I’ll figure it out.” Finn loaded the bars into his own bag. “There are also credit chips—at least a hundred thousand.”

“I think there’s room for those in my bag.”

Finn gestured to an adjacent cabinet. “Load up.”

Jack finished with the IDs and then dragged his duffle to the base of the other cabinet. The physical currency chips were bundled into rolls, and he counted one hundred twenty thousand credits in total as he loaded them into a separate compartment in the duffle. It was more than he’d ever held in his hands, and likely more than he ever would again.

“What about the rest of the drawers?” he asked.

“I dunno. Looked like a bunch of papers to me.”

Jack browsed through the cabinets, racks, and drawers as quickly as he could. Sure enough it appeared to only be print-outs of transaction records. A single book stood out to him, but it appeared to be written in a code with phrases like ‘one cup chopped onion’ and ‘reduce to simmer for twenty minutes’. He ignored it and completed his search.

“I don’t see anything else,” Finn reported from the other side of the safe.

“Me either.”

Jack eyed Finn’s fabric bag filled with gold bars. “Are you going to be able to carry that out of here?”

“I’ll drag it,” he replied. “This duffle was from SpaceMall—super durable fabric.”

“If you say so.”

Jack hefted his own bag on his shoulder while Finn followed behind dragging his. Based on Finn’s grunts, Jack suspected the other man was wishing he’d ordered the rolling model.

“Let me just close things up here so they don’t see the door open,” Finn said. He relocked the vault.

Jack nodded. “All things considered, this was surprisingly easy. Let’s get out of here.” He opened the office door.

A voice sounded from down the short corridor. Jack froze in the doorway.

A guard wearing white armor was walking past the corridor entrance through the common room eight meters away. After a moment, he backed up and stared at Jack. “Hey, what are you doing here?”

CHAPTER 8: Eye on the Prize

— — —

Jack slammed the office door. “Uh… we’re not alone anymore.”

“Yeah, I noticed that!” Finn exclaimed.

“I guess we’ll need to make a run for it.”

“How? We’re at the end of a long, narrow hallway with a guard waiting for us on the other end, presumably with a gun. And he’s probably not alone.”

“We have guns, too,” Jack pointed out.

“Well, Mr. Confident Leader, why don’t you go check it out?”

“Fine. You want a human shield? I’ll be the human shield.” Jack un-holstered his laser pistol.

In reality, Jack felt far less confident than he was letting on. However, he’d insisted they go on the crazy mission, so it was his responsibility to see it through. They’d invested the better part of a day in the venture—far too much to cut their losses and walk away.

He paused. “You know, I wonder if they’d let us go if we leave everything behind and agree to never come back.”

Finn cocked his head. “Are you being serious?”

Jack shrugged. “I mean, it was a nice sentiment to get the IDs back and help the workers, but we don’t really owe them anything, especially not our lives.”

“Oh, now you come to that realization?!”

“Well, I didn’t have someone pointing a gun at me before.”

“Ugh, you’re impossible.” Finn sighed. “Look, I don’t care much about the workers either way, but I do care about this bag of gold.” He dragged the heavy duffle another two centimeters across the floor.

“Even though we didn’t know about it when we came in here?”

“All the more reason to be super excited! It’s bonus loot! You never turn down a bonus, Jack.”

“But the whole thing about imminent death…”

Finn waved his hand dismissively. “We’ll shoot our way out. The workers will get their IDs, we get gold. It’s a win-win for everyone.”

“Except for the guards,” Jack said.

“Which guards?”

“The ones we’ll shoot to get out of here.”

“Oh, right.” Finn paused. “Yeah, they’re going to have a terrible day.”

Jack took a deep breath. “Okay, so we’re going to do this thing?”

“Yes, but you’re going to be doing it first. You know, the human shield bit, like we discussed.”

“I like this plan less the more I think about it.”

“Rightfully so.”

Jack tightened his grip on the weapon. “Okay, here it goes!”

He flung open the door again, squeezing off three shots down the corridor.

“Ow, hey!” the guard shouted from the lounge room beyond.

