by Trevor Wyatt
Yulverse has no natural resources, nothing to offer the Union in terms of resources, so why would those profit oriented corporations spend millions to maintain an outpost in Yulverse, if they weren’t engaged in some criminal activity themselves?
At the end of the day, it’s all business. Just that the Armada Intelligence is biased. Fucking biased to my detriment.
“Are you gonna keep standing there, or do you want to go buy a drink?” says a gruff voice behind me.
I crane my neck to see the boxy bouncer’s head through the slightly open door. He’s looking at me with a deadly glare as though telling me: Give me a reason and make my day.
I flinch a little at that thought. I flash the bouncer a little smile and walk away from the door.
Yeah, this goddamn world is the last place I want to be. Still, I find myself walking towards the bar, senses heightened in preparation for an attack on my person I am more than ninety percent sure will come. I have taken the pain to dress like a low level space pirate, with weathered boots, faded pants, and a shirt that has seen better days. I have one of the oldest and cheapest weapons in the galaxy in my right holster: a 9mm Berretta. At least, the big killers would see me as small fish and ignore me.
The bar is spherical in design. It has a central, circular bar with pumps hanging from an overhead beer brewer. There are five bartenders at the bar, while the number of customers trying to get a beer numbered above fifty. The outer edge of the sphere is lined with table and chairs. This area is dark and the light that reaches there is minimal. I can make out the figures there, barely, but I can identify faces and I am having difficulty counting just how many are there. The space between the bar and the chairs is the dance floor, and it is littered with male and female dancers.
I make my way to the north portion of the bar. The queue here is lighter because the bartender on this side is a bit faster than the others. The letter I got told me to meet at the north portion of the bar in Yulverse’s Starlight.
As I get to the northern side, one of the customers sitting at the bar leaves. I immediately slip in ahead of a short, stout individual.
“Sorry, dude,” I say with one of my more annoying smiles.
Others simply shrug and wait for their turns to get a beer, but the man’s face contorts terribly into a frown. I tense even before I notice the glint of a knife sliding out of its scabbard. My reaction is immediate. I go for his jugular, the edge of my palm flat as a knife. The dude lets out a cry that’s drowned by the music.
He staggers backwards, the teeming beer mongers parting and closing ranks at the same time as he goes. He collapses on the dance floor, his knife clattering out of his reach. He remains there, dazed.
“I said sorry,” I mutter, actually feeling sorry for him and looking away. Some moments later, I received my mug of cool ale and began to nurse it, waiting for who I desperately hope will be Commander No One.
Maybe if I hadn’t been so obsessed with her, even after three months after the mission to blow up that Sonali Starship, I might have disregarded the message we’d received on one of our contraband runs to the Outers. But you see, I am not myself. She is in my dreams. She fills my thoughts. She basically commands my emotions and reasoning. I have made so many dangerous runs to New Washington and even once snuck into the Armada Intelligence Command there, hoping to bump into her and maybe ask her out. My crew thinks I’m crazy and even had a doctor take a look at me. But the doctor gave me a clean bill of health.
I am truly losing my mind, wondering and hoping that I have made enough of an impression that Commander No One, wherever she was, is thinking of me too. I was hoping she would make contact with us again, and I swore that the next time she did, I was going to make my move. I wouldn’t let her go so easily. If she rejects me, I can get some closure and maybe move on. Otherwise…
So, when we got a message from one ‘N1’, my buzzers went off. Of course, everyone gave me reasons to believe that N1 could mean a lot of things aside from No One, but I wasn’t hearing that. It was a biscuit crumb…a trail, and I’d be damned if I didn’t follow. I’d rather follow it and be led to a dead end than not follow it and spend the rest of my life cursing myself for not taking my chances.
“This could be Sonali spies, looking for avenge the ship you destroyed!” Garret, one of my crew and one of my two best friends had said, even as I walked out of the Corvette, which landed several miles outside the city.
I didn’t even reply. I got into the Corvette’s only air car and drove on.
My comm device chirps. I tap it and say, “Go ahead.”
“What’s happening Captain?” asks Garret.
“She’s not made an appearance…yet,” I say and cut the line before Alex begins another lecture on how this could be an assassination attempt. Of course I would be worried except for the fact that no attempt has been made for the last three months since our deed. It is highly unlikely that they knew it was a space pirate that destroyed their ship.
“You waiting for someone?” says the voice beside me.
I freeze. Something about the voice doesn’t sit well with me. It was deep and masculine, but is also sounded computerized, like it was a translator. I even think I may have heard clicks and pops, but the music is so loud it may have been that.
I throw a quick glance at the figure beside me and see that he’s wearing an ash colored hood that conceals him from top to bottom.
I grunt a ‘yes’ and try to ignore him.
“I’m Mark,” he says, sticking his hand out. “Mark Angel.”
I growl. I take his hand and say, “Jeremy. Jeremy Black.”
The next thing he says causes my blood to run cold.
“Nice to have finally caught you, Jeremy Black of The White Silk,” the voice says and then I hear it: the click and pops.
I try to pull out my hand, but the creature’s grip is rock solid. I look around, thinking to yell for help.
