Chapter 1

Chapter 1

Tigurini Space Station · GDAT 3235.011

K atalin Efren had a sneaking suspicion she was being watched. Nothing she could put her finger on, just a phantom tingle on the back of her neck. She re-checked the charge for her flexible oxygen mask and settled it into place.

The tingle didn’t come from the security eyes that monitored the empty corridor leading to the airlock door that accessed the space station’s maintenance skin. She already knew about those because they’d been installed several years ago. Vellek Altano, the new acting security chief at the time, had made a good case for why they were needed. And as the new acting station manager at the time, she had authorized them.

It wasn’t Sierrho watching her, either. Her friend was busy tightening the straps for the oxygen hood on Lady Peach. Sierrho’s unusual companion was an illegally genetically engineered and enhanced wolverine. The hood was surplus equipment intended for military service dogs and provided oxygen without interfering with the wearer’s sense of smell. Lady Peach’s nose beat high-tech scent detectors, according to Sierrho. Her friend should know — her amazing minder talent let her connect telepathically with animals, birds, and reptiles.

Sierrho’s own old-style oxygen mask perched on her forehead, ready to be pulled down into place. She tended to only use it for emergencies because nothing was free on a space station, including oxygen recharges. Her last fraction of credit usually went toward her rescues.

Katalin had authorized a full recharge since Sierrho was acting in her capacity as an occasional independent contractor for the station. In this case, she was using her talent to help track down a missing pet that had somehow gotten into the station’s maintenance skin, the half-gravity area between the interior walls and the outer hull.

A small flash of gold fur finally gave away the watcher.

"I see you, Sky." Katalin stared pointedly at the square pillar where the open-grate platform bent around it. The airlock was three meters above the floor and accessed via a caged stairway and scaffold designed to deter unauthorized humans.

After a moment, a smallish feline with bold and brown stripes and spots strolled into full view as if he just happened to be out for a morning walk.

Sierrho laughed. "He's really got the innocent look down, doesn't he?" She gazed admiringly at the cat.

"It’s his large eyes." Katalin made a shooing motion at the cat. "Go home. Go play with Froggie and Paru. Cats who won't wear oxygen hoods don't get to go into dangerous spaces."

Sky sat, clearly indicating his intention to stay.

Why had she ever thought it was a good idea to see if her three cats liked the half-gravity of the maintenance skin? The three-hundred-meter area between the station's outer hull and the inner walls was full of potential hazards and no place for daredevils.

Lady Peach ignored Sky. According to Sierrho, the wolverine regarded Sky as an annoying ambush artist and sneak thief. Lady Peach’s approach to life was to march right up to anything interesting and administer a hard bite to things that needed an attitude adjustment.

Sierrho laughed again. “But it makes him so happy.”

Katalin gave her friend an exasperated look. “This is all your fault, you know. Last week, he jumped five meters from the floor to the chandelier in the grand banquet hall. During the Independent Trader Guild’s glitzy annual party.” They’d demanded a discount on rental fee for the disruption. She turned back to glare at Sky. “Just because the pet-trade genetic engineers designed him to jump like he’s got a jet-assist doesn’t mean he should.”

“I keep telling you, his only illegal enhancements are his domestic temperament and his glow-in-the-dark fur. Margay cats in the wild can jump like that, too.”

“Wonderful. Please tell him to go away. Or make him stay out here so we don’t have two lost pets to track down.”

Sierrho made brief eye contact with the cat. After a moment, Sky stood and went back the way he came, tail twitching with offended feline dignity. “He says you’re boring and that you owe him fish treats.”

Katalin rolled her eyes as she sealed her warm coat. “He’s a blackmailing hooligan.”

Once Sierrho and the wolverine were safely in and both airlock doors properly closed behind them, she tapped the earwire adhered to her jawline, then motioned toward Sierrho’s head. “Voice check.”

The overhead lights made bright circles on the dull grey floor, highlighting drifts of dust they’d stirred up by their movements in the half-gravity.

