Zsilana smirked at this coy reply, but kept her lips sealed. She waited; baiting him to say more. He muttered, “are you looking for me to give you some praise little girl?” He laughed.
“Nah…” She paused, “I’m not interested, I’d rather just pay a fine and get out,” Zsilana replied.
“I can hold you there indefinitely. We’re not in Terosan space as you so rightly pointed out; we’re in wild space, the independent paradise for criminals. Who will come to ensure that you have your rights? Money talks and I’ve bought everyone. You’re in here and you’re staying in here... unless I decide to change my mind.”
He had a point, “let’s say I do this… how exactly do I get around the Terosan fleet?”
“Come.” The voice beckoned. The cell door slid open. “Just steal the device and bring it back to me. Simple.”
Zsilana stood up and strolled out of the door. She exited into the inspection room and saw her would-be employer flanked by two armed guards. A man of similar height and a face of smoothed out wrinkles. An impossible monochrome block of slick backed hair sat atop his head.
“Their defenses will be down, we’ve got that covered. All you have to do is get inside and take it.”
She had only meant to glance into his eyes but fixed upon him for a moment too long, “men definitely get better with age.” She whistled then stepped close to smell his odour. If he’s that way inclined his eyes would follow the cleavage. Zsilana hoped to turn his excitement into favour. Manipulation was always the key to getting ahead. He looked. His eyes dipped. She smiled. The Kyopix boss reached out a hand towards her breasts and grabbed at the ID tags that hung around her neck.
“Fake tags.” He pulled the tags free and slipped out the hidden datachip. “Hidden credit chip. Counterfeit too? This is too cliched. I have to laugh.”
Zsilana snatched at the credit chip. She leaned closer to peck a kiss upon his lips. “No touching. Touching is extra. I’ll get the device but you’ll need to replace those two ships you just destroyed.” Zsilana smirked.
“You’ll get them.”
“You set the location and time, and I’ll create the extraction plan. This should be a routine operation, although it is one with considerable risk. The device stays with me until payment is settled. If you fail to pay then I destroy the device,” Zsilana said.
“It won’t come to that. Payment will be generous, I can assure you. A hundred thousand credits per head should cover it.”
“That won’t even cover the damage they’ll do to my ships. Five hundred!”
“I’ll advance you two hundred and that ought to see your ships ready for action. The final repair costs will be covered when you return. Plus an additional hundred per head on delivery.”
“I want two hundred before I agree to this. Send me the details and I’ll review them. Right now, I need to get back to my ship. The crew will be missing me.” She blew a kiss and walked out of the inspection room.
Kyopix released control of Zsilana’s fleet and returned her crew. Her return to the ship was short lived, a quick reconciliation with the crew before coming back to the station. They allowed her lead ship to wait at one of the company’s own airlocks – a premium spot near the market deck.
The walk from ship to market was less than two minutes. Zsilana’s heart beated quicker when the airlock opened on to the main thoroughfare of the market deck. She beamed with excitement. This was a small perk but definitely a worthy sweetener. Her usual docking section was several floors away and required a series of lifts that ensured double-backing on yourself just to get to market. It sounded like madness to anyone that hadn’t visited before, but the station wasn’t designed and built as a single entity – it had grown organically, module by module.
Luryae grinned, she held her captain’s hand as they walked into the market. The open air structure showcased a hive of merchant coves intermingled with bars and portable stalls. This module of the station was a half-sphere several stories in height; all the coves appeared to be dug into the exterior frame and faced inwardly looking at each other across the open plaza.
Ups and acrosses – walkways joined one level to another – a web of traffic enhancers. Walk on the left, stand or loiter on the right. Never block a walkway. Alcohol must only be consumed in the designated areas. All chemical inhalers must be smokeless (unless inside privileged premises). Walk, don’t run. Talk, don’t shout. Mobile communicators must be no more powerful than a hundred squats.
