Sergei Ozhiganovich

It had been in a dingy cantina in Embluundy Ura on Nuunda III. Certainly somewhere he had been familiar with, though he wasn’t so sure about the man with him, Ilmek Varmalki. Oh he had thrown on a long jacket made of local hide to try to blend in, even added one of the floppy hats they liked to wear. But he was too well groomed, both in appearance beyond the obvious and in manner. Everything about him spoke of refinement. There was no mistaking the fact that he didn’t belong here. Not in this tavern, not in this town, not on this planet. He was a Core Worlder through and through. Which meant his looking him up was suspect on it’s face.

“I make sitting now,” the Tatorov native declared stiffly shuffling into the dark corner booth with the aid of his walking stick. Fortunately for the tall man, the enclosure was roomy. He could sit comfortably. He waited for the android delivering their beverages to depart before continuing. “You make talking now. You say me why you make ‘Hello Sergei’”

“Mr. Ozhiganovich, I am told you are a procurer of many things,” the oiled man began somewhat hesitantly. “Some of which are easy to find, some of which are more difficult.”

“Who say you this?” he questioned stroking his thick russet beard.

“Let’s just say that your reputation precedes you,” he squinted before sipping his Florek Wine. “I’ve been assured that you are good at what you do. You’re a fine merchant who can be discreet when he needs to be, though somewhat of a character at others.”

“Is all nice wordings,” he dismissed adjusting his Kufi, quaffing the Ulmawg in front of him and then pouring another glass. “You not make 10,000 credit to say me nice wordings.”

“No, no I did not,” he agreed with a quick glance around to see if any lurked nearby. “My sources tell me that you are a smuggler of many things, including other life forms,” he then spelled out dropping the pretense.

“I maybe make this, I maybe not,” Ozhiganovich returned noncommittally. A ping in his ear sounded

then. “Moment”

“He’s Grey Ghost, Comrade,” came the Tatorov voice in his earcom. “They like to use cutouts. Keep their hands clean. Watch your ass.”

He took another drink of the alcohol to buy a bit of time. He could always count on Mikhail to find out what others were hiding quickly. He knew all of the tricks and they had served together back in the day.

“You still not say me why you make ‘Hello Sergei’” he challenged analytically.

Varmalki pulled a datapad out from his overcoat and pushed it across the table. On it was a picture on a brown haired man about 35 years old in a lab jacket. “This is Dr. Arvyx Barska. He is a wanted war criminal and is accused of military experimentation on behalf of the Hadgra ‘kluush. While he is of some import to my benefactors, the reason they want to hire you is to recover these two,” he continued swiping to a pair of children not quite in their teens by the Tatorov’s estimation. “Their names are Jurlem and Zembi. They are his prized test subjects. What he has done with them can be reversed but only if they are returned to the facilities he kidnapped them from in the next month. We know where they are, but my benefactors also know we could never get close to them. That’s where you come in. We’ll pay you 400,000 credits to return them safely to us, 600,000 if you bring us the doctor as well.”

“1200 Comrade. 400, you make me now. AnonoCred. Blackbox,” Sergei countered refilling his glass. “Or I make walking.”

“Done,” the mercenary agreed sliding the datapad all the way across before removing a small device from his pocket, tapping it on his own wristdigi, making a transfer, and handing it over. “Their location is in there as well as our rendezvous point once you have them and a way to contact me to arrange the exchange. I’ve set it up so that once you enter an access code only that code will be able to access the information on this.”

“Is good,” the trader concurred accepting the pad. “You make walking now. I make sitting, go little bit.”

“I take my leave. Good hunting Ozhiganovich,” the dark haired man bade as he stood, surreptitiously sniffed his jacket, and strode out of the cantina.

That had been too quick the smuggler estimated. He could have asked for more. “Mikhail, are you there Comrade?” he asked in Tatarov through his subdermal mic while typing in an access code.

“Da Sergei,” came the answering voice.

