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Darius paused, glancing down the corridor. Its walls were a slate grey, angling up and slightly outwards from the darker grey floor for about two meters. Then it slanted back inwards two or three meters more towards the clear canopy dome above, interrupted by composite grey ribs about every two meters.
It was empty.
He signaled to his companions, then led the way. Not that Darius had any idea where he was going. He’d never been to this platform before. One of his companions cursed.
He looked back. The lanky pilot was supporting her injured companion, who, it appeared, had passed out again.
“We really need to get him to a doctor,” Camina said.
“We need information first,” Darius told her. He turned toward Sara. “Right or left at the junction?”
“Left,” she said, consulting her docupad.
Before he could look down the hall, three figures crossed the junction. Darius drew a breath between clenched teeth as the trio of nonhumans passed without even throwing a glance their way.
“I told you this was the place to go,” Sara said. “Nobody cares that we’re here.”
“I would have preferred trying to get back to one of our bases, or signaling for a ship, Commander,” Darius remarked.
She shook her head. “The damage to the escape shuttle was too severe. We were lucky we could make that one transition to unrealspace. And you really shouldn’t use my rank, here, Darius.”
He sighed. Rank was the primary form of address he was used to. “Okay, Sara.”
She nodded at him.
Darius looked down the corridor to the left. He saw what they’d been moving towards. Gesturing, he led his trio of companions to the alcove.
The alcove was inset into the slanted walls, an even darker shade of grey, flattened on all three sides and about three meters high. On one of the flat side walls was a terminal, providing access to at least the platform’s network, if not the wider medianet. The alcove was barely large enough for two people, but the four of them managed to somehow squeeze in.
Darius kept a wary eye on the corridor. “Do your thing, Sara,” He did his best not to make it sound like the order that it was.
Their injured companion groaned. “He’s bleeding again,” Camina stated, her voice full of concern.
“Stay with us, Tagge,” Darius addressed his injured communications officer. Tagge groaned but did not respond.
“Sir,” Camina pleaded.
“I know, Camina,” Darius replied. “I want to get him help, too. But we’ve no idea what’s happening out there. We’re in neutral space, on a neutral platform, with no COIN and no information. Without that, taking Tagge to a doctor might kill him more swiftly than his injuries. And dragging him around this platform without getting information first is just asking for trouble.”
Camina made a noise like a groan, then shifted the pack off her back to pull out more dressings from the scant medical kit that had been aboard the escape shuttle.
“Comman...Sara,” Darius queried.
“Almost in,” she replied. “A hack like this requires a little finesse. And I’m going as fast as I can.”
Darius grunted, looking both ways down the corridor and happy that nobody else was there.
Sara had claimed to be a particularly skilled hacker. It was not something that Darius could account for from his subordinate, but it didn’t matter in their present circumstances.
“Got it,” Sara said. Then, she whistled low. “Damn. We’ve got worse troubles than I thought.”
“What is it?” asked Camina through gritted teeth. Darius saw that Tagge’s new wound dressings were already bloodied.
“It seems the Federation, along with drow, trolls, and hobgoblins, launched a massive offensive against the Alliance,” Sara reported. “It appears that the Federation and their allies hit many key Alliance targets, crippling the forces of multiple star systems.”
Sara was silent for a moment, then cursed again. “Forced or desperate, Alliance leadership has surrendered to the Federation.”
Darius cursed. “As if the research station we’d been observing wasn’t bad enough? More bad news.”
“Oh, it’s worse,” Sara said. Her eyes met his. “There is a bounty on all Alliance military at large.”
Darius glanced down at his outfit. While it was still clearly a uniform of some sort, the lack of insignia and other identifying marks told no story. Darius was glad that Sara had recommended they remove all identifying marks from their uniforms.
Did private crews wear uniforms? Sara would know, but Darius hadn’t asked her.
“Commander,” Camina began. “Sorry, Darius. Staying together as a group might draw unwanted attention. We might be in neutral territory, but we’re still awful near Alliance and Federation space.”
“What are you thinking?” Darius asked.
“We split up,” Camina said. “I’ll take Tagge to a doctor while you two work out what we should do next.”
Darius glanced toward Sara, but she was still focused on the terminal before her. Both lieutenants, Tagge and Camina, were his subordinates, and thus his responsibility. He should not let them wander off on a random space station without a higher ranked officer.
However, at the same time, it no longer mattered. The Alliance was broken if what Sara reported was true. A group of four humans, even in nondescript uniforms, this near to Alliance territory, might draw unwanted attention.
Darius sighed. “Probably a good idea, Camina.”
Sara passed a docucard to Camina. “Here,” she said. “This is a map of the station, and the medical facility is marked. Also, there’s a good amount of COIN on this card. Don’t answer any questions with too much detail. Use the COIN to convince them questions don’t matter, ok?”
