Chapter 3
The heavy clang of Carmen’s boots on the metal decking echoed through the access corridor, a frantic counterpoint to the Antilles’s steady roar. A fresh wave of acid panic rose in her stomach and broke over her mind.
Anomaly. Energy signature. Inconsistent readings.
Zed’s precise words looped in her head, each syllable tightening the knot of dread in her gut. Maltese. It had to be Maltese. That bloated, double-crossing weasel hadn’t just given them a suicide run; he’d loaded a bomb onto her ship.
Or something worse.
The cargo bay’s hatch hissed open at her approach, revealing the cavernous space beyond.
The air here was cooler, thick with the metallic tang of steel and the faint, ozone bite of active power conduits running along the high ceiling.
Rows of empty cargo clamps lined the deck, skeletal reminders of better times.
In the center, bathed in the stark white glare of work lights Zed had deployed, stood Container 7-Beta-Alpha. It looked totally mundane. A standard, reinforced-steel crate, a cube standing maybe six feet high but brand new, the dark metal gleaming beneath the cargo bay’s LED lighting.
Coffee. Right.
Zed waited beside it, his boxy chassis perched on triangular treads. His telescopic neck extended, multiple camera lenses on his rectangular head swiveling to track her entrance. One manipulator arm held a multi-spectrum scanner, its emitter glowing a soft blue.
“Captain,” he reported. “The anomaly persists. Environmental readings remain unstable. Internal temperature fluctuates between 2.5 and 4.1 degrees Celsius above the declared optimal range for unprocessed Solari Arabica beans. Humidity levels are elevated by 17.3% and demonstrate erratic cycling. Most concerning is the persistent low-level energy emission, registering at 0.07 terahertz. It does not correlate with any known cargo monitoring system or standard contraband scanner frequency within UPA databases.”
Carmen stopped a meter from the container, her eyes scanning its unremarkable surface.
It looked inert. Harmless. But Zed’s data painted a picture of something else.
The smell of the cantina on Alora – regret, desperation, failure – seemed to drift through the bay, overlaying the sterile metal scent.
“You’re sure it’s inside?” she asked. “Not some faulty sensor on the crate itself?”
“Affirmative. Scans confirm the emission originates from within the container’s primary chamber. External sensors register nominal function.” Zed retracted his scanner arm with a soft whir. “Visual inspection is the only method to ascertain the source. Manual access is required.”
Carmen stared at the heavy-duty latch sealing the container. It looked simple enough. A lever, a pressure seal. But opening it felt like disarming a mine. What if it was a bomb? What if Maltese had rigged it to blow the second they tampered with it?
The image of the Antilles becoming another piece of debris floating in the dark reaches of empty space flashed in her mind. She swallowed, her throat tight.
“Call the others,” she ordered, her voice rough. “Get them down here. Now.”
She needed witnesses. Backup. Someone else to see whatever nightmare Maltese had saddled them with.
Zed’s head unit emitted a soft chime.
“Summons issued.”
The wait was agonizing. Carmen paced a tight circle around the container. Every creak of the ship’s superstructure, every distant hum from Engineering, sounded like a countdown. Worry gnawed at her, cold and sharp.
Coffee. It was supposed to be freaking coffee.
The sheer, insulting banality of it warred with the terrifying unknown Zed described.
Temperature fluctuations? Energy signatures?
That wasn’t contraband. That was something else.
Something expensive. Something dangerous enough that Maltese would happily sacrifice the Antilles and her crew to cover his tracks.
The fines, the debt, Corso’s mocking face – they all shrank next to the immediate, visceral threat humming inside this unassuming box.
The hatch hissed open again. Sark entered first, his orange skin looking slightly ashen under the work lights, his prominent red head-fin twitching nervously. His webbed fingers flexed at his sides.
“Captain? Zed said it was urgent? Something wrong with the, uh, cargo?”
She didn’t answer. The terror threatened to undo her cool command. She didn’t want to give it voice until they were all here.
Norvik arrived next, his light-blue features composed, black eyes taking in the scene with detached calm.
Letitia brought up the rear, her expression guarded, arms crossed tightly over her chest. She avoided Carmen’s eyes, focusing on the container. Her earlier sadness was buried beneath a layer of professional concern.
