I triple-checked the seal on my mask as Victoria, and I awaited processing on Mythellion III. It wasn't critical that my mask was perfect. Considering that Mythellion III's air wasn't toxic to humans, but according to scans, there wasn't enough oxygen for 'extraneous activity'. I didn't feel like figuring out what the computer assumed 'extraneous activity' was.

Victoria hadn't taken the same precaution and watched as I fiddled with the levels in my mask. I was curious whether she was being reckless about the air on an alien planet or if Fotuans were better at processing nitrogen-rich air than humans. Air requirements weren't really something you asked about unless you were an architect.

Regulations required that we land and Commerce Port Alpha just outside of Mythellion's largest city. Commerce Ports were massive complexes set to introduce alien life to planets that were beginning incorporation into the Galactic community. This was one of the few places where the Ottinio could see what the aliens on their planet were all about.

A diminutive Anteraxi drone stepped up and held a scanner in its upper limbs. I flashed my watch, and he waved me forward with his bottom arms, telling me to head out of processing and into the main concourse.

I waited for a moment, turning to watch Victoria as she presented her papers. She'd apparently been using manufactured documents for the last several months but I hadn't seen them work before. That said, she was confident in their validity and had been the one who insisted on coming through the main Port instead of landing someone invalid.

The drone scanned her assistant and half started motioning for her to move on before he held up his right hands to tell her to wait.

Shit.

"Sir I'm sorry, you're blocking the line," another drone said from behind me. He was wrapped in a navy uniform that complimented his brown chitin. Based on context, he was someone in charge of the area as opposed to an underpaid scanner.

"Sorry," I said without moving, "she's just," I nodded back to Victoria to get the point across.

"I understand, sir," the Anteraxi placed one of their hands on my shoulder, and I could feel how cold he was. It was common for humans to call Anteraxi 'ant people', which was accurate for the drones, but I'd always felt that it led to underestimating their intelligence. After a moment of me not moving despite his hand, he continued, "but I do need you to keep the line moving otherwise, we're going to be here all day."

"I just don't want to-"

"What's the issue?" the Officer called over me. I knew from experience that it was just a series of clicks, but my translator took care of that. As he finished speaking, the prehensile tongue of the Officer flicked between his mandibles.

"Nothing serious, sir. Just seems to be a scanner issue. I've called for someone to process her manually." the drone scanning Victoria said, pointing to her with one hand as he continued to register other travellers.

"See, Sir, everything is being taken care of," the Officer gave a light tug, and I relented. He wouldn't have been able to move me if I wanted to stay, but drawing attention was the exact opposite of what we wanted to do down here. "Your daughter is going to be fine."

I almost spoke up and corrected him, but that mistake was why Victoria surmised she needed a human. I still couldn't believe that other species couldn't tell Fotuans and Humans apart, but then again I could only distinguish between Anteraxi drones by the number of buttons on their collars.

After a second to share my location with Victoria, I complied and continued down the processing line. Just as my assistant notified me that she'd shared her location, I was in the second part of processing, and a new drone was waiting.

Damn this must have been an Anteraxi port. Annoying.

"Scanner indicates you have a weapon, sir," the new drone explained, even though he was already eyeing the Hammerhead. "Please remove the weapon from it-" I pulled out the gun to cut him off. I knew the drill. "Thank you. In accordance with Galactic Integration Procedures, you are allowed to carry a firearm. Discharging it within the Commerce Plaza or giving it to a member of the Ottinio species would be a breach of-"

I stopped listening. GCA 431.9 had been read off so often that I could have whispered it in my sleep. Plus it was a bullshit law. All it really did was prevent the sale of registered weapons. The fact that Victoria and I were down here proved that it didn't do shit. Course, most GCA laws were toothless by design, so it was hard to complain.

"Enjoy your time on Mythellion III, sir," the drone finished his spiel, "please keep in mind that the city of Thirigan is in constant twilight. If you require light adjustment in the plaza, our hive is here to help."

"Thanks," I mumbled, casting a glance back to see if Victoria had been let through yet. She hadn't, and the next traveller was almost breathing down my neck. I stepped forward, through the glass doors and into the Port.

Commerce ports were cookie-cutter across the galaxy, an engineering mess that tried so hard to please everyone that it pleased nobody. Two dozen moving walkways stretched along the plaza to normalize speed. There were bathing pools and moisturizing stations so close together you could practically jump between them. Every single stairway and escalator had been split in half to try and accommodate the different gaits of the species that would use this Port.

I sighed. Every time I came to a new Commerce Port, I hoped that it would be different, that someone would have spoken up and gotten the design appropriately set. Then again, it could be unifying, something the entire galaxy could complain about. Maybe we needed a unifying force to keep everyone from glassing each other's home planets.

Victoria was still beeping on my watch, sitting where she had been when I left the line. There were two options: I could sit around and wait for her or get started on our work.

Well, not quite started. Frankly, if we were looking for weapons, the first thing we needed to do was leave the Commerce Port, but she wouldn't have the papers to have that permission.

No, without Victoria, I couldn't leave the Port, which meant that I couldn't arm us, which meant that, in the meantime, I just needed to kill time until she was free, or I got in way over my head trying to rescue her from a small army of Anteraxi drones.

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I pulled out my assistant and sat on the edge of a nearby moisturizing station, pretending it was a fountain instead of a utility. To my right, one of the lithe Ottinio had their hands dunked into the pool. It was my first good look at them. Their hands looked more like elongated flippers than anything someone could call dexterous. They also had night black still with a constant moisturized sheen.

Strange, from everything I'd heard about them, I'd heard that they were a mammalian species.

After a moment I stopped staring and turned my attention back to my assistant typing in an address and sending an outgoing call. Before I connected, I flickered the phone to private mode to avoid everyone hearing my conversation.

It didn't take long for Dvall to pick up. Considering she was supposed to be in Orbit around Mythellion in less than a day, she was likely in transit right now. For a moment, there was clattering on the other end, followed by a "Heya Kingston, guessin' this is bad news." The voice the translator pulled for Dvall had always thrown me off, but it had been explained that she had the Ovirshir equivalent of an Earth Southern accent. I'd gotten used to it, but it had thrown me for a loop the first time.

"What makes you assume it's bad news?" I asked, voice muffled by my shielding as part of my privacy settings.

"Well, ya'd just message me unless ya felt you needed to deliver the news yourself," she answered. She didn't need to continue for me to understand the point 'you humans are weird like that.'

"Might be bad news or good news," I admitted. The Ottinio beside me pulled away from the moisturizing station after splashing water on his face; his thick tail dragged behind him. "Depends on how long my contract keeps me here."

"Nice, ya found work."

"Always do," I pointed out, "hey, you've been to Mythellion before right?"

"Yessir," she said and then a moment later, "Nah, on the phone," to someone away from the headset.

"Who's that?"

"Nobody."

"Really?" I asked. Most of the time she had someone on the ship it was just a partner of the month that I didn't know.

I heard a 'hmm' on the other side as Dvall considered whether she would answer my question. Eventually, she spoke up, "S'Vennitah," she admitted.

"You're fucking kidding, right?" I asked. Shout whispering even though I knew my voice didn't carry, "Dvall. What the hell?"

"Hey, hey, she said she's sorry."

I shouldn't have had to remind her about what happened, but considering she'd allowed Vennitah on her ship, it was clearly needed. "She took off your arm."

"She said sorry," Dvall protested, "and I like the new one."

"Dvall."

"Hey look, we ain't all gonna throw away a partner for a small little-"

"She shot you."

"Yeah, and you've shot at me."

"Once, and I missed," I pointed out.

"Is that different or just-"

"You know I would have hit you if I wanted to."

Dvall hissed, which was the Ovirshir equivalent of clicking her tongue. "Ya right, ya right."

I sighed. I was supposed to be asking Dvall about weapons on Ottinio, but instead, I was getting caught up in her drama. Again. "Don't keep her around for too long."

"Hey look, I'm pickin' up a job on Mythellion that she needed someone for," she explained, "just good work."

"So, you were always coming with her?" I started, "and you didn't tell me?" As I was speaking, I checked on Victoria's location again. She'd moved but likely to a holding room as opposed to anywhere I needed to be worried about.

"I knew ya'd get pissy about it. I wasn't gonna bring her to meet up with ya or anythin'. She's the whole reason I was gonna be on the same station as ya in the first place."

"Just be-"

"I'll be careful, Kingston. I ain't stupid or dead," she cut me off. There was another unspoken comment here. 'You don't need to baby me. We ain't partners'. "Now, what were ya askin'?"

"I need a new," I took a second to consider what I should get Victoria to buy, "Viashino Lasher. You've been planetside on Mythellion. Anyone I can talk to."

There was a pause on the other end, but I could hear enough movement to know that Dvall was looking for something. Ahead of me, it looked like it was coming to shift change as three Anteraxi drones swapped places at the entry checkpoint. Based on the markings on their jacket, they all served the same queen, but then again, I wasn't up to date on Anteraxi politics.

"What the hell do you need a Viashino Lasher for?" Dvall asked after a moment, "don't ya have a Baskin' Repeater? Does like the same thing-"

"Long story," I explained. I didn't need to hear Dvall's opinions on being cut off from my ship. If I said that, I would need to explain how I was planetside, and if I said I was using someone else's ship, she'd ask about the contract.

"I got time," she answered.

"I don't, already planetside."

"Fine," she sighed. "Viashino Lasher's a shit gun, though."

"Do you know a guy?" I asked again, inviting her to skip the commentary.

"Yeah, I can send over units. I'll even be a sweetheart and let him know you're comin'. Big Boy Ottinio, missin' most o' his tail. Poor fella. Did ya know that their old religion was based on how long their tails were?"

"I know nothing about the Ottinio," I pointed out.

"You've been orbitin' em for three days," she lamented with the tone of a disappointed mother. Dvall expected everyone to keep up with alien anthro like she did. "I'll send ya the units. If ya Baskin is broken, just ask him for one. Last time I was there, he had some human junk."

"Thanks, Dvall. You're the best."

"Don't I know it," was her way of saying goodbye as she hung up.

Just as the call ended, I looked up to see that Victoria was being escorted to me with four drones holding her arms with 8 hands. Despite her situation, she had her best 'public' face on, standing tall and proud while surrounded by aliens two heads shorter than her. One of the drones pointed at me, and I waved to confirm I was the right person.

"Sir," the front drone said, "you need to update your daughter's information in the directory."

"Oh, I do?" I asked.

"Yes. It's out of date. I've given her a pass back to the Orbital station because our registry system down here is only prepared for importing new Ottinio passengers at the moment. Once you've used that, you will need to register with OpSec for any additional travel." The Anteraxi that had been speaking to me let go of Victoria and the rest of them followed.

Once they were out of earshot, I looked up at Victoria, who seemed like she hadn't just been detained. "That was a mouthful," she commented after a moment.

"Anteraxi don't use air to talk, so they can just keep doing it," I explained, one of Dvall's many fun facts she'd shared over a corpse. "Now, what the hell was that?"

"What?"

"What?" I asked, "you got detained? I thought you had a way through." I stood up as I asked it, it would have been more impactful if Victoria didn't have a foot on me.

"I'm through," Victoria pointed out. "You're kidding."

"No, I've kept my papers out of date, but always recently out of date," she explained, "so they're fake, but when they fail to scan, the workers just assume it's because they're out of date."

I sighed, not because it was stupid but because it was pretty brilliant. Out here on the rim, they weren't going to get information back to any central authority in a reasonable amount of time, and something as unimportant as an expired landing was unlikely to get tagged.

I wasn't going to admit that she had a good thing going. She might have gotten a compliment if she had bothered telling me the plan.

My assistant chimed, and I bought up the message. Dvall had marked the seller she'd used the last time she was here. "Okay," I started, "we're going to need to rent transport, and I can take care of getting us out of the Commerce Port onto Ottino proper.

"Can't use any of the arms dealers down here?" she asked.

"If you can find one in the commerce port," I brought up a map to find where we could rent transportation considering ship flight was banned on the planet until they were fully integrated. "No, but also, if your Fotuan friends up there are worth their salt, they'd find us in here if we stayed too long."

"Sounds like you've been hunted before," Victoria commented as I marked a point on the Commerce Port map. As I did, the AR lenses drew a directional arrow on the floor.

"I'm a lucky guy."

"Hunted by Fotuans before?"

"Haven't been that lucky."