The security guard finished sweeping the air duct and hand-signalled the all-clear signal to his buddy. They had been as thorough as always, sweeping every nook and cranny in the air ventilation system before coming up to the large re-flux machine entrance. If the assault team had gone through there, they were probably better off than what the security team could handle anyway. The grills hadn't been tampered with anyway and so it seemed that his team had been sent on a wild goose chase.
On his hands and knees he started for the nearest exit and carefully unscrewed the safety bolts that kept the heavy grill in place. He made space for his buddy who dropped down into the corridor and immediately crouched down to provide perimeter security. The guard reached down through the hole and fastened his abseiling wire to the two hooks beneath the hole before letting himself drop through it. The wires arrested his fall and allowed him to put the grill back into position. He twisted upright and held the handhold on the grill while regaining his wires. He motioned for his buddy to move with him and together they moved towards the launch bay. The security guard thumbed his comms unit.
"APIG lead this is Lead two. Finished checking air vent. All clear, returning to bay."
No reply. He frowned at checked the cable running from his helmet to the radio and found it still attached. He switched to the intercom channel and thumbed the comms unit again.
"Chela, do you read?"
"Yeah, five by five."
Chela's deep voice boomed through ensuring him that his radio worked.
"Roger. I have some comms problems with APIG lead. Can you try to reach him?"
Chela showed a thumbs-up and pressed his radio. He sat still for 20 seconds and then pressed his radio again.
"No joy Hartog. I can get command though so no fault on our end."
Hartog stood still for a couple of seconds while thinking the situation through. The last time he had heard from the commander had been at the launch bay. Something must have happened in the bay that had silenced the commander’s comms. He switched to the command net and thumbed the unit.
"APIG central, this is Lead two. Requesting posit on APIG lead asap. Priority Zulu."
"Roger, stand by for location data."
Hartog's tactical map gained a single arrow to the left side of his display. Frowning he zoomed out on the schematic overlay and found the location behind them in the commercial area. Hartog frowned even more as he thought the situation through. The dot was unmoving which in itself was wrong. And why would Lex be in the commercial area without their captive? He reached a decision.
"APIG central, this is Lead two. Requesting voice ident to confirm message at end. New orders. I have reason to believe that APIG lead is incapacitated. Send immediate medical response team and assault teams two and three to the location of APIG lead now. Full alert on reserve teams nine and ten, to rendezvous with me in launch bay B. Until relieved I will take command. Awaiting voice ident."
A circle of red light appeared in his view with a green stripe that slowly and clockwise moved across the circle leaving green light in its wake. After three seconds the circle had turned green and the voice ident was complete.
"Roger that Lead two. I have tried reaching APIG lead but no joy on that. For now we'll go along with your plan."
Hartog grinned and motioned to Chela to follow him down the corridor.
###
Cat smiled at the sight of Corvus Hold and the destination of the convoy. The two Viper ships had apparently scouted ahead regardless of her assurances and they flew slowly past the guard Vultures. The trade ships of the convoy carefully approached the docking bays and one by one disappeared inside. Lastly, Cat docked her Vulture as well and relaxed for the first time since Helios. The impressive bulk of the lead trader appeared next to her ship with a bemused look on his face. She popped the cockpit and was immediately assailed by the loud noises of ships being unloaded, cargo being handled and people. Many people.
"You did skit-bra today."
Seeing Cat's puzzled look he grinned a toothy grin and shook his head.
"Good, I mean good. Sometimes I slip into my mothers tongue is all. I have your payment here along with a recommendation for you."
Cat grinned back and jumped out of the cockpit to accept the crystal memstore as well as a credstick.
"Thank you Captain Olsen. I couldn't have done it without the help of those Vipers though so I feel that at least some of the rewards should go to them."
"Already done skatter. They got the share of the other pilots. This is for you alone. By the way, if you fancy, I have a couple of young bucks flying as gunners that asked if you wanted to celebrate the safe travels with them later?"
Cat felt a blush start up and immediately killed it via her brainpal. The grin on her face was, however, harder to conceal.
"I am flattered Captain Olsen, but I am expected back in Helios as fast as possible. Some other time maybe."
