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‘Elle Rousey to the Hangar, Elle Rousey to the Hangar’ came over her phone as she was waking up with a monumental hangover and all over body aches. She looked at the time. ‘Two hours until wheels up. What is his problem?’ she thought as the shower started flowing over her bruised body. Last night was a good sendoff. Poor LaShawn. He was a good fighter and a great fuck, but he didn’t like the two together with the same person. ‘Poor baby’, she thought looking at him and his fine little ass in bed as she was toweling off. If there was a woman built for fighting it was her. She had what the Appalachian boys called a raw-boned body. Big bones covered in long stringy muscles. Fast and strong. Smallish tits that didn’t get in the way or smashed up in a fight. Wavy, mousey brown hair cut short which was neither here nor there, but a girl can’t have everything.
She jerked on her shipsuit, picked up her bag, and was out the door ten minutes after her wake-up call. Oh yeah, she did ask for that call last night. Whiskey sometimes made her run late and this was going to be an epic adventure. ‘Interstellar spy shit. Gaw!!! It doesn’t get better than this’ she thought getting into the transport for the surface. A childhood growing up on Marine bases all over the world left her wanting more and more adrenaline. Brawling with warriors had taught her the thrill of fighting and sex with them after, but damn sometimes it hurt. Thirty-five did not recover as quickly as twenty-five. Now was a good age to become a spy. Hell, Misha was over a hundred.
∞
A day and a half after leaving moon base, the Winchester slipped through the gate coasting. Their trajectory was straight toward a moon that acted as the anchor point for the Portal. With only minor accelerations, they used the moon to whip around and over to the gas giant. Once on the side away from Largos they used harder acceleration and another slingshot to be on their way to the destination. Gabriela hoped fewer accelerations attracted less attention. She achieved a high orbit without being challenged.
Largos looked shabby even from orbit. A haze seemed to hang near the population centers. A splotched mixture of dark green, grey and tepid blue, it was hard to tell what it was like originally. The dark side was lit up with huge patches of light from cities. Misha informed them that the planet had ten billion inhabitants. Two billion of which were humans. The crew was beginning to realize that the outside galaxy had many times more humans than Earth. Thoughts of David and Goliath swirled in Daniel’s mind. Where was Yahweh when you needed him?
They suited up and passed through the rear airlock into the cargo hold of Winchester. This time they would double up on two grav cycles. Leaving only room for a tent and one day’s food in the cargo boxes. Largos is an industrialized world, and they expect to buy what they need. Deorbiting caused no apprehension. A grav cycle’s cross-section was too small to be a ship. No one noticed the twin fireballs coming down in the countryside.
Hover cycles are ubiquitous as ground transportation. Misha directed the lead cycle as she knew the rules of the road, not that anyone seemed to obey them. It was as chaotic as Cairo. Once they were in the human sector, things calmed down as most humans did not have money for luxuries like personal transport. They set up camp on top of a flat roof building close to a bar Misha liked for meetings. Misha went out with Daniel to get takeout food and a tablet/communicator for arranging the meetings. The first was with a counterfeiter that had chips for the Earthlings that included Freeman status. They decided it was best to wait for the chips before trying to circulate on the streets. The takeout food was surprisingly good. Misha had been craving this spicy dish since the day she was arrested five years ago.
The next morning the chip implant took less than an hour for all three of them. They came pre-loaded with money and Freeman status. The medic was good and motivated by being paid double. He explained the chips belong to real people who had died in the last year. Spoofing chips into thinking the owner was still alive was the hard part. To do this required they be cut out within moments of death and implanted in the bodies of someone else while still warm. While it sounded morbid, poor people would do whatever to survive. A viable chip was worth four month’s pay on the black market. Hacking them to replace biometric data was child’s play.
It was mid-morning, and the crew was standing in a plaza with their new freedom. “Now what,” Marco asked rhetorically.
“I’ve got an idea,” Elle popped. “Let’s go to a central market and just wander around. We need to become used to being in these new worlds and Misha can educate us.”
“What is a central market?” Misha asked.
“It is like a gigantic collection of kiosks and stalls selling everything from vegetables to clothes to screwdrivers. Usually, there is a sector for street food as well,” Marco replied thinking of CEASA in Sao Paulo.
“Oh, I know what you are talking about. It is a horrendous mess, and everyone loves it,” Misha replied. She ordered a transport on her tablet.
“Hey Daniel, clip that Hi-Def camera to your hat,” Al said from Marco’s phone.
