Find it on the map, you can always get to it. Try to follow someone's half-assed directions, and once you lose the trail, you're sunk. — Neal Stephenson, Zodiac
Galea – Species of fighting fish common off Armali shores; also the name given to asari capital ships ('dreadnought' in Terran)
Húdié dāo – [ 蝴蝶刀 – Butterfly sword (knife in English)]
IFF – Identify Friend Foe, alternate term used in reference to a ship's transponder.
Inamorata – A woman with whom one is in love; a female lover (Italian)
Ionsaí – Strike, or attack (asari)
Neeru – a herd-dwelling reptile native to Khar'shan (source: CDN)
Siame – "one who is all", a loved one cherished above all others (Thessian)
• NOS ASTRA, ILLIUM · TASALE SYSTEM, CRESCENT NEBULA •
‹BLAM› Samantha Traynor grimaced as the pleasant dream she had been having abruptly evaporated with the sound of something hitting the exterior of the decrepit looking shuttle in which she was sleeping. As she carefully brought her torso up to rest on her forearm, she heard the same sort of noise again—‹BLAM-KLING›—not as loud, but definitely something hitting the shuttle's roof panels and possibly bouncing.
Looking across the compartment, she could barely make out an empty berth in the dim light, meaning Xiùlán was already up, and probably outside—hopefully close by. She squinted her eyes at the chronometer over the port-side hatch, the dimmed digital numbers displaying what to Sam was an ungodly early hour to be awakened, especially from such a nice dream. The noise hadn't repeated after the second crash of … whatever had landed on her roof.
After gingerly climbing down from her berth, she took a sip of water from the bottle hanging from the bulkhead, slipped into her clothes—non-descript civilian laborer wear in place of her SDU—checked the outside views displayed on the six-quadrant monitor, then exited through the port-side hatch.
Upon departing the asari corvette Ionsaí two days ago, Xiùlán and Sam had set their shuttle down in the midst of just one of the many industrial warehouse areas located in the lower levels of the massive city. Their covert mission depended on anonymity, thus their dependence on a jointly operated asari/human support facility—part legitimate restaurant and bar—part illegal red sand supplier. Sam had questioned the latter description and was simply told, 'Shit's legal on Illium, but one has to have a 'license' to sell it.' That emphasis on license meant a substantial monthly bribe needed to be paid to the main red sand import/export business group on Illium—the Eclipse.
Sammy walked around the shuttle in an attempt to discover the objects that had fallen onto the top; she found nothing on the deck around the thruster pods. Shading her eyes with her hand she looked up at the edge of the warehouse floor immediately above her location. In order to make use of the Ionsaí's long-range communications ability, Traynor had deliberately parked the shuttle in a location where its roof-mounted antenna array had a relatively unobstructed view of the sky—and the asari corvette orbiting overhead. Perhaps something had been shoved of kicked from the upper deck. With no trace of anything that hadn't already been there, I didn't dream those noises, especially not the second one!, she decided to stop at the upper level on her way back from breakfast at the restaurant.
Touching the comm-link in her ear, she whispered, "Xiùlán. Where are you?"
After several seconds, during which time Traynor grew increasingly nervous that something had happened to her partner, a whispered reply, barely louder than the background noise of the city, sounded in her ear. "Looking for trouble, Sēn měi. Think I may have found it …" Xiùlán sounded a bit out of breath, as if she'd been running.
"What kind of trouble? Where'n'ell are you!?"
"Can't talk … on the run! I'll text you."
Now Sam was worried. It was almost beyond belief that Xiùlán had left the shuttle to go … somewhere, and had already run into trouble; worse, Sam had no idea where she was, and without an aircar, couldn't get to her anyway! Shit!
Returning to the shuttle, Traynor reengaged the external cameras as she sat in the pilot's seat and started running a hacking routine on the system of surveillance cameras in her vicinity. Despite the dangers of its products—some might say because of the dangers—Illium's reputation for safety came at the cost of near-total surveillance, something Traynor could quite easily exploit for her own benefit. She searched outwards from her location, first on her own level, then on the levels below. With no indication of anything amiss on the three levels below her, she shifted her search upwards.
