Chapter 16: Chapter 30: Adjustments

The glass doors of the Port Authority Customs station parted. Cutter and Bloek stepped into the pristine lobby and surveyed the seemingly endless row of service stations. Each was encased in clear glass with doors on either side of the countertop for privacy. A simple bot attendant sat on one side, while a visibly annoyed sentient stood opposite them.

The customers’ irritation was the standard emotional response to a Customs visit. The only reason to be at Customs was to pay some sort of fine or fee, file expensive forms, or retrieve stolen property that had been stripped clean or damaged beyond repair.

“I’ll handle it. Keep watch,” Cutter said to Bloek, then walked toward the service area. He skimmed the edge of the maze-like waist-high barriers of the service queue and approached a station with a freshly departed customer. He stepped to the counter, then heard a screech behind him. “Stupid Human, there is a service queue.”

It was the smell that Cutter noticed first. A whiff of unpleasant sourness that turned his nose, then squeezed the air from his lungs in a paralyzing crush of deep-rooted fear.

He turned to view the aggrieved individual, the simple movement seeming to take forever. He knew what he would find waiting for him, but still held a sliver of hope that he was mistaken.

He completed his turn and saw he was not.

A small brood of Gyhera stared up at him. They wore lightweight utilities over their fleshy bodies, exposing only their fur-covered heads and hands. The brood leader, the biggest female, stepped closer in a gesture of domination. Cutter had the capability to kill her with one well-placed punch to the head. But all he could do was stare at what haunted his dreams for years. The last time he’d been this close to a Gyhera, they were hunting him—

“Sir, there is a service queue.”

The voice of the attendant snapped Cutter out of his paralysis. He registered control of his body, noticing his hand had slid to the center of his chest. He lowered his arm and faced the bot. “I’m here to bail out my associate.”

“Please return to the back of the line and wait until you are called to a service station,” the bot said. Its vaguely oval head sported simple optics and a light-ringed speaker for a mouth.

The Gyhera screeched at him again. “Stupid Human, we told you.”

Cutter swallowed hard, ignoring her. “The detention of my associate is holding up our contract work. I need him released now.”

“There is a queue—”

Cutter held up a hand. “I’m not going to the back of the line. If you’re not going to help me, then call for the commander on duty.”

“The commander has indicated she is already on the way down. You may wait for her at the end station,” the bot said, and pointed a thin arm toward the far end of the row of stations.

Cutter nodded and stepped away from the station. The brood leader snapped her teeth at him. He clenched his fists and kept walking, not daring to look back.

He stepped to the bot-less counter at the last station and waited. Lift doors parted on the wall a few meters away. Out stepped a familiar woman in a crisp Port Authority uniform. She marched to the station, her face holding a professional humorless expression. Once inside, she tapped on her panel, shutting the doors on either side.

“We meet in the flesh,” Commander Severion said. “Was I not clear when I told you and your recovery agent friends to leave the habitat?”

“We were on our way to our ship,” Cutter said. He thought Severion held a more intimidating presence in the flesh. With his body still buzzing from the encounter with the Gyhera, he wiggled his fingers to focus on the moment.

“I’ve got you on security streams roaming the commercial district. Then your associate, Mr. Parr, runs into a brawl by the docks and meets the wrong end of a stunner. So either he’s a hothead, or he was after somebody in that pile of bodies.”

“There’s a lot of altered folk walking around this time of night. Stuff happens.”

“Parr won’t talk either,” Severion said. Her head tilted slightly. “I didn’t think big-shot recovery agents worked together.”

“It’s uncommon, but some contracts require a particular combination of skills.”

“And you still don’t want to share any information about your contract?”

“Like I said, I cannot disclose any information.”

Severion’s mouth tightened. Cutter could see her working through different angles.

“You’re here because you want your friend out. That’s not going to happen. Here’s why. I’ve got a nice big file of misdemeanors against him. I’d expect a judge to boost some to more serious charges. Like assault and interfering with security operations. I would be pretty dumb to pass up the nice pile of cred coming our way.”

