by Zen DiPietro
“Were you looking for something in particular?” Minho asked as they admired hand-carved tables displaying leather wallets and bags of all sizes, wooden display boxes, wooden carvings, and more.
“Tea,” she said, kneeling down to touch a large box on the floor. “This is beautiful.”
Apparently that was the shopkeep’s signal, because he chose that moment to approach them. “That’s one of my favorite pieces that just came in on the last delivery.”
The middle-aged human smiled and bent down next to her, running a hand over the lid. “This is all carved from two single pieces, lid and bottom. See? No seams.”
He tapped the gently rounded corners on the outside of the container. “And inside, you’ll see it’s lined with priyanomine, so it’s as secure as anything you’ll find. Beautiful and secure. That’s pretty nice, in my book.”
“It really is beautiful,” Fallon said. She’d been thinking she could use it for her knife collection, which had grown recently, but the priyanomine lining certainly put it out of her price range, even without having to ask.
She straightened. “I actually came for tea. Do you have it?”
The man nodded and straightened. “Of course. Many varieties from across the PAC, and some outside of it. Are you looking for just the tea, or do you need a case for it?”
Now that he mentioned it, a container for a tea stash she could take with her from place to place would be useful. “What do you have?”
He showed her a variety of tea boxes at a range of prices. Her favorite was a dark, polished-wood box that was on the pricey side, but not exorbitant. Since it was a useful item she intended to use for a very long time, it seemed worth it. “I’ll take this one, with a variety of black and herbal teas, please.”
Minho tapped a slightly larger, lighter-colored box. “This one’s nice, too.”
She smirked. He wasn’t subtle. But he’d helped her so much, from teaching her how to be a blackout officer to being able to doctor up food packets. “And that one too, for my little friend here,” she said.
The shopkeep smiled broadly and went to bring out his tea offerings.
“Are you buying me a present?” Minho asked.
“Looks like it,” she agreed.
“Aw. You shouldn’t have.”
“You practically begged me to.” She arched an eyebrow at him.
He merely smiled.
They selected their tea, organized it neatly into the boxes, and Fallon paid for it all. She pretended to be put out about it, but she didn’t truly mind.
Though she hoped to convince PAC command to assign Minho to her team, she had no reason to think it would happen. If it didn’t, her time with him was drawing to a close, and she didn’t know when she’d see him again. Buying him a gift seemed like a good thing to do.
“What now?” she asked.
“Hm, what time is it?” Minho checked his chronometer and said, “It’s about lunchtime.”
She shook her head. “I’m still full from breakfast.”
“So am I, actually. What about getting some coffee and sitting on the boardwalk to people watch?”
“Sure,” she said. “That seems nice and conspicuous. Nope, we couldn’t possibly be planning something if we’re just wasting time sitting around, right?”
He nudged her with his elbow, smiling. “Something like that.”
It was funny to count down the hours before something big by doing the most inconsequential of things. Being in Blackout meant a lot of incongruities and conflicting extremes. She hadn’t quite gotten used to the murkiness of operating within hidden spaces yet.
Still, it was their job to appear to be entirely focused on themselves—or each other—while paying no attention at all to the transport that was drawing ever closer to Asimov.
What was on it? Admiral Krazinski had given no indication at all as to what Lydecker might be dealing in. Was Lydecker serving as a way station to broker stolen goods between merchant and buyer? That would certainly be something a captain could do. Or maybe he was hiding a front that took PAC-issued goods and pilfered them to private buyers. He had the authority to make a scam like that work, too.
Whatever it was, it had to be lucrative. It had to be something worth risking his commission as a captain for.
Worth the risk of being imprisoned, too.
“You look serious all of a sudden,” Minho said.
She looked down at the lukewarm coffee she hadn’t wanted to drink. “Just mentally taking stock. Preparing for what comes next.”
“Have you ever been to Sarkan?” he asked suddenly.
“No. I haven’t been much of anywhere yet.”
“When you get a chance,” he said, “take a vacation there. Especially if things have been rough.”
“Why?”
“It’s beautiful there. Clean air, lots of beaches, and the people, on the whole, are the nicest you’ll find anywhere. Non-judgmental, kind, and welcoming. It’s the perfect place to go when you start to think the universe must be full of nothing but terrible people.”
Aha, so this line of conversation did have a point, after all.
“Sounds nice. I’ll be sure to visit there sometime.”
They remained there long after she’d gotten bored, simply for the purpose of making their whereabouts known, and showing that they were doing nothing but killing time. Minho kept the conversation light, but she was tired of waiting. She wanted to finally take care of what they’d been sent there to do.
“I’ve had it with your mistakes!” A loud voice rang out, making Fallon shift to see what was happening.
A tall woman shoved a shorter, much younger woman. “Always costing me money. I took you on as a charity, and you do nothing but get in my way. Well, I’m done. Find your own way off this station.”
