Spike in a Rail
SOMETHING ABOUT THE shuttle ride from the surface of Estropo never failed to put Xenecia in a reflective mood. She supposed it helped chase away other, less pleasant thoughts, such as the fact that two inches of hull plating was all that separated her from the diminishing atmosphere turning to true vacuum, or that the civilian operators helming the patched-together death bucket looked adolescent at best. Though she was hardly an expert in human anatomy, she felt her observation was justified given their oily, pock-marked skin and unrepentant body odor, to say nothing of the wispy collection of hairs masquerading as a mustache upon the first one’s upper lip.
No matter. The ascent went smoothly enough, allowing Xenecia’s mind to wander as they made their approach toward Over/Under Station, the glittering jewel of the Kiilsagi System.
Xenecia clucked with amusement at the thought. Glittering jewel—ha. Hardly. Technically the heap wasn’t even a true station, at least in the sense that it hadn’t been constructed with such a purpose in mind. Quite the opposite, in fact.
Before being repurposed into its present incarnation, the Overt Wonder began service as a super freighter operating under charter of the Capistara Corporation. It was while returning from a routine stretch deep in unincorporated space that a malfunctioning jump drive sent the super freighter straight into the jaws of the Kiilsagi System’s first recorded interplanetary war. With their jump drive shot and the battle raging all around them, the captain of the Overt Wonder ordered his crew to abandon ship.
The hot war between Estropo and Arathia lasted for over five years. Meanwhile, the super freighter remained unclaimed, adrift in space. In time the Capistara Corporation wrote off its losses—a move they no doubt regretted when both sides abruptly sued for peace the following year. While the local powers haggled over terms and conditions, however, a newly minted triumvirate of the system’s most enterprising merchant families invoked the sacred doctrine of right to salvage. Together their crews descended upon the derelict super freighter and, in a display of unprecedented cooperation, successfully jury-rigged and towed it directly into the heart of disputed space.
What followed was an act of hubris rivaling even that which led to it. With all eyes in the system upon them, the Triumvirate declared their prize haul the seat of a de facto neutral zone operating under civilian authority. Five generations later, Over/Under Station remained the undisputed economic hub of the Kiilsagi System. Not that that was saying too much.
Xenecia had heard the station described by the locals as a vast, glittering halo flung out into the middle of empty space. Her own personal view was a touch more prosaic. Even from afar, she thought it more closely resembled the fractured, discarded wheel of some ancient chariot of long-dead gods. The fat slab of a freighter serving as its hub certainly offered little in the way of aesthetic appeal. From that unsightly centerpiece radiated an ever-shifting ring of traffic, lesser vessels coming and going, feeding, consuming, like so many blowflies circling a fetid corpse.
Still, whatever else she thought of the place, there was no denying one thing…
It felt good to be home.
* * *
Technically the station wasn’t her true home, nor her birth home. The Tyroshi had made certain she could no longer lay claim to either when they slagged Shih’ra from pole to pole—and the vast majority of her people with it.
Over/Under Station was hardly the first place she had called home as a galactic orphan, nor did she suspect it would be the last. Her experience as one of only thousands of remaining Shih’rahi had hardened her, whittling her down to nothing but sharp edges and a set of skills seldom met with a smile in more civilized ports of call. Over/Under Station, thankfully, suffered no such delusions about itself.
While most opted to live on the station’s residential levels, there were many who preferred to make their nests among the hustle and bustle of the market areas. Xenecia was one such boarder, having secured a rack for herself in the back room of a shop owned by a spritely old seamstress. The woman had no use for the space and was only too happy to pocket the extra chits. Xenecia, for her part, was glad not to live behind some filthy, foul-smelling human chophouse.
A cursory glance confirmed that the room was as she had left it one week earlier. Her rack was undisturbed, and anything else she owned she either carried on her person—such as the modified mare’s leg carbine that was her constant companion—or otherwise considered an acceptable loss. Even so, nothing had wandered off in her absence. This time.
The downside to living behind a seamstress as opposed to a chophouse was that she had to venture out to procure her meals. While the trip from the surface had done nothing to stir a more conventional appetite, Xenecia had been craving a particular delicacy ever since setting out a week earlier.
Her quest to satisfy that craving took her several levels up to a battered old food stand in a nearly forgotten corner of one of the less popular market spaces. The woman who ran it specialized in only one item, but did she ever nail it. The massive gallon-sized jar sat atop the stand, the briny aubergine liquid within not unlike Xenecia’s own amethyst skin. Bending at the waist, she ignored the opaque reflection of her optical implants against the glass. A smile unfurled. She had spied her prey.
Xenecia placed two of the brightly colored translucent plastic chits that were Over/Under Station’s preferred currency upon the grimy tabletop. The woman accepted the chits and Xenecia reached for the long, curved fork she indicated, spearing the fattest of those tasty pink baubles from the jar. Her prize secured, she dipped her head in thanks and went on her way. In all the times she frequented the woman’s stand, the woman had said not a single word to her.
They were practically soul mates, she had decided.
Xenecia was enjoying the pickled egg—her favorite human treat—when she was stopped at the edge of the market by two women. A glance over her shoulder confirmed that two more blocked her return path. Each of the women wore gauzy white robes garnished with pale sashes of pastel fastened across the breast. The two that stood before her wore sashes of mauve and lilac; behind her, cream and mint. Though their faces were uncovered, they spoke not a word between them—at least, not yet. Their presence alone was enough to communicate their lady’s will.
“Very well,” Xenecia said. She swallowed the last of the egg before allowing a resigned sigh. “After you.”
The Grom’s handmaidens led her from the market to a repurposed storage bay that served as home for the station’s singular spiritual leader. At last their path terminated before a long dais facing the entrance. A lavish, luxuriously appointed daybed sat atop the dais, all of which was wrapped in a collection of curtains reflecting the colors of Xenecia’s escorts. One by one they took their positions upon the platform, standing at its corners with their hands clasped before them. Xenecia followed, picking her way through the overlapping layers of sheer pastel panels that seemed to shift and separate in time with her approach. The last of the panels parted before her, revealing what was left of the Grom. The wizened old woman was as leathery as she was frail, so swaddled beneath a pile of blankets and furs that only her wrinkled, gourd-like head was visible upon the pillow.
