Chapter 13
The Vesper
With the mentally taxing work of sweeping their shipments and the physically labor-intensive aspects of actually moving the goods, the days slipped by faster than Fia could register.
Davik had been selflessly working to help her in the rare few hours of leisure they had, but their schedule was tight, and they had not gotten further than just refining the schematics of the “diving bell”.
But it had been quite nice to spend the evenings sharing a cup of coffee together while they wound down for the day.
She’d help him plot out the circuitry, and he’d fluster when she brushed up close against him.
Then she would return to her cabin for the night, feeling guilty for the indulgence and thrilled by the prospect of doing it all over again.
Before she knew it, they were already docked at Driska. She had researched a bit about the station to prepare, but it was sparse. She had been greedy in spending her free moments with Davik. Her greater responsibilities had fallen by the wayside.
It’s just flirtation. He isn’t looking to break Federation strictures and push this any further. But I can enjoy seeing him squirm. Duty will pull me away before this gets too complicated, anyway. It always does.
The idea of being pulled back into serving, be it with TCIP or some other force she could pledge to, was bittersweet.
She wanted to do something for her people.
Sitting idly by in silence absolutely tore at her.
But the reality of being pulled away from this sweet, strange little adventure stung.
Even if she knew there was no future with him beyond flirtation.
Davik seemed distracted as they all sat around the table and prepared for the day, but Carissa was already grilling her. The pilot was prepping her with an intensity that reminded Fia of a huddle before a mission.
“You’ve got your head on straight for today, yeah?” Carissa asked.
Fia nodded emphatically. She had her bag packed for the trek to meet her fate, whatever it might be.
A sensible amount of credits, the mock-Pactbind Davik had made for her, a few stickers for good measure, and her vertiblade.
Though she did not mention the weapon to Carissa.
The station they were docked at was in a part of the system that had a rough reputation, judging by the crime reports, and she did not plan to walk into there unarmed.
“I am on edge, but the worst that could happen is that it is just a hoax.”
“Nu-uh, the worst thing that could happen is a hole in your head. If it’s a hoax, that’s a boon.
” Carissa jabbed her finger at Fia emphatically.
“We found you hid in a high-sec Fed prison, Fia. That’s not a fuck-around, petty crime.
For all we know, you were there as exotic trade for a slum king or some captain with a freak streak. ”
Fia felt that thought leave a gritty trail in her mind that made her shudder.
Trafficking wasn’t legal, but illegality just meant that these things happened in the shadows.
She hadn’t considered that she might have been kept as a trinket.
A pre-war relic to keep on display. She shook the thought out of her head before it made her properly dizzy.
“Head on a swivel. Do not accept a free cab,” Fia said with a nod. “Oh, and do not steal from a slot machine. Again. Am I missing anything?”
“I’ll be there with you, be a second pair of eyes. If you’re still okay with that?” Davik asked.
“Absolutely. I have no illusions of specialty here. My skills lie … elsewhere.”
“Mmm-hm. One of these days, you will need to entertain me with tales of this old job of yours. Somehow, we always start talking about my colorful past. Funny, that.” Carissa shot a glance at Davik, who stared fixedly at his coffee.
So, he hasn’t told Carissa about my past? I thought they shared everything. But he’s staying silent for me. Why does that feel so sweet?
“One of these days, I am sure.” She rose from her seat and pulled on her pack, tightening it on her shoulders and zipping her fluffy pink jacket with emphasis. “Davik, are you ready?”
The station was dark, bereft of the usual over-saturated lighting that all the other stations Fia had seen so far. It was a welcome relief to her senses, but the relief didn’t help her search.
They walked for a few hours, Davik commenting on the different mechanical and industrial districts they passed by. Fia nodded along and occasionally tried to tap into a nearby access point, but all of her attempts to triangulate her target had gone nowhere. Hours of aimless prodding, to no avail.
She rested on a curb to gather her bearings while Davik went to a food cart to grab them some fried cubes of protein on a stick.
“Honestly, this isn’t the worst street food I’ve had,” he mused.