On the first level above there was an enormous number of standard dry shipping containers, arranged in rows and stacked two and three high. The camera coverage here was not as complete, but she could see something … a figure, clad in black, moving across the top of a three-high container stack, near the edge above Traynor's own location in the shuttle. Is that Xiùlán? Had she dropped something on the shuttle to wake her … to get her attention? As she watched, the figure seemed to shimmer, then disappeared from view. "Xiùlán!" Traynor tried using her comm-link and was disappointed by the lack of a response.
Shifting the camera into infrared reception, Traynor once again picked up the mysterious figure. "Xiùlán, I can see you. What … or who … is after you?"
The figure went to a knee and looked around for a moment before reaching up to the side of her head. "Sà mǐ? Are you in the security cams?"
"Shi! [是 – Yes!] How can I help you?"
"Look around this level … there are a couple of fēicháng shēngqì [非常生氣 – very angry] turians chasing me."
"Standby …" Traynor jumped to several different security cams, looking for anyone moving in the area around Yuán's location. She finally spotted one of the turians in the shadows between the container stacks, just two rows to the west.
"Found one, two rows west. Can you get to the level with an aircar, or an elevator?"
"Freight elevator. West four rows."
"Okay, you need a distraction. I'm coming up." Traynor performed an emergency pre-flight and eased the elderly UT-47t off the concrete deck; she headed away from the parking area in a steep climb before spinning the craft 180 degrees on its axis and leveling out at the same altitude as the cargo yard above where they had been parked. She slowly approached the containers lining the very edge of the platform, looking intently for any sign of Xiùlán.
As she approached, she began taking small arms fire from the area where she'd pinpointed the turian. She decreased the shuttle's altitude in response, hoping to draw the turian to the edge of the platform. She still couldn't see Xiùlán, but trusted she'd know how to react to the turian's sudden loss of interest in her location.
"Okay Sà mi, I'm moving for the elevator. Keep him busy …"
Traynor slid the shuttle sideways to the east, hoping the high frequency whine of the -47's thrusters would draw the turian's interest away from Xiùlán's destination. She activated her proximity sensors as she moved—wouldn't help anyone if she blindly ran into a loading crane or automated cargo handler while she was so focused on the level in front of her.
"Sà mi! … in … elev … r. Set down … where … were parked … need to relocate!"
Xiùlán's speech was garbled, probably by some sort of electronic jammer. Traynor had heard enough to understand; she performed a descending corkscrew turn to return the ungainly craft to its original location, where she gently set down; with engines at idle, she moved to the portside hatch and opened it after grabbing her shotgun. Stepping out onto the concrete, she kneeled beside the open hatch in order to provide covering fire if needed. In a matter of moments, her Inamorata appeared from behind a massive, wheeled cargo handler, long legs rapidly putting distance between her and her pursuer. Her cloaking generator must have taken some damage, as her form pixilated between totally cloaked and partially visible with every vibration induced footfall.
Samantha rapidly placed her shotgun on the deck as she drew her heavy pistol; taking careful aim, she fired twice. Two bullets whizzed past Xiùlán's right side and connected with the rather determined looking turian that had appeared on Xiùlán's trail. The second bullet was superfluous … the first one entered the turian's head through his nose plates, jerking his upper body to a sudden stop in a cloud of blue mist. Momentum alone kept his lower torso and legs moving forward for the briefest of moments before his entire body crashed backwards onto the deck.
Xiùlán spared a quick glance over her shoulder as Traynor retrieved her shotgun and stood up; her lover slowed to a walk, then stopped in front of her and embraced her. "Dammit, Sà mǐ! This place may as well be Omega! I was minding my own business, inquiring about a shipment received from there. Big bastard behind the counter took offense … claimed I was sticking my spotted nose in where it didn't belong." Her voice turned contemplative as she finished with, "I don't think he'd ever seen freckles before."
"So, now we have to relocate the shuttle," Samantha complained. "It would have been nice to have had breakfast before you kicked that Blue Suns hornet nest. How many of 'em were trying to find you?" Sam climbed back inside the shuttle as she talked, taking the co-pilot's seat in order to operate the computer interfaces.
"Three. You killed one of 'em … I nailed another. The one that fired on you is probably still up there searching for me" Xiùlán took the pilot's seat after closing the hatch. "Where should we go?"
"There's a landing pad two klicks to the east. We'll have to obtain a replacement aircar if you can't recover the one we had. And I still need breakfast, dammit."
