Hard Luck Hermit

To Vo had told Corey to expect a lot of paperwork for their arranged meeting. He hadn’t expected it to be literal -or for there to be so much of it.

“I didn’t realize things were still physical,” Corey said, as he looked over the papers. “Couldn’t I just fill these out on a tablet, or something?”

“Please, Corey, documents like this are too important to not have physical backups,” To Vo La Su said. “You’re the first of a new species to make contact with the Galactic Council! This is a big deal.”

To lure in the overly-earnest officer To Vo La Su, they had simply offered her what she had wanted in the first place: for Corey to register as an Uncontacted species. She had taken the bait almost too easily, and now it was time to spring the trap. Kamak swooped in from around the table and dropped a datapad on the table.

“Yeah, actually, before we get started, got something we wanted to show you,” Kamak said. He let Corey do the rest, and kept his eyes on the door. They were in a small, bureaucratic facility tucked away on the ass end of Centerpoint Station. The only gun in the entire building belonged to a security guard who had clearly not fired it in years, but Kamak didn’t let that be a reason to relax. Even paper pusher cops were still cops, and even coverups took paperwork.

While Kamak stayed vigilant, Corey played through the video he’d taken of the corrupt cops collaborating with Vansis. Farsus had spent the trip to Centerpoint poring through police databases to match faces, names, and registration numbers. To Vo’s leonine face slowly shifted through shades of disappointment and revulsion as the video proceeded, and Corey explained the larger details of the lethal manhunt that was apparently targeting them.

“Oh no.”

“Sorry about this,” Corey said, as he shifted the stacks of paperwork aside. “We didn’t know where else to go.”

“Sorry if this is bringing your world crashing down, but, surprise, the cops are the bad guys sometimes. Most of the time, even,” Kamak said.

“I’m not an idiot, Captain Kamak,” To Vo said. “I’m aware that institutions are vulnerable to corruption.”

“Okay, cool, want to help us un-corrupt one?” Kamak asked. “At least enough to get us not shot.”

“I’ll do what I can,” To Vo said. “I know who to talk to.”

“You better fucking hope you do,” Kamak said. “Genuine advice here: now is not the time to be naive. If you tell the wrong person about this at the wrong time, you will fucking die, and they’ll shoot your body into a sun so your relatives will never know what happened to you.”

“I can handle myself,” To Vo insisted, unconvincingly. Kamak could see her fingers trembling. He was starting to wonder if this had been a good idea after all.

“I’m sure you can,” Corey said, also unconvincingly. “But be careful. We’ve barely made it out of some scrapes.”

“If you can survive, so can I,” To Vo said. “But you should be moving on, shouldn’t you?”

“You got that right,” Kamak said. At least To Vo La Su understood that the best way to stay alive was to stay moving.

“Sorry about tricking you,” Corey said, as he stood. “Maybe someday I’ll actually fill out that paperwork.”

“You’re welcome to take it with you.”

“Oh, sure, let’s enter a lot of highly detailed and specific information into a public database while someone is hunting us,” Kamak said. “Great idea.”

Seeing as To Vo had immediately wiped out any goodwill she’d earned, Kamak started leaving even faster than before. To his surprise, To Vo was hot on his heels.

“I’ll escort you to your ship,” she said. “Hopefully the presence of an officer will dissuade any hostile intent.”

Much to Corey’s surprise, Kamak accepted that offer. He strongly doubted she could dissuade anything, but worst come to worst, she might be another body between Kamak and whoever was trying to kill him. Having spare bodies on hand was always useful. He’d just recently started to like Corey enough to not consider him cannon fodder, which was affecting his logistics in these deadly scenarios.

The walk back towards the hangar was entirely uneventful, though To Vo La Su played no part in that. If anything, she made it worse. The officer had her head on a constant swivel, checking every angle as often as possible, making it incredibly obvious she was worried about being followed or ambushed. Kamak was checking his corners as well, but he’d developed a much subtler technique over the years. No amount of subtlety could compensate for To Vo, however.

Vigilance was irrelevant in either event. Mokai, To Vo’s immediate superior, was leaning on the hangar doorway looking at the ground. She had her dress uniform unbuttoned, exposing a ragged, sweat-stained shirt beneath, and she was loudly chewing on something that smelled strongly of cinnamon and peat.

“District Manager Mokai,” To Vo said, saluting sharply on instinct. “I don’t mean to presume, ma’am, but savit usage is banned for-”

“Active duty officers,” Mokai sighed. “I’m retired, To Vo.”

“What? Since when?”

“Since about thirty drops ago,” Mokai said. She swallowed whatever substance she had been chewing on and then unwrapped another small parcel of it to place in her mouth.

“Ma’am, why?”

‘To Vo,” Kamak said firmly. “We need to go. Now.”

Mokai looked up briefly and locked eyes with Kamak. He relaxed, but only slightly. Something in the district manager’s eyes told him she wasn’t a threat. She was too relaxed. Resigned.

“No, Kamak, I was hoping Mokai could help you,” To Vo said. “Last time you were here, the district manager said she knew who hired that assassin that had attacked your pilot.”

Kamak tensed all over again. Corey also put his hand near his gun, much to To Vo’s bewilderment.

“What are you doing?”

“To Vo,” Corey said. “How did she know who that assassin worked for?”

It took longer than it would for most people to come to the grim realization, but a look of dawning horror and heartbreak reached To Vo’s face soon enough.

