by Dayton Ward
“Can I be curious about whether you’re going to sit down?”
“I wasn’t done admonishing you,” I said, letting myself smile a bit before I pulled a chair away from the table and settled into it comfortably. “Now, I’m done.”
“A little better?”
“A little. It does help that you chose for us to meet at my second-favorite spot on the whole station.”
“Oh, yeah?” Amity said. “Mere coincidence.”
“No reason at all?”
“Well, I always have a reason for doing something. I’m just not ready to tell you yet.”
I looked at Amity until she held my gaze. “I do hope you are ready to tell me a lot more than you have so far.”
“I am. You have been very kind to help me out, and I’m not trying to be secretive about anything.”
“That part I understand. You want to do this yourself.”
“Yeah.”
“But, Amity, I need to tell you that more than one person has cautioned me against trying to pull a fast one on Ganz and his people. He is a resourceful and dangerous man, and he will let nothing get in the way of his business and his plans for controlling trade in the Taurus Reach.”
“Are you telling me to quit?”
“I, well, I don’t know.” I paused as a server stopped at our table to deliver a pair of iced teas that Amity evidently ordered. “I was told to wave you off, yes.”
“And?”
“I want to know what you know and what you’re planning.” Amity took a drink from her glass. “You know I am pretty new to Vanguard, but it didn’t take long for me to get the sense that whatever is happening between this station and that ship just isn’t right.”
“I can’t fault you for your observations, but amicable relationships between Starfleet and fringe elements in frontier territories is nothing new. It’s a necessary evil that can reduce friction among locals and maintain the established ways of doing things until Starfleet gets in a position to truly control a territory.”
“Tim, I’m all about going along to get along. But this is a lot more than our guys occasionally looking the other way while their guys run past with a few cases of contraband. What I’m seeing is profiteering and exploitation of the situation by Starfleet personnel.”
“What you’re seeing, or what you’re expecting you’ll see? You’ve been here for all of, what, three weeks?”
“What of it? I certainly think you’re smart enough to come into a new situation and assess what’s right and what’s wrong pretty quickly.”
“So you have proof of Starfleet officers violating their duties, Starfleet regulations, or Federation law through their activities with the Orions?”
She paused. “No, but I think I’m close.”
“Well, the truth is that you may very well be close.”
Amity’s eyes widened and she rocked forward in her chair. “What do you know, Tim Pennington?”
I laughed a bit at her intensity. “With the help of station security, I did a little cross-checking on the man to whom you introduced me last night. And you were right about him being in Starfleet. He is in a position that would greatly benefit Ganz were he to be compromised.”
“Compromised? Let me tell you, he is plenty compromised,” she said. “He has regular meetings, um, ‘behind closed doors’ meetings if you follow me, with a woman who works with me. Their meetings are like clockwork.”
“How did you land that job, anyway?”
“I applied.”
“No, seriously.”
“I am being serious! I spent some time over there, made friends with a few of the ladies, got them to vouch for me, and the bar manager gave me a uniform.”
“Some uniform.”
Amity smiled and narrowed her eyes at me. “You liked seeing me in that uniform, didn’t you?”
“I’m not answering that.”
“What part did you like most, Mister Pennington?”
“That’s enough,” I said, hoping that my tone of frustration might have couched the likelihood of my uncontrollably blushing were she to continue. “What about your credentials?”
“I provided them,” she said. “Not legitimate ones, but they’re airtight. I know a guy who set me up.”
“The catch, though, is that Ganz knows a lot of guys. Ganz owns a lot of guys.”
“I wouldn’t do this if I wasn’t careful.”
“I trust you. But I have to tell you, Amity. In a story such as this, as exciting as it can be—and I need to admit that I’m a little caught up in it myself—there’s just not a lot to be gained by working it from our end.”
“So whose end works it? Starfleet? Tim, they are involved.”
“Well, one or more individuals may be involved. But don’t go into this thinking you’re going to tug on one string and unravel an entire conspiracy with the Orions. I think we are better off delivering what we know to Starfleet security as an internal matter and moving on to another story.”
“What we know? This is my story.”
I sensed an understandable edge of defensiveness creeping into her voice. “Of course it is. I get that.”
“And as you have pointed out, we don’t really know anything. So let me make you a deal.”
“You’re all about this deal-making.”
She smiled. “Let me see this through long enough to get some real evidence on this guy. Let me do my reporting my way and then we take it to the authorities.”
I weighed the option Amity proposed, but not against my concerns for her continued involvement on board the Omari-Ekon, which were bolstered by Quinn’s reactions as well as Ginther’s apprehension. I weighed it against my agreeing with her choice and her continuing to inform me of her activities versus my refusal and her going ahead with her investigation but leaving me totally in the dark. In the end, I simply did not want her in this by herself. “Okay. So what’s your next step?”
“Hmm,” she said. “The next step is for me to tell you why I picked this location in the first place.”
“I’m listening.”