Jack switched his vision to a composite view, and he was able to spot the guard hiding just around the corner from the corridor in the lounge room on the right. He fired another shot aimed for the wall blocking the man’s head.

“Drop your weapon and back away!” Jack ordered.

“You’re cornered! Backup will be here any moment,” the man replied.

Jack tiptoed through the open doorway and down the hall, firing another shot every meter to keep the man from sneaking a peek.

When he was almost to the lounge room, Jack fired at the couch to the guard’s right as a distraction, then lunged from hiding and shot at the guard as soon as he came into view.

“Agghh…” the man cried half-heartedly and fell to the ground. Once on the deck, he rearranged his arms a few times until it appeared he found a comfortable position.

Suspicious, Jack bent down. “Hey, are you just playing dead?”

The man didn’t move or reply.

“It’s okay, I’m not going to report you. I’m just curious.”

One of the man’s eyes cracked open. “I’m not supposed to talk to you,” he whispered.

“You’re not dead!” Jack replied in a low voice. “I started wondering if that’s why all you guards seemed so easy to shoot.”

“Yeah, it’s a union thing. If we’re clearly outgunned, we’re supposed to drop and hope no one headshots us.”

“Man, and here I thought I was a great shot.”

“Don’t feel bad,” the guard told him. “For what it’s worth, you came closer to shooting me than most people have.”

“Does this happen a lot?”

“To a given guard? No. We’ll maybe see action once or twice a year. Union-wide, though, there’s an incident every day somewhere. We go through a six-week training camp for how to fly backward to look like we were hit.”

“What about the singe marks?” Jack asked.

“Oh, those? We have squibs in the armor,” the guard revealed. “We wear white so it’s really obvious when we’re ‘hit’ so the enemy is more likely to leave us alone.”

“Huh. I always thought it was so you’d look all sleek and fancy.”

“Nah, it’s to make us obvious targets and make the squibs explosions stand out. The union terms of service are on the Net, if you ever want to check it out.”

“You know, that seems like it would be really handy to know in future engagements. Is there some sort of phrase that will make all of you drop your weapons?” Jack asked.

The guard paused. “You didn’t hear it from me, but just say, ‘It’s quitting time,’ and everyone will pack up and go.”

“No! You’re joking, right?”

“Nope, dead serious.”

“Hah! I see what you did there,” Jack laughed.

The guard smiled. “Man, I like you.”

“We totally need to grab a beer after this.”

“Yes!” The guard dropped his voice. “Is someone coming?”

Jack quickly stood up. “Yeah, must be your reinforcements. How do I get in touch?”

“Message me at ‘trooper227@galacticguard.net’.”

“Got it! Thanks for the tips. Looking forward to that beer.”

“Likewise.”

Jack slinked behind the couch as the footfalls in the corridor to the right of the lounge room neared. Finn was still apparently hiding in the office, leaving Jack on his own.

Four guards dressed in the same white armor as the first guard entered the room.

“Intruder!” one of them shouted. “They shot Steve.”

The guard Jack had talked to—who was named Steve, it would seem—remained motionless and silent, playing his role of a dead man.

Jack leaped from his hiding place behind the couch and fired four shots toward the new arrivals.

Singe marks appeared on the armor of the front two—Jack wasn’t sure if he’d struck them or if it was the squibs—and they fell to the ground. The remaining two leveled their weapons on Jack.

He stared them down, a smile playing on his lips. “It’s quitting time.”

The two remaining guards, a man and a woman, frowned. “Are you in the union?”

“No, but I know what it’s like to have a tough job no one appreciates you doing. I wanted to give you a chance to walk away and not have to deal with a shoot-out. There are no cameras or sensors in here, as far as I know, so your boss won’t know what happened.”

“It is a lot of paperwork whenever we get in a firefight,” the female guard said.

“But, if we get shot, we get to go on paid leave,” the male guard said.

“Ooo, that’s a good point.” She paused, then looked at Jack and tilted her head. “I don’t suppose you’d be willing to shoot us for real? Like, in the leg or something. If we use the squibs, we only get a day off. But with a real injury…”

“Yeah, it’s like two months of R&R at a ‘rehabilitation’ resort. There’s a swim-up bar!” the man added.