“What’s the play, Captain?” she asked
Carmen stopped pacing, planting herself squarely before the container. Swallowing hard, she met their worried gazes.
“Zed found something weird with Maltese’s ‘coffee’. Readings are all wrong. There’s some kind of energy signature coming from inside. Doesn’t match any standard scanner or monitor.” She jerked her chin at the latch. “We need to crack it open. See what that greasy pendejo really stuck us with.”
Sark paled further.
“Energy signature?” he said. “Like … explosives?”
“Possibly,” Carmen admitted. “Or something else. Something worse.
“Norvik, you’re with me. Sark, Letitia, Zed stand back. Way back. Near the hatch. If this thing goes boom …”
She didn’t finish the thought. They all knew.
Norvik stepped forward without hesitation, his movements economical. He examined the latch mechanism.
“A standard pressure-seal. Requires simultaneous application of force at both anchor points.” He placed his hands on the indicated spots. “Ready, Captain.”
Carmen mirrored his position, her palms slick against the cold metal. The lever felt heavy, inert. She met Norvik’s black eyes. Saw no fear, only focused readiness. Collectivist pragmatism. Do the necessary thing.
She took a deep breath and prayed she wasn’t making the stupidest decision of her career.
“Okay,” she said, faking confidence. “On three. One … Two … THREE!”
They heaved. Metal groaned in protest. For a heart-stopping second, nothing happened. Then, with a sharp hiss-whump that made Sark flinch, the pressure seal released. The heavy lid lifted a fraction, venting a puff of cold, damp air that carried an overwhelming, sterile scent.
Carmen recoiled, staggering back a step. It wasn’t the stale funk of the Alora cantina, nor the heavy tang of coffee beans. This was different. It was … clean.
“Smells like antiseptics?” Letitia ventured, nose wrinkled. “What the hell is in there?”
Zed rolled forward, returning to the crate. He extended a sensor probe towards the gap.
“Atmospheric analysis suggests machinery. Trace amounts of complex disinfectants in air, likely emitting from equipment, likely medical in nature. No detectable toxins or airborne pathogens above safe thresholds.”
Carmen’s stomach churned. She forced herself forward, back to the container. Worry was rapidly morphing into a cold, sickening dread. Coffee didn’t smell like bleach or formaldehyde. Nothing legal did. Not like this. She braced herself, gripped the edge of the heavy lid.
“Norvik, help me get this damned thing open all the way.”
The comms officer rejoined her. Together, they strained, muscles bunching. The lid rose, hinges protesting, revealing the dim interior. Cold vapor curled out. Carmen leaned over the edge, peering into the gloom, her heart hammering against her ribs.
Work lights from Zed’s chassis and the overheads pierced the mist, illuminating the contents. Not burlap sacks. Not vacuum-sealed beans.
A transparent, coffin-sized life-support chamber occupied most of the container’s space. Thick cables snaked from its base to a compact power unit bolted to the container floor. Inside the chamber, sleeping in suspended animation, lay a creature.
Carmen’s breath caught. Intrigue, sharp and sudden, cut through the dread.
“Looks like you’re right, Zed,” she said. “It’s medical equipment, all right – a life-support chamber. And it’s occupied.”
The thing inside was roughly humanoid but utterly alien.
Covered head to toe in a pelt of short, dense fur – yellow streaked with vivid red stripes along its limbs and back, stark white on its chest and vaguely feline face that was dominated by large, closed eyes.
Tufts of slightly longer fur sprouted from its cheeks.
Sharp, claw-like nails tipped its fingers.
But the most striking feature was the thick, short tail curving up from its waist and hips, ending just above the small of the back. No buttocks, just that smooth, furred curve, as though the torso kept going past its hips.
“What the hell is that?” Carmen whispered, speaking for them all.
The crew crowded around the life-support chamber, circling in wonder. Everyone’s eyes were wide, their faces thunderstruck. Even Zed’s metallic, emotionless face seemed to convey astonishment.
This wasn’t contraband. It was alive. What the holy hell had Maltese involved them in?
“Whatever it is,” Sark said, “it’s female.”
“How can you tell?” Letitia asked.
“Because that’s obviously a vagina,” the Sensoori pilot answered, pointing between the thing’s legs.
Carmen’s gaze followed his finger. Oh, yeah, he wasn’t wrong. The creature had large labia covered in white fur. A mound of flesh above them no doubt hooded a clitoris.
