Grayson Sontang in Space Ch. 05

"I'm going down alone. End of discussion." Grayson strode to the far side of the shuttle to continue her checks. Hendon followed.

"Beginning of discussion," he argued. "It's too dangerous."

Grayson gaped at him. After everything we've been through, you think taking a shuttle planetside is too dangerous?"

"I was referring to the Fed presence."

"That's why no Siriuns go down. The Feds down there are planet-based. They can't really do anything about a ship up here full of Siriuns. Trust me. I've dealt with Feds before. A couple of times," she added as an afterthought. "I know how their protocols work."

"Until they change protocols."

"You'll just slow me down. The faster I work, the faster we get out of here before the system Feds move in. I told you they came through the jump sixteen hours ago. How long do you think it will take them to get here?"

"I can load twice as fast as you. At least," he scoffed.

She rolled her eyes. "Ever hear of bots? You think I lift my own crates?"

"Still, you've sent the last few hours piloting into orbit. You're already tired. I'll take care of the food and fuel, you collect your parts. Half the time. And they'll be looking for you, not for me. They won't know me from Adam."

"Yeah," she drawled. "It's not like you look like you just stepped out of a Fed recruiting poster or anything."

"Confed," he corrected. "And I'm perfectly capable of looking like a spacer."

She looked him up and down. "Nah. That face is too pretty. Maybe if I broke your nose for you. Which I am sorely tempted to do right now," she added. She put her hands on her hips. "You're in my way."

"Sorry," he shrugged, then abruptly climbed into the shuttle's passenger seat.

"Get the hell out of there," she stormed, yanking on his arm. He was immovable. She climbed over him into the pilot's seat. "Goddamn it, where the hell is that ejection seat button?"

Hendon only snickered. "Finish your checks. Time's wasting."

Grayson snarled at him as she went into the back to tie down the bots. "I'm not going to bail you out," she called forward to him. "I'll leave you to rot in Fed lockup."

He turned in his seat. "Really? Because I was going down specifically to bail you out when you smarted off to a Fed and got busted."

She climbed back into the pilot's seat and glared at him. "Honey, the only times I've worn Fed handcuffs was when I specifically requested it, and there were beds involved, not bars."

"Is that your ploy? Seduce them before they figure out you're carrying?"

She batted her eyelashes at him. "I only seduce the pretty ones. I have my standards."

"And the rest you bribe?"

Grayson shook her head in exasperation as she ran through her mental checklist, keying up instruments. "I don't have to seduce or bribe. I just have to be good at what I do."

"Smuggling?"

"Conveying desirable goods to paying customers." She looked over at him. "Last chance to disembark, sailor."

"I'll go down with the ship, ma'am."

Grayson swore under her breath and hit the door locks. They slid into place with a soft hiss. "Cycle air, Hal. Continuous activity report." She glanced askance at Hendon as Hal's low voice began reciting who was where on the ship, what bots were active, systems statuses and other information. Grayson warmed the shuttle's exhaust systems and lifted slightly as a final check while the air was cycled out of the bay. When Hal's voice-over came on to announce the air cycle complete, she told the computer to open the bay doors, then fastened her safety straps. She noticed Hendon doing the same and smiled to herself.

"Hope you got those good and tight, sailor," and then she jammed the shuttle into reverse, shooting out of the bay. She had the pleasure of hearing him gasp as he was thrown against the restraints then just as suddenly weightless, when she cut the thrust. She smiled sweetly at him as she waited to drift well clear of the ship before starting the descent to the planet below. He muttered something about 'women drivers.'

After a few moments of drift, Grayson righted the shuttle relative to the planet below and hit the fore burners to slow them below orbital speed. The braked under thrust until they reached the upper atmosphere, where she deployed foils and began lazy spirals down to the spaceport. As soon as she settled into their assigned berth, she opened the doors. "Get out before customs gets here," she commanded.

"You don't think I know how to talk to a customs agent?" Hendon, the Customs Officer, asked.

"Can't you ever follow orders without arguing," she complained.

"Really? I've wondered the same about you."