“Green go.” Sierrho gave a thumbs-up sign, then pointed toward the darkness. “Feels like the poor little caprigon is straight across.”

Katalin nodded, then started taking half-walk, half-float steps in that direction. Cold seeped in even though she wore an insulated, self-heating coat and gloves. She hadn’t been in this section before, but it didn’t look much different than the rest of the station. It felt like a drafty, disorganized warehouse. Naked incalloy support poles everywhere enhanced the sense of emptiness.

Visible clouds of dust danced in the lights as they flickered on, expanding the pools of white into a path of sorts. Her oxygen mask blocked scents, but she imagined the area smelled like the ship docks in the bottom half of the station. Despite the diligence of the station’s battalions of cleaning bots, docks collected dust and grime like it was going out of style.

When she’d come to Tigurini Independent Space Station thirty years ago as a skilled communications technology specialist, her first time in the maintenance skin area had terrified her. Movement sensors turned the lights on and off, the oxygen was too thin for comfort, and the half-gravity unnervingly disorienting. The thick outer shell of incalloy was about twenty meters away from the thinner inner shell where the interior walls started, making it seem both cavernous and dangerous when walking where usually only maintenance bots roamed. At any given moment, space debris could pierce the incalloy hull and kill her. The only thing that kept her from resigning that day was the fact that no one had ever died that way in the nearly two hundred years of the station’s existence.

Now Katalin had considerably more experience in the skin but respected it enough to follow safety protocols. Her commtech career had taken her all across the Central Galactic Concordance, but Starlane Crossroads, as everyone called it, had been her first space station. Her only space station, as it had turned out. She gave herself a mental shake. A distracting side trip to the memory gardens wasn’t a recommended safety procedure.

“Tell me again what we’re looking for.”

“He’s about this high at his shoulders” — Sierrho waved her gloved hand at mid-thigh — “but his wings make her look taller. He’s got hooves, horns, and a clubbed tail. Caprigons are supposed to be a cross between a goat and a dragon, but they don’t have much reptile in them. Which is good, because he’d really be suffering in the cold.”

In Katalin’s experience, the pet-trade industry genetically engineered whatever they thought would sell. “Can he fly? Is that how he got so far from where he got in?” She’d already ordered the facilities team to seal off that area until they could fix the problem.

“Doubtful. He probably just jumped like a mountain goat in the half-gravity. I don’t know what scared him in the first place, but now he’s lost and tired. He’s agreed to stay put for now, but only because I’ve got dried apricots from owner’s kids.”

Katalin had secretly worried that Sierrho might have had something to do with the pet’s disappearance. Abuse situations turned shy and caring Sierrho into a ruthless rescuer. The fact that she’d engaged the children suggested the escape truly had been accidental.

The gigantic exposed conduits and cables would have made the walk more like a grueling obstacle course, except the half gravity made them easier to climb over if they couldn’t be avoided.

Katalin had expected to see one or two hull bots by then. “If you think of it, remind me to ask Luntian to check the deployment of maintenance bots in this part of the skin.”

Sierrho made a rude noise. Lady Peach snarled.

Katalin stumbled, started by the unexpected response. The wolverine was probably reacting to Sierrho’s emotions.

Katalin hated when people tried to pry into her feelings, but she couldn’t ignore Sierrho’s distress.

After several more steps, she cautiously asked, “Is it something you want to talk about?”

After a long silence, Sierrho sighed noisily. “Luntian paid my bills.” Resentment laced her tone.

“Ah.” Katalin suppressed a sigh of her own.

Sierrho stubbornly refused financial support, especially from friends. Unfortunately, she was also terrible at managing money. Her friends often had to go behind her back to help when she was in trouble. Luntian had just got caught at it.

Katalin glanced at her friend. “May I ask a personal question?”

“I’m not hot-connecting with him in the layover sleep pods or anywhere else!” The defensiveness in her tone suggested she’d been accused of that more than once.

