Captain Stone
“Your orders, Captain?” The large First Officer of the starship asked the woman who had defeated the Hoot in combat. His size approached the Hoot’s although he came from a human heavy-gravity world.
She spoke with a rush, “Take the Guardia to Escobar Hab. Get her repainted. I like colorful designs painted on a ship’s hull, maybe a floral display this time. And get new papers with a new name and registry information while you’re at it, damn the cost. Roman troopers from the wagering commission are going to be looking all over for us in a few tenths of time because of the amount of the wagers we cashed in, so lift off immediately and I’ll see you in thirty rotations.”
“I hate that dirtball Escobar Hab. Full of thieves and crooks, if you ask me,” he said as he grinned wryly. “You’re going searching for the influencer you felt in your mind at the coliseum, right?”
“Empath, not influencer. I think she is a full empath. She’ll make a valuable asset if I can find and recruit her.”
“If she doesn’t convince you to give up your ship in exchange for half of a stale sandwich.”
“You know better,” the captain snorted with laughter to join his as she turned to leave. “I’m a native anti-empath. See you on Escobar.”
She strode down the ship’s ramp in disguise while still thinking about the conversation with her First Officer. Anti-empaths are not well known and most wanted to keep it that way, just as empaths hid their ability. For mostly the same reasons. Anything relating to telepathy was strictly forbidden on all worlds. Most considered empathy a lower grade of the same thing as telepathy and nobody wanted strangers inside their minds.
There were wild tales prominent in the entertainment video industry about both abilities. Nearly all exaggerated the effects and the impact. However, when there are hundreds of races in the nearby space, there are far stranger occurrences of life and survivorship than using a mind to manipulate others instead of talking, singing, or physical prowess.
Behind her, the ship’s boarding ramp detached itself and rolled into its hanger. The ship’s engines rumbled to life and idled as dozens of computers performed the preflight self-diagnostics. This time, the ship carried a cargo of a new strain of grain reputed to double harvests, and bottles of expensive wine, along with a few pieces of local art that were being searched for on Roma. If the police looked hard enough for the art here and on Escobar Habitat after her ship arrived, they might find them.
Traders, most of them, didn’t violate local planetary laws so much as stretch them. She and her crew had had nothing to do with the thefts. They had only accepted a commission to transport a few crates and only discovered what the crates held after they were aboard. As Captain, she had notified the shippers of her intention to notify the local authorities of her illicit cargo. The shippers quickly offered to pay premium shipping charges, higher than what the costs would have been if they had been forthright with her.
No trader liked being taken by surprise or being fined by local authorities, especially when others broke the local laws and pinned them on the traders. If the risk were worth the reward, like most traders, she would take the deal. But it had to be her choice.
As she exited the space terminal, the rumblings of her ship leaving the tarmac shook the ground. She imagined everything around her vibrating, knowing that it wasn’t happening, but it gave her a feeling of immense power. She didn’t bother to turn and look. It would only make her feel foolish for going off on her private mission concerning the touch of another’s mind with hers.
To anyone looking, she no longer would be confused with the gladiator who had fought in the arena only this morning. The now-famous human woman who had defeated a Hoot in a single-battle match had disappeared from the public eye.
She wore a wig of long green hair with strands as thick as vermicelli spaghetti that trailed down her back in a tightly woven pattern. Her thick eyebrows were dyed a matching green. Her makeup had a slight greenish tinge, not much, but just enough so anyone looking her way had no reason to associate her with being human, thus there could be no association with her appearance in the Colosseum.
She also looked younger. Late teens, at a guess, instead of her normal human age of early thirties. Part of that was the intention of her disguise, a dress noticeably short in the skirt gave the impression of being even shorter than it was. Boots with tall heels and even taller unseen inserts gave her legs the appearance of length longer than any human.
A chest-band compressed her upper body and eliminated the appearance of having curves, typical of many unisex and egg-laying races. While observers might not recognize her race, they would intuitively conclude she was not human, and that’s what counted.
At a food cart, she asked for a small sack of deep-fried tri-colored insects, which consisted of three varieties. She enjoyed two of them. The blues would be discarded as she walked.
She said to the vendor, “A human owes me money. He is usually broke and I think he lives at the edge of town. Can you point the general way?”
The vendor pointed with one of the lower arms.
“Just one slum?” she asked as she crunched a red insect and savored the musky taste.
“This is a vee-shaped valley. The more you get away from the spaceport, the lower the rent.”
Captain Stone nodded appreciatively and placed a small coin on the cart. If she needed information later, he would remember the small gratuity.
She strode confidently down the avenue and past the pair of troopers wearing
