“I hate Royals,” Valentina muttered resentfully, and forwarded the very expensive passcodes she had bought off a first-rate forger. He probably worked for one of the nobles himself. It wasn’t hard to drop an extra code or two onto the end of a package getting approved through, and the money for a mostly-legitimate code made the work worth it. Valentina was no good at that kind of work, or she might retire from smuggling. “Everything is red tape. Alpha Station, am I free to land?”

There was a long delay, but it wasn’t as long as it could have been. Some smugglers didn’t like to shell out for the good codes, but Valentina thought they were worth it. Sure, there were always inspections here and there, but a suspicious code would get attention, and she liked to avoid attention when she could. And even though her ship, The Asterias, held no contraband at the moment, official inspections were always dicey.

“Go ahead, Asterias,” Flight Control said at last. Valentina let out the breath she had been holding and pulled her ship out of the waiting lineup. “Mind the traffic.”

“Emperor’s Vigilance, Flight Control,” Valentina said. These types liked it when people were polite, and a little courtesy was as good as a bribe in the right places. “Good luck.”

Flight Control didn’t answer, but Valentina didn’t honestly expect them to. They had better things to do.

Sovereign Protectorate was glossy in a way that nowhere else in the galaxy could boast. It was where the real money lived, and it all orbited around the immense, shining, Imperial Palace.

It was visible from everywhere in the region. Every surface was polished and chromed. The grand, soaring towers of the Palace were lit with billions of tiny lights until it shone like a star. The air traffic around it caught the lights and glittered until the entire palace looked like it was surrounded by an ever-present cascade of many-colored sparks. Poets, songwriters, actors, and philosophers wrote about the Palace until it almost seemed mythical, like it wasn’t even real.

Valentina spared it a long moment of admiration, as she always did when she came to the Sovereign Protectorate. It wasn’t that she disliked the views, which were honestly unmatched. More, it was that security was tighter here than anywhere else in the galaxy and that meant that it was hard to get on with her work.

Of course, everywhere there was gloss, there was grime beneath, and that was where Valentina did her best work.

Nobody lived in the Protectorate unless they were legitimate, or they were legitimate enough to pass muster.

The Royal Houses all kept residences in the Protectorate, but Royals needed servants and that meant housing for them too. Valentina pulled the Asterias around and landed at an unremarkable, but large, floating villa. There was room for a dozen ships on the landing pad, but only four of the berths were filled, including the one she had just taken. Perfect. Life would be much easier if no one else knew why she was in the region.

“Hey Klara,” she said as she made her way into the villa towards a familiar office. Klara wasn’t a friend, but she and Valentina had worked together for a long while. Valentina might not have taken Nisha’s job if the contact wasn’t Klara. Klara’s involvement meant the job was solid. “Hear you got a bit of this and that for me.”

“Valentina Barbaro,” Klara said. She was a tall, waifish woman who dressed well, but just unfashionably enough to stay unnoticeable. Her jewelry was either expensive or fake, and Valentina couldn’t tell which from the door. “I see Nisha was able to reach you.”

“Got me back to Kepler’s Remnant and everything,” Valentina said and dropped into one of Klara’s comfortable, white leather couches. “He told me there was a fair chunk of money involved, and probably a little more heat than I like.”

“He’s not wrong. Get your boots off my table and walk with me,” Klara said and stood from behind her desk. Valentina followed after her. The hallway was lined in art, towering abstracts twice Valentina’s height on one side and a huge, transparent wall of Duraglass on the other. The view was spectacular. Although Klara’s villa wasn’t as fancy as some, she made the most of what she had. “You’re good, Barbaro. Very good. So here’s the job. I have a bunch of crates, a little something for everyone if you get my drift. I need some of them to go to the Arbeiters Faction, out in Lightspire, and I need the rest to go to The Garrison in Shepherd’s Void.”

“Problem with the usual shipping routes?” Valentina asked, since she preferred to know if there was going to be a problem before it became her problem. “Last I heard, there was still traffic going around.”

“Inspected traffic,” Klara said. She waved out over her incredible view as they left the hall and stepped out on a grand balcony filled with lush greenery, all flowering or with half-grown fruit. Back in Kepler’s Remnant, hydroponic food plants were purely practical. Here in the Sovereign Protectorate, they were grown in proper dirt as a status symbol. Valentina could hardly imagine the expense of it. “I need my crates to get there without being inspected. You’re very good at that.”