He was a blurred figure of familiarity against the chaos of signals she was focusing on. Her gaze lingered on the gentle electric pulsing of his neck augmentation, and she reached out to touch the metal, tracing a fingertip across the seam where it met the flesh of his jaw.
“You never told me the full story on this, you know.”
He was still just a smudged figure amidst the electrical chaos, but she could see the sudden spike in current as his pulse fluttered.
“This was, uh, repair work. Long story. Got injured, and this was the only option.”
“Well, let us hope today neither of us needs more repair work,” she said in an airy, playful tone.
“God, you and me both. Any luck yet?”
“No. I cannot find my way into the station’s communications hub. Everything is so … noisy.”
The sea of writhing lights around her was churning. Above her, around her, even running through the streets in a tangle that thrummed with signals splitting off into branching paths.
Start small. Start near. What you can touch, what you can taste. Make your foundation, square your feet.
The words from her training days were a distant memory, but they brought her some solace. She started small and near: the datapad in her lap. Then, a hop to the closest access point. It was a rapid stream of signals that joined the raging river of data nearby.
Next, she sent a probing inquiry. She splayed her fingers out to visualize the movement, exploring anything she could anchor to. But it was all moving too fast to follow. She couldn’t pick out her own thread in this mess of tangles.
“Everything here is … much,” she murmured, her lips pressed tight in concentration. “It is not even an issue of security, I cannot find—”
“You need a beacon,” Davik said matter-of-factly. “You’re fishing in the dark, yeah?”
“I am the fish in the dark,” she replied with a husky laugh.
Davik smiled as he tapped the comms unit behind his ear, giving her a little nudge as he did. “You can see this, right?”
The brief flare of activity around his ear was crisp and bright. Like a deep golden thread among the icy blue around them.
“If I were to ping your datapad, can you follow that?” he asked before he activated it.
It was quick, but the path was easy to follow.
The coil of signal leaped from him to a nearby repeater tower.
It was like following a shooting star. Then, it followed a bouncing path from a junction to a switch and finally back to her.
She watched its route with rapt attention, mapping it out with her finger and nodding slowly.
His message, a little smiling face, popped up in the corner of her screen.
“You are a clever tinkerer. Now I know where the nearest junction is. But there are still so many paths to explore,” she said, feeling a twinge of worry in her chest.
“Hold on, we do this smart-smart. We know where you need to go, right? The station’s comms center? So, follow the birdie, yeah?”
She tilted her head, not quite interpreting the phrase, but she kept her focus on him as he queued up his comms again. His signal took a wild route, zipping through the tiny device and into the ether as he pulled up the local directory. She watched as he selected a contact and then opened a call.
“Hey, just wondering,” Davik said, not to her, but into the line he had opened. “Rates for a large-scale data transfer? I need to get a quote for— Ah, yeah. Mmhm. How much do you charge for non-standard encryption?”
He had just called them, opening a direct line from his comm to their own internal switch. It was a winding path that made some redundant turns that confounded her, but she had it. She could kiss him. It was perfect.
It was a rapidly moving thread, but one she had in her grasp.
She struggled to get an immediate lock on her target, but she gradually pulled what she needed from their system into her datapad.
Communications, messages, account information: all encrypted, but she didn’t need to unravel them.
She just needed to match the encryption to the messages she had already received.
To find something of the same shape. The same resonance. And then—
There you are.
She pulled out of the haze to look at her screen in front of her.
She had it. A trace-route from the communications satellite of this station, leading all the way to an address.
A physical address on this station. She frantically squeezed Davik’s arm as she shook the datapad in front of him, bouncing with victorious energy and excitement.
“Yeah, yeah, thanks. Oh, would you look at the time, I gotta run, bye!” He clipped his call off short before he pushed her gesticulating hands down in her lap gently. “Keep it low-key, Fi. But … oh my god, I can’t believe that worked.”
“Of course it worked. I had you to light my way.”
The spot was unassuming. A small bar that, if the reviews on the local network rang true, had decent local entertainment, overpriced drinks, sub-par bathrooms, and abysmal food options.
Dubbed “The Vesper”, though the flickering sign out front had lost a few letters and botched the title down to “Th Vesp”.
