One of the many benefits of being the Supreme Commander was that he got priority transports on Quarn. He couldn’t take the highest lanes, of course, unless there was an emergency, but he outranked the general public, luxury lanes, and even Internal Security.
As his pod raced back to his office, he put a call out to Joolahk.
“How are the preparations?”
“As planned,” she replied flatly. “And on your side?”
“Gibbons arrived a bit ago. I took him to the crime scene and let him have a sniff around.”
“And?”
“And I was right,” McCracken said. “He’s as clueless as I expected him to be. I essentially had to tell him everything.”
“Hmmm.”
McCracken then shook his head. “At one point, which I assume was his way of trying to impress me, he began investigating the plants.”
“Like a crime vid?” said Joolahk, tilting her head to the side.
“Exactly, except he’s no actor.”
“Sounds like an asshole.” Joolahk then raised a finger. “Maybe we should put him in charge of Internal Security instead?”
McCracken laughed before realizing that she was being serious. One could never tell with Joolahk. She was a solid soldier, but there was nothing but seriousness in her personality.
“What I don’t get is how people believed that he was the guy in all those books,” McCracken said more to himself than to her.
“I thought you said he was the guy,” Joolahk said.
“Well, technically,” McCracken admitted, “but he didn’t actually write any of them. My cousin did. And my cousin is the one who solved all those crimes, too. Gibbons was nothing but a drone, practically speaking.”
Joolahk nodded and then shrugged. “Who gives a crap? You have him working as we need him to, right? He’s your drone now.”
“Yes, you’re right,” McCracken said. “Broog is going to be picking him up at any moment. Gibbons needs to meet his new crew and get a little comfortable before I turn the screws again.”
“I hope you’re not too focused on Gibbons,” Joolahk said in a way that sounded like a warning. “He’s not as important as the big plan.”
“Remember your position, Joolahk,” McCracken replied sternly. He had to be careful when he was around Joolahk. She had a way of making him feel like he was subordinate to her. “I will decide what is best for this mission, not you.”
“Yes, sir,” Joolahk replied, seemingly unfazed.
“Keep me posted on any changes and I’ll do the same. McCracken out.”
He clicked off the channel before she could respond.
Blue Building
Trek and Herb sat at the terminal waiting for the Chief of Internal Security to arrive. This gave them time to get familiar with how travel worked across Quarn.
For his part, Herb was reading through the documentation offered by the station. Trek snagged a copy too, but instead turned his attention to studying what was actually going on around him.
The system seemed pretty efficient from what he could tell. There was a single line of passengers that wrapped around in a pattern formation. It started at the bottom of the entrance, about two flights down, but moved so quickly that Trek imagined the last person in line would be placed in a pod within a few minutes. At the head of the line sat a group of 10 pods. They pulled in, stopped, opened their doors to allow the lead passenger to step in, closed their doors, and moved off the main waiting point, allowing another pod to take its place. From there the vehicle would rise up and begin speeding off to either the east or the west until it matched the speed of the lane it was destined to join.
There was a solid 20-pod gap on the lowest lane, so merging wasn’t an issue. Trek did wonder how that gap was maintained over time, though. He referred to his pamphlet and found that through a series of speed adjustments, the system constantly adjusted to allow for proper spacing throughout the space station.
All in all it looked like the only variable for delay was how long it took for a passenger to get into a fresh pod.
He glanced across the main platform to watch the reverse process happen for arriving passengers. As soon as they departed, the pod would move to the center slot and await an opening on the departing side. It would then take that spot, pick up fresh passengers, and be on its way.
There was a shorter line sitting to the far right for what Trek assumed were the more affluent travelers. Those pods were black and sleek, and they seemed to move about 50% more quickly than the standard ones. This meant that they couldn’t share the same lane as the smaller vehicles, so they moved along a path that sat a few pod-heights above.
A marked vehicle stopped just in front of the luxury slots, and a Worge wearing an I.S. uniform stepped out.
“I think our ride is here, Herb,” Trek said, pushing himself up.
“You Gibbons?” asked the officer.
“I am. And this is Herb.”
“Yeah, okay,” said the officer, not bothering to look at Herb. “I’m Broog, Chief of Internal Security. Supreme Commander McCracken says I gotta take you to your office.”
“Yes, he told me.”
“Get in.”
They got into the vehicle and the doors hissed shut.
Trek felt an almost imperceptible pull as the pod exited the terminal. They rose above both the standard and luxury lanes and sped along at a rate that made the buildings look a blur.
“This is my first time on Quarn,” Trek said to Broog.
Broog grunted in reply.
Trek assumed the Worge was feeling that this mission was beneath him. It was understandable, but it also wasn’t Trek’s fault. Recognizing he may need the help of Internal Security at some point, Trek decided to engage Broog.
“I’m sure, being that you’re the Chief of Internal Security and all, that you have better things to do with your time than chauffeur the likes of me around.”
“Not really,” Broog responded.
“Oh, I don’t know about that,” Trek said, adjusting his seating position. “I would imagine that there are a lot of issues that your department must handle on a day-to-day basis.”