"Hendon, out! They find a Siriun, they'll put a hold on us until Fed arrives." He grinned at her but climbed from the seat and disappeared from the bay. She finger-combed her hair. Then she shook herself and put on her compliant, polite, sometimes-you-just-have-to-deal-with-authority-figures face and unlocked the back doors to the freight shuttle. By the time she climbed from the shuttle and reached the back end, customs was there, along with a Land Fed. She ignored the Fed.

"I'm just picking up supplies," she explained to Customs, waving at the empty freight shuttle. "I was forced off course, so I'm low on oxy and fuel and food. I've already ordered in and it's all waiting for me in warehouse fifteen."

"What are you carrying?" the officious woman asked, tapping on a tablet.

"All I have right now is a little bit of meat. I was headed to pick up a load from Deneb when I ran into that blast wave. I heard someone blew a wormhole," she whispered conspiratorially, noticing the Fed scowl.

The Customs woman frowned. "That's just a rumor," she replied, but Grayson could clearly see her doing a mental tally. It's not what the rumor says, it's how many times you hear it. She barely glanced into Grayson's freighter. "Okay, you're clear." She scurried off to find the next arrival.

"You're clear with Customs," the Fed officer pointed out. "The Federation has some questions."

"Fire away," Grayson said affably. "I'll see if I can find you some answers."

"I'd prefer you just tell me the truth, not 'find' answers," he replied. Typical Fed, Grayson told herself. Totally humorless.

She kept her pleasant smile plastered firmly in place. "Just a turn of phrase," she offered.

"You told her you were carrying meat."

"Yeah. About fifteen crates worth. I didn't bother to bring any down. Your meat products are renowned in this area."

"We know you are carrying Siriuns, too."

"Yeah," Grayson agreed, drawing it out much longer than required. She had donned her patient, must-explain-the-facts-of-life-to-the-idiot-government-man face. "On civilized planets, people are not commodities and therefore not an interest of customs agents." Playing affable, accommodating Grayson wasn't one of her strong suits, especially for more than a few minutes at a time.

"You can't fool us," he continued as if he hadn't heard a word she'd said. "We need a roster of your passengers."

She tried to don the patient face again. "No," she replied calmly. "If said Siriuns were coming planetside, then you could require passports or visas or whatever the regulations are here on El Rehla Prime. Since I am the only one planetside, and I hold a Trader's visa, as approved by your Customs Agent already, there are no violations, and therefore no grounds to request additional information."

He scowled at her. "Nevertheless, I am requiring you to produce a roster."

Grayson gave him her sweetest, most insincere smile. "You know, there's a reason that Feds are divided into planet-based, system-based and multi-system service areas. It has to do with their ability to understand the laws and regulations of the various areas." When his scowl deepened, she hurried on. "No, let me be more specific. It has to do with their intelligence as it contributes to their ability to understand the complexity of laws and regulations, so, see, they put the dumbest Feds on the planets, where they have the least factoids to comprehend." He was starting to turn red, just like in a cartoon. "Yeah, you're starting to get it!" she exclaimed. "Tell you what. You go find a court clerk to explain it all to you. Or maybe your boss. In the meantime, I have supplies to load."

She started around him and he reached out to grab her arm. Grayson fought her instincts to spin away from his grasp, and she scowled a warning at Hendon, who was at the end of the pier and starting their way. She turned back to the Fed, glanced at his hand on her arm, and switched back to her inscrutable, entitled-Earther face. "Perhaps you haven't heard, but recent court cases throughout the settled worlds have held Fed Officers personally responsible for false imprisonment and false arrest. I can afford very, VERY good lawyers. Can you?"

He reluctantly released her arm and she turned and strode away, ignoring Hendon as she passed. He calmly watched the Fed Officer with mild curiosity until the man finally turned and stalked away from the open shuttle. When Hendon was satisfied that he was gone, he went and retrieved the heavy bot, taking it to the warehouse where the supplies had been stored for them.

Grayson, after a number of evasive routings designed to throw off both human and video surveillance, found the trader who had brought the parts to repair her ship and paid him handsomely for his efforts on her behalf, borrowing his bot to carry the items back to her shuttle. She took more evasive paths on the way back, and was grudgingly pleased to find that Hendon had already transferred a substantial amount of supplies, and even stored them neatly, and securely, in the shuttle. Any doubts she might have had that he had worked freighters at some point in his career vanished. Once she had the bot unloaded, she programmed it with yet an even more evasive return route and sent it on its way back.

