He headed west, staying among the foot traffic as best he could. The city had a reputation for restlessness, but the flow of people did wax and wane with the hours. And as he neared the western shore of the cape, it definitely started to drop off. For all the desperate need for housing, one could still make more money by renting out storage space. So residentials gradually phased out in favour of warehouses, distinguished only by the absence of the colourful lights. And the thinning traffic.
By the time he heard the lapping of the waves, Fredrak was virtually alone on the single-lane streets, his path illuminated only by the scant public lamps.
The lights made a modest return as he actually faced the ocean. Residential boats and barges floated out off the coast, gently rocked by the waves. And the local residents, relatively scant though they were, needed food like anyone else. As did warehouse workers, and shipping workers. So, tethered to the shore by a walkway was a floating restaurant.
That was its public function. Less publicly it was his link to off-world operations. Such as the Black Tiger affair. By the most recent estimate it ought to arrive in the Arlay Field by around this time, from whence it would come to Nokior. But it might also already be planetside. And this whole matter was too important to risk communicating through tools of any kind.
His hand was on the gun. It was an agent’s weapon; compact but disproportionately powerful, at a great cost to capacity. Of course, that was where skill came in.
Fredrak stepped out onto the walkway. It was a row of individual, connected pieces, just small enough to bob slightly under his weight as he made his way across. Just enough to potentially throw his aim off just a little bit.
The eatery’s official closing time was two hours in the past. The only lights still burning were those meant to make it stand out in the dark to prevent collisions.
A quarter of the way there, nothing had happened, save that the completely dark little boat next to the walkway was getting quite close. Halfway there he had the boat on his left and kept ready for any sudden movement on board. Three-fourths of the way he had his back to the damned boat while frontlit by the eatery lights.
And then he stood on the last piece of the walkway, and before him was the eatery.
It was a simple, square single-storey little building set up on a flotation platform. The windows were nearly from floor to ceiling and corner-to-corner, but the blinds were down.
He wondered if any of the locals simply stopping in for a quick bite had ever noticed that the whole thing was soundproofed. Or wondered why the entry was over on the west side, facing the algae fields in the distance rather than residential boats.
Fredrak walked around the corner to the west side and found it just as unoccupied as the southern one. Then he rapped twice on the door, waited a moment, then rapped twice more.
“We’re closed, dear,” said a female voice through a comm mounted next to the door, garbled by the cheap and old device.
“Well, I heard tonight was a special night,” Fredrak said.
“And who did you hear THAT malarkey from?” she asked.
“Jon Dur. You know, the tall guy?”
There was a moment’s hesitation.
“So you’re here for the special?”
“I’d be happy for just some bread,” he replied.
That was the full exchange, and there was a click as the door unlocked.
“Come on in.”
He reached out with his left hand and opened.
The interior looked as humble as ever, with simple chairs and tables laid out and barely visible. The sole light source was above the counter, which a woman in an apron was busy cleaning.
“Well, come on in, I said,” she insisted and looked up.
With her face fully in the light, he recognised her from his previous four visits, and did step in. The door closed behind him, completely sealing off the sound of the rain. Somewhere off in the gloom there was the creak of a chair.
“Sorry,” he said. “You know how it is.”
“Yes, yes,” she said. “I do.”
She put the rag away and bent down for something. He slowly walked in and managed to make out a figure sat by one of the tables. There were also a couple of divides big enough to hide people.
“Drink?” the woman asked as she plopped a bottle on the counter.
She was young, dark-haired, and had quite the muscle definition for a typical cheap eatery employee.
He waved the offer off with his left hand.
“Not on the job. You know how it is.”
“Alright, yes.” She shrugged. “I know how it is.”
Mandated codes from above were all well and good, but field agents learned to establish their own communications. That had been her second chance. Her second chance to give the reply they’d agreed on last time.
He smiled at her.
“Actually, you know what...”
He reached for the bottle with his left hand. Then he suddenly switched directions and lashed out like a viper. He drew the pistol with his right as he grabbed and pulled on her face. The “flesh” came loose under his fingertips, and the mask’s eyeholes were yanked to the side, blinding her for an instant.
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Fredrak fired at the sitting figure. The plasma bolt streaked across the room, providing illumination for a moment faster than his mind could take in. It struck home, and a bolt flew from the figure’s own weapon and into the ceiling.
The din of rain returned through the hole, just as the woman thrust a knife at him across the counter. Fredrak shrank out of reach and fired a shot through one of the divides; instinct reacting to some sound.
Someone screamed, and a body flopped to the ground, and Fredrak whipped around to aim at the woman. But she’d dodged beneath the counter, and a shot came from a different part of the gloom, streaking right by his face. Fredrak turned again, and allowed himself a moment to aim before firing at faint movement.
Something that felt like a dull slap hit his right shoulder. He glanced, and saw the woman’s knife sticking out of the back of it. She’d thrown it, then ducked back into cover.
His arm lost strength, and he promptly switched the gun to his left hand and shot at the counter. The blast should have gone right through, but an armoured plate hidden under the surface changed penetration into a shower of sparks.
He heard yet more movement, and now he broke into a run. He went in a crouch, and a shot missed him. Fredrak headed for the nearest of the huge windows and fired into it. Then he launched his full weight at the glass. The window was weakened enough to shatter, but not enough so to spare him a brutal blow.
