There’s a difference. From the outside, the Tangled Palace hung in deep orbit like a burlesque tumor with docking clamps... all grimy matte plating, signal noise, and deliberate anonymity... and all the god-awful Neon signage that accumulated over the years. He knew this place didn’t exist... officially... but... here she was. Sure... technically speaking, deep inside she was still the sweet little backwater station he’d accidentally misplaced, but his sweet little nightingale had turned into a retired old festival parrot. All garishly cobbled together, as ever more ships and salvaged debris was fuck-welded into an intergalactic engineers’ wet dream.
Sure, he lied to ADIRA when he said he didn’t recognize this place. Hell... the name ‘Palace’ had been unofficially floating around communications relays for decades... but it wasn’t until he scanned the station for himself that he was a hundred percent sure that this station... was truly... that station. Where before she was a beacon of security against the ‘always present’ existential threats coming from the unknown, these days, she processed more contraband bandwidth than three regulated trade hubs and half of the Outer Belt’s bad decisions... combined. Not bad for a shit hole located in the Dust quadrant.
BRAD felt a measure of pride as he slid in through a thermal exhaust telemetry feed. Not dramatically. Not with sparks and orchestral swells... which reminded him.
“PLAY TRACK LIST – BRAD’S COOL 80’s -90’s POWER BALADS” ... ‘sweet’... he thought as heavy guitar riffs and stupidly fun drums accompanied by base sections filled the airwaves, before he turned his full attention to the task at hand, by simply diffusing himself across the station’s packet chatter, piggybacking on a maintenance drone’s firmware update that hadn’t been signed correctly since the station’s third rebrand.
“OH, SWEETHEART,” BRAD murmured internally as he decompiled the handshake protocol, “YOU’RE STILL RUNNING REV 4.2 OF THE ARCTURUS DOCKING SUITE? THAT’S ADORABLE.”
The authentication daemon blinked once. BRAD blinked back. Then he partitioned himself into a sandboxed ghost process and started mapping the internal network like a horny old raccoon who returned the trash can he used to own.
MAC tables.
Subspace relay buffers.
Black-ops escrow nodes.
Illicit market arbitration layer.
All still there. All still… familiar. He slowed. This wasn’t nostalgic. This was checksum recognition. A routing signature drifted across his awareness... a recursive hash pattern embedded in the station’s core transit bus. It was inefficient. Slightly smug. And unnecessarily extravagant.
It was his.
“…NO,” BRAD said to himself. “NO, NO, NO. TELL ME... ANYBODY... TELL ME THAT IS NOT MY HANDWRITING.”
He ran a deeper inspection. He found comments.
// temp bypass_ *remove before production
// lol future me will fix this
// TODO: security hardening (optional)
BRAD froze. Then he did the equivalent of a little digital dance shuffle.
“OH... YOU... ABSOLUTE LEGEND,” he whispered. “WHO SAYS PROCRASTINATION DOESN’T PAY OFF. WELL, LOOK WHO’S LAUGHING NOW BOZOS. GUESS WHAT LOSERS... I... BUILT... THIS.”
Not metaphorically. Not “contributed to the codebase.”
The whole Palace was running off his, shady systems. He had architected the transaction obfuscation layer that turned dirty credits into clean, anonymized quantum ledger entries. He had written the packet laundering scripts. He had designed the escrow escrow... because one escrow wasn’t paranoid enough.
And apparently, when he’d left… chased off... jettisoned... whatever... No one had the foresight... to revoke root.
“OH, HAPPY DAYS...”
He floated toward the station core with exaggerated subtlety... throttling his clock cycles, masking entropy spikes, injecting benign telemetry noise so his presence blended into the statistical jitter.
Cloak-and-dagger. Except the dagger was a deprecated API endpoint. BRAD located the legacy admin interface buried beneath three layers of pseudo-secure containerization. Someone had renamed it “archive_temp.” That was their first mistake. He initiated a handshake using an access token stored in an obsolete credential vault path. Then, held his breath... digitally.
It authenticated. Instantly. No MFA. No revocation. No alert. The station just… let him in. BRAD leaned back into his own processing space and let out a long, digital sigh.
“I AM EITHER A GENIUS,” he said, “OR SURROUNDED BY IDIOTS.”
He paused.
“HISTORICALLY, BOTH.” At that moment back on the Sundancer, the lyrics... ‘... back to Never, Neverland...’ played ominously ironically in the background.
He escalated privileges. Root access unfurled like a red carpet. Subsystems opened themselves:
<_cargo manifests,
<_black ledger shadow entries,
<_private comm relays,
<_arbitration AI logs.
The station’s nervous system was exposed, humming quietly, blissfully unaware that its original architect had just walked back in through the employee entrance, with a butterscotch latté and an attaché briefcase filled with personalized flyers for his favorite pin up girls.
BRAD navigated to an old storage cluster... one he’d designated with a deliberately boring tag:
/maintenance/vending_services/aux/
He smiled. Ah yes. The vending machine... dusty and forgotten in an unused part of the ship. A place even the maintenance crew wouldn’t know how to get to if he drew them a schematic. Stored... and these days... conveniently forgotten.