Then she waited. She listened to Hal's quiet recitation of the menial functions of the ship, was even relieved to hear Evans softly snoring on the bridge. But the phrase 'too easy' kept echoing about the chambers of her brain. When she couldn't stand it anymore, she asked Hal to see if he could tap the video inside warehouse fifteen. Usually, such access was a given, as part of the rental agreement, but technically, their suppliers had rented the warehouse, not Grayson. When Hal couldn't provide immediate access, she requested video from the bot that Hendon was using. Bot video was notoriously unreliable, usually blocked by something or out of focus, and Grayson was known to insist that it was a conspiracy on the part of botdom. Still, if there was nothing else in the moment, she would take that over nothing.

What it showed her, when it finally came up with insufficient light and focus, was what appeared to be Hendon's body, sprawled on the floor of the warehouse. Grayson swore, checked her mini-blaster, strapped to her calf inside her boots, and set out, cautiously, with her compad in hand. "Hal, I need that video feed, sooner is better, if you get my drift."

"Understood," the computer answered. "Working on it."

"Do you have control of that bot?"

"Yes."

"Back it up. Turn it. See what else it can give us. You'd better let the Confeds know there's a problem. But don't give them access to the run-about. Just... Shit, I don't know. Tell them I'm on it."

She pulled a pen laser from the sleeve of her jacket and tucked it into her pocket. El Rehla was a hot planet, but she didn't care if she looked out of place wearing a leather jacket. The numerous pockets and hiding places were too convenient. Night had fallen on the planet, and the spaceport apparently had budget issues, because only about a third of the lights were glowing, but that was fine with Grayson. Part of her, that she refused to acknowledge, wanted to rush to Hendon's side, see if he was still alive. The much wiser part of her proceeded with the same caution she had afforded the trader who had brought her much needed parts.

She moved from shadow to shadow toward the long rows of warehouses. Fifteen was tucked behind a massive row of the large freighter capacity storage buildings. It was among the smaller, trader-sized facilities. There was no way to approach from the back, and no easy access even if she could have made it to the roof. There was only straight in through the front. She studied her compad screen as the bot shifted and turned under Hal's tutelage. It didn't really show anything other than the expected remaining crates of food and canisters of gasses and fuels. The bot either couldn't or wouldn't provide thermal imaging. Grayson vowed to look into that at a later date.

She reached a point where she was across of the alley from the open access to warehouse fifteen. "Hal, I could really use video," she said into the compad.

"Video is being blocked," the computer replied.

"By whom?" she demanded.

"Indeterminant," Hal replied.

"Well, find out, damn it. I'm going in. Tell that bot to stay out of my way."

She didn't listen for Hal's reply, requesting to know her route in order to be sure the bot wasn't blocking it. She slipped inside the open door, waiting for her eyes to adjust to the even deeper darkness of the warehouse. She had muted the compad and shoved it into a pocket. In the dark, what little light the screen produced would be far too much. With nothing else to go on, she edged along the inner wall of the warehouse, moving silently. To her left, she could hear the very soft hum of the bot. It was powered on, but inactive, waiting for instruction. Grayson moved toward the noise. She crept a few more meters then bumped into one of the tracks of the bot. Quietly feeling her way, she moved around the substantial tread, squatted between the two tracks and covered her eyes with one hand. She pulled out the compad with her other hand over the screen and whispered, "Hal, bot lights on."

The warehouse was flooded with pools of light from the various fixtures the bot possessed. Grayson freed her miniblaster and peered cautiously over the flat bed of the bot. She hadn't heard even the scurrying of vermin at the sudden blast of light, which was encouraging. She hated furry vermin almost as much as human vermin. Still, she wasn't ready to set aside her caution. The remaining food and water crates were stacked toward the back of the space and the gas canisters and fuel cells were along the back wall. She did a quick circuit of the crates with blaster at the ready before she finally went to check on Hendon.

