Bungalow 14 / Lapis Bay Resort / Emerald Cove / Alpha Imura System
Niko knew one day his past would come back to haunt him. He’d always had a feeling, a strange sense of knowing, or more to the point, he knew the odds. And every once in a while, it sucked being right.
His leaving Aleria hadn’t been forgotten. Courier guilds weren’t known for letting even the slightest snub go unpunished. One way or another, eventually, everyone paid their price. Cross Cut was especially diligent in that regard, and Niko had done more than simply snub his old guild; he’d left with unfinished business, unpaid debts, and unfulfilled contracts.
His absence had been a huge blow to the guild. Valuable folks with advanced tech experience like his were rare in a place like Aleria. There were no advantages for educated scientists and researchers and technicians to relocate to a drought-ridden, dying world with a collapsing government, abandoned by the Unified Earth Government, with no real prospects of rejuvenation. So the guilds recruited from the existing population to run the trade and manage their fleets of slipspace-capable starships. If someone like Niko wasn’t there to maintain and repair drives and fusion engines, the guilds’ entire livelihood ground to a halt.
Lessa had just returned from shopping and was now in her room packing. Ram was on the wraparound balcony of their treetop bungalow, his rocker moving back and forth, his tanned bare feet propped on the railing, a fine tendril of cigarette smoke trailing up past his tattooed shoulder. The view beyond the balcony was holocard perfect—clear turquoise water as far as the eye could see, dotted by sails from a dozen leisure craft, and framed on both sides by steep forested slopes. Their unit had the best comms signal and the easiest escape route should they need it.
And they wouldn’t.
Still. It was hard to be relaxed and enjoy this last day in paradise because his heart was pounding and his knee wouldn’t quit bouncing. He’d already bitten all of his fingernails to the quick and couldn’t shake the agitated energy running through his body. They had an hour before meeting the Ace of Spades at the rendezvous point, and he needed to figure this out.
Three years ago, he and Lessa had left Aleria in a hurry following the promise of a better life, a freer life, one with prospects as part of Rion’s crew. They weren’t hustlers anymore or slaves to the mines or indentured to the guilds. They could leave Ace whenever they wanted and plot their destinies as they saw fit. In Triniel, they had an entire hidden and untouched Forerunner planet as a source of immeasurable wealth should ever they need it, and in Spark they had a nigh-invulnerable ally and a mind rich in Forerunner locations and information and technology.
Aleria had held no future for them. It never would. It was in its death throes, and everyone knew it. Yet here he was, being called back home. No, more like blackmailed back home, and he wasn’t sure what to do about it.
He ran a hand down his scruffy face and let out a troubled sigh. Less would worry her curls straight out if he told the truth. Rion and Spark would want to go fix things immediately. And Ram? He’d probably vote to take a hit out on the blackmailer and call it a day.
The problem was, Niko had a history with the blackmailer, and allowing anyone to help him meant revealing a truth he’d sworn would never get out. And, unfortunately, Bex knew it.
After creating a temporary backdoor access into his old Waypoint profile, one that ONI was monitoring, along with all the others, he’d found the message waiting in his mail folder. Innocuous, but he had read between the lines, saw Bex’s alias, and knew where to go to get the real message.
Another server. Another account. Another back door. Simple enough.
And there it was, straight from the one person he never imagined would turn on him and use the truth against him, especially for her Courier guild, Holson Relay. He supposed he couldn’t blame her. He’d left without so much as a good-bye, though he had tried to make amends over the last couple of years, to keep in touch.
But his attempts paled against the fact that he had gotten away from Aleria and Bex hadn’t. They’d been partners of a sort, Holson Relay and Cross Cut aligning for a time. She’d been their resident tech expert and he’d been theirs.
If Bex didn’t get the tech she was asking for now, she threatened to spill the truth they’d uncovered and it soured his gut. They’d made a pact. How could she have swung a one-eighty so quickly?
He had one month to get his hands on a bank of midsize slipspace capacitors. Talk about one hell of a deadline. Too pricey to buy outright… though, if he gathered his income from the Forerunner tech they’d sold earlier in the year along with a loan, he might be able to pull it off. But even then, he’d have to forge the necessary paperwork and bypass sales regulations. There wasn’t time to go to Triniel, salvage, and then sell the goods to raise funds. Nor was there time to recover a bank of capacitors from salvaging a decent wreck. The black market was looking like his best option.
Or you could ask for help…
No. He had a good situation now. The best, in fact. He wasn’t going to jeopardize it by letting the truth get out. Sometimes you had to hold those past deeds and truths close to your chest, bury them down deep where no one could find them, where they’d be forgotten, where it was better for everyone.
After burning his trail, Niko used a new encryption key to make a new account, addressed a reply to Bex, and hit send.
Fine. I’ll do it.
He burned the account and prayed to God this was a onetime deal. He sat back in his chair, wanting to vomit.