In Too Deep

Although the cleaned-up transmission had more to say, it only created more questions for Valentina, who generally liked answers more than questions. After listening one more time, she grumbled up to get a cup of caf from her small galley.

It wasn’t getting better the more Valentina listened to it, that was for damn sure. She didn’t even know why she had it on repeat, but her curiosity kept getting the better of her.

“The relics are in here somewhere. Finding them could change the face of the galaxy,” a male voice crackled through the static. He sounded older, perhaps middle-aged. Had an educated accent. Maybe a noble… someone high up in the Arbiters or the Garrison. Education was expensive these days. “The historic records maintain that Sigis Station was the key to the Monarchy’s military power. The weapon must be there somewhere. If we can find it…the… will pay through the nose. Prince Gabriel will know our names… huge reward.”

Treasure hunters? Perhaps. Faction Spies? Probably. The mention of the prince told Valentina that they were aligned with one of the Factions, but she couldn’t tell which one. It was a shame. If she could just figure out what they were after and how to initiate contact, maybe she could spin this into a tidy little commission. She did know that sector of space better than anyone.

Suddenly her comm crackled, just as it did on Sigis Station. Valentina turned the recording off and leaned forward increase the gain on her comm. She shouldn’t be picking up random transmissions. Maybe that last comm router she picked up was too sensitive. She knew better than to patch with non-standard parts, but sometimes it was unavoidable.

“Do you see it?”

Valentina sat upright and stared out the viewport. The Asterias was moored up under an abandoned mining rig near one of the older claims, well hidden and protected from most forms of detection by the rig’s thick defensive plating. She could see out, but she was fairly confident that no one could see in.

Goosebumps crept all over Valentina’s flesh as she tried to stay calm. She knew that voice. It was the same voice from her transmission.

“Our informant said they saw her head off this way,” another voice crackled in reply. This voice was a cold, female one. Two ships, then. Maybe more. Not the best odds. “She overheard our transmission in Sigis Station, and we know she was down in the ruined control sector. There’s no telling what she found.”

“Why else would she run to Felix?” the man asked. Valentina cursed under her breath. Of course they thought she found something. Their informant must have heard the transmission she played for Felix and assumed everyone was there for the same purpose. If they were looking for a weapon, like the first transmission said… no. That was more trouble than Valentina wanted. “She found something to sell. If you hadn’t been such an idiot…”

“Watch your mouth. Do you see the ship?”

“No. It’s like she disappeared. What now?”

Valentina breathed a little easier, knowing that she was not yet spotted. The Asterias was good at hiding.

“Keep looking. There’s no Dust echo so no FTL jump. She’s got to be around here somewhere.”

They fell silent and Valentina watched, holding her breath even though there was no way they could have heard her. She double-checked her own comm to make sure it wasn’t transmitting, and slowly powered up the Asterias.

There was no point in sticking around here. She used her attitudinal thrusters to slowly back out of her hidey hole, keeping the rig between her and her pursuers. The moment she spun up FTL they’d be on her and there was no way she’d be able to make the jump undetected. She needed another option.

Part 1 — Kepler’s Remnant

Part 2 — Sovereign Protectorate

Part 3 — Lightspire

Part 4 — Shepherd’s Void

Part 5 — Celestious Nox

Part 6 — The Crucible

Part 7 — Edge of the Miasma

Part 8— The Pale

The Quick Slip

There was no doubt now. They were after her, but Valentina Barbaro wasn’t about to make it easy on them. Plenty of people had tried to track her down over the years. Bad deals or good ones. Competitors and pirates. She was still alive because none of them had ever managed to catch her.

This time would be no different if she had anything to say about it. A dozen small bursts from her thrusters (not enough to set off a short range scanner) and she was able to fall in almost directly behind her pursuers and shadow their ship, just out of sight. “Know your enemy’s blind spots,” one of Valentina’s favorite mentors had always said.

It was hard work and difficult flying, but the two burly, well-armed battleships we’re expecting her brand of sneakiness. Better still, they were still running that same open frequency that got her into this mess. Really, it was just careless to go around broadcasting your personal business all over space, but Valentina knew better than to curse her enemies for making such an obvious mistake in her advantage.

“Come on, guys. You’ve been quiet for a whole hour,” she said to herself as she wove through the many asteroids of the region. It was the perfect place to determine who was after her this time, and maybe get a shot at losing them. “Get back to bickering.”

The woman, who she was calling Icy, and Grumpy, the man she heard first, seemed to hate each other with a passion. At least they weren’t happy to be working together. Valentina was starting to enjoy their frequent dust ups on comms, punctuated with hoary insults and the occasional open threat.

“We’ve got to find this wretched smuggler,” Grumpy said, right on cue. “The Zeiger is trying to buy that pretentious fool, Felix, but he’s proving annoyingly righteous, apparently. He refuses to tell us what Barbaro is after.”