Xenecia stood at the foot of the dais for nearly a full minute before the Grom opened her rheumy eyes. This time it was the left eye that opened first, followed by its neighbor, the two working independently of one another as though belonging to some strange hybrid species of marine life. When at last she “spoke,” it was the voices of her handmaidens silhouetted beyond the curtains that provided the means for her to be heard.
“Ah, Xenecia. My favorite huntrex,” the young woman she thought of as Mauve Sash said, her voice high and clear as a bell. “How timely your return. The stars have recently spoken your name, and here you stand before me to answer their call.”
Not this again, she thought. Speaking with the Grom never failed to vex and unnerve Xenecia, none the more so when the conversation turned cosmological. “Can this not wait? I only arrived back aboard station an hour ago.”
“The stars spoke of you specifically, Xenecia. You know what that means.”
She did, all too well. In this case it meant that catching up on her beauty sleep was going to have to wait. “Very well. What would your stars have of me?”
The next voice belonged to Lilac Sash. Hers was lightly accented, almost sultry. “There is a man aboard this station who should not be here. His presence places it and all the people who call it home in grave danger. “
Xenecia frowned, and not just because of the Grom’s habit of switching abruptly between her proxies. “Grave danger?” she repeated, resisting the temptation to direct her reply to the handmaiden currently speaking on the Grom’s behalf.
Cream Sash’s voice was huskier, but somehow brittle. “Indeed. The stars are in agreement that his presence will have a catastrophic impact upon this station.”
“I see. And did the stars have the courtesy to tell you where aboard station I might find this mysterious man?”
“They did not.”
Xenecia threaded an exasperated breath between her teeth. “No, of course they did not.”
“I apologize. Is locating not a species of hunting?”
Opening her mouth to respond, Xenecia found herself at a loss. “Was that a joke?”
The Grom—Cream Sash—continued undeterred. “And is hunting not what you do as a huntrex?”
Xenecia bit her tongue lest she say something regrettable. “As you say,” she forced herself to respond instead.
“Then we are agreed.” Of all the handmaidens, Mint Sash’s voice was at once the most cheerful yet commanding.
“Can you at least tell me anything else the stars may have shared with you?”
“The vision is indistinct, but I see… bright lights. A struggle. Life and death. The rest is unclear.”
“Have I mentioned that I do not normally traffic in rumor and innuendo?”
“Sadly, the stars often speak in such. It falls to me only to deliver their message to the proper vessel.”
“Is there anything else I should know before I set out?”
A pause. Then, courtesy of all four Sashes in concert: “That it is most agreeable to see you again.”
At that, Xenecia smiled in spite of herself. “And you, as well.”
“Splendid. Now, please—I must rest. I trust you can see yourself out.”
“Of course. Rest well, Grom.”
* * *
Xenecia emerged from the Grom’s sanctuary as frustrated as she was flummoxed. It didn’t help matters that she had to reconstruct the entire exchange in her mind, not least because the Grom required four different voices to communicate her message. Finally, the strange, shifting narrative clarified itself for her. She had a task, but precious little of the information required to make sense of it. Bright lights? A life and death struggle? Not a lot to go on, that.
But not nothing, either. The Grom’s vision suggested that the unknown man was involved in some sort of struggle; a struggle suggested the need for medical assistance. Thankfully, that narrowed down her options significantly. Despite its large population—well above ten thousand, per the last unofficial census—Over/Under Station wasn’t exactly teeming with medical professionals. The Overt Wonder had been purpose-built to operate at peak efficiency with as small a crew as humanly possible. As such it had been designed with only one med bay. The original Triumvirate and subsequent generations had done little to encourage an interest in health and wellness among those who settled aboard the station, the results of which could be measured in its current shortage of life-saving medical care.
For Xenecia, this shortage worked to her advantage. There were any number of charlatans and snake oil peddlers operating aboard station, but only a handful of actual professionals with the knowledge and skill to care for a man with serious injuries. What that realization didn’t earn her was a location.
Not a specific location, anyway, or even one she could ballpark. Aside from the original med bay, dozens of makeshift clinics and offices across the station offered some form of healing service or another. And those were only the ones that advertised. How the hell was she to know which one a dying man might choose, or if he’d had any choice in the matter at all?
Is locating not a species of hunting?
The mocking voice echoing in her head would be disconcerting enough were it simply her own subconscious needling her. With the Grom, though, who could really be sure it wasn’t something else? Something… other?
The thought made her skin crawl. Fixing her lips and narrowing her mind’s eye, she fired off a salvo of what she could only assume was focused psionic thought-speak.
You should be resting, Grom, so I will say this only once in the most polite tone I know how: Get. Out. Of. My. Head.
Xenecia waited one, two, three beats before nodding firmly. There. Apparently that had set the busybody—busybrain?—straight. The inner workings of her mindscape were for her and her alone.
Probably the Grom was having a good laugh at her expense right now, but at least she had made her position clear. With that settled, she turned her focus back to the matter at hand. Her own familiarity with the station informed her that the middle decks received the most foot traffic. If there was a better place for an ambitious young healer to hang their proverbial shingle, she couldn’t think of one.
It was worth a shot, she decided. She had precious little else to go on and knew the middle decks better than most others. Hell, at least if the mystery man died she wouldn’t have a long walk back to her rack before the station went all catastrophic on her and everyone else.
Somehow that last thought was more reassuring than it had any right to be. That settled that, then. Off she went.
She wrote off her first stop almost immediately. Too busy. The victims of a nearby chophouse fire had descended upon the clinic’s doorstep, their burns and shortness of breath demanding the harried attentions of what passed for its staff. One possibility had been shuttered with no explanation, while another was rendered moot by the death of its proprietor days earlier. She heard rumors of a daycare center operating as a front for certain back room procedures, but that proved as erroneous as it sounded at first blush. Still, no stone left unturned and all that.
