Chapter 19

Jackson was right, Lee thought. Although he felt it was best to keep that sentiment to himself—no need to inflate an already galactic ego. Lee still had his doubts about Jackson, so it was better to not make it public knowledge.

Everything changed after seeing Dex. He found a new sense of hope in their hopeless situation. His “talk” with Vic had reminded him of who he was; what he was capable of.

The day wore on. Time seemed slow as if to taunt him, today of all days. He attributed it to the anticipation. There was no time to catch up with Dex in the mess hall. They were rushed through the line at breakfast. In the brief exchange, Dex said there was “lots to talk about.”

They made a hasty plan to get together that night for dinner at one of the “pubs” in the residential tower promenade. There was no alcohol on Arber Penal Colony, but they did have pub food. It was another measure designed to pacify the residents. The illusion of choice goes a long way in maintaining order, or so the thinking went.

Lee pulled another hunk of scrap and tossed it. Somehow, the aches that had been there were gone. The daily grind no longer ground him down. He found himself reinvigorated, able to push past the rigors of dehumanizing labor.

After his shift, he ran back to his quarters to clean up and make it to the pub. Even in his colonist ’uniform,’ he felt the most human he had since he arrived.

He hopped off the lift at the Marketplace. It was a promenade of shopping, restaurants, and services. It had an almost theme park quality to it. The tall ceiling was a display screen set to simulate a sky. It was starting to shift into a dusky evening scene with the blue-white star of Glist setting below the building tops.

The pub was on the corner of a set of “buildings” inside the vast area of the Marketplace. The stylized sign above it read: Last Call. He smirked. It was a nice touch for a prison pub.

Inside was crammed with people, but it was never hard to find Dex in a crowd. He saw the flaming curly hair over the heads of everyone else in the place.

Lee pushed his way through the crowd. When he reached them, he found Jackson and Tarrek talking with Dex at a table coming out from the wall. Dex’s back was to Lee as he walked up to them, but Jackson nodded his direction to indicate to the other’s that Lee had arrived.

Dex backed up to make room and turned to welcome Lee, “Sollinger! You lousy smuggler…” Dex continued talking, but Lee couldn’t hear him anymore. His big frame moved out of the way, revealing Zee, sitting in the corner, her hands over each other on the table. Her eyes connected with his. In the span of a breath, his heart leaped from shock to unbelief, to relief.

Jackson slid out from the table to let Zee out. She jumped up and, without any words, wrapped her arms around his neck. They held each other in the corner of the pub for a time.

Her voice was soft and at almost a whisper in his ear, “Good to see you, Lee.”

Still holding her to him, he whispered back, “I can’t believe you’re here. You’re still alive! I–” He couldn’t continue. It took a moment to collect himself before the flood of emotion could embarrass him. “I just can’t believe it! I thought about you and worried–”

“You? You worried about me, did ya?” She whispered back again. He could feel her smile on his cheek.

They pulled away to look at each other again. It took Jackson clearing his throat for Lee to even remember other people were around them.

Lee looked over at Dex, who had an enormous grin under his beard.

Zee gestured at the table and said, “Let’s have a seat and catch you up on everything.” She scooted back into her stool at the bar-height table.

Jackson gestured to Lee, and Lee took a seat beside her. Jackson sat on the end beside Lee. Across the table, Tarrek and Dex both sat on a couple of stools.

“So, really, what happened on Foden Dock? How’d you guys end up here?”

Dex spoke up, “Well, the attack destroyed a lotta the station. I thought we were all gonna bite it. Took a hit on the market level that blew out all the power relays in the bar. I jumped out from behind the counter before it blew my legs out. At some point, the shootin’ stopped, and the station was boarded. We were rounded up and sent to the docking bays by some vicious broad.”

Zee continued, “There was this wicked Colonel lady that was calling the shots. They took the Exec in restraints. I’m not sure if he was brought here, or maybe they killed him. I don’t know. We were all given bounties for being complicit in working for the Resistance under Marco, then we were sent here.”

“Had no idea we worked for terrorists till we were hauled off the Dock,” Dex shook his head.

