The spacecraft dropped out of time warp, though for no obvious reason. The closest planets belonged to distant stars that dotted the black void of space looming all around the small ship.
Inside the ship's bridge, a man pushed his dark hair back from his forehead and sighed, leaning forward onto the console as his eyes flicked over the instruments.
"We did it," he announced, relaxing back into his chair, hands behind his head, as he grinned.
"I don't think so!" replied his sole companion, glaring at him from the co-pilot's chair, "Where the hell are we, Barzok?"
She tossed her long blond hair haughtily, though the effect was somewhat undermined by the indignity of her attire –a baggy, painfully orange jumpsuit emblazoned with the words "Federation Detention Center #86: Inmate."
"Where we are, Hannah, is somewhere where your ass isn't in a jail cell," said Barzok, no longer grinning, "So can the complaints and show a little gratitude, would you?"
"For stranding me in the middle of nowhere?" She was staring at her own instrument panels now. "I don't think so!"
"Do you see any sign of other ships?" said Barzok, not waiting for her answer, "No pursuit. I'm telling you, we lost 'em –a clean getaway!"
"Fine," said Hannah, folding her arms and glaring anew at him, "But we're supposed to be at Spaceport 5, not here –wherever here is- and I-"
The ship suddenly shook as if buffeted by a gust of wind, and a needle on one of the console's instruments flickered spasmodically.
"What's going on?" she said, her voice turning shriller, even as Barzok began calling up readouts on various small screens and frantically parsing them.
"Do I look like an astrophysicist?" he snapped, "Some kind of weird radiation, maybe. It could be screwing with the gyronic drive stabilizers…"
Yet even as he spoke, both the ship and the instrument's twitching needle were again becoming still.
For a second time, he sighed and leaned back in his chair, absently running one finger over his thin mustache.
There had been a time, not so long ago, when he'd have had a crack staff of techs, engineers, pilots –all of it!- to deal with crap like this. But then, there'd been a time when he'd been the head espionage agent and mastermind of Spectra's inter-galactic slave system.
But that was before the scheme to contaminate all of Earth's and other Federation planets' fresh water with salt had gone so badly awry, along with his plans for supplanting Zoltar…
His name was seriously mud with the Spectran leader now.
He glanced over at Hannah, who'd closed her eyes and appeared to be muttering to herself.
The hideous jumpsuit couldn't completely obliterate the sleek, lithe lines of her body or mask the innate elegance of her posture, even as she sat there, seething. He'd forgotten what an arrogant shrew she could be but he still vividly remembered her former days as his "Agent Hannah," working undercover at the Spaceport 5 disco. She'd gathered more covert intelligence data for him –by theft, extortion or seduction- than any ten other operatives combined.
That is, until her mission to get the formula for duplicating protein from common soil out of that deranged widower, Professor Starke, had gone so badly awry.
Now her name was mud too.
Yes, thought Barzok. He and Hannah, they belonged together now. She'd come around soon enough and realize that together they had a far better chance of pulling off a freelance espionage coup and using it to win back Zoltar's favor again. She'd come around as soon as it was clear he really had just rescued her from wasting away in a Federation prison.
It would be just like the good old days…
He sat up, shaking his head and fixing his eyes once again on the console.
"Spaceport 5 isn't too far from here, in normal space," he said, "But I didn't want to drop out of time warp there; I wanted first to make sure no Federation ships had managed to track and follow us, so I jumped us somewhere they'd never think to look."
He glanced over to see that she was looking at him, and that she wasn't frowning... much.
"You must know some basic navigation," he said, "Help me out here. The Carinae asteroid field is around here somewhere and my sub-warp autopilot is on the fritz. But as soon as we cross through it, we'll be outside of Federation jurisdiction, and Spaceport 5 will be there waiting for us."
She smiled at him, at last. Could that be a sign of some of the "gratitude" he was hoping for?
Yeah, thought Barzok. Everything was going to work out just fine…
But before long he had other, less pleasant things to think about, though –like manually wending the ship's way through the dense array of everything from pebbles to planetoids that was the Carinae asteroid field.
