Free Space

by Sean Danker

  “More or less. The Service paints the Commonwealth as being a bit more malicious.”

  “Naturally.”

  “Why didn’t Kakugo sit it out? They’re supposed to be neutral.”

  “They’re still technically a part of the Commonwealth. There’s plenty of leverage there, but I don’t know. Dalton didn’t have a lot of exposure to that side of things.”

  “Why haven’t we annexed Imperial Pointe?” she asked, leaning over to look up at the station. “The war was the perfect opportunity.”

  “No reason to. It’s not about real estate; it’s about jump paths. Guidance rings are expensive to build. Evagard’s starting to shake off the expansion freeze it’s had for the past couple decades, and when it comes to expansion . . .”

  “Nothing’s more important than roads.”

  “Exactly. That’s why the Empress is probably going to come out of this race in front of the Ganraen Royals.”

  “Aren’t we already in front of them? We won the war.”

  “Nobody’s won anything yet. Until the peace talks are settled, everything’s up in the air. It’s only a cease-fire, but they lost their capital, not their fighting capability. It’s not over. The Empress still has to close it out. And she has to do it in a way that no one really loses, or we’ll just do all this again in five years.” I caught myself there. “But that’s not really the most romantic topic.” I moved closer to her and glanced around the carriage. “I didn’t ask for a private ride. Someone must’ve canceled.”

  “It’s a busy place out here.”

  “No busier than imperial stations. Just louder.”

  She smiled.

  “And full of opportunity,” I went on. “I mean, I’ve got lots of transferable job skills. I’ve probably got a bright future here.”

  “What sorts of job skills? You can’t sing—you’ll give yourself away.”

  “I did deep-cover work—I can act. Can’t you see me in some holo dramas? The dashing hero? I’m tall enough now.”

  “Now?” she asked curiously.

  “I had to have my height augmented to be Dalton. I used to be . . . not quite as tall.”

  Her brows lifted. “Hard to picture that. You are quite the performer.”

  “But just because you’re good at something doesn’t mean you like it. I’d rather stay offstage, and instead of acting, I’d rather be up-front with people. What do you think?” I wasn’t being subtle; there was no percentage in that here.

  “I agree,” she said.

  I kissed her. Too much time in the Commonwealth had put me woefully out of touch with how things were done in the Empire. For a man with my lack of status to take the lead this way with the first daughter of a good Evagardian family was way out of line. Just being alone with Salmagard could be seen as problematic, given that we barely knew each other.

  And even if we were social equals, the privilege of initiating these things was supposed to be hers.

  But those were Evagardian rules. I’d just spent several years being a Ganraen prince. A Ganraen prince who wasn’t interested in women—but still immersed in a culture where it was more socially acceptable for men to be aggressive.

  I could blame that for my behavior, but it wouldn’t be true. The truth was, I just wasn’t impressed by rules the way I’d once been. It would have been nice to go about this the right way, but that wasn’t going to happen.

  Salmagard hadn’t been able to stop herself from blushing as I got closer to her. Her lips were soft, and she smelled like caramel. Her shyness vanished immediately, of course. There was no hesitation at all. Her assertiveness didn’t surprise me; contraceptive implants and hormone control might make for a more professional work environment aboard a ship, but nobody liked it.

  I pushed her down on the sofa, and Salmagard put her arms around my neck.

  The doors to the carriage hissed open.

  I reluctantly looked up to see two people staring at me and Salmagard, who, lying beneath me, was very red in the face.

  I smiled and looked apologetic, helping her up and leaning back with my arm around her.

  “Sorry,” I said. “We were about to leave. I didn’t think anyone else was coming.”

  It was a young couple, and the man seemed winded, as though he’d been running. He held up a hand.

  “Our fault,” he said. “We’re late. Sorry. Sorry to interrupt, very sorry.” He gasped for breath as they stepped into the carriage. The woman wasn’t breathing hard at all.

