After promising Feros I would track him down once I was finished with what I had to do, I loaded myself and a small bag in my new ship and prepared to jump to the next system and hopefully find Rem. Ammet would have thousands of guests popping in over the course of the next day and a dingy mobile space station in his backyard was probably not the look he was going for.

It was nice to be back out on my own. I appreciated Ammet taking me in, but I was used to having my freedom and someone being around all the time was too confining for my taste. Suddenly, there was a blip and Cloe popped in beside me.

‘Cloe!’ I leaned over and gave her a huge hug, genuinely happy to see her.

‘Aia!’ She looked pleased too.

‘How are you?’ I felt a little awkward, but then I remembered that it didn’t matter that it had been a while since I had contacted her.

‘OK! Where are you going? You have been with Jase den Ammet?’

‘Yes. I’ve been playing dead.’ I figured it didn’t matter if I told her the whole story. ‘I, uh, ended up killing Colleen and have been pretending to be her for a while now.’

‘Are you enjoying that?’

‘Yes.’ I realized she could help me. ‘I need to check on Rem and you can help me.’

‘Yay!’ She squealed.

‘I need to speak with him, but I can’t be seen talking to him publicly. I’ll get a room on the station, can you bring him there?’ She nodded and clapped her hands.

‘This is very exciting.’ I filled her in on all of the details of what had happened since I last saw her and as the station popped in, I pulled the hood from the back seat. Colleen’s face was already saved to the database for quick use, so I generated a new human face to move around the station anonymously. After docking, I went to the cheapest motel to get a room.

I checked in, messaged the room number to Cloe and waited in the dingy hole. It was taking longer than it should and as time passed, I started to worry. I would tell him just what he needed to know to get him out of here and fill him in on the rest once everything was settled. We were rich, and while we couldn’t buy a planet, I could set him up in a compound in Governance, out of the reach of the criminal underworld we had grown accustomed to.

Just when I was about to head down to the bar myself, Rem and Cloe rushed in. He was out of breath and Cloe hurriedly closed the door behind them. I realized what was happening and quickly switched my hood over before two huge guys with pistols slid the door open.

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‘What the fuck do you think you’re doing?’ I screamed at the bigger one, immediately realizing that I had forgotten to bring a weapon.

‘Holy fuck.’ One of the meatheads recognized me and was clearly terrified. ‘Colleen?’

‘Colleen?’ Rem looked like he was going to shit himself. He gave Cloe a dirty look and she shrugged innocently.

‘Jesus Fucking Christ.’ I crossed my arms and stared at the two dudes like they were the lowest scum in the galaxy and could feel them withering beneath my gaze, leaning in on the fact that they knew that they were in a world of shit. ‘I sent a message telling your boss to lay off this one.’ I pointed at Rem. ‘He’s working for me now.’

‘What?’ Rem whispered, shocked and confused about the situation currently unfolding in front of him. I wished I had remembered to bring some sort of weapon and cursed myself for getting so lazy.

‘Give me your pistol.’ I pointed at the larger one and he handed it over. I shot his quiet partner in the head and he collapsed in a pile on the floor. ‘Now, you,’ I aimed the gun directly at him,’go tell your boss that you saw me and that I’m going to do that’ I pointed at the dead dude on the floor, ’to her.’ He got the message and backed off slowly, looking at the three of us before running off.

‘Wow. That was so cool.’ Cloe sounded impressed.

‘What just happened? Colleen, uh, I ..’ Rem trailed off, worrying that he was about to join the dead guy. He looked accusingly at Cloe and I deactivated the hood.

‘Aia?’ He was confused. ‘You’re dead. I heard from a contact...that Colleen...that she had killed you.’ He rushed towards me and hugged me tightly, lifting me off the floor and kissing me intensely enough to make Cloe appear slightly uncomfortable. He put me down and backed off a bit.

‘Good to see you too.’ I was glad I had forced the issue with Ammet. If these guys had succeeded, I never would have forgiven myself. ‘I think it’s time you left the bar business.’

‘Yeah. I think you’re right.’ I pulled the hood back on and generated a different face.

‘I’ll explain everything, but we need to go. Now. Get your shit and let’s get out of here.’ He nodded. ‘Cloe, can you go with him?’ She nodded. ‘Then meet me back at the ship as soon as you’re done. Don’t take too long. I don’t know if that guy was totally convinced and I don’t want to take any chances.’

Cloe and Rem rushed off and I dropped into the sundry store for some Choco-no-nos™ before hopping in the ship and getting it ready to go. I pulled off my hood and was running through possible destinations in my head as Rem and Cloe hopped in.

‘Where are we going?’ He had a small bag and I motioned for him to throw it in the back.

‘Governance.’ I pulled out as fast as possible and erased the transponder I had used, flipping to a backup that Ammet had provided.

‘Rem, do you have any, uh, alternative paperwork?’ I was using a fake id chip, having left anything related to my real identity with Ammet. While you could get along fine without id for the most part, if you wanted to live inside Governance, you needed a lot of money and a clean identity.

‘No, I’ve never had a problem with mine.’ He shrugged as we sped off, the station blinking away behind us. I remembered a contact on Navarre 6 that might be able to help. Even though Rem was technically ok and Governance was the safest place in the Galaxy, I didn’t want to take any chances with Colleen’s people until the entire situation was sorted.

I punched in the coordinates and we were off.