Daltas Hold had been designed as a cheap modular, easy expandable spacestation with limited initial room for habitation and recreation. Those parts could always be added in due time as the station needed them, growing with the demand. At that time Sedina had been an exiting new system with major mining activity around Sedina IV and trade with the natives of that planet. The station manager had decided to expand heavily into cargo space and manufacturing space with the associated fusion-plants to deliver cheap power to the facilities. However, just as the facilities had been finished the tragedy of Sedina IV took place and the manager had no choice but to default on the payment of the new facilities and instead sell the remaining station to the builders to help cover cost. Thus Xang Xi came to own a station that was vastly over-powered and had immense cargo space but very little infrastructure. A quick analysis by the Octagon ensured that the station became famous, or infamous rather, for two things; Xithricite refining and the forced labour camp that provided the manpower as well as ensured a prison facility for the worst offenders of free space. None of those activities necessitated an enlargement of either the habitation or recreation modules and since Xang Xi needed to regain the lost investment, they chose to ignore the demands, enquiries and pleas of the residents instead allowing the main station to fall into a state of semi-disrepair. Rumour had it that the rust and filth was in places the only thing that held the habitation quarters together. That was probably one of the reasons that anybody that had enough money to allow them to move, had done so already.
Alex liked the place a lot. It had that particular grubbiness that allowed a man like himself to operate completely without restraints or considerations regarding public opinion or other such annoyances. The director of the station was only interest in extracting the maximum profit regardless of just about anything. Which meant that Alex and his team had free hands regarding catching the razor-killer. So far their stakeout had found nine smugglers, three rapes and eleven muggings but no razor-wielding maniac. Even if it annoyed the professional policeman that was buried deep inside of Alex, they had let the crimes happen to ensure their secrecy. His own people would need therapy after this but it was worth it if they could but catch the razor-killer. His teams stayed alert with the snatch team on a two-minute notice to move for when they found the killer. He would never know what hit him.
###
The long flowing robes that spilled all over the floor seemingly without ever hitting it, was exactly what Asteroth had expected from the former Grand Inquisitor, Master Interrogator and head of the small but powerful Serco Righteous Thinking Cabal. All these would naturally have to be thought of as prior positions by now as Ahriman seemingly had lost the power struggle within the Serco elite and been cast out. It appeared he had not been hit as hard as Asteroth though or maybe he had just planned better. The robes turned towards them as he and Silia entered the room, the hood keeping his face covered in darkness adding to the eeriness.
"Asteroth, prince of Inquisitors, so very fitting."
The voice emanating from within the hood sounded like a large wooden board dragged across a gravel road. Slow and with precise annunciation as if the speaker was having slight difficulty uttering the words, like the speech of a mentally damaged. Asteroth nodded and extended a mental greeting to Ahriman's brainpal. It was denied.
"We are not here for niceties. I need your special skills for a very secret mission. You will be well rewarded naturally. Will you accept this?"
Asteroth grinned; he would not have to sell his skills in some obscure grey space station for trinkets. At least Ahriman knew what he was able to do.
"What is it about?"
"I need you to accept before telling you. However, you will be joining a mercenary outfit I am starting up named KAOS."
"Will it have space for me only?"
"The mission, yes. If you have someone that can be trusted we can have them join KAOS."
"Sounds like a plan. I would like to invite a couple of persons. And I guess that means I accept whatever it is you want me to do."
"Excellent. Give the names to Silia and she'll set it up."
Asteroth's brainpal received an incoming signal from Ahriman containing a rather large amount of data. He entered his virtuality and received the information directly into his brainpal. He chuckled mentally, this was the kind of assignments he lived for, a deep undercover infiltration of a major guild with the exposure of its financial secrets as main goal. He ran different scenarios in his virtuality and decided on one of them, transmitted the data back to Ahriman and smiled at Silia. Three seconds had elapsed.
"I am going to need documents proving me to be Tufan Oreminer please. Native of Valent Industries. I'll send you the details along with my crew. For now I will need around five million to get my licenses up to speed as well as get a proper mining ship."
Silia handed him a cred stick and smiled back at him.
"You'll find ten million on that one. I'll have the papers ready for you in an hour."
Asteroth took the cred stick and nodded. He was going to have to alter himself somewhat and he knew just the person who would do this with no questions asked; Dr. Riviera.
