48. Causality

Itching skin woke John up. He bumped his head into a metal pipe right above his bunk. Forgetting where he is in the moment of transfer between dreamworld and reality, he looked around in panic.

Michael’s black curls barely poking out of the wrapped rugged blankets. Victoria, wearing leather overall, heeled boots and slightly provocative make-up, she was already awake. Her back at the transport ship’s wall, one leg playing a pendulum, she looked up to John and winked.

Their cover story twisted plenty yet kept hierarchy. John’s ID replicated a caught net runner responsible for relieving a few banks of their earned transaction fees on the other side of the colonised space. Michael’s represented a gun for hire, veteran mercenary involved in petty guard jobs.

While Victoria assigned herself a modest job, above her entourage. She was a less known fixer wishing to enter a new market. A background check quickly showed her face and name popping up as suspect in multiple organised crime, yet no attorney could put her behind the bars.

Of course, their alter egos all got along nicely in a high security prison station refining chemicals and fuels rods for plasma reactors.

At the port, no-one cared of the one in a dozen shady figures. Port authority existed in name only here. The station’s main drum would be able to dock into the Giant’s bays, and would barely seen next to the Irondome, still counted as a vast repair station in the sector.

A dozen small craft, most of them a type of freighters, come and go every day. The trio arrived on one of those offering their rough spots for elements in search of a new start. A nice way to avoid the ever-slowly grinding gears of the justice system.

The cheap heap of junk they used as transport had no windows, so none of them could see the Swordfish freighter docked a few bays around. Too small to provide full gravity, they moved with tall and quick jumps. A few hops and all stood on the surface of New Geneva space yard.

• “Home, dear home.” — Michael said grinning at John. Unable to decide of he is joking or mean it, his face froze to an empty graze.
• “Come, let’s have a drink, my dears.” — Victoria’s face glowing as she embraced the act. Swinging her hips like a super-model, radiating self-confidence, strolled right into the single bar of the station. — “Barkeep, three super novas. Prompt.”
• “Aye, aye. But pay first, ma’am.” — the tenor of the two-door wide body builder welcomed the new patrons.
• “This gentleman will handle that.” — she gestured toward John. He raised the right arm and elegantly waved his wrist over the barkeep’s. The fake credit chip transferred the funds and thrown in a gracious tip too.
• “For the prompt part.” — avoiding eye contact, John slumped down in front of Victoria at a four person booth.

Michael shortly following next to him. Victoria waved him over when he tried to sit next to her. She kept her place for the informant. Halfway into their glasses, a loud punk singing in a foreign language walked in.

• “Hey, Trev’, what’s up with your mood?” — welcomed by the barkeep, who knew all his returning patrons by first name.
• “Celebrating, man, got my raise at the docks. Give me a super nova.” — shouted the young guy in excitement, the next station’s barkeep could hear him.
• “Isn’t that a bit too expensive for you?”
• “Not today, my man.” — Trev swiped his arm and for the barkeep’s open surprise it passed.
• “Here you go.”
• “Don’t you drink with me? Lame to celebrate alone.”
• “Nah, Trev, I have a long shift to work.”
• “Always the same excuse.” — smiling Trev turned around. The trio being the only patrons in the bar, having the same drink as him, got his mood up again.

A moment and he was already sitting next to them, loudly singing the next verse. Here and there asked who they are, what they do or plan. Not waiting for an answer starting the next verse when got bored for one second.

John’s initial blush went to redness as the guy hooked his arms around Victoria. He could not see that she acquired a memory chip from him as the transfer was under the table right into her leather overall’s pockets. Passive sensors of Michael’s hidden apparatus did not pick up any bugs around them.

Trev made a two hour long show as the bar slowly filled up with dockworkers and paper pushers ready to drink their day away. Trev left his new found friends for his group, and old nightshift dock workers.

Victoria took to the central spine, John and Michael closely following her light jumps. A few bulkheads down to the stern, she used the chip from Trev to enter. The trio moved in the shadows, the corridor full of metal boxes and barrel shapes.

Quick scan from Michael confirmed the containers’ origin as Federation military storage, forward base gamma. One of the smaller depot near the Sagittarius station. Irondome’s home port. But none of them were long or large enough for torpedoes. Victoria used up a covert one time code to open one of them, the lock in perfect order reacted to her.

She saw at least two dozen assault arms, same type her special commando units used. Michael confirmed, same model as his and his team’s. John running his official recorder with a fresh memory chip, with disconnected network to avoid automatic filing.

The dock’s bulkhead hissing alerted them. Victoria pulled John behind a stack of crates in a dark corner and Michael found his spot on the other side. Hearing heavy steps, irregularly as the boots only knocked on the metal plating between long jumps, two dark clothed, dark haired slender man entered.

They stopped in the middle of the corridor, waiting. A moment later the another bulkhead opened and two more similarly looking guy jumped out of the docked ship. These two had a visible fish tattoo on their necks. For Michael’s happiness, none of the new arrivals used active sensors, they were safe in their darkness.

• “Yes, clear.” — talked the first guy into his communicator. The station’s inner bulkhead opened and a short, brown haired body builder entered. He needed only one jump to be right behind his bodyguards.
• “Finally, what took so long?” — asked the new guy, our trio unsure who he talks to until one of the fish tattoo pulled up a hand-held screen. It came alive and a head with a suit frowned on eye level of the impatient shorty.
• “Hey Swen, long time no see. Is this how you hail your friend?”
• “Friend you say. Acquintance at max. And pure business, Senator.”
• “Tsk, tsk, tsk. Told you, no ranks on these channels.”
• “And no names, I am afraid we have deal on equal grounds.”
• “No, not really.” — the Senator didn’t finish this remark before a loud bang was heard.

Swen first felt a cutting pain in his chest. Then fluid running down under his t-shirt. The sudden shock left him in disbelief. Guns pointing on to his guards’ heads, holding their fire.

• “You were never useful to me, Swen. You are just a business man. Want profit, not chaos. You prefer stability. Unlike your second.” — Swen fell to the ground, trying to talk, but gurgling in the rushing blood filling his lungs. Still able to see as his second in command jumped through the bulkhead.
• “I hope you keep your end.” — continued the Senator, now only to the new joiner, totally uninterested in Swen’s final moments.
• “You can trust me, they deserve what is coming.”
• “I thought we will understand each other. Continue with phase two.”

Read the story leading up to now:

Giant of the Stars

Fictional story of a luxury starliner’s catastrophy