"An easy job, for a fair reward..."
His voice slowly faded off before his attention transfered to the pet that was giggling on his left.
Carlin looked askance at him while taking a generous swallow from his pint.
He was one of those grubby men who were seemingly spending their lives in those crowded dives. Nathaniel was of course trustworthy... As much as a Junker could be. Carlin himself took advantage of many fools... But Carlin wasn't a fool himself.
It all went down to the 'recommendation' Nathaniel gave, in the end. Between a rudeness and a banter.
"'Lawrence' Smack might have some work for you...".
But that disturbing smile... Carlin didn't like it. At all.
Carlin took his time to swallow the awful booze they were serving here. It gave him some time to study further that suspicious-looking contact.
He eventually grimaced. Bornholm wasn't known for its rum, after all. But Carlin didn't exactly mind. Those two little mischief pits on the man's face were concerning him quite more right now.
"Nice joke. We both know how much that kind of work is paid nowadays..." he finally said in a bored tone.
"Come on..." started to say Laurence "It's the time when you try your luck getting the best out of the deal, right..? Alright. I'm giving you five thousands more credits. Happy now?"
"No." grunted Carling. "We will do it for at least Twenty five thousands more."
Maybe he was stretching it a bit... The man's laugh confirmed it.
"Five thousands. No more, my friend. If you aren't happy about this deal... Well, you can still go try your luck with my friend Samuel Jonns right there..."
Lawrence friendly waved at a man leaning against the wall on the other side of the bar, while carrying on with his tirade. He couldn't repress a satisfied grin when that man replied with an obscene gesture, obviously angered by those so-called marks of friendship.
"And besides..." He then added "I saw your ship, friend. I'm surprised Junker didn't try to board you when you approached the station... I mean it just looks like an useless piece of scrap..."
Carlin shrugged. He couldn't really belie. Betty had know better days... Despite Brett's valiant efforts.
"... And i would be stupid to throw credits at someone who would have little chances to do the job... And i'm not stupid, am i?" He asked to the wrench wriggling on his left. She giggled again. "See. Even Pamela agrees."
Carlin ignored the veiled offense, contenting with staring at the man. The latter shrugged. "How boring you are. How many words did you utter so far? Ten? Anyway... What's the deal? Do you take or do you bugger off."
Carlin was tempted to tell that fool to go to hell and to just walk away with dignity. Totally a rip-off. But... Well.
They needed the money.
After having mumbled something, he finally nodded.
"Ha! I knew we could work together." emitted Laurence while grinning exultantly. That deceitful smile suddenly disappeared from his face, however.
"A quarter of it now. The rest when the delivery will be done. Good luck."
Carlin finished the awful booze and got up. He repressed a sigh as he was walking back to the docks.
Moira would hate that.
"I can't believe you're spending your days watching this."
The skinny man didn't even bother to turn his head.
"Well... It's interesting..." He finally replied with a drawling voice.
Carlin watched for a short while the show that was being displayed on the small 2D screen right near Wilson. A lady was busy complaining about how horrible her relationship with her husband turned into.
He slightly shrugged.
"Anything new?"
"Oh yes... I just bought a collector hollow projector. It belonged to Martie Nevins, can you believe it?"
"Hmm... Whom..?"
Wilson shook his head with commiseration.
"You know... I feel very sorry for you sometimes, pal."
"Don't worry, i will survive." replied absent-mindedly Carlin while looking around.
"Do you know where Moira is?"
"Ha! Where do you think she can be.." said Wilson after a chuckle, his attention almost monopolized once again by the 2D screen.
"Right. I will talk to you later."
~~~
"Hey there..."
A grunt welcomed him. He gave it some time.
"Well? I said hello."
A head emerged from a half opened large console.
"Oh. Hello Carl."
"We got a deal."
"Yeah? And will it be enough to allow us to replace those repulsors? I told you they won't last long."
"Hm... I'm afraid not."
The woman sighed and extracted herself out of the console. She passed a hand on her forehead while closing her eyes.
"You don't look good."
"You do know how to talk to girls, you."
"Indeed."
He half smiled and pulled her to him to embrace her.
"And you don't smell good either."
"Yeah..?" replied the woman, smiling herself "And you dislike it?"
"I do..." said Carling before kissing her again.
She pushed him softly after a short while.
"So? Shouldn't you go do your thing now..? Or do you have anything else to tell me. I'm busy as you can see."