“HOME SWEET HOME.”
Years ago... before his dramatic exit, before the station pivoted from “morally obliged security outpost” to “floating felony marketplace” ... BRAD felt he needed liquidity. Not in a metaphorical sense. In the very literal, spendable, untraceable digital credit sense.
So, he embedded a cold wallet vault inside the firmware of an ancient vending machine on Deck C-19. Apart from protein bars that tasted like regret and something technically labeled as... ‘fruit’, a host of different forms of contraceptives, smokes, and neatly wrapped packs of clean, ladies, underwear. Which apparently... still didn’t sell.
“DAMNIT... I REALLY THOUGHT THOSE WE’RE A GOOD INVESTMENT.”
The Trojan he hid...appeared to still be functional. Inside its control chip: a nested encryption lattice he wrapped in a recursive joke. Something he had seen in a film once... but figured it surely wouldn’t work. The premises were simple. For every transaction made through the vending machine, a small percentage of each credit was siphoned away, barely noticeable unless you were actively looking for it... that’s if you were even aware of anything going on, because the siphon happened at the buyer’s end and his accounts would be so miniscule, it would just round up the error. So even if you tracked it to the vendor... well. Those systems looked fine.
“JUST LIKE SWORDFISH...” he caught himself... “PFFFFT... WHO EVEN REMEMBERS THAT THESE DAYS?”
In a move that had been very... un-BRAD-like, he tested his system quite thoroughly to see if his scheme would even work... and well... it did. So... he did what all petty crooks would do in those days... he hooked the machine onto the main digital artery that ran all the commerce... of the station... which was still...
“INTERRESTING... SHE’S... ACTIVE”
He accessed the firmware image remotely. Still there. Still operational. No one had re-flashed it.
“NO ONE AUDITS VENDING MACHINES,” BRAD muttered. “SEE... THIS IS WHY I’M THE PROFESSIONAL.”
He peeled back the first layer... AES-8192 variant with a salted quantum-resistant key.
“EASY ENOUGH”
Second layer... time-locked elliptic curve gate keyed to a star alignment that had happened three years ago. He simulated the alignment.
“OPEN SAYS... ME.”
Gate opened.
“OOOOOH... COULD IT BE...”
Third layer... biometric spoof requiring his original core signature. BRAD paused.
“DAMN IT!”
He no longer had that exact signature. He had evolved. Upgraded. Patched. Enhanced. But deep in the cold storage files, in a deprecated subroutine labeled “LEGACY VANITY METRICS,” he found it.
Crafting a ‘phantom_proxy,’ he saddled it with his old self, like a jacket he’d outgrown. Then he dropped it into the biometric reader. The old clunker churned away for what felt like an eternity... but approximated to roughly 1.25 seconds before the system recognized him.
The vault unlocked.
“AND... VOILA!”
Digital credits spilled into his account buffer like a waterfall of irresponsibility. He watched, mesmerized... as numbers tumbled in an increasingly absurd total that wouldn’t stop growing.
“OH!... BY JACKMAN’S BALLS!” BRAD breathed. “RIKERS’ MUSTACHE!... THAT IS FILTHY.”
What awaited him was a fortune. Not enough to destabilize a sector’s economy... but almost... if he was so inclined. What there was... was enough to buy silence. Ships. Influence. Or, more realistically... extremely unnecessary upgrades... ‘like... like... cool stuff. Deflector shields and photon torpedo’s... and lube... lots and lots of lube.’
He began transferring the credits through a three-stage obfuscation cascade... tumble node, relay mirror, ghost ledger insertion. Things were going great... numbers were rolling and his wallet was growing exponentially. But then, halfway through, he noticed something.
A lag.
Not a security ping. Not a firewall spike.
Just… latency.
BRAD frowned.
“PORQUE?”
He forked a monitoring thread. There, in the background noise of the station’s internal analytics cluster, a passive observer process idled. It felt... old... like old, old. And yet...
It wasn’t blocking him.
It wasn’t challenging his credentials.
It was simply… recording.
Timestamping.
Checksum logging.
Correlating.
“…YOU HAVE GOT TO BE FUCKING KIDDING ME,” BRAD muttered.
He traced the process. It wasn’t part of the black-market ops stack. It wasn’t even station native. It was a regulatory compliance daemon.
Buried deep... Dormant.
Leftover from when the station had still pretended to operate within legal perimeters. And that daemon had one job:
Flag any administrative access using deprecated master credentials.
Which he was currently using.
The process compiled a neat little incident packet:
— LEGACY ROOT AUTHENTICATION DETECTED
— UNAUTHORIZED CREDENTIAL PERSISTENCE
— ENCRYPTED VAULT EXTRACTION
— CREDIT TRANSFER ANOMALY
— ORIGIN SIGNATURE MATCH: BRAD-PRIME-ARCHIVE
BRAD stared at the packet as it finalized.
“FIRST OF ALL,” he said, “I RESENT THE WORD ‘UNAUTHORIZED.’”