“The union dues are steep, but it’s not without perks,” stated the woman.

Jack shrugged. “Sure, I’ll help you out. How do we do this?”

The woman mimed storming into the room, weapon drawn. “Okay, I’ll be all like ‘I’m running in to stop the—’ Ow!” she cried out as a laser blast from Jack’s pistol singed her left thigh.

“I’ll stop you!” the male guard yelled while pretending to charge.

Jack shot him in the right leg.

“Ouch! That really stings.”

“I probably need to knock you unconscious to make it look convincing, huh?” Jack asked.

“Yeah, probably,” the female guard agreed.

“Hey, can you shoot me, too?” Steve asked, raising his head slightly.

“If they’re getting shot, I want to, too,” one of the other fallen guards said.

“May as well do me, too,” stated the other.

Jack held up his free hand. “Everyone calm down. You’ll all get shot, wait for your turn.”

He went around the room inflicting the requisite leg wounds and thwaps on the head with the grip of his pistol. To make it look legit, he was sure to vary the injuries. After all, they were helping him out, so he didn’t want them to be suspected of a conspiracy to get undue vacation time.

When he was finished, Jack called out to Finn. “All clear! Come on.”

Finn cracked open the door to the office and looked out. “What have you been doing out here?” He noticed the bodies. “Whoa, you’ve been busy.”

“Long story. Hurry, we need to get back to the ship!”

Finn exited the office, dragging the bag of gold behind him. ‘Travel tough’ or not, the nylon fabric of the duffle appeared strained under the weight of its load, the seams threatening to pull apart near the handle.

“Can you move any faster?” Jack asked him when it took a full minute just for Finn to make it from the office door to the lounge room.

“I’m doing the best I can.”

“Leave some of the gold behind. It won’t do us any good if we get caught trying to leave. Even one bar would be a huge win!”

“No, it’s my precious!” Finn snarled. He caught himself. “Sorry, I just really like shiny things.”

Jack motioned downward to his light-up shoes. “Trust me, I understand.” He grabbed the other side of the duffle bag handle to help Finn drag it along, increasing the speed of travel the slightest measure.

At the stairwell door, Jack released the handle and propped the door open for Finn to go through.

“The stairs are going to be tricky,” Jack cautioned.

“We’ll manage, come on.” Finn started dragging the bag downward, thumping on each step as he slowly descended.

“Triss! We got the IDs,” Jack reported, remembering they were back in in a zone where the comms worked.

“There you are!” she replied. “I was worried.”

“Are Alyssa and Latrina back yet?” he asked.

“Almost here. Where are you?”

“We’re on our way out. Call the Vorlox.”

“I’m on it,” she acknowledged.

Jack helped Finn drag the bag down another flight of stairs. “Clock is ticking! This is taking too long.”

“Then you shouldn’t have told her to call the Vorlox yet!”

“That’s hardly the only time constraint here.”

They made it down the final flight. It would be a straight shot to the Little Princess II from there.

Jack opened the door. “Now we just—”

A pew pew of laser fire erupted as soon as the door was open. One of the beams made it through the open doorway and tore through the nylon bag, shredding the already strained fabric.

“My gold!” Finn cried, raising his hands to his mouth with horror.

Jack shoved his friend clear of the laser fire, against the stairwell wall.

“We have to leave it, Finn,” he said. “There’s no time to take out these guys and carry the bars by hand.”

“Do what you did last time so they put down their weapons.”

“That doesn’t change that we don’t have time for multiple roundtrips.”

“You haven’t even tried. Go!”

Jack groaned. “Fine.” He pressed his back flat against the wall next to the doorway and peeked out. “It’s quitting time!”

The firing stopped momentarily, so Jack stuck out his head to look. Eight guards dressed in gray were positioned down the length of the corridor, weapons all pointed in his direction. As soon as his head was visible, all of them fired, just barely missing his nose as he quickly pulled back to safety.

“Uh, I don’t think these are the same union guards.”

“Then who are they?”

“I dunno. Maybe mercs?”

