Page 5 of Tempting Cargo
He was still chuckling as the door shut behind us with a soft hiss.
Archon Ithsskar had been true to his word, ensuring we were free to move around the non-military parts of the station. Even though Draim was huge, the civilian sector was compact, no more than a quarter kilometre in any direction, with the guest quarters being off one radial arm of the main hub. None of us ventured past the areas we knew; the other corridors faded into blackness, the strip lights tapering and diminishing to nothing.
The few people we passed on our way to the cantina gave us little more than curious glances. Roth chattered as we walked, and I trailed my hand along the corridor walls. There was something reassuring about the cool, smooth metal under my fingertips and the low-level purring near a power conduit.
“Good morning, Garrison, Roth.” A rich spiciness permeated the air as the bartender, a tall shaa woman with a fan of red plumage in place of hair, delivered freshly cooked food to another patron, and I gave her a smile as I headed to the bar.
Strange symbols on the hot drink machine flashed, asking an unknown question, and I committed the random combination I pressed to memory, just in case. If I worked my way through all the common alien drinks, I might find one I liked as much as Earth tea.
Damn, I missed a good brew.
The machine hissed as a rich, dark blue liquid jetted into a grey polymer mug, then clicked off, leaving only the low hum of early morning chatter.
A brisk, earthy flavour hit my taste buds and I took another, less tentative sip.
This.
This was good. Sure, it might need a bit more sugar, but anything that tasted of tannins and potential wasgood.
The booth we occupied in the cantina was starting to feel almost like home, and I sank into the worn seat. Soft pinpricks of light dotted the ceiling in a pleasant contrast to the ubiquitous strip lights everywhere else on the station. Imani reached out for my datapad, made some inputs, then handed it back. “We’re looking at this sector today. You take these four.”
My eyes closed as I faced the screen. We were all bored of hearing about refugee planets, agricultural moons, grain processing stations, or remote mining installations. Every half hour, the chirpy translator read an advert for the Galactic Reserve; the delights of having a Reserve-sponsored datapad, I guess. Sometimes it mentioned things that sounded almost tempting until we found they wouldn’t take unknown aliens—and those were places in the more favourable areas.
The hot beverage soothed the tedious ache of it all, and we snacked on the fried breakfast fruits the bartender placed on the table, while I learned about yet another industrial processing facility that wouldn’t take humans.
“This planet sounds okay,” Roth said.
We all paused our ear-comms to hear what he’d found.
“Bzhalti. There’s agricultural and industrial, various towns and cities with mixed inhabitants. And it’s just about in our transport range.” He caught the bartender’s eye. “What do you know of this place?”
The shaa took the datapad in her slender hand and screwed up her nose. “Bzhalti? Really? What does this say?” She scanned the readout, grimacing. “There’s information missing and the rest must have been lost in translation. This part of the sector has a bad problem with slavers, and you’re a new, soft-looking species. Stay away. More drinks?”
“Fuck,” Roth said as she headed back to the bar with our order. “This is too fucking hard.”
He wasn’t wrong. It was fucking depressing.
“Looks like we might have to split up, after all.” We all turned to Imani, who clutched her datapad closer and blinked at us. “What?”
“Don’t say that.” Zerena rubbed her healing arm before reaching for her drink.
Shit though it was, Imani was right. The only thing we all agreed on was avoiding a refugee planet. It wasn’t the way any of us wanted to experience living planetside for the first time.
“We might have jobs,” someone else said, sounding almost embarrassed.
I glanced at the speaker, one of the two scientists in our little group. “At AnimaCorp?”
“Yes. They’re willing to take a chance on us.”
Good for them. If they were sorted, that only left ten of us.
Roth pulled another piece of fried fruit from the basket and blew out a laugh. “Unlike all the docks and industrial stations who don’t give a shit about our expertise because we’re fucking aliens.”
“Don’t care,” another mechanic said. “I’m going to the shipyard.”
My shoulders slumped and I pressed my palms against my eyes. None of it sounded good, and my dreams of galactic exploration were getting less attractive by the day.
The sensible thing was to find a tolerable way to survive. But I’d had that on Ceres III and wanted more. Maybe I could find a way to be a ship’s engineer, give me a chance to travel and see parts of the galaxy I used to dream of.