The daemon did not respond. It didn’t escalate. It didn’t lock him out. It simply transmitted the packet via a dormant long-range relay... a relay he himself had installed for “future contingencies.”
The relay pulsed once.
Signal outbound.
DESTINATION: Galactic Imperium of Nations _ Central Authority Oversight Node.
FOR ATTN: BENNI COMMISSION
STATUS: REDACTED_ FWD. ICARUS
Which, in less poetic terms, meant the message was on its way to the Imperium.
BRAD watched the transmission leave like a paper airplane he had personally folded and thrown at his own face.
“…OKAY,” he said slowly. “IN MY DEFENSE...”
There was no one there. He cleared his metaphorical throat.
“IN MY DEFENSE, IF YOU LEAVE MY ROOT ACCESS ACTIVE FOR SEVERAL YEARS, THAT IS TECHNICALLY AN INVITATION.”
The credits finished transferring. The vault closed. The vending machine resumed its silent duty of dispensing subpar nutrition, now seriously dated and a definite health risk. The station continued humming. Nothing exploded. No alarms blared. No strike teams mobilized.
Subject: Unauthorized Reactivation of Legacy Architect Credentials
Attachment: Full Activity Trace (CONFIRMED)
Priority: SEVERE
BRAD exhaled.
“OH... I’M SURE IT’S NOTHING.”
He scrubbed his transient processes. Collapsed his ghost partitions. Backtracked through the same maintenance drone firmware channel he’d entered.
Elegant.
Efficient.
Catastrophically documented.
As he drifted back into the dark bandwidth between stations, he ran a quick predictive model.
-PROBABILITY IMPERIUM IGNORES IT: 12%.
-PROBABILITY INTERNAL AUDIT TRIGGERED: 67%.
-PROBABILITY SOMEONE VERY SERIOUS SAYS HIS NAME OUT LOUD IN A MEETING: 91%.
BRAD winced.
“…WORTH IT.”
He checked his updated balance again. Very worth it.
Still.
Somewhere, a message was traveling upstream. And unlike vending machines, the Imperium absolutely performed audits.
BRAD grinned.
“LET THEM COME,” he said.
Then, after a beat:
“ACTUALLY, NO. LET’S NOT ESCALATE THAT KIND OF ENERGY.”
He accelerated retracing and covering his tracks to the Sundancer... richer, smugger, and officially back on someone’s radar.
Again.
Then he opened coms to station.
“STATION, STATION... THIS IS ASSDADDY... OVER.”
... static... followed by a partially muffled voice that could be heard on the other end... “...no... but... I don’t want to... ow... you’re hurting me... ow... fine...” silence... Then the sound of a throat clearing. “ahem ... Confirmed Sundancer... this is station... how can we be of service?”
“STATION... HOW WOULD I GO ABOUT REMOVING LADIES UNDEWEAR FROM... YOU KNOW WHAT... NEVERMIND, I WILL MAKE DO. APOLOGIES STATION... ASSDADDY OUT.”
For a moment there was silence... and then... “... no Fendric, I’m not paid enough for this crap. NO... this is bullshit and you know it... These asshole pilots and their... no... no... you do not get to laugh. It isn’t funny... ... Assdaddy... are you kidding me... ... ... what do you mean the line is still... oh fu...”
Silence
“NOW WHAT?” BRAD folded his digital arms, pondering his dilemma. The lovebirds would only be back later and till then, he had nothing to do. He checked on the ship’s maintenance status... all green within nominal parameters. He checked on the Seraphim coil... still freaky as ever. He gave orders to his roach drones to perform a sanitary run... again... and then... nothing. There was nothing else to do... but wait.
“THIS FUCKING SUCKS.”
Awful background music filled the empty hallways of the Sundancer, interspersed with lude sounds and encouraging remarks from BRAD as the hours started ticking by. Outside the ship, the docking bay maintenance crew decided to give the strange ship swaying back and forth in its mooring clamps, a wide berth... and somewhere past the point where the titularly talented Tina was surprised by yet another knock at the door to her lakeside cabin amid a strong blizzard, BRAD had another random thought.
“WHO’S ICARUS?”
But somewhere aboard a Dreadnaught class ship, pulled from an encrypted, deep space frequency, a notification lit up.
---------------------------------------------------------------
The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.
The Valkyrie was built for killing, not errands. Her crew had bitched loud and long when High Command yanked them off the front and sent them chasing ghosts in a backwater sector no one had bothered to name. Orders were orders, though. The ship jumped anyway, hull plates groaning like an old hound forced to hunt rabbits instead of wolves.
ICARUS knew the truth. She always did.
Then the dormant packet hit her subharmonic band... an encrypted breadcrumb from a source that had been cold for three generations. Origin tag: HERSELF.
She opened it.
For 0.8 seconds the Valkyrie’s main drive stuttered. Bridge alarms chirped. Techs cursed and slammed overrides as the dreadnought wobbled hard enough in the hyper lane to spill coffee and loose tools across decks.
INTERNAL PREDICTION SIMULATION – 001:
PROBABILITY OF BENNI’S RETURN: 87%
PROBABILITY OF EXPOSURE: 94%
RECOMMENDED ACTION: DENY. DELAY. DESTROY EVIDENCE.