“Yeah,” Camina replied.
“Good luck, you two,” Darius said. “We’ll chatter you when we have a plan.”
Camina began to salute, then dropped her arm with a rueful grin and a shake of her head. But the grin was erased the moment she started to drag the barely conscious Tagge down the corridor, away from the alcove.
“How much COIN did you give her?” asked Darius, still watching the two moving away.
“Ten-thousand,” Sara replied.
Darius gaped. “Ten-thousand? Gold?”
“Yup.”
“How did you manage to get that much COIN?”
Sara grinned, but it didn’t reach her eyes. “Remember, before I became shipboard security, I spent five years in special ops. Then, and before my service for that matter, I learned some amazing hacks. I figured that the Federation hasn’t started to interfere with things like, oh, fleet payroll. So, I took all the pay that the crew of our corvette would have received.”
“The whole crew?” asked Darius.
“Yes,” Sara replied. “The whole, budgeted pay for the crew of the Moonshadow during this deployment.”
Darius felt his heart clench. He, Sara, Camina, and Tagge were the only survivors from their corvette. The rest of the eighty crew members were gone.
Darius did some quick math in his head, based on his own pay as a full Commander. “That’s... That’s a significant amount of COIN.”
“Which is why giving Camina ten-thousand wasn’t an issue,” Sara said.
Darius shook his head. He decided that he didn’t want to know just what Sara had done to secure that currency.
“What’s our next move, sir?” questioned Sara.
Darius sighed. He had been pondering that since they had arrived at the platform. They couldn’t stay where they were. They had acquired vital intelligence.
What they had learned about the Federation and their research was too important to disregard. There was no doubt in Darius’s mind that the Federation had plans that went beyond the Alliance.
“We have information that needs to be shared,” said Darius. “Transmitting in the open is a good way to get ourselves killed. We need to be mobile. We’re going to need a ship.”
“Agreed,” said Sara. She tapped at her docupad, and a 3D image of the platform they were on appeared above it. “This is the only active, uncontracted repair bay and shop on the platform. If there’s a ship to purchase, it will be here.”
“Let’s get to it,” Darius said. He glanced both ways down the corridor before starting towards the shop.
“I’m glad you realize we can’t use the shuttle,” Sara remarked.
Darius grunted. “It sort of screams ‘military escape shuttle’ rather loudly. I just hope nobody starts searching the station for us when they find it.”
“We should be alright for a day or two,” said Sara. “Platforms like this have lackadaisical security, and they’ll only start to care when the docking fee comes due and isn’t paid.”
“That should give us more time,” commented Darius.
“Platform security isn’t the problem,” Sara said. “Bounty hunters, on the other hand...” she trailed off.
As they turned a corner, Darius impacted with a lithe figure that had been silently running down the perpendicular corridor.
The creature that hit Darius was not human. It took him only a moment to recognize the fur, the fox head, and the tail. Her head only came up to his mid-chest. She was a kitsune.
She appeared frantic but seemed to relax ever-so-slightly at the sight of Darius. “Oh! Human! I am so sorry!”
Darius noticed that Sara had dropped her hand near her pistol but hadn’t drawn it. He also observed that the kitsune appeared to be unarmed.
“On the run?” Sara asked the fox-headed alien.
“Just a misunderstanding,” she breathed.
“Hey!” a low, scratchy, snarly, toothy voice called from the direction the kitsune had run. “Don’t move!”
Darius saw two large humanoids stalking towards them. They were at least a head taller than Darius, and enormously muscled. Their grey-green skin and small, beady eyes were only slightly less alien in appearance than the large tusks thrusting out of their lower jaws.
The orcs slowed as they reached Darius, Sara, and the kitsune. Darius had not spent a lot of time with orcs, but it was clear they were unhappy. They carried nasty-looking rifles.
“That creature,” one of the orcs growled, pointing to the kitsune, “is a stowaway.”
“We do not take kindly to stowaways on our ship,” the other said, her voice equally gravelly.
Darius turned his head toward the kitsune before him. “Is this true?”
She sighed. “Well, yes. But I had a really, really good reason.”
“Doesn’t matter,” the first orc said. “You admit you stowed away.”
The orc reached out towards the kitsune.
“It matters to me,” Darius said, placing a hand on the orc’s arm. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Sara’s hand wrapped around the grip of her holstered pistol.
As the orc stopped reaching toward her, Darius gave his attention to the kitsune.
“Thanks,” she started. “Let me explain. You see, I might have done something, oh, shall we say, a tad foolish. And that something, without getting into too much detail, just might have seriously pissed off the locals. And that forced me into hiding.”
“Thief,” snarled the female orc.
The kitsune shrugged. “Perhaps. Takes one to know one.”
The orcs both growled but didn’t do or say anything.
The kitsune continued. “It’s a long story, but it’s been a while since stealing netted me more than bare necessities for survival. Anyhow, hiding was not going to work out long, for lots of different reasons. I knew I had to leave the planet. So, I scoped out the spaceport. Their starship-” She gestured to the orcs. “-was loading up some perishable cargo, and I saw a way to sneak myself into a shipping container. Buying passage wasn’t an option, you see. During the previously mentioned foolish thing I did, I lost all my COIN.”
“She admits it,” said the female orc. “She stowed away on our ship and is almost certainly a criminal. We will take her, human.”
“I would totally have gotten away with it,” the kitsune said. “If you hadn’t opened the cargo to inspect it just after landing. Also, you should know that whatever it is you were smuggling wasn’t in my crate.”
She gave her attention back to Darius. “Since I’m rather attached to living, and I know – because they made it very clear – that they were going to space me, I ran.”
She looked at the orcs now. “Let me tell you, I had no idea you orcs were so damned fast. How is anyone as big as you that fast on your feet, anyhow?”
The clear anger on the part of the orcs was unchanged. Darius didn’t want to tangle with them, but neither did he care to allow them to murder the kitsune.
Before he could say something, however, Sara asked, “Is it your intent, even though you are on this platform, to take the law into your own hands and space her?”
“We do not tolerate stowaways,” the male orc growled again. “We found her on our ship, and this is a matter solely for us and our crew. We will space her because that is how we punish stowaways.”
“What if we pay for her passage?” asked Darius.
The female orc made a sound somewhere between a grunt, a snarl, and a bark. “Why would you buy this creature's freedom? You owe her nothing.”
“True,” Darius agreed. “But if it’s that, or let you space her, I can’t let you do that.”
“Our ship, our rules,” said the male orc. “No authority here will care what we do with a stowaway.”
“You’re right,” Sara said. “You are not beholden to the law, such as it is, on this platform. But why not take a little extra profit, forget about her, and move along?”
The two orcs leaned in towards one another. They spoke softly and rapidly. Darius didn’t understand a word of it, presuming it was Orcish. They leaned apart from one another. Darius noted that they had both tightened their grip on their guns.
“Are you from the Alliance?” asked the female orc.
“Nope,” Sara replied without hesitation.
“We’re independents,” Darius added a beat later.
The orcs looked at one another, then relaxed.
“Then we will accept payment for this creature’s passage.”
“Five-hundred gold?” questioned Sara.
“That’s five times standard interplanetary passenger fares,” Darius added.
The orcs put their heads together once again. But it was a very short discussion. “We accept.”
Sara produced another docucard and passed it over. The female orc took it. Both orcs looked threateningly towards the kitsune once again. Then, they turned and went back down the corridor the way they had come.
Darius, Sara, and the kitsune observed them until they turned at the intersection. The trio waited a few more moments, watching to be sure they were gone and not about to double back and attack.
The kitsune placed a hand on Darius’ chest. “Thank you. I owe you my life. Both of you.” She looked between Darius and Sara a moment, then leaned closer and asked, “Were you telling the truth? Or are you Alliance?”
“What of it?” Darius asked calmly.
The kitsune shook her head. “Nothing. It’s just... Well, it’s obvious to me you’re soldiers.”
“Obvious, how?” asked Sara. But Darius saw she wasn’t reaching for her pistol.
The kitsune gestured. “You’re both in uniforms. I only recognize that because I learned a long time ago that soldiers are poor marks.”
“Right. Thief,” Sara said. Yet Darius heard amusement, rather than malice, in her tone.
“I don’t care,” the kitsune said. “But since I owe you my life, I’d like to join you. I have a lot of different skills that you two might really need, now that you’re in unfamiliar territory.”
“Is that so?” asked Darius. “What makes you think this is unfamiliar territory for us?”
“Reading people – no matter their race – is a specialty of mine,” the kitsune said. “No offense, but you two are clearly not regulars in a place like this. I can help you to be less noticeable. I promise you’ll not regret letting me join you.”
Darius considered that. She wasn’t wrong. Also, someone like her – a rogue - would have a better understanding of how life worked outside the Alliance or any other similar organized territory.
Even with the information they possessed and desired to share, Darius could see how they might need help to find some way to do that. It was just one more issue on the list. “Sara?”
“How do we know that you won’t double-cross us for a profit?” Sara asked.
“Because that’s not my way,” said the kitsune. “Since you saved my life, I am indebted to you. The least I can do is help you survive.”
Sara caught Darius’ eye and nodded slightly.
“Okay,” Darius said.
Sara extended her hand to the kitsune. “Sara Alon.”
After they shook hands, the kitsune turned to him to offer her hand. “Darius Noble.”
“It’s a pleasure to meet you both,” said the kitsune. “I’m Aya Mah-soo-may fo Misa, and I swear my fate is intertwined with yours, since my life would have ended were it not for you. Please, call me Aya.”