“Well, we all are now,” Zee said in a lower voice.

“Impro, ada, over,” Tarrek said.

“Impro, ada, over,” Jackson echoed. “So, what now?”

Lee realized there were ears everywhere. Not only the other faux-pub patrons but also monitoring equipment built-in to the facility throughout. He was careful in choosing his words. “We need to bid farewell,” he made a suggestive movement to emphasize the phrase, hoping everyone grasped what he meant. “And find a way to– share everything happening in the Hyades.”

“I think I know just the person to help with that,” Zee smiled. “I met her working maintenance in the office complex on level 70.”

“Help with which part, bidding adieu, or…?” Lee asked, again emphasizing his word choice.

“Both, I think. But we need someplace where we can have a more uhh… intimate conversation,” Zee grinned at her wordplay.

“So where can we go?” Tarrek scooted in to ensure his hushed voice could be heard.

Lee looked around at them, “Any ideas?”

Zee sat back on her stool in the corner. Jackson had a puzzled look on his face, “What about a cargo bay?”

Tarrek shook his head, “No good. Entrance is strictly controlled and monitored.”

It was quiet for a moment before Jackson tried again, “A bathroom?”

Everyone turned to look at him.

“I’m sure that’s not going to raise any suspicions,” Zee said, with mild amusement on her face. Jackson shrugged back.

Dex made a circle gesture around the table. “You gonna bring two gals into a bathroom with four guys Jackson?”

“You said ‘intimate’! I don’t see anyone else throwing out ideas!”

“Bathrooms still have eyes and ears anyways,” Lee added. Dex scratched at his neck under his beard, then Lee saw his face change like he landed on something.

“Icebox,” Dex continued his scratching.

“Icebox?” Lee asked.

“Yeah, the icebox,” he wagged a finger as he thought it through. “It’s off the kitchen. It’s noisy with lots ‘uh folks movin’ and runnin’. It’s refrigerated storage. There’s an open alcove with eyes on it. Wouldn’t be outta the ordinary for some uh’ the tall racks to be pushed in front uh’ the sensor. All the banging around would be enough to cover our conversation I’d ‘spect.”

Zee scooted back into the conversation, “Sounds like that’ll work. I’ll see if I can bump into my friend and arrange for us to meet there, say day after next, around breakfast bell?”

There were nods around the table.

“Great. Nothing says ‘intimate’ like a rendezvous in the kitchen,” Lee remarked.

“Same old Lee,” Zee pushed him on the shoulder. “So what about you? Dex told me he saw you head off to the docking bay. You obviously made it off in the Nightcrawler; what’ve you been doing all this time? How’d you end up with these guys?”

He scratched at the back of his head, “That’s a bit of a long story.”

“Curfew’s not for a couple more hours.”

“Alright, let’s actually order some food, and I’ll tell you all about it.”

It didn’t take Lee near that long to fill her and Dex in. They ate pub food and laughed together. He told their story from meeting Jackson in Dex’s bar, stranding Vin Xohn in RemLok survival gel. Then he told them about outrunning the Decimator, discovering the ThermARC and Vin Xohn’s fiancé, to being captured by the Athos. Tarrek and Jackson added a few choice details here and there, particularly bits about flying chairs and hacks-gone-bad.

It was the most fun Lee could remember having in a long time. Tarrek and Jackson turned in first. As Dex got up to leave, he grabbed Lee in a giant bear hug and patted Zee on her head.

He walked Zee out of Last Call, and they meandered through the corridors together, back to her quarters. The banter of the evening turned into a more intimate, tender conversation.

“Hey, you,” she bumped his shoulder.

“What?” He let out a bit of a nervous chuckle.

“You owe me.”

He racked his memory to recall what she was getting at. He snapped his fingers, “The shield generator.”

She pointed a finger in the air with a smile, “Yup. The generator.”

“What was it again, dinner?”

“Dinner. Yes. And…?” She stepped in front of him and turned to face him, making him stop in his tracks.

“And…what?” He laughed, playing dumb.