Score one for Valentina! “Zeiger” was an Arbeiter Functionary title. That answers one big question, and kudos to Felix for not giving her up. Valentina raised him up a few pegs in her mind. She honestly hadn’t expected him to stick to his guns, but then again, she represented a substantial payout for him. Felix was a decent man, but like everyone, he had a price. With the kind of riches the Arbeiters had at their disposal, they would offer him enough money. He would eventually turn, and Valentina wouldn’t hold it against him.

She was going to have to make herself much, much harder to find before that happened.

“I’m about ready to be done with the bickering couple,” Valentina said to herself and thought about her options. Getting creative as a grin made its way across her face, she slowed the Asterias to a crawl to let Icy and Grumpy put distance between them before punching out of the system.

Part 1 — Kepler’s Remnant

Part 2 — Sovereign Protectorate

Part 3 — Lightspire

Part 4 — Shepherd’s Void

Part 5 — Celestious Nox

Part 6 — The Crucible

Part 7 — Edge of the Miasma

Part 8 — The Pale

Part 9 — In Too Deep

The Miasma cut a swath across a host of stars and clusters throughout the galaxy, and the edge of space near the Miasma was always nerve-wracking. In the old days it would ebb and flow like a massive ocean tide, swallowing whole planets like it was nothing at all.

Part 7 — Edge of the Miasma

No one knew what exactly the Miasma was, or if they did, they were playing it close to the chest. It was a massive and terrifying force that constantly threatened to absorb worlds with a single wave of expansion. It was a wall, a boundary that separated the inhabited parts of the galaxy from the unknown void of deep space. It was energy, and though no one had discovered how to harness its power, many scientists claimed they were close. For some time now, and most curiously, the Miasma had stopped expanding and instead it was retreating. Throughout the galaxy, people were watching, waiting to see what new mysteries would be revealed and hoping the Miasma would continue to retreat. Its unpredictable nature made it more disturbing for everyone, especially those brave enough to live in these newly uncovered territories. Valentina didn’t have cause to work in these parts very often, but once in a rare while, she’d cut through on the way to anyplace else.

None of the three Factions liked to come out this far. They were all busy with their strange little standoff, a cold war with each Faction just waiting to see who would fire the first shots. Personally, Valentina didn’t care which they picked. It wasn’t her problem or her business, as long as she effectively avoided all of them.

Sigis Station was supposedly named for an old emperor, but Valentina had no idea which one. The Imperial style station was old, and until recently, wholly subsumed by the miasma. As soon as it was revealed, the rough and tumble sort moved in and got to work redistributing all this old wealth. The scavengers weren’t bothering anyone; whoever was around when the Miasma hit was long gone.

It must have been glorious in its heyday, Valentina thought to herself as she walked through the thinning crowds of this rediscovered old port and ducked down an alleyway. Her Sigis Station map wasn’t exactly reliable, but those coordinates were leading her steadily down, into the lower (and darker) levels of the massive station. She hoped whatever was at the end would be worth something.

Salvage crews thinned out. As Valentina walked, cautious of rubble, she discovered small lights that brightened as she drew near and faded away when she passed. There were signs here and there, but they were ancient and she couldn’t make out the old Imperial script.

It had been a gamble to steal these coordinates from Mateo, but he hadn’t noticed. Anyway, it wasn’t like she actually took his chip. She just copied the data off it and left the original there. He could still do whatever he wanted with it and there was certainly plenty of salvage to go around.

As the corridors closed in around her, increasingly decrepit and damaged, Valentina examined the hallway and checked her wrist-map.

“This doesn’t look right,” Valentina grumbled to herself, turning around as another corridor suddenly lit up all at once, as if the station itself was beckoning her into to its deepest secret. “Well that’s not ominous or anything. Okay, let’s see what’s down here.”

The corridor led deeper into the ruins of the old station. Valentina blessed the wrist-map that remembered her path, and the exo-suit that ensured she was surrounded by breathable air. Running into a patch of bad air (or no air) in these situations could easily ruin a job or end a life. Everything seemed to be holding pressure well enough, but good external air pressure wouldn’t do a thing about an internal gas leak, and these pipes were ancient.

The lights guided her down into what looked like an old control room. It must have been evacuated in a hurry. Broken plasti-glass was everywhere. There were a few old consoles that had been torn apart. Valentina pulled her blaster and hoped whatever wrecked the room wasn’t still around. With nothing but a waste high railing and a bank of old Mark 1 compuservers between her and the hallway, It would be a bad place for a fight.

A glint of bright metal caught her eye. Valentina knelt, her blaster in one hand, and cautiously brushed away the thick grime.

The bright metal turned out to be a smooth metal box. It was heavy for its size, and engraved all over with constellations. No, not constellations. It was an old-style star map. She had only ever seen them in museums. A smile crept over her face as she realized the potential value of her find.

Just then, Valentina’s helmet-comm crackled and a voice echoed in her ear. She was picking up a transmission nearby. Quickly deciding discretion was the better part of valor, she took the star map box and slowly slipped back through the way she came.