“Davik, I fear we will never have a normal excursion,” she mused as she strode with him towards the neon purple lights that lit the entrance.
The bar was thrumming with life when they arrived.
The hulking bouncer at the doorway, sporting yellow and black augmentations down her arms, barely even acknowledged their existence.
She just gave a vague once-over glance at them and waved them in.
Once they were inside, the rumble of deep, bassy music mingled with boisterous conversations hit them like a wall of sound.
Davik took her hand and guided her towards the bar, giving the resin counter a little tap as he gestured for the barkeep.
She wished she could just stay here, indulge in sharing a moment of normality.
To sink into a booth with him, have a few drinks, and see how much he squirmed depending on what she whispered in his ear.
Maybe even find a dark alley and see what she could get away with.
This is not the time to muse about what I can’t have. I need to focus.
Fia tapped her claws on the counter as the bartender approached.
He was a tall Icthian man with deep blue coloration, bright yellow eyes, and three prominent ridged tendrils that fell from his crown to his waist. The slightest glint of the Pactbind was visible peeking from beneath the high collar of his shirt.
He reminded her of her commander, Rel Parovek. Though her commander was more of an abyss of black and purple with far less kindness in his face than this man.
“What can I get for you two?” the bartender inquired, his smile wide and eyes low, his focus fixed on drying a glass in his hands.
She pulled her mind back to the cryptic message: If you are truly a keen listener, seek out the song, and ask for safe harbor.
“I am looking for … a safe harbor,” she said quietly, hoping her words would find purchase.
She watched the barkeeper tense, and she idly traced circles on the counter as he continued cleaning his glass. Despite the fact that every Icthian she had met so far was bound, it still hurt not to feel their resonance in the Chorus.
It felt like returning to a place from your childhood, only to find it shelled out and abandoned. No soft thrum of knowing. No entwined, innate sympathy and empathy. Nothing to glean from other than words in the air, posture, and eye contact.
“Hmm. Not familiar with that drink,” the bartender said, parrying her question away with a dismissive flick of the hand. “Maybe I didn’t quite hear it right, though. You have a backworlds accent I can’t place.”
Fia pursed her lips before hissing her reply in quiet, angry Teelish. “I don’t have a damned backworlds accent, I just speak clearly.”
The bartender’s mouth quirked in an amiable smile, and his tendrils flickered with excited blue light. “You speak bookishly. Studied. Their words don’t fit in your mouth. Didn’t grow up around many humans?” he asked in his own gruff and somewhat-accented Teelish.
“I grew up far away, outside the influence of Sol,” she murmured.
“Ah, Theos warned we were expecting a stray. You sure took your time.” The barkeep set down his glass. “Is the human good company, or do you need him to be escorted off the property?”
“Good company. I wouldn’t be here without him.”
The bartender gave a curt nod, switching to a much more practiced English cadence.
“To the right of the bar, the first door past the restrooms. Knock, wait, and don’t be stupid. Yes?” The barkeep’s tone made it sound like a question, but it hit the ear more like a warning.
“I will endeavor to keep my stupidity to a minimum,” Fia retorted, garnering a wry smirk from the barkeep as she pushed back from the bar with Davik in tow.
Davik followed behind her, and she felt a sudden swell of fear jolt through her stomach. She could handle what was on the other side of the door. She was confident in her ability to defend herself. But she couldn’t risk bringing him harm.
“You stay out here. Understood?” she stated, her fingers tapping at his chest to punctuate her words.
“Oh, I understand. And I politely decline,” he said, that precious little dimple peeking out as he grinned. “The last time we split up, I nearly got arrested. Logically, I fare better with you around.”
He leaned forward past her and gave two sharp knocks on the door. Fia cursed in Teelish under her breath, and Davik continued to beam at her with absolute glee.
“Sorry, not giving you time to drop me off with a babysitter. You’re stuck with me.”
The door opened, and a pink-haired woman who could have been the twin of the front-door bouncer greeted them with a nod. With muscled arms woven with similarly striped yellow and black metal, she ushered them wordlessly inside.