"It can wait, Moira. I will need you on the bridge. We leave this place in one hour."
"But..." started Moira, displaying a reasonable amount of displeasure.
"No discussion. You know how capricious this astrogation computer can be. I don't want us ending on the other side of the Omegas. This job is urgent."
"Fine... Damnit." finally said Moira, taking a dirty rag to try removing the oil on her hands...
"Where are we going?" She then asked as he was leaving the engine room.
"Some place you will love..."
"It doesn't smell good, i'm telling you. Let's... Let's just keep moving." "Come on! But just look! It's hardly damaged! I'm sure it's still pressurized inside." replied Moira with anger. "Well... I have to admit i agree with Wilson here, Moira... The risk is too big, with no guarantee of any gain." "Any gain? You're serious? But look at those engines damnit!"
The three silently observed once again the wreck on the bridge's old but fairly large screen. "Errh... All i see is a bunch of metal torn appart, lass..." finally emitted Wilson with a shrug. "Idiot..." "Either way.. We cannot stay there for too long. Too dangerous. And if it was abandonned, it was necessarily stripped of everything valuable. Hessians aren't stupid."
Wilson grunted in agreement before putting a large cigar in his trap.
"Pfft. You two are cowards." "Cowards maybe. Alive... Definitly."
The woman crossed her arms while stamping her feet angrily. Suddenly she smiled and, passing her arm around Carlin she pondered : "Come on, Carl... You don't want to do me this favor...? Please?" "Oh man.." muttered Wilson before lighting up his cigar. "Too dangerous, Moira..." "Only one hour, i swear, darling... Come on, say yes...?" "No..."
She got closer and started to kiss him slowly. She then smiled and asked : "Did i hear 'yes'?"
Carlin sighed. "Fine... Fine. Only one hour. One more second and we abandon you in this wreck. Got it?" "Sure!"
Once she left, Wilson grunted. "Pah... She manipulates you just like she used to do with me. You should dump that wench and hire another mechanic. Less problems." "Oh shut up and keep your eyes on your scan... I don't want to get caught offguard here.."
What a mess...
Moira passed the back of her hand on her forehead. She shouldn't have taken off her helmet. It smelled awful in here.
Well... What she would find in this gunboat's guts was worth the lack of comfort... Granted she would find anything, that is.
But it looked promising so far. The inside was pretty much intact... If one ignored the numerous burns on the walls... And the mess on the ground.
What the hell happened here?
She found the first corpse on her way to the engines room. Shot in the back.
Moira squatted near it once she pushed it with her foot to turn it over and, considering the body thoughtfully, began to pout in concentration.
That pout however quickly turned into a grimace when an unbearable smell eventually reached her nose. She swiftly started to search the corpse.
Not much to loot. Leaving the dead, she headed back to the engines room.
The atmosphere started to be oppressive in here...
She instantaneously halted, listening. A creepy noise was coming from the chamber.
~~~
"Hour is over. Let's go."
Carlin took a puff from his cigar instead of replying.
"Okay we go." eventually added Wilson, deciding silence implied consent "I will go warm up the engines." "Minute." Finally said Carlin as his comrade was about to leave the main room. "Oh sure. One minute. And then we will wait one more minute and then we will all die here because you couldn't just tell that fool 'no'."
Carlin sighed and slowly stood up. "I will go pick her up. Don't leave without us, Carlin."
That said, he gave the man a final stare and headed out.
"As if i could fly alone that piece of junk anyway..." mumbled Wilson once he left the room.
He found her in the small place serving as an astrogation chamber. It was quite rare to see her in here. She seemed to be busy working on the navcomputer. "Since when do you have interest in astrogation, Moira?" "Oh. It's you.." She finally said after having turned around defensively. "Who else?" "You were looking for me?" "Yes. I wanted you to check something. There is weird noise coming from the left side capacitors... I'm not sure of what it is." "Is that so?" asked the woman while coming to him.
Eventually stopping when their body touched each-other, she grinned while caressing his stomach. "You didn't need me for anything else?" "Erh... I'm not saying that. But... Is it the right time for this?" "Of course..." she whispered before embracing him.
They began to kiss slowly. What was going on? She never acted like this before. He eventually pulled back as he was indistinctly noticing something was going horribly wrong.
Hanging about over the strange smile that was playing on her lips, his eyes eventually went down.