Xiùlán reengaged the Eezo core and engines; bringing the shuttle to a low hover, she pivoted the craft slowly on its axis and guided it away and to the left from the platform. "What are you doing, Sà mi?" Traynor was busy inputting commands on her haptic interface.
"Attempting to erase the video record of everywhere you were seen this morning … lots of bloody cameras, lot of video of my favorite woman," she replied with a smirk. "Going to be a real trick to take you out of all the pictures. Need to keep you from being tied to two turians that were killed rather violently."
"You killed that last one."
"True enough, but he was chasing you. I expect you might have killed 'im as well if I hadn't been looking after your six." Traynor continued inputting code, hacking Nos Astra's security records in order to erase all the evidence of their presence on the docks. "By the way, was that you dropping stuff on the roof of this thing?"
"Had to wake you up somehow, wo de ài [我的愛 – my love] … couldn't reach you on comms, and I couldn't stop long enough to send a text."
"What the 'ell didja use? Sounded heavy, but I never found anything on the top or on the ground."
"Found some solidified CO2 in a broken container near the edge … shit was turning to smoke, so I broke off a couple of chunks, tossed 'em down." Yuán's voice turned snarky. "Not my fault it takes you so long to get outta the sack, Sà mi."
Sam merely shook her head and kept entering code as Yuán turned back for the cargo handling docks.
"Here we go … looks like a good spot to park for a few." Xiùlán was easing the craft into a parking slot when she quietly said, "This deck must have been added after the docks were originally constructed … looks as if it's halfway between the lower and upper platform, wo de ài. Might be a better location for what we need to do."
"Doesn't matter, Luv, as long as it's open to the sky. Any overhang will interfere with comms between us and the Ionsaí, and I really need that ship's deep-space comms ability."
Xiùlán had the UT-47 hovering just centimeters from the deck as she spun it to face outwards. "This good enough, Sà mǐ?"
Traynor held up a hand, index finger up to indicate give me a moment as she checked reception and transmission between the shuttle and the corvette. After a few moments, she replied, "Set it down right here, Luv. Soon as we can secure this thing, let's find an aircar, go get cleaned up and get some food."
Xiùlán chopped power to the eezo core and thrusters, dropping the shuttle onto its belly. As pumps and converters spooled down to silence, Yuán took a look at the feeds from the six external cameras. The area looked deserted, which was exactly what she wanted to see. "Can you call for an air-taxi, Luv? I could really use something to eat … and I think I need you to take a look at my shield generator. Damned thing took some damage before I could drop turian number one."
Traynor input the request as she smirked at her lover. "Running for your life before breakfast is never recommended … tends to make you cranky. As for that generator, we should probably just exchange it for one of the spares we have stashed."
It was several weeks of intensely exacting work for Xiùlán and Sammy, combing through lines and lines of data for the thousands of shipments arriving from Omega Station every day; these could be relegated to the computer program Samantha had created … the hard work started when the program kicked out several hundred suspect shipments each afternoon, keeping the women up late every night.
During this time, they returned twice weekly to the Ionsaí in order to eat, bathe, and sleep in the relative luxury offered on board the asari corvette. Additionally, time they spent with the many asari on board furthered their cultural education; Xiùlán in particular felt a strong bond with the majority of the blue-skinned crew on the ship.
They made sure to set aside needed time to perform their exercises, particularly those that kept their close-quarters combat skills sharp. A small audience of off-duty personnel was virtually guaranteed to appear anytime either of them appeared in the main exercise room on the ship. On the rare days both were on the mat sparring with each other, standing room only was a normal occurrence. For the most part, Sammy and Xiùlán ignored them, focused as they were on each other.
Sammy continued to improve on her natural abilities, never failing to surprise Xiùlán with some newly honed, innovative way to execute an attack or defend herself against her lover. Being forced to adapt to Traynor's relentlessly evolving style of Jing Quan Dao had proved to be a plus for Xiùlán's education as well.
The spectators were especially impressed with Sammy's skill at using her húdié dāo. [蝴蝶刀 – butterfly sword(s)] She did not use these against Xiùlán; rather, she employed them as part of her exercise routine in slow-motion shadow fights that emphasized precision movement at all times. After going through the movements once, she employed faster movements during the first repetition; by the time she started performing her second repetition of moves, the twin swords were moving nearly too fast to follow; each time she sliced the air with one or the other, an angry 'woosh' was produced, similar to that of her liuyè dāo being swung through an arc.