For all that the station was free from Terosan Zsilana felt it ironic that the station had so many rules. She remembered her first visit here with her parents. Evacuees, dirty, smelly, poor, impolite and homeless but that made them cleaner than half the spacejunkers that called Ardent Light their home. Zsilana fondly remembered the creaky welds that joined two mismatched and decaying ship hulls at their seams. Nothing ever fitted right, nothing was painted or sealed either. If mice lived in space they could race from top to bottom in a day.
Those days were an appendage to the modern station. Ardent Light had evolved a long way from its chaotic patchwork beginning. The Kyopix Consortium had done much to modernize the station in an effort to commercialize it, boost local trade, and then extract as much profit from it as possible. They can’t claim to have put the station on the galactic charts but they definitely made it the most popular independent destination bar none. The station had ballooned in population and size since Kyopix bought it. Zsilana reluctantly admitted to herself that it was probably for the best. Tripped out spacejunkers threatening families with extortion wasn’t the best upbringing for a child, and that was something that Zsilana longed to forget.
Ardent Light was so large that smaller stations orbited it. These new stations catered for specialist needs: refueling, repairs, storage and any needs of the space traveller. The main station had become premium real estate, her mother had predicted. She told Zsilana to watch how big cities can grow by being popular. It was a natural law of the universe as far as her mother was concerned.
If the smaller stations around The Light weren’t impressive enough then any first timer would be amazed by the fleets of ships that floated just out of touching distance. The fleets, like the stations, conducted trade and exchanged services with one another. The Light was almost superfluous because it was dwarfed in size compared to the far spread fleets of ships, yet it was the focal point that held everything together. Kyopix reminded everyone that it was the locus of independent commerce.
“So when will you tell me about this job we got? Is it safe? It sounds too good to be true. Think about it. We all got strung up and now we’re out because the guy doesn’t want to press charges. There is something you’re not telling me,” Luryae probed.
“Kee, my darling, you gotta trust me on this one. There’s a lot of risk but we can pull it off... I just can’t talk about it in the open.”
After a quick stroll across the market plaza Zsilana lead them into a shadowy corridor thatshe guessed would lead to further airlocks. In a nearby alcove hid a bank of vending machines.
“Freebie?” Zsilana smirked and inserted her fake credit chip into a machine.
“Gimme a Jumu,” Luryae laughed. “Did you give it all back?”
“The Jumu shipment? He took it while we were incarcerated but we’ll make more on this job than we would have made selling cola.”
“So, about this job... what is it?”
“We have been asked to steal something... something big. Kyopix only released us without charges since I agreed to the job. They have agreed to pay us well for the delivery of a certain item.”
“You said it will be risky, how risky? This item has to be important to simply let us go. It can’t be something so easy to get or they would have bought it already. Kyopix are a powerful player in the galaxy, why would they want our help?”
“It’s a high level job and this will secure our reputation as a powerful player in the galaxy. We can do it. We can steal anything, isn’t that what we always tell our
selves? No job too big and leave no path unwalked. That’s why they asked us: we can steal anything but Kyopix can’t. They can’t risk their reputation but you’re right it is something they can’t buy, so they want to steal it. That’s where we come in.”
Luryae grumbled, she didn’t like the risky jobs. She’d agree to go but her expression always betrayed her feelings. “The last high level job we tried almost got us killed. Can you promise me that won’t happen?”
“This job is risky and I can’t promise we won’t die. If things go awry we can run. We’ve done that all our lives. We’ll make it out. Trust me on this one, the stakes are worth it. When we’re done you can visit Vinri, as you always wanted.”
“I’m thinking... that I don’t have a choice, you’re going and I can’t let you down. I don’t like the smell of this, we should be rotting in a jail cell, and we would be if it wasn’t for our mysterious benefactor. One who works for Kyopix? So who is our employer exactly?”
“Oh... only the CEO of Kyopix. The guy at the top of the food chain.”
“The one and only?” Luryae asked, she hid her surprise.
“Yep. Him. Did I mention I’m meeting him tonight for dinner?” Zsilana smiled.
“Is he cute? Will you-”
“Is that your first concern? Yes, we might ‘you know’ do that ‘thing’ but I’ll be