Saxon did not approve of this.
Any of this.
At all.
However.
The Chonchu really had been treated shoddily. And if he had the opportunity to put things to right, well, what sort of a person would he be if he didn’t help?
While they’d been planet-side, one of the things that both he and Judit had noticed was the high level of technology that the Chonchu had. It was subtle, but obvious, particularly once you started looking for it. The fully automated cars and ships. The amount of leisure that the average Chonchu took for granted. The quality of their electronics, not just industrial but consumer, such as they were.
What level would they be at if the Cartel hadn’t interfered? If they hadn’t had to work their way back up to the current levels of sophistication after a biological catastrophe?
Though Judit and Saxon had focused on merchants and trade goods, they’d also spent some time speaking with engineers about their spaceships.
Before the Cartel had arrived, the Chonchu already had interstellar travel. While they’d found the existing hypergates, as predicted by physics, they’d also explored the less-stable gates, and has ways to exploit them. Particularly since those gates allowed for quick, in-system travel.
Say, between a space station located on the far edges of a system and a hypergate at the center of things.
That was the main advantage of the tunnels that someone like Abban could dig, going between planets in a single system quickly.
It meant that no place was actually now a “long run” away from the rest of civilization.
But that had all been speculation on the part of Saxon and Judit.
Until Kim had let them in on the plans that the queens and Arthur had hatched long before.
Or at least some of the plans. Saxon knew that the Bantel was still hiding something behind that obnoxiously orange-colored skin.
No matter.
Though Judit still had issues trusting Kim, Saxon had become much more of a believer. Particularly after meeting with more than one of the queens.
So here he was, on the tiny Cartel space station that was connected to the apparatus surrounding the hypergate tunnel that led to the Chonchu system.
The queens had followed through on Kim’s initial plan of incapacitating the crew of this space station. How exactly, Saxon wasn’t entirely certain and honestly didn’t want to know.
But the crew of Yu’udir who had been assigned to the space station had fallen ill. First one guard. Then a second.
New food was brought in. All new supplies. And yet, something continued to make people sick, two or three falling ill every week. On a space station with hundreds, that wouldn’t have been a problem.
When you only had three dozen, it caused issues.
This changed the mix of people dramatically. Instead of being a single crew, where everyone knew everyone else, all assigned together for a three-month stint, people were being shuffled in and out regularly.
Which meant it was much easier for Saxon to be inserted into the flow of personnel by Basil.
Saxon hated the scratchy Cartel-blue vest that he had to wear as part of this con. Not only was it uncomfortable and rubbed his fur the wrong way, it was also ill-fitting. Too short for his torso. It kept riding up, so he was continually tugging it down to cover him better.
And while Saxon in principle trusted Kim, he wouldn’t go so far as to allow her to alter the vest sufficiently, not without adding some “flair” to it.
Which just wouldn’t do.
Saxon had read through the contract that all the Yu’udir on the space station were required to sign as part of their duties in this system. It was as ironclad as any he’d seen. Truly an impressive bit of knot tying. The fees as well as the countersuits that any individual breaking the contract would receive gave it teeth.
Which was why they couldn’t rely on subverting anyone living here.
While it was called a space station, it was actually smaller than Eleanor in terms of total area. Like most ships, there was a certain amount of redundancy, with two control rooms to manage the gate, twice as many life-pods as station personnel, two food printers (or replicators, as Humans labeled them), and probably twice as much security wrapped around the communications systems as was normal.
There were only two docks where very small ships, couriers and the like, could attach to the space station. Anyone trying to break in would have to do a spacewalk, with a good chance of being blown to bits, either by the automated systems on the space station or by the security people here.
When there wasn’t much to do on a station, people got bored. And antsy. And they either grew lazy, or hyper-vigilant.
The Cartel had made plans for both extremes by having exceedingly well-decked out game rooms, gyms, and kitchens. They also had regular competitions so that its employees wouldn’t grow too inward facing.
Which was one of the reasons why it hadn’t been too difficult to get Saxon aboard the station. He came in with one of the supply ships from Eptil, and the first the crew really saw of him was in the gym, working out.
They just accepted him after that, even if he never worked a shift in the control room with the others. Everyone assumed that he was working a shift other than theirs.
Saxon had two tasks while on the space station. To load an electronic virus into the main computer system, then trigger the “all hands abandon ship” alarm at the appropriate time, when everyone else was in place.
What could go wrong?