‘Thanks, kid.’ Jasken planted himself down and swiped a hunk of meat before Saren could protest. ‘Barely eaten all day. Shoddy shift rotation.’
Saren elected not to comment on that. ‘I owe you for the armour,’ I told Jasken. ‘It wasn’t cheap, but it was worth it.’
Jasken shrugged. ‘Your money’s not going to be worth much if you kick the bucket tomorrow. Live it up now, I say.’
‘That’s such a moronic philosophy to hold onto,’ Saren sighed. He and Jasken seemed to disagree about everything except how much they hated the House of Suns.
‘It’s true!’ Jasken protested through a mouthful.
‘But it doesn’t make it wise!’
Jasken shook his head. ‘You Navigators. Always about the long game, waiting and waiting for something to pay off. Not everything’s light years away, you know.’
‘You trained to work on spacecrafts?’ I asked Saren.
Saren nodded. ‘It’s in the family, so it was expected of me. Trained for astral navigation and onboard management on chainships, lungships, even deepspace dreadnoughts. Wanted to be a Commander one day. Compass might be our home, but there’s a whole other universe out there that needs discovering. Not everyone’s got the aptitude for spending years in a ship surrounded by vacuum or surviving warpspace, but I do.’
‘Why’d you stop?’ I asked.
‘Things didn’t work out. But I landed with second best. I can’t say I’m sorry it ended up this way.’
Two more rounds of coffee and a pastry each and we wrapped up the briefing. I returned home to give my armour a good scrubbing before strapping into it and heading to Spacedock 409D, as instructed. I went early to make an impression. Three hours later, I was still sitting in the brightly lit arrivals hall, watching the never-ending stream of ships docking. Of course the military-minded aliens with the mega-sized space fleets were late. A good reminder as to which species was waiting on who around here.
By now, whatever cohesive thoughts I’d cobbled together had quickly fallen apart. Meeting up with the mysterious creatures from the verge of the Common will do that to you. I knew people who’d hack off their right arm to get a few minutes alone with the Kaiji. It was more likely they’d hack off both my arms and beat me to death with them by the time the day was done.
They weren’t there one minute and the next they were. Three of them, just as Saren predicted. A little taller than me, wearing elaborate, ceremonial suits with high collars, long sleeves and heavy hooded cowls. No helmets or any kind of space-appropriate gear. They were slender and elegant, ash-skinned with large eyes and a crown of horns atop their heads. Two of them had soot-black eyes, while the other’s eyes were cerulean, matching the sash over his shoulder. Their noses wrinkled, as if already smelling the stormtech in me.
The tallest spoke first. A sharp, multi-layered voice with a strange depth to it. ‘You are Vakov Fukasawa?’ He’d completely butchered my name, but I’m used to that. It’s not exactly John Smith.
I nodded, but they showed no reaction. Then I remembered Saren’s words. ‘Yes. I am.’
And they whirled away, robes dragging on the floor, apparently expecting me to follow. Well, this was going to be interesting. His words about their social niceties seemed to be proving true, too. I caught up and noticed they were wearing armour under their ceremonial clothes. High-tech and curved close to the body. Designed to go undetected.
I followed them to their docked transport – a black pod in the shape of a balloon. It looked like a short-range transit craft, but it’s hard to tell with alien tech and I had no idea where they planned to take me. My knowledge of the entire species ended at the fact that they were pissed at Harmony for using stormtech. And once away from Harmony’s jurisdiction, they could do whatever they wanted with me.
But if I wanted answers, I had to trust them.
I entered their pod.
‘You must be Fukasawa,’ a voice like thunder said.
A single Kaiji stood at the far end of the craft. He was taller than me, just over two metres by my reckoning. He was broad-shouldered and barrel-chested, clad in a heavy tower of gold and black armour. His chestplate glistened with sun-bright intensity, a line of sweeping lights stencilled from the shoulders down to the angular gauntlets. His eyes were piercing and intelligent as they flicked over me: one black, the other a dirty gold that matched his armour. Two large horns jutted from either side of his skull, like the horns of a bull or a yak. He pressed a fist to his armoured chest. ‘Thanks for showing up.’
I’d been so accustomed to the idea of Kaiji being slender and lanky that I had to mask my surprise. Seemed there was as much diversity within their own species as there was within humans. ‘Happy to be here,’ I told him as I strapped myself into a full-body seat that clearly wasn’t built for human bone structure, while one of them tapped a few buttons on the controls and had us jetting away. The one with blue eyes introduced himself as Ambassador Nsurev van Jorren before glancing at the bigger Kaiji. ‘May I introduce Space Marshall Xanrimaeyr dan Juvens. He is in charge of military tactics and Elite Tactical Force regiments in this sector.’
I sure as hell hadn’t expected to be meeting with one of the top dogs, especially not informally. Still, Harmony had been clear: they would get whatever they wanted. ‘Good to meet you, Space Marshall,’ I said vigilantly.
The big alien made an indignant snorting sound and waved a hand. ‘Juvens is quite fine here,’ he grumbled out. ‘Formalities give me a headache.’
I allowed myself a grin. Perhaps this visit wouldn’t be so bad after all.
The other two made no efforts to introduce themselves, but Harmony wouldn’t have allowed them on Compass without clearance, which had been passed onto me. Their names appeared