“You know what!” She gave him a playful smack on the shoulder. He enjoyed how her hair bounced about her shoulders when she was like this.

“Dinner… and, oh, that’s right, drinks,” he grinned mischievously.

“No!” She stomped a foot in the hall, making a thunk sound that traveled the entire corridor.

“Alright, alright, I give up. Dinner and what?”

“Dancing!”

“Agh, right.” He gave himself a playful smack on his forehead to sell his dumb act. “The dancing. Well…” He cleared his throat. “If we ever get off this rock…”

She looked at him from under her eyebrows, a sparkle in her eyes, “I’m not letting you off the hook. You owe me.”

“Alright,” he laughed. “I promise. I owe you.” He turned to point down the hall. “Well then, we better hurry, it’s almost curfew, and I gotta make it down 10 levels before the bell.”

“Okay, flyboy,” she said with a grin as they continued their walk.

The door opened at her quarters, and she turned back to him.

“Hey Zee, I’m– I’m sorry I didn’t come back for you at the Dock. I– you know.”

“I wasn’t expecting a rescue. I’m not some helpless damsel. I had to stay to make sure people made it onto ships to evacuate. I was glad when I saw the Nightcrawler wasn’t on the pad anymore. I knew you’d made it out.”

“Yeah, but I didn’t know what happened to you.”

“What? We’re you really that worried about me?” She almost burst out in laughter.

He half shrugged, trying to stay aloof about acknowledging it.

“Well, well. Lee Sollinger worried for someone else. I never thought I’d see the day.”

“Hey!” He said with a hurt look that was a little oversold.

“I just– Really, Lee, I never thought I’d see the day. It’s a good thing!” She stared at him for a bit, then threw her arms around his neck to hug him and whispered, “It makes me happy.” He nodded into her shoulder, and she pushed him out of her doorway. “Now, go before you get caught out past curfew.”

He smiled, “G’night Zee.”

“Night,” he watched her beaming smile as the door shut.

Lee, Tarrek, and Jackson got off the lift at the mess hall. They passed the guards at the entryway. Lee spotted Dex near a doorway behind the counters for distributing trays of reconstituted food. Along the wall were several evenly spaced doors leading, Lee presumed, to the massive kitchens used to assemble their meals.

Out of the corner of his vision, he spotted the figure of Zee. Even in her maintenance jumpsuit, her flaming red hair and physique caught his eye. She was leaned up against the wall at the far end of the hall beyond the counters, arms crossed and a leg bouncing in front of the other. Her head rested against the wall. It didn’t seem to matter what she was doing; she always had a sort of gracefulness he couldn’t quite put his finger on.

It had taken her a week to arrange the meet and plan out the elaborate means of having a private conversation. Today it was finally happening, and it had given something new for Lee to look forward to for the first time since he arrived.

Dex saw them and tipped his head in acknowledgment, then turned back to nod at Zee. She lifted her head off the wall and made a subtle nod to someone out in the hall. A young woman in a pantsuit with straight auburn-colored hair stood and walked around the counter behind Dex. It was curious to Lee that she wasn’t in an official Arber Penal Colony uniform of any sort. Her small frame disappeared behind his large hulking form that well-covered the doorway.

Dex continued to stand facing out toward the hall and nodded in Zee’s general direction, being careful not to call attention to her. She pushed herself off the wall and started walking behind the counters at a casual pace, trying to remain inconspicuous. Again, she disappeared behind him.

Dex walked away from the door and made his way to the door nearest Lee, Tarrek, and Jackson. He moved his oversized body into position in front of the door. One by one, he signaled them over until Lee was the last to follow.

Through the door was a large space of metal counters with rows and rows of racks filled with their trays. These poor kitchen laborers looked to have an even worse mind-numbing task than tossing scrap. It was an assembly line of drones. They filled the trays, fit them into reconstitution machines, then sealed them to keep the contents from flying out in the low-gravity.

“This way,” Dex barked over the banging of tray after tray landing on the metallic counters.

Weaving through the sprawl to the back hall, they came to an opening, and the alcove Dex had mentioned. There were a couple of tall empty tray racks that were pushed into a strategic position. They blocked the hall sensors, with just enough space to squeeze behind.