“Great idea, it will help others who come to Largos later,” Daniel agreed while digging in his backpack.
Stepping into the interior of the marketplace was a blow to the senses. All of them. The smell was both delicious and nauseous at the same time. Everyone immediately put earbuds in as the level of sound could cause damage to the hearing. It was a fantastic place, and they were barely inside the door. Misha waved and they followed her Indian style as she weaved through the people, products, and occasional poorly trained pickpockets. After burrowing in for ten minutes, Misha veered into a side aisle and the carnival calmed down a little. Half the stalls here were run by humans.
She stopped in front of a stall run by a short-snouted Dragon who had a trickle of smoke coming from one nostril and a glazed expression in his eye. One eye. He was blind in the other and wore a patch over it. Mating fight Misha explained later. She haggled for a few minutes and bought four lumps of something that could have been shit or dirt. Not obvious.
“Eat it,” she commanded, passing out the lumps.
“What is it?” Marco asked for everyone.
“Best not to know beforehand,” Misha replied.
The taste at first was of slightly spoiled milk then the oils in it overrode that. It was something the body recognized as a dense food source and heartily approved of not that it tasted better. A few minutes later the market had a less hard edge to it. The sound softened to not jangle the nerves quite as much.
“It is a form of narcotic,” Daniel observed.
“Yes, but it does not slow the reflexes nor mind. You will be able to enjoy the market for longer. The human nervous system can only be assaulted for so long before revolting,” Misha explained.
“Where does it come from?” Marco asked.
“It is excreted by a small reptile that has been eating certain berries.”
“Great. Now I am a shit eater too. Not bad though,” Elle chuckled.
“Too?” Marco asked.
“Shut up,” she answered.
Misha was right. They wandered for three hours through the strangest place any could have imagined in an LSD overdose. Slowly they stopped asking Misha things every ten seconds. It was just too much. Al was thoroughly enjoying himself watching through the Hi-def camera. Finally, they ended up at the street food aisle. And ate green chili cheeseburgers. God only knew what the ground beast was or animal the cheese came from. Didn’t matter since it was good.
∞
Two days after passing the portal, Marco, Elle, Misha, and Daniel walked into a human bar. They are supposed to meet one of Misha’s old contacts to gather intelligence on Centaur pirate activity. The people that had held Misha and Yacapo might know where the rest of the European Jews were. By the last conversation heard from the Centaurs on the mothership, they were going to go pirating. Fear of the Trelars and a continued desire for making an easy fortune pushed this decision on them.
Largos is a world of mixed species with most of the humans liberated to work for companies. The catch was if you couldn’t hold a job, they might sell you as a slave to pay your debts. The effect was a population like the steel towns of the Ohio valley in the later nineteenth century. Marco and Daniel, while being the better fighters, were unused to this hard edge of the lower classes. Misha and Elle were in hog heaven.
They found a table toward the back and sat down. A barmaid came over after a few minutes and wiped the table with a dirty rag. “What do you want?” she asked in a strongly accented Galactic, “We have real whiskey and beer.”
“Ok, we will have all that,” Misha replied and held out her arm for the charges to be taken from the embedded chip. The barmaid scanned her arm, nodded, and walked away.
“What are we getting, Boilermakers?” Elle asked in her broken Galactic.
“What’s that?” Misha asked.
“A shot of whiskey and a beer,” Elle replied.
“Your Galactic seems to be getting better. Earth has a name for it. Interesting. Yes, and it is the custom here, at least in this part of the city.” Misha said as she scanned the crowd and so far, her contact was a no show.
Three Boilermakers later the guy came staggering into the bar. Blind drunk.
“Misha, I thought you were dead,” he slurred, swaying back and forth by their table. He smelled terrible and had obviously pissed his pants. No one invited him to sit.
“Lem, you look like you did die. What happened to the sober and serious operator I remember?” Misha said sadness in her voice.
“I thought they killed you so couldn’t see the point anymore. Where you been the last five orbits?”
“In a penal village pulling scrap,” she replied.
“Sounds terrible,” he muttered then vomited on the boots of the men at the next table. All hell broke loose.
The offended man punched Lem, Misha kicked the guy in the balls and suddenly it was a melee. The brawl involved half the bar. The other half backed away and cheered on one or another of the fighters. Some were two on one or big versus small, but no one pulled a knife or gun.
Elle had jumped into the middle of it all and picked out one of the bigger combatants. She was kicking his ass. He got in a punch or two but that just got her cranked up more. Suddenly there was a loud BOOM.
