3 weeks later - Starship Alexandria - Outside Echo Station

Space travel never got any easier.

Oh sure the accommodations got better, even this dingy room with the rusty bunk bed and ancient appliances was better than Aden’s time during the war. Back then he was sharing the same cramped space with six people.

No what made space travel tough was all the time it took. Even the fancy military ships with their hyper fast slipspace drives could take days to reach an adjacent system. An old cargo ship turned passenger freight like the Starship Alexandria? It’s a wonder they made it here in three weeks. And terminals can’t communicate with the outside world in slipspace so that was three weeks to watch the same movies and vids and music.

At first it wasn’t so bad. Aden came onto the ship still drugged from his operation and those first days passed in a hazy stupor. Now he could only think. He tried sleeping, but the incessant buzzing of the the old lights just made him delve deeper into his thoughts. Well that and Julians incessant snoring.

They were out of slipspace now and into Echo Station space so Aden pulled up a chair in front of the terminal that came with the room. He could at least see how the rest of the world was doing. Maybe even something on the news about stolen technology from KhazorCorp.

His fingers danced across the gargantuan screen with ease. No matter how advanced terminals got the basics never changed much. This certainly wasn’t a type of the line hand-held model but it still worked. He tried pulling up news articles from Earth but at that moment it started to flash red. A message from their mutual benefactor it looked like.

Aden glanced back at Julian and thought about waking him up but decided against it. Julian had spent the last three weeks watching guard. Aden had tried to argue that he was fine and could take care of himself. Julian however said he wanted to see if there were any side effects of the surgery. Aden could at least give him a couple more minutes. He opened the message himself and was presented with a couple lines of text.

From: XY28D- ERROR - YRT&8

MESSAGE: Ship in visual scanner. Port to Echo Station within minutes. Package status?

Aden winced at that word. Package. Is that all I am?

For as much as their mutual benefactor was going to provide them this message was a solemn reminder. Julian was trying to help him but this person on the other end? This was less than business, it was pure bribery.

He thought for a moment about what to type on the terminal. They still needed to get through processing once they got off the ship. He assumed that they would have taken care of that - after all it wasn’t like Aden and Jules could use their own name. In the end Aden typed up a terse message. “Secure and on route”. Let them worry about logistics. As his finger pressed the send icon he heard the snoring stop behind him.

Then a dull bang and the steady harsh voice of curse words.

“Dammit! Who designed this piece of shit?” said Julian.

Aden laughed and tossed him the terminal. “Probably the same guy who decided electrical buzzing was the best ambient noise for his new spaceship.” said Aden.

Julian was still nursing his head with the back of his hand while he read the terminal. It wasn’t a very long message but Aden knew Julian reread every message of the trip three times over. Jules hated ambiguity, even in their military days.

“Hmm…This is it huh? Echo station at last.” He said “Sorry about the snoring. We’ll get you on a private room on a better ship when you go to the next planet”

Julian tossed the terminal aside and got up to stretch. Aden could hear the creak of his bones from where he was standing. Aden felt a twang of pity that he had dragged Julian out of retirement to help him. It hadn’t been that long since their time in the military but Julian was old even then. The past eight years had made even Aden feel old. Who knows what it did to Julian?

It always seemed funny to Aden that Julian was the one to command a squadron of teenagers. He was so old he didn’t understand a single word of their slang. Still Aden and the squad looked to him for guidance on everything. Most of them were only children when the war had started. No parents, nobody to teach them how to survive. They joined the military for the free meals and had gotten lucky to be assigned to Julians squad. When push came to shove and Aden had to find a new life all he had left was to call Julian. Of course Julian being Julian never said no.

“Hey I’m going out to the Cargo hold. Gotta stretch my legs for a bit.” Said Aden. He didn’t want to be there while Julian went over their documents for the thousand time.

“Yeah no problem. Listen though, make sure you wear your jacket and gloves yeah? Don’t want anyone to look at your arm and blow this up so close to port” said Julian.

Aden rubbed his arm on instinct. The pain had gone away but he still hadn’t gotten used to his new arm. It had been so long since he lost it in the war that it felt like a new alien sensation to finally be in control of both his limbs. He even had to relearn basic stuff like how to type using both his hands or where to put his arms when he was sleeping.

Not that this was his arm per say. They were only the transporters. It was their mutual benefactors arm in the end. No that wasn’t true. It belonged to KhazorCorps. In the post-Galactic War boom of technology and expansion it was corporations like KhazorCorps that had the knowledge and power to create stuff like this. This- thing- that looked like a normal prosthetic arm was designed to be a weapon. The shiny metallic surface felt like it was going to blind him every time Aden look at it. There were small hard buttons arranged in a row on the underside of his palm but he didn’t dare touch them. Who knows what this thing could do?

Aden had thought the Cargo hold would be empty. A change to stretch out his legs and maybe do some exercise. As it turns out, everyone else had the same idea.

The cargo hold was filled with people, refugees and prospectors not unlike Aden, looking to take a ship from Echo Station into one of the lucrative colonies that had sprung up after the war. They wore old clothing with out of date fashion, usually a size too big, and clutched tattered suitcases to their chest. Aden knew them well. They were the people left behind on Earth while Humanity went took the fight to the Beryons. They escaped the war with nothing but their lives and now took to the stars for a new home.