The woman started to stomp away, but the younger woman caught her arm. “Then where’s my pay for the past month? You’re not leaving without giving it to me.”
The older woman snarled. “Oh, I’ll give you something.”
She hurled herself at the younger woman and they went down in a pile of fists and shrieks.
Minho and Fallon eyed each other. They stood, but remained on the fringes as three men arrived and waded into the fray.
Now people were shouting and hurrying, either away from the area to get out of harm’s way or toward it to get a better look at the spectacle.
Security arrived within minutes, pulling people apart, shouting orders for people to move along, and trying to restore order.
When the scene had been cleared, gawkers remained, exclaiming their shock over having witnessed such a scene. Officers returned to their posts, but visitors to the station took pleasure in expressing their horror.
“Did you see that?” Minho asked in a low voice, as the confusion calmed.
“Yep.” While everyone else had been watching the people fighting, she’d been watching everything else.
“It’s begun,” Minho said. “There are more people involved with this than we realized.”
The two of them went to the security officer to offer their help, but were, of course, thanked and sent on their way.
“Let’s go,” Minho said as they left, heading back toward their quarters. “We’re all in now.”
10
The beauty of having installed a security system was being able to become a ghost.
Fallon, wearing a snug black shirt and pants, proceeded through the guts of the station via service conduits. No one would detect her, and nothing would record her.
Over a private channel locked down to only his end and hers, Minho said, “Report.”
“Almost there,” she said. “No concerns.”
“Good. I’m in position and monitoring all hot spots.”
“Acknowledged. Stand by.”
Gone was their humor and banter. They were all business now.
She arrived at her destination—a conduit nexus above Docking Bay Seven, where the transport was sche
duled to arrive. After setting out her VR gear, she took a flat display out of the bag she’d been dragging along with her.
Unfolding the display, she connected it to all the surveillance points she’d called up earlier.
At least two of the shopkeeps were in on Lydecker’s operation, whatever it was. She and Minho had witnessed that firsthand when the distraction on the boardwalk had gone down. There had been no mistaking their lack of surprise, or how much they had lent to the confusion with their shouting and flailing.
Plus, of course, the actors creating the distraction were part of it.
She wondered who else. Was anyone on the security staff involved, or had the distraction been designed only to keep them temporarily preoccupied? And how had all of this been orchestrated so quickly after Asimov’s being brought into service?
The only possible explanation was that this was an existing collaboration that had been going on for some time, and simply transferred over to Asimov.
In that moment, she realized that there was a lot more work to do on this than just what would happen that day. This was far from over.
What did that mean for her and Avian Unit? What did it mean for her and Minho?
She saw the captain on the move and pushed those thoughts away.
“Lydecker’s leaving ops control,” she told Minho. “Headed toward section E, but I don’t know if that’s his destination.”
“Keep an eye on him,” Minho said. “Watch that docking bay, too. We have everything recording to an independent device in case he wipes it later, but we need to know who we’re dealing with and how outnumbered we are.”
There were two of them and a dozen or more of the smugglers. Not the most auspicious odds, but Minho and Fallon had prepared with the time and resources that were available to them.
All they had to do was collect the evidence and get it to PAC command. Once that was done, the guilty could be apprehended and dealt with, and their associates would be discovered.
It sure sounded simple.
“Minho, he’s gotten on a lift. He’s headed to Deck Three.”
“Watch him. Do not lose him. Maintain an open channel. I’m on the move.”
She heard him mutter some curse words.
Deck Three housed lower-level officers. Other than the crew quarters, it had only one noteworthy feature. The captain’s trajectory confirmed her suspicion.
“He’s going to crisis ops,” she told Minho.
“Not good,” Minho said, “but it’s what I expected.”
Every station had a crisis ops control. Should the main ops control be damaged, the crisis section could control the entire station, or even function independently of it.
It was also incredibly hard to break into, since it had been designed to be the last vestige in the worst of crisis situations. If a command crew wanted to make itself inaccessible, that would be the place to go.
That couldn’t be what Lydecker was after, though. As of yet, he had no reason to think anything was amiss.
“He’s going to give that transport permissions it shouldn’t have, isn’t he?” Fallon asked Minho over the open channel.
“Pretty sure.” Minho’s voice sounded slightly strained and she imagined him crawling through a conduit up a ladder.
“Its ETA is still on target,” she reported. “It already has permission to dock. Ten minutes.”
Would the captain remain in crisis ops that entire time? Probably. That way, he could quietly cover everything up and return to ops control as if he’d simply taken a brief meeting or visited the necessary.
Was this his first time doing this kind of thing, or was it the first time he had the opportunity to do something on this scale?
“He’s in,” she reported.
“Almost there.” Minho sounded like he was gritting his teeth.
“Door’s closed,” she said. “I’d bet he’s activated a security seal.”
“But I’ll be nearby, in case something goes down here. Otherwise, I’ll meet you at the rendezvous point. Just give me the countdown.”
