Deal 938: Arrival, watched.

The uniforms were orange.

At a distance at least, they seemed fairly evenly colored. Up close, it became clear that there was a fine black stripe pattern worked into the orange fabric. The stripes were mostly vertical, but some trick of the design meant that no matter what position the uniform was in, there were vertical stripes.

Still, the overall orange tone made them stand out and pop against the grey walkways, grey walls, and generally grey clothing worn by the civilians. And yet, if you looked away and the guard stood still, the stripes would somehow take over your perception and they would fade away into the background.

The Station Keeper travelled with several guards. The dockside is always a rough place, and the law is pretty much the pragmatic result of everyone’s guards keeping little bubbles of orderly and safe spaces. Luckily the necessary geometry of the station made snipers mostly ineffective, allowing safety to be a close-in issue.

And yet, there are exceptions to every rule.

So here I am, dressed in a mottled grey smock streaked with hand-painted black lines that match the character of the bit of superstructure I’ve been hugging for the past four hours, biding my time. When it comes, I’ll have at best a narrow window of opportunity. If I’m very lucky, the guards will never know what happened and I can just sit tight for another hour or two until it is safe to draw attention by moving. If I’m unlucky, I’ll be spotted and then it won’t go so well for me.

Perched in the artificial sky, among the utility runs and light panels, I have a view of the docks normally only seen by the security cameras. I’m actually tucked in right beside a camera now. I’ve mapped out its pan and tilt limits, and I believe I am beyond its reach. This particular camera is not equipped with a microphone, so it is unlikely to have heard me crawling into place. In any case, I timed my arrival to coincide with a docking so that any vibration or sound I inadvertently made would have a simple, obvious, and wrong explanation.

It has been long enough that the necessary quarantines, pressure equalization, and bureaucratic forms have all been followed. All that is left is for the Keeper to greet the Captain and formally grant him and his crew access to the docks. That would be my best opportunity at a clear shot.

The Keeper’s guard have taken up positions around her, with eyes looking outward, inward, upward, and downward. The latter possible because the access point is a mesh catwalk positioned to match the port in use. They don’t act as if I’ve been spotted, and as they fade away I become increasingly confident that I’ll get my shot. I’m watching through my scope, with the hatch centered and filling my field of view when I see the caution lights begin to flash.

That is my cue to start my recorder.

Everyone in the area pauses. This is the moment when we find out for certain that our protocols worked, and the hatch really is opening on a friendly vessel, and not an enemy of the state running a false flag. That is always the worry, even though it should not be possible. By the time a dock is granted, the identity of the vessel has been confirmed through every sort of telemetry signature possible, on top of her official and probably falsifiable transponder codes and broadcast identity beacon.

This time everyone is confident. Keeper is here in person, not by proxy or avatar. The section doors are open to either side of this bay, but per protocol no one is loitering in their path. The climate control curtains are in place, but not hard air-tight seals.

There have been stories of dead stations caused by overconfidence. An enemy using stolen transponders or even a hijacked ship to dock and vent a station to hard vacuum before the section doors could close. Open a large enough door and any station can be killed.

If that happens here today, then my fate is sealed and I will be among the first to die.

But no one has doubts, or Keeper would not be here in person and the doors would be closed.

And there shouldn’t be a problem. The ship on the other side of that unassuming hatchway is rumored to be carrying our Emperor, and we are a loyal way station of the Empire. All the tests passed, all the recognition codes were good. They likely have more to fear from us than we from them. Which is why I’m nervous even where Keeper isn’t.

It’s my job to be nervous.

I’m the advance team’s forward scout.

And I know that the Emperor is not due here for another month or more. The rest of the advance team is at least a week away. And yet the station is acting as if they expect the Emperor himself. So I know that something is very wrong.

So here I am, nestled in the overheads, with my sights and recorder trained on that hatch, waiting to see who or what is on the other side, ready to take action if needed.

I do hope I’m not needed.

Deal 683: Will, Freed

Will was nearly the best at his trade. Not that you would have heard of him, as his trade was normally not the sort of thing noticed at breakfast.

Unless it was practiced on you, but then you would not be the one doing the noticing. Not at all.

Being nearly the best is also a kind of trap, since Will’s sudden disappearance would provide one path to advancement for someone.

He was always careful when he was in public, for he could never quite be sure that someone hadn’t set him up to find a car bomb, or a bus bomb, or perhaps even a bus bench bomb. Or even worse, a bomb somewhere truly novel and unexpected. But he also had to be careful not to let the public know what he was concerned about. Because that would lead to awkward questions. And too much time anywhere near the spotlight.

He often used a mirror on a stick to peek under his car, but quietly and discretely. He avoided public spaces where he could, and where he couldn’t he either inspected them carefully, or he picked benches that were either solid blocks or completely meshed and open. In restaurants he would usually reject the first table offered. But restaurants were full of ways to kill him with a lot less fuss than a bomb, so he tended to not worry so much about the table. As long as it had a view of all the easy approaches in any case.

Today was no different.

He was expected to meet a new client in the afternoon, so he arranged to scout the location in the morning. As he expected, he was just in time to catch the advance team from his client engaged in the same activity. Although they refused to acknowledge each other’s presence, he had to assume they knew he was there. In that way, the scouting mission served its purpose. They knew he was not lax.

And he knew that the day he was too complacent was the day he was likely to find out first hand what was up in the afterlife.

He was in no hurry.

And yet, as he contemplated his life as he waited for them to decide they were fashionably late enough, he was getting bored. He was living on the edge by accepting the basket of bread offered by the waiter, and even further out by buttering a particularly good looking twice baked sourdough with all intent of eating it.

So when the sniper’s round found its mark a moment later, the roll was the first casualty.

And finally, Will was freed from the cage his life had become.