Yet despite what these people had endured there was no sadness in them now. On the contrary Aden could see the plain excitement on their faces. They huddled together around their mobile terminals and told stories about where they were going next and what they were going to do. Aden walked aimlessly through the cargo hold hearing snippets of their conversations.

“What part of Earth you from?”

“London! Can’t wait to leave. Beryons didn’t leave a single tree. I hear Osynia’s got forests covering the entire planet! Gonna feel good just to explore.”

“I heard my cousin say if you sign up for RayuTech security on a five year contract they’ll buy you land on any planet you want”

“You think I can just stay on the station? Port Authority has to be looking for engineers right?”

Aden took a moment to stop and check his handheld terminal when someone bumped into him. He looked up to see a blonde girl, about the same age as Aden maybe somewhere in her early 20s, looking him up and down. On instinct he backed up and held tight grip on the handheld terminal on his wrist. Something didn’t feel right. Call it battle sense or street smarts or whatever but right now this girl made the alarm bells in his head ring.

For one Aden could she see was dressed different from the people around her. At first glance everything was fine: simple white shirt, black denim pants, and a jacket of the same material. But Aden saw through to the finer details. Her shirt was cotton and at least factory made with the slightest hint of a gold necklace around her neck. Her jacket looked normal but when she moved slightly he could see the fine silk lining on the inside. Even her hair betrayed her, the smallest black roots on her scalp meant she had probably dyed it right before she got on the ship. No refugee looked like this.

Aden waved the air in front of him.

“Look if you’re trying to steal something you picked the wrong guy. I probably got even less than the other people here. ” said Aden

She laughed at him. “Ugh. War boys. Always so defeatist. You guys won. You’re heroes! Would it kill ya to lighten up a bit?” she said.

“How did you know?” asked Aden. As far as the rest of the ship was concerned he was a simple refugee. He and Julian had gone out of their way to dress the same as they did - opting for cheap blue synthetic clothes that looked like it came straight out of a machine. N one was supposed to know they were former military.

“How did you know?” she asked.

“Gold is the first thing refugees pawn off.”

She pulled out her necklace and showed it to him. It was just a chain, no medal or anything attached to it. “Sometimes looks can be deceiving. But you’re mostly right. I’m, not exactly a refugee by definition. As for you…”

Before Aden could react she had closed the distance between them and grabbed his prosthetic hand. She pulled back the jacket just enough to show metal. Her eyes drank in the metallic gleam from it for a moment.

“Only the war boys get access to tech this nice.” She said. Aden pulled his arm back and took a step back.

“Most of them don’t. I’m just lucky.” Said Aden. The girl shrugged at him.

“Whatever you call yourself I still wouldn’t be too loud about it. Echo station is a big place, the human parts will always welcome you but some of the Xeno’s don’t like us after the Battle of Halenyx.”

Aden winced at the mention of that battle. He was there. He liked it as little as the Xenos did. The girl, observant as ever, picked up on his reaction.

“You were there huh?” she said.

“Briefly- but you’ve been to Echo Station before?” said Aden eager to change the subject.

“Sure. They keep trying to throw me away and I keep coming back. Nice place. You looking for a job?”

“Sorta. I’m gonna stay for a couple of days before I catch a ship to a colony”

“You really are a refugee huh?”

This time Aden laughed. “I wasn’t lying when I said I didn’t have anything”.

The girl glanced behind her and then at her terminal. “Well one more piece of advice. Don’t sign any contracts or take jobs from guys whose company you don’t recognize. That’s how they get you stuck there.”

“Noted.”

The girl started to back away slowly. “I’ve gotta get ready for port. Have to be careful about presenting myself my old friends at port authority.” She said. “My name is Cassandra by the way. Maybe we can meet up on the station sometime?”

“Maybe.” Said Aden. He didn’t have time to shout his name before she ran off.

He pondered on what she said about the contracts and jobs. Wish she would’ve told me earlier thought Aden. His concentration was broken by a hand that grabbed his shoulder behind him.

“There you are! Don’t go AWOL on me like that kid. Nearly gave me a heart attack” said Julian. He was panting and must’ve come running down to the cargo hold.

“What are you talking about?” said Aden “I told you I was coming down here!”

“Have you checked your terminal? I’ve been sending you messages.

Aden reached for the terminal on his wrist when he found it missing. He started to pat all of his pockets and check the floor before he realized.

Damn her!

“Jules. You gotta help me look for this girl. She was talking to me and I think she stole my terminal and -”

“Nevermind that now.” Said Julian. He had finally begun to catch his breath. “Did any ask you where you’re from? What planet or anything?”

“No” said Aden.

“Good. Good. Look it’s probably nothing but I got word from our contact. He says somethings triggered the security in the port and their gonna be searching this ship”

Aden head filled with questions but at that moment an announcement went over their heads.

Please proceed to the Cargo Bay with all your belongings. We will port within minutes. Security will be searching you before you get on the station. Thank you again for riding with us.