Martinez tapped his finger impatiently on the rim of his drink. He had been waiting at this small restaurant on the far end of Draun for only a few minutes; Chloe had insisted that he arrive here and be ready for their meeting at precisely 1900—not a minute earlier, not a minute later.
It was an odd request from Chloe. All the other times he had met with the aloof woman, she had seemed to have all the time in the world. It was as if nothing in the entire universe could rush her or catch her off guard.
Why was this arrangement any different?
Sure, they would be making a deal that likely would not be approved by the Human Naval Command or most of the GU. In fact, Martinez suspected whatever they would talk about would be covered with enough red tape to make the CCP of Old Earth look like a free-speech state.
Martinez sipped the cold citrus soda and slowly scanned the crowd passing him by. All seemed well here; most did not even notice his existence. That was very typical in Draun. He might be a black classification species, but not noticing one was commonplace when the GU had tens of thousands of species within its umbrella.
To the vast majority of the galaxy, Martinez was a member of another upstart species that would not last long on the galactic stage. To the few species that had lasted tens of thousands of years, Humans were just a blip on the radar that would pass soon enough—just like thousands of others.
As far as Martinez could tell, nothing was off; it was just another regular day in Draun. He had even started to believe this would be a typical meeting—until 1900 rolled around.
From around the corner, a blacked-out SUV slinked around. It was going slow, relative to the speed limits in the area, but its driver was clearly on a mission. They gave no mind to the dozens of aliens that had to quickly move out of the way of their path as they rolled right beside Martinez’s small table and came to a complete stop.
For a moment, Martinez wondered if Chloe would actually be this stereotypical in arranging their meeting. That question was answered when the door to the SUV opened and the man inside called out to him.
The heavily armored door parted, letting a Human lean slightly out of the vehicle—not enough for all the passersby to see him, but just enough for Martinez to see his hand flick the safety off a submachine gun.
The mask heavily modulated his voice, making the shifting words overlap just enough that no one could ever pick him out of a lineup. “Oi, you the Doc?”
The man made next to no effort to conceal the weapon—not that it would matter. He looked like he had walked straight off a movie set featuring espionage and spies trying to cross borders they weren’t meant to.
The mask covering his face only revealed his blue eyes and flecks of dirty blonde hair. The rest of him was festooned in a mixture of plaid, blue jeans, running shoes, and a placard containing no less than a dozen magazines for that handy little tool he pointed toward Martinez.
Martinez paused for a moment, utterly flabbergasted by the sight in front of him; He questioned what the fuck he had gotten himself into, along with what if he was not the guy they were looking for? Sure, there were not many humans around Draun, still, if he said no, would this operator just dust him here? Or would they abduct and then kill him somewhere else if he responded in the negative?
“Are you Doc Martinez?” the man questioned once again, flicking the light on the SMG on, assuring Martinez focused on him and the tool.
Martinez squinted, trying to see past the intense beam of the flashlight, but it was no use; he could make out nothing but the rough shape of the vehicle. Seeing no other option, Martinez nodded.
“Good, get in,” the man ordered.
Martinez got up and approached the door. As soon as he was within reach, life became a quick and violent blur. It felt as if the vehicle itself had grown a dozen arms dedicated to strip-searching him.
In the blink of an eye, he was shoved to the floor of the SUV, and his pockets were turned out. His wallet was strewn about before him, next to his pocket knife and the now unloaded JKL that Kyroll had given him. At the same time, one of the soldiers held his head down while driving his knee into his back. The cold steel barrel of a weapon made it very clear if Martinez even flinched, he would die right there.
Only once those incredibly violent five seconds were over did a familiar voice come to his rescue. “Let him up; he is not some snatch-and-grab HVT,” Chloe said in her typical cold monotone.
Martinez looked up once; the soldier allowed him to. Chloe sat on the far end of the SUV, which had all its seats facing the center of the back, save for the two upfront.
She wore her usual suit dress and looked at Martinez with an odd amount of concern. Despite her being a short woman who was genuinely not intimidating in her own right, Martinez felt his heart pounding faster and could not help but feel he was being watched by an apex predator.
That likely had something to do with the group of spooks surrounding them and her clearly acting as the head of their operations, but he would keep that errant thought to himself.
With her prim and proper appearance, Chloe looked like she might as well be a mafia boss, ready to order the execution of a rat her crew had managed to snatch up.
“Are you alright?” Chloe asked, offering Martinez a hand while glaring at the soldiers surrounding them.