He wasn't without experience here; in his younger days he'd done a stint as a smuggler of all sorts of illicit goodies –some of them humanoid- via the Syndicate of Autonomous Spaceports out here on the fringe of civilized space where both the Federation's and the Spectran Empire's spheres of control ended. That had often entailed surreptitious and evasive treks through this region of notoriously challenging piloting –where even autopilots failed- and on numerous occasions he'd shaken off pursuers that way.
But this time around it was more difficult than he ever remembered. Something seemed to have stirred up the asteroids; they were spinning and tumbling about more rapidly and unpredictably than he'd ever seen before. His ship wasn't that big; its hold could take about fifty slaves –standing room only- or a modest amount of cargo but it was the sole thing of value that he still possessed and he couldn't afford to repair it if he smashed it into a giant rock.
Just like he couldn't afford to repair the sub-warp autopilot. He really needed to pull off a lucrative scam of some kind –a big one.
And soon.
"You're off course," announced Hannah, studying the radar screen with more intensity than actual comprehension, "Try to go more that way."
She made a vague and not very helpful arm gesture to starboard.
But Barzok had more immediate concerns, like completing his circumvention of an asteroid that anywhere else would be called a moon and-
What the hell was that?
Hearing him gasp, Hannah looked up quickly from the radar screen and immediately did likewise.
Unthinkingly, by reflex, he cut power to the engines and reversed thrusters to bring his ship to a halt but he never once took his eyes from…
Whatever it was.
What lay before them, slowly drifting in space amidst the asteroids was a spherical object composed entirely of a seamless crystalline substance that glowed and pulsed with faint, erratic swirls of bluish light. All over its surface, long and thin peaks of varying lengths jutted forth. Perhaps it was only a trick of the flickering light, but the translucent extrusions seemed to be slightly… fluid, extending and contracting.
Barzok wasn't sure how long he and Hannah merely gazed at it in suspenseful silence, waiting; in the midst of the asteroids, they couldn't remain stationary for long but time seemed to have stopped…
But the object merely continued to drift slowly.
Barzok prided himself on being a man who'd seen or heard it all, but he'd never seen –or heard of anyone else seeing- anything like this.
It was beautiful, mysterious and utterly, utterly alien.
And damn, thought Barzok, it had to be valuable. Whatever it was, surely there was money to be made here! Someone, somewhere, would pay handsomely, either to own it or to ransom it –he didn't much care which.
His eyes narrowed, with less awe now and more appraisal, as he concluded that it would probably just fit inside his ship's main hold. His current cargo was little more than luggage and miscellanea, stashed in the hold's wall cabinets.
The object continued to drift slowly and serenely, oblivious to the collision course it was now on with an especially nastily pock-marked asteroid…
But Barzok noticed, and hastily snapped into action. His and Hannah's thoughts were as one here. He hadn't spoken a word but instantly she was finding and hitting the switches to bring the ship's tractor beam online while he verified that the door seal between the ship's cabin and hold was secure, and opened up the hold's exterior bay doors to the vacuum of space.
Regardless of what it was or where it had come from, it was theirs now, and they busied themselves getting it maneuvered inside the ship.
As soon as the light above the door turned green, indicating that the hold was repressurized, Hannah was on her feet and moving.
"Hey!" said Barzok, "A little impatient, aren't we? Stay in your seat and navigate."
Hannah paused, looking back over one orange shoulder.
"I want to see it!" she said, a mercenary gleam in her eyes. "What do you think it is? What do think it's worth?"
Yes, they truly thought alike.
Barzok had to turn his full attention back to his piloting, and that wasn't something she could help him with. Hell, she was barely any use as a navigator, really. So he didn't answer and a few seconds later, she'd gone into the ship's hold, the door sealing behind her.
He continued to dodge and weave his ship through the asteroid field, occasionally craning his neck to get a look at the radar screen, and hoping he was heading in more or less the correct direction.
He hadn't realized just how tense and focused he'd been until -at last- he became aware that the field of rocky obstructions before him was thinning out…
He was nearly through to the other side and, more to the point, out of Federation Space. And no one could possibly have followed them –they were safe. And best of all, there hovering in the distance was a gleaming object in the black, empty space, illuminated with powerful beacon lights and swarming with incoming and departing spacecraft.