“District Manager Mokai?”

“I never signed off on a god damn thing,” Mokai said, mounting a final defense of her own actions. “I just watched everyone else make decisions I couldn’t stop.”

“I don’t have a lot of time for bullshit, cop, so say your piece, take your shot, or get the fuck out of my way,” Kamak said.

“I don’t give a fuck what you want,” Mokai said plainly. “I’m not here for you. I’m here for her. They were going to frame you for killing To Vo La Su, you know.”

To Vo recoiled like she’d been stabbed in the gut, while Corey and Kamak shared a nervous look. This was even worse than they thought.

“Figure if they want a cop body, I’ll give them one that actually deserves it,” Mokai said, as she swapped out another packet of her drug of choice. Kamak had seen less elaborate suicides for better reasons, but he almost respected this one. “Get the fuck out of here, To Vo. Fly away and find some garden world that needs an obnoxious pencil pusher.”

“Ma’am, I won’t leave until-”

“Then stay here and die too,” Mokai said. “Gods, I always hoped I’d have better company on my deathbed.”

“Listen lady, I respect what you’re going for here, but if you really want to make this count, give me something to work with,” Kamak said. “What the fuck is going on, and why are all these people after me?”

“Because it’s convenient,” Mokai said. She seemed almost amused by Kamak’s belief that he was the center of attention here. “No one’s after ‘you’, not really, your crew is just the perfect little powderkeg to make all the right noise and get all the right attention. The Structuralists, the police, everyone on the Doccan front, once they’re looking at you, no one will notice-”

A faint electric fizzle in the distance gave Kamak some advance warning he was never going to hear the end of that sentence. He’d long since memorized the crackling charge of a railgun. If he was hearing that sound, it was already too late to dodge, or to warn anyone else.

Mokai didn’t even get time to blink before a lightning-fast projectile tore a hole the size of a human fist in her torso. In a small mercy, the devastatingly powerful projectile was also devastatingly efficient. Mokai was dead before she even started to bleed, her face frozen mid-sentence, with a look of resigned acceptance in her eyes and an unspoken secret still on her lips.

The survivors got no such small mercies. It took To Vo a second to realize she had Mokai’s blood splattered on her face. Then the screaming started.

“Fucking move,” Kamak shouted, still struggling to be heard over To Vo’s high pitched shrieking. He went low and dashed into the hangar while Corey grabbed a stunned To Vo La Su and pulled her along.

Tooley had been keeping the Hermit on idle the entire time, ready to blast off at a moment’s notice, and she started the takeoff procedure as soon as she heard the railgun shot. By the time Kamak and Corey were aboard, it only took the press of a button to send them soaring out of the hangar, setting off several alarms on their way.

The rogue exit got them going fast, but that didn’t make anything easy. Tooley ignored the various calls to shut down her engine and comply while she weaved through the busy lanes of stellar traffic surrounding Centerpoint. Without the usual station authorities guiding her through the buzzing hive of vessels, she had to eyeball it, and that came with more than a few close calls. Tooley almost felt bad about the traffic jams she was no doubt causing, but she had bigger problems right now. She danced amid the crowded traffic surrounding Centerpoint with ease, never decelerating even as she navigated the most tangled mess of ships in the universe.

“Farsus,” Kamak snapped, as soon as he was aboard. “Anyone take a shot at the ship?”

It was a bit late to be asking the question, but Kamak wanted to be sure. A round from a railgun could blow a hole straight through even the Hard Luck Hermit’s relatively thick hull. He didn’t want to open his bedroom door and depressurize the entire ship.

“No damage,” Farsus said. “What happened down there, Kamak?”

“Talk later, get on the guns,” Kamak ordered.

“Kamak, those pursuing us will be officers-”

“And as far as any of them are concerned, we already killed a cop, so might as well earn our reputation,” Kamak screamed back. Farsus sprang into action and joined Tooley in the cockpit, manning the guns, to point them towards an empty sky. Though a few concerned vessels were left swerving in their wake, nothing was pursuing them. Not yet at least.

“God damn it,” Kamak mumbled. He slammed his fist into the wall hard enough to make the room rattle. “God fucking damn it!”

“I’m sorry,” Corey mumbled. “This was my idea, I never should’ve-”

“You’re god damn right you shouldn’t-”

Kamak whipped around to face Corey, and found himself looking at a still hysterical To Vo La Su as well. Kamak’s general fury at life followed the path of least resistance.

“What the fuck is she doing on my ship?”

“I- She was going to get shot,” Corey said.

“That’s her fucking problem,” Kamak said, before channeling his anger to another easy target. “Tooley! Can we make a jump yet?”

“Don’t fucking talk to me!”

Kamak took that as a “no”. If they weren’t ready to make an FTL jump yet, it was probably dangerous to distract Tooley, so Kamak swapped his anger right back to the crying To Vo.

“Get her to shut up and get her out of the way,” Kamak snapped. “And keep yourself out of the way while you’re at it.”

There was already enough chaos aboard the ship, so Corey figured it’d actually be a good idea to get To Vo tucked away somewhere. He gently led her to another room and managed to calm her down enough that she stopped crying. He also subtly wiped some of the blood off of her face. He figured that would help in the long run.

“Are you feeling better, To Vo?”

To Vo La Su took a deep breath, held it, and stared at Corey for an uncomfortably long time.

“I’m going to get fired.”

Then she threw up.