“It’s of no use,” he says. “You are coming with me, or you die here. Your choice.”
My mind begins to spin. I count about five more hooded Sonali in the room. Yes, I figured they are Sonali. Damn. How could I have been so stupid, thinking this was No One.
At that there is a loud explosion that rocks the bar. The concussion wave blasts me and the Sonali holding me apart. We land side by side along with about a hundred other people.
The music somehow survives the blast, but the screams threaten to swallow its blare. Klaxons ring out too, and the disco light turn red in warning.
At the door I see a feminine figure silhouetted by the bright hovering streetlights outside. It’s as curvaceous and lithe as I remember, standing alluringly in the blast hole of the wall of the bar, a high grade Armada laser gun sitting in a holster on her right jutting hips.
The last thing I remember before I black out is that the Sonali stands up and tries to stab me in the face before his slits extend and he crumples beside me, dead. Commander No One stands over the dead Sonali and smiling sweetly at me.
I wake up with my back on a sandy ground and my face to a star littered sky. I shoot up to my feet, going for my weapon. Surprisingly it’s still there. I pull it out and aim it at the nearest person to me.
No One stares at me, unfazed. She’s sitting on a makeshift chair by a camp fire. There are provisions on the ground. Behind her is an aircar parked on the ground, and farther behind is my Corvette.
I focus on No One. She’s wearing her long brunette hair down, and it flows all the way to her cleavage, which is visible to my eyes and appeal to every single molecule of my being. Her stunningly beautiful face looks at me, expressionless, her lips thin, yet luscious, and pressed into a line. Her long neck sings a song of pleasure to me, even as the smooth easterly wind wraps around it. She’s wearing the standard tight fitted Armada jumpsuit which brings out all her curves…which is kinda painful because all I can do is stare.
I holster my weapon.
“That was kinda stupid, getting caught by a So
nali,” she says, her voice cold and flat.
Anger bursts in my veins. “You’ve got to be fucking kidding me! You were the one that said we should meet in that god forsaken bar. I could have died!”
She nods. “And you would have, if I hadn’t rescued you.” No iota of compassion in her eyes or voice. Heck, I can feel another mission coming.
I look away. It’s becoming painfully clear that I’m only here because she needs me to go on another mission, forget that the entire Sonali Intelligence is on the hunt for Jeremy Black of The White Silk.
A terrible barrage of hurt and pity besieges my heart.
My mom always told me I would get into trouble because of a girl. I instinctively look up. Mom, looks like you were right.
“Hey…” No One says, calling back my attention.
“I’m glad you’re alive,” No One says, sounding as though she really means it. For a moment, I see more than a spy. I see a loving, caring human that really means what she’s saying. But it lasts only a moment, before she looks away and her spy façade falls into place.
One moment is all I need. Before this is all over, I will make my move. There may be a chance for us, I think.
Who would have thought that a low life space pirate like me could ever have a chance with a high ranking Armada Intelligence agent like her?
Of course, I know she might be playing me. Seduction is one of the hallmarks of Intelligence Agents. Still, I do like the attention. I’m willing to explore it for as long as it lasts.
She clears her throat and says, “We need you for another mission.”
I nod.
“There’s an asteroid belt near the border with Sonali space, near the Mariner nebula.” she says.
“Yeah,” I reply. Every smuggler knows it. “The Asteroid Belt of Azoc. It’s abandoned. It’s nothing but rocks. No minerals.”
No One nods, her hair splashing around her neck and chest in inciting waves. I try not to gawk at her—an extremely onerous endeavor.
“Well, Jeremy, that Asteroid Belt isn’t abandoned,” No One says. “The largest asteroid is the site for a top secret communications installation that we believe is vital for the Sonali war efforts. Destroying it will cripple their communications for as much as one year. We need you to sneak in and destroy the installation.”
“You command a fucking cruiser,” I say in reply, “why don’t you just cruise in and blast the shit out of that thing? It’s going to be easier and safer, rather than risking sending an agent into an installation that’s probably guarded.”
“Because that installation has one of the most powerful shields known to us,” she replies. “If we begin bombarding the asteroid, it’s going to take us hours to bring down the shield. Also, remember, we aren’t that far from the border. Sonali reinforcements could be there in less than an hour. We need to destroy the installation covertly.”
“Okay,” I say, “but why me? Why not you? Don’t you have people who are specifically trained for this?”
She smiles again.
“You’re the only person I trust enough to pull it off,” she says. “You see, you have a special skill set.”
“Oh…I can sneak into places and sneak out without being caught?” I say, a bit hurt that she saw me only as a pirate.
She shrugs. “You said it not me.”
This is when I realize that another aircar is approaching. No One doesn’t seem alarmed so I relax. The aircar lands beside mine and another agent exits the aircar, carrying a box the size of a suit case. He drops it at No One’s side and returns back to the aircar without saying a word or looking at me.
“Let me guess,” I say, “that’s the bomb?”
“Yeah,” she replies. “Put it anywhere within the installation, preferably near the generators or computer equipment and set the timer with enough time for you to get out. Once it’s started, it cannot be stopped. Plus, the bomb has a great blast radius. Make sure you’re off the asteroid by the time the bomb goes off.”