After nearly an hour of fruitless searching Xenecia was beginning to suspect her methodology was flawed, at least so far as doctor shopping was concerned. One more, she resolved as she approached the clinic ahead of her, and then she was changing tack.
Xenecia was so busy convincing herself she was on the wrong trail that she very nearly overlooked the evidence suggesting otherwise. This particular clinic was wedged catty-corner into an irregular space between a fish fry stand—most of which was hardly catch-of-the-day material by the time it came up from either surface—and a beauty parlor fronting for a numbers racket. And while its location couldn’t have been great for word of mouth, she was fairly certain the hand-lettered CLOSED sign hanging awkwardly in the window was out of character even for an outfit as sketchy as this one. And was that a smear of blood retreating from the sign’s edge?
Xenecia frowned as she drew the mare’s leg from the stubby leather scabbard over her shoulder. Say what you will about the Grom, the kooky old seer knew her shit.
* * *
The clinic’s door resisted her initial attempt at entry. Opting for force over finesse in the face of looming catastrophe, Xenecia positioned her carbine above the knob. A quick slam of the mare’s leg’s molded stock cured the door of its intransigence, so much so that it flung itself wide in invitation to her. Now that was more like it, thank you very much.
Xenecia was all of a foot over the threshold when the sounds of a struggle coming from the back found her ears. Letting the mare’s leg lead the way, she followed through the cramped lobby and down a short hall terminating at the clinic’s lone exam room. Two men were grappling on a table in the center when she entered. One of the men stood over the other and wore a lab coat that, even from the back, had obviously seen better days; the other was flat on his back and struggling, making some sort of desperate gurgling noise. From Xenecia’s vantage point it looked as if doctor and patient were choking the life out of one another. The doctor appeared to have the upper hand, as it were, though not for lack of trying on the part of his patient.
“Take your hands off that man at once,” Xenecia demanded, taking aim.
The doctor either didn’t hear her or didn’t care, still bearing down on his patient with seemingly lethal intent.
“Ahem. I said—”
“Ma’am, I don’t know who you are, but I am trying to save this man’s life!”
“As am I, doctor.”
“By interrupting a delicate procedure?”
“The situation is… complicated.”
“Well mine is not,” the doctor said, still fighting with his patient. “This man is in neural arrest. Do you understand that? Shoot me and he’s as good as dead, guaranteed.”
“Do not let that happen,” a new voice chimed in from behind. “And you! Drop the carbine or I drop you!”
Too late, Xenecia remembered her unprotected backside. She spun on her heel at the sound of the woman’s voice, trying to correct for the lapse, but even her well honed reflexes were not enough to balance the scales. The woman had the drop on her but good. Any which way she ran the numbers, she wound up swimming in a column of red. Bad way to go out. With an obliging nod, Xenecia knelt and lowered her mare’s leg to the glossy tile.
“Good. Now, step back.”
The room didn’t allow for much in the way of backpedaling, but somehow Xenecia managed. Staring down the business end of a high-powered pistol proved a great motivator in that regard.
“What now?” she wondered.
“I could use an extra pair of hands if one of you isn’t too busy holding the other hostage!” the doctor pleaded in answer.
The woman spared the briefest of glances at the doctor. Xenecia used that moment to take her measure. Human. Mid-to-late twenties, roughly 175 centimeters, 50 kilos or so. Hair: buzzed on the sides and back beneath a slick jet black sweep. Eyes: focused, steely, pissed. Narrow face, pointed chin, angry little mouth. All sharp edges, much like Xenecia herself. Probably Arathian military, if she had to guess.
What she was doing operating in the demilitarized zone, now that was the far more interesting question…
Sensing no threat in the doctor’s request, Angry Mouth flicked her pointed chin toward the exam table. “You heard the man. Lend him your hands, won’t you?”
That quickly, Xenecia went from huntrex to nursemaid. Swords to ploughshares. Now there was a narrative she never imagined living long enough to claim for her own. Though if she could get her hands on something sharp and throwable, say, a scalpel…
“And no funny business! You do what he says, when he says. Nothing more, got it?”
It proved a moot point. There were no scalpels or surgical tools in sight, nor much else in the way of medical instruments, Xenecia noted. Talk about a fly-by-night operation. Still, she nodded. Best to let Angry Mouth think she had no designs on reclaiming the balance of power.
As for the patient, she could see now that he was not struggling but seizing. Rather hard, too, by the look of things.
“What would you have me do?”
The doctor lifted his head long enough to fix her with a disbelieving stare beneath bushy, furrowed brows. “What does it look like?” he asked around a stim injector clenched between his front teeth. “Hold him still while I inject him!”
Xenecia stepped over to the head of the table, the hard plastic of a discarded stim cartridge crunching beneath her heavy boot. At least three others lay nearby, a quick glance told her. Then the man flopped a shoulder down hard on the table and she clamped her hand upon it, pinning it in place. She followed suit with the other and while the man continued to seize, he was at least restrained.
The doctor allowed himself all of a moment to take a steadying breath before plunging the injector into the man’s neck. It released with a pneumatic hiss, followed by a sharp click as the cartridge was ejected. With a muted clatter it joined its fellows on the floor before falling silent.
The final injection seemed to have the desired effect. The patient calmed, his fits and spasms downgrading to tics and twitches as the stims did their work. The tiny room heaved with a collective sigh of relief… only to be plunged right back into full panic mode when the seizing began anew, harder and fiercer than any before it.
“Give him another dose! Hurry!”
“That was the last one,” the doctor barked back at Angry Mouth. “Do I look like I’m stockpiling stims here?”
With nothing left to arrest the violent assault on his brain, the patient didn’t stand a chance. At that point all they could do was stand and watch. The veins in his neck bulged; thin streams of white foam poured from his mouth. All at once the man went still, his limbs flopping limply upon the table. His right arm landed not quite flush with its edge, rolling off the side and lolling there haphazardly.