Dex went first, followed by Lee. He ducked behind to find the small group circled up behind the racks. A large, thick, unadorned metal door was behind them.

Dex looked around, “Alright, the racks are blocking the cameras, and the banging from the kitchen noise will distort the recordings. But we can’t stay here forever, so let’s have it darlin’.”

Zee nodded and made an open-handed gesture to the young woman, “Everyone, this is Trisha–”

“Trisha Hinsley,” the woman finished.

“She’s assigned as an aide to Arber Penal Colony’s Search and Rescue manager.”

Lee understood it to mean she served as a Colony official. Lee realized that’s why she was wearing a pantsuit instead of a labor uniform.

Trisha stayed standing straight with her arms crossed. “Before my relocation to Arber, I was a GalNet reporter researching Consular Duryss.” Her voice was quiet and hard to hear with the banging sounds of trays getting slammed.

There was a quick round of introductions, ending with Lee. “I’m Lee Sollinger. Tarrek, Jackson, myself, and a friend of ours were captured by Sietae Federal Corporation ships on a mission with the Hyades Resistance. We–” He looked to Tarrek, who nodded for him to continue. “Zee tells us you might be able to help us expose what’s happening here to get the attention and assistance of the AIS, Feds, or even Imps.”

“I’d avoid Imperials, but, yes, I think I have enough on ‘Duryss’ now to expose him for what he really is–” She made finger quotes when she said his name. “For who he really is.”

“Who?” Jackson asked.

“Yes, who. Consular Alden Duryss is not who he says he is.”

“What? Some sort of imposter?” Jackson seemed rather eager to be the one to talk to her.

She turned to look at Jackson, “Not an imposter, but as far as my research shows, ‘Alden Duryss’ didn’t exist more than 5 years ago.”

“A clone!” Jackson got excited.

They seemed to edge closer to each other as both their excitement and pitch got higher.

“Not a bad guess, but no, he’s not a clone.”

“Wait,” Lee started to piece together what she was saying. “So you mean someone just invented this guy, this persona, and became the appointed head of a regional government over a hundred or so systems?”

“Okay, look, I don’t have every detail, but I think I have a pretty good picture,” she began to pace with a sort of nervous excitement. “I was assigned to do a local story on the history of Emen. That lead to digging into the background of Sietae Federal Corporation, the largest company operating in the system.”

Lee gave her a nod recognizing the company name of the pilots that had captured them.

“My queries for information on the history of the company were getting denied. My editor warned me to be careful, so I was. I used every indirect technique I could to track down information about the company. I had to hire a hacker to break in and get access to all the data. My freelance hacker turned up dead. That’s when I knew how serious it was. Thankfully, he hired a private courier to deliver the data to me.”

“Okay, we get it, wha’ja learn darlin’?” Dex said in a low voice. Lee could tell he was impatient and nervous about the time they were spending.

She continued, “Alden Duryss got handed a cush job in Sirius Gov about 5 years ago as a diplomatic envoy. He worked his way up the org chart and was handed the promotion to CEO of Sietae Fed. Within two years, he expanded the influence of Sietae Fed to take over as the head of regional governance to exploit systems in Hyades for Li Yong-Rui.” She stopped to look around at them all, almost as if she was paranoid about sharing the rest of it.

Zee tried to encourage her, “Hey, it’s okay, we’re all here to help. Like I told you, we’re with the Resistance.”

She gestured for them all to move in close and took a deep breath. “About the same time Alden Duryss showed up on the scene, someone else disappeared—someone related to a well known Imperial Senator.”

Lee knew it in his gut. “That Imperial Senator’s son!”

“Precisely. Sylus Draden.”

“Wait,” Jackson shook his head in disbelief. “You’re saying Sylus Draden is Alden Duryss?”

“The ‘Find Sylus Draden Campaign’…” Lee added, remembering the GalNet news feeds.

“Yes. Senator Madius Draden’s son, is the Sirius Gov appointed governor of the entire Hyades region.”