“Some,” Broog said with a shrug. “Robots deal with most of it.” Broog glanced back for a second. “You’re the guy that wrote all the detective books, yeah?”
“That’s right,” Trek replied, feeling in his element.
“They were crap,” Broog stated.
Trek felt deflated. “Can’t please everyone, I guess.”
Broog looked at him and then shook his head. “And now you’re the new head of the Gordo Galaxy Detective Agency.”
The pod suddenly veered off the main strip and headed into one of the terminals. It pulled past the basic pods and the luxury ones and then slid into its final resting spot near the exit.
People gave them a wide berth as they headed downstairs. Trek assumed that it had more to do with Broog being a Worge than with the gigantic fellow being an I.S. officer.
When they got to the bottom of the stairs, Broog’s communicator chimed.
He stopped in the middle of the walkway. Nobody complained. They merely made their way around him.
“Broog here,” the Worge said. “Yeah, okay, I’ll be there in two minutes.” Then he turned to Trek. “I gotta go. Have an emergency. Domestic fight on level free. Gotta go to that.”
“I thought you said you had Bots to take care of these things,” said Trek.
“They will, but if I get there in a hurry I’ll be able to see the fight!”
“Oh, right,” Trek said, blinking. “So…uh?”
Broog pointed and said, “Go out there and turn right. Head down about two blocks and you’ll see a red building. Next to that is a little blue building. That’s your building.”
“I have an entire building?” Trek asked in shock.
“Just the top floor,” Broog said as he started back up the steps. Then he stopped, dug in his pocket, and threw Trek a card. “You’ll nee
d this.”
“Right,” Trek called back, looking at the card that had his picture on it. It read Captain Trek Gibbons - Gordo Galaxy Detective Agency.
“What do we do now?” Herb asked.
Trek took a deep breath and glanced around again. People were making less of an effort to avoid him and Herb than they had the Worge, and they were making snide remarks, too. One lady sang, “It’s just youuuuuuu!” in such a way that it made Trek grimace.
He grabbed Herb by the arm and began walking. “I guess we go make a right and look for a big red building, and then a little blue one that’s supposed to be sitting next to it.”
Herb sighed and popped another couple of pills.
Trek thumbed the metallic container in his pocket, thinking about taking some more Soothe, but something inside reminded him that he needed to cut back a bit and start facing reality. Maybe a few less hits of Soothe every day would give him enough clarity to maintain this job. He had debts to pay off, after all, and a life to hold onto; and while McCracken had promised to take care of all those debts if Trek agreed to take the job, he doubted that would happen if he couldn’t show some value in solving his first case.
“Let’s go, Herb.”
They exited the tunnel and began a swift pace toward the large red building. Along the way Trek was again given visions of all types of races. From large to small, thin to hefty, blue, red, green, purple, they all had their attractions and detractions.
Trek tended to focus on the females the most. He wasn’t that picky as long as they had some measure of sensuality. Hell, he’d even bagged a Flejnarian once, which turned out to be less appealing than he’d imagined. The number of pills he had to take made him nauseous enough. He couldn’t even comprehend the amount his partner for the night had taken. And, on top of that, they both had to undergo thorough cleanings, shavings, and then were treated with a thick film of StretchoClear™ that insured they would never actually physically touch each other.
Maybe when things settled down, he’d head back and give Miss Chenthly a fitting autograph. He smiled at the thought.
Someone sneezed.
“Oh dear,” Herb said, reaching into his knapsack. “I’ll be amazed if I survive the night!”
“I’m amazed your body has survived this long,” Trek said, referring to the number of pills that Herb wolfed down on a daily basis.
“As am I,” Herb said between chews.
“Chewables?”
“No,” Herb said with a sour look. “Fastest way into the system, though.”
They crossed over the street that was next to the red building when Trek noticed a food cart.
Herb obviously picked up on Trek’s interest. “You’re not seriously considering eating something from that, are you?”
Trek smiled and approached the cart. It was being run by a Moxoyarian female. She came up to Trek’s chin, but she was built like a ball. Trek had no doubt that the little lady could carry her food cart across the entirety of the space station without breaking a sweat.
“One curl frost and two snarges with the works, please,” Trek said, holding out his wrist.
The Moxoyarian scanned him and went about preparing the order. It only took a couple of seconds before the bag was pushed at him.
“A bag?” Trek asked.
“It’s a SynthBag™,” she sang in a show-tunes kind of way.
So, Trek thought, she was that kind of Moxoyarian. There were multiple factions in their race, but the most annoying of the bunch were those who spoke as if singing. The most aggravating were the ones who spoke everything backwards. Fortunately, there were very few remaining in that faction. Riggo had come from the mostly normal faction of Moxoyarians. If he had been the show tunes type, Trek would have begged to be shot many years ago.
“Ah, dissolvable then,” Trek replied as he looked it over. “I’ve heard of them, but never used one. Most planets thrive on their trash industries, so they don’t want this technology.”
“You know, you know,” sang the cart gal, “our trash will grow and grow. Our garbage gets ejected and it fills up all the space. A mere few billion years from now our children will suffer our disgraaaaaaaaaace!”