“Yes, and I suspect those nubs on the lower abdomen are nipples,” Norvik observed.
Carmen stared at them – six of them arranged in two neat rows. Whatever this thing was, it seemed more animal than sentient. Was someone planning to breed it?
“I don’t get it,” Sark said.
“What do you mean?” Norvik replied.
“If Maltese was trying to screw us over, why put something like this aboard?” Sark asked. “It seems like it would be a lot more valuable than coffee.”
Dread burbled thick in Carmen’s stomach.
Sark was right. Whatever was sleeping in her cargo hold had some greater intrinsic value than providing UPA senators with illegal java.
This creature was the tip of some horrible iceberg.
She was a disaster, and Antilles had wandered into the vortex of whatever maelstrom she represented.
“I believe I can answer your question, Mr. T’Raan,” Zed said, addressing Sark. “You are correct that the specimen is of much greater value than coffee beans, no matter their origin. Our passenger is a Xena.”
“Holy shit,” Sark gasped, edging closer despite himself, his orange face a mask of awe and confusion. “You mean…?”
“Affirmative,” Zed replied. “She is a XenX female. “Origin: Sector Theta-Seven in the Forbidden Zone.”
Oh, no. No, that greasy bastard Maltese didn’t.
“Hold up,” Letitia said. “Aren’t XenX outlawed in UPA space?”
“Yes,” Norvik said. “Due to their cultural practice of voluntary sexual slavery.”
Reality slammed into Carmen with the force of a grav-hammer.
The energy signature. The environmental fluctuations.
The smell. It wasn’t a bomb. It was infinitely worse.
Maltese hadn’t sent them with illicit coffee.
He’d sent them with sentient contraband.
The most illegal cargo in the entire fucking UPA.
“Mierda,” Carmen breathed, the word barely a whisper.
She stared, transfixed, at the unconscious alien. The fur looked incredibly soft. The stripes were hypnotic. And what Norvik just said? Voluntary sexual slavery? What all did that imply?
Letitia pushed past Sark, her earlier reserve shattered. She stared into the chamber, her brown eyes wide with horror.
“We’re trafficking a sentient being?” Her voice rose, sharp with outrage. “Maltese loaded a slave onto our ship?”
Carmen flinched. Trafficking sentient species.
Harboring a XenX. Strict liability offenses.
The penalties weren’t fines. They weren’t debt collection.
They were life. Life in a UPA penal colony for every single member of the crew.
Asset forfeiture meant the Antilles would be scrap.
Her crew would spend their remaining days breaking rocks on some airless moon, if they were lucky.
If they weren’t just spaced immediately as a warning.
Fear, cold and absolute, washed over her. This wasn’t just a dangerous run anymore. This was annihilation. Maltese hadn’t just set them up to fail; he’d set them up to die. Or worse.
And it was her fault. Her signature on the manifest. Her oversight. She hadn’t checked the cargo. She’d been too busy drowning in her own humiliation, too focused on the insult of coffee, too wrapped up in her fight with Letitia to do the one fucking job she had: keep her crew safe.
Control. She’d lost control the moment she walked into Maltese’s den, and now they were all paying the price.
The XenX female stirred slightly in her chamber, a soft, almost imperceptible shift. Carmen’s gaze snapped back to her. The fur, the stripes, the delicate features, even unconscious, there was a profound vulnerability about her and an undeniable allure.
Norvik broke the stunned silence, his voice cutting through the fog with chilling pragmatism.
“Captain, we cannot continue to Babcinq under the circumstances.”
The ship felt suddenly claustrophobic, the weight of the illegal alien pressing in from all sides. Babcinq. The heart of the UPA. Crawling with COPS.
Norvik was right. They couldn’t go there. Not like this.
“Sark,” she said, her voice cold, commanding. “Get to the bridge. Take us out of hyperspace. Now.”
Sark blinked, torn from his daze.
“Out? Captain, the nav-comp—”
“I don’t care!” she practically screamed. “Drop us! Anywhere! Just get us the hell out of the transit lane!”
The urgency in her voice galvanized him. He turned and bolted for the hatch, his webbed feet slapping the deck in a frantic rhythm.
Carmen turned back to the life-support chamber, to the Xena sleeping within. It was impossible not to believe she had killed them all.