Hendon was breathing regularly and there wasn't obvious blood or physical damage, though he was obviously unresponsive. She straightened and ordered him to stand up, which he ignored, then shrugged and told the bot to finish loading. It obliged. Grayson kept an eye and the blaster on the door to the warehouse until the bot had everything loaded, then she managed to get Hendon loaded too, with some help from the bot, and set it to follow her. She proceeded the long way around the rows of warehouses, using the bot's lights to supplement the spaceport lighting until they were finally back at her shuttle. She wrestled the limp Hendon into the passenger seat, then strapped the bot and its load in the back with some improvisation.

When she finally sagged into the pilot's seat, she was beyond exhausted. She notified Hal that she had the shuttle loaded with supplies and Hendon. She rolled her head to look at him. He was still breathing steadily. A thought occurred to her, and she got back up from her seat and leaned over him, pulling his collar aside. On the left side of his neck she found the tiny, faint but unmistakable puncture marks of an infuse syringe. That led to another, far more unpleasant thought, and she began the task of removing all of his clothes, which was much harder than one might think, when the subject was a whole lot of muscle-bound dead weight. She tossed the clothes out of the door lock, then examined every inch of his body, a not unpleasant chore. Eventually, she found what she had really hoped not to find. A tiny lump under the skin of his back between ribs, where he wouldn't have been able to reach or notice. She had only been able to find it by turning him, sliding him onto his knees in front of the seat and otherwise compromising his limp form. Worse, she had to take her pen laser to his back to remove the tracker from under his skin; not exactly as neat and tidy as a scalpel. It would be most interesting to see if he thanked her when he finally woke up. She tossed the tracker out with his clothes, tried to figure out how to get him back up into the seat, gave up on that idea and pushed him the rest of the way to the floor.

"Stupid Fed," she muttered. "Who the hell did you turn your back on?" She climbed back into the pilot's seat and secured all of the doors. At this point, any sensible pilot would recline her chair and catch a few winks. Grayson warmed the thrusters instead. She had already determined that she was going to leave without 'permission' from ground control - one of those apologize after-the-fact scenarios - but then Hal's voice came over the comm.

"Galactic Fed is requesting an interview at oh six hundred port time in Building A6."

"What Hal? You're breaking up, I can't hear you. I'm on my way back to the ship. I'll check with you then." She cut the ship comm and glanced at Hendon, who was now snoring softly. She shook her head and lifted off, proceeding slowly but surely for open space. Ground control predictably and angrily buzzed her. She apologized profusely and blamed the lack of communication on her co-pilot. "Yeah," she commiserated with the woman on the other end of the comm. "I had to drag him out of a bar again. He told me he called it in, then promptly passed out. Time to turn him in on a new model." The woman on the other end laughed and gave her clearance to orbit. Grayson looked down at Hendon. "I guess you're good for something," she drawled.

They were almost back to the ship before Hendon started to stir. In very un-officer-like fashion, his first comment was "What the fuck!"

"I told you not to go out drinking," she told him. "Now you got that dumb-ass tattoo on your back. If you can't handle your whiskey, you should stay out of spacer bars."

"What the fuck are you talking about!" He demanded, trying to pull himself into the chair that kept swiveling away from him. "Where are my clothes?"

"You probably left them at some bimbo's apartment," Grayson said with a shake of her head.

"What did you do to me?" He lurched and finally managed to get into the seat.

"Sure, blame it on the sober one." She looked askance at him. "You were mickeyed. And then you were spiked with a tracker. In the warehouse, right before the last load, from the looks of it."

He rubbed his temples. "Feels like Kelvan, from the headache," he reluctantly agreed.

She nodded. "Blunt instrument. Not my style. The tracker, either. I mean, it would have more range than nanobots, but way too easy to find." Her eyes did a slow slide down his body.

"So if it was in my back, then taking my pants was just a side pleasure? And where the hell are they?"

She shrugged. "Cheap thrills. They're in a pile on the dock back down there. Wanna go back for them?"

"No," he answered snappishly. "That your way of getting even?"

"Maybe. Or maybe they wouldn't trust to just one tracker. I have a feeling we're going to find a bunch more when we get back. I don't know. It just all feels too blunt instrument to me. Way to clumsy."

He groaned. "So, they let you find the spike and meanwhile I've got a bunch of nanobots running around inside me waiting to be activated?"

"Maybe," she said with a shrug. But then she smiled slyly. "There are ways to detect them even if they aren't transmitting. It's getting rid of them that can be unpleasant."