“Frontier should be here within twenty minutes everyone, how are those expense reports looking?” I ask. The last couple of hours have been good for everyone to cool down and collect themselves after the disaster earlier. Evelyn has been out of sight, out of mind for everyone, and we’ve just been working on our regular flow. Everything should go smoothly when Frontier gets here, payday’s always a good day. Evelyn’s comms contact was shared with the whole team and occasionally she’ll ask me questions, just asking what’s going on and if Liam’s finished the diagnosis yet, which he did just moments ago.
‘Evelyn, the diagnostics came back just a minute ago and Liam said that he found something in the logs that explains what happened, it was similar to what you suggested. He said that there was a problem with how the ship interpreted the launch codes from the trans depot., that the combination of the locked slip coordinates, paired with the launch command from the depot launch bay and the delta level travel bar caused the planet-side slip.’
‘What an unfortunate combination of circumstances, like the perfect storm. I’m surprised this has never happened before. I feel terrible that the travel bar was probably my fault and that seems to be the cause.’ I can only imagine how guilty she feels. We’re all lucky that we were staying someplace without logs, or we’d all be rotting for the rest of our days. At this rate though, it looks as if we won’t end up paying for our crime.
‘At any rate, we should be good to slip, I know you were worried about having to travel linearly.’
‘Much appreciated,’ she comms back.
“Cicero? Hello? What was the total expense cost?” I ask again, standing on the main deck, I turn around to see Cicero snapping out of a daze.
“Oh, uhh, 30,000,000 standard and 10,000,000 Frontier credit, we used their munitions when ours ran out. We used way more plasma than usual because you didn’t feel like going down personally,” he says.
“Okay, we’re definitely getting reimbursed, I don’t care what they’re paying us, 40,000,000 isn’t a drop in the bucket,” I say. No way am I letting that go, the last clear we did with Frontier, they tried to get away with not paying for expenses, not this time.
Here they are, their megalith cruiser just slipped in, instant and silent, a scary sight to behold if you aren’t used to it. Already we’re getting messages and clearance codes checked, and they only arrived two seconds ago. “Alright Juno, prepare for docking, we’re going to sit in one of their landing bays, it’s just easier that way. Let them know what we’re doing.”
“Alright, I’m on it. Nothing like them trying to take us out because we didn’t specifically tell them we were docking in a bay and not hatch to hatch,” she says with a little chuckle.
‘Alright Evelyn, we’re docking in one of their bays, I don’t want them to even know you’re here. Liam and I are going to leave and collect payment. You, Cicero, and Juno will stay here on Star Fury.’
‘Understood.’
“Okay, Liam, we’re about to head out, I want both of us in Atmos suits, I know we’re on a corp cruiser, but ya never know, things may get dicey, especially the way things have been going lately,” that, and who knows whether Sequel talks to any other corps, Frontier knows we were on Huyto.
“Will do, anything else?” Liam asks.
“I want to walk out of this alive. Be prepared for anything. I’ve got a bad feeling that corps talk about things like planet-side slips,” I say. Liam nods his head and starts gearing up.
I feel it when we exit the ship’s airlock, the artificial gravity here is heavy, I’d say almost two Gs, which I’m guessing is to keep the Frontier pledges strong and fit. Liam and I walk down the ramp into a typical loading bay with white walls and grey floors. One of the doors in the corner of the bay opens and here come the diplomats, the accountants, and the armed guard.
“Hello, my name is Jacob Pierce, it’s good to see you. Come with us and we’ll discuss payment and how the clear went,” says the lead diplomat, gesturing for us to follow them back through the door. We walk along behind them, down the hall and to the left where we enter a dark grey room with a table in the middle, light emanates from the edges of the ceiling. Other than the table, the room is empty. We all sit down at the table and the first thing they say is just typical. “We are slightly disappointed at the methods you used during clearing. We hired you because of your team’s rather unique reputation for clearing without the use of plasma weapons, and it seems that you almost exclusively used plasma weaponry during this clear. That being said, we do still intend to pay you in full.”
Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
“Look, no one said anything about preferred methods when we were drafting the contract, that’s not our fault. Just send the credit our way and we’ll be gone,” I say.