It was Spaceport 5, and it was also freedom and opportunity for both him and Hannah.
It was the largest spaceport in the Syndicate and, like the others, existed in a neutral region of space that was devoid of any readily habitable planets. But nevertheless, it saw a lot of action. It was a popular refueling center for trans-galactic freighters and for pilots and crews looking to shake off cabin fever with a little R&R as well as home for hundreds of people who had their reasons for not wanting citizenship elsewhere.
Beholden to neither the Federation nor the Spectran Empire, the "no questions asked, no questions answered" philosophy of its directorship with regard to cargos (even of the human variety), large amounts of dubiously acquired cash, outstanding arrest warrants in Federation space and the concept of extradition had long made the Syndicate's spaceports very appealing places for Barzok and like-minded denizens of the universe.
Hell, murder was about the only recognized crime in a Syndicate spaceport, and then only if you weren't discreet about it or were lacking in hush money. A lot of very interesting deals went down in their lounges, private meeting rooms and ultra-secure vaults, safe from the prying eyes of governments and taxation entities. And a lot of intelligence and "top secret" data could be bought and sold or otherwise obtained in a spaceport. You just had to know how to play the game.
That had been Hannah's expertise. Using her cover as a space rock singer in the disco here, she'd used her wits and wiles to obtain countless juicy secrets and lucrative intelligence for Barzok's espionage network –secrets and intelligence on the Federation. And Zoltar had rewarded them so well for it.
"Had" being the key word here… Barzok sighed.
But then he remembered his new cargo and that brought a smile to his lips. Whatever that bizarre crystalline thing might be, he was convinced that there would be somebody at Spaceport 5 who would pay a lot of money for it.
Maybe he'd even be able to get a bidding war going…
This could be just the thing to get him and Hannah back in the game, and then maybe even back in Zoltar's favor somehow.
He chuckled, glancing over towards Hannah-
Oh right. Was she still back there in the hold? Barzok wondered now what the hell she was doing.
He looked ahead, estimating that the ship would reach Spaceport 5's primary entry port in less than half an hour. Of course, there'd be a queue to get in, as usual. And a docking fee to pay too. In fact, he was going to need to rent a secure "garage" vault for the ship this time around. There was no way he could take the chance of anyone else discovering or stealing his mysterious new cargo from his ship in the main, communal docking area.
Doing some hasty mental calculations, he concluded he could just afford the likely fee –but not for too long. He'd have to get the word out about the… whatever it was, quickly. Subtly of course, and through the right channels, but quickly.
The door from the hold opened behind him and Barzok glanced around the back of his chair.
He did a double take. Hannah had somehow found a change of clothes back there amongst the old luggage. Long gone was the baggy, orange prisoner's jumpsuit and in its stead she now wore a shimmery silver mini-dress that clung in all the right places. Barzok thought he remembered that dress from her disco days, and she looked as sultry now as she ever had then.
Clearly ready for action, ready to get back into the game.
"Looking good," he told her, with a smirk. She had a slightly vacant look in her eyes and she was gazing at the viewscreen, but his words seemed to jar her from her reverie.
"Spaceport 5," he told her, "Brings back memories, huh?"
"Yes," she said, her voice still lost in thought, though at least she looked at him, "I really can remember it all."
Now she was really looking at him.
"So what have we found?" he asked her, as she walked towards him, still gazing intently, "Learn anything useful about that thing?"
"No," she said, "But that is business. I want to talk about having fun."
And she smoothly sat herself down right in his lap, reaching up to rest one hand on the back of his neck, the other on his own hand.
Barzok felt a warm glow throughout. For the first time in months, he really was certain that his fortunes had taken a turn. He had Hannah back; soon he'd be riding high again…
"You want me to help you find a purchaser for the object?" she asked, still stroking his neck.
He was trying not to stare too obviously at her body that was so very close to his now.
"That's the plan," he told her, "We make a great team."
"I will help you," she replied, "From the disco. I want to go back to the disco."
"You were the best they ever had, baby," he told her, sincerely, "You'll be singing and dancing again in no time."
She was smiling at him.
"I want to have all the fun that I have been missing out on," she said, her blue eyes aglow with anticipation.
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