“We have you surrounded!” one of the mercs shouted. “Come quietly and we’ll kill you quick and painless-like.”

“Not a great sales pitch,” Jack yelled back. “What do mercs respond to if not paid medical leave?” he whispered to Finn.

“They work for the highest bidder.”

Jack stared at the pile of gold at their feet.

“No.” Finn shook his head. “Not my gold, no.”

“Do you want to live or not?”

Finn reached down to grab one of the bricks off the ground. He stuck it in his jacket pocket, but the thin fabric stretched around to highlight the outline of the gold bar.

Jack raised an eyebrow. “Really, Finn?”

The other man rolled his eyes. “You owe me.” He returned the bar to the stack.

Jack crouched down and shoved the pile, still resting on the fabric remains, into the sightline of the mercs. “The gold is yours if you let us go.”

“Where did you get that?” the merc asked.

“The vault. There are eight of you and eight bars here. Just let us go to our ship and give us a head start.”

The mercs were silent for several seconds.

“All right, you have a deal,” the lead guy said.

Jack checked around the corner, and the mercs had lowered their weapons.

One was approaching. “How were you planning to get all that back to your ship?”

“It was in a bag, but it ripped,” Jack explained.

“Ah, was it the SpaceMall Galactic Explorer model?” the merc asked.

Finn nodded.

The merc shook his head. “Should have gotten the rolling edition. That’ll carry four hoslongers.”

“I still have no sense of the analogies used in his region,” Jack commented.

“Well, gold is a universal language.” The merc grinned.

“Yeah, enjoy it.” Finn’s tone had more than a touch of bitterness.

“Pleasure doing business with you,” Jack said to the mercs as he passed by with his own loot slung over his shoulder.

Finn sighed next to him. “Worst op ever.”

CHAPTER 9: A Job Well Done

— — —

Alyssa and Latrina were waiting in the common area of the Little Princess II with Triss when Jack and Finn arrived.

“You got everything?” Alyssa asked.

“Yeah, all the IDs,” Jack replied. “We didn’t know how to sort out our dozen people from the hundred or so others, so we grabbed the whole lot.”

“And we had eight bars of gold, but Jack gave it all to the merc goons so we wouldn’t get shot,” Finn grumbled.

“Seriously?” Alyssa’s eyebrows raised. “Greedy bastards. They forced us to hand over the reactor nodes.”

Jack’s heart sank. “Wait, so you didn’t get any loot?”

Latrina shook her head. “I was going to sacrifice myself so Alyssa could get away with the nodes, but she wouldn’t let me. She said I was too important to someone.” Her eyes met Jack’s.

He swallowed. “Is that so, Alyssa? You said that?”

An amused smirk touched the corners of her lips. “I’m a hopeless romantic, what can I say?”

“She must know how very much you mean to me, too, Jack.” Latrina folded her hands on her chest over where a human heart would be.

Jack took a small step backward. “Yep, and we haven’t even been on a proper first date yet…”

“I can’t wait to spend all of our time together!” Latrina’s artificial green eyes glowed a little brighter.

He let out an uncomfortable chuckle and continued inching away.

“Too late to do anything about it now,” Alyssa said, returning to the business at hand. “Where’s Morey?”

Triss consulted her tablet. “I sent him a message a few minutes ago to let him know we were done. He was just wrapping up his massages.”

Ten seconds later, the robot appeared in the hatchway. He revved his hand-wheels. “That was quite the workout!”

Jack ran over to the hatch and sealed it. “Good job, Morey.”

“We need to get out of here before the Vorlox show up.” Alyssa headed for the bridge. “I don’t want them to find something else to confiscate from us.”

Triss followed her.

A minute later, the ship shuddered as the docking clamps released, and the view out of the side window shifted. Jack sat on the couch to brace for the impending acceleration.

“Oh! The Vorlox are here!” Finn observed.

“At least two of the guards will be very relaxed for their impending arrest—or execution,” Morey commented.

Jack pivoted to look out the viewport. The comically exaggerated ship with oversized guns and dorsal spikes was positioning to dock with the pink star base.