She slowly span the blade she tenderly inserted in his stomach in order to increase the damages inflicted to his intestines.
He tried to say something but she kindly blocked his mouth while moving her knife upwards.
Carlin eventually gazed into those eyes that were acutely studying him. He couldn't repress a shiver of pure terror when he eventually noticed the inhumanity inside them, that had been present since a while, he now realized.
She let the body fall to the ground and headed towards the comm room. The other one was always there. It wouldn't be hard, since he also was attracted by that shape she was now impersonating.
She was unable to repress the psychic scream of pure terror that echoed once again in her emptiness.
When did this change. Was it there from the beginning, waiting for the right time?
She remembered lying in a bed, talking to the man she loved. She felt weak, sick and vulnerable. He took care of her.
Today, she murdered him. She watched. That was the only thing left she could do.
Somewhere, nowhere, somehow, a part of her still existed; A fragile shell that was about to break.
Moira was praying for it to break quickly, so that she wouldn't have to watch any-more.
Would she be able to retain her integrity through an eternity in confinement, only enliven by the sensations flowing through the shell, from what once belonged to her?
It was talking to Wilson now. She sensed it was enjoying tasting her despair, for she knew what would follow.
It strangled him after several minutes of exquisite, and unbearable, toying.
There was no escape. Insanity would soon come to define the fragile site of consciousness.
Tendrils of guilt and horror were colonizing parts of this holistic structure, while singularity bits, defining who once was Moira, were being scattered away.
Submitting wasn't even an available option.
It was now doing its best to operate the tired freighter now. She already knew what its destination would be. Bornholm.
Omega news channel Your source of choice for whatever occurs in Omega systems!
Something terrible might just have happened in Bornholm depot. It appears long range communications with the old station seemed to have ceased since a few days.
According to the bounty hunters operating regularly in this area, the place were Bornholm depot was constructed now looks like a gigantic scrapyard.
While a lot of rumours have been spreading latest about that disaster, each one more extravagant than the last, our reporters, considering it was their duty to discover the truth, investigated on this matter with their legendary zeal.
By paying 25 credits, you will be able to access to this stunning article and to discover yourself everything about what some already call "The Bornhom disaster"; Probably one of the biggest mystery of that century!
By subscribing to Omega News channel, you will also be able to discover everything about the pigs breeding farm on Freeport 1 and the transplant organs business zoners have in the area, or about the potato-being hiding on Freisdadt base, believed to be abducting kids and eating them. Subscribe now!
Our reporters made an extensive investigation on the 'Bornholm disaster'. what they discovered is shocking. To protect their source, whom they respect the right to remain anonymous, only initials will be used in this article.
JM has worked for several years at Bornholm depot. The equipment used to maintain the station was aged, and the scarity of replacement parts always was an issue in the border worlds.
According to J.M, the junkers might have decided to abandon the site and to move on to a more profitable area with their families.
While this sounds like a good enough explanation, it however doesn't elucidate how the station was dismantled and, foremost, why no Junkers seem to know what happened to their relatives living on the station!
Another testimony our reporters were able to gather might shade some light on the situation in Bornholm depot :
According to R.V, who was taking a break from a long run on the depot right before it was destroyed, people began to disappear mysteriously. One by one. It was not long until the security team discovered corpses drifting outside of the station.
A murderer was operating in the station, spreading terror within its population.
R.V gave us more details. He stayed in the station two weeks. Junkers have been blockading the station, forbidding anyone to leave before the killer could be found.
Yet, the investigation wasn't going anywhere.
A station such as Bornholm isn't big. This calls to mind on how the murderer could hide for so long. Was he a professional, working for an organization to cause havoc?
One question must then be answered. Who hates the most Junkers?
To this, I.M answers : Hogosha. The xenophobic nature of a fair part of Kusari citizens isn't a news for whoever had to visit their space, for one reason or another.
The Hogosha, always struggling to keep Junkers out of Kusari, might then have sent a professional to damage their assets. Is it a coincidence Yanagi depot in Sigma 13 was so suddenly dismantled?
Another witness, L.O, related a totally different story to our fine reporters, however.
According to L.O, a transport moored to the station, filled with rare species from the famous Planet Gaïa, located Bretonia space.
