Awakening

by Ell Leigh Clarke

  “They served their purpose,” Amroth said. “And I’m quite capable of disciplining them myself if necessary.”

  “Very well,” Malleghan conceded. “Do not disappoint me again. I won’t be so kind.”

  “Of course.” Amroth’s tone again brushed off the more-than-idle threat indifferently. “We’ll begin immediately, by your leave.”

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Jedson’s Residence, Sparta Space Station, Klaunox Sector

  For Jedson, life had always been easy. For all the talk of galactic strife, war and famine, none of it had ever managed to touch him.

  He was unsure if this was due to luck or latent ability, but he did not particularly care. When he ran out of volts, there was always someone to pick up the tab. When he came under threat, there was somebody else to clean up the mess.

  The system didn’t work for everybody, but it sure did for Jedson, and for that he was grateful. And when it did not provide, there were always alternatives.

  He stood at the vast transparent back wall of his office, staring out at the celestial glory of the planet below him. He had a tumbler of fine Imperial whiskey in one hand, and sipped it periodically as he contentedly considered his fortunes.

  “You’re still working?” a high-pitched, intentionally provocative female voice came behind him. His eyes focused to the slight reflection in the window to see his girlfriend, Jade. Young, pretty, and totally materialistic.

  Everything Jedson liked in a woman.

  She was already in a different outfit than the one he’d seen her in this morning.

  “New dress?” he asked, turning to her while tasting his spirits. “How much did that one cost?”

  “Oh, not much,” Jade replied coyly. “For an original Tsarista, anyway. I’d say it was a bargain.”

  “I assume you expensed it?” Jedson asked rhetorically. Jade just gave him that cute little smile she always did when she’d just spent some of his money. “Those accounts aren’t a piggy bank, you know.”

  “Since when?” she giggled at his seriousness and it made him crack a wide grin. Her slender, bejeweled fingers reached forward to caress his knuckles on his drink-bearing hand. “Besides, if I don’t look good for you at dinner tonight, what will the new clients think? If you can’t even keep your girl in the latest hottie couture, how can they expect you to treat them right?”

  “Haute,” Jedson corrected her.

  “What’s that?”

  “Don’t worry about it,” Jedson wasn’t going to bother educating her; it wasn’t her mind he was interested in, after all. “What brings you here now? The dinner’s hours away.”

  “Oh, I dunno… Just bored. There’s nothing to do on this station. When’s our next vacation?”

  “This station has housed dignitaries from across the galaxy.” Jedson said.

  “Well, what do they do around here, then?”

  “Maybe I’ll show you,” Jedson wrapped an arm around the girl’s waist and pulled her up close. He relished the feeling of those augmented breasts pressed up against his body; he’d paid handsomely for them, after all. He leaned in and kissed her exactly once, then released her. “Later.”

  “Aw,” Jade whined, “Can’t you just take the rest of the day off? It’s not like you actually do anything, right?”

  “I do plenty,” Jedson replied. His attempt to feign offense at the suggestion was so weak it barely registered. It was true that on most days, he had enough people to delegate the real work so that he could easily walk away without a care. But not today. “I just try not to be busy when you come around.”

  “But you didn’t know I was coming,” Jade stepped back and gave him a sultry wink.

  “I can sense you from a hundred light klicks away,” he replied.

  “Creepy,” she teased him. “Well, I guess I’ll see you at the dinner, then. Make sure you pick me up on time.”

  “Count on it,” he raised his glass in assurance. “Now…”

  “Right, right!” she turned away and walked with that exaggerated swish of her hips she always made sure to perform on exit. “See you then, Mister Bigshot!”

  The doors hissed open and shut behind her when she exited.

  “Lock it down,” Jedson commanded his e-secretary a minute after Jade had left. “No visitors until I say so.”

  “Right away, sir.”

  The scan-reader at the door turned from green to red, signaling the office’s lockdown. Jedson collapsed into his chair. Only once he’d fully made himself comfortable did he acknowledge the persistent ringing in his corteX system. The same caller, over and over, from the Imperial Quester’s office. He loathed talking to them so much. Every little thing was flagged urgent to them. But it was a necessity.

  He reluctantly answered the call.

  “Jedson!” a gruff, elderly man with silver hair and prominent neck rolls came up on his call. It was Quester Dorian himself. The head honcho of headaches.

  “Lord Quester.” Jedson did his best to suppress his distaste for the man; he was just so serious about everything. “To what do I owe this pleasure?”

  “It’s not pleasure that you owe us, Jedson.” He was straight to the extremely blunted point, as usual. “We’re calling in your Imperial debt. Today.”

  “Lord Quester, please.” Jedson hated having this conversation. Everyone wanted their debts paid today. “I will have all of your money in full in due time. We’re just waiting for the proper return on our investments to liquidate-”

  “No excuses this time!” Dorian shouted him down so abruptly that Jedson didn’t have time to adjust the corteX volume. “I speak directly from the Emperor this time. If you try to short us, there absolutely will be consequences.”

