Keeper Hunter

A woman in a dress uniform with lieutenant’s bars on her collar stood outside the door to my quarters. She was about average height with wavy brunette hair close to the colour mine once was. Mine was a few shades lighter thanks to the Elders playing about with my DNA. She had a pleasant face with a few freckles under her eyes with pale skin. I did wonder if she was Valkyrie but dismissed it as being paranoid. Then Miri had looked nothing like a Valkyrie with her red hair and green eyes. Her birth was because the Valkyrie wanted a spy.

“Been waiting long?” I asked her.

“A while now,” she replied as if it wasn’t important. “Our tracking system wasn’t registering your location I expect it’s an oversight.”

“I’m here now what do you want?” I winced I hadn’t meant to be blunt.

“The captain wants to see you.” Again unconcern in her voice.

I looked down my vest and shorts had sweat stains on them hardly appropriate to see the captain in. “I’ll need to shower and change if that’s ok?”

“That’s not a problem I’ll be back in twenty minutes that enough time for you?” Her whole attitude was markedly different from the lieutenant that had greeted me as I stepped off the shuttle.

I showered and changed selecting a russet coloured blouse and slacks topping it off with black high-heeled boots. The same woman was waiting for me when I exited my quarters. I saw her eye my ensemble and smile definitely a change.

“Thanks,” I said to her.

“I did tell the captain he wanted to know where you were?”

“I was training with the Marines. I hadn’t anything better to do. The terminal in my quarters isn’t working.”

“Ok I’ll get Maintenance to look into it.” She tapped her comms bracelet. “I made a note and will make sure you get access.” She finished her note and regarded me. “This way please?”

I followed her through the ship. I guessed where we were going Xenai had a room near the bridge which, she made use of besides her office.

The captain’s ready room was the same layout as Xenai’s but a little more cluttered. The desk was the same as Xenai’s but behind the captain was a shelves of knick-knacks. A lot of the items displayed I’d be hard to put a name to. The captain was a dour looking man with his grey hair cropped close to his head. He looked up at me and nodded. On his desk was a nameplate that said Captain Clements.

“Lieutenant Wright said you were training with the Marines.”

I sensed this wasn’t a question. “Yes, my comms terminal wasn’t working and I have to keep fit somehow?”

Clements gave me a look. “There’s keeping fit and there’s fighting with the Marines. If I had the choice I’d have thrown you in the brig.”

I returned his look with a glare of my own. “Oh you mean the idiot who tried to take a friendly training session too far and involved his friends. Three on one is hardly fair?” I said sarcastically. “Well tough for them I hope they’ve learned a valuable lesson. Don’t mess with me!” I felt defiant. I shouldn’t be that aggressive and that worried me.

Clements look turned to concern. “Calm down we are on the same side here?”

I was no longer sure whose side I was on but I ploughed on knowing I was digging a deeper hole for me to fall into. “If someone fights with me I’ll make sure they regret it.” That definitely wasn’t me speaking.

Clements frowned. “Be as it may.”

For a minute I thought he was going go into a rant but he opened a drawer in his desk and pulled out an envelope and slid it across the table as if reluctant to hold it in his hands.

“I was ordered to give you this.” He avoided touching the envelope any more than he had to. “The contents are on biometric paper.”

I’d never heard of biometric paper. “Biometric paper?” I repeated and winced seemed that I was falling into old habits.

“If anyone other than you tries to read it, it disintegrates.”

I picked up the envelope with some trepidation my mind on Saros and the Gala. “The last time I was given something in a envelope it was an invitation to a Gala. At which the Black Stripes tried to kill me and blow up the Gala.”

“Black Stripes?” Clements asked

“An organisation working with the Rhosani.”

“The Rhosani are a Confederacy myth?” he snorted.

“Wrong they aren’t, the TCA faced one of their ships down and made it flee. They are real and they are a danger to the Empire.”

“We aren’t in the Confederacy,” Clements remarked.

“True but that doesn’t mean we should be lax.”

“That’s all, dismissed.” He abruptly ended the conversation.

I made my way back to my quarters the contents of the letter burning a hole in my pocket not literately though. That was the hope. Inside I took the envelope out of my pocket and laid it on my desk. I studied the outside of the envelope trying to gauge anything about it. I could see anything out of the ordinary. The last time I was given an envelope it contained an invitation to a Gala on Saros, which had been a trap. It hadn’t ended up as the trap Ljufu had envisioned. Ljufu had got her traitors and I inadvertently exposed a plot by the Black Stripes to blow up the hotel. I opened the envelope withdrawing a single sheet of paper. After all the hype it was a total let down. All it said was that I was to meet my contact outside the base at a certain time. It was worse than the message on my comms. Hardly worth the effort of writing the instructions down. Eel could have told me all that on the trip to the shuttle. It didn’t make sense. I began to suspect wheels within wheels and I just a humble cog in a greater scheme. It was typical of the Nobles to play these games. I wasn’t happy about it. “That was a waste of time,” I muttered annoyed.

As I began to read through the short message a second time in effort to guess the meaning behind the words, I noticed the paper turning brow and flaking away. Hastily I dropped the letter to the floor as it turned to dust. Heck they hadn’t been joking about the biometric paper.

The sudden bleat of my door comms had me on alert. Wiping the last of the dust off my finger I hesitantly answered the door. It opened to reveal Claire and Silivia in civilian garb consisting of jeans and checked broad collared shirts with calf length boots with a tooled design on them. Both had wide leather like belts with large buckles.

“We’ve got free time and we just wondered if you’d like to come to the Tavern with us.”

I looked at how they had dressed a bit confused. “Tavern?” I asked.

“It’s a themed bar on deck three,” Silivia said she sounded less uptight than the last time she had spoken to me.

“Come with us and see it, I heard it decked out like something from the old west it’s gotta to be really cool?” Claire enthused.

I looked at her thinking who said ‘cool’ now days. Well that was anyone but Miranda. I still worried about her though she would probably outlive me. I hadn’t anything better to do and I needed some cheering up after the disappointment over the letter.

“Ok,” I said. I couldn’t be bothered to change and followed the two women out.