As the crew was transshipping some supplies, several specimens of a giant butterfly-like species somehow made their way out. L.O outlined they caused a major threat to the station's security
Having a quite unique way to reproduce by stinging to lay hundreds of eggs in the victim's bloodstream, from where they would be travelling to the liver, growing by eating the victim's tissues until they reach the outside, those butterflies caused a terrible panic, making people, as often in those case, take illogical decisions.
the threat appeared to have grown very quickly, especially because of the beautiful nature of the predator. It's been said children were hunting them in the station slums, in order to keep them at home or to sell them...
It gives one shivers up and down your spine!
To conclude this article, we will approach another testimony - probably the craziest of all.
According to Y.O, who appeared to be in the sector when the events happened, a Rheinland Military task force was operating in the area -Y.O could catch briefly the signature of a Rheinland Heavy Cruiser on his scanners, seemingly heading to Bornholm depot.
Later, as his freighter was heading back to Rheinland space, Y.O saw numerous colorful energy beams emitted near the Junkers' base, which were most likely caused by a heavy bombardment on the base.
Most unfortunately, Y.O didn't approach to find out what was actually occuring.
And the likeliness for a Rheinland Military force to attack Bornholm depot, while Rheinland has a frontline to take care of, is very thin. Especially when no transmission from Rheinland Military warned civilians living there, which should have necessarily happened.
Sadly, it is unlikely we will ever get the whole truth about what happened on Bornholm depot.
The best one can do is to gather the facts and try to stick them together, to find what -possibly- happened.
It's what our fine reporters working for Omega News always do. Bringing you the best truth we can get!
Samuel gazed once again at the young woman sat between Albert and Monroe. She looked anxious, like most of the people ending here.
But something didn't ring true in her attitude.
His trouble actually came from his incapacity to put a finger on what exactly.
The twenty years he spent working in the security staff here and there granted him a sixth sense.
It was thanks to it he succeeded to dodge all those attempts to stab him in the back... In short to survive in the zoo Junker stations used to be at times.
And something was telling him this sweet little face was hiding something.
'Aren't we all hiding something?' was his thought at that moment, as Albert was interrogating her again about the reasons of her presence on Bornholm.
She already answered a lot of questions. Samuel went over what they knew again.
Moira Howard. Born on Sheffield Station.
Mechanic degree at the university of... What was the name again?
Well those informations didn't really matter anyway. It would take months to have them verified, if they ever bothered to.
Served on several wrecks. The last one was the 'Betty', an old freighter. Captain Carlin Allen. Known smuggler.
She returned alone. Started to roam for a while on the station.
And the murders began. Coincidence?
Samuel didn't believe in those.
Monroe gave a side-look at Samuel, who nodded in return. Perhaps it was time to thicken things.
The clans wanted this mess to stop. And Samuel was free to use any means at his disposal to make it so and... Anyhow... This smooth skinned girl wasn't belonging to any of them.
Nobody would miss her if something regrettable happened.
~~~
'Moira' was observing the three men while playing her role. The two henchmen wouldn't be too hard to deal with. They were already considering her as a harmless being, only able to cry and to irradiate fear. The one appearing to be their boss however...
The primates started to be bored. The woman winged quite convincingly while one of them was beating her to facilitate her need to confide.
She leaned in order to spit some blood on the ground. The one called Monroe eventually came closer to her as she was whispering something between her teeth in a monotonic tone.
~~~
Samuel was shot down before he could get on his feet. It simply happened too quickly for him to identify how it did actually start.
Now he had all the time in the universe as he was lying on the ground, vaguely conscious of the shadow that was slowly walking to him, he attempted to reconstruct the last seconds.
Yes...
It did start when Monroe bent over to listen to the whining woman. He suddenly staggered, preventing blood to squirt from his chin strap. That's when the noise of a firearm could be heard, and that Samuel noticed with incredulity his jacket turned red.
He had the time to move painfully in order to look at the killer. She was looking at him - was it disdain... Or amusement in her eyes? The last thing he saw was the sole of her boots conscientiously crushing his face.
~~~
The old 'Betty' eventually made it out of the station. 'Moira' felt what could pass for satisfaction, as she notices on her scans the presence of what 'she' already knew to be there.
Now the energy primary source was down, it wouldn't take long for the cruiser to rip this place into shards.
Another tool to add to the collection. And the bigger the collection was, the easier it was getting. Soon, tools would stop being necessary. Then, there wouldn't be any more left to conquer. And maybe that would be a sad occurrence.
Perhaps...