With a heavy sigh the doctor cursed the loss of his patient. Or so Xenecia thought until he fell upon the unfortunate man, riffling through his pockets for payment or anything else of value.
“Damn it.”
Apparently he had tapped out his stim supply for nothing. Tough break, that.
“What happened?” Angry Mouth demanded, still trying to make sense of the scene. “Why didn’t it work?”
“Something disrupted his neural pathways. The stims should have counteracted it. Why they didn’t, I can’t tell you. That’s the pathologist’s problem now.” Released from the weight of his duties, the doctor’s shoulders slumped. He was a slender man, older and slight of stature. His cheeks were flushed, his brow dappled with sweat. The struggle with the younger, stronger, seizing man had clearly taken its toll. “Look, I have to call this in to station security. If the both of you go right now I’ll leave you out of the report.”
Angry Mouth eyed the dour doctor suspiciously. “Why would you do that?”
“Are you kidding? Do you have any idea how much more complicated this gets if I mention two armed women burst in here and held me hostage? I just want this bum out of my clinic so I can go home and drink until I forget about this mess.”
“‘Bum,’” Xenecia repeated. “Some bedside manner you have, doctor.”
“It’s not bedside manner once they’re dead,” he countered.
On further reflection, she couldn’t deny he had something of a point. “Touché.”
The doctor shook his head, waving off her concession. “I’m going to make that call to station security now. You’ve got five minutes.” With that, he shuffled out of the room. On his way down the hall he added, “Oh, and thank you both for not shooting me.”
* * *
The doctor had barely cleared the room before Angry Mouth descended upon the dead man. Xenecia didn’t think it possible, but the woman’s search was even less respectful than that of her predecessor. Shoes pulled off, pockets turned out, coveralls torn open—in a matter of seconds the man looked as if he had been attacked by a gang of ravenous street urchins. Whatever it was she was looking for, the woman seemed to have only the most general idea of where she might find it.
For her part, Xenecia collected her mare’s leg from the floor. What little sound it made as she hefted it and placed the stock against her shoulder was lost on Angry Mouth, still too busy fussing over the dead man to notice. Indeed, she seemed to have all but forgotten that Xenecia was even there.
Well, at least until she turned around.
“Whoa… “
“Who are you?” Xenecia demanded as she regarded the woman over the barrel of her carbine.
“Seriously? We’re really going to do this over some petty squabble? Come on, you heard the doc. Security will be here any minute. Let’s just put our guns down and walk away, yeah?”
“Who. Are. You?”
“Look, sister, from where I’m standing, you’re the one holding me hostage, so we could always just wait and see who they—”
“Correction: You are being detained. Not only am I authorized by dispensation of the Triumvirate to carry this weapon aboard station, I am also empowered to act as a security surrogate. So yes, we shall wait.”
To that, the woman had only one response: “Well, shit.”
“Indeed,” Xenecia confirmed. “Now, do not make me ask a third time.”
The choice between staring down an ultimatum or her carbine proved as easy as Xenecia suspected. Dropping all pretense, Angry Mouth straightened and properly introduced herself. “My name is Sergeant Soshi Anarraham. I’m with Arathian Aerospace Defense, Wraith Division.”
Called it, she thought, though she had never heard of this alleged ‘Wraith Division.’ A branch of AAD spec ops, most likely. It would explain the woman’s military bearing, as well as her uncanny presence. Something about Sergeant Anarraham’s very being raised the hackles at the base of her neck. As if she were privy to something important, perhaps mortally so.
“Why are you here?”
“What, you’re not going to frogmarch me off to get friendly with your security buddies? What are you waiting for?”
“In case it has not already been adequately established, I am the one asking the questions.”
“Because your station and the peace of this system are in grave danger.”
There was that phrase again. Like the proverbial worm in the apple, the Grom’s dire prediction burrowed itself deeper still within Xenecia’s brain. What seemed only a minor nuisance an hour before had become an existential threat. Working her lips into a fine, hard line—who had the angry mouth now?—Xenecia made a decision she could only hope she would not come to regret.
She lowered her carbine.
“Come with me.”
The self-described wraith was rendered speechless by the sudden display. Speechless, but not motionless. Instinct and years of training spurred Sergeant Anarraham to action, the lack of a snappy one-liner be damned.
Station security was hot on their heels by the time they finally left the clinic. Thankfully neither of the men following up on the doctor’s call knew that.
“Hey, doc. Heard you got a stiff one in here,” one of the security officers said as they strode into the office, “and not the kind my partner usually comes in for help with.”
Xenecia and her new shadow were long gone before they could hear his partner’s undoubtedly witty retort.
Even absent the threat of pursuit, the two remained silent until they were safe within the relative privacy of Xenecia’s room behind the seamstress’s shop. Sergeant Anarraham took one look around and pulled a critical face. Evidently the space was not up to operational standards, at least so far as hideouts and crash pads were concerned. Sadly for her, it was the only space available to Xenecia on such short notice.
“Tell me about your mission,” she said, short and to the point as ever.
There was that look again. One part appraisal, two parts dismissal.
“How long have you lived aboard this station?”
“Two years, four months, and twenty-eight days.”
“Then you’re aware of its history? How it was established as a civilian outpost to check the ambitions of expansionist elements within the planetary governments?”
“I am aware that is the preferred narrative of the Triumvirate. Personally I have always found its plausibility a bit… lacking.” Not that it mattered to Xenecia one way or the other. She had no vested interest in the political affairs or wheelings and dealings of the planetary elite, or even those of the Triumvirate, for the matter.
Or rather, she thought she had no vested interest prior to her run-in with Sergeant Anarraham.
“Well, if nothing else you have a finely calibrated bullshit detector,” the sergeant allowed with a snort. Something like laughter? Hard to tell with this one. “You’re right, the popular narrative is more or less fiction. The real reason the Estropans and Arathians don’t turn you into a pretty light show for the people on the ground is that your station has been hosting high-level meetings between the planetary elite for decades. Well, that and the scads and scads of contraband that gets waved through here on a daily basis.”