He winked and nodded at her as farewell greeting and left for his battle scared Behemoth to supervise offloading. Cat pocketed the two crystals and got into the cockpit once more. She was due to report in back at KAOS HQ in about an hour from now so while it could be fun she was actually rather late. Ah well, maybe she would run into Riddik tonight, that would be fun.
###
Azumi rummaged around in the locker for a bit before finding what she had been looking for. With a yell of victory she grabbed the old flight suit and brought it to her face while smelling it. Ew, absolutely horrible. She tossed it back and gave up. She looked over at Tramshed who was slowly drinking a bottle of lukewarm ale that he had found a crate of somewhere inside his ship, one eye half closed and left foot stamping out some tune that he played out inside his head. The other hand cradled a stunner that pointed at the pathetic bunch of soiled rags on the ground. The single wide-open eye of the figure caught her attention, the raving madness showing like a beacon craving for help. Tramshed tossed the empty bottle at William who merely received the blow without noticing.
"Trammie, I wish you wouldn't do that."
"Oh yeah? Why? What makes him that interesting then, is he your newest kick or something?"
Azumi walked over to the crates next to Tramshed and accepted a lukewarm ale from the by now almost empty crate. She twisted her face by the horrible smell and taste of the ale but drank it anyway before dumping herself next to Tramshed.
"I don't know Trammie. But it is like he knows me or something. He keeps on calling me Janice although that is not my name."
"What is your name then?"
Azumi looked at Tramshed with mock horror painted in her face.
"You didn't!"
Tramshed smiled and sipped some more beer, eyes half-closed. Azumi punched his shoulder playfully and nestled back into the seat.
"Point is that I knew a Janice a long time ago."
Tramshed lifted his brow and looked sideways at Azumi but keeping the bottle at his lips, afraid at spoiling the moment.
"And while I thought I had left her along with the memories of her a long time ago, they just re-surfaced with a vengeance."
Tramshed waited patiently but Azumi said nothing more. He finished the bottle and almost tossed it at William but instead tossed it further and grabbed a new one.
"Wanna go see what's in the Wraith?"
Azumi grinned and got up.
"Yeah, let's see what I liberated."
###
Retractile saw the ass of Hortan's Behemoth as it docked with Daltas Hold, and tore past the station on a course for open space. He smiled inside the helmet at the last message he had sent to the hippie-miner and the effect it had had. He imagined what would have happened if Hortan had hammered his Behemoth into the fighter recovery bay. Now that would have been spectacular indeed. Besides tearing half of the bay apart it would undoubtedly have resulted in Hortan being put in prison by station security. That would have been excellent, two TGFT members in Xang Xi prison and all because of Retractile.
Earlier, Retractile had walked out of the corridor into the station's commercial centre without anyone challenging him. The armoured bulk of the assault suit had however been the definition of non-subtlety and he had dumped it near a noodle vendor. He had kept the ship ID chip he had found in one of the side pockets along with the sidearm. Now he just needed to find a cargo handler booth and get the cargo transferred to his own ship instead.
He had just finished transferring the six crates of Verasi Champagne that were in the cargo hold, when he saw John Eldritch stagger towards the launch bay that Retractile has just exited. Ret had grinned as he thought about what Azumi would have done and then decided to do it himself instead. He had walked over to John and timed his movements in such a way that John stumbled into Retractile who at that point dumped the stolen ship ID into John's pocket. Retractile had shoved John away and started shouting.
"Why did you walk into me like that? And without offering an apology? Who do you think you are, some kind of TGFT member?"
John had looked at him without comprehending what was being said and with a large smile on his face.
"Or did you bump into me on purpose? To steal my purse?"
Retractile had started searching elaborately for his non-existent purse while shouting at John. A set of guards had materialised and requested ID, which Retractile had promptly delivered. John, however, could not find his instead providing the guards with an ID that came up as Alex Hartron. Retractile had been hard pressed not to burst out laughing while the guards had taken John away for interrogation.
And now he just had to return to CLM HQ with this cargo of victory champagne to celebrate the best payment on a wager that he ever had received. A pirate’s life was good indeed!