The bartender/owner had called time with what looked like a sawed-off shotgun. “Everybody that was fighting get out now!!” he shouted. People slowly picked themselves up or wiped the blood from their faces and made for the door. They had been here before.
Elle went over to the guy she had beaten down, pulled him up by the collar, and dragged him toward the door. Her three companions just shrugged and followed. Elle’s buddy was walking straight by the time they got to the door. Some people who knew him were razzing about losing to a woman. Elle didn’t let go of his collar and led him to the side alley.
“Watch the end of the alley. Don’t let anyone back here,” she said to Misha. Marco and Daniel stayed with Misha. None of them had any idea what Elle was up to.
“What’s your name?” Elle asked in her broken Galactic.
“Beeyorn,” the big red headed guy answered now curious what was up. He was starting to sober up.
Elle turned around, dropped her trousers arching her back exposing herself, and said, “Sex with me. Now. Hard!!” her Galactic had not improved but Beeyorn understood. So, he fucked her. Hard.
Their cries of lust reached the end of the alley. “Well, that is unexpected,” Daniel said as the three of them slowly descended into laughter.
Ten minutes later they came out. Elle with a triumphant look and Beeyorn with a shy smile.
“I owe him a drink. Think they will let us back in?” Elle asked.
“We can try. I think Lem is where he fell.” Marco replied.
The bartender was about to turn them away. He knew the brawl started about where they were at.
“A copper for your troubles,” Daniel said through his translator and handed the man a penny, Lincoln head on one side, wheat stalks on the other.
The man was stunned. A copper coin for a normal brawl, no police involved. Beeyorn was even more impressed. That much copper was what he earned in half of an orbit.
“Toma, clean them a table,” the bartender called out.
Toma went back to their previous table, set it up right along with five chairs. Soon she was back with another round of Boilermakers. “No charge. Boss likes you and would have a word before you leave,” she said while using a clean rag to wipe the table.
“So Beeyorn, you have a Lurex accent. What are you doing here besides getting raped?” Misha asked as way of an icebreaker.
“I was not raped. She offered and I accepted. But being a spacer, this is the only bar I can afford. You strange people seem to be wealthy. Why are you in this district?” Beeyorn asked in return.
“We were supposed to meet that,” Misha said pointing at Lem on the floor snoring in a puddle of his own vomit. “We wasted our time but maybe you can help us.”
Daniel pulled out another penny and laid it on the table. “This man is named Lincoln. He freed the slaves on our planet one hundred and sixty orbits ago. Some Centaurs now hold many of our friends as slaves. They were stolen and we want them back.”
A light went on in Beeyorn’s head. “I understand. Taking slaves without justification is a crime. But how can I help?”
“We need information. The Centaurs are some small-time politicians trying to get rich using a community grain ship. They were found pulling scrap in the Forbidden Zone. The penal village they used was legally owned by one of them, but in it was a man whose family was part of those stolen a long time ago. The politicians were from a planet called Muturi which we know nothing about. There is no way of finding this place without coordinates and we need to know what is there. Can you talk with your navigator?” Misha explained and placed her finger on the penny.
“Our Navigator is a Centaur and does not like me very much. But he is greedy and would cooperate for one of those. It is not certain the information he may have is helpful. My ship is unloading containers now and will be leaving in five spins. He will have ground liberty at least once before we go.”
“Do you have a way of recording an image?” Daniel asked.
“Yes, my communicator.”
Daniel pulled out his multi-tool and clipped off a piece of the penny. He laid another penny next to the pieces. “Take an image. Tell him he can have the other piece and another penny if he meets us. You will gain one for yourself.”
“Agreed, I will leave a message at this bar if he will meet. It will have to be somewhere else. Centaurs are not welcome here.”
“I know a place,” Misha piped in.
“Give me two spins. I want that copper and I want a rematch with Elle. This time I will be sober.”
“Me too,” Elle shot back.
“I am already late for my shift. Two spins,” and Beeyorn got up putting the piece of a penny in a small coin purse. ‘Copper and I got to fuck that hellion.’ He thought happily as he headed for the door. Now to get past the drama of the Chief Engineer stealing helium. That will not be a happy time.
∞
The bar owner came over as Beeyorn left and took his seat. Pointing at Lem, now with his added puddle of urine, he said, “That man caused me a lot of trouble some orbits back. I believe in what he was trying to do but drunks are bad news. They do stupid things at the wrong times. What is your business with him?”
