I hate space habitats, the idea that the air I’m breathing is being held in by the walls of the habitat scares me. I’d much prefer being on a planet with an atmosphere held in by large and natural gravity well. The fact that the wall were almost a mile thick helped, not by much.
The main terminal of the habitats port had pamphlets about the its history. Sinclair 348 started out as an automated asteroid mine until enough material was mind out of it for people to live in it. After habitation it remained a mine, its residence mostly miners. The mining stopped when the internal air pressure threatened the asteroid’s structural integrity. After that it became a resort, then after a major recession a monastery. Monks still live in part of the habitat. It is mostly inhabited by merchants now, used mainly as a training port.
The wealthy live above the main chamber that contains the city center, the middle classes live in adjacent to the main city, beneath the main city, in the myriad of maintenance and mining shafts live the habitats poor. In these tunnels is the man I’m looking for. The tunnels in habitats like this are always mazes, I needed a map, and any map available on the local or galactic networks would be incomplete at best. The only good maps of such places would be available by the locals and unofficial.
The main chamber was large, the ceiling was high enough that buildings were built within the chamber making it more it resembled a town or city. Some buildings were tall enough to reach the ceiling, there were the government and business offices were the upper classes “worked”. The lights on the ceilings were patterned after the stars outside the habitat.
I looked for a local merchant who sold questionably legal goods, that meant seedy “pawn” shops. The place was bigger than I expected and it took longer to find the right kind of pawn shop. As I looked I saw the local monks on the main walkway. If you’ve seen one dusty religious order you’ve seen them all, the religions may differ, the robes are different colors (blue-green this time with a green vertical stripe on the front) but the people in these orders are the same. Except for one, one man looked familiar, he looked like a man I arrested when I was a ranger. A human trafficker named Borlan Chain. Tall, skinny with a claw tattoo on his face When we boarded the ship all the victims were dead, the traffickers cut off their air supply. Many of the victims were children.
The “pawn” shop I found was Vintares Pawn. It was suitably filthy. The clerk was an Escabaron. The Ecabarons are a clone race, all male. They somehow think having a penis makes them superior. A penis that doesn’t matter because they long ago stopped going through puberty so they don’t even have the testosterone of a grown man, this makes them sound effeminate. I once saw one nude, not by choice, he was working in a brothel I was investigating. It creeped me out, like seeing an overgrown child. I can’t understand the kind of person who would want that. The clerk spoke with an Urbean accent. If you haven’t herd it; they draw out the last vowel of every sentence while talking too fast the rest of the time.
“Hello, how may A help you.” The Escabaran asked. He pronounced his e’s like u’s and his oo’s like w’s.
“I need a map, of the Down Below.” I told him. “I’m searching for an unofficial tunnel, 2880 Edge I think it’s called.
“2880 Edge? They won’t let you in there. They only let people they know in there”
“I just need a map.”
“Alright. One hundred fifty units.”
“Twenty five.”
We stared at each other for a moment.
“One hundred fifty units.” he eventually reiterated.
I looked at the products in the shop, picked one up. “A shipment of these disappeared in an adjacent sector not too long ago,” it was a lie but the kind of lie that works in a place like this, “I wander if a scan of its serial code would it come up as one of those? The owners of the shipment put quite a bounty on the thieves, and the smugglers who work with the thieves.”
We stared at each other again. “Fine. seventy five.” he gave in, pronouncing his i’s like a’s.
“Fifty.”
The Escabron opened a draws, took a halo-drive out. I placed fifty units on the counter and the thing down. He placed the drive on the counter, I took it and left.
The map led me through the maze of tunnels to tunnel 2880 Edge. It’s strange how unofficial sections of habitats like these still have official designations.
The tunnel entrance was walled up, with a door guarded by a Kuatan guard. Seven feet tall, brad shouldered, with a large chin, bald with dark skin, most people find them intimidating, in reality they are no stronger then any other race or species. I walked up the Kuatan, “I’m here to deliver a message to an individual named Karem Tawn, about five eight, redish skin, brown hair. I understand he live here.”
The guard looked at me trying to be intimidating. “What is the message?” The Kuatan asked me in a voice deep for even a Kuatan.
“It is for him.” I answered.
“Do you have an appointment?” The guard asked leaning in, in a way that intimidates most, as a former Ranger it didn’t work on me.
I looked the Kuatan guard in his dark green eyes, which were quite beautiful. “I don’t have an appointment but I was payed to give him this message and I’m going to do that job one way or another.”
We stared at each other, both of us trying and failing to intimidate each other. He stood up strait again. “One moment sir.” He went through the door, closing it behind him. After about two minutes the door opened. “Do you have any weapons on you?” He asked me.
“No, I arrived on this habitat hours ago.” I answered.
“You may enter.”
I went through, they stopped me for a weapons scan, I really didn’t have any. They let me through. “Mister-” he paused, “-Karem will be in the shop to the right, thirty feet ahead.” The Kuatan told me.
The place resembled a mall, except the only legitimate shops were the ones selling food, the ceiling was the metal and stone of the asteroid, at the far end wall was metal, probably built to increase the integrity of the asteroid.
I found the shop Tawn ran, he apparently hacked data drives, The walls were decorated with data drives. Walking in a man matching Tawn’s description sat behind a counter reading something. “Karem Tawn?” I asked.
He looked up from his screen, a look of shock and fear on his face. “I haven’t gone by that name in years.”
“I have a message for you, from your daughter.” I informed him.
“I don’t have any children.” He responded.
“All I know is a woman claiming to be your daughter contracted me to bring you a message.”
He looked at me for a moment. “What is it?” he asked me with concern in his voice.
I took a holo drive from my coat pocket, gave it to him. He looked at it, placed it on the counter and turned it on. The holograph played, the image wasn’t the woman who contracted me, this was a bald, maybe woman, with brownish skin. She said: “Kawa ek en ohwat.” the message then ended.
Tawn looked at me with an expression I will never forget. The only way I can describe it is: he looked at me like I killed his loved one. He turned, looked at the wall. “You’ve done your job, go.” He demanded.
I left the shop. Before I was four steps away the sound of a gun shot came from the shop. I turned, reaching for a gun I didn’t have. Through the glass on the shop door I saw Tawn, his brains blasted against the wall.
The guards ran up in response, immediately tackling me to the ground, cuffing me. I was taken to a small room, probably the closest thing they had to a cell. The room had a strong smell of bleach. I knew most people brought here didn’t leave alive. After a few hours of sitting in the only chair in the room, my hands cuffed behind me, a bald man with light slightly blueish skin walked in fallowed by two Kuatan’s. “What happened?” the man asked me in a flat voice.
“I’m a messenger, I was payed to give him a message?”
“By who?”
“Someone claiming to be his daughter.”
“What was a the message?”
“It was a data drive, he played it in front of me. It wasn’t the woman who sent me, a bald person with light brown skin. She said-” I tried to remember what the message was “-‘kwa et en ohwt’. I left the drive with him.”
“It was erased.” He looked at me for a moment. I thought I would die there but he turned away from me mouthing the words in the message. Looking back at me, “You’re free to go.”
The one of the Kuatans walked behind me and uncuffed me. I stood up, rubbing my wrists. I walked to the door but before I left I turned to the bald man. “Out of curiosity, do you know what the message meant?”
“It’s an old suicide code, from the Cerats Syndicate.” He answered.
“I thought they didn’t operate in this sector.”
“Hector left the Cerats years ago.”
“They found him and payed me to give him the message, and unwitting assassin.” I was saying to my self. “No one leave the syndicates.”
“Well, that’s what they say.” The bald man responded.
I turned to the door, stopped, turned back to the bald man, “Is there a place I can buy a gun? I wasn’t able to get mine though customs.”
“A store three shops down from Hector’s.” He told me.
I bought chimerical propelled slug thrower. They’re harder to find with scanners but are louder and more prone to breaking and misfiring. Though I bout it in the tunnel, I didn’t receive it until I left it. These criminals seems to have a lot of rules they take very seriously.
After arriving at the city center I stopped at a cafe outside the monastery to eat and wait for Borlan, if that man was Borlan. When I saw him again I walked up behind him, put the gun to his back. “Act natural,” I told him, “go left, over there.”
I took him to a small out of the way spot were no one would see us. “Turn around, take that hood off.” I ordered, he did. It was him, I remembers that face and the tattoo. “Do you remember me?”
“I don’t, I’m sorry.” He answered.
“I arrested you, ten years ago.”
“I’m sorry, I was abusing uptake inhibitors, those can cause memory loss. I really don’t remember what happened, or what I did.”
“How the hell did you get here?” I demanded.
“I found the word of the third Mohamed in prison. I saw the wrongness of my ways. I was paroled into the custody of the monastery.”
“Bullshit!” I almost yelled, “No one leave the syndicates.”
“I was just a grunt, and an addict. I didn’t know anything. No one cared if I left. And my religion prevents me from doing work the syndicate would demand of me.”
“You find God and you think that you’re just forgiven?”
“No. The third Messiah taught not to seek forgiveness but to seek to earn forgiveness. I don’t know if I’m forgiven but I am seeking to earn forgiveness for my crimes. I will not know if I’m forgiven until I-”
I pulled the trigger before he finished talking, shooting him three times. He fell to the floor, bleeding. He looked up at me, his last words were: “I forgive you.” After he said them I shot him in the head three more times.
The slug throwers shots were loud enough to draw attention, security would be there soon. I fled the scene trying not to show my face. I’ve been hiding out in Down Below sense. The gun cost most of the units I had and after killing one of the monks there’s no way I could get to a transport in the port the legitimate way. Until I get some more units there is no way for me to get a new identity or smuggled off this habitat.
C.L. Who Writes 
Leave a comment