She held the last note for a good long while before raising her arms in dramatic fashion.
“Very, uh, cultured of you,” Trek said.
“Thanks,” she said somewhat normally, handing him his food and bidding him adieu.
Trek and Herb continued toward the blue building that sat just next to the red one. It was definitely the smaller of the two, but not drastically so. If anything, it seemed to fit in more with the standard layout of this section of the city. The red building was out of place.
“You know that snarges are made of all the parts of a klemboo that nobody likes to eat, right?”
Trek took a large bite and wiped his chin. The taste was a bit upscale compared to what he was used to. Tangy and oniony, with a hit of spiciness and a pinch of something that could only be attributed to the flavor of a klemboo. He took a swig of the curl frost and let its vanilla coolness calm the spice before chomping down on snarge again.
“Seems to me,” he said between chews, “that if nobody liked to eat those parts there wouldn’t be any snarges.”
“Disgusting,” Herb said as they stepped in front of the door to the blue building.
Trek took a minute to finish up the second snarge and then looked for instructions on how to make the bag dissolve. It said to crumple it up and throw it forcefully on the ground. He did so and it disappeared within seconds.
“You want to throw out that drink too?” asked Herb, pointing to a recycling pod that was a few feet away.
The curl frost was still half full and it was tastier than the ones Trek was used to drinking. “No,” he said, taking a swig. “I’ll hang on to it for now.”
“Why would I expect anything else?” Herb said with a roll of his eyes.
Meeting the Team
To say that the main complex of the GDA was nice would be quite the understatement. It was beautiful to the point that even Herb had to admit there were likely fewer germs infesting the 7th floor of the blue building than in other stations they’d seen thus far.
The main entrance had a rectangular logo with a star field background and large, embossed blue letters that read GDA in the middle.
“Shouldn’t that be GGDA?” said Herb. “It’s the Gordo Galaxy Detective Agency, right?”
Trek shrugged. “I guess they saw the second G as unnecessary.”
“Odd.”
There was a bit of bustling already going on behind the glass windows that sat under the monstrous GDA badge, and Trek could hear a fair bit of chatter going on.
“I’m guessing that’s your new crew,” Herb said.
“Seems so,” Trek agreed.
He couldn’t see them all, but it was obvious there was a Worge in the bunch since he towered above the cubicle walls that they were all standing behind.
A Yaxian walked out of the entrance and moved straight up to them. The gel-like creature was gigantic, easily a foot taller than your average Worge. And he smelled horrible.
He put his hand out toward Herb. “My name is Lelly.”
Herb shied away from Lelly’s hand with a dramatic cringe.
Lelly obviously recognized his mistake. “Oh, right, my apologies,” said Lelly with a bow. “I was not aware that the GDA’s illustrious leader was Flejnarian. I had expected him to be human.”
Herb tilted his head, motioning toward Trek.
“Yes, I can see he’s a human,” said Lelly. “It’s not often you find a Flejnarian with a human assistant. You must be quite industrious, sir.”
“I’m your new boss, Smelly,” Trek said with a grunt. “Not him.”
“Oh! That does make more sense, now that you’ve mentioned it.” The Yaxian clapped his hands, causing fragments of gel to splatter on Trek’s shirt. “And my name is Lelly, sir.”
“I’ll keep that in mind,�
� Trek said. “Tell me you’re not one of my agents.”
“Definitely not, sir,” Lelly said happily. “I’m the office clerk. I take calls, write memos, keep files…that sort of thing.”
“Good,” Trek said, taking a sip of his curl frost. “For now, I imagine that I should meet the rest of the team.”
They walked through the main doors and headed around to where all the agents were standing. The discussions died down as Trek turned the corner.
He took account of them all.
There was a human male. He was a rugged-looking fellow who was wearing a black leather jacket, leather boots, a large belt buckle, and had a red bandanna tied around his head. He had a tattoo of pruning sheers on the left side of his neck and a rose on the right side. If Trek’s memory served, that made the man out to be a member of the Galactic Gardening Gang, or the Triple-G, as they were sometimes called.
Next to him was your standard fare Velcrian. He was the size of a human boy and he had that same awed look that human boys often got when faced with a real police officer. He had reddish hair, which seemed a little out of place for a Velcrian. Freckles, too.
The Worge standing beside the Velcrian looked quite similar to Broog, aside from his choice of garb. This one was wearing the same outfit as the other agents. A blue one-piece with red piping and a sown-in replica of the GDA logo that was hanging above the office entryway.
Behind the Worge stood a very attractive female form. She was facing away, giving that one-piece outfit all it could handle. Trek couldn’t help but admire the perfection of her curves. She was busily working on building herself a snack plate from the table of food that Trek had wished he’d known about before paying money for snarges. She had long, dark hair, a perfect V shape, and a rump to die for.
Then she turned around.
Trek nearly jumped backward at the recognition that she was Awkian, or at least partly so. Maybe she was mixed with human? Trek couldn’t tell. She had the long talons, but she was taller and definitely more shapely than your average Awkian. She also had severely crossed eyes, missing teeth, and scars all over her face and neck.
The Rebellion Hyperbole Page 5