Tarrek began to nod, “Hmm. That making sense why we have sudden influx of Imperial investment and colonization in Hyades.”

“Whoa,” Zee was animated. “This is wild. Stuff like this doesn’t happen around here. This is the back end of space.”

“What I don’t understand, though,” Jackson said. “I don’t know, I mean, maybe you can explain it to me… Why is Duryss or Draden pushing all this anti-xeno stuff? How does that help the Imperials?”

Trisha’s face looked serious, “Now that’s the more subtle part to figure out. I don’t really have a good answer. I think it’s just profit from manufacturing contracts. My research turned up more and more contracts going to Imperial manufacturers. And, there’s enough evidence to show a growing trend for Duryss giving preferential contracts to Imperial companies.”

“So, it’s about money,” Jackson said.

“Money and power,” Tarrek spat. “In politics, money always proxy for power.”

“Okay, so all this being true, how do we use it to bring Duryss– err, Draden, down?” Lee asked.

“All my data is sitting encrypted on a server on Holland Base in LHS 28. If I can get to it, I can publish it on GalNet.”

“But it’s out there. We’re stuck here.” Tarrek replied.

Jackson said the obvious, “So, we need to escape.”

Lee scoffed, “Breaking out one person is hard enough, but six?”

Jackson was animated, his excitement getting the better of him. “I got it. I know what to do! I drive the loaders that tractor large cargo containers from the loading bays to the landing pads. I can drive everyone out to the pads, and we can sneak onto a ship from there.”

“All six of us?” Lee asked him, a little impatient that he wasn’t thinking it through. “How many fit in the loader you drive?”

“Just two in the cab. But, I don’t know, maybe we load you all in a container.”

Tarrek shook his head, “Jackson, we need atmosphere. That’s at least few minute trip out to any pads, even from factory.”

“And we sorta need ta know when a ship’s gonna be there,” Dex said over the group, his cybernetic arm gesturing outside. ”Not like we have comms to tell each other when it’s time to go.”

Lee waved his arms for quiet, “Alright, alright. One problem at a time. We’ve got travel to the pads. We need enough atmosphere to make it there. And, we need to figure out a scheduled ship. The best time to slip away will be during a shift change like breakfast or lunch break. Or better yet, end of the day shift. They won’t be looking for us until the evening, so the place won’t go on lockdown until curfew when the room sensors register us missing. That’s plenty of time to be long gone before they realize it.”

“Maybe I can long-term borrow some RemLok survival packs from the maintenance bay?” Zee offered.

Lee nodded, “Okay, that’ll work. So we need to find a ship and figure out where to be at what time to slip away.”

Tarrek groused, “Still, we need shut down sensors at where ever we end up leaving.”

“I could handle that if I can make it to a command terminal,” Lee said.

Trisha wagged a finger, “I think I can make that happen. My position gives me access to a lot of secure offices. I can get you into one of them.”

“Okay, so while I’m in there, I’ll see if I can figure out a shipping schedule too. When do you think you can make that happen?” Lee asked.

“A couple days. Tomorrow I’ll work on finding the right out-of-the-way office. I’ll let you know where to go at breakfast the day after tomorrow.”

“We have at least a couple days to wait then. In the meantime, everyone keeps their ears open about ships. Tarrek, you’re at the factory—see if you can figure out where shipments are going. That might give us a clue.”

Tarrek nodded, “The lines have been running full-tilt, building some sort of… I don’t know what it is. Never seen anything like it. It had mount points. Looks like they fit in a size 2 or 3 ship module slot.”

Dex leaned in, “Probably worth keepin’ an eye on it. I also hear a lot of rumors in the kitchen. If anything interesting comes up, I’ll letcha know.” A loud metallic bang was followed by a reverberating gong-like sound. Everyone in the group snapped their heads back toward the doorway to the hall as everything in the kitchen went silent. After what seemed like several long slow breaths, the regular kitchen commotion resumed. Dex continued as he moved out toward the doorway. “I think we gotta get moving, folks.”

“Sounds like we have a rough plan. Let’s meet back here three days from now,” Lee said while they made their exits.