Katalin wished she knew who’d been so rude to her friend, but the station had nearly two thousand residents, and gossip ruled. Inventing rumors was second only to fleecing tourists as a way to pass the time. Very few people knew the real history between Sierrho and Luntian.

“I believe you. What I wanted to ask is why you hate what you call charity. I don’t mean for your rescues, because I know you’ll take that. I mean for you personally.”

The silence was so long this time that Katalin was framing an apology when Sierrho spoke. “Dependence is unhealthy. He should have moved on by now.”

“You’re worried that he’s depending on you now because you rescued him ten years ago?”

Sierrho had discovered him, injured and raving, in a disused dock maintenance corridor. Given his military-issue cybernetic legs and multiple addictions, she should have turned him over to the CGC military for treatment. They leased a section of the space station, so it would have been an easy call. Instead, she nursed him back to sobriety in secret, then asked her friends — including Katalin — to help send him to a quality medical center on a planet renowned for the best medical centers in the galaxy. Astonishingly, he’d returned again nine months ago to thank her, then stayed.

Sierrho sighed again. “Something like that.”

Katalin took her time stepping over a warped conduit that had sharp shards sticking up. “Is this about me hiring him keep the visiting science team from doing the next monumentally stupid thing that occurs to them? Because I’m not sorry about that. I’d be restricting those idiots to their research outpost on the dead planet.”

She’d been unsure of Luntian when he’d first arrived, but he’d impressed her by coming back to thank Sierrho personally. Plus, he’d known enough to do it privately. Anything with fanfare would have embarrassed Sierrho half to death.

Since then, he’d rented a tiny cubicle apartment and applied to Vellek Altano to help with small security-related jobs. Vellek recommended him to Katalin when she needed help, so she started him with smaller logistics projects for the station. He had seemed surprised to have been asked. And even more surprised that he did well and liked the work. She wished she could hire him full time and pay him better.

“No, I’m glad he’s helping with operations. You wear too many hats as it is, and the new station owner is taking advantage of you.” Sierrho waved her hand irritably. “Corporate jackholes.”

Unfortunately, the new owner was causing more chaos than Katalin had let on to anyone, even her friends, and she couldn’t bring herself to tell them. She’d made the mistake of sharing some of it with Vellek a few months ago. Since then, he’d been increasingly distant with her. She wasn’t sure she could handle any more losses.

Sierrho grabbed Katalin’s hand for a quick squeeze. “Don’t mind me. I’m stressed. The caprigon is still scared and Lady Peach now thinks she wants wings.”

Katalin laughed, grateful for the distraction to keep her thoughts from spiraling.

Something caught the wolverine’s attention. A moment later, she was scampering forward like a kitten instead of a twenty-five-kilo well-fed wolverine.

“Peach!” Sierrho ran after her.

Katalin chased after them both, worried by the alarmed look on Sierrho’s face before she’d launched.

Katalin tanked at hurdles, and running had never been her ace. It was all she could do to stay upright instead of tripping over random pipes or her own feet. She focused on the triggered lights that marked Peach’s path.

After what seemed like she’d traveled half the length of the station, she caught up to Sierrho, who was crouched and holding Peach’s harness.

“What the…” She trailed off when she saw what Sierrho and Peach were looking at.

In the spotlight, a gold-and-blue winged goat stood still, wings half unfurled. The tilt of his cute head with its curly gold horns suggested pride, as if he’d scaled a mountain. Except it wasn’t a mountain. His dainty little hooves balanced on the shoulder of a human corpse.

And not just any human. A man who had been missing for four days.

The Citizen Protection Service’s Agent-in-Charge Pevann Jensuradi.

The powerful overhead light beamed down on him brightly. There was no mistaking the uniform and his distinctive face, even though his jaw gaped open like he’d been gasping for air.

Holy halls of hell.

She tapped the gauntlet-style percomp she wore on her left forearm. “Priority alpha secure for Vellek Altano.”

The AI that monitored all station operation comms promptly directed her ping to the Security Chief’s office. After a few seconds, a live holo of Vellek’s head and shoulders floated above her arm. “Your geolocator is stationary. Did you find the missing pet?”