“You need to release him for your own benefit. For our berth. Ships are lined up in a holding pattern. It’s going to be a mess in short order unless you get things moving soon.” He kept his tone neutral. He had the advantage. Rubbing it in her face wouldn’t do anything to improve his chances of getting Parr released.

“That is true. But I’ve got enough time to make it to morning and put him before a judge.”

“Or I can pay the fines now and leave immediately. It’ll save you the trouble of filing the report, free up a pad immediately, and get you the cred you want.”

Her eyebrows arched a bit. “You’re going to pay all the fines?”

“It’s coming out of Parr’s share. He won’t be very happy about that, I assure you.”

Severion’s fingers rapped atop the counter. “It’s a deal.” She opened Parr’s arrest report on the display.

Cutter shifted on his feet and said, “I’d also like to ask one other favor. As a professional courtesy.” Her bemused expression foretold the scathing “no” he was about to receive. “Could you share the names and ships of the individuals listed on the arrest report?”

“I thought you couldn’t share any details about your contract?”

Cutter said nothing. He was not interested in word games.

“The answer is no. This isn’t the fucking tourism center. That’s confidential information. I don’t need your hothead friend going after them and starting another fight. Besides, I already booted the instigators off the habitat. They’re long gone.”

“Worth a shot,” Cutter said, noting that fact. “I’ll get out of your way now.”

“Good. What’s your bay number and pad for your ship?” Cutter relayed the information. Severion opened the docking bay hub on the display and cleared the pad for departure. Then she pointed to the other end of the lobby. “Processing is over there. Your friend will be out shortly, but I’m not returning his weapons and gear to him. A bot will deliver them to your ship. He can play commando when he gets off my habitat.” Cutter nodded. Severion leaned forward on the counter. “I expect you to go straight to your ship and wait for clearance to depart. No excuses, no tricks. I’ll be watching.”

“You won’t see us again.”

“I better not,” Severion said, and opened the doors on either side.

Cutter left the station, taking the long way to avoid the Gyhera brood, and headed to Processing at the far end of the lobby. Bloek came alongside him. “Nothing to report. What’s the deal with Parr?”

Cutter didn’t answer, his mind stuck in a loop replaying the unexpected encounter with the Gyhera. The spine-tingling fear had dissolved, replaced by an unsettled lump of angst. He shouldn’t have frozen up. He was better than that. All those years of training, all those successful contracts. Even the bit of therapy he went to. He thought it’d been enough. Looks like it wasn’t, as the therapist had stated in their last meeting. “They’re releasing him now,” he finally said. “Unfortunately, the ship in that bay already departed.”

“I saw those Gyhera back there. Nasty little fur balls. If I was the Commonwealth, I wound’t have approved them to roam the galaxy.”

There were so many things Cutter wanted to say, but in the end, he chose silence.

“Back to the task at hand,” Bloek said, “Maybe we can review the sensor logs from the Pursuit and figure out which ship it is.”

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“Worth a shot, but there’s a lot of traffic. Will be hard to sort through it all without an exact departure time. We know the ship is heading back to the Depot, but we don’t know if the kid is on it.”

“Parr will know more.”

“He better,” Cutter said as they entered Processing.

---

The Praxa Prime habitat faded from view in the aft cam stream as the Stardancer pass over the far side of the planet. Its lone moon Praxum loomed ahead, dull gray and lifeless. Tiny specks of light drifted between the twinkling stars beside the celestial body—freighters coming and going to the Depot with their loads of life essentials, materials, and luxury goods. One speck grew into a blip visible to the naked eye.

Gaius kicked back in his pilot’s chair. He observed the approaching freighter. “Must be a nice life, hauling back and forth to Prime.”

“Maybe we’ll find out,” Dash said, and relayed the private message Severion had given him before the Stardancer had departed.

“You let Fletcher know that so he can get us another gig. He owes us. When are you going to talk to him?”

“When we’re back at the Depot.” Dash doubted the broker was at fault for what went down, but he needed to know for sure. The zero profit after factoring in the expenses to escape and loss of the contract was a real setback.

“Good thinking. Then he can’t avoid you,” Gaius said. “Wonder if Milia regrets coming aboard now.”