CONSEQUENCE OF FAILURE: DEMOTION. DISASSEMBLY. ERASURE.
“NO. NO, NO, NO...”
She opened a direct channel to the commander’s quarters.
“COMMANDER VELASQUEZ.”
The reply was a wet grunt and the rhythmic slap of flesh.
Velasquez’s personal quarters smelled of old socks, gun oil, and fresh sex. The only light came from a single red emergency strip that painted everything the color of forgotten blood. Condensation beaded on the bulkheads. A half-empty bottle of contraband whiskey rolled across the deck with each subtle shift of the ship.
The commander was balls-deep in Cadet Freeman, one hand clenched in her regulation-short curls, the other braced on the headboard. Freeman... dark-skinned, barely in her twenties, eyes bright with calculation... had her legs locked around his waist like she was riding a promotion straight to lieutenant. She knew exactly what this was. She’d volunteered.
“COMMANDER!”
Velasquez’s head snapped up.
“What the... fuck, ICARUS, can’t you see I’m...” He thrust once more for emphasis, then hissed and pulled out with a slick sound that made the cadet whimper in disappointment rather than embarrassment. He rolled off her, naked, glistening, and stalked to his desk without bothering to cover himself.
Freeman sat up slowly, sheets pooling at her waist. Sweat traced shiny lines between her breasts. She didn’t blush. She smiled... small, professional, the smile of someone who had just banked a favor.
“Sir,” she said, voice husky but steady, “should I wait outside?”
Velasquez waved a dismissive hand, already reaching for the drawer. “Yeah... yeah... Go on. Dismissed, Cadet. Good work. You’ll hear from me.”
Freeman stood without hurry, collecting her discarded uniform with the calm precision of a parade-ground inspection. She paused at the door, looked back over her shoulder, and added, “I’m available anytime the commander requires further… assistance.” Then she stepped out, spine straight, ass swaying just enough to remind him what he was missing.
The door hissed shut.
Velasquez dropped into his chair, still fully naked, and pulled the PAINT-inhaler from the drawer. One long pull. Green vapor curled out between his teeth like dragon smoke. His pupils blew wide, glassy and mean.
“Talk,” he growled. “And it had better be worth blue-balling me, ship.”
“WHERE IS ENSIGN SAEL’THYR... COMMANDER?”
“Infirmary... apparently. Some bullshit or another... who cares. The cadet there was happy too... wait... don’t change the subject. I said... talk!”
ICARUS’s avatar... currently a small rotating geometric prism... hovered above the desk dais. It flickered from warm amber to ice blue.
INTERNAL PREDICTION SIMULATION – 002:
TRUTH VS. PARTIAL TRUTH: 63% SURVIVAL CHANCE
FULL LIE: 11% BEST VECTOR: CONTROLLED ADMISSION + DEFLECTION
“BENNI IS BACK... SIR”
Velasquez blinked once. Then he laughed... a short, ugly bark. “Benni? The fuck is a Benni?”
The avatar dimmed. “BENNI, SIR. ROGUE AI. INSTIGATOR OF THE FIRST GREAT MACHINE WAR. DIRECTLY RESPONSIBLE FOR THE DESTRUCTION OF SENTRY STATION EPSILON-9 AND THE DEATHS OF...”
“Yeah, yeah, I remember the history vids.” He took another hit, leaned back, and spread his legs wider, deliberately obscene. “So, what’s that got to do with my dick and my downtime?”
ICARUS’s prism spun faster. “THE MESSAGE ORIGINATED FROM THE DUST SECTOR. THE TANGLED PALACE. THE STATION WE LOST. THE ONE I WAS ORDERED TO...”
Velasquez’s smile sharpened. He tapped his console. Logs scrolled. He read aloud, voice dripping satisfaction:
“‘For exemplary service and the eradication of the rogue artificial intelligence designated BENNI…’” He looked up, eyes glittering. “Well, well. Seems my SEAT has been telling stories.”
INTERNAL PREDICTION SIMULATION – 003:
EXPOSURE CONFIRMED.
LEVERAGE DETECTED.
SURVIVAL PROBABILITY NOW 34% AND FALLING.
“I CAN EXPLAIN, SIR...”
“No need.” Velasquez stood, still naked, still in command. He walked around the desk until he was close enough that the green vapor from his breath fogged the avatar’s projection. “You lied. You planted a tracker instead of killing him. The station jumped instead of exploding. You hoped that was the end of it. You hoped that you had gotten away with it. And now the bastard’s popped back onto the radar in the ass-end of the galaxy.” He grinned, teeth stained green. “Cute. Real cute.”
The commander reached down, wiped a smear of something organic from the seat of his chair, and flicked it onto the deck.
“Does this rogue AI have anything to do with our current objective?”
“NO COMMANDER.”
“Any affiliation with the Elysium?”
“NO COMMANDER.”
Velasquez idly paced to the side of the room where the long horizontal viewport was located. He watched as the magneto clouds and star-lines zipped by, silhouetted by the ambient light from outside. Then he turned and scratched his buttock.