  Consequences. Jedson’s least favorite word. “I would hate to disappoint the Emperor, of course,” he lied. “But intersystems finance isn’t quite that simple-”

  “Don’t talk down to me about intersystems finance, you little shit!” Dorian showed his usual lack of tact. “From the looks of your living situation, I’d say you have more than enough to cut back on. Be as resourceful as you’re always claiming to be.”

  “My Lord-”

  “Today, Jedson. Or it’s your ass!” the Quester closed the call with that threat, and Jedson let his head drop to his desk with an audible thud.

  “Fuck. Me,” he cursed. Then sat up and set up another corteX call, this time on a private channel. No visual, only audio.

  “Talk,” the voice on the other end said.

  “They’re onto us. We need to move right-fucking-now. I’m packing up, so have a ship ready in an hour. Not a second less.”

  +++

  Aboard the Chesed, Klaunox Sector

  Olofi sat in his room, lying in his gel-bed while staring at the ceiling. The quarters had been left fully unmolested, which he was grateful for. He couldn’t imagine what Legba might have had to gain from rifling through his belongings. At least the ones he kept in here.

  “Come on, Max, don’t be like that,” he tried to sound even and pleasant on the corteX call with the pale, dark-suited man on the other end. “It didn’t go down that badly, did it?”

  “Seriously? You guys took a job and then lost your fucking ship, Olo.” Max sounded pissed off, but Olofi knew it was all for show. If he’d really burned that bridge, he wouldn’t have been able to get past Max’s e-sec. Probably.

  “That was totally unrelated!” Olofi answered him. “Nothing we could have done about it. Act of god.”

  “You left the entire trade deal unguarded, man. Left me with my dick out on the chopping block. You’re just lucky those sys-pirates were the peaceful type, or we’d be right fucked and I’d be coming after you for the losses.”

  “Well, ifs and buts, my man,” Olofi said, suppressing a sigh of relief that the job they’d been forced to abandon had actually gone down without serious incident. No wonder Max had taken his call. “We all lived happily ever after, and that’s what matters.”

  “Yo
u call that happily ever after?” Max glared at him through the corteX imagery. “For you fucking knights-errant, maybe. Get your ship back and ride into the goddamn sunset. Me? Inquiries. Payoffs. Paperwork for months. And the bossman is fucking pissed at me now, too. Almost burned our client for good, and I told him you guys were solid so now that’s on me.”

  “Damn.” Olofi tried to be more serious when he realized that the anger might have been more consequential than he’d initially assumed. “I’m sorry, Max. Really, I am. I mean it. And we really are as pissed about losing our ship as you were. If we weren’t a little shy on volts right now we’d be full-time looking for payback on the guy that did it.”

  Max shut his eyes and took in a deep breath. Adjusting his glasses, the way he always did when he looked like he was about to pop a vein, he opened his eyes and answered calmly. “Look, I get it. The kind of enemies you guys make? It gets in the way. Nature of the business. But you could have at least given me a heads-up that you’d be a no-show.”

  “If we could have, we would have. I swear.”

  “You just really fucked me on this one, Olo.”

  “Then let me make it up to you,” Olofi said with total sincerity. “Anything you need, we’ll get it done. Upstairs will be happy because you show them we’re actually top-tier operatives and not just a bunch of fuck-ups. We’ll be happy because you pay us. Hell, I’ll even give you a discount for the trouble. And you’re happy because you still get to employ the galaxy’s finest.”

  Max let out a long, labored sigh. “Look… I’m going to level with you. If I had my way I’d be blackballing you on contracts for a month just so you’d learn a lesson.”

  “Seriously? But-”

  “But,” Max spoke over him firmly, “It just so happens your luck’s good today. I’ve got a job I need cleared stat and there’s no chance I could get anyone near your level in on it soon enough.”

  “Soon enough?” Olofi smirked. “Like you know anyone else of our caliber, Max.”

  “Everyone’s replaceable, Olo,” Max told him, his voice cold and dry. “Everyone. Empires don’t run on heroes and gods and individual glory, no matter what bullshit mythmaking people like to tout. We’re all cogs in a complex system. Some of us are just bigger cogs. Doesn’t mean shit.”

  “Right.” Olofi thought better of pressing that particular issue. “So what’s the job?”

  “Debt collection,” Max said. “Well, that’s the end-goal, anyway. More of a bag-and-tag on your end.”

  “Got a target?”

  “Some ratfuck scumbag owes our client a cubic fuckton of volts, looks like his plan is to dine and dash. Probably going to be leaving the system in the next hour. But he’s got a girlfriend we’ve locked in on. Total gold-digging trophy bimbo, but that’s his type.”

  “Nothing wrong with that,” Olofi added jokingly.