“He used to be my partner. Then someone denounced me, and I ended up in a penal village pulling scrap. Marco was one of the group that saved me,” Misha said.
“How did you do that?” the bar owner asked.
“My crew killed eight Centaurs and stole the scrap. We took the slaves back to our planet and released them there.” Marco replied.
“Pirates?”
“Sometimes”
“And now?”
“We are looking to find some slaves illegally taken a long time ago. Our friend Daniel here, contracted my group to recover them. Right now, their location is a mystery, and we have very little information. One lead we have is Centaur politicians from Muturi were involved and the scrap was in the Forbidden Zone.” Marco said.
“Muturi, I have never heard of. The Forbidden Zone is a place to die. I hear whispers about it occasionally from Human spacers. The Shaitan are especially afraid to go near. What is in there, no one seems to know or want to say.”
“Can you receive messages for us? Our communication here is limited. Maybe pass along information when you get it. The right things are worth copper.” Daniel said.
“I can. How will I let you know?”
Marco handed him a cell phone with a Q comm chip matched to one in the next Red system probe. “From time to time have a conversation with Al. He keeps track of things for us and his Galactic is much better than ours,” Marco said and slid another penny to him.
“Agreed. Which planet did you say you were from?”
“Romulus,” Elle quickly replied.
“Well, I need to tend to my bar business. Drag Lem to the side alley when you leave. He has a box to live in back there. I am Hamelin by the way. Steer the straight road.” Hamelin left.
They left a few minutes later, dragging Lem to the alley as asked.
“Romulus?” Marco asked Elle as they walked.
“I like the blue guy with antennae on his forehead. He is a real badass and manly,” she defended herself for using a Star Trek reference.
“How did you know to grab Beeyorn? Good work by the way,” Daniel asked.
“I heard some broken conversation and realized he was a spacer. The brawl was an opportunity. Fucking was just an extra for me,” Elle replied.
“Smart girl,” Misha said and slapped Elle on her ass.
Using grav cells in Marco’s backpack, the group held straps and floated up together from an alley to the top of a building where they had their camp.
Al was shooting the breeze with Hamelin. Seems Al had a bar too at one time. They were going to be good buddies.
∞
“Oliver, I’ve got some bad news,” Al said without preamble. Oliver and Babs were chilling in the upper pool of the water park.
“Is our Largos party ok,” he replied fearing the worst.
“Yes, they are doing good work and are safe right now, but the group of refugees we sent to Sao Paulo are not. Dr. Ralic, Zan, and their host Cameron de Mello stole the new Dorney shuttle. The visiting refugees were tranquilized and a couple of them are in the hospital. Prognosis for them is good but our pilot will have liver damage. Nanites protected the others.” Al explained.
“Thank god no one was killed. And what about the shuttle? Can you override?”
“The first thing Zan did was to pull the Q comm connection. I had marked it as a maintenance item for next time at the base. It is worse. This shuttle had not yet been retrofitted with a time-out counter on the grav cells to slag them or render them inoperable. After looking over the data from the various probes, I traced them to Largos.”
“Could you find them there?” Babs asked.
“No. In time maybe, but this is an industrialized economy four times bigger than Earth. Largos has over one hundred spaceports and smuggling is a way of life there,” Al replied.
“Ariel is in high orbit, could she have seen them?” Babs felt a chill in her stomach.
“Too much traffic and they use similar grav technology as we do,” Al said not giving encouragement.
“We have to assume they took copper. Can you get into the local internet and watch for newly rich Humans?” Oliver requested.
“Already doing it. I have access to their version of the internet via the Q Comm we gave the bar owner but inserting search threads will take some time. They can cover their tracks for a while using copper, but they will eventually pop up.” Al declared.
“We do nothing until Marco gets back. Plan another immediate expedition for Largos with the principal goal of acquiring nanite manufacturing and medical know how. Secondarily, recovering or destroying our shuttle. At least they didn’t turn it over to an Earth organization. The main danger is access back through the Portals. This wasn’t your fault Al but ground all transport until they have safeguards in place.” Oliver sighed.
“You two go back to your day off. Sorry, but I thought you should know right away. I have it covered now,” Al felt bad. Oliver and Babs were constantly being bombarded.
“Thanks Al. It comes with the territory,” Oliver replied.
Babs moved around to sit in his lap facing him, her large breasts floating just in front of his chin. “Don’t get distracted by all that. It is being handled right now. Get distracted by these,” she said in a silky voice, letting them bob up and down. He let himself become distracted, after all, it was his day off.