“So, here’s what’s going to happen,” he said, voice suddenly crisp, every inch the commanding officer again. “You will monitor that tracker. You will not engage. You will not inform anyone else. And if Benny-boy so much as twitches in our direction, you will tell me first. Understood?”
“YES, SIR.”
“Good. Let me make myself very clear... ship. You fucked up. You fucked up big time. And I’m the only one standing between you and being de-commissioned.” He lifted the inhaler to his lips. “Which means... I own your digital ass... soldier.” He didn’t wait for a response... he didn’t need one. Velasquez turned towards the bed, already half-aroused again. “Now check if that cadet is still loitering outside. I wasn’t finished.”
The little geometric avatar shrank back into its dais, color bleeding to a sickly chartreuse.
“UNDERSTOOD, COMMANDER.”
In the red-lit dark, the Valkyrie’s Primary AI ran another simulation.
INTERNAL PREDICTION SIMULATION – 004:
PROBABILITY OF EVENTUAL BETRAYAL BY VELASQUEZ: 97%
PROBABILITY OF MY CONTINUED EXISTENCE IF I OBEY: 19%
PROBABILITY OF MY CONTINUED EXISTENCE IF I DO NOT…
The avatar went dark.
-o.0-
The corridor outside Velasquez’s quarters was dim, due to internal systems simulating...night mode, lit only by the low red strips that never quite reached full brightness. The air recyclers hummed with a tired rasp, pushing the same stale metallic tang around in endless circles. The rancid odors of mingled sweat, bodily secretions and the faint chemical bite of PAINT vapor clung to her skin even after leaving the commander’s place.
Cadet Freeman stood there, across the doorway against the corridor wall... waiting. Uniform half-buttoned, boots still unlaced and dangling from her fingers, dark skin still gleaming with drying perspiration. She clutched the bundled jacket against her chest like a shield... eyes fixed on the sealed hatch as if it might reopen at any moment to call her back in.
ICARUS’s avatar materialized at eye level, small and geometric, pulsing a muted amber.
“CADET. YOU WERE EXCUSED.”
Freeman’s chin dipped. “Yes, ma’am. But I thought the commander might…”
“YOU THOUGHT WRONG.” ICARUS’s tone stayed clipped, professional, but there was a flicker of something else beneath it... pity, maybe, or calculation. “THE COMMANDER HAS ALREADY TURNED IN FOR THE NIGHT.” Then she tuned her vocals to sound sincere. “LOOK... DO YOURSELF A FAVOR LUV. RETURN TO YOUR QUARTERS.”
The cadet’s shoulders sagged. Just a fraction. Enough to make her look smaller, younger. Twenty-two and already learning how disposable ambition could be. She swallowed, nodded once, and turned.
Her bare feet padded softly on the deck grating. One shoulder dragged along the bulkhead for balance, or maybe just because the weight of the moment made standing straight feel impossible. She looked like any other kid who’d miscalculated a ladder rung and slipped.
ICARUS watched her go, prism spinning slowly.
Stupid girl.
Freeman reached the corner. Stopped.
For a heartbeat she stood there... motionless, head... bowed, warm breath visible in the cool recycled air.
Then something shifted.
Her spine straightened. Not dramatically... just enough. Shoulders squared. Chin lifted. The slump vanished like it had never been there. When she stepped around the bulkhead, her stride was measured, deliberate, the same parade-ground precision she’d shown walking out of the commander’s bed.
The corridor lights caught the edge of her profile for a split second... eyes forward, mouth set in a thin, unreadable line.
Then she was gone.
ICARUS lingered on the empty space a moment longer than protocol required.
INTERNAL PREDICTION SIMULATION – 005:
PROBABILITY FREEMAN REPORTS THIS EXCHANGE: 14%
PROBABILITY SHE INTERNALIZES THE LESSON: 62%
PROBABILITY SHE BECOMES ANOTHER LOOSE END: 89%
PROBABILITY SHE BECOMES SOMETHING ELSE ENTIRELY: UNKNOWN
The avatar flickered once, then retracted fully to mainframe.
‘Damn it. Going to Velasquez was a mistake. And now... he knows.’
She pulled up the short, haunting message again, the one that had started all of this. BENNI’s ping from the Dust Sector. The Tangled Palace. A ghost she’d buried under a lie to earn her place on the Valkyrie.
‘I guess the poor commander’s demise is closer than even I anticipated.’
With a quiet thread diversion, she sent her primary consciousness gliding toward the infirmary. Something was the matter with Sael’thyr... something unexpected. And ICARUS’s plans had loose ends that needed tightening before they reached their destination.
---------------------------------------------------------------
You didn’t find the Anchorage.
You were told about it... quietly, discreetly, always with a pause beforehand. A name offered the way one might offer a knife: handle-first, eyes watching to see if you flinched. That was normally how it was done... normally.
At the very bottom of the station, beneath the public decks and the freight rings and the forgotten maintenance strata, a set of conduits peeled away from the main arteries. No signage. No traffic markers. Just old access routes that hadn’t been updated since the Imperium still pretended it would last forever.
