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She wondered what Loran had planned for this one. He wouldn’t pass up an opportunity to milk a wealthy traveler for all he was worth. Kaia scooped up her gear and headed to her quarters.
* * *
Her cabin was nothing special, but it was hers and that was already a privilege. None of the living spaces on Riker 109 were anything to write home about, if one had a home. The waypoint station was on its last legs, run down and forgotten between the Milky Way and deep space in which colony ships roamed in their never-ending search for habitable worlds.
Kaia shut the door behind her and folded herself into her squeaky bunk. She spent a few minutes rubbing down her aching joints, twisting at the skin around her wrists and ankles. She’d been achy for as long as she could remember, but that was normal around here. Being crammed into her tiny ship for hours on end never helped.
Once the crude self-massage provided some relief, Kaia extracted the box she’d stashed earlier. She ran her black-dipped fingers over the smooth carbon. The darkness of her polish blended with the surface. It was about the length of her hand, and half that in width and height. She fingered along the edges, feeling for the telltale dip of a print reader. There it was, a thin imprint in the corner.
Kaia reached over to the crooked metal work desk next to her bunk and grabbed a small finger glove device. She pulled it over her index finger and pressed it to the reader. There was a low whirr while the reader inspected the print, as the glove tried to simulate a match. She was lucky she’d stumbled across this little thing in one of her hauls—more primitive print crackers might try to brute-force a print, triggering security measures in the device being cracked, but this one had never given her trouble. Small LED lights molded into the cracker flashed yellow as it worked. This was taking longer than she expected. Kaia's thumb twitched against the box impatiently.
Finally the LEDs glowed a merciful blue, and the box emitted a faint click as its lid cracked free. Kaia glanced at the door, double-checking the red lock was engaged before pushing the lid open.
For a moment she was disappointed. She’d hoped to find a chip store or something, but the box contained no such thing. Her eyes fell on pieces of metal wedged into a foam cushion.
Only it wasn’t just any old metal.
“Fuck yes,” she exhaled with a slow grin. Kaia extracted one ring from the foam and held it up, closing one eye. She rotated it between her fingers, looking for the stamp of gold content. Seven carats. She palmed the ring and ran her fingertips along the three others in the box. These would for sure fetch a pretty penny at the market.
Kaia jumped in her bunk as someone banged on her door three times. She stuffed the ring back into the container.
“What?” she yelled.
“Loran wants you. His quarters.” The gruff voice was already fading by the time the lackey finished speaking, and Kaia breathed again.
Fuck me, I’m paranoid.
Nobody could have entered the cabin without her permitting it. Not even Loran, at least not without breaking the door down.
Kaia transported the rings to the small safe hidden beneath her bunk. What the fuck did he want her for anyway? He wouldn’t have his half of the take until the market tomorrow. Which could only mean he wanted one thing. Kaia pressed her mouth into a thin line as she made the ten-minute walk through the metal habitat ring and stood at Loran’s door. She flexed the fingers of both hands, preparing. Loran was not easy to argue with.
The door slid open before she could knock.
Kaia hesitated just outside, gauging the situation inside the cabin. Loran was running a frustrated hand through brown hair as he circled the woman in the middle of the space. The woman tapped a slippered foot in a displeased staccato. Her fleshy bare thigh, peeking from the folds of old silk in her skirt, was tense. Her fingers, painted a bright crimson to the second knuckle, were seductive even in their nervous smoothing of her barely-there shirt. Bare shoulders pulled back, the mounds of her full breasts shifted a little as she spoke up at Loran’s snarling face.
“Heard about this guy, Loran, and I’m not fixin’ to get trapped—”
“Whether you’refixin’ toor not isn’t up to you. I can make—” Loran’s amber eyes flicked to Kaia mid-rebuke. He already seemed furious, pacing like a jaguar around a defiant gazelle, but his expression darkened yet further when he looked her way. Kaia noted her shoulders folding in on themselves and rolled them back, forcing herself to stand up straight.
“You,” he pointed at Kaia. “In my office.”
She ran her tongue over her top teeth, fighting back a retort. Plastering on a neutral expression, she brushed past them and into the adjoining space, one that used to be a separate cabin before Loran took down the wall and turned the place into his own suite.
“You. Sit,” Loran barked behind her. Kaia registered the creak of Loran’s worn leather couch as the other woman plopped down on it.
The office door slid shut behind them. Kaia sank into the swivel chair next to Loran’s polished metal desk.
“What’s up?” Kaia hoped she sounded casual as Loran sat on the desk’s edge beside her, heels of his hands propped on either side of him. Too close for comfort. She planted her feet and rolled the chair back a few inches.
“How was the haul today, Scav?” He crossed his bulky arms over his barrel chest.
“It was fine.”
“Anything interesting you want to tell me?” He cocked his head.
Shit. What does he know?
Kaia pursed her lips, making a show of thinking. She resisted twisting nervous fingers through a lock of hair.
