Jane
The place was literally crawling with bugs. Okay, it figurative but her skin was definitely beginning to itch. The scanner had marked fifty-six different devices and she had only scanned the first room. There were way too many to attempt removal. She could only hope that they were all Bistran models, trying to find the last little way to suck their client dry.
That host was a skeezeball. If they had been in any other location, she would have broken all four of his touchy little hands.
“Ya’ll are clever, I’ll admit that. But I have something you probably haven’t thought of,” Jane said aloud, knowing that she was being monitored.
Jane reached into her bag and pulled out a small audio device about the size of a playing card. It had become very popular on Earth when it had arrived and she had gotten one from her brother. He had loaded it with all of his favorite songs, mostly as a joke. He was very fond of death metal.
Jane turned it on and cranked the volume. It could hardly be called music. It was screeching, drum pounding, and someone mangling a guitar. It was ear piercing loud, and anyone forced to listen to that was going to regret it. Jane was probably just torturing some poor data tech in the factory somewhere, but she got a certain satisfaction when she stepped outside the door and closed it behind her. The music faded behind her. The room was also completely soundproof. That was a good little tidbit to know.
Magically, Krex appeared in the hallway before her.
“How might I assist you today?” he asked.
“First of all, stay four feet away from me at all times,” Jane growled.
Krex took a step back. “Perhaps I might-”
“Look, dude, you’re upselling the wrong girl. Her highness, Princess Sunshine or whatever, has all the cash. I’m just the hired help.”
“Oh, well, if you are looking for a deal on the side, I have been informed that your species is called Terran?”
“And?”
“Terrans are rather rare in these parts. We have several customers who, shall we say, are interested in experiencing other species. I would be quite happy to make the appropriate introductions, for a small fee, of course.”
Jane looked down at him, resisting the urge to haul off and punch him right there. Was he really offering to pimp her out to some assholes who wanted to put a notch in their bedposts? She would definitely only be interested in discovering the location of his genitalia so that she could kick him where it hurts.
“That’s a hard pass for me.”
“It is quite a lot of credits.”
“Let me tell you something about Terrans. First of all, we are somewhat on the prudish side. Secondly, you don’t ask a lady to sell herself unless you are in the mood to lose one of your hands.”
“So sorry, so sorry,” he said, going back into salesman mode.
“I’m going to turn around and when I turn back around, you will be gone, and I don’t expect to see you again for a good long while. Got it?”
She didn’t wait for an answer. She turned around and counted silently to three. When she turned around, she had the hallway to herself.
Bistra Station was a marvel of engineering. Rather than the dark, cramped, metallic monstrosities that most space aliens seemed to make, this was airy and open. It probably cost a fortune to light, heat, and oxygenate. Everything in this section was built to impress. The engineers and scientists that did all the work probably lived somewhere in the back in cramped quarters with low light and barely enough antigrav to stick to the floor.
Krex kept his distance, but every time Jane got near something interesting, one of the Bistra appeared to move her along or offer her some service that, in their opinion, she could not possibly turn down. So security was tight but practically invisible. It was all done with the same spy cameras and listening devices that littered their suite. It would take a full fledged EMP to disrupt the thing, and even that would be hazardous. It was like trying to use a stick of dynamite to kill a cockroach. You might be aiming for the bugs, but you might end up taking out the oxygenators or the grav system. Jane liked to breathe, so that option was out.
From what Jane could see, Bright was torturing her husband. She was dragging him from spot to spot and drawing as much gregarious attention as she could. By the time they were done, everyone would know the Etlonian princess. She might even win a few more converts to her imaginary cause.
Jane wanted to console Zenik but she had a part to play and she still hadn’t hit the far wing yet. It held a number of vid suites and game parlors for people who wanted a little more privacy than the larger rooms. She was hoping she’d find a flaw in the security somewhere off the beaten path, or at least clock how long it took the Bistra to counteract her spying and offer her something more entertaining to do.
By the time she got to the far side of the wing, Jane realized something was off. No one had checked up on her for nearly forty-five minutes. That was much longer than the nearly seventeen on the dot that she’d been experiencing for most of the afternoon.
She looked around and noticed a mysterious door in the back of one of the suites. It was almost camouflaged into the wall panel, and it lacked a handle. She pushed on it and found there was a mechanism that held it shut. The door was locked and she waited by it, hoping that someone would either come in or out. The room had a large glass table that she realized upon further inspection was actually made of water. She touched the surface and lights came on in the water. It was some sort of alien game that Jane had never seen before. Surely someone would come and try to take her money once she had activated the table, but no. Jane waited another ten minutes.
Either they were waiting for her to do something bad so they could catch it on camera and fine or imprison her or someone had gone on a very long lunch break. Perhaps, they had decided she wasn’t that interesting after all. She played with the water some more and more lights popped on. Otherwise, this part of the station was dead silent. Jane supposed that the rich all timed their sleep cycles to be awake at the same time, so their party life could thrive. It must still be sleep time.
Which meant more Bistra would be free for spying. And yet there had been none.
Jane was not in the mood to get kicked off the station on the first day. It was probably safest just to go back to the room. In another few hours, the ship would beep out its distress, and they’d have time to discuss the matter while “fixing” the ship.
Jane was halfway down the deserted corridor when she noticed something flutter into one of those rooms. She was pretty sure it was Krex. Perhaps he’d been in charge of finding her but after their earlier encounter, was hiding from her instead. That would solve the mystery. She stepped into the room behind him.
Jane did not expect a crowd and yet, here she was, face to face with Dan, Dan the Merchant Man, this time, in the flesh.
“Hello again,” he said.
“Haven’t I already killed you once?”
She didn’t get a chance to hear his reply. She noticed a noxious smell in the air and before she could react, her world went black.