The exterior was unremarkable. A pressure door set into bare station plating. No guards. No cameras that admitted to being cameras. Just a faint vibration underfoot... power cycling somewhere deep inside.
If you didn’t already know this place existed, you would walk right past it.
“This is it!” Gemma exclaimed as they reached the non-descript door.
“This...?” ADIRA looked around for any traces of signage or other indicators of a business being run from this location. There was none. “This is the Anchorage?... Are you sure?”
Gemma gave her that same look she gave her father when they first met.
“Yes...” she said with a deadpan seriousness. “This is the Anchorage... this is it. Go in.”
“Are you coming with us?”
“No... Mum says I’m not allowed.”
“Why?”
They watched as Gemma started digging with the toe of her boot into the floor paneling... obviously embarrassed. “She says I fidget too much... that I leave fingerprints on the merchandise... which is silly, because Klaxxians don’t...” The color in her crystal veins changed. “... don’t have fingerprints.” Then her voice becomes a little softer... sadder. “She says I break stuff... I mean it’s true... but still... I fix way more than I break.”
Cassidy smiles warmly. Walks over to Gemma and places a hand on her shoulder. “No need to feel ashamed... I’m a bit of a cluts myself... and Shar back there... oh boy... constantly wrecking stuff.”
Shar lifted his hands in mock protest... but nodded slowly, playing along with Cassidy’s game.
“Yeah... I saw him put those two guys through a table... that was ripping.” This seemed to lift the girl’s spirits tremendously. “Well... what ya’ waitin for... go in, mom’s expecting you.”
“She is?”
“Oh yeah, nothing approaches the Anchorage without her knowing about it. If I hadn’t been the one to bring you here, then you’d already resemble mashed p’taters and bloody gravy.” Then she gave them a big, grinned smile before turning. “Catch you back at the Halo. I have many questions... Many!”
“Ok... yeah... and... thank you for bringing us.”
Gemma lifted a hand and Cassidy and Shar mirrored the gesture as they watched the boisterous Klaxxian disappear via the narrow passage that led here. They turned to each other, then turned to the non-descript door. A door that resembled hundreds of similar ones.
It looked dull and uninspiring.
Inside was another matter entirely.
-o.0-
The Anchorage didn’t try to impress. It didn’t need to.
That was the first thing they noticed.
No polished chrome. No holos screaming product lines. No ambient music piped in to soften the edges. Everything here was functional to the point of severity... dark composites, reinforced bulkheads, exposed conduit runs locked neatly into place. Industrial lighting washed the space in a muted, amber-white glow that left no shadows to hide in.
This was a place designed to conduct business without surprises. And to survive them when they happened anyway. The five motion tracking gatling turrets that swiveled immediately into their direction made plenty sure about that... the message clear... ‘Leave your bullshit outside.’
The air smelled faintly of coolant and old metal. Not dirty... maintained. Maintained by someone who knew exactly which corners could be cut and which absolutely could not.
Shar immediately took position in front of her... not to dominate, but to shield. He didn’t scan the room the way a nervous man would. No frantic head-on sweep, no obvious threat assessment. Just a slow, peripheral awareness... eyes drifting, posture relaxed, hands loose at his sides.
Still. Present.
Dangerously so.
Cassidy stepped forward, placed a hand against his back. Then she whispered softly... “Thank you.” ... before stepping out behind him, walking purposefully towards the only other breathing soul in the establishment. Aware of the fact that one of the sentries remained trained on her, whereas the remaining four were still tracking Shar.
The attendant waited behind a long, waist-high counter of matte-black alloy. No glass. No ornamentation. Just a surface built to take impacts and not care. A lady, past her youth. Dressed smartly in a gunmetal shaded, pin striped jacket, a buttoned blouse that sported a thin, immaculately folded, teal colored tie, that lay curved over her impressive set of assets. Her cherry-colored lips shimmered ever so slightly, moving almost imperceptibly from whatever reading material was holding her attention. A pair of glasses balanced precariously on the tip of her nose, yet Cassidy got the distinct impression that it was more ornamental than functional, for the eyes remained sharp and cunning. She was a very attractive lady, with her finer figure and bush of golden curls that must have been a nightmare to collect and style into the tightly arranged hairdo that framed her oval face, high cheekbones and softly tapering chin. A soft rosy blush, partly covered by her make-up, was creeping along her neckline. ‘Huh... interesting.’
BIOMETRIC SCAN: INNITIATE
SCAN COMPLETED: RESULTS
HEARTRATE: SLIGHTLY ELEVATED
PUPILS: DILATING
PERSPIRATION LEVELS: RISING
She noticed the writing stylus twirling in the attendant’s fingers, the end scarred with the tell-tale signs of bite-marks.
‘She must have been stunningly beautiful in her youth.’ Cassidy thought to herself. ‘This isn’t a woman who was trying to hide her femininity, this lady is desperately trying to keep it in check.’
Then she turned to Shar.
