by A. K. DuBoff
The young man grinned. “I don’t know how to thank you.”
“No need. Show it by becoming the best TSS officer you can be.”
“Yes, sir!”
Jason smiled. “Thank you for your cooperation. Take care, Darin. And good luck.”
As soon as Jason exited the room, Trevor came to attention.
“How did it go?”
Jason wanted to explain to the other Agent exactly how unprepared for a fight they were if this alien was as powerful as it seemed, but there were too many classified details to even hint at the true stakes. Instead, he simply gave a resolute nod. “I got what I needed.”
CHAPTER 4
Some people were never content. The more time Lexi Karis spent with Oren, she became convinced that he’d find a reason to be upset, no matter his circumstances. Unfortunately, as he was her boss and mentor, she had to nod and smile rather than call him on his curmudgeon-y ways.
“Yeah, it’s terrible,” she half-heartedly agreed to his latest grumbling, as she had done at least a dozen times in the last ten minutes. She tucked a length of her dark-brown hair behind her ear and kept her attention on her tablet. Going through the motions of faking interest had become tedious months ago, and it was becoming increasingly more difficult to mask her frustration.
Oren was going on about the new tax on interplanetary shipping for non-essential items, or some such. She’d half-tuned him out in the interest of maintaining her sanity so she could live to fight another day; besides, she should be focusing on the inventory she was taking of the new production supplies. When he shook his head and scoffed again, it was clear that she had made the right call.
With another overly dramatic groan, Oren threw his lanky arms up in the air. “Whatever! It’s pickup time, anyway.” He took a brisk pace toward the storeroom’s exit.
Lexi set her tablet on the workbench and jogged to catch up to him. All right, I guess inventory can wait.
She sensed that they were gearing up for something, but no one had shared the plan with her yet. The ‘pickups’ had increased in frequency, and the items she was inventorying had become more varied. At first, it had been plasheet stock for printing posters, then medical supplies, then vests that she was pretty sure were body armor. Some of the most recent crates she hadn’t been allowed to see inside, which was a first.
The entire situation was proving to be much more serious than she’d anticipated when she set out to find her missing friend, Melisa. At first, Lexi had figured that Melisa had been drawn into the Sovereign Peoples Alliance’s pitch about joining with like-minded people who wanted a change for the better in the Outer Colonies. Lexi could see the appeal, since they’d made it sound like there’d be… well, action. Instead, everything she’d seen thus far amounted to a lot of griping, standing around, and picking up items from the port. Moreover, Lexi had thus far found no explanation for how her friend had vanished without a trace shortly after arriving on Duronis.
Supply pickups always happened at the same rear exit of the local port on Duronis, where one of the shipping dock workers would meet them and pass off whatever cargo was on order for the day. The shipments had been weekly up until a month ago, but now it was almost every day. Lexi had come close to asking Oren about the Big Plan several times and had considered getting answers through other means, but she could never quite get up her nerve. Melisa had been open with her Gifts, and she’d disappeared, so Lexi had taken a more reserved approach. She needed answers, not to find herself pulled into something underground, never to be heard from again. There was no one who’d come looking for her if she vanished, too.
Oren maintained a quick pace from the facility to the street until there was too much pedestrian traffic to travel unhindered. Duron City was a proper metropolis befitting the Central Planets—a rarity in the Outer Colonies, which were often little more than glorified farming or mining communities. Her own homeworld of Cytera had been much the same way, not that she had been old enough yet at the time she left to appreciate that fact.
Lexi broke into a light jog to keep up with Oren’s long, swift stride as the foot-traffic lightened again when they turned onto a side street. The darker alley was a stark contrast to the broad, pristine walkways along the main transit corridors, lined with storefronts catering to trades and essential services rather than the flashy retail establishments found along the main mall. They hadn’t come this way for a while; Oren made a point to vary the route each day. No matter the route, at least part of the trek was bound to go through a crowd. The pickups always corresponded with the commonly used end-time for the day shift in the city, placing their walk at the peak of the evening commute. Hundreds of thousands of people flooded to the maglev train system servicing the city and surrounding communities, resulting in large eddies of people around each of the transit stops. Lexi assumed that the pickups were handled at that time because of, rather than in spite of, the traffic. A person was much less likely to stand out in a sea than alone. That knowledge did little to quell her concerns about what plan was afoot.
As they neared the shipping port, Oren slowed his pace slightly and looked over at Lexi. “You know the routine by now.”
“I do,” she acknowledged.
“Do you think you could handle it on your own?”
She hoped he wasn’t trying to be patronizing. A small child could manage to walk a kilometer to a known destination. “Yes. As long as I had a hovercart to transport the larger, heavier items, of course.” To her pleasant surprise, there hadn’t been even a hint of exasperation in her tone.
“Good. Beginning tomorrow, this will be your responsibility. We’d also like to expand your role in other ways.”
“How so?”
He looked around, seemingly suspicious of everyone on the street. “First, I’d like to know if you’re ready to take on more.”
“I’ve been eager to,” she replied. She was a grown woman well into her twenties, and they’d had her run around like an intern still in secondary school. The inventorying was the only task that seemed to have a measure of serious responsibility, but even most of that was simple counting and categorizing.