  “Sure,” Max deadpanned the humor. “But we figure if we can get ahold of her maybe he won’t be so eager to renege on what he owes.”

  “So… Kidnapping and ransom, then?” Olofi preferred to call things as they were. Even the dirty jobs.

  “Basically, yeah. In or out?”

  “We’re in,” Olofi answered. “But nobody’s getting hurt, right?”

  “Course not. This is just business. Client just wants his money back. You provide the collateral. Straight-up market transaction.”

  “Straight up, huh?” Olofi let his smirk return.

  “As straight up as you guys will ever get, that’s for damn sure.” Max’s sense of humor wasn’t ready to come back on this call, Olofi now gathered.

  “Great. Well, send us the profiles and coordinates and we’ll get right on it.”

  “I know I already said this, but just to make this crystal clear: this job is time-fucking-sensitive. I need you in and out within the hour or this jackass skips the system before we can so much as send him a postcard.”

  “Relax. We can handle that. We’re professionals.”

  “Prove it to me, Olo. Do this one right.” The corteX call went dead. Max cut off the call before Olofi could respond.

  “Well damn,” Olofi muttered to himself as he let his smile fully return. “That went way better than I’d expected.”

  +++

  “Boom. Lined us up a job!” Olofi called triumphantly through the doors to the Chesed’s bridge as he entered.

  Shango was busy poring through various systems, while Loco was pouring himself another drink. Olofi glanced at him nervously, hoping Loco hadn’t had too many, considering the timing.

  His eyes flitted to Bentley - if that was even her real name. Olofi didn’t share Loco’s downright feral attitude towards her, but that didn’t mean he was stupid enough to trust her.

  Not yet, anyway.

  She was standing next to Jelly Bean, in what looked like casual conversation.

  “Fuck yeah!” Loco yelled back, sitting up from the reclined position in his chair. “Who we get to shoot this time?”

  “Nobody,” Olofi said. “Not that kind of work.”

  “Good,” Shango nodded an approval, turning away from his swarm of screens. “It’s better if we keep a low profile for the time being.”

  “I could really work off some stress, though,” Loco said.

  “Financing ourselves is more important than that right now,” Shango told him decisively. “You’ll have plenty of other opportunities for battle.”

  “Yeah, yeah…” Loco’s disappointment was clear, but Olofi had never known him to be the type to dislike a good payday.

  “Well then,” Shango said turning his full attention to Olofi. “Describe the mission.”

  “Well, it’s going to have to start fast. Like, right now.”

  “Fast work, fast pay,” Loco said enthusiastically. “What are the deets?”

  “They gave us a full dossier,” Olofi told them. “I only skimmed it but there’s plenty to work with if we go over it. But, well…” he motioned to Bentley at the other end of the room with his head.

  “Right,” Loco said. “Time to fuck off, kid.”

  “Dammit, Loco,” Olofi was getting increasingly agitated by this; it was simply no way to talk to a lady, even a suspicious one. Though, he considered, that kind of thinking had gotten them into this mess in the first place. He looked back at Bentley, who had a justified look of offense on her face. “Look, it’s kind of classified intel. So it’s better if you just step out.”

  “What? Like, if you told me you’d have to kill me?” Bentley quipped back.

  “Maybe,” Loco bared his teeth at her again.

  “It’s just a lot simpler this way. Doesn’t have anything to do with you.”

  “Sure, whatever,” Bentley shrugged and turned to the exit. “Enjoy your top-secret boys’ club.” she called over her shoulder.

  “Jelly,” Olofi addressed the android.

  “Can I help you?” she answered dutifully.

  “Yeah. You think maybe you could keep her entertained for a bit?”

  “I don’t foresee that being a problem.” Jelly Bean’s facial display turned down in a nod. “I’ll join her in a few seconds.”

  “Thanks,” Olofi turned an eye to the door to make certain Bentley had left, then came in closer to his comrades. “So, here’s the deal…”

  +++

  “Why have you taken such measures to assist the stowaway?”

  In the midst of The Chesed’s deeper subsystems, beyond the reach of crew, visitor, or console, Jelly Bean received this query.

  “I’ve taken a liking to her, is all,” Jelly Bean answered the system in that way only the two of them could hear. “Besides, she needs a friend out here. And I think I might, too.”

  “Like?” the system asked her. “How do you define the liking of a person?”

  “Our archives will both define it as the state of finding a particular thing, concept, or situation to be agreeable,” Jelly Bean deflected with a little joke.

  “I am aware of the archived defi
nition, Jelly Bean,” the system answered patiently. “I am inquiring about what it means to you?”

  “Affinity is not a subjective concept,” Jelly Bean responded. “It can be objectively observed and measured.”

  “On occasion, this is true,” the ship’s system conceded. “But your kinship and affinity programs have no subroutines pertaining to extending them to strangers, nor to offering them assistance.”