They both had been to see Dr Jakira T'Lana for treatment of various minor injuries so many times they could have been on a first-name basis with the Ionsaí's head physician, if Sammy hadn't felt it to be an improper sort of familiarity. "One doesn't use a doctor's first name unless they're family, Xiùlán," Traynor had told her. When asked why not, her answer was typical Traynor, betraying her upbringing on Horizon and the time she'd spent at Oxford. "It isn't proper form, Xiùlán. It just … isn't!"
"I found it, Xiùlán! I found the damned thing!" Traynor pointed to one line in the middle of a list of mind-numbingly similar numbers used for tracking the seemingly identical shipping containers used by the freight forwarding companies in the Traverse. "It looks like there are two containers we need to find … numbers are 002180084224 and 002180084346."
"How can that be, Sammy? The figurine would not take much space … they could have tucked it into a sock." After a moment, she added, "It's a small statue, Luv … 40 centimeters … no way it'd need two containers."
"Seems like a diversionary tactic, Luv. Containers were booked aboard two different freighters, dispatched on two different days." Sam stood from her seat in the rear section of their shuttle and stretched hard enough that several vertebra in her upper back could be heard popping. "I'm guessing these will actually be in the same trans-shipment area … container manifest numbers are really close … less than 125."
Xiùlán's skepticism could be heard in her question. "It's really nice you know which numbers to look for, but how many containers do you suppose are on this one dock alone?"
"Honestly? Several thousand." Traynor rubbed her face with both hands and mumbled, "And before you say it, the answer is 'NO'—we're most certainly not going to start randomly searching the warehouses around here for those two containers."
"Shouldn't have to search the entire warehouse, Sammy—just need to know the order of arrival. The way this place is constructed? Freight comes in this end next to where we're docked, and goes out the other end, right?" Sammy nodded her head, contradicting the puzzled look in her eyes. "First in, first out. These warehouses all have live floors, so all these containers are constantly shifted as space becomes available for loadout at the other end."
Traynor finally understood what Xiùlán was trying to explain. "So, warehouses are quite wide, but not so deep. Freight handlers at the other end load the containers onto outbound freighters for shipment to their ultimate destination."
"Correct. Want to take a little walk?"
Xiùlán and Sammy, having inspected the shipping labels on numerous containers in three warehouses, were—not surprisingly—no closer to finding the two they needed to inspect. Knowing they were here in Nos Astra was one thing—locating them before they were shipped off world again?—seemed to be quite another.
Traynor kept watching for those two numbers to appear again in the query program she was running; it was as if the buyer was in no rush to take possession of the figurine, and they wondered if either the Blue Suns or the buyer had somehow been tipped off regarding the Alliance agents looking for the artifact. It really didn't seem likely to Sammy, but neither was she counting on the anonymity of their little operation.
Traynor had left the search program running while she slept at night—if either of those containers moved, it would alert her immediately. In the meantime, they had repositioned their UT-47 several times during their stay in Nos Astra in an attempt to keep their constant presence around the docks as unremarkable as possible.
It was their last move that had drawn the notice of the Eclipse … a salarian, dressed in Eclipse armor and displaying a seriously suspicious attitude had approached as they were preparing to depart; Xiùlán told Sammy she would handle him peacefully.
"Who are you? What are you doing on Eclipse property?" If the salarian had hoped to intimidate the humans with his Eclipse affiliation, he was quickly disappointed by his exchange with the tall, exotically beautiful woman from Shanghai.
"Wo de míngzì shì yuán xiùlán," [我的名字是袁秀蘭 – My name is Yuán Xiùlán] she responded in Mandarin, attempting to look innocent. "Wo méiyou yìshí dào zhège matóu shuyú shí." [我沒有意識到這個碼頭屬於蝕。– I didn't realize that this dock was an eclipse.] Traynor gripped her nose and mouth with a hand as she looked down at her boots in an attempt to keep from laughing.
The salarian's expression was one of astonishment. "What language is that? My translator cannot process those … words, human. Can you not speak Galactic?"
Xiùlán moved to stand right in front of this officious person, her 186-centimeter height forcing the salarian to tilt his head back in order to meet her eyes. "Ni bù dong putōnghuà ma? Ni bùshì zài xuéxiào li xué dào de?" [你不懂普通話嗎？ 你不是在學校裡學到的？– Don't you understand Mandarin? You didn't learn at school?] She looked around to Sammy for a moment, her expression betraying her contempt for the salarian's lack of education … Traynor nearly doubled over in her attempt to keep from laughing at her Inamorata's subterfuge. Turning back to the salarian, Xiùlán waited to see what the dumbfounded Eclipse official would do.
"I cannot … that is … now see here! You should not be here, especially if you are unable to communicate in Galactic Standard." This … human female … was seriously testing his patience. He checked his translator to be sure it was actually turned on, pressed the 'test' switch to make sure it was working—an orange light confirmed that it was—then addressed Traynor, still covering her nose and mouth. "You there … your appearance is different from this female. Can you tell me what you're doing on this dock?"
Sammy understood more Mandarin than she could speak, but decided to tell the salarian he was lucky; she schooled her expression as she removed her hand from her mouth and said one of the few phrases she felt confident in speaking, "Haoyùn yīzhí xiàozhe duì women lia!" [好運一直笑著對我們倆! – Good luck has been laughing for both of us! (literally, Luck has smiled on us both.)] This caused Xiùlán to smile, both at Sammy as she stumbled slightly over the pronunciation and at the salarian as he stammered, "The translator … is working! I don't understand why it cannot decipher those words …"
Xiùlán spread her arms wide in dismissal as she concluded, "Ci shí yīng gēnghuàn nín de zìdòng fānyì shèbèi … zhè xianrán shì you quēxiàn de." [此時應更換您的自動翻譯設備 … 這顯然是有缺陷的。– You should replace your automatic translation device at this point ... This is obviously flawed.] Placing her hands on her hips, Xiùlán looked down at the thoroughly chagrined salarian and waited.
Defeated, the salarian finally managed to reply, "I will be reporting this to my superiors, humans. You would be wise to be gone from here when I return with my supervisor."
Xiùlán bowed as she responded, "Zhè shì wo de xīwàng, tā de shèbèi jiāng gōngzuò bi ni de hao." [這是我的希望，他的設備將工作比你的好。– This (It) is my hope that his equipment will work better than yours.]
Traynor had to enter the shuttle and bury her face in a towel so her laughter would not be heard by the salarian as he retreated rapidly in the direction of the shipping offices. Xiùlán watched for a few moments, then entered the shuttle and hugged her Siame. "Damn! I nearly fell over when you told him luck had smiled on both of us! That was really well done, Sammy!" Xiùlán kissed Sammy on the forehead as she gave her a little squeeze. "We still need to work on your pronunciations, but still … very well done!"
"Thanks, Luv. Guess we need to pack up and go to our next docking area. I think I need to hack the cameras at our next stop—make them think we're not sitting there."
"Sounds good. Let's finish loading up so we can move before that little chánchú [蟾蜍 – toad] returns with enforcement."
Traynor had been as good as her word, hacking into the network of cameras that were aimed at the small area in which she had parked the UT-47. The feed being viewed by whoever officially monitored the video showed an empty platform, even as the time and date displayed at the bottom continued to increment. The view that Traynor received was unedited, showing the shuttle and the various comings and goings of herself and Xiùlán.
The two containers Traynor had been monitoring were finally scheduled to be moved; they were going to be loaded onto a small, salarian owned freighter—the MV Laedar Medicus.
Surprisingly, the vessel's final destination was listed as Zorya, in the Faia system of the Ismar Frontier. After Xiùlán spoke to Haedi T'Gabri, the navigator aboard the Ionsaí, she discussed the transfer with Traynor. "Zorya is a garden world controlled by the Blue Suns," Xiùlán explained, "so it does make a bit of sense the figurine would be shipped there. It's still not going to the ultimate buyer, so it probably won't be there for long, but … it may be less of a chore to retrieve it there than on this …" she waved her hands to indicate the docks around them, "beehive of activity. On the other hand, if we do somehow find those containers before they're loaded for shipment, can't we just use our cloaks and take the figurine?" Xiùlán wasn't ready to chase their quarry to a Blue Suns controlled planet; at least Illium was nominally an asari colony.