Amity answered not with her voice but with a subtle nod of her head toward my right. I waited a moment, then shifted in my chair so a sideward glance might be a little less noticeable. I looked just in time to see an impassioned and lingering kiss between a strikingly beautiful and totally bald woman and the subject of last night’s surreptitious recording, Adan Chung. It was simultaneously uncomfortable to watch and impossible to turn away from.
“Now I see what you mean by totally compromised.”
“See? Just like clockwork,” she said. “That’s Aurelie, and she’s Deltan.”
“And you’re suggesting Aurelie is a woman who isn’t adhering to her people’s oath of celibacy in regard to humans in Starfleet?”
Amity simply looked at me. “Please.”
“So they come here for dinner? Breakfast?”
“If they come here for food, I’ve never seen it. They kiss, sometimes they’re even more involved than they were today, make their swap, chat a bit, and leave.”
“Make their swap? What? I didn’t see them swap anything. Well, a few germs, perhaps.”
“That’s exactly it,” Amity said. “You watched the kiss. Everyone watches the kiss. I watched her palm something he slipped into her hand.”
“I sure as hell missed that.”
“Mm-hmm. So, who are we following?”
“Pardon?”
“Who are we following? I’ve never figured out where they go when they leave.”
“Right. Well, his activities would likely be traced through records on Starfleet computers, and hers might not be recorded anywhere. If she really did take something from him, my guess is that she’s heading directly back to the Omari-Ekon, but I’m all for tailing her if for nothing else than to satisfy our curiosity.”
Amity scooted back from the table and practically leapt from her chair to dash toward the patio doorway into the café. “We’ll cut through the— Wa
tch out!”
My body tensed with adrenaline at Amity’s shriek as she roughly collided with a server carrying a tray filled with plates of food. Amity screamed again as it became clear that the server would not be able to recover the teetering tray, which showered its contents loudly onto the brick patio. Metal plate covers, china serving dishes and the various meals they contained, all of it smashed and clattered to the ground amid cries of alarm from several nearby diners.
I looked to Amity as she lay on the ground spattered with bits of food, then I snapped my head up toward the Deltan—only to discover her staring right into my eyes. I felt time expand uncomfortably in that moment, each of us caught searching the face of the other in what certainly was a mere moment but felt like an eternity. I regained my presence of mind as soon as I saw Amity start to rise from the ground.
“Stay down!” I implored in a stage whisper that must have struck anyone overhearing it as very odd in the moment. Amity began to reposition herself but thankfully did not rise from the ground right away. I looked up again to see the Deltan woman had disappeared. “Okay, it’s okay now. Are you all right?”
“Yeah, I’m fine. Humiliated, but that’s not new.” As she rose, she turned to share a sour look of embarrassment with me before reaching out to the server she had toppled. “I am so, so sorry. Please tell me what I can do.”
The server, who by this time was joined by several other members of the café staff, responded with grace and told us all would be set to rights shortly. Amity turned to me, her clothing soiled to the point of ruin, smiling seemingly in the hope of making a joke out of the situation to defuse her anxiety over causing a scene. I took her hand and led her away from the clamor.
“Your friend, Aurelie.”
“I know. I don’t even know what to say about that.”
“No, listen,” I said. “She saw me, and I mean she took a really hard look at me while all that was happening.”
“Do you think she saw you or she saw Tim Pennington?”
I shrugged. “There’s no way of knowing. It may be nothing. Maybe it was just the kind of look you give to a passerby when you share a strange moment. I’m sure I’m simply reading too much into this. Are you sure you’re okay?”
“You’re just being cautious, and it’s cute. I’m fine.” Amity leaned into me, completely unconscious of a smudge of some sort of sauce on her face, and softly kissed me on the cheek. “But I need to go home and get ready for work.”
“Is that really such a good idea?”
“How about this? I go tonight. I get a feel for my own comfort level while I’m there and we talk about it again tomorrow.”
“I can live with that.”
“Good,” she said, and smiled. “I’ll give you a call then. Oh, and one more thing.”
“What’s that?”
“Be a dear and pick up our tab, would you?”
12
Either the stench was less oppressive than I had experienced the night before, or I had been spending way too much time on the Omari-Ekon.
However, in all fairness, I should have accounted for all of the differences that separated that particular moment on the Orion ship from my visit the previous night. First, it was a different time of day for me to be there. Upon my arrival home from the café, I had showered, had recorded a number of notes from the day before they slipped my mind, and had laid myself down for a nap. Thus, while I previously had met Amity near the beginning of her shift, tonight I arrived near what I assumed might be the conclusion of it. Yes, she had offered to contact me following her shift as a cocktail server, but I found myself not wanting to wait. I wanted to speak with her as soon as possible.
And what a difference my timing made not only in the breathable atmosphere of the ship but in the overall mood of the place as well. While there were noticeably fewer patrons at the gaming tables, the overall noise and raucousness about the place seemed even greater, owing to the relative per capita intake of alcoholic beverages, no doubt. Wins seemed less frequent at this time of night, but they were celebrated with even more fervor.