  Salmagard’s poise was perfect, or it would’ve been if her face wasn’t exactly the same color as her dress. She was checking her hair and giving the two newcomers her best, perfect, aristocratic smile. I pulled her a little closer, and I didn’t laugh. She covered her mouth with her sleeve and looked away.

  The young man was leaning against the bar. He was a little shorter than I was, slender, and improbably—indeed, unfairly—handsome. He wore sensible, becoming galactic casual clothes.

  But I knew an imperial when I saw one. It looked like he came from Earth Asian blood.

  The girl was another matter; her skin was perfectly white. So jarringly, unnaturally white that it had to be an aesthetic augmentation. Her eyes were so red that they appeared to glow. She wore a black dress with a lot of frills and lace, and her glossy black hair fell in generous ringlets. Maybe she’d been pretty before she’d started messing with her skin and eye color, but now she was just bizarre.

  She was still staring at us. I tried to turn up my smile a little, and made sure it wasn’t my Dalton smile.

  She burst into tears.

  That took me off guard. I turned questioningly to the guy, who looked up in panic.

  “Come on,” he said. “It’s all right. We made it. Let’s have a drink.”

  The girl pushed him away and went to the bar, snatching a bottle of Evagardian Ale and snapping off the top effortlessly. That got my attention. You were supposed to need a special tool for that. Evagardian Ale always came with sealed tops that had to be clipped, then peeled back. There was no practical reason for it; it was just tradition.

  But she’d just twisted it off like it was nothing.

  The pale girl put her head back and began to drink straight from the bottle. Salmagard and I watched as the bright blue liquid disappeared in a truly frightening amount of time. Seven hundred fifty milliliters of Evagardian Ale contained enough ethanol to kill a human being. She should’ve passed out after the first quarter of the bottle.

  She didn’t move like someone with an artificial body, but there had to be an explanation for this.

  She finished the bottle, tears still shining on her face, a face that was not a prosthetic. I was genuinely baffled.

  “That’s not good for you,” her companion said. That was an understatement.

  “It’s like water,” she muttered, and for a moment I thought she might smash the bottle. This was the kind of awkwardness you usually only saw on galactic dramas about young people. It was perfect; these two were ridiculous, and Salmagard had enough manners for the both of us. Now there was balance.

  The carriage began to move—we were on our way to Red Yonder—but Salmagard and I were more interested in this strange couple. Actually, I was beginning to suspect they weren’t a couple.

  The guy led his companion to the other sofa and sat her down. She put her head on his shoulder and closed her eyes, still crying softly. He stroked her hair, giving us a look that begged for understanding.

  Salmagard and I both tried to look understanding.

  “This is Diana; I’m Sei. We’re imperials. Where are you guys from?”

  “Same,” I replied. “Is everything all right?”

  “It’s fine,” Sei said, looking down at Diana. “We’re both just—you know. Dealing with heartbreak.” His eyes flicked toward Red Yonder. “Hoping some mindles
s debauchery will help.”

  “That’s the spirit,” I said.

  “She’s an immigrant.” Diana sniffed into Sei’s chest.

  “I think that’s her parents. She’s not so bad,” Sei chided her, but she gave him a fierce look, and he started to stroke her hair again. “We’re in the Service—well, Diana’s former now. We had a rough tour. The guy she had her eye on got poached, and I lost someone too. We’re kind of a mess. Sorry to make a scene.”

  “No worries,” I told him.

  “But he was my support,” Diana went on, then hiccupped. Even with an augmented metabolism, which she had to have, an entire bottle of Evagardian Ale wasn’t something you could shake off.

  She was wasted—but that was impressive, because she should’ve been in a coma. She had to have some artificial parts inside. It was the only explanation. Rough tour? Maybe she’d been wounded; that would explain some of this, though not all of it. It probably wasn’t relevant to my life, but I was intrigued.

  Sei looked up, surprised. So did I.