As per the procedure she’d instituted, she’d notified the security office of their mission. It was reassuring to know someone was tracking them. The station operations team was good at what they did, but the station’s security teams regularly trained in emergency response.

“Yes, and someone else who’s been missing. Jensuradi.”

Vellek’s usually unreadable expression turned sharp with interest. “Alive?”

Katalin shook her head. “Sorry, no.”

“What did he die of?” asked Vellek.

“No clue. And I’m not getting any closer to find out.” As it was, she’d remember the unsettling vision of his distorted face as long as she lived.

Sierrho piped up. “Lady Peach’s nose says he’s been dead for days. She adores carrion.”

“Coming now.” Vellek frowned. “Don’t let Peach or the caprigon eat the corpse.”

Sierrho made a rude noise. "Not even a finger or two? Jensuradi won't miss them."

Katalin wasn't sure if Sierrho was just tweaking Vellek or was actually serious. Not that she could blame her friend. Jensuradi had rarely missed a chance to make it clear that, if he were in charge, he would have ejected both Sierrho and her rescue shelter out the nearest docking airlock.

“Don’t touch anything,” growled Vellek. “I’ll get a grav cart and be there in fifteen minutes.” His hologram faded with the disconnect.

The caprigon took that moment to launch into an ungainly jump. He would have escaped if not for Sierrho’s talent for handling animals. She anticipated his landing spot and held out a large piece of dried apricot. When the hungry beast stretched his long neck to snatch it from her, she snapped the looped length of Peach’s leash up and over the horns to secure the cord around the caprigon's neck.

“Now, Autuno,” cooed Sierrho over the animal’s bleating protests, “those two children you love are missing you terribly.”

Katalin hid a smile. Sierrho was really bad with people’s names, but never forgot the name of any animal she’d ever met.

Peach apparently thought Sierrho wasn’t paying attention and boldly started toward the corpse.

Katalin stepped closer and took control of the caprigon's leash so Sierrho could rein in Peach by grabbing her harness.

“It’s going to be a long fifteen minutes,” said Sierrho as she wrestled with the struggling wolverine. “Bad Peach! Bones of assholes will give you gas.”

Katalin made a quick assessment. “If you can get them back to the maintenance exit by yourself, I’ll stay and wait for Vellek and crew.”

“I can do that, but are you sure you want to stay with… him?” Sierrho shuddered as she gave a side-eyed glance toward the body.

“I’ll be alright.” Katalin kept her private misgivings off her face. Jensuradi had been a regular pain in her backside since he’d been assigned to Starlane Crossroads and she couldn’t muster regret at his demise. But her most recent experience with dead bodies had left a permanent scar on her soul. Grief was a funny thing. Sometimes three and a half years seemed like last decade, and sometimes like only yesterday.

Sierrho took the caprigon's improvised halter from Katalin. “You’ll really be okay?”

“Yes. Plus, I don’t think the CPS would take it well if Peach leaves tooth marks on what’s left of their Agent-in-Charge.”

“Okay, then.” Sierrho surprised Katalin with a quick, one-armed hug that threatened to strangle the escaped pet beside her. “Ping me when Vellek gets here so I don’t worry.”

“Will do.”

Katalin watched as Sierrho half cajoled, half dragged her charges along with her toward the exit. Even after she lost sight of her friend, she heard the one-sided conversations with the pets until Sierrho remembered to mute her earwire.

Alone in the hard glare of the automatic lighting, Katalin found a giant bolt to sit on while she waited. She didn’t know what else to call the head of a join pin that was nearly two meters across. As it was, she’d had to jump up and back to get to it. Her legs were built for walking, not nimbly leaping high like certain naughty cats.