“I will live,” Martinez groaned, accepting the hand.
In those five seconds, it felt like these soldiers had sent him through a trash compactor. Every muscle in his body roared in subtle pain, caused by a combination of being forced to move in certain ways and having been bludgeoned repeatedly.
If this was what these soldiers did to those they wanted to live, the idea of what they would do to those they wanted dead made Martinez shudder.
“That's good to hear; I was afraid you would have been broken by that,” the first soldier Martinez had seen replied, earning him a sharp glare from Chloe, making the burly man back up and sit.
“Come here, Henry,” Chloe replied, pulling Martinez into a seat as the SUV began to move.
Given the circumstances, Martinez was not about to argue with what Chloe was attempting to make him do. She was the only thing keeping the five black-out soldiers surrounding him from eating him for breakfast, so playing along would undoubtedly be his best choice of action for the time being.
Once he had settled into a seat and the troops had taken full control of his gear, it was time to finally get to work and discuss the topics Chloe had in mind—something she wasted no time addressing.
“Alight then, there is no point in cutting hairs here. So you went out and got your little lady pregnant? Right before deployment, too. Man, Henry, could you have been any more of a stereotype?” Chloe began, earning her what sounded like a genuine chuckle from the soldiers.
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“It’s not like I planned this happening,” Martinez argued. "It just happened."
Chloe giggled slightly, reviewing something on her datapad. 'I figured—we don’t exactly have records of Humans and Aviex propagating. Still, It is at least useful for me.”
“Yeah, great for you. You have another desperate fuck to use for your own ends.” Martinez replied, gesturing at the other soldiers in the car.
That slight insult earned him a mix of glares and resolute chuckles from the soldiers. Martinez couldn’t tell if it was because he had pegged their circumstances correctly, or if they pitied him for assuming he had.
Martinez had no idea who or what these Humans were. They could be a part of no less than a dozen units well-known throughout the Human military: the L.O.S.T(Long Range Orbital Scout Teams), A.C.G(Advanced Combat Group) D.M.L(Destroy Manuever and Liberation).
Hell, for all Martinez knew, he was dealing with one of the units in the Human and GU reach that did not exist. Either way, they were hands above far more well-trained than some random devil dolphin with a few dozen combat deployments under his belt.
“Oh, it is,” Chloe assured. "I have so much I could work with you on that I could have you pay me to learn–or do.”
“Can we can the crap?” Martinez snapped, not wanting to play the game he had already agreed to. “You know why I am here.”
Chloe rolled her eyes and leaned back against the plush seats. She draped her arm over the back and sighed, looking toward the ceiling. She had expected Martinez to be short with her, but still he was treating her like she was his enemy.
As far as she understood the circumstances, she was offering him salvation.Sure, she was a spook, tasked with looking out for Humanity’s best interests, but that didn’t mean she was trying to ruin his life.
In fact, Chloe's goals at this point were quite the opposite. She saw Martinez's circumstances as a chance to shake up the GU and put Humanity in a strong negotiating position on the galactic stage.
So far, Humanity had built a reputation for being ruthless in war and caring for all species, yet it was patient enough to play the GU's games.
With the revelation that they could potentially breed with the Aviex, a species the GU would rather forget, her superiors want her to ensure all goes well with Martinez. They have even given her the authority to use the unique benefits and rules for black-class species to ensure a good outcome for him.
He did not know it yet, but Martinez and the outcome of Lysa's pregnancy could change thousands of years of regulation and rules. So long as their child proved to be viable.
She understood that Martinez and many others thought she was detestable, but such was life when you had to make calls that cost lives and were not popular with the general populace.
Chloe just prayed that one day, all this effort would be worth it; her years of sacrifice, lack of social connections, and the glares of hatred given to her by assets would be justified.
If Humanity and Aviex could build more significant relations because of his happy little accident, she would no longer be some monster in the dark. No, she would have changed the universe from the base to the peak.
“Of course I do. Where should I start with all the things you likely would let me use as leverage against you: Your girlfriend is pregnant, your best friend is about to be stopped alongside you, oh, and what was it.” Chloe paused, twirling her hand, pretending to not have everything about Martinez’s life memorized.
“Oh yeah, that little kitty you are fond of is also missing, isn’t she?” Chloe looked over at Martinez with a shit-eating grin, knowing damn well the amount of effort that Martinez had been putting into figuring out where his dear mentor had gone.