###
Keria docked her Atlas X at Aeolus Trading Prefect like she would tuck in a newborn; ever gently and with loving care. She knew just how good a pilot she was; she didn't need to show off. Upon entering the dock she queried the local network and got confirmation that Rid's ship had not left the station. Perfect, just what she had hoped for. Actually she was supposed to be on-duty for another three days but a younger ONE member had asked if he could be allowed to do the Xith convoy escorting and so she had been released early. She accessed her brainpal and looked for Rid's signature while staying hidden by one of her concealment spy-programmes. The query took almost two seconds and didn't really tell her anything she couldn't have guessed if she had thought about it. He was at the "Arms of Kali" naturally and quite probably drinking while watching Death Fights from the arena in Odia Stronghold. She would go straight there and liberate him from his boredom. She highjacked a station security cam and focused on herself, using it instead of a mirror. She adjusted her long auburn hair so it didn't show that it had just been underneath a helmet for six hours straight, activated her skin-nano's that ensured a perfect make-up and zipped her suit down just a bit. She winked at the camera, relinquished control of it to the panicked security officer that was supposed to control it and headed into the station looking for her hubby, perfectly aware of the turned heads she caused along the way.
###
The two Rev C's were neck to neck outside the rundown race circuit in Sedina B-5. Azumi had suggested that they should do a race before hitting Daltas Hold, naturally with a wager attached. Retractile really needed to win this one, as he was not sure his ego could survive the consequences. Somehow Azumi had a knack of dreaming the most humiliating things up for him to do when he lost. The computer counted the seconds down to go and he instantly pushed the throttle to maximum thundering his neon blue rocketship towards the entrance and managed to enter it before Azumi. He cut the turbo and focused on piloting the narrow course avoiding the walls and remembering the layout of the maze. It was not that hard really, left, left, up, left and right and then the exit. The turn came up and he positioned his ship to turbo on the long straight area immediately behind the bend. He stroke the control and his forward dorsal nozzles fired the briefest of puff's aligning him perfectly for the turn when his craft was hit from behind by Azumi's ship. He momentarily lost control and crashed side-first into the separating wall between the two paths stopping him completely and making space for Azumi's ship to overtake him. He shouted a lengthy oath that would have caused deafness to even moderately sensitive people and hammered the turbo to catch up. She was now at least a hundred metres in front of him and it would take a small miracle for him to catch up and win this one. He boosted a bit more that he would normally and almost skirted into the wall when he had to turn but gained ten metres. Unfortunately there were only six turns left and that meant she would be winning by thirty metres. Crap. The desperation forced him to come up with a creative solution and at a time when he had to focus completely to gain on her. He remembered the loop almost near the end and a grin forced its way out onto his face through the grimace of concentration. He had one chance, one chance only. Azumi neared the junction that contained the loop and as she was about to enter the exit path Retractile fired his twin-linked Neutron guns below her ship and into the exit corridor. The pink Rev C took evasive action reflexively and entered the loop allowing Retractile to regain the lead.
"You cheat!"
He laughed out loud at the feigned outrage from Azumi as he boosted across the finish seconds before her.
"But I won."
"Crap. I'm going to have to detour to V Hold first then. Aw hell Ret, you better be there to back me up then."
"I promise I'll be right there behind you." He didn't want to miss this for the world anyway!
###
The oppressive stench of semi-rotted food, spilled alcohol and offal was enough to dissuade even the most hardened of cleaners to start clearing the mess inside the small room. For a station that was renown for its filthy living conditions, as well as its no holds barred "night" life that seemed to go on 24/7, this room was a study in filth. William didn't think of it as home, his home had been destroyed some time ago and he only came back here as a stray dog that had nowhere else to go. He collapsed onto the filthy rags that covered the stained mattress he used for sleeping. Those few hours that he actually slept, the nightmares making it almost impossible. Lying on his left side and staring into the wall, he spied a not completely empty bottle of amber liquid and grabbed for it. He didn't even bother smelling it and put the bottle to his lips, gulping the amber lukewarm liquid in large noisy swallows. When the bottle was empty he put his hand back down on the mattress still clutching it and closed his eyes. Tears kept pouring from the left eye and made a continuous streak of clean from eye to ear but not a sound was heard from him. Eventually he drifted off to semi-sleep but the tears kept flowing, his madness and guilt manifested in that seemingly innocent way. Someone was going to die soon.
