Vic kneeled by Jason’s side. “Are you okay?”
Like smelling salts, Vic’s breath pulled him from the floor. “I’ve felt better.”
“You want me to call the station medics?”
Jason felt the side of his face. It hurt, but he imagined it would’ve hurt a lot more if he wasn’t so drunk. “I’ll live.” He brushed off the grub that had manifested itself on The Bended Elbow’s floor and stumbled to the exit.
“Oh, Cassidy,” Vic called.
“Yeah?”
“I’ll expect that tab paid tomorrow.”
Jason chuckled and set off down the promenade, which was empty apart from a few vagrants and other drunks like himself. Passing the large viewports, he gazed down at Vesta III. It was rather barren but was only in the second stage of terraformation. While it appeared little more than a lifeless rock now, in another fifty years it would be the rival of Centauri or even Earth. I’ll be well and truly dead by then.
But it was the stars around the orange planet that caught Jason’s attention. He stopped and put a hand on the viewport as if trying to touch them. Not a day went by when he thought about his former life in the Commonwealth Defense Force. It seemed like a lifetime ago.
“Hey, you! Keep moving!”
A pair of Odyssey Station’s local constabulary stood behind him. Jason put his hands up in surrender and continued on, zigzagging all the way through the promenade until he reached his apartment.
He climbed the stairs and opened the door with his thumbprint. Entering his home, he decided against activating the main lighting. Mainly because he didn’t want to see the mess he’d left, but also because his eyes were in no state to take it.
His head spun furiously from the alcohol and throbbed incessantly from the punch. Falling to the floor in his bathroom, he wrapped his hands around the toilet and deposited most of what he’d drunk at The Bended Elbow. Plus some of what he assumed was his dinner or lunch. He couldn’t quite remember.
Why the hell do I do this to myself?
Jason gently heaved himself up with the towel rail and stumbled over to the washbasin. He flicked the light on the lowest setting and looked into the mirror. His bearded and very bruised face stared back at him.
With a push of the mirror, he opened the medicine cabinet and pried out two aspirins from the near-empty container. He swallowed them and washed them down with a glass of water. He closed the medicine cabinet, and spotted a red flashing light in the reflection of the mirror. A message? For me?
He made his way into the living area, almost tripping over… something. “Open message,” he instructed his computer, taking a seat on the sofa. The display activated, washing the living area in color.
“Ortega?” he muttered in shock.
Sure enough, there in an office somewhere, sat his old colleague from the UECS Raptor, David Ortega. “Hello, Jason. It’s been some time. I hope this message finds you well.”
Jason chuckled. Yep, life’s great.
“I have information that will interest you. I’m stationed at Outpost Watchtower. It’s a facility based in the Delta-Hera System, near Frontier’s Reach.”
Jason knew of it but had never visited. Not that he’d wanted to. It was nothing but a star system of lifeless rocks on the edge of nowhere.
“As well as being a port for ships out here in deep space, one of our missions is to send out probes into the Reach and perform general scans,” Ortega told him. “A few days ago one of those probes found something. Particles.” He paused before continuing. “Iota particles.”
Jason let the words sink in. It took him back to his final days aboard the Raptor and that fateful moment when he’d lost his best friend.
“The readings were identical to the ones we found in Nebula TPA-338 after the destruction of Nash’s pod.”
Jason wanted to vomit again remembering the vivid memory.
“We’ve sent this information to HQ. We asked if they would spare a ship to investigate, but they’ve decided it wasn’t worth the equipment or manpower. Same old story. We’re still feeling the brunt of rebuilding the fleet since the war. Or so the excuse goes.” Ortega leaned forward in his seat. “I’m sending you the coordinates where the Iota particles were found and all other pertinent information I can give you. Do with it as you wish.”
A little notification in the corner of the monitor advised Jason that a data packet had downloaded into his computer.
“I know this will be like opening an old wound, but maybe there’s closure to be had. For you. For all of us.” He gave Jason a casual salute. “Good luck.”
Ortega’s face disappeared from the monitor and Jason opened the data packet to study the information. As Ortega had said, the coordinates were inside Frontier’s Reach, a long way from Vesta III. It’d be costly to pay for transport, let alone finding anyone willing to take him.
“Bring up my bank balance,” he instructed the computer.
On the display, his balance appeared. He was in the black by five thousand credits. Jason was surprised he had that much, but it was nowhere near what he needed. His mind wandered to all his possessions. The bond on his apartment. Some stuff he could pawn. And that was after paying Vic’s tab. He would never find the money to get out to the Reach.
He dropped his head and pondered. A thought popped into his mind, though it wasn’t a pleasant one.
Am I that desperate?
“Log me on to the Commonwealth Shipping Network.”
The monitor displayed an access screen, and it activated with vocal recognition. Wow, it still works after all these years. He stared at the monitor, considering long and hard whether he was prepared to go the tritonium option. He sighed. “Locate Cargo Ship Argo.”
An astronomical map of the region appeared and a blip materialized in the top left-hand corner. It was the Argo, and it wasn’t too far
