Chapter 2

I woke the next morning, according to the day/night cycle of the station, feeling refreshed. After I showered and dressed, I left the small room I’d rented and walked through the nearby marketplace to find something to eat before I went back to the Guild. Most food onboard ship is cryo-stored, and it steals some of the taste, no matter what they say, so I always ate local when I could. A bowl of fruit and something that resembled chicken eggs and sausage would see me through the morning.

While I was eating, I could feel someone watching me. Strong thoughts, remember? Someone was focusing on me, staring intently at me, and I was picking up on the fringes of it. I glanced around, looking around the small diner I was in and saw nothing out of the ordinary. Some people were dressed like me, some in casual clothes, and some in station uniforms but none of them were paying particular attention to me, so I finished my meal, paid and headed out.

On the walk back to the Trading Guild, my comms device pinged. It was built into the arm of my envirosuit, and I had a small earpiece implanted just behind my ear, probably the most common implant these days. I flexed my jaw to activate it and spoke softly. The implant would pick it up and enhance it for the caller. “Garrick.”

“Captain Garrick, this is Madam Victoire at the Slaver’s Guild. We’ve finished our assessment of our recent acquisitions and wanted to share them with you.”

“This is a bit unusual Madam. I’ve given many people over to the Guild and never had a follow up call,” I remarked with an amused tone.

“This is an unusual circumstance, Captain. Our in-house telepath has confirmed your story from reconstructed memories. Renae Valsa, the red-haired young woman, has returned a long list of suspected crimes, and her genetic link has closed several case files, including two which come with sizable rewards. Ms. Valsa is also a month pregnant, and given the timing, the child is certainly yours.”

I rolled my eyes and paused to lean against a post in the corridor, my eyes sweeping up and down the crowd. I was still being watched, stronger now, but only one mind. “I assume her being pregnant is the reason for the call?”

“One reason, yes. As you know, once she became property of the Guild, she lost her basic rights, and thus the fetus is yours if you want it. If not, the Guild will attend to her until she gives birth and either adopt out the child or raise it within the Guild.”

“Madam, I am revoking my claim to the unborn child.”

“Very well Captain, your revocation has been noted. Now, Rhonda Horn, the blonde, has had her genetic code come up in a few smaller crimes, but one of which was associated with Ms Valsa and has an attached reward,” Victoire purred in my ear, and then named a large sum of money. “That is the total of the rewards, minus the Guilds percentage for handling the administrative fees for the two young women.”

“Thank you, Madam. Please forward the credits to my listed Guild account. Also, should the child have any telepathic talent, I understand that legally the Guild is required to notify me, but I would appreciate that notification being accomplished ... silently.”

“Of course, Captain Garrick. Enjoy your stay and thank you for your partisanship.” The call went dead, and I moved off again. This time, I ducked into a corridor that led to a transport tube and picked up the pace. I needed to identify the person watching me, but it was too noisy to do that telepathically. That was a problem with telepathy. Crowds are so full of people that it creates a white noise that can blank out a lot of other thoughts, which says something about how hard this person was watching me. And if they had any telepathy at all, they would feel it if I went looking for them.

The tube arrived, and I stepped in, naming the level with the Transport Guild. Several other people crowded in with me, rattling off various levels before the doors closed. It took two or three minutes to get to my level, and when I got off, three people got off with me. Two peeled off at the main corridor, heading in the opposite direction, but one didn’t. I grinned to myself. This girl didn’t have the skills to be a good tail. Surveillance and countersurveillance took time and effort to learn, and she hadn’t done either. I made it to the Guild and checked in with a board that gave me a view outside. The girl was leaning against the wall across the street, looking bored and never looking directly at the door to the Guild. She was definitely an Aerian and dressed fairly casually, in a black mesh top and bra that cupped her small perky breasts, giving beautiful contrast to her pale skin, and a pair of pants so tight they looked painted on, tucked into knee high boots with a low heel. Her hair was short, and a brilliant red, and even from this distance I could see she had green eyes, uncommon for her people.

I reached out to her, and gently brushed her thoughts, what we tepes call a surface scan. You’d be surprised at how much information is floating around in our thought’s day by day. That surface scan gave me quite a bit of information about her. Information like her name, Cyan Veldt, her age, 24, and the fact that she was a member of the Orion Syndicate. The Orion Syndicate, I knew from past experience, was a tight-knit criminal organization that was primarily run from within the Orion Nebula. That it had cropped up here was interesting, and potentially dangerous, but I brushed that off and focused on my tail. I knew now she wasn’t a telepath, so I probed a bit deeper, no longer curious but now worried about why she was following me.

It didn’t take much to find out. She was running this damned issue over and over in her head. The Syndicate was planning on pulling a heist of some kind on the station, and needed a newly arrive low crew ship. Somehow, they’d chosen Shadowhawk for it, and her job was to tail me until they were sure I was alone, and then call-in backup to kidnap me. After the job, they’d use Shadowhawk to transport their haul, along with whatever cargo I had aboard, back to a Syndicate ship and likely dispose of me.

I drew back from her mind and put my attention to the display board. I had a contract in place already to move raw materials from Vandar to Earth and that was in three months. So, I was looking for a cargo to move from here to Vandar. I checked my Guild account, and true to his word, the Guild Rep had ear marked a few cargos for me, one marked urgent. Medical supplies from Aeria to Vandar, urgent departure, within the next two days. The load itself was light, and the pay was good, so I signed up for it. Aeria to Vandar would be almost two months of travel, and Vandar was an easy place to find a way to kill a month. I tagged the contract and went through the tedious process of the paperwork to accept it. Thankfully, this stuff was automated, and within thirty minutes I had made the arrangements to have everything loaded in the forward cargo bay once the current load was out and scheduled my departure for noon tomorrow.