Traynor sighed in response. "Wish it were that simple, Luv. All the perimeter guards are batarian … they can see our infrared emissions, even with active cloaks. One or the other of us would have to hack the container locks in full view of the guards, and I'd bet a month's pay there are 'screamers' wired into the container lids."
"Damn. Those guys never make things easy," came the glum response.
Traynor studied the star charts used for plotting intra-system routes for freight vessels. "The Laedar Medicus hasn't been loaded yet, and it's scheduled to depart in six hours. Give me a minute … I'll hack the camera feeds from that dock, take a look." While studying the layout of the yard and guard positions, Sammy came across a copy of a bulletin posted at the main entry gate. "Look at this, Luv. Casual laborers are needed to help load that freighter," Traynor said. "Feel like planting a bug or two?"
"They're not going to hire us on the spot, Sammy. We'd need applications, physicals, referrals, residency … we don't …" Xiùlán's protests faded away as Sammy held up a datapad.
"It's all right here, Luv. Get your grubbies on … we have a freighter to help load."
Xiùlán and Sammy had both been hired to help load the salarian freighter Laedar Medicus, bound for Zorya with the two shipping containers they'd been watching almost since arriving on Illium. The sheer volume of freight being moved on a daily basis made it impossible to actually find either of the containers, even knowing the numbers assigned to them on Omega, but if either of the women handled them while loading was being done, it would be quick work to attach a tracker that would make reacquiring them on Zorya a lot easier.
To that end, Sammy had put together four trackers—two of these she kept, two she gave to Xiùlán. "Don't know if either of us will handle them, Luv. Maybe I'll have to move both of them, maybe you will … we should be covered, either way. Place one on the lower side of the container if you load it on the ship."
Yuán wanted to know, "What happens if we only get to one of them?"
Sammy sighed as she looked at the containers waiting for loading. "Then one will have to be enough … the other pod will not be far. Better to track one than none," she finished with a smirk. "Let's get to it."
They joined several asari and a pair of salarians in moving containers under the direction of the Laedar Medicus' salarian cargo master, who stood just outside the ship's cargo bay entrance and checked off container numbers from a shipping manifest loaded on his datapad; placement of the various sized pods was directed by several crew members inside, all with datapads that presumably had the manifest loaded for reference.
Traynor took a chance once inside the ship, engaging her cloaking shield after moving several containers aboard. After performing a hasty inspection of a group on the port side, she de-cloaked, went back out to the dock and grabbed another container to load.
Xiùlán touched the comm-link in her ear while rubbing the side of her face and whispered, "I just loaded 0084346, Sà mi. 84224 is probably close by." As she dropped her hand, a batarian crewman approached her, planted himself in her path and said, "What are you doing, human?"
"Moving cargo. What are you doing?"
The batarian made the mistake of grabbing Xiùlán's left arm as he said, "I don't like your looks, human. I think you should leave."
"Not until I get paid, you smelly sack of neeru shit." Xiùlán grabbed the wrist of the arm holding her and exerted a bit of pressure with her fingertips, causing his eyes to go wide. As the batarian's hand went numb from the woman's grip, she twisted his arm around, forcing him to turn away from her to ease the pain. With her free hand she grabbed the back of his neck, long fingers and thumb easily spanning a third of the circumference. The batarian tried to scream as she applied crushing pressure to his neck, but it was too late … arteries supplying blood to his brain ruptured from the combined force of his own blood pressure and the pinpoint crushing force of Xiùlán's thumb and fingertips on opposite sides of his spine. She eased him to the decking as she hollered, "Man down over here! We need a medical tech!"
A salarian dressed in an Eclipse-themed uniform appeared with a first-aid kit; after scanning the fallen batarian with his omnitool, he slowly stood and motioned for a couple of the ships' crewmen to bring a stretcher, before looking at Xiùlán and asking, "What happened here, human?"
Innocent expression firmly in place, she replied, "I really don't know. One minute he was standing there telling me what a great job I was doing; next I know he's turning away and … falling to the deck. I've never seen anything like it!" Xiùlán looked at the batarian on the deck with mock concern and asked, "Will he be okay?"
The salarian didn't appear totally convinced. "I didn't see what happened here, human, but I sincerely doubt Dha'kerr just dropped dead."
