Hard Luck Hermit

“How long is it going to take to get there?”

“Six swaps, give or take,” Tooley said. “Most likely eight, given the Bang Gate queues. If traffic’s bad, could be as many as ten.”

“Fuck.”

“That’s me going as fast as I can, Kamak,” Tooley said. “You want to go any faster, I don’t know, call up that number the spooky voice gave you and ask for an express ticket.”

“If I called them just to ask to get somewhere faster, I’m pretty sure they’d cut me off,” Kamak said. “And also possibly shoot me.”

“Well obviously you don’t just call to beg for the fast pass,” Tooley said. “Tell them what we’re up to, what we heard from Nible, that kind of shit. They said they wanted to cooperate with us, so cooperate. Give a little something, get a little something.”

“We’re chasing hunches and half-notions, Tooley, they won’t give a fuck,” Kamak said.

“You can tell Doprel to call them if you’re too much of a pussy to do it,” Tooley said.

“That’s not why-”

“It’s exactly why,” Tooley said. “You want to look like the big man who’s in charge of the situation, and going to the government for help undermines that.”

“Thanks for the completely incorrect psychoanalysis, doc,” Kamak said. “I don’t know why I bother talking to you.”

“The feeling is mutual. Get the fuck out of my cockpit.”

After delivering a rude gesture, Kamak did just that. Tooley flipped a switch and sealed the door shut behind him. The door slammed shut so fast it narrowly avoided clipping his heel as Kamak stepped out. Without Farsus and Corey aