CHAPTER 2

 

Shibato was a system in The Kalenth Hegemony near the border with the Graelands, as independent systems on the edge of The Orion Spur were known. The border was a place where the boundaries between legal and illegal were easily blurred, where a pile of credits would see most officials look the other way.

One such pile of credits was currently distracting the port customs officer so much that he completely failed to remember that the cargo he hadn't inspected was a contraband shipment of illegal slaves.

Slavery was legal in The Hegemony, but importing slaves from the Graelands was illegal. Legal slaves were costly to purchase, so any way to cut costs on a planet that was far from the wealthiest place in The Hegemony was more than welcome. Border systems like Shibato struggled to compete with the richer core systems without illegal slaves.

The officer placed the official tag on the electronic form before him, waited for the beep to signal that a copy had been logged in the database, and handed the now authorised form back to the captain. The ship captain, a woman in her early thirties, tall and thin, with shoulder-length, bootblack hair, picked up the form, rolled it up, and slipped it into her jacket. She smiled at the customs officer, her light blue eyes sparkled with a flirtatious invitation, and he smiled back. As she turned and walked away, she made sure he was mesmerised by the movement of her buttocks in her tight black leather trousers.

Only after she was out of sight would he notice that she had taken back a third of the credits.

Men are so easy, the woman observed as she pocketed the credits and returned to her ship. She knew he would not complain to the authorities. She also knew he would not be so accommodating the next time. I will just have to buy myself some tighter trousers.

The spaceport was the smallest of the four on the planet and located in a rocky desert. It saw just enough traffic to make it worthwhile for the authorities to keep it open, which for someone like Captain Hila Llyte was a good thing. Smaller ports tended to have officials willing to overlook certain things.

It wasn't a long walk back to the bay where her freighter, the Glyndwr, was docked, but the dry, hot air tickled the back of her throat and she desperately needed a drink. It looked like her parched throat would have to wait, because as she approached her ship, she saw a truck and six burly, armed men waiting for her.

One of the men started walking towards her in what he probably thought was a menacing manner. "Do ya have Mister Zerbilla's shipment?"

Hila had had many dealings with Zerbilla, but didn't recognise the man approaching her. In this business, however, employee turnover was high, and she had no interest in becoming acquainted.

He came to a halt three metres away from her. He was typical hired muscle: tall, broad shouldered, and with a face only a mother could love.

Hila squared her shoulders and stood with her arms crossed. "The reprobate couldn't make it himself, eh?"

"Huh?"

Hila smiled inwardly. The dimwit doesn't know what a reprobate is.

"Never mind. Do you have my credits?" she enquired.

A small, secured pouch was tossed at her feet. Hila glanced at the pouch, looked up at the goon and smiled.

"Tell Zerbilla I am not an idiot." She lowered her arms and kicked the pouch back. "Payment in full, or no shipment."

She heard the whine of weapons warming up. The weapons, known as IPBs, because they fired ionised plasma bolts, were the standard weaponry in the galaxy and available in various sizes and power ranges, from stun to obliterate. Those sold for non-military use within The Kalenth Hegemony were fitted with cut-off switches so that the authorities could disable them remotely.

They never learn, she thought. "If you so much as twitch a trigger finger, every automated security system in the port will kick in. The weapons will be rendered inoperative and this entire hangar will be locked down. You won't get out. The local garrison will come down on you with both boots. And Zerbilla will be terminating your employment – if you're lucky."

The head thug glanced behind him and the IPBs were powered down.

"Mister Zerbilla said half now, half when he's seen the stock," Zerbilla's man said.

Hila, being a savvy space trader, pointed to the pouch on the floor. "One: That's not half the payment. Two: I don't have time to hang around while you take the cargo away and he examines it. Three: That's not half the payment." Hila paused. "I feel that's an important point worth repeating."

The first pouch was kicked back to her and another pouch full of credits landed by its side.

"Tell Zerbilla that I'm being generous here only because I know he's good for it." She pulled out a comm unit. "Kami, open the cargo door."

"Okay," the tinny response crackled from the comm.

The ship's cargo door grumbled as it slowly opened.

As they waited for the cargo bay ramp to extend, Zerbilla's head thug made an attempt at small talk. "What cargo did you tell the customs officer it was?"

"Slaves," she replied.

The man found that amusing. Hila couldn't fathom why. It was standard procedure when bribing a customs officer to get illegal goods through to tell them it was something to which they were prepared to turn a blind eye. Strangely enough, customs officers in the border regions seemed to have no problem with the illegal kidnapping and enslavement of another sentient being, but if they found out you were smuggling food – high value, taxable food – then they either asked for more money or realised what their job was and had you arrested.

"Aren't you going to pick your money up?" asked the thug.

"Maybe later," replied Hila casually. Does this dolt think I was born yesterday?

"You should pick it up."

She wasn't about to bend over to retrieve the pouch, not for fear of attack, but she didn't want the heavy to get a look at her backside. "Why? There's no one here that's going to steal it."

With a final whine and a thump the cargo door finished opening, and the bag of money remained where it lay with no further comment.

"After you," Hila said. She followed the leader and four of the henchmen followed her into the cargo bay.

Hila directed Zerbilla's men to where the crates were located. The leader had the four well-muscled men carry them to the truck that was reversing up to the hold. Hila cast a quick glance over her shoulder at Kamina. The girl was in a darkened corner obscuring her features, only the whites of her eyes stood out, caught in an errant beam from a nearby light. But Hila didn't need to see Kamina to know what she looked like. Hila thought the girl looked like she should be anywhere but hanging around with a dodgy spacer like herself.

She was small and thin, with dark almond shaped eyes and long dark hair, that Kamina constantly let fall in her face to hide the scar on her left cheek. The scar was six years old and had faded so that it was hardly noticeable, but Kamina was still self-conscious about it. Their eyes met in the gloomy hold and Hila smiled. Even though she couldn't see her clearly, she knew that Kamina smiled in return.

"Mister Zerbilla will contact you when he is satisfied," the head thug told Hila after the truck was loaded. He walked down the ramp, jumped into the back of the truck, and shouted for the driver to go.

Once the men had left, Kamina came out of the shadows and joined Hila at the top of the ramp. The young woman was wearing a bright red sleeveless shirt with a picture of a cartoon cat-like creature emblazoned on the front, and a pair of very short, white shorts that accentuated her smooth, olive skinned legs.

"Looks like we'll be spending some time here after all," sighed Hila.

"Can we afford it?" asked Kamina.

Hila sauntered outside and picked up the two pouches of credits. "We can now."

"So what are we going to do while we wait? Go into town and see the local sights?"

"No. I am going to pay Zerbilla a little visit. I want you to stay with the ship."

"Why can't I come with you?" Kamina was not happy about being told to stay behind.

"It's not safe."

"I've been in worse places."

"Not with me, you haven't."

"You'll need back up."

"Nah, it'll be fine."

"Hila, I—"

"No! Don't argue," the older woman said firmly.

The younger woman pouted but did not answer back.

"Promise me you will stay here."

"Fine, I promise," Kamina said grudgingly.

Seeing the bright light in Kamina's face go out, made Hila feel like a mother grounding her child. Hila grabbed a large handful of credits from one of the pouches and gave the rest to Kamina. "Put this in the safe," she said softly. "I'll bring you back something nice from town."

"Don't bother!" Kamina snatched the pouches and stormed out of the hold.

Hila watched the hatch swing shut behind Kamina and cursed herself. She just didn't know how to handle the kid.

~~~~

Captain Garin Eadmon was by anyone's standards a beautiful woman, statuesque, exotic, full lips, with long hair as lustrously black as the shine on her boots. At age fifty, she felt it was time she was promoted and put in charge of a proper vessel. Her ship, Crusade, was a strike ship, and while it had seen some action, its primary function was to deliver the ground troops and get out.

She sat with Commodore Tielo Heln in a meeting room on Station 102. The commodore was an older man, with greying wisps of hair, slightly built and of average height. After sixty-five years of service, Heln was nearing retirement after what could only be described as a reasonable, rather than distinguished, military career. He had achieved the rank of Commodore, the highest rank someone of the Fethusal caste can be promoted to, through hard work and diplomatic acumen, not combat heroics. His reward was the Sword, a state of the art heavy cruiser, designed to engage enemy ships in space or bombard planets from orbit.

"Any idea what she's like?" asked Eadmon, more to hear the sound of something other than the drone of the air conditioning. During the early days of The Hegemony's expansion, the space fleet was refuelled and resupplied by a network of space stations. Over the centuries, as ships got faster and their range increased, the need for such facilities had declined to the point that there were now only a handful of ageing stations still in operation. Of those stations still active, Station 102 was the oldest. Its close proximity to Kalenth still made it strategically important as a spaceport for fleet operations. So much so that one hundred kilometres away a new station was under construction. In the meantime, four thousand military personnel and civilian support staff made do on the antiquated hub.

Eadmon hated these old stations and their humming mechanisms; it always accentuated the fact that there was no breathable atmosphere outside the windows.

Heln cast a blank look at his compatriot.

"This Aloyd Karthen?" prompted Eadmon.

"No idea. She's new."

"I know she's just out of the Elit Military Academy, but I thought you might have heard something."

"Graduated Aloyd, First-Class is all I know."

"Oh… still she's probably just another one of those over-privileged brats who knows nothing of 'real soldiering'. The Elit don't like to get their hands dirty." Eadmon had earned her Captain's bars by seeing more than her share of action on border patrol in The Hegemony's last expansion in the 1580's, and didn't relish playing nursemaid to a wet behind the ears aloyd. "First real action we see, and I bet she runs home to mummy begging for a desk job at HQ!"

"My 'mummy' is a member of the judiciary, so that will not do me any good."

Eadmon jumped to her feet, as did Commodore Heln. "Aloyd, I—"

"Don't bother apologising," interrupted Aloyd Karthen. "You meant it; do not compound the situation by lying. And you're partly right. I know little of 'real soldiering', but I will not be running away. I never run away."

"Yes, Aloyd," Eadmon replied crisply.

"Sit," Aloyd Karthen said, and all three military officers took a seat at the conference table.

"Commodore Heln, you were chosen for this assignment because of your experience in diplomacy and logistics and Captain Eadmon for your front line combat experience, and I will need to rely on that experience. I hope you'll give me your council freely, but under no circumstances will you question my orders. You may ask me for clarification of any order or express disagreement in private, but only then. Is that understood?"

Eadmon and Heln chorused their understanding.

"Likewise any comments regarding my suitability. I can and will destroy you if you impugn me in front of any of your crew."

Eadmon hadn't felt this small since she was at military college. Aloyd Karthen had issued the same warnings that other superior officers had made in the past. Only Eadmon believed that Aloyd Karthen truly meant every word.

"Down to business," Karthen announced. "We are to proceed to Gatlor where a group of subversives are trying to undermine The Hegemony's rule with a campaign of anti-Hegemony propaganda. As you are probably aware, Gatlor has been under Hegemony rule for nearly one thousand years, so the subversives are gaining very little support at the moment. Our remit is to put a stop to them before they gain any further support."

The aloyd inserted the mission data chip into a presentation console located on the conference table. The first image to appear on the screen was a sector chart of the Gatlor Star System.

"Our first task will be to determine if they are operating from a single base, and if so where it is. We can then use the Sword to neutralise the location. If they are embedded in an area where orbital bombardment would cause too much collateral damage then we send in the ground troops. Any questions?"

"What constitutes 'too much collateral damage'?" asked Heln.

"That will be for me to determine at the time."

"Do we have a starting point? A name? A location?" asked Eadmon.

Karthen looked at her for several seconds. "No," she said eventually.

"With all due respect, shouldn't we have at least that before we send two ships there?"

"It will be nine days before we arrive; by then intelligence operatives on the ground will have more information for us."

"And if they don't?" asked Heln.

"Then I will have to get my hands dirty." The aloyd paused long enough for Eadmon to squirm with embarrassment. "Commodore Heln, I will have Captain Wurth dock my ship in your secondary hangar bay. We will leave in…" she glanced at the chronometer, "two hours."

"Very good, Aloyd. I will recall those on station leave immediately."

"As will I," added Eadmon.

"I did not realise your crews were on station leave. Make it three hours."

"That's very kind of you, Aloyd," said the captain.

"Indeed," echoed the commodore.

The aloyd dismissed them without further comment.

The two career officers stood, raised their fist to the left side of their chests and offered their new aloyd a respectful salute and turned to leave.

With every step towards the door Eadmon was waiting for it. She had a foot raised and was about to step out of the door, finally thinking it wouldn't happen, when it did.

"One moment, Captain Eadmon."

Fuck, she thought. She turned slowly. "Yes, Aloyd?"

"Come here, please."

Eadmon walked back the length of the room; it suddenly seemed a lot longer.

~~~~

Kamina had sulked in her room long enough. I'm not going to just sit here like a puppy waiting for its master to return, she thought. The young woman grabbed her jacket and headed for the stairway down to the cargo deck and the crew exit.

A short taxi ride took Kamina into town. Town was over stating it; it was really just a small collection of stores, lodgings, and bars. There were very few private dwellings since only those who worked in town or at the spaceport lived here. It was run down, dirty, and for most of civilised society it wasn't exactly safe. However, for Kamina this place held no fear, in fact she felt at home.

Years ago, when she was too young to fully remember, Kamina's family was killed and she found herself on the streets of a place much worse than this. Polen City, where she was born, was two hundred square kilometres of densely packed housing and industry, and one five-year-old orphan did what she had to – stealing money or food to survive. She always managed to avoid the worst situations, unlike other street urchins who were lured with the promise of a meal and a bath and were never seen again.

Kamina looked out of the taxi window, around the dirty streets of this tiny hamlet and felt secure. There might not be that many places to hide, but she wasn't planning on stealing anything. She had always been good at getting away from bad situations, but she was always reminded of that one time, six years ago when she didn't. Kamina had seen an easy mark. The guy looked as if he didn't belong. He looked scared. He looked like a target. Kamina reasoned that if she didn't rob him, someone else would. What Kamina didn't realise was that the guy was not alone. He had a bodyguard who was out of sight. All Kamina remembered was grabbing the guy's satchel and then waking up in hospital. With only a broken arm and ribs and a slashed face, she considered herself lucky to have survived.

The taxi came to a stop and let Kamina out. She headed for the nearest bar. It was very crowded inside and she squeezed her way up to the bar and ordered a draught.

"ID," said the bartender.

Kamina pulled out her card and showed it to the bartender. He eyed it suspiciously. The ID gave her correct age, but she did look younger than her nineteen years. Kamina was used to the scrutiny her ID got.

The bartender eventually shrugged, handed the card back, and grudgingly served her what passed for ale in this backwater dive.

Kamina climbed up on a nearby stool and leaned her back against the bar. Her eyes were well-adjusted to the very dim lighting and automatically scanned the room to assess the level of risk. When she turned her head to get a look over her right shoulder, she felt her stomach muscles clench. It wasn't a menacing stranger she saw; it was Hila seated at a small table in the far corner, and she wasn't alone.

There was a woman with Hila, and she was wearing the skimpiest clothes imaginable without being naked. Hila leaned in and whispered something in the woman's ear. The woman appeared to think for a moment, then smiled and nodded. Hila gave the woman some credits and the two of them headed to a staircase, which led upstairs.

Kamina wanted to hurry after them and drag Hila back to the ship. Instead she looked down at her drink. It wasn't big enough. She downed it quickly, ordered a bottle of durmywid, a strong spirit, and headed back to the ship.

~~~~

Before the briefing with Eadmon and Heln, Kikola had reviewed the personnel files of the two officers. Eadmon's records had indicated she was sometimes in need of firm command, so Kikola took the opportunity to assert her authority. Having dismissed the commodore, she had Captain Eadmon remain.

Eadmon stood to attention. Kikola started to slowly circle behind the captain, one slow pace at a time.

There were several ways to gain control over an older subordinate officer who may resent taking orders from someone so young and inexperienced. One of them was fear. The untrained may think it would be a matter of shouting at the officer and threatening them with all manner of punishments. Not so. Kikola had learned that if you shouted loudly, you better be the loudest shouter they had ever heard. While if you kept quiet, no one could be quieter. If you told someone what you would do to them, they could be relieved if they imagined you'd do something worse. While if you said nothing, then what they imagined is what they believed you would do.

"Dismissed, Captain," Kikola said softly, causing the officer to jump slightly.

"Yes, Aloyd. Thank you, Aloyd." She saluted and quick marched out of there.

While Captain Eadmon had been standing to attention, expecting who knows what to happen, Kikola had been thinking about what she would have for breakfast.

After the briefing with Commodore Heln and Captain Eadmon, Kikola found herself with more time to kill on Station 102 than she would have liked. She was eager to get underway, but had granted the crews of the Sword and Crusade a few more hours of leave. So she decided to check in with the base commander.

The Base Commander was Aloyd, Third-Class Jacand Ciroc ap Kendai. He had been given command of the old military resupply base so he could finish his remaining two years of service and retire.

"Aloyd Karthen, it is an honour to meet you. Welcome to Station 102. I trust you had an uneventful journey."

"Yes, fine. If I can just have my transit documents authorised, I will be on my way—"

"Nonsense, you must at least stay for breakfast. It's not every day we get to entertain an Aloyd, First-Class. Besides, I want to hear the latest news from Kalenth." The base commander tapped his comm and was about to inform the kitchen when Kikola stopped him.

"I am afraid I cannot stay." She handed the base commander her data chip. "My orders are to proceed to the coordinates on this data chip with all possible speed."

The Kendai family were not the newest members of the Elit, but to the Karthens they were still yet to gain a proper heritage, and therefore proper respect. It didn't help that the Kendai family, more often than not, sided against the Karthen family in Council debates. Also the fact that Kikola, a recent graduate, outranked him, an aloyd close to retirement, only reinforced her belief in the family's inferior status.

Aloyd Kendai took the data chip and added his authorisation code. As he handed it back to Kikola, he said, "Did you know I knew your father, Strambik ap Karthen?"

"No, I didn't." Kikola was unsettled by Kendai's mention of her father but she didn't immediately stop him. It was always awkward when her father was mentioned. Strambik ap Karthen had been an ambassador to the Seconthan Republic. His ship was reported destroyed as it returned through the Graelands. Seconthan rebels, the Losper Empire, and Graeland pirates were suspected, but no one claimed responsibility and no evidence implicating anyone was discovered.

Kikola was eight years old when her father disappeared. No one in the family talked about him much after that. Kikola had sometimes wondered if he existed at all, because she could hardly remember his face. It is strange how a child copes with loss.

"Oh. Well, that was many years ago – before the Expansion Campaign of 1580," Aloyd Kendai replied sombrely. "The Hegemony lost a good man – your father."

Kikola struggled to believe that a man like Kendai could have known a man as accomplished as her father. Kikola suspected the base commander was trying to curry favour by ingratiating himself to a superior officer. The campaign of 1580, though short, saw its fair share of aloyds gain promotion. The fact that Kendai was still Third-Class, the lowest rank of aloyd, meant he had not done anything to merit a promotion in his entire sixty-eight year career in the military.

Yet, true to her academy training and her upbringing, Kikola made no other comment nor showed any emotion. She simply returned the data chip to her inside jacket pocket and left.

By the time Kikola returned from the base commander's office, the Conqueror had been brought aboard the Sword and was secured in the heavy cruiser's secondary hangar bay. At precisely 1130 hours, Kikola's command group took off from Station 102, and once they were clear of the station, Kikola gave the order to jump to light speed. There was nothing for an aloyd to do on the bridge when a ship was cruising at light speed, but Kikola stayed until the bridge crew shift change at 17:00, then she left the Sword's bridge and retired to her quarters for the evening. She had been offered a suite on the Sword, but she declined, preferring instead to reside on her personal ship, the Conqueror, while not on duty.

~~~~

From his sprawling estate on Shibato, Boran Zerbilla liked to kick back in his favourite loose-fitting casual shirt and slacks and enjoy the view from the back deck of his house. He enjoyed the view more with a cold Red Giant cocktail in his hand. The setting sun turned the rocks of the valley below a dark orange colour that matched the dark orange of his drink. He took a sip. The sweet fruit masked the taste of any alcohol, an aspect of the drink that could lead the unwary into drinking too much. He took another sip, relaxed back in his chair, and enjoyed the cool breeze that blew across the mountain peaks.

Boran had chestnut coloured hair, his chiselled features were offset by soft brown eyes and a carefully trimmed moustache that looked so natural you would swear he was born with it. He spent most days overseeing his lucrative import-export business, so he cherished these quiet moments; time alone relaxing at home was a precious commodity to the fifty-six year old businessman. Unfortunately, his serenity was disturbed when he noticed a dust trail on the road in the valley below. Since there was nowhere else to go on the road but to his estate, he knew to expect a visitor, and he had a good idea who it was.

He took another sip of his drink and waited.

"I expected you earlier," Boran said when he heard the scuffing of footsteps on the ground behind him.

"I was busy," said Hila.

"I'm sure you were," the businessman replied, as the freighter captain sat down in an empty chair next to him.

"Did my men behave themselves?"

"Other than trying to short my payment and powering up their weapons inside the spaceport, they were complete gentlemen."

"I will deal with them."

"So, have you checked the shipment?" Hila asked.

Before Boran could reply, his daughter Tana appeared. Tana was twenty-four years old. She had the same chestnut colour hair as her father, but that's where the similarity stopped. Tana had hard blue eyes and a pinched face that was always scowling, at least when Hila was around.

"Oh, it's you." Tana's voice was layered with disdain.

"Nice to see you, too, Tana," replied Hila sarcastically.

"What's she doing here?" Tana asked her father.

"Business," said Hila. "Mine. Not yours."

Tana clicked her tongue in disgust. "It's always money with you."

"Look around you. How do you think your father bought all this?"

"Come on girls," said Boran. "Play nice." For the most part he liked his daughter, but Tana disliked Hila intensely for some reason, and whenever the two got together, he felt like he had to play referee. It was not a situation he liked to be in, especially as he always seemed to be biased in Hila's favour.

Tana's scowl deepened. She 'humphed', turned on her heels, and went back inside the house.

"So, where were we?" Boran asked, relieved that the situation was over quickly.

Hila returned the conversation back to the business at hand. "The shipment – have you checked it?"

"No," he replied, "but I'm sure it's fine. I've got your money in the house. You can take it when you go."

"What's going on? You held back half the money knowing I'd come out here, and you're just going to pay me? Just like that – without even checking the cargo? Which, by the way, doesn't need checking. And since when have you ever known me to cross you?"

"Yes, I held back knowing you'd come out here. I wanted to speak to you about… about a personal matter."

"So, what personal matter did you want to see me about?" the dark haired woman asked.

Boran mentally took a deep breath, not because he was afraid of how Hila would react to what he was about to say, but how he would react. "I have a job for you, but this is not business."

"Oh? Who do you want me to kill?"

"Huh? What?" It took him a moment to process what she had said. "It's nothing like that. I need you to find someone for me, and I am willing to pay you handsomely for your trouble."

"Go on; I'm listening," the freighter captain replied.

"A few years ago, you may remember, I had a little problem with a certain business woman."

Hila nodded.

"Well," he continued, "I ended up with her slave. And before you say anything, I didn't keep her as a slave. I had to… I guess train her how to be free. Her name was Tehvay, I think you saw her around the estate a few times, but I never introduced you." His estate was large and he liked to keep his business and his private life separate from each other.

Hila's brow furrowed as she tried to recall the woman Boran was talking about. "Short. Dark hair."

"A little over average height. Blonde hair."

"Maybe. You said 'was'. Something happened?"

"Yes. About a month ago, Tehvay approached me and said she wanted to do something to repay me for helping her. Tehvay wanted to be of some use. She managed to convince me to let her go to Kalenth with Marleen to… that's not important. I got a call from Marleen saying Tehvay had been arrested as a fugitive slave."

"I'm sorry to hear that. Do you think she may have said anything about you?"

"I wouldn't be here talking to you if she had."

"No, I guess not."

"Besides, slaves can't testify. The law decrees their word is worthless. Anyway, I told Marleen to get off Kalenth as quickly as she could, but you know her, stubborn as the day is long on Jersonin. Marleen hung around to find out what would happen to Tehvay, and to both our surprise, Tehvay wasn't sentenced to…" Boran paused; he couldn't bring himself to say the word. "The expected."

"That's good news right?" Hila offered.

"It means she's alive, but where she is, I don't know. That's what I want you to find out."

"How do you expect me to do that?"

"Hila, you're the only person I know who can … who I trust to do this. I'm not asking you to make this your top priority. You'll need to be discreet and go about your usual business without arousing suspicion. Well, no more than usual. But I said I'll pay you and I'll pay you well to find her."

"Boran, I—"

"Whatever it takes. If you incur any expenses, let me know, I'll pay you double. I know you won't stiff me. Tehvay is alive, and if you do find her, report back to me immediately. If you can bring her back, you'll never need to work again."

"She really means that much to you?"

"Yes, she is like my own daughter," Boran felt his paternal concern for Tehvay swell. "When I first encountered Tehvay, she was like an innocent child in many ways. She had no concept of what the galaxy was really like. I had the responsibility of teaching her, and I failed her. The others that work for me, even Tana, I don't give a shit about them. They're in it for the money, just like you."

"No offence taken."

"The offence was meant. And you didn't let me finish. I was going to add me to the list. Make no mistake, Hila, we're not the good guys in this life. So if we can prevent one person from becoming what we are, that will go some way to address the wrongs we've done."

"There are no good guys, Boran. We're no different to anyone else."

"Oh, we are. We may not be the worst, but we're certainly not the best. And there are good guys out there. Tehvay for one."

"Give me all the intel you have, and I'll see what I can do."

Relief swept over Boran as he pulled a data chip from his pocket and handed it to Hila. "That's all I have. Thank you."

When she took the data chip, Hila gave his hand a squeeze.

"Kalenth will be a good place to start," said Boran. "Go see Pan Willam on Argos Station. She's got a cargo shipment that needs to go to Kalenth. Don't worry, it's legal."

~~~~

Hila found Kamina asleep in the cockpit with an open bottle of durmywid cradled against her chest. Hila carefully removed the bottle from Kamina's limp grasp and put it to one side.

"Give it!" Kamina muttered sleepily and held a hand out.

"No. No. You've had enough."

"Don't tell me I've had enough. You're not my boss."

"Well, technically, I am."

"Pfft, picky, picky, picky! Give it!"

"I've got something else for you."

Kamina perked up at that. She opened her eyes fully and sat up straight. "What?"

"I said I'd get you something nice. Here," she held out a small box.

Kamina snatched it and opened it. "It's beautiful." She carefully extracted a bracelet from the box and slipped it over her wrist. "Thank you!" She beamed a smile, but it suddenly faded. "Where'd you get it? There's nowhere here that sells something as nice as this."

"True. It is second hand, but—"

"It didn't belong to that prostitute did it?"

"Yes. Wait! What? How?"

"I saw you." Kamina ripped off the bracelet and threw it back at Hila. "You think I want some whore's second hand trinket."

Hila fumbled the bracelet and just managed to stop it from hitting the deck. "It's not a trinket, it's real gold."

"Shove it!" Kamina jumped out of the chair, grabbed the bottle and ran to her quarters.

Hila watched her go. She didn't like to see Kami upset, especially being the cause of it. It wasn't something a second hand bracelet was going to solve. Hila wanted to go to Kamina and hold her and tell her everything would be okay, but she would only mess it up, so she left Kamina alone and set about prepping the ship for launch.