Sky and her other two cats were presents from Sierrho that Katalin hadn’t known she’d needed until she had them. Sierrho’s pan-species animal affinity minder talent was impressive, but pairing people with just the right animals was her friend’s greatest gift. Froggie, first and oldest, slinked her snuggly way into Katalin’s bed and heart on the first night. Froggie had won over her husband Starn and adult daughter Temelle nearly as easily during what turned out to be his last stay at home. Paru and Skyhunter came later, rescued from an illegal smuggling operation. They all helped her stay laughing and present. The loss of her family to an accident had left her mostly just empty, like a brain-wiped automaton just going through the motions.

That was a spiral she never wanted to repeat. Not that the gods of chaos or whatever ran the universe cared what she wanted. But the station couldn’t run itself for long without a manager, so she’d stepped up.

Lucky for her, so had Vellek Altano. He’d lost his boss and friend in the same accident. Vellek was still listed as acting security chief only because she didn’t have the authority to make it permanent. Starn’s estate was a convoluted, disarrayed mess and tied up with the truly spectacular chaos that was the Tigurini family holdings. The corporation that now owned some of the Tigurini family assets had been stubbornly uncommunicative until about eighteen standard months ago. Their edicts since then had become increasingly meddlesome.

Twenty-nine years had passed since she’d been a corporate employee, but she wasn’t stupid. It was only a matter of time before Okebaan Corp figured out how to terminate her contract and evict her from the station altogether. She’d rather jump than be pushed, except she had a lot of people to protect as best she could before that happened. For all that she’d liked to have taken a few trips off the station when Starn and Temelle were still alive, the thought of leaving forever was more painful than an amped-up shockstick to the chest.

Think about something else , she ordered herself.

Resolutely, she took quick glimpses of Jensuradi’s corpse. He should have been wearing an oxygen mask and gravity boots, but he wasn’t. That didn’t mean much. She’d caught too many staff and contractors going without them because they’d expected to be in and out quickly. At least Jensuradi had been wearing a warm coat.

While the military’s lease included privileged access to some of the infrastructure in their part of the station, the bottom level of the civilian area’s maintenance skin was nowhere near it. The station’s commercial top section formed a giant plus-sign that sat on top of a giant lozenge shape that housed the docks. Some early Tigurini owner had dubbed it Starlane Crossroads for marketing purposes and the name stuck. The military’s lease covered all three levels of half of one of the plus-sign’s arms, designated Red Sector on station maps, and walled off by emergency blast doors and multiple layers of incalloy for safety and security. That was easily two kilometers from where they’d found Jensuradi. Yellow Sector housed businesses toward the center and the scientific research facility at the outer end. He shouldn’t have been there.

However, the Citizen Protection Service notoriously considered themselves exempt from galactic government laws and regulations. Like the other CPS agents on the station, Jensuradi only acknowledged the CPS was a military branch when it suited him. She’d had to memorize the entire military lease and current contracts to thwart his ambitions to control the station in the name of “keeping the galactic peace.” He probably would have succeeded if Starlane Crossroads hadn’t already been a fully independent research station before the Central Galactic Concordance government formed nearly two hundred years ago. An early court case solidified the station’s unique status. She’d memorized that ruling, too, just to annoy Jensuradi by quoting it.

But for all that she’d wished the man gone, she hadn’t wished him sick or hurt in the bitter dark, gasping for air, pleading for someone to find him. No one deserved to die like that.

A creeping lassitude tried to fog her emotions and slow her thoughts. She knew her mind’s defense mechanism well, and occasionally still let it happen, but this wasn’t the time. Her administrative plate was full to overflowing. She’d forgotten to ask Sierrho to ping once she arrived back in the safety of the station interior, and Sierrho would be busy with the animals and wouldn’t think to do it. More importantly, if she let the fog win, Vellek would be worried.

That wasn’t the right word. Distracted, maybe. He was brilliant and sharp as a molecular knife, but he didn’t seem to know what to do when people were hurting. Least of all, himself. When he’d first joined the station’s security staff five years ago, he was the most self-contained person she’d ever met. She suspected he had minder talents of some sort, although he never admitted it. He’d slowly relaxed and earned the respect of his coworkers and his boss.