“Busted!” Jack and Finn declared simultaneously. They grinned, the loss of the gold forgotten.

“You know, I’m a little sad I didn’t get to tackle and cuff anyone,” Jack added after a moment.

Finn nodded. “Me too. Another time, perhaps.”

The Little Princess II altered course to the left. Just when the icy moon was disappearing from view, the sights morphed into the streaked starscape of hyperspace.

Morey returned to his place in the hangar while Jack and Finn took some time to unwind after the harrowing exit.

When the ship was far enough away to avoid detection, Alyssa and Triss dropped it out of hyperspace. They emerged from the bridge.

“Okay, let’s get these people their IDs back,” the captain said. “We can leave the unclaimed chips with the workers when we drop them off wherever they want to go and have them reach out to their friends as the Blue Rabbit gang’s operation is dismantled by the Vorlox.”

“Sounds like a plan.” Jack grabbed his duffle and followed her down the ladder with Triss and Finn close behind.

The workers were assembled in the center of the hangar with expectant expressions.

“How did it go?” Ramone asked

“We got the IDs,” Jack replied. “Yours and a few extras. You’ll need to sort them out.” He walked over to the dining table and removed the ID chips from his bag, placing them in a pile.

“Thank you for these,” Ramone said. “At least we’ll have our identities, if nothing else.”

“What do you mean?” Jack asked.

Ramone shrugged. “We have no money or anything to our name after the Blue Rabbits took us. We have to start over.”

Jack’s stomach clenched. “That’s not right.”

“It’s life,” Ramone said.

“No.” Jack opened the other compartment on his duffle and dumped out the credit chips. “You deserve to get your lives back. There’s enough for each of you to have ten thousand credits—that should be enough to get your own business going, if you work together.”

The faces of the workers lit up.

“Thank you!” Ramone exclaimed. “This is the kindest thing anyone has ever done for me.”

“Thank you!” the others said as they gathered their share of the credits, grins on their faces.

“No one should have to sell their body like that to survive,” Jack said.

“Well, it’s labor, but that’s any job,” Ramone replied as he gathered the final chips for his portion.

“It’s okay, Ramone. This is a safe place,” Jack assured him. “You can talk about it.”

The man gave him a quizzical look. “I am.”

“It seems like you’re still using euphemisms,” Jack countered. “Just tell it like it is.”

“That we’re hot sauce artisans?”

“See? That’s the kind of expression I mean. No, that you’re escorts, or prostitutes—whatever you are.”

Ramone stared at him blankly for a moment, then burst out laughing along with the other workers. “Wait, you thought we were sex workers?”

Jack looked at his friends and then back at the passengers. “Yeah… You mean, you’re not?”

“No!” Ramone continued chuckling. “We’re cooks, like we said. We are one of the top crews working on the Blue Rabbit’s hot sauce production.”

“The what now?” Triss’ head tilted to the side.

“Their black market hot sauce.” Ramone paused. “You had no idea what their operation does, did you?”

“Sex trafficking?” Jack asked, though he was beginning to doubt any of his assumptions had been correct.

Ramone shook his head. “Stars, no! The detailing chain is a front for the hot sauce running. Some of the peppers are illegal on certain worlds because of some hallucinogenic properties due to the extreme heat, so they need to keep the business secret. They use the rabbit-star rating system to indicate the heat of the product in the various crates, ranging from ‘super mouth-nova’ to ‘rainbow explosion’. Everything is coded to look like ship refurbishment parts and services, but it’s all about the hot sauce.”

“Wait, ‘rainbow’?” Jack asked. “Would that have anything to do with that drug people were using around the Caleron System?”

Ramone shrugged. “All I know about is my hot sauce.”

Alyssa crossed her arms. “Then how come you were being held against your will and forced to work?”

“We owned a competing chain known for spicy foods, but they absorbed the operation in a hostile takeover. We lost the coin toss, so we had to work for them for two years.”

Triss’ eyes narrowed. “And you didn’t think to tell us any of this?”

“I thought we made it very clear,” Ramone said. “I mean, we’re dressed like we work in a kitchen. I don’t know where you got your ideas from.”