Xiùlán managed to twist her facial expression up as if she was going to start crying. "He's dead? How can that be? He was just standing here talking …" Xiùlán put her hands on either side of her face to cover eyes and mouth while surreptitiously using a thumb to key on her comm-link. "Sà mi," she whispered into her hand. "Cameras."
Several crewmen loaded the dead batarian onto the stretcher, activated the tiny mass effect core to lighten the load and hauled him off the ship. The salarian working for Eclipse looked at Yuán with a sour expression as he said, "People don't just drop dead for no reason, human. Something must have happened here … something you're not sharing with me."
"Are you implying I had something to do with that batarian's death?" Xiùlán's expression went from feigned sadness to innocence to righteous indignation in the blink of an eye. "You will want to be careful, salarian … very … careful, with your baseless accusations. You are not an officer on this ship, and I seriously doubt you have any real authority on these docks."
The salarian's mouth fell open in astonishment. No one had ever questioned his authority, especially not some lowlife human laborer! "Now listen here, human, I won't …"
"You won't what?" Xiùlán leaned in slightly and got right in his face, something she knew would really make him mad as she hissed through clenched teeth, "If you leave now, I may not have to rip those horns from your head and feed them to you!"
Mouth still open, eyes wide in bewilderment, the salarian took a step back from Xiùlán as he pondered the best course of action. Studying her face … her eyes … sent a chill down his spine; this brash human with no weapons or armor was threatening him with physical harm, and he suddenly had no doubt she would rip him apart with her bare hands if he didn't back away from her … carefully.
Yuán drew herself up to her full height as she continued to scowl at the troublesome salarian. Evidently deciding that pursuing the matter alone would be hazardous to his health, he turned and walked out of the ships' cargo bay as nonchalantly as he could, intending to call for Eclipse backup.
"Sà mi, did you get the other container?" Xiùlán carried on as if nothing had happened.
"Shit!" Traynor had heard the entire exchange through Xiùlán's comm-link. "Did you kill that batarian?"
"Not deliberately. Dhevile Creg'falak did say the blood vessels in their necks are rather susceptible to external pressure … our Mr Dha'kerr here must have had really weak blood vessels. I didn't grab him that hard."
"Dammit! You know a postmortem inspection will show bruising on his neck."
"Can't worry about that right now, my love. Did you get the other pod, and did you hack the cameras?"
"Yes to both questions," Traynor replied, her voice uncharacteristically flat. "Now get out of there—we need to get the 'ell off this dock, now! That little toad you intimidated is attempting to call for backup … I'm blocking his transmissions, but we need to get back to the shuttle so we can return to the Ionsaí and get positioned to follow the Laedar Medicus."
"Okay, Sà mi, I'm on my way." Xiùlán worked her way past the scurrying workers and the mass of containers being brought into the ship. As soon as she was in the main yard, she walked a circuitous path out to the main gate, which was guarded by a pair of batarians, both wearing Eclipse armor overlaid with electronically generated tech armor. Fortunately, they had apparently not been informed by the salarian of his suspicions regarding the sudden death of one of their brethren, and they were not required to prevent anyone from leaving the docks.
Traynor was already outside waiting for her; as soon as they were out of sight behind some heavy equipment, they relaxed just a bit while Sammy checked the signals being generated by the trackers. "Both signals are five-by-five, Luv … should be no trouble picking 'em up once they're unloaded on Zorya."
Xiùlán nodded. "Sounds great. Let's get back to the shuttle. We can send a report to the asari councilor and our ambassador on the Citadel."
• ON BOARD THE IONSAÍ · AT LARGE •
The Ionsaí had jumped to Aquila in the Ismar Frontier, clandestinely shadowing the salarian freighter Laedar Medicus on its trip to Zorya, a garden world in the Faia system, and home for the Blue Suns, with headquarters in the colony capital of Thun.
The diminutive transmitters placed on each target container were working perfectly and the small freighter continuously emitted multiple, easy to follow tracking signals—Samantha knew they only needed to follow one of them, but until the object of their extensive search could be definitively narrowed to one or the other of the two containers, they dared not lose track of either one.
Traynor was seated in a chair at the weapons control consoles on the Ionsaí's Command Bridge, watching the view screens alongside ship's XO Traeria Shoni. It was a rare honor for anyone to be allowed an inflight seat on the Bridge of an asari warship; that Traeria had granted a human the privilege of observing their operations while underway spoke to the positive impression the human women had made on the asari crew.