“Yeah I am,” Valentina agreed with a grin. “Right. Show me the crates and I’ll get them wherever you need them to go.”

Part 1 — KEPLER’S REMNANT

“Look, I owe you, so I came back when I said I never would. Talk fast, if you want me to stick around.”

Valentina Barbaro was not having the best day of her life.

She wasn’t having the worst day of her life either, but frankly, a day would have to be pretty bad to be worse than her worst day. Today, she had a bottle at her elbow that was more expensive than anything she would have bought for herself, and an old friend across the table, asking for a favor.

It was so strange to be back in Kepler’s Remnant. Valentina grew up here, bouncing from base to base and doing minor jobs for minor houses, dodging anyone with any real authority. It was a hard life. Harder when she was young. All the same, there was something comforting about being back on the turf she knew better than almost anywhere. After all, where else could she go for free drinks and easy jobs?

Moon’s Tavern was old and dingy. Half-broken neon flickered on the walls, promising a dozen brews the tavern didn’t carry anymore. The place was dirty and blaster-marked from nightly brawls that broke out whenever the locals got offended. Valentina dodged three fights on her way in the door, and was idly watching a fourth.

“I called you because I got word on a job that needs a lighter touch than the little fish around here can handle,” Nisha said. Nisha wasn’t his real name, of course. He was named after some Emperor or another. Valentina met him back when they were both spacer brats just trying to survive. If anyone else had sent her a comm asking her to come back, she would have refused. But it wasn’t anyone. It was Nisha, and she owed him. “It’s big money, Val.”

“I’ve never been swayed by big money, and you know it,” Valentina told him skeptically. At that moment the fight she had been watching spilled into a queue of patrons waiting for drinks, which in turn added three more willing participants to the mix. Fortunately no one was armed… yet. The bartender was eyeballing them too. Mama Moon poured a mean drink, but she also kept a weighted nightstick and a loaded blaster under the counter for just such an occasion. She didn’t much care if people fought as long as they paid for anything they broke. She had an eye on Valentina, too. Val raised a glass to her. Mama Moon grinned back, her smile crooked from a broken jaw long ago. “What’s the catch?”

Nisha was looking twitchy, which meant the catch was a bad one. That wasn’t always a deal-breaker for her, but Valentina liked to know what she was getting into before she got into it. Here in the booze-scented half-light of a familiar tavern, she was willing to put up with a lot, but she never took a job for the money alone. That was a good way to get into trouble she couldn’t get back out of.

“It’s gonna get attention,” he said at last between chugs from his glass. Valentina topped him off (he was buying after all) and sat back in her chair. “From, well, from pretty much everyone. See, word is, there’s something brewing on a galactic scale, something to do with the Miasma dissipating and all those ancient systems now within reach… All the big houses need to prepare, and we can help, for a hefty price. This run, it’s to get supplies here and there, get them where they’re going, and get out without getting nabbed.”

“So, basically, just like all of my jobs,” Valentina snorted. She was a smuggler, and a good one. The Factions having it out made things more complicated, but when three powerful people (or powerful Factions) didn’t like each other, there was always room for profit. After all, they couldn’t be looking everywhere at once, and they were more interested in the people shooting at them than the ones who weren’t. “Why me?”

“Because I can trust you.”

“No you can’t.”

“Alright, so I can’t,” Nisha admitted and proffered a tablet to her. Valentina took it, but didn’t turn it on. “What I do know is that you’re the type to stay bought, and that’s close enough in my book.”

It wasn’t the answer she was looking for, but it would have to do. Valentina wasn’t hurting for work, but she hated to pass up a job when one this lucrative came knocking on her door. It was good for business if people knew she was open to a challenge. It was a point of pride too. She wasn’t about to flinch off a job just because it might get the wrong kind of attention.

“Fine, I’ll take the job,” Valentina gave in with a sigh, and offered her glass to Nisha. He obligingly topped it off and clinked his to it, a spacer’s handshake. “Where am I going first?”

Part 2 — Sovereign Protectorate

Part 3 — Lightspire

Part 4 — Shepherd’s Void