“If everything goes as planned, I’ll only be a few tocks,” Wil says. “Zephyr, remember you’re in charge of the funds, don’t spend it if you don’t have to.”
Without waiting for an answer, he heads off through the shopping district. Glancing at his wrist comm, he makes a connection. “We’re on the ground, where are you?”
The screen doesn’t show anyone on the other end, but the connection is live. “Chollraw avenue and Axxar Boulevard,” says a voice. “‘Traxis imports’; ask for Lorath.” Then the connection drops.
Wil pulls up the city network, and downloads a map, inputting the intersection he’s looking for. Makes sense it’s not too far, he thinks. The cover business is an importer, and any dealings Xarrix is likely to have would be with people from the spaceport.
He’d get there faster if he took a ground car, but honestly, Wil isn’t in a big hurry. Even if Xarrix isn’t here, whomever he trusts enough to run his business on Malkor is likely just as bad as Xarrix, and therefore not someone Wil is in a hurry to meet.
So he lets himself enjoy the walk there. The view isn’t bad, he has to admit. The corner he’s looking for isn’t in the fancy part of town, but it’s past all the shopping districts, right on the edge of the warehouse district. As such, it’s still a vast improvement over the bar Xarrix uses as an office on Fury. It’s also apparently the only business on this street, at least the only that’s open. There’s not a soul anywhere around.
“Great, no witnesses,” Wil mumbles.
He walks up to the shop marked Traxis Imports. It’s nothing spectacular: a two-story building with a large service door and a smaller personnel door beside it. With one final glance around, he walks in.
The inside of the building is nicer than he expected. The reception desk is wood in a jet black, shot through with gold and silver—the entire desk seems to have been carved from a single piece, from a tree which must have been easily ten feet in diameter. The rest of the room is just as impressive: a sofa made of some animal hide, like leather, though Wil assumes it’s not. There’s polished metal everywhere, and light seems to come from everywhere and nowhere at the same time, thought he can’t see a single light fixture.
The receptionist is, well, beautiful. Wil has never seen her species before. She’s humanoid, but with feline accents—whiskers and swishing tail and all.
“Hello, may I help you?” She ends the question with a purring sound.
Wil walks up to the desk and leans on it. He smiles, and gives her a wink. “Here to see Lorath.”
“She’s expecting you. Is something wrong with your face?” Her smile reveals a set of long sharp incisors. Not waiting for his answer, she continues, “Through those doors.” Her tail lifts up and points to a door off to the side.
“Uh, great. Uh, thanks.” Wil turns away from the desk, towards the door. “Here goes nothing.”
“I’m sorry. What did you say?”
“Nothing.” As he approaches the door, it snaps open with a hiss.
“Enter,” says a voice from within. If the receptionist's voice was pure sexuality, this voice is pure aggression.
As soon as Wil steps inside the office, the door snaps shut.
“Wil Calder, welcome to Malkor. Do you have Xarrix’s merchandise?”
The front office might have been plush, but the back office is downright opulent. That same gold/silver-veined wood is evident here but in the shape of a much larger, much more ornate desk. The room is starkly furnished—just the desk, the being behind it, and two chairs on the other side of the desk. Oh, and there’s a giant head on the wall. Wil doesn’t know what type of creature it is, but if its teeth are any indicator, it’s easily four meters tall and likely vicious.
The being behind the desk is definitely not the same race as the one at the reception desk. She’s big, but not bulky, covered in scales that seem to shift from pink to dark purple and back as she moves. Apart from the scales, she’s not overly reptilian—almost avian, in fact. She rests her arms on the desk and Wil can see that her powerful arms are in fact wings. At some point, her people could fly. The galaxy is full of wonders. This one might try to kill him shortly, but still. He takes a seat opposite Lorath, admiring the view.
Wil reaches out and puts a data chip on the table and slides it across. “Sure do. Here.”
She reaches out with one clawed hand, picking up the chip. “This is it? I was under the impression there’d be more to it, like a bot of some type.” Her eyes never leave Wil’s.
He’s about to start into his story when a subtle red light built into the desktop begins blinking. He closes his mouth, looking from the light to Lorath and back. “Uh, what’s that?”
Her eyes never leaving his, she stands up. “Stay right there.” She walks around the desk, and he sees she’s wearing a smart business suit: sleeveless blouse, business-like trousers. She walks to the wall and touches a control. The screen comes to life. On it, Wil catches a glimpse of the front office. The feline receptionist is talking to someone. Oh shit. She’s talking to Peacekeepers.
Lorath lets out a hissing sound; she spins and looks at Wil. “You were followed?”
Wil is up and out of his chair. “Are you kidding? Hell no, I wasn’t followed! You do something lately that would attract the authorities?”
The look she gives Wil answers that question.
There’s a knock at the door. On the screen, the Peacekeepers are standing at the door to Lorath’s office.
“Shit.” Wil grabs his blaster and reaches to activate his face shield.
The door explodes inward, nearly knocking him over. His face shield comes up just in time, as debris flies everywhere. Two Peacekeepers rush through the remains of the door, blaster rifles at the ready.
One flies backward, as a pulse rifle blast hits him or her squarely in the chest. The other Peacekeeper dives to the side, returning fire. Wil is off to the side crouching, looking around. Lorath has somehow gotten behind her desk, pulse rife in hand, an energy shield sparkling around her. She’s taking aim at the other Peacekeeper, as two more storm the doorway, firing in her direction. She ducks behind her desk, taking two hits to her shield. Neither Peacekeeper has seen Wil, so he fires on both of them, distracting them, as Lorath and her rifle take them out.
“We gotta get out of here!” Wil shouts to her, as he runs at a crouch toward her desk.
He stops dead in his tracks as she shifts the pulse rifle to him. “We?”
Wil is about to say something when a grenade rolls into the room. He turns away and dives for the corner, just as the grenade explodes. More blaster fire fills the room. Lorath reaches under her desk. “You’re on your own, but this isn’t over,” she growls. She suddenly drops under the desk, and Wil hears a hatch snap shut.
“Damn it,” he hisses, as he makes another dive for the desk. Then he pops back up, firing blindly at the destroyed doorway. “Okay, now what?” he asks himself, dropping down again behind the desk. Blaster bolts are eating away at the ebony wood. The animal head on the wall falls to the floor beside him, scorched from all the weapons’ fire.
Before he can formulate a plan, Wil hears a commotion. The blaster fire from the outer room slows, then stops; the yelling, however, increases. He slowly raises his head up, in time to see the immensely-attractive feline receptionist going full ninja warrior on the Peacekeepers. She must have been hiding behind her desk, playing the scared receptionist role until they all turned their backs on her. Wil looks around, trying to think. Okay, how do I get out of here? He crawls under the desk; there was a button or something underneath it that she had used. He runs his hands all along the underside of the wood—there it is! He touches the control and the panel under the desk slides away.
The commotion in the outer room is dying down; cat ninja girl has likely been subdued. Wil drops through the open panel into a dark tunnel, and the hatch overhead closes behind him.
“So now what?” Wil asks himself, retracting his face shield, looking around. Then he sees it. “Oh shit.”
There’s a timer on the wall, counting down. It’s almost to zero. Wil reactivates his face shield, along with the night vision mode, and takes off running down the tunnel.
A few meters from what looks like the exit, the entire tunnel erupts in dust, and the whole thing shakes violently. The explosion, Wil realizes, must have leveled the entire building he has just come from.