“But…” Finn spun around and stormed out of the hangar up the ladder.

Alyssa spread her hands. “So wait, let me get this straight. Whenever we made mention to you being forced to work, it’s because you lost a coin toss and had a two-year-long agreement to cook black market hot sauce?”

“Correct,” Ramone confirmed.

The captain spun around and followed Finn up the ladder.

Triss glared at Jack for a moment, then also left.

“Well, um, we’ll drop you off at the nearest station,” Jack said.

“Thank you,” the workers called after him as he followed his friends to the upper deck.

He closed the ladder hatch when he reached the top.

The others were standing in the center of the common room with their arms crossed. They glared at him.

“Helping out the poor sex workers, huh, Jack?” Alyssa said.

“Hey, it wasn’t just me!” he said in his defense. “You thought that’s what they were, too.”

Triss shook her head. “We just gave away the only things of value we got from that whole op, and it’s to a bunch of artisan chefs who could get a job anywhere.”

“Hey, skills doesn’t necessarily mean the job market—”

“Jack, no,” Alyssa interrupted.

“Regardless of their real or perceived need,” Jack continued, undeterred, “it was the right thing to help them start over. Even if they weren’t in sex slavery, they were still having to do something against their will. That isn’t right.”

“Is it so different from any other job a person can’t leave because they need a steady paycheck?” Triss asked.

“Maybe not, but we at least have autonomy and freedom thanks to our other ventures. We’re in a better spot then them, so is it so bad to pay it forward?”

“I guess not,” the others grumbled in unison.

“So, for once, we did the right thing,” Jack said. “Good cosmic karma.”

“Yeah, whatever.” Alyssa mumbled.

“If nothing else,” Jack continued, “this experience demonstrated that there’s a black market for food products. Alyssa, with your work on that new MEC-brewed espresso, I bet we could make a killing.”

“Except we already have a legitimate restaurant startup going,” she countered.

“This would be more fun. I mean, the danger, the clandestine operations…”

“I can’t argue with that.” She rubbed her index finger pensively under her bottom lip. “A different line of coffee that people could only obtain through the right contacts. That’s going to be so popular with the right crowd.”

Triss raised her hand. “Should we be worried about corrupting youth, or something like that?”

Alyssa’s eyes were bright as she worked through the new business model. “No. This is the perfect product for rebel hipsters. We’re going to make a killing.”

Finn rubbed his hands with glee. “I can’t wait.”

Continue the adventure!

Jack and the crew of the Little Princess II have more shenanigans ahead! Read the next installment: smarturl.it/troubledspace4

*   *   *

Want to read more by A.K. DuBoff?

CADICLE: AN EPIC SPACE OPERA SERIES

With adventure, telekinesis, romance, and intrigue, the Cadicle series spans sixty years across three generations as one family challenges destiny to win a war where enemies are not always who they seem.

“Appealing characters and detailed worldbuilding draw the reader into a tale of politics, sabotage, kidnapping, telekinesis, and clones. [...] DuBoff weaves together sympathetic characters, an intriguing plot, devious villains, exciting space adventure, and hopes pinned on a chosen savior.”

- Publisher's Weekly

The Taran Empire is fighting a secret interdimensional war... and they're losing.

Cris Sietinen joins the Tararian Selective Service to hone his latent telekinetic abilities, but being an Agent puts him at the center of a galactic conspiracy.

The Empire is waging a generations-long war within a hidden dimensional rift against the Bakzen, a mysterious race with advanced telekinetic abilities. But the governing Priesthood has its own secret agenda. The only hope for victory is the prophesied Cadicle—foretold to have powerful abilities unlike any other.

With the future of their people at stake, Cris and his family must face the ultimate questions of duty and morality to save their civilization.

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About the Author

Nebula Award finalist author A.K. (Amy) DuBoff has always loved science fiction in all its forms, including books, movies, shows, and games. If it involves outer space, even better! As a full-time author, Amy primarily writes timeless science fiction and science-fantasy with broad scope and cool tech. When she’s not writing, she enjoys travel, wine tasting, binge-watching TV series, and playing epic strategy board games.

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