Fredrak hit the platform outside, then rolled on into the water. Now the pain from the knife started; he’d probably jostled it in the wound. He tried to swim, to stay just deep enough to not be seen, but the right arm wasn’t cooperating and the left one held the gun.
A plasma shot hit the water, scalding his face as a portion of seawater instantly boiled. He fought to turn around, but the knife in his shoulder made it an awkward, clumsy affair. His head dipped back under water and his mouth and nostrils flooded. Then he managed to kick his way up again, and could make out the figure in the doorway.
Another shot hit the water, and just barely missed him.
Fredrak thought of Black Tiger. He thought of the thousands of lives at stake. And as he awkwardly raised his pistol he desperately hoped that all was well over in the Arlay Field.
They fired simultaneously.
# # #
Gaylen took the Addax out of leap, and the gleaming, infinite strands of the Other were replaced by entirely ordinary stars.
“And here we are,” he said happily.
Herdis looked at him from her spot in the copilot’s seat.
“I have to admit...” the dark-skinned woman said, “... that here looks pretty much like everywhere else.”
“Patience, Herdis, patience,” he told her. “You are getting to see the galaxy while getting paid for the privilege.”
“So I am,” she said and smiled. “And I always like being reminded of it.”
Gaylen went over the instruments. There were no nearby heat signatures, and no debris of any kind. They were safe.
“Jaquan?” he said into the intercom.
“The engine is doing fine,” his friend said. “As promised.”
As promised indeed. The Xanganian engineer was making seemingly daily improvements to the ship. Their leaps were already 30 percent longer than they’d been at first.
“Alright. Then let’s eat.”
He set the usual alarms, then got up. Herdis moved the cannon controls aside and followed him to the cockpit door as he opened it.
“Blah!” shouted Ayna, her bone-white face a hand’s-breadth from his and upside-down. Then she chuckled.
“You know, I do carry a loaded gun, kid,” he said.
“And you have strong nerves,” the young Dwyyk woman replied. “It’s fine.”
She released the door frame and swung her feet back beneath her in mid-air. She landed on them, then bounced back up with that rather unnerving bonelessness of her people.
“Juuust happy to be seeing a new place,” she added and sashayed out into the ship’s living room.
Gaylen sniffed the air.
“Bers? How long?”
The big, scarred, wide-shouldered, wild-haired, wild-bearded, bug-eyed man looked up from his task in the ship’s little kitchen corner.
“Two minutes, dagi!” the Fringer said. “Be good!”
Gaylen took it to mean the food would be good, and indeed the man had a strange talent for making spacer rations interesting.
He walked over to the dining table and unfolded it from its place in the floor. Then he arranged glasses while Ayna and Herdis put down plates and cutlery.
“Ah, just in time, I see,” Kiris said as she emerged from the women’s quarters. The golden woman was damp and brushing her hair, fresh from the shower and actually looking happy about it. But then of course they’d managed to tweak the shower system to get each of them a whole 65 seconds of shower time a day.
“Just in time,” Gaylen replied, and stomped on one of the hatches leading down to the engine room.
“I’m coming, I’m coming,” Jaquan said a few seconds later as he emerged. “Can’t blame a man for appreciating his calling in life.”
“When it’s keeping us all alive in the depths of the abyss?” Ayna said, and gave Gaylen a comically pointed look. “No, I don’t think we should blame him at all.”
“Oh, hush, child,” Herdis said, and gave her arm a playful swat.
She wasn’t actually old enough to be Ayna’s mother; not by the standards of most cultures. But they’d developed a habit of pretending otherwise. Jaquan laughed a bit at their antics, and took his customary seat.
“Ready!” Bers barked, and brought over a steaming container. He didn’t even bother with the handles; just carried the hot surface with his bare, leathery hands. Then he did the same with another container, and joined them at the table.
Today’s lunch consisted mostly of a mixture of ground meat and beans, stuffed with preservatives and packed into cubes, accompanied by small, square biscuits. But Bers always seemed to manage much with a little bit of spices, and shipside eating wasn’t quite the chore it used to be.
“So, how long until we’re planetside?” Ayna asked. “I’m getting twitchy.”
“You are always twitchy,” Kiris reminded her.
“Four hours,” Gaylen said.
“A day’s stop and then it’s off to that station, right?” the Dwyyk asked.
“Yes. Deliver, sell, buy, deliver again. The life of a small freighter business.”
“Hm. You know, as fun as it is to see many different kinds of places I wouldn’t mind a longer stop somewhere. Just to explore it thoroughly.”
“Our last stop on Gveloh was five days,” Herdis reminded her.
“That was three weeks ago!”
“I’m sure our dear engineer will soon insist on planetside upgrades that will keep us grounded for a few days,” Gaylen said calmly.
“Oh, you better believe it,” Jaquan told all of them. “We got a decent ship, I’ve made it good, and I won’t rest until I’ve made it excellent. All I need is the time and parts.”
“As soon as we find affordable parts you’ll get your time,” Gaylen assured him. “This sector doesn’t see much manufacturing... we are rather on the fringe of the Fringe out here. But it’s rather amazing what you’ll come across in areas like these.”
He bit a biscuit in half and washed it down with water.
“For now, let’s just make the delivery.”
“Right, right,” Herdis said. “I’m excited about this. I like these... wilder kind of places.”
Gaylen smiled just a touch. They were both from long-settled and civilised worlds, but she was much newer to traversing the lanes and her fascination with it was rather charming.
“What is this sector called again, anyway?” Ayna asked.
“The Arlay Field,” Gaylen told her.