  “What’s the matter?” Salmagard asked.

  “We aren’t moving.” I turned to look back over the sofa, out the rear of the carriage. Imperial Pointe loomed behind us. Ahead, Red Yonder. Far out to our left, I could see another carriage moving sedately toward the park.

  Seconds ticked by. It wasn’t clear to me why we’d stopped.

  “Is this you?” Salmagard asked quietly.

  “I don’t think so. If imperials made me, they wouldn’t telegraph a takedown like this,” I murmured. “They’d just be waiting for us on the other side. They know better than to put me on my guard. I think we’ve just malfunctioned.”

  “What happens now?” Salmagard asked, more curious than concerned.

  I looked at Sei. “Any ideas?”

  He shook his head. “I’m just a pilot. Sorry.”

  I thought it over. If we were dealing with a hardware issue, repair bots would take care of it. Or they’d fly a work team out here. If it was a system issue, it would be fixed shortly. I couldn’t think of anything else.

  “Could be our spot isn’t open,” Sei said, pointing at Red Yonder. “If someone’s gotten held up leaving, or there’s something wrong with our welcome, they could be buying a couple minutes.”

  “In that case I’d expect them to say something,” I said. “At least, they should. Right?” I leaned down to Salmagard. “If it is me, I apologize in advance.”

  Salmagard swallowed. “What will happen to you?”

  “Don’t worry about that. I’ve made my bed and I’ll sleep in it. You have to worry about yourself.”

  “I’ll end up like Deilani.”

  That was if she was lucky. I wasn’t going to say it, but if she was actually found with me, her career would be over. She wouldn’t have the luxury of being reassigned. “Would that be so bad?”

  “No. Demenis Affairs doesn’t sound so bad to me at all.” She smiled wistfully. “You’re sure this isn’t you?”

  “If it is, whoever’s coming isn’t very good at their job.”

  We began to move again.

  I let out my breath. “Trust me,” I said. “If imperials ever get another line on me, I’ll never see them coming.”

  “That’s comforting,” Salmagard said, snuggling up to me a bit.

  “Hold on,” Sei said, disengaging himself from Diana and getting up. “We’re off course.” He pointed, and I turned to see the white line of the track leading to Red Yonder shrinking behind us.

  “Can we do that?” Salmagard asked, puzzled.

  “We shouldn’t be able to,” I said. “This has to be something else. Maybe a gravity tether. Maybe we’re broken down bad enough that they want to put us in dry dock.”

  Sei snorted. “Great first impression.”

  “Even Red Yonder’s going to have a problem here and there.” I shrugged. “They’ll probably upgrade our rooms to make up for it.”

  “That’d be nice,” Diana muttered.

  “Odd they haven’t said anything,” I said, frowning. “It’s not good business to leave us in suspense.”

  “Even for maintenance,” Salmagard said, pointing, “why would we be moving away from the park?”

  “Their dry dock could be on the station,” Sei told her, going to the wall of the carriage and looking out. “But this is weird.”

  Salmagard was looking at me, and I didn’t know what to tell her. I was growing increasingly confident that whatever this was, it wasn’t about me—but I was also getting worried.

  All my instincts were on their feet, making themselves heard, but I still didn’t have an answer.

  Even Diana was sitting up and paying attention. She looked serious, and with those red eyes, that was a little intimidating. Why would a girl like her go out of her way to make herself look scary? It had to be some kind of personal, cultural thing—but hadn’t Sei said the two of them were in the Service? There was no way Diana’s look was in regs.

  Salmagard was still looking up at me intently. Maybe she didn’t believe me when I told her Evagard wouldn’t come after me this way. I was telling the truth.

  “What’s the worst-case scenario?” she asked.