“And the significant loss of life it would represent,” Xenecia added. Thousands of Estropan and Arathian expats called Over/Under Station home, with others hailing from elsewhere within the system. No doubt they too would be aggrieved to learn of the calculated slaughter of their own sons and daughters abroad. Surely that had to factor into the equation somehow…
As if reading her mind, Anarraham raised her palm before her, tilting it from side to side. “Ehh, not so much, no. Mostly the secret base and contraband thing.”
Xenecia frowned. Not surprising. Not exactly comforting, either, but not surprising. A secret relationship benefitting both the station and the very governments it purported to resist would certainly explain the status quo better than the self-serving narrative pushed by the Triumvirate. As for the planetary elite, they had no shortage of enemies among their own people. Where better to avoid scrutiny or potential attack from extremist groups within than up among the stars themselves?
“I take it one of these meetings is scheduled to take place in the near future?”
“Precisely. What’s more, my division of Arathian Aerospace Defense recently received intelligence suggesting the time and location of the meeting had become known to extremist groups with vested interests in rekindling the conflicts of previous generations.”
She had no problem believing that, either. While both Estropo and Arathia maintained robust militaries, the outbreak of war after decades of relative peace would kickstart each planet’s military industrial establishment. State of the art vehicles would be rushed to production, older vehicles repaired and retrofitted, long-neglected stockpiles suffused with glittering new tech and other vital supplies. The pockets of profiteers on both sides would fatten and swell and it would all begin again, destined never to end.
“And you believe one of these extremist groups was able to smuggle an operative aboard the station?”
Sergeant Anarraham nodded crisply. “Exactly. Intelligence suggests they’ll attempt to reactivate the station’s secondary self-destruct routine, using the resulting explosion as a false flag to rally support among both sides. I was tracking the man in the doctor’s office through your station when I lost him.” She worked her bottom lip with her teeth, as much thoughtfully as punishingly. “He must have realized I had spotted him, popped some kind of suicide pill… “
“What was that now?” Xenecia asked, her ears pricking up at the key phrase Anarraham had tossed off so casually. “Something about a self-destruct routine?”
“Correct.”
“Would that not have been disabled when the station was first established?”
“The primary self-destruct routine would have, yes. But these old super freighters were built with separate secondary routines that can be easy to overlook. Think about it. Some of these ships were contracted to transport military cargo, including classified prototypes. They had to have multiple layers of security in the event they were ambushed and incapacitated.”
“So what you are saying is that the entire station is rigged with an active array of explosives?”
“And has been for five generations, yes. The difference now is that one of the bad guys knows how to make them go boom again.”
“Then I suppose it is up to us to make sure they do not succeed.”
“‘Us?’ No way. There’s no us here. I’m a trained professional on an off-book black ops mission that my government will disavow in the event I’m captured or killed. The last thing I need right now is to babysit some D-grade mercenary.”
Xenecia curled her lip in a display of thinning patience. She was well aware that most military professionals considered the practice of hunting to be a bastardized, even base form of the venerated art of soldiering. Still, this one was pushing her sense of professional decorum to its outermost limits.
“Let me be perfectly clear about two things, “ she said in answer. “This station is my home, and whether it is under threat from within or without I intend to do my utmost to assure that no harm comes to it or its people.”
The woman shifted her bearing, and for a moment Xenecia thought she detected a note of respect in the way she regarded her. “All right. Point taken. And the second?”
Xenecia allowed her curled lips to spread into a grin. “I was not asking.”
At that, Anarraham sighed tellingly. “I thought as much… “
Even if the attack hadn’t been telegraphed, Xenecia had been preparing for one from the moment she sealed the door of her space behind them. The struggle that followed was brief—more of a tussle, really—her superior size allowing her to leverage the sergeant’s arm behind her back. From there it was only a matter of a few quick steps to force her against the wall.
“You will find the inner workings of this station far more complex than you imagine,” Xenecia whispered against the curve of the woman’s ear. “Whatever schematics you are drawing from, I guarantee they do not provide you with the full picture you require to navigate the areas you seek.”
“Let me guess: you’re volunteering to be my friendly neighborhood guide?” Anarraham attempted to use the distraction of her question to dislodge her arm and throw Xenecia off balance, and failed. With a defeated growl she added, “Fine! Get off me already.”
At length, Xenecia stepped back and allowed the sergeant to push off the wall. “Who said anything about friendly?”
* * *
The labyrinth that was the station’s penetralia unfolded before them under Xenecia’s superior guidance. Drawing upon an intimate familiarity with the station’s inner workings, she guided them through a twisting warren of seldom-used corridors and passages between levels known primarily to the station’s vermin—both human and otherwise—and her. Thankfully during this excursion they came across none of the human variety. Whether the lack of any internal maintenance that day was thanks to a happy accident or good planning on the part of Anarraham’s intelligence asset, Xenecia couldn’t say. (She did however discover that the sergeant had something of an aversion to rat droppings, which proved a source of private amusement to her, considering how many there were to avoid. So there was that, at least.)
It only got worse from there. The closer their path took them toward the engineering grid, the higher the temperature rose. Incrementally at first, until the change was too significant for Anarraham to ignore. Sweat clung to every inch of her exposed skin, slowing their progress considerably. To her, the salty discharge was an inconvenience, one that required she open her coveralls to the waist and stop repeatedly to swipe at her unprotected eyes.
“How much further?” Anarraham asked in the lowest of whispers after nearly two hours of creeping and skulking. Without the chatter of the common areas to mask it, speech and other seemingly insignificant noises—the errant scrape of metal on metal, the toe of a boot dragging against ductwork as they crawled through it—had a way of taking on a life of their own within the confined spaces.
“Not much. We should be only a few meters away.”
“Should be?” she hissed, a little too animatedly. “I thought you said you knew this place like the back of your—”
Xenecia stopped her abruptly, raising the back of the very hand Anarraham was referring to. Below them, two guards stationed outside the entrance of the engineering grid were chatting in discreet tones. It didn’t take long to discern that one of the men was relating the details of an intimate encounter he had recently enjoyed while on leave… a rather vulgar and generously embellished one, at that. Xenecia and Anarraham shared a scowling shake of their heads before continuing forward.