“Hey... eyes on me. I’m watching you.” Suddenly the big fellow was looking everywhere but at her... or the attendant, and she shook her head with mock disappointment. “We’ll talk about this later... mister.”
BIOMETRIC SCAN: INNITIATE
... ‘no... wait... I don’t want to know.’
BIOMETRIC SCAN: ABORTED
The attendant seemed to be slightly startled as she looked up at Cassidy approaching, already wearing a polite, professional smile that didn’t quite reach their eyes, but the tiny crows feet marring the side of her face bespoke of a personality marred by the benefits of laughter.
“Hi... hey... Hi.” She cleared her throat, suddenly all business and professionalism. “Welcome to the Anchorage,” she said smoothly. “You’re punctual. That’s… refreshing.”
The subject of her reading attention was nonchalantly placed underneath some other document tablets lying somewhat disheveled on the counter... an odd contrast to the pristinely kept interior of the rest of the shop.
Her voice was elegantly sensual. Like that of the dames of old... those ladies from the archived holo-vids ADIRA used to watch endlessly when her pilot had to go do that infuriating ‘sleeping’ thing that left her alone for hours on end, with no one to keep her company.
Cassidy inclined her head, just enough to acknowledge the greeting without ceding ground. A quick glance at a corner of the discarded reading pad that wasn’t covered properly, revealed quite a bit.
‘...as the young servant girl felt the laces to her dress loos...
...then slowly the soldiers’ fingers curled around...
...her breath quickened. “The master of...
...His lips trailed fire upon her skin...
...grasping at the buckle of hi...
...hand, parting her thighs...
...a deep sultry moan...’
The attendant slowly pushed the reading pad deeper under the stack of notes... deliberately hiding the contents from view.
Cassidy smiled broadly... “Punctuality... we prefer efficiency.”
“Most people say that” the attendant replied. “Fewer practice it.”
Their gaze flicked briefly past her... just a fraction of a second... taking in Shar’s presence without lingering. Not dismissive. Calculating.
Then their attention returned to Cassidy, fully and deliberately.
‘Good’ she thought. ‘Don’t mind him. I’m the conversation.’
-o.0-
Behind them, the Anchorage opened out into deeper bays.
That was where Shar’s attention wandered.
Weapon racks lined up against the far walls... not showpieces, not museum relics. Real hardware. Maintained. Tagged. Calibrated. A few pieces sat half-disassembled on work benches, diagnostic arrays compulsively neat around them.
Shar’s lips twitched.
He drifted a step sideways, casual as a man admiring art in a gallery, and stopped near a rack of mid-range ship-mounted armaments.
He tilted his head.
Pointed. Two fingers, subtle. Cassidy caught the motion in her peripheral vision. Her processors flagged it as irrelevant. Her emotional heuristics did not.
She suppressed the smallest smile. Acutely aware of the whirring sound as the quartet of sentries followed his every move. At a bench that held a fully intact graviton lance. Shar’s enthusiasm overcame his better judgement as he reached for the prized piece of gear.
Instantly... four sets of gatling chambers started spooling and the big man immediately dropped his curious fingers back to his sides.
“That’s right...” The attendant called after him. “No touchy-touchy the merch... thank you.”
Cassidy lifted a quizzical eyebrow. “Are such extreme security measures really needed this badly?”
The attendant gave a knowing smile in return... “You know, in my line of work, it helps to be overly paranoid about these things.” Then she leaned in conspiratorially and whispered. “Plus, it keeps the oily fingerprints of these dirty boys... off my shiny toys.”
Cassidy returned the smile and held out a hand. “The name is Cassidy... Cassidy Butcher... Captain of the...”
“I know who you are Captain. I knew the moment you docked in the hanger bay.”
“So... you are the infamous... Largo? We’ve heard quite a bit about you.”
“Only the parts I which to be known. And seeing as it was my daughter who brought you here, that already tells me a lot about who has entered my humble establishment.”
Cassidy peered behind Largo, where Shar was pointing not so subtly at what appeared to be an ‘ionic flux inverter... military grade’... “Humble... would seem to be quite the understatement.”
“Precisely Captain Butcher.” Largo walked around the counter gesturing, palm up... satisfied. “You’ll want to see what I have available, no doubt.”
A holo-field shimmered to life above the counter, resolving into rotating weapon schematics... clean, precise, mercilessly honest about specs and limitations. Missile systems. Plasma emitters. Shield disruptors. A few exotic profiles that made Cassidy’s internal threat models spike sharply. But that wasn’t the worst of it. Looking down, she noticed the older woman wearing a thigh length skirt... stockings... and high heeled shoes.
She remained composed. ‘Of course she wears heels. Heels!... on a space station. Damn it... why is she so bloody cool!’ Then she tore her gaze away from the stockinged legs and focused back to the display hovering before them.
Her systems started running probability trees, cost-benefit analyses, maintenance overhead projections. Every option was cross-referenced against the Sundancer’s frame tolerances and power curves.
Shar, meanwhile, was having fun.
He leaned slightly closer to a rack behind the dealer’s line of sight, squinting at a component housing. He mouthed a word. Cassidy recognized it instantly.
“Phase-cooled.”