Two years later, when the accident that took her family also killed Vellek’s boss and mentor, he’d unexpectedly opened himself to actual friendships, including with her. Chaos knew she’d needed his ability to ask the right questions to pull her up from the foggy cocooning depths. In return, she’d quietly sent meals to his office and cajoled him into a realistic work schedule instead of pulling successive triple shifts then cratering like a meteor on the dead planet below.

The steady blinking of a tiny blue light caught her eye. It took her a moment to remember the warning for what it was, and to windmill her arms and kick her feet to keep the overhead lights on. Sitting alone so close to the cold void was unsettling enough, but doing it in the dark next to a corpse would be downright creepy.

It seemed disrespectful to use her percomp to pull up her to-do list or read the newstrends. Better that, though, than bursting into song like her sister had at a death memorial service for an elderly relative. Back then, her sister would do anything to be the center of attention. After their older brother tried to start a rebellion and the whole family had been hounded by journalists during the arrest, trial, and sentencing, her sister was still addicted to attention, but saved her outbursts for more private settings.

Katalin shook her head. Memories of the bleak childhood she’d escaped the day she’d turned seventeen were not helpful. Apparently, she couldn’t be trusted to sit quietly and think pleasant thoughts for even ten minutes.

Though, maybe she should give herself grace and allow herself to be mad, worried, and sad rather than saving them for a more appropriate time. A time that too often never came. Thank the universe for the therapist who’d pointed out that pattern and helped her develop better habits. And since she was admitting to negative emotions, she added guilt to her litany because it had been four months since she’d booked a therapy session. She made a mental note to put that on her priority list. If she wasn’t healthy, she couldn’t help anyone else.

Her earwire sounded with Vellek’s unique tone for audio only. “I see a pool of light that I think is yours. Detouring around a breach that’s swarming with hull and maintenance bots. Be there soon.”

She tapped the earwire. “Okay. If it’s convenient, could you ping the breach’s exact location coordinates to Luntian? We’ll need a quality inspection on the repairs.”

“Copy.”

Katalin twitched a smile at the military shorthand. His employment records had no hint of military service, but habits like that came out when he was stressed. Starlane Crossroads was full of residents with artfully edited histories.

After a couple of minutes, she saw lights blinking on in the distance to her left. When the gravcart got closer, she was surprised to see that Vellek was alone on the tractor that pulled it.

After slowing it to a gentle stop, he climbed off and came straight toward her. He looked around, then frowned at her as he reached up to help her down from her perch. “Sierrho left you here alone?”

Katalin didn’t mind protectiveness from him because she knew it meant he cared, not that he thought she was helpless.

“Yes, because I told her to go.” She brushed dust off the back of her coat. “Given time to think, Sierrho would remember she hates being cold and that the maintenance skin is full of ghosts. Then her anxiety would agitate the animals, and Peach was already in a mood.”

“Good point.” Vellek looked at her for long enough that she thought she might have a smudge on her face. “How are you holding up?”

The gentleness of his tone warmed her. She’d desperately missed his friendship. “Better than I expected, to be honest.” They’d been together when identifying the bodies of her husband, her daughter, and his boss. “You didn’t bring anyone. Do you need help lifting…” She tilted her chin toward Jensuradi.

He followed her gaze to look at the body, then turned back to her. “I came by myself because I didn’t want you and Sierrho to have to ride on the cart with the corpse.”

“If you tell me what to do, I can help.” Maybe she could do it without really looking at what she was lifting.

“Better if you don’t. The local CPS would love to tie you up in their investigation to keep you too busy to keep them in check.” He pointed a thumb toward the cart. “I brought cameras and a sample kit to collect evidence in case they get any bright ideas.”

Something she should have thought of. Starn had loved to help the CPS agents trip over their own feet. She just wasn’t cut out for power games.

“Do what you have to do.” She waved him away, not envying his task. “I’ll wait here.”

She could have walked back to the airlock door she’d come in through. But if she was honest with herself, she’d rather have his company. Even if she had to share him with the dead.