I look at the suitcase. There’s a small LCD display on its head and a conspicuous power button.
“How would you know the mission is a success?” I ask.
“I’ll be here when you return, Jeremy,” she says in a soft voice.
The hairs on my nape shoot up. I swallow hard not sure what I caught in her voice.
“Do this, and you’ll finally get what you want,” she says.
I look her up and down while saying, “You have no idea what I want”
She stands up ever so slowly and my response is a stony hardness between my legs.
“I know exactly what you want,” she says in a whisper.
Biting down on my lips helps me keep my hands in check, because all I want to do is to shoot up to my feet and grab her…all of her.
She pulls out a sheet of paper from her pants’ pocket and hands it to me. I take the paper and our skins touch for the first time. Sparks light my brain up.
“You’ll find me there,” she says. “Enjoy the meal.”
I watch her enter the aircar with the agent and fly off into the night. I stick the paper into my pocket and feast on the roasted meat and milk. I need all the strength I can get to convince my crew mate of this venture, even though I’m the only one benefitting.
***
“You what?” screams Garret Summons, his eyes swimming with disgust. “For that…”
“Just plot the damn course, Garret,” I say, my voice low and subdued. I am sitting in the captain’s chair on the bridge of the Corvette. I rub my forehead, which is moist with the tension of my planned mission.
Garret turns to plot the course in. Then he engages the engine and we begin to lift off the ground.
I knead my temples, my eyes focused on the screen as we break out of the atmosphere and the thrusters kick in.
“How long till we get to the asteroid belt?” I ask.
“On FTL 3, we will get there in two hours,” Garret replies.
Alex, my other friend, is silent by his station. I can feel his eyes boring holes in my face. Since I told them my plan, Alex hasn’t said anything. I fear what he will say.
When I weigh the high likelihood of failure and death with the possibility of success and a night with No One, all I see is her soft skin, her sweet voice, and those curves on her.
“Have you even told the rest?” Alex asks. His voice is so full of disdain and indignation that I shiver in my seat.
We have two more crew members, one of which works in engineering, while the other is in charge of the cargo. I have failed to mention this plan to them for fear that they would all gang up on me and discharge me from my duties as captain. I wouldn’t put anything past space pirates.
I shift in my seat and clear my throat again. “Of course, I did,” I lie.
I tap the comm unit on the arm of my chair.
“Cargo,” comes Sibiu’s voice.
“Hey, prepare a suit,” I say. “I’m going outside.”
“Copy that, captain.”
“I still don’t think this is a good idea,” Garret says. “We paid our dues. We bombed that Sonali ship. That devilish commander has no right demanding this of us.”
Alex heaves a deep sigh. “Captain, what did she promise you?”
I note his distinctive use of the word ‘you’. He’s setting a trap for me, I realize, because if I admit to having been promised something then they’d all know that I only have myself at heart and not the whole crew as a captain should.
“Not me,” I lie again. “She’s promised us nothing. She’s just a friend seeking our help…”
“Friend?” spits Garret. He’s getting more physical by the moment.
“Those guys are the enemy, Jeremy,” he says. “The Terran Armada would not bat an eyelid when putting us in jail. That blood thirsty captain they call the Avenger of the Mariner would not even think twice to blow us out of the sky. And you call them friend?”
He looks away back to his screen, shaking his head in unbelief.
“I can’t believe you just agreed,” Garret says.
“So you just decided to help?” asks Alex.
I stand to my feet. “Look, I’ve made my decision. I made a promise and I intend to keep it. I will not discuss this further. If I don’t make it alive, at least you guys get to keep the ship and do whatever the fuck you like. As for this mission, it’s settled.”
I walk out of the bridge and take the elevator to the residential deck. I spend the remaining time in my quarters, worrying about the mission and fantasizing about No One. When it is time, I get a message from Garret.
“We are orbiting the dark side of the planet, boss,” Garret says in my ears. “We have detected signs of life and activity on the asteroid. It appears the lady was correct. We are subtly correcting our course so we can drop you off at a spot that’s not too far from the installation.”
“Roger,” I say. “One more thing. Are there any scanners or satellites?”
“No,” Garret says. “I guess they don’t want to be found. Mounting satellites and scanners in a base that’s supposed to be secret will defeat that purpose.”
“Right.”
I grab the suitcase, leave my quarters, and head on to the entrance bay. Sibiu is standing near to the far right, where there’s a small elevator hatch. He’s holding parts of a mechanical suit with a bubble head. Sibiu helps me climb into the suit and seals it up. Then he powers up the machine and it is immediately pressurized. I feel pure oxygen flush into the bubble head. The view screen has indicators showing the amount of oxygen I have, my rate of consumption, how long I have before it’s expended, the battery life of my suit and so on.
I walk into the hatch and activate the controls. Once the hatch is sealed from the entrance bay, I push the up button. The elevator ascends up until I am outside the ship and on its hull. The hatch opens up. I step out, my magnetized boots holding me firmly to the hall.