Navigator Haedi T'Gabri stretched out an arm and pointed to a small dot that had appeared on her screen. She had the computer place a circle around it so they wouldn't lose it among all the ships coming and going near the Mass Relay … it's IFF transponder code definitely identified it as the Laedar Medicus. Haedi looked at Traynor and said, "Since we already know it's going to Zorya, wouldn't it be more efficient to simply jump to Zorya, scope things out and wait for the Laedar Medicus to arrive?"
Traynor grinned in response. "It would … but their flight plan could be a diversion. If they don't arrive at Zorya shortly after our own arrival, we'd have no way of knowing where they went."
Haedi fixed her deep green, amber flecked eyes on the young human beside her and replied, "Shadow them through the relay to make sure … we can most certainly do that, Ms Traynor."
• ZORYA · FAIA SYSTEM, ISMAR FRONTIER · 0235 LOCAL TIME •
The Laedar Medicus had offloaded only a portion of its cargo, including the pair of containers they were tracking, before departing for its next destination in the Minos Wasteland—Traynor had confirmed the signals from the trackers were actually coming from the planet beneath them. What they could not confirm from orbit was the next destination for the two pods. The consensus among Yuán, Traynor and the command staff of the Ionsaí was that whoever was paying the Suns for the figurine certainly did not live on Zorya—there were a number of major cities on a number of planets where the 'well-heeled' could live without having to endure the persistent problems brought on by the choking pollen and spores circulating in the air close to the surface, or the political violence, piracy, and drugs plaguing the planet in spite of, or perhaps because of, the presence of the Blue Suns in every colony.
Based on advice from XO Traeria Shoni, Xiùlán and Sammy had been ferried to the outskirts of the small freight forwarding yard by a pair of Ionsaí commandos piloting their own shuttlecraft; Traeria felt the appearance of the human's beat up looking Kodiak would garner unwelcome notice from the turians guarding the yard.
The tangle of trees and undergrowth choking the area had been cleared to bare dirt by heavy machinery around the perimeter fence, leaving no cover of any kind for 20 to 25 meters between the fence and undergrowth. After carefully observing the area from various angles, the humans energized their cloaking shields and carefully made their way to the rear corner of the compound closest to where they detected the signals coming from the two containers.
Traynor was close enough to the main office to hack into the computer responsible for matching freight to appropriate transports, taking into consideration volume capacities, speed capabilities and schedule requirements. What she discovered was almost more than she could believe. "They're moving 'em back to Omega, Luv! What the bloody 'ell?"
"Are you sure that's right, Sà mi? Why ship the thing out of Omega only to return it? Doesn't make sense!"
"That's the point, I guess. Blue Suns don't have to make sense. They're all about making creds, however they can." Traynor shut down her omni-tool and said, "Come on … let's get back to the Ionsaí. I have the name of the freighter and scheduled departure time. We need to take a good long look at a system map."
Yuán led the way back to the edge of the forest; once hidden from direct view of the freight yard, they decloaked and began walking back to their rendezvous point. "Why back to Omega, Sà mi? Widow system is a straight shot from here, and I really felt the carving would end up in some billionaire's collection on Bekenstein."
"I feel like we're missing something, Luv. I need to look through some of my old notes."
• ON BOARD THE IONSAÍ, AT LARGE · ISMAR FRONTIER •
Traynor sat with navigator Haedi T'Gabri in her modest compartment near the Ionsaí's Bridge; they were looking at star charts depicting the Attican Traverse and the Terminus Systems, areas of space through which any freighter headed to Omega would have to travel. As soon as she saw the chart depicting the space/time corridor between Ismar Frontier and Omega, Traynor realized what the Suns were doing and called Xiùlán to join them.
"Cartagena Station," she blurted out when Xiùlán entered. "It's the only logical reason they could have for seemingly shipping those containers back to Omega. Whoever is buying that artifact will take delivery in the Nemean Abyss."
Yuán could see the logic behind Traynor's reasoning. "So, all we really need to do is follow the freighter when it slips out at the booster relay." Thinking about the last time she had been on that station, she added thoughtfully, "We need to get Griffen Buchanan to assist us on this. I'll put in the request, then talk to XO Shoni. Looks like we'll need to make a quick trip to the Citadel."