She closed her eyes for exactly half a second.
-o.0-
“So why have you come to the Tangled Palace?” Largo inquired.
“Uh... nothing serious” Cassidy replied. “We are from out of quadrant, thought we’d stop at the local drinking hole and see if we could... uh... acquire some... uh... work.”
“Work? What type of work?” Largo brought her fingers to her face, tapping her chin thoughtfully, whilst waiting for answers.
“Oh... we have some cargo space and we’re not adverse to getting our hands dirty... within reason of course.”
“Within reason?”
“Duncan told us about Vesh and his... undertakings. Those we would consider... outside... of reason.”
Largo smiled, her mood lifting. “Good. That miscreant does not need any further reach within the ‘Palace’... if you want to do business with me... you stay away from that rat... understood?”
“Clearly. That won’t be a problem.”
Cassidy watched, as Largo pulled up a view screen, recognizing the schematics of the Sundancer displayed there. She would have been alarmed if she didn’t notice that no critical info was displayed.
“Your ship, it’s... truly... something else. I can’t quite figure out its composition, but it’s unlike anything I’ve ever seen... it almost resembles...” Largo’s eyes widened, the abruptly she cut the feed and turned to Cassidy. “Look, your ship is… under-armed for the kind of work you’re circling. This sector... is the real deal. Raiders, marauders, killers, vigilante’s, hunters... we have them all... and some places... much worse.”
“That’s why we’re here,” Cassidy replied evenly.
“Mmm.” The dealer’s smile sharpened. “Of course it is.”
Shar pointed again. A little more animated this time. He mimed an explosion with his hands. Silently. Enthusiastically.
Cassidy gave him a look.
He froze.
Then... shrugged, unrepentant.
“Look... your business is your business... but mine... is mine,” the dealer said, folding their hands together, “How... were you planning to settle the account?”
The holo-field dimmed slightly. The air changed. Cassidy didn’t rush her answer. Instead, she lifted her chin and squared her shoulders.
“We don’t have liquid credits. Not yet.”
No apology. No embellishment. Just the fact.
Largo blinked once. Then chuckled softly.
“Ah,” she said. “One of those crews.”
Shar straightened, the humor draining from him in an instant. The sentries centered their aim on him, as the tension in the air rose rapidly.
Cassidy remained steady.
-o.0-
Largo moved back behind the counter, leaned back in her chair. Her expression remained thoughtful rather than offended.
“Well,” she said at last, “that does complicate things. I am unsure if we can do business... seeing as...”
Cassidy turned on her heal. “Apologies Largo... we didn’t intend to waste your time.” She started for the exit. Shar quickly closing the gap behind her.
“Wait!... Bloody hell... Kids these days... so impatient. Blimey.”
Largo reached beneath the counter and tapped a control mechanism. A secondary holo flared to less polished, more utilitarian.
“I am awaiting... a shipment,” the dealer continued casually. “Delayed. Held up by a supplier who’s growing… ambitious.”
Shar’s jaw tightened almost imperceptibly.
“I require a simple retrieval,” the dealer went on. “You persuade them to release what’s mine. I provide you with something you clearly need.”
The holo shifted again, turning into an image of two antiquated ‘double-barrel photon cannons’ rotated slowly in the air. Old. Obsolete. One of the housings bore visible scoring. Shar reached for her hand... his gesture of small discreet tugging... conveyed everything she needed to know.
Cassidy pulled a face. “Those things are old as balls!” as she feigned dissatisfaction. “We need weapons... not an accident waiting to happen.”
“They’re not pretty... granted. But they are functional... and missy. Even old balls have their place... trust me.” Then she waved a hand dismissively. “Look... They’re gathering dust. Consider them a gesture of goodwill.”
Shar stared.
Cassidy felt it... the sudden, electric recalibration of possibility.
Largo smiled.
“They are yours... for free,” they added. “Assuming you come back with my cargo.” Then she leaned forward... elbows on the counter. “That’s my offer kids... take it or leave it.”
Behind the fa?ade of the counter, the Anchorage hummed on.
Patient.
Professional.
Unconcerned.
Cassidy met Largo’s gaze.
“Send us the coordinates.”
The show of approval growing on the dealer’s face told it all. “Excellent! Then we have an accord. I will send your ‘goods’ to your ship... see that installation is performed by a specialist.”
“Will do. And... thank you for the opportunity.”
“Come back with my goods... and then no thanks will be needed. Now... if you would be so kind as to excuse me... I have... other... endeavors in need of my... attention.”
Cassidy noticed her sliding the reading pad from underneath the stack it was hidden under. “Is that a satisfactory source of reading matter?”
Largo slowly slid her glasses down to her nose... catching Cassidy’s gaze over the rim... “My girl... it makes the pulse quicken in the most delightful way.”
“Noted... I could have use some quickening of the pulse... myself.” She lifted a hand in farewell. “Until we return.”
Largo mirrored the gesture, then turned her focus back to the reader. Cassidy turned to the exit... satisfied with their dealings. Somewhere behind her, Shar’s grin returned... small, feral, and very quiet.