Chapter 5: Black market On Vestal Station

“Sarah,” a young man called out, waving, as Sarah exited the side corridor and entered the bazaar. She waved back as she passed a booth selling obviously counterfeit goods. She passed another selling grilled meat of an uncertain origin on a plastic skewer. Everything sold here was second rate, used, or repaired. First raters, Citizens of the Greater Galactic Cluster, would never deign to patronize such a low deck on the station; it just wasn’t safe. They all stayed UP and shopped at the retail stores or the carefully curated thrift boutiques. The operators of the thrift boutiques came down to the bazaar to replace their stock.

Sarah rounded a corner and stopped. A woman wearing a generic tan flight suit was flirting with a young man manning a repair kiosk. Sarah watched as he examined a late model holocon using an eyepiece. The pretty blonde woman filled out her flight suit nicely, and she should since it was tailored to accentuate her assets. With a hair flip, giggle, and hand touch combo the woman sashayed away from the bemused young man. The youth placed the holocon to be repaired into a padded reusable envelope and entered a few more details into a tablet before stowing it in a drawer under the counter.

The young man was Keve Vercillo. He and his father, who was a maintenance supervisor for the station, ran the small repair and resale operation to generate extra income. His father was getting older and wanted his son to learn a different trade on a nice planet somewhere, under a real sky. With enough credits they could buy a small plot of land on an agricultural planet in the Occupied Territories and start a business repairing farm equipment.

Sarah sympathized. She, too, was a station rat, stuck because they had enough credits to get there, but never enough to leave. Whenever they got close, something would always hold them back. She’d only been planet side a few times, once on Prime when she was really little and once a few years ago on the last trip her and her father had taken after a particularly profitable period. While Keve’s enterprise was above board, mostly, Sarah’s was strictly black market.

Her father left military service as a fleet pilot when his health failed. Disqualified from piloting he worked admin jobs for a year or two before his separation from the service was finalized. Her mother, never very attentive, just left one day. She was so young she barely remembers her. One day things were just different. She remembers waking up in the middle of the night a few times to find her father quietly sobbing in his bed.

“It’s okay, sprinkleberry, daddy’s just sad. Go back to sleep,” he’d say as he tucked her into bed next to him.

He tried to find work, but there wasn’t much legitimate work for a medically disqualified pilot with almost no other skills. Out of desperation, he started taking shadier one-off piloting gigs smuggling Gods only knew. He spent the time wisely making contacts and networking. His health eventually prevented him from even illegitimate piloting work and he switched to black market trading and facilitation. Besides piloting anything with an engine and a control surface, his only other life skill was charm, and he used it well.

This translated nicely to the illegal goods trade allowing him to build a small nest egg.

He wanted to get Sarah planet-side, somewhere safe, before he had to retire. He never said die, he always said retire. Even when his skin grew gray and hung on his bones and the circles under his eyes ever darker, he always said retire. The last few months before his retirement he was mostly bed-bound. Hospitals were for first raters, Citizens, with private insurance not Subjects with government sponsored healthcare and too little credits. Her hand unconsciously rose to rub at the tattoo burned into the skin of her left temple, marking her as a Subject or Sub.

He didn’t intend to languish in some communal clinic with dozens of other sick people just to extend his suffering by a few weeks. He wanted to save the credits and he spent the time training her in the art of the deal and making sure his contacts knew who she was. He retired about a year ago, after she turned fifteen years old.

No one knew, officially. There was a small ceremony attended by his closest contacts in the shallow underworld of the station. A smuggling pilot that a previous arrangement had been made with took his body, and Sarah, out beyond the edge of the system and consigned it to space, as per his wishes. Sarah was pulled from her revere by a squabble of station rats rushing past her in some imaginary game that required their full attention and volume.

“So, was that your girlfriend?” She asked, propping herself up on one elbow on the kiosk.

“Who? That lady? Naw, my girlfriend is much cuter than her.” Keve responded, planting a kiss on her forehead.

“She seemed really…”

“Flirty?” Keve offered.

“Dumb.” Sarah finished, batting her eyelashes at him.

“Well, she did just drop off her holocon for a reset because she messed with too many settings.” They both laughed. They were interrupted by her holocon going off.

“Work,” she said, reading the message projected onto her retinas. “Someone needs something. When do you get off?”

“I’m about to take my meal break, but then I’m on for a few more hours. Want to have lunch with me?” Keve asked.

Sarah momentarily looked away from the virtual data screen only she could see, “Always,”. She typed a response in the air on an unseen keypad with a time and place and hit send.

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

***

A few hours later, she found herself walking through dark damp corridors in the inner bowels of the station’s maintenance areas. She was always nervous meeting clients. Would she be busted this time? Would she be robbed, murdered, kidnapped and sold? She maneuvered between ducts and piping. The pack on her back shifted as she moved. High credit items, but the notes her father left on this client were extensive. He trusted this person and dealt with the a lot, but not so much recently. The items requested were a bit unusual though, for this client.

She slowed as she approached the rendezvous point. Her client was expecting her to come from a different direction. She silently observed the man for a few moments from her concealed position, a trick her father taught her. He was old, over 30, with a receding hairline and 20 extra pounds. He dressed like most other deep spacers in flight suit pants, utility belt, and padded vest covered in pockets. His temple tattoo marked him as a Sub. His features were slightly familiar, like she had met him before, but it must have been a long time ago because she couldn't place where she knew him from. Satisfied, she circled back around and approached him from the shadows. As she stepped into the light she pushed her hood back revealing her face.

"Sarah?" he asked, incredulous. "Where's your dad?"

"He’s taking care of another client. He sent me with a few items he thought you'd be interested in," the young woman replied tersely.

Painful memories rose to the surface. Sarah’s father, Tarold, had once been Riordan’s best friend. Sarah's mother was once Riordan's fiancé. An unfortunate series of events led to her marrying Tarold instead. Riordan cracked his neck, pushing the memories aside. He was there to conduct business, not relive past regrets. Anger flared at the thought of Tar sending a 15-year-old girl into the bowels of the station to sell contraband weapons to an associate known to conduct criminal enterprises. He forced himself to push that aside, too. Riordan pulled a scanner from his belt pouch. "No offense," he said, "Security first."

"Sure, better safe than sorry," she replied, raising her arms and turning a slow circle. The scanner beeped, showing she was free of trackers and surveillance devices.

"Your Dad put you to work often?" he asked, stuffing the scanner back into its belt pouch. He carefully kept his tone neutral.

"I'm not here to discuss my personal life or work habits, mister. You want to check out the goods, or not?"

Riordan waved his hands in an expansive gesture. "By all means, let's see what you got." ‘Why are all children such insufferable brats,’ he thought to himself.

She shouldered her pack to the ground and rummaged through it. "Here," she said, pulling out a weapon. "You should be familiar with this one. It's a modified—"

"Alpha-two-niner. Carbine version of the alpha-two-eight, the last cartridge rifle in standard use with the FRS infantry," he interrupted. "10 mm caseless, forty-round magazine, six hundred rounds per minute," he said with a condescending smile.

"Here's the combo battle sight," she said, holding it out. "It increases the accuracy out to 200 meters."

He locked the sight to the top of the weapon with practiced ease. He shouldered it, peering through the sight at various things. He worked the firing mechanism a few times and peered inside the chamber. "I'll take it," he said, collapsing the butt-stock and stowing it in his duffel.

"Great," she replied without enthusiasm. "This is a mike-five-nine plasma rifle," she said, pulling a larger sleek weapon from the pack. "This latest version has been redesigned. Integrated thermal-assisted targeting sight," she pointed to the top of the weapon, "Forty-watt max phased charge chamber with millisecond refresh. It takes two standard charge packs, and the stock folds." She handed it to him.

He turned it over in his hands. It felt light and plastic-y, like a toy. He activated the power stud and was greeted with a high-pitched whine and an error message. 'Charge Packs Depleted.' He turned it off and stuffed it into the duffel bag with its obsolete cousin.

"That one will get you serious time," she said.

"I’m here to buy illegal weapons from a teenager, not discuss my professional life," he said, securing the duffel bag.

"As if, now pay up. Ten thousand credits," she said, holding out her hand.

"What?" he scoffed, "That's robbery!"

"Then hand ‘em back. My Dad said he never haggled with you, and neither will I."

"We never haggled because he always gave me the best price," Riordan replied hotly through gritted teeth.

Sarah stood her ground, boldly making eye contact and holding out her hand. He needed these weapons. All he had was a slug pistol and a tired old ship.

"Fine!" he exclaimed in exasperation. "10k, large chips." He dug a small cloth bag from one of his vest pockets and tossed it to her.

She peeked inside the bag and counted ten 1k chips, denominations glowing softly. Exhausted credit chips didn't glow. She smiled for the first time as she tucked the credits into an inner jacket pocket. The deck plates below their feet rumbled and vibrated, nearly knocking them off their feet, their mag-boots automatically activating.

"What the hell was that?" Riordan asked, glancing around.

"Whatever it was, isn't good," Sarah replied. There was a distant boom, and their ears popped from over-pressure. "Was that an explosion?" she asked, already turning to leave.

He grabbed her arm pulling her back. "We need to get to my ship!"

She pulled free, anger coloring her face. "Let go of me! I have to find... my dad!" Alarms blared. The station was losing its atmosphere.

"Shize, alright," he said, seeing the fear in her eyes. "Where are you going?"

"Why do you..." she tried to ask.

"Just tell me! In case I need to find you! Your dad is my oldest friend!"

"Level 14, section C, cell 3," she replied, pulling away.

"Ok, go! Meet me in the docking area as soon as you can," he warned, pointing a finger.

Sarah dug in her pack and tossed him a pouch of rifle magazines. "You might need these, no charge!"

He watched as she darted around a pillar and down a side passage. Another explosion rocked the station, and he felt the gravity fluctuate. 'That was close,' he thought, leaving the maintenance tunnels and heading toward the bazaar. He stopped, scenting smoke in the air, to send a quick voice to text-only message to Jaisen on his holocon.

TROUBLE! BOTH OF YOU MEET ME AT MY SHIP, ASAP!

The bazaar was deserted except for the few brave souls who dared to waste precious evacuation time by looting the abandoned stalls. Cries of distress and the staccato rattle of slug rifles propelled him forward. Exiting the far side of the bazaar, he heard the high-pitched whine of plasma weapons. 'What the frek is going on!?' He thought. He pulled the slug rifle out of the duffel, seated a magazine, and slung it across his chest. He slung the empty plasma rifle across his back, tossing the now-empty duffel bag aside. Riordan jogged to the end of the gangway, slug rifle held at the low ready position. He paused, listening.

Judging the way clear, he sprinted to the next junction. The following several corridors were filled with confused and sleepy station residents. Most of them were too panicked to notice his weapons and if they did, he just muttered something about security. The closer he got to the center of the station, the worse the sounds of battle grew. A thin haze of smoke burned his throat and made his eyes water. People were running hither and yon, panicking. He spotted a small group of men at the end of a passage firing a mix of weapons. At first, Riordan thought they were station security, but they were firing on unarmed civilians. His blood ran cold.