On the plus side, the story would likely hold the men’s attention for some time. All the better to ensure they weren’t interrupted.
At last, their path terminated before a heavy steel grate. “We are here,” Xenecia announced. Producing a multitool from her pants pocket, she set to work on the screws securing the grate. There were several, and the process was painfully slow… but also rewarding. Xenecia was passing the last of the screws back to Anarraham when it slipped through the woman’s sweaty palm. The heavy screw hit the ductwork below with an audible clang. Xenecia and Anarraham froze, half expecting the guards to start firing up into the ductwork at any moment. No such firestorm came, though. The guards were still engrossed in conversation. They never even heard the screw fall.
With a relieved breath, Xenecia removed the grate. It was the last obstacle in their path, and with nothing else holding them back she slipped through the opening and into the engineering grid. Anarraham dropped down behind her, the sound of her landing all but inaudible. Her spook training at work, no doubt.
“This way,” she said.
Xenecia had barely taken the first step toward the central console when she felt a stinging bite against the nape of her neck.
“Sorry, sweetheart,” Anarraham said coolly, “but I can take it from here.”
Xenecia had all of a second to spin and see Sergeant Anarraham extracting the ultra thin, millimeters-long silver needle from beneath her thumbnail. The paralytic agent lacing its crimson-tipped end had been transferred into her bloodstream, rendering it safe to the touch. Anarraham held the metal sliver between thumb and forefinger, regarding it almost thoughtfully. Then she shrugged and flicked it away as Xenecia collapsed to one knee before her, struggling to breathe.
“Here, let me help you with that.” Anarraham gripped Xenecia’s shoulder, shoving her roughly to the floor as she strode past her.
The paralytic agent coursed through her, binding Xenecia’s limbs more effectively than any external force. Her own body became a prison, her nerves and synapses crying mutiny against the directives they would have so readily obeyed only moments earlier. Her other senses remained unaffected, allowing her to see and hear Anarraham as she went about searching for the input required to activate the secondary self-destruct routine. She hummed to herself all the while, an abominably cheerful melody Xenecia recognized as one of the harvest-time ditties that was so popular during the Arathian equinox.
With a flash of excruciating clarity, Xenecia knew she had allowed herself to be played. She had seen only what Anarraham wanted her to, never stopping to examine the situation from the other side. Anarraham was no special operative, she knew that now, but who or what was she really? An extremist? An opportunist? Disgruntled Arathian military? Perhaps the dying man in the doctor’s office could have cleared it up for her, though he was more likely just another link in the chain. Or had been, until he aborted his mission prematurely. Stranded and with no one to help her navigate the station’s complicated layout, Anarraham flipped the script, casting herself as the heroic operative in need of a local guide to maneuver through difficult, potentially hostile terrain.
And Xenecia had played right into the role Anarraham auditioned her for.
So much for that “finely calibrated bullshit detector.”
Finally the deceitful bitch found the input, the flimsy panel concealing it giving way easily. When revealed, the keypad beneath glowed an eerie golden yellow. The nuclear battery that powered it had not failed, despite Xenecia’s most earnest wishes to the contrary.
“Let’s see, how long should I give myself to get off station?” Anarraham purred as she pondered the keypad. “Three hours seems a little generous, but two might not be enough if I get hung up making my way back out. What do you think, Xenecia?”
Xenecia scowled—or at least she would have if her facial expression wasn’t fixed down to the nerve endings. Then she remembered she was scowling when the paralytic set. Small victory, that, though Anarraham didn’t seem to care one way or the other. She was much more concerned with the larger victory.
Well, that and saving her ass.
“Hmm. You’re right. Best to split the difference. Two and a half hours, it is.”
The moment she inputted the code the keypad turned an angry, accusing red. There were no sirens or klaxons, no computerized warnings announcing the start of the sequence, only the winking flash of the keypad’s digital readout as it counted down.
Anarraham crossed the grid and stooped before her, examining Xenecia closely. “Well, it looks like this is goodbye. Sorry it had to go down this way. No hard feelings, yeah?” With a soft pat to her cheek, she took her leave. “Oh, and don’t worry, I’ll say hello to your friends outside for you.”
Xenecia tried to call out as Anarraham approached the door, but of course it was no use. Her vocal cords were as fixed and inflexible as every other part of her body. Two muffled pops sounded as the door swished open, followed by a pair of clipped groans and what could only be the bodies of the guards outside hitting the floor.
So, this is how it ends, she thought, embracing the fatalism of the moment. Even before the wholesale obliteration of her planet and people, she had always imagined herself the hero of her own story. With so few of her kind—her kin—left afterward, it had seemed the only logical explanation. But if this was all she had been spared for—to die alone and imprisoned within herself, the unwitting tool of some double agent used to murder thousands and spark a war she had neither stake nor side in—then what else did that make her but a damnable, blighted fool?
The answer came, of all places, from her twitching toe. The paralytic was wearing off! Perhaps the dose had been improperly prepared; perhaps her body was metabolizing it quicker than a victim with human anatomy. Whatever the case, that lonely little twitch represented the sole hope of the station, if not the entire system.
Fifteen minutes passed before enough of the paralytic ebbed from her system to begin the painful process of moving. The climb to her feet was as slow as it was arduous, her muscles burning in protest through the entire effort. A nearby console proved a handy crutch, for which she was grateful. Without its reassuring presence she surely would have gone right back to ground.
Even attempting to move felt as if three times the normal gravity was crashing down upon her. Only with intense focus was she able to coax her listless legs forward, working inexorably toward the center console. Eventually she ran out of improvised handholds, barely making it to the console before her legs all but gave out on her. There was still half an hour on the timer, she saw. That was good; she could work with that.
But first, she had to get to the guards in the doorway. While they were definitely dead, their radios were not.