“I need you to dig into this datapad and find out all you can on the three people on it, our friend Varmalki, and who hired him. Remove all the tracers and beacons he left in it and backtrack the contact. Do the same to him. I want to know where he is at all times. Use the code I’ll send you. It is the only one that will work on it.”

“A case of Ulmawg?” the hacker bargained.

“Two Comrade, two.”

By the time he was approaching the Surjulac system he had heard back from Mikhail. It was as the former Howling Wolf suspected. Varmalki had not told him everything. He had not told him half of it. The facilitator had been hired by a biotech lab on Tampris II. This would not have raised any flags in and of itself but for the fact that his brother in arms traced their ownership back to CyberGen, known by those in his trade as the producer of goods both expensive and illegal. Yuri had taken a position with them after he had mustered out. He had not spoken with the medic in a while but from what others told him he had not been happy with the research there and left as soon as he could. According to what he was reading, this Dr. Barska had raised concerns of a similar nature himself before fleeing. The ‘test subjects’ were actually the doctor’s own children. The idea was to hold them in order to guarantee the scientist’s cooperation. Everything about this was beginning to have an odor to it. “Lucky I got what I could up front.”

Now that he knew who was really after the researcher, Sergei knew the choice the man had made for a bolt hole was a bad one. If CyberGen couldn’t send people to get these three, they certainly had friends that could. They didn’t need to contract a Grey Ghost to go out and find someone like him. The planet was by no means a military stronghold nor had he been difficult to find on it. It had only taken Pyotr three days to catch up to him once he had landed a week before he did. He had his eye on them when the Zeleznyy Kazak touched ground on Surjulac V.

“Comrade Ozhiganovich,” the man with the angular, pockmarked face dressed in a leather bomber jacket greeted in Tatarov as the taller thump-shuffled down the loading ramp.

“Pyotr,” he smiled warmly allowing himself to be embraced and kissed on each cheek. Wearing his armoured plaskin long jacket and ever present kufi, the smuggler had a large thermos on a strap over one shoulder and trader’s satchel slung over the other. These items were as much a part of him as the cane he had used for years. The last he had to have made for him. Nothing he saw in the shops had a grip that felt comfortable in his large hands. He finally had to have a ball pommel specially machined about the size of an orange from plasteel. It bore his weight well. He had not been without it since.

“Vladislav! Vladislav Red Corner!” he exclaimed seeing a third massive figure emerge from the shadows behind his friend. It was not totally unexpected, the two ex-security officers could be found together more often than not, but it was a welcome sight under any circumstances. As tall as the trader was, he was dwarfed by the new arrival who had three inches in height, not to mention a body chiseled from marble, and a thick dark forkbeard nearly twice the length of his own. “It’s been a while,” he grinned greeting the second like the first. “How has it been in the ring?”

“I don’t fight as much professionally anymore Comrade,” the baritone voiced bare knuckle boxer reported. “But I win more than I lose. I manage fighters now. I have five in the stable I like. Always on the lookout for more talent.”

“We must talk more of this later,” he promised, “over Ulmawg.”

“Sergei? The problem?” the ex-officer reminded.

“What did you say his name was,” he asked leaning on his cane.

“Braegur,” the thin man replied, “Braegur Mulz. He’s been bullying the local law enforcement up on the second moon. He has a ship, he’s in your line of work.”

“I’ve never heard of him,” the red bearded man shrugged.

“Well, from what I can gather, when the doctor arrived on Surjulac V, he and the kids were immediately bundled up and taken up there,” he explained. “I asked Mikhail to monitor communications coming and going. He told me one was sent to CyberGen two days ago. They replied a couple hours ago. You have competition, Comrade.”

“And he tries to cut out the middle man that they put in place to keep their name out of it,” Ozhiganovich added shaking his head. “Not smart.”

“So we cut a deal,” the huge man offered.

“Da, Comrade. We cut a deal.”