  “The worst?” I raised an eyebrow and thought about it, looking back toward Red Yonder. Then I turned and gazed toward Imperial Pointe. We were still approaching, though we were moving toward a part of it that I didn’t know anything about. Maybe that lent credence to the theory that Red Yonder’s emergency dry dock was our destination. There was probably a mixture of computer and hardware errors that could produce this bizarre situation, but what were the odds?

  “The worst case would be that we’re about to be the victims of a terrorist attack,” I said finally. “Imperials are softer targets in neutral space. I guess this is a good place to take a shot at a couple of us unprotected.”

  “So where’s the attack?” Sei asked. “And who’s this? Is that a supply ferry?”

  A dark shape had emerged from beneath the station, and it was moving toward us.

  “Looks like it. He shouldn’t be out here where people can see him.”

  “They can’t see him,” Diana pointed out. “We’re way down here. Everyone up there is looking at Red Yonder.”

  “Is anyone else off course?” Sei asked, crossing the carriage to have a look. “Are we in trouble?”

  I shook my head. “I’m going to feel ridiculous if we end up in some bay with a work team and a park rep bowing and apologizing.”

  “We’re going to collide with this guy,” Sei said suddenly, backing away from the side of the carriage. “He doesn’t see us. I don’t know how, but he doesn’t.”

  That got my attention. I reluctantly let go of Salmagard and got to my feet. These carriages didn’t have much in the way of safety measures. Depressurization sealant, oxygen masks—and that would be it. If we actually hit something, that would be the end.

  And Sei was right. The ship was coming right at us. Salmagard and Diana joined us, watching the freight hauler come closer.

  The forward doors opened, and my heart sank.

  “Oh,” I said as comprehension dawned. “Somebody’s kidnapping us.”

  I saw the way they were all looking at me.

  “I’m serious,” I said. “If they were picking us up, they’d send a real shuttle, and they’d communicate. And this guy shouldn’t be here. Do the math.”

  Sei stared at me for a second, then lit up his holo.

  “Don’t bother,” I said. “We’re already cut off.”

  Salmagard abruptly moved her hand to her hip.

  “What is it?”

  “My implant just died,” she said, looking troubled.

  I blinked. “You can feel that?”

  She gave me a look. I turned to Diana. “Do you feel anything?”

&n
bsp; “I don’t have one,” she said.

  That seemed to surprise Sei. “Really?”

  “But I do have a tracker. If someone did kidnap me, they wouldn’t get far.” Diana folded her arms, looking unimpressed.

  “If they’re jamming our network access, they have some idea what they’re doing. Don’t hold your breath.” I looked back at Red Yonder, which now appeared quite distant.

  “Why us?” Sei asked.

  I shrugged, then took Salmagard’s hand and pulled her close.

  “You should stay away from guys like me,” I told her quietly.

  “Let’s not panic yet,” she murmured as we drifted into the hauler’s bay. At least she didn’t think I was behind this.

  It was time to think about business. If we really were being kidnapped, that was bad enough. If possible, I didn’t want anyone to make things worse.

  “Let’s be cooperative,” I said. “Don’t try anything.”

  Sei shrugged, then looked at Diana, who just looked faintly disgusted.

  “They’re on their honeymoon,” she grumbled. “And this is me. This is my life.”

  “There isn’t even a date for the wedding yet,” Sei told her, visibly exasperated. “How could they be on their honeymoon?”

  Diana didn’t reply to that. She just folded her arms.

  Sei sighed.

  The doors closed, and our carriage locked into place.

  The bay was dirty, but not neglected. It had seen a lot of use. I tried to take in as much as I could. Did our bad guys own this hauler? Did they regularly snatch people from Red Yonder carriages? Was Red Yonder in on it? What were they up to?

  This bay had been cared for. Not scrubbed to shine, but maintained. That meant it was owned by people who wanted to use it for its intended purpose.

  Stolen, then. Borrowed for this specific job. The specific job of redirecting and capturing a Red Yonder transport with passengers aboard.

  That would take some fancy computer work, both to get the carriage off course and to keep anyone from noticing.