“If something does happen and you go out in the open, be careful,” she warned. “All those cameras are live, and Lydecker and his people might be watching.”
“Yeah. Lots of question marks here.”
“Yeah,” she echoed.
A note of concern entered his voice. “You okay?”
“Fine. I just wish we were better prepared. Or had more people on our side. Or something.”
“Nature of the job. You’ll get used to it. Can you see anything he’s doing in there?”
She checked all the readouts she had running on rapid rotation. “No. Wait. Docking Bay Seven’s surveillance feed just stopped recording.”
“Is the backup still going?”
“Yes.” She checked the drone that she’d parked in the bay. “All good.”
She checked the incoming transport ship. It was a small one—the kind a station might see a dozen times a day if it were on a heavily trafficked flight path. Just a freelancer with cargo to unload. Those ships were usually the most tightly regulated, given that they had no larger company or PAC association.
“Anything going on there?” Fallon asked. “The ship’s on approach.”
“Not a thing. Let me know when it begins docking and I’ll make my way to you.”
“Understood.” On sensors, she watched the little ship align itself with the station, adopt a synchronous rotation, and lock into the docking clamps.
“It’s here. No clearance to board yet. Any second.”
“On my way. Don’t do anything crazy before I get there,” he joked.
At least, she thought he was being funny. Maybe not.
“I’ll try my best but can’t promise,” she answered. She wasn’t sure if she meant it or not, either. She’d have to wait and see.
As the minutes passed, she wasn’t sure which would arrive first—the transport or Minho. The airlock was pressurizing when she heard bumping and scuffling.
“I sure hope that’s you,” she said over the still-open channel between them.
“Funny.” He crawled into view, dragging a bag behind him, and switched the channel off. “Are they here?”
“Any minute.”
He sat on his knees next to her, watching the monitor.
A pair of men came through the airlock, then another man and a woman. They took a look around the docking bay, conferred, then the first two men walked out onto the boardwalk.
Did that mean they had nothing to deliver? If so, then they were there to onboard something.
“Track that one,” Minho said.
The man wouldn’t have access to anything but Deck One. At least, he shouldn’t.
“No movement from Lydecker,” Fallon noted. Thus far, the captain had remained in crisis ops.
On Deck One, surveillance was plentiful, as opposed to more personal areas like living quarters. It was easy to watch the visitor make his way along the boardwalk, continuing past everything without pause until he got to the second pub.
“Seems a little early for a drink,” Minho observed dryly. “He just got here.”
“The bartender on duty there is one of the ones who was there earlier, during the brawl,” Fallon said. “I doubt that’s a coincidence. I wish I could go follow him and see what’s going on in there.”
The pub had no cameras inside.
“We need to stay where we are, unless there’s a really good reason not to,” he said. “We’re not here to stop anything. We’re here to get proof and deliver it to Krazinski. With just the two of us here, it’s all we can really do without blowing our cover. It’s not like we can low-key commandeer the station.”
“Yeah. Too bad. That’d make a great story.”
He smirked at her.
They saw the man emerge from the bar and reverse course, back toward their location. Two of his colleagues paced around the docking bay, stretching their arms and backs, while one of them had gone back onto their s
hip.
Though Fallon had audio recording enabled on the drone, it hadn’t caught any useful conversation.
The tall man returned to the docking bay. After the doors closed behind him, he nodded to the man and woman waiting for him.
Fallon saw their shoulders relax and the three of them turned back to the ship.
“Wait,” Fallon said. “That’s not it…is it?’
Docking Bay Seven sent a request for departure.
“New plan,” Minho said. “We’re going with them. Send all this to Krazinski on a secure channel as quickly as you can, and then follow me.”
Without waiting for her acknowledgement, he hurried back the way he’d come.
Fallon crammed all the surveillance they’d done into an open channel, and downloaded it to a local device too, which she removed and slipped into her belt. The rest of the gear would have to stay here.
She took off after Minho.
He’d already aborted the depressurization of the airlock and was inputting kill codes to force it open.
“You ready?” He looked at her as it opened.
“Yeah.”
“Good,” he said. “I killed their communication with the station. Now get that ship open.”
Her? She’d thought he would do it, since this was a pressure situation. She didn’t hesitate, though, and used Asimov’s link and her security clearance to access the ship’s hatch.
In less than a minute, they forced their way onto the ship and ran toward its bridge.
A man and a woman ran to stop them.
The narrow corridor didn’t leave a lot of space for fighting, so Fallon grabbed the woman and yanked her close to give Minho space to move forward and face off against the guy.
The woman wasn’t much of a fighter. She tried to grapple Fallon to take her down, but Fallon easily slipped from her grasp.
Since it seemed unsporting to hit her more than necessary, Fallon delivered a moderate punch to the woman’s stomach, and when she was doubled over, Fallon forced her to the ground. With the woman on her knees, Fallon reached to her back and removed a set of zip cuffs, securing the woman’s wrists around her back.