It was not a shock that Chloe mentioned that she knew about Dee arriving at the station soon or that he had been looking into Shiksies' location. What surprised Martinez was that Chloe had brought them up because she had his datapad monitored at all hours and knew about Lysa’s condition.
Did she believe that those two things were more important to him than the mother of his child and his future child?
Sure, he and Dee had an extensive history together, having been on almost all the same deployments, in the same firefights, and spending more time together than most of the Marines in Martinez’s old unit.
Then there was the matter of Shiksie; Martinez was worried about her; in fact, when she first disappeared, his initial fear was that she had killed herself. He had no real reason to believe that was the case, but between her note and the fact that military members tend to be very skittish about that topic, he still was nervous that was the case.
Martinez figured he should have told her to focus on what he really needed: Lysa to be taken care of, him getting off stop loss, and never seeing Chloe and her goon squad again. But curiosity got the better of him.
“What do you know about Shiksie? And why are you bringing up Dee?” Martinez questioned.
The soldiers sitting across from Martinez chuckled slightly, barely audible over the sound of the engine roaring, but Martinez heard it, and saw them exchange a credit stick. Were they taking bets on what Martinez would do and say?
Chloe leaned back forward and pulled out her datapad, taking a moment to flick through everything she had on Martinez’s two friends. As she was doing this, the vehicle made a sharp turn onto an onramp, leading to a highway that led out of the city and high into the mountains.
Martinez took a moment to look over the soldiers yet again and could see that while they were mostly silent, that did not mean they were not communicating. Through mixtures of glances, subtle motions, and their own datapads, they communicated large amounts of information in a way that Martinez could not comprehend.
“Well, like you, I can get Dee off stop loss, and as for your precious little kitty, I have a solid bit of intel about where she is and what she is up to. If you want to know, I can, of course, share that information with you,” Chloe explained, showing Martinez two files on her datapad.
They were clearly casefiles of some sort. They were folders with pictures of Dee and Shicksie, along with their names.
“What would that cost me?” Martinez sighed, knowing it had to be more than he would be willing to give.
He would risk his own life to ensure he could stay with Lysa, but adding anything on top of that would be far more than he could stomach; Lysa needed him, so this had to be a one-off deal.
Dee would just have to deal with being redeployed, while with Shiksie, he’d still be at square one in finding his mentor. So, not knowing where she was wouldn’t change anything.
“Nothing more than what I am already asking of you,” Chloe smiled. I will already be asking a lot of you, pulling a few more strings, and telling you a location is nothing compared to the value I expect you to bring.”
Martinez grumbled and hung his head, frustrated by his inability to predict what Chloe would say or do.
After talking with Nelya, dealing with Kyroll, and talking with Chloe a few dozen times, he thought he had a rough grasp of her angle, but apparently, that was wrong. Chloe was still an enigma, and she would remain one as long as Martinez knew her.
“So there is no other catch?” Martinez asked.
“Absolutely not,” Chloe replied, feigning insult. “I would never attempt to trick you like that. All you have to do is be willing to play ball with me.”
“Alright then, what do I have to do?” Martinez replied, wishing to just get to the point before wherever they were going was.
“Now, there is no sense in getting ahead of ourselves. Just enjoy the ride for now.” Chloe replied, pulling back her datapad and sending a message off to someone else.
They sat in silence for the next hour. Martinez's attempts to speak to Chloe or the soldiers were met with silent contempt. They left the city and entered the boondocks. Once in the woods surrounding Draun, they turned onto a dirt road, where they traveled for even longer.
At long last, they reached the destination Chloe had in mind for them. It was a simple little brick building surrounded by a high privacy fence. The only thing that made the location stand out compared to any other out-of-the-way cabin was the large clearing to the building's rear.
The soldiers filled out, along with Martinez, with Chloe behind them. Once they stood before the gate, Chloe shoved a datapad into Martinez’s face, her typical smile on her lips. “Please sign this, and understand that if you break this NDA for any reason that you do not have my approval of, we will have to take appropriate action.”
Martinez was about to ask what 'appropriate action' meant, but considering who he was dealing with—and the hundreds of ways they could silence him or make him disappear—he decided to shut his mouth and sign the damn thing.
“Thank you for that,” Chloe smiled, waving her hand for the soldiers to open the gate.
“Now that we are here, let's discuss the fine details about why I need you to do me a favor,” Chloe purred, leading Martinez inside.