Something else that seemed to come on with a little more fervor was the waitstaff. Not only did they seem more enthusiastic about plying the patrons with alcohol, I began to wonder whether the servers—males and females alike—were offering themselves for the taking. If that happened to be the typical situation among workers of the late shift, or something of an expectation placed on them by managers or even Ganz himself, it was a detail that Amity spared me. More likely, at least in my mind, was the possibility that management turned a blind eye to ambitious or entrepreneurial employees who chose to seize an opportunity to turn a profit from an inebriated or winning gambler.
I had been on board awhile at that point, but not long enough for Amity to have traded sections of responsibility for the bar area. Besides, she had not been keeping a lookout for me among the patrons, as she had no way of expecting my arrival. I had hoped that would be the case, as it afforded me a better chance to observe her without being seen. I must admit that my first glimpses of her in the skimpy costume worn by all the female servers did flatter her body to the point that I found myself paying much closer attention than I had intended. But that night’s visit was much more to put my mind at ease rather than get it spinning with ideas. I needed to see for myself how she managed this undercover gig of hers. From the look of things, she could manage just fine.
I noticed her fending off drunken advances and juggling a myriad of drink orders. I saw her working behind the bar as well as on the floor in the manner of a seasoned professional. And I watched as she engaged people in conversation—all sorts of them, from gamblers to servers to the hulking Orion guards. Amity immersed herself in the environment of the Omari-Ekon to a point that made me feel at least a little more secure in her decision to keep fishing for leads on stories that might get her noticed by the major news outlets.
I was caught up in the rhythm of the electronically driven music, absently staring beyond a series of multicolored spotlights and into the void, when a sharp rap shook my tabletop. I glanced down to see a full glass tumbler grasped by a slender-fingered hand. My gaze quickly followed that hand up an arm and into the eyes of the Deltan woman, Aurelie. I felt myself flinch just a little, and I hoped it was something I could easily dismiss as being startled by her arrival more so than her identity.
“Whoa! I’m sorry, I wasn’t quite here when you arrived.”
“I understand, and I take no offense, sir,” said the lithe, bald-headed woman I knew as Aurelie. I had to remind myself, however, that she had no inkling that I knew her at all.
“And I’m sorry, but I didn’t order this. It’s some kind of mistake.”
“Oh, not at all. I noticed you were dry and so I had the bartender make this for you,” she said. “It might take the edge off your bad afternoon.”
I decided to play dumb. “Bad afternoon? I’m not sure I understand you.”
“Today, at the outdoor café? I saw a man get caught in an awful accident with a dropped tray of food. I could have sworn it was you.”
“Right! Of course! You were there, too?”
“Oh, I was passing by when it happened but it would have been impossible not to notice,” she said, and smiled coyly. “I remember it was you because you looked right at me.”
I laughed in a way that I hoped did not sound too forced. “Oh, I’m sure I did. The whole thing happened so fast that all I can really remember was the noise.”
“I may never forget that crash,” she said. “So, relax. Have a drink. It’s nothing heavy but it’s very relaxing.”
I played along and raised my glass as a toast and took a drink. She was right about its being of light flavor and consistency. The only place I even tasted its potency was on the tip of my tongue and, oddly enough, my gums. “Thank you. This isn’t something I’ve had before.”
Aurelie laughed softly, at least relative to the ambient noise of the place. “I’m sure it’s not. It
’s an Orion infusion, something you don’t find just anywhere. So, you’re here at Vanguard on business?”
“Sure,” I said, figuring it was just as easy to feed off of her cues as it was to try and fabricate a story on the fly, especially considering that I had now started to feel the action of the day begin to weigh on me. “I’m helping to install an upgraded communications array for the station. It’s a job that will keep me here awhile.”
“There’s nothing wrong with that,” she said, seeming to look at me a little more closely in that moment.
I took a second sip from my drink and felt an unnatural spin begin to swirl in my head. I looked at the drink in my hand and tried in vain to decipher its contents.
“What’s in this, anyway?” I managed to ask.
“It’s special for you, sir. A house blend.”
“Well, I hope you’re ready. By the time I’m finished with this, I’m going to be incredibly charming.”
She chuckled a bit. “You’re already very charming,” she said, darting her tongue tip into one corner of her mouth. “I can see why Amity likes you.”
My blood chilled and my stomach churned as I tried to clear my head. “Pardon me?”
Aurelie’s eyes narrowed into slits yet still carried the power to make me feel as if they were boring into me and cause a wave of dread that momentarily superseded my disorientation. “Get up, Mister Pennington.”
I was able to quell at least one flash of panic in my brain. In that moment, I appreciated my decision to leave my recorder at my apartment.
I went to push against the table so my chair would scoot away from it, but I evidently misjudged my strength as the whole table toppled, its metal top ringing as it struck the floor. I tried to stand but felt the floor turn to thick mud as my knees gave way under my own weight. Just when I thought I would fall to the floor, I felt a rough grip under one arm and then the other before I was hoisted into the air. I tried walking, but it felt as though only the tips of my toes were brushing the floor. I turned my head to see one of the massive green-skinned guards on my left side, then I spun my head to confirm my suspicion that a second one was on my right.