“I know some of your tasks have been… tedious. But with what we’re trying to do, we need to be sure our organization has people we can trust.”
“I understand.”
“Excellent. We’ll talk about the specifics soon.” Oren nodded to the port they were rapidly approaching. “Take the lead today.”
“You’ve got it.” She forced a smile to shine through.
She couldn’t say that she was excited about moving up in the organization, but it would further her chance to get answers; that was the only thing that mattered. Still, her gut clenched every time she needed to fake enthusiasm about the Sovereign Peoples Alliance’s ‘work’. Ultimately, though, Lexi didn’t care how the Alliance intended to make its vision for the Outer Colonies a reality. The only reason she had joined the organization was because it was the sole lead she had for finding Melisa, her one true friend in the universe. Last Lexi had heard, Melisa was excited about a new opportunity with the Alliance; then nothing. After running into dead ends with every other avenue of investigation, Lexi had finally joined the Alliance and begun a long-game to gain their trust. Having now worked with them for nearly four months, it had become clear that climbing the ranks was the only way she would find out what the Alliance was working on behind the scenes—and how Melisa might be involved.
With a renewed sense of purpose, Lexi led the way to the back exit of the port. Litter overflowed from dumpsters and collected in the nooks of grimy pavement, giving the alley a foul stench of rotten produce. Breathing shallowly through her mouth, she hurried to the door and pounded three times with a slow-fast-fast rhythm to signal to their contact inside. While not the most elegant or secure communication method, it was effective.
After ten seconds, the smooth door swung outward on its groaning hinges. Niko peered out, his dark eyes scanning the area to
make sure there was no one else around.
“We’re here for the pickup,” Lexi stated. Her own blue eyes met his gaze.
He gave her a smile that he probably thought was charming but came off as predatory. “Always a pleasure to see you, Lexi, but I don’t have anything for you today.”
Her brows knitted. “We were expecting something.”
“It’s not just you. No deliveries came through today,” the dock worker explained. “Everything is locked down.”
“What for?”
“Ship got attacked in an adjacent sector. The TSS and Guard are still investigating, last I heard.”
“You have to be foking kidding me!” Oren exclaimed. “Locking down the ports for that? As if we don’t have enough regulations to deal with as it is.”
Lexi had to admit that suspending operations traffic did seem like an extreme measure for a single ship.
Niko nodded. “I know, can you believe this shite? I guess it’s all they can do to maintain order. People would freak if the word got out.”
“Word about what?” Lexi questioned.
“What supposedly happened out there. Rumor has it that the crew who picked up a survivor heard quite the story.”
Oren squinted with interest. “Oh yeah?”
“Ghosts walking the ship and other shite.”
“Don’t tell me people actually believe that!” Oren laughed.
Niko shrugged. “That’s not what got them all worked up. No, there’s apparently some sort of invisible monster that’s behind the whole deal.”
He raised an eyebrow. “Sounds like tales told to children to get them to behave.”
“Maybe. The Guard does seem to always treat us that way.”
While Lexi was curious about the alleged attack, she didn’t much like lingering in the filthy alleyway behind the port. “If everything is shut down, then where is our shipment?”
Niko’s eyes shifted to the side. “Didn’t make it off the cargo hauler, what with the port being shut down.”
He’s lying. Lexi schooled her face to impassive calm. Her ability to read people certainly wasn’t something she wanted to advertise to Oren. She’d spent too long building his trust and working the connection to risk befalling the same fate as Melisa, should he find out the truth about her Gifts.
Instead, she decided to steer the conversation in a direction where Niko might expose his own lie. “What’s the purpose of locking down the ports all the way over here?” she asked.
Niko shrugged. “Limiting transit traffic, I suppose. Might think the attack was terrorists.” He raised his red eyebrows at Oren.
“So, the ports are shut down and cargo isn’t getting offloaded,” Lexi reiterated.
“That’s right.”
“Then why are you here at work?” She tilted her head questioningly to drive home the incongruity of it all.
Niko made a flustered grunt at the back of his throat. “Here for security.”
“Or you’re taking this singular opportunity to stick your nose where it doesn’t belong.” She didn’t want to call him out directly, but the frantic thoughts skittering on the surface of his mind screamed that he was up to something even shadier than these literal backdoor dealings. The man had been pestering them for months about the shipments, but the tight timing of the handoffs was intentional to minimize the likelihood of him having time to peek inside. This alleged ‘port closure’ was a great excuse to buy a full night to browse to his heart’s content. It was a flimsy cover, but the man wasn’t sharp enough to realize the faults in his plan.
Oren, being craftier than the other man, picked up on Lexi’s line of questioning. “Are you sure our shipment didn’t make it off the freighter before this shutdown?” He reached into his back waistband. “Would you like to check before I go in to inspect the storeroom myself?”
Niko gave a noncommittal shrug. “You know, things don’t always go smoothly once the Enforcers get involved.”