“Also, we have received reports that there was an incident on your specified halfway planet. Did you and your team happen to pick up a passenger during your stay on Huyto? If so, we would be more than happy to pay for an audience with her,” Pierce says, every word dripping with venom. So, he knows, I’m not particularly surprised. A lot depends on what I say here, I don’t plan on giving up Evelyn, but at this point I’m not sure the lengths that Frontier will go to get her as a proxy for Sequel.
“We did not end up stopping on Huyto, we have been calculating expenses here for the past twenty-four hours. I am unaware of any incident that may have happened on Huyto. Whatever the incident, it shouldn’t have any relevance to our payment. We all have places to be, so I would appreciate it if we could just get the payment done with and both go our separate ways,” I say. Pierce just shakes his head. A barrier field appears, splitting the room in two, Liam and myself on one side, the Frontier personnel on the other.
“We would have gladly paid you for the girl, but it seems that’s not an option here. Sequel has given quite the incentive for her capture, and I am quite frankly done talking to you. You and your crew will be staying with us here indefinitely and that’s all I’ll say about it.” All of them stand up from their side of the table, they obviously intend to leave us in this room, corralled as we are by this barrier field. I reach down and take the sword relic off my suit, none of them even flinch, confident of their safety on their side of the barrier. Liam is still sitting, staying quiet through the entire exchange.
“Liam, I need you to go directly back to the ship as soon as we’re out of this room,” I say, he nods, just waiting for his moment. Overhearing what I said to Liam, a few of the Frontier personnel smile and chuckle, apparently thinking it’s funny that I think we’ll get out at all. When I activate the sword relic the smiles disappear and they’re just a little less sure of themselves. A substance akin to liquid mercury quickly permeates from the hilt of the sword, looking as if the blade isn’t a solid at all. All it takes is a few strokes in the direction of the wall, I kick through the makeshift cutout and step out into the hallway. The armed guard barricades the hallway, and the diplomats and accountants are long gone. Liam bolts out of the hole right behind me, running back down the hallway towards Star Fury. The guards start firing down the hall at us, plasma hissing, glancing off the walls, making me glad that we both came prepared with Atmos suits. Shot after shot of plasma gets absorbed into our personal shield curtains. I wheel around and send an arching stroke in their direction, cutting them clean in two, damaging the lighting on the walls in the process, sending the whole corridor into a flickering mess. Guards taken care of, I turn around and sprint down the hall after Liam. Liam is standing at the locked door to the landing bay waiting for me. I cut the door out of its frame.
“Liam, get inside Star Fury, tell Juno to start the engines, seal the airlock but leave the ramp open, I’m splitting this cruiser from the inside out,” I yell. This is going to be a nasty getaway. There’s no way for us to get out of the landing bay without completely wrecking the place. Liam runs up the ramp and after a couple more seconds I see the inner airlock doors seal and the anti-matter drives ignite. Hopefully we can get out of here before Frontier has time to react. Here goes nothing, I make a huge circular motion with the relic, willing its extension through the ship. Not half-way through the circular motion I can tell critical systems have been severed by the lack of power and an awful grinding sound. Cutting the ship in half longways is a risky move on my part, if this cruiser is equipped with linear drives, the anti-matter reactions will erase us from existence in a second. In my experience though, cruisers of this size only use slip space technology, just too much mass to propel through space for linear travel. Finishing the cut, the walls start to move, the ship separating in two. The cruiser, now two separate pieces, slowly drifts apart. The artificial gravity of the ship is gone, and I begin to drift upwards off the deck. I activate my suit’s thrusters and move towards Star Fury’s entrance ramp. The gap between the two parts of the ship widening by the second, I hope we can slip through the gap before Frontier can regroup. I’d think that having their ship split clean in two would keep them occupied but you never know.
When I reach the ramp, the mag strips in the suit’s boots connect and latch onto the ramp, allowing me to walk normally. As I walk up the ramp it starts to retract into the ship, by the time I get to the airlock the ramp connects and seals. The airlock pressurizes and I walk into the main body of the ship.