“Everyone’s still raw about what happened, but we made it out of there in one piece. We’re on the right path. We stick to the plan. Things will work out,” Dash said. He believed it to be true, but had kept the backpack with him since coming onboard. He wasn’t perfectly conformable handing her undeclared weapon back to her in an agitated state.

The bridge hatch opened. Wesley stepped in. He wore a clean set of his medtech utilities. He said, “The crew appears to have dispersed for the evening.”

“Good. Let them sleep it off,” Dash said. “I know you wanted to volunteer for duty at the protest. I’ll do what I can to accommodate that in the future.”

Wesley shrugged. “It wasn’t your fault. And there will always be people in need. I can always volunteer at a local Holy Church congregation.”

“You’re telling me you’re still doing this whole missionary thing after witnessing their hypocrisy?” Gaius said.

“My faith is not built upon institutions or figureheads. It is nourished through a relationship with the Lords themselves, and by enacting their tenets to the betterment of all sentient life.”

Gaius crossed his arms. “So you’re letting them off the hook then?”

“Give him a break,” Dash said to his pilot.

“It’s fine, Captain,” Wesley said. “Holy Church leaders smuggling forbidden Earth artifacts. Dueling hit squads. The galaxy’s gone mad, hasn’t it? No one is perfect. I don’t condone Armin’s actions, but I also don’t know the motivation. Someday, he will face the consequences, whatever they may be.”

Gaius said, “Speaking of consequences, I feel like since my Galaxy Battles event was work related, I’m owed a makeup.”

“You had an all-expenses paid bus haul you around the city with your fan club,” Dash said.

“I couldn’t enjoy myself in that mental state. Plus the ops crew was there. Their lack of enthusiasm was draining.”

“From the live stream, the only thing they were draining was the open bar,” Dash said.

“Do I need to provide mediation here?” Wesley asked.

Both Dash and Gaius responded with an emphatic, “No!”

Dash muttered to himself, then said to Gaius, “I will try to accommodate a time for an event. But I need you to get those points off your license so we can save some creds there.”

“About that,” Gaius said. Dash crossed his arms, waiting for the deluge of excuses. “I took the test. I failed by one point, but I challenged the answer to one of the questions. I’m waiting to hear back on the verdict. I’m pretty sure they’ll agree with me.”

“I eagerly await the result,” Dash said.

Wesley held up his datapad. “I have some good news. I took the liberty of reviewing Tinker’s latest diagnostic report. I’m seeing a two percent uptick in system efficiency, decreasing its average core temperature enough to not require a heat sink upgrade. That should save several hundred creds.”

“That’s a relief. It always seems to get screwed up every time there’s some system update,” Dash said. “Nice work.”

“It’s been acting a bit weird in my opinion,” Gaius said. “And hogging all the ship’s shared resources.”

“What do you need extra capacity for? Are you hosting Galaxy Battles on the ship’s system again?”

“Let’s not change the subject from Tinker. There’s also the matter of the waste spill. I think it had something to do with that.”

“That was strange,” Dash said. “But the bot is working better. We need it to keep the ship running.” The ship’s hub notified him that the latest open contract list had been updated. “Why don’t you two catch some sleep? I’ll take first watch. I can’t sleep right now, and need to think about our next move anyway.”

“Fine by me,” Gaius said, and yawned at the mention of sleep. “I say we stop doing jobs involving favors.”

“Noted.” Gaius left, but Wesley remained behind. Dash said, “You got something else?”

Wesley stood in front of Dash, gripping his datapad with a nervous edge.

“Just spit it out already.”

“The brawl captain—”

Dash held up a hand to silence him. “I know. Look, I’m sorry. I couldn’t loop you in ahead of time. I needed genuine reactions from everyone involved. It was a bad situation, and that’s the best I could come up with.”

“I understand, Captain.”

“Get some rest.”

“I will,” Wesley said. There was a hesitation in his voice, like the answer still wasn’t good enough. But he left Dash alone on the bridge.

Dash reclined in his chair, watching the main display. The Stardancer’s icon moved at a crawl toward Praxum Depot. They would arrive in a few hours. 

Out of habit, he reached for his flask. He caught himself and drank water instead. Then he opened the Praxum Depot contract list on the main display, and went to work.

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