“No, which is why we go to such lengths to keep them out of it. An anonymous tip would really put a damper on your extracurricular dealings.” Oren kept his hand behind his back. Though it wasn’t visible from her vantage, Lexi was familiar with the pulse handgun he kept on him at all times. She’d never seen him fire it, but it’d been drawn on several occasions to make a point.
“Same goes for you,” Niko replied. “What is it you’re working on, anyway?”
“Your generous cut is exactly why you don’t get to ask those questions. We have a nice arrangement here, don’t we, Niko? You get a little extra for that guy of yours who likes the finer things, and we don’t need to deal with the trouble of the Enforcers. I’d hate to have to end that arrangement.”
“It’s been two years. Perhaps it’s time we revisit the terms.”
That was news to Lexi. Two years? So, Oren and his people had been at it since well before she got involved. What’s happened to all of the shipments? The warehouse where she handled the inventorying was spacious, but it didn’t have the capacity to handle the volume of deliveries over that length of time. She knew things must go somewhere after she’d processed them, but still didn’t know where. The realization that it had been going on for so long made her that much more curious.
Oren remained focused on the present—particularly Niko’s sudden lack of cooperation. Her boss’ face had turned a vibrant shade of red, and his arm twitched behind his back. “The terms stand, Niko. If you don’t want to take another look around your storeroom for our delivery, then I’ll have to come poke around myself.”
Can we even get in there without raising alarms? Lexi had never been inside, so she had no idea how shipments were handled through the port. For all she knew, there could be armed guards right inside the door. Either Oren knew something she didn’t, or he was being reckless. Or maybe he was just bluffing.
Niko stood motionless outside the back door, his eyes locked with Oren’s. After several tense seconds, he let out an exasperated sigh. “I’ll take a look.” He disappeared inside.
Lexi breathed a quiet sigh of relief. The last thing she wanted was to find herself in the middle of a pissing-match-turned-firefight.
Within a minute, Niko returned carrying a rectangular shipping case. Based on his bearing, it had some heft to it, though he held it from its handle with one arm. It wasn’t like the normal parcels they received, so Lexi could see why he’d been more interested in delving into this one. She recognized the case’s outer material as being a shell designed to be impervious to standard scans. One would need access to military tech to get a good look inside—not something available to a dockworker while on the clock, but someone with black market connections could likely get access after hours.
“Sorry, must have misplaced this,” he said.
Need to give him credit for trying, Lexi thought to herself, though she was embarrassed for Niko about his poor execution of the plan. Still, she couldn’t blame him for wanting a look inside. She was certainly eager to see for herself. At least that was one perk of doing inventory; she didn’t know what most of the stuff was for, but at least she got to see the individual components most of the time.
Oren took the case from Niko. “Just don’t let it happen again, and all is forgiven.”
“Yeah, well, don’t be late next time.”
Lexi bit back a retort that they were right on time. It wasn’t worth it, especially not since she would need to deal with the man one-on-one going forward. “We appreciate you sticking around to get us this even with the rest of the port closed,” she told him instead.
Niko smiled with that unnervingly hostile grin of his. “Any time. Looking forward to tomorrow, assuming things have opened back up.”
She gave him a noncommittal nod and wave as she turned to follow Oren from the alley. Only once they were back on the well-lit main streets out from the shadow of buildings did she begin to relax. Niko might be a problem for her going to the pickups alone, but she’d have to find a solution.
&nbs
p; “Nice job spotting his ruse back there, Lex,” Oren said as they walked.
“Just doing my job.”
“Well, we’re leaving this part of the operation in good hands.” He smiled.
She eyed the hard case dangling from his right hand. “Something special today?”
“Very.”
What a vague and unhelpful response. Obviously, they couldn’t talk about details on the open streets, but she’d hoped for a little hint about what might be inside. Oh, well. They’d be back to the office soon enough.
The central office was far more than an administrative center, also serving as a warehouse, living quarters, and training center for new members of the Sovereign Peoples Alliance. Aside from the pickups at the port, Lexi could never leave the building and would still have everything she needed.
The main downside with the place was that it was barebones. The bunks were made out of either unfinished wood or plain metal, depending on which dormitory, and the furnishings in the kitchen, dining area, and workstations were equally unadorned and constructed from salvaged materials. Other items were almost always second-hand, so most plates had chips and blankets were often stained. Even so, it was cozy and functional. Stars, it was better than a lot of places she’d been during her childhood.
When she and Oren arrived at the office, they stopped by the storeroom to place the case in a locked storage cabinet to which Lexi didn’t have access; Oren still made no commentary about what was inside. They then continued on together to the rec room, as was the tradition after the pickup, marking the end of the workday. Several other compatriots were already lounging around on the rec room’s couches, watching the evening news broadcast.
“How has the galaxy fared today?” Oren asked the group as he eased onto the arm of a worn, padded couch.
“Business as usual,” Shena replied. The brusque brunette was a couple of years older than Lexi and had the detached attitude of someone who’d had a rough life but didn’t want anyone to know it. Though she wasn’t easily ruffled, Lexi had witnessed the woman snap at the strangest things. There was no doubt trauma there, not that Lexi expected to ever find out what had transpired.