Getting to the guards proved less challenging than the center console. Her adrenaline was flowing now, though traces of the paralytic still lingered in her extremities. Her fingers in particular were slow to respond as she tried to work the radio. She fumbled it once, twice before finally managing to secure it within an awkward, claw-like grip. Holding down the call button proved a fresh challenge, one she had no choice but to master quickly.
“Security,” she barked into the radio’s mouthpiece once she had the frequency open. “Security, respond immediately!”
“What the—who is this?”
“You are speaking to Xenecia of Shih’ra. Listen to me. You need to alert your people that—”
“Wait, Xenecia of… the huntrex?”
“Yes, the huntrex!” she replied curtly.
“You shouldn’t be on this frequency. How did you get on this—”
“I said listen to me, damn it! Alert your people that there is an armed intruder aboard station, but do so quietly. She will likely be attempting to make her way to one of the docking bays.” Xenecia described Anarraham, waiting for a response.
“Got it,” the dispatcher said after a brief pause. “Anything else?”
“Yes. You will need to get someone down to the engineering grid to disengage the secondary self-destruct routine. You have approximately thirty minutes.”
“… the what now?”
With five quick strides Xenecia bolted from the engineering grid, the radio squawking in her wake. They would figure it out or they wouldn’t; either way, her sole duty was to prevent Soshi Anarraham from escaping whatever judgment awaited her aboard Over/Under Station.
If she had one trump card left, one thing that gave her half a shot of intercepting the conniving little backstabber before she had the chance to slip through security’s clumsy fingers, it was her own ego. She had led Anarraham to the engineering grid by a circuitous route, hoping to delay their arrival as long as possible and catch the conspirator in the act. Not only would the reward from the Triumvirate surely have been substantial, but the notoriety of her involvement in preventing the destruction of the station would have earned her bigger jobs, larger paydays, and hopefully someday a one-way ticket out of this backwater system. Win-win all around, she figured.
At least until—well, no need rehashing the past. Her eyes were fixed firmly, unrelentingly forward.
Lo and behold, there she was. Somehow Anarraham had backtracked her way through the guts of the station with time to spare… or so she thought, anyway.
Xenecia came flying out of the intersecting passageway at full speed, shoulder checking Anarraham into the unforgiving bulkhead. The side of the woman’s head slapped against the thick metal along with the rest of her body, and yet she still came away swinging. Xenecia easily deflected the attempts before slipping in to deliver two quick strikes to Anarraham’s midsection. She followed that combination with a stunning uppercut, the blow nearly taking the woman off her feet. Punch drunk, barely standing, Anarraham refused to give up. She made one last play, charging desperately. The attempt was so futile, so pathetic that Xenecia almost felt pity for the woman as she demolished her with a standing high kick. The kick found its mark beneath her chin, snapping Anarraham’s head back and spinning her around like a top before dropping her face-first to the floor.
This time she didn’t resist when Xenecia moved to secure her. “Do you recall what you said earlier?” she asked, forcing Anarraham’s hands behind her back.
The woman laughed as Xenecia hauled her up once more, the sound as thick and slurred as her words. “About you being a D-grade mercenary? Sorry, a cheap shot like that isn’t about to change my mind.”
“I meant about me frogmarching you off to meet my security friends.”
“Ah.” Anarraham spat a bloody wad at their feet. At least one of her teeth clattered to the floor with it. “That.”
“Yes, that. This is that part.”
* * *
The Triumvirate was an unusual bunch. Isolated and elevated above all others from birth, they had a removed, almost casual affectation about them. Far from awkward—no, they were too comfortable with themselves and one another for that—they projected the airy, dynastic confidence of those who take their people’s approval for granted.
Such was the extent of their own species of self-worship that the Triumvirate required every meeting begin with a display of homage, no matter how small or seemingly mundane. As a result their chamber all but overflowed with an apparent random, altogether haphazard assortment of trinkets and baubles, knickknacks and curios, all of it stacked floor to ceiling and around and between their makeshift thrones. Some items were exceedingly valuable; others could only be charitably described as junk. The Triumvirate seemed to care not for the monetary value of any particular item, but rather what it represented to the giver.
For her tribute, Xenecia offered one of the teeth she had knocked free of Sergeant Anarrahamm’s skull.
“How droll,” said the first of the regents, as they preferred to be called individually, upon receipt of the tooth. “The offering is accepted. Let it be noted in the station log that this proceeding has commenced officially.”
“Welcome, Xenecia of Shih’ra,” the second regent continued. “We would first like to thank you for your service. The people of Over/Under Station owe you a great debt.”
“A great debt, indeed,” the third regent agreed. “Absent your actions, there is no telling what might have transpired.”
Xenecia pursed her lips, waiting while the regents cycled through their script.
“Unfortunately, word of your exploits cannot leave this room,” the first regent said in a thin, piping voice. His was the most removed, dispassionate.
Their ruling in and of itself was not entirely unexpected. Xenecia was hardly foolish enough to believe she would be celebrated for her role in preventing the station’s destruction, not after leading its would-be saboteur directly to her objective. She knew that now. Still, something about their demeanor, the way they were feting her, stroking her ego… it gave her the unnerving sense that it was all in preparation for something much less desirable.
“Furthermore,” he continued, “it is the summation of this Triumvirate that all involved would benefit most were you to relocate your residency off-station.”
And there it was. The other shoe dropping. Her role in saving the station wasn’t simply being covered up…
She was being exiled.
“You will be provided with a generous parting stipend, of course, as well as transportation to the surface of Arathia. No doubt their intelligence service will want to debrief you about your experiences with this… what was her name?”
“Sergeant Soshi Anarraham,” one of the regents’ attendants supplied.
“Yes, that was it.” Said as if he had not asked the sergeant’s name to begin with, Xenecia noted with a stifled smirk.
“We’re certain you shall find ample opportunities for yourself on the surface.”
“And, really, who couldn’t use a change of scenery once in a while?”
Her jaw tightening, Xenecia eyed the children of the Triumvirate with thinly veiled contempt. For to her that was exactly what they were: children. Fatuous, narcissistic wastrels, each and every one. She regarded them for so long from behind her vacuum-dark lenses that they began to shift uncomfortably under the glare of their own truth reflected back at them.
“Is there anything else we can do for you?” the third regent asked, hoping to hasten along her departure.
On that point, at least, they were in complete agreement. “Spare me the effort,” Xenecia said as she turned her back on the Triumvirate for the last time. “I would not wish you to overexert yourselves.”
* * *
The ruling of the Triumvirate was absolute. There was no higher authority to appeal to, no one with enough personal cache to—well, perhaps one… but no. She would not reduce herself to such petty groveling.
It took Xenecia little time to gather her effects. She preferred to travel light, after all. Her mare’s leg, a bedroll, and a small bag with a few other choice provisions would more than adequately see her to the surface of Arathia. From there she would let instinct point her upon the right path, bullshit detector be damned.
The boarding line for the short-hop shuttle to the surface was dozens deep and still growing by the time Xenecia arrived. Flashing her writ from the Triumvirate, she was escorted to the front of the line to an accompanying chorus of moans from those already waiting. At least one of them was sure to be displaced by her unexpected arrival.
Not her problem, she reminded herself.
As she took her place at the head of the line a figure rose to greet her. Of all the people Xenecia would have expected to come see her off, the young woman with the lilac sash was among the last. Perhaps even more surprising was the realization that she was alone. Her three sisters were nowhere to be seen.
“I have no time to indulge the whims of your master,” she said as Lilac Sash approached the boarding line. “Have you not heard? The Triumvirate has declared me persona non grata.”
“I come on behalf of the Grom, though I speak for myself.”
So, the Grom had not forsaken her, after all. Her interest piqued, she gestured for the woman to follow as she stepped off to the side of the waiting area. “Very well,” she said, crossing her arms over chest. “You may speak.”
“The Grom is grateful for the service you have provided the station. She wishes me to express her sincerest regret that she is unable to sway the Triumvirate in your favor.”
At times such as this Xenecia envied humans their eyebrows and the ability to raise them dramatically. She settled for a look of smirking disbelief instead, one well honed through years of enduring conversations eerily similar to the one unfolding before her. “Unable? Or unwilling?”
Lilac Sash canted her head, the thin smile that played across her lips revealing nothing. “Does it matter?”
“I suppose not. Is that all, then?”
“The Grom wishes me to remind you that while this exile may seem as though an ending, it is also a new beginning. There is much in store for you yet, Xenecia of Shih’ra. Your destiny has always been written among the stars.”
“Yes, well, sadly, destiny does not put food on my plate or build a shelter around me.”
“Alas, no,” Lilac Sash allowed. Then she smiled, almost sadly, and bowed. “Farewell, Xenecia.”
Watching the swish-swish-swish of the handmaiden’s gown trailing her toward the exit, Xenecia felt the anticlimax of the moment. That was it? That was all the Grom had for her? She wasn’t sure what she had expected, only that she had imagined it being something palpable, substantial. Something she could carry with her going forward, not some damned windy, timeworn cliche.
“What is your name?”
The handmaiden stopped, her body tensing visibly beneath the elegant flow of her gown. The question was a trespass, she knew, yet she had no intention of withdrawing. Even if it was only the young woman’s name, she was intent on taking something meaningful into exile with her.
Finally, the handmaiden chanced a glance over her shoulder, her voice hushed when she spoke. “Iliana.”
“That is a very pretty name. Thank you, Iliana.”
Iliana dipped her head in acknowledgement before fixing her gaze forward. The last Xenecia ever saw of the handmaiden was the swishing of her gown as she rounded the corner and disappeared in a trail of grace and ephemera.
A commotion on the far end of the deck drew Xenecia out of her reverie. There, the captain of an outward-bound freighter was berating one of his crew for some perceived slight or another. That was hardly her concern, though.
No, the object of her interest was the freighter itself. Long and sleek of body, it was certainly easy on the eyes. The telltale configuration of its jump-ready engines was even more attractive, especially as juxtaposed with the flying scrap heap waiting to condemn her to life on the surface of Arathia.
Overtaken by instinct—and perhaps to some extent the parting notes of her conversation with Iliana—Xenecia strode straight up to the captain and asked, “What is this vessel’s charter?”
The captain paid her no heed initially, too busy consulting his flexpad for their position on the star chart to lift his eyes as he answered. “You, my good woman, are looking at the Pursuit of Capital, bound for Morgenthau-Hale incorporated space.”
That augured well for her odds, she thought. “How much to secure a spot aboard?”
“In case you hadn’t noticed, we’re not exactly a passenger ship… “
Not exactly a strong no, though the man was still studiously avoiding eye contact. Xenecia produced a substantial ingot from a secret pouch within her vest, the better to negotiate her position. “Perhaps this will be sufficient to convince you otherwise?”
That got his attention and kept it. Tipping his brow, the captain inspected the ingot as she held it aloft. “Hell, that would cover a suite on a long-haul civilian vessel. Nice one, too.”
“Then consider it my payment.” She placed the valuable metal in his hand.
“Done,” the captain said, pocketing the ingot with the swiftness of a man who feared his new passenger might have a sudden change of heart. “Welcome aboard, Miss… ?”
Xenecia considered herself before answering the question. “You may call me Iliana.” With a wave to the waiting boarding line, she forfeited the seat the Triumvirate had held for her.
Minutes later she was strapping herself in as the Pursuit of Capital readied for flight. “Tell me,” she asked the young crewman securing himself across from her, “is there good hunting to be had in Morgenthau-Hale territory?”
“What, like criminals? Not so much in the corporate center, but out on the fringes where we’re headed, ho yeah, you bet. The Haleys are still expanding and they don’t care whose toes they have to step on to shore things up. Lots of strife and unrest going on in the local systems.” The crewman paused, studying her critically as if only taking note of her unique disposition for the first time. “Not so sure they’re going to like the looks of you much, though… “
Xenecia’s lips curled into a sly, crescent smile. Story of her life, she thought. The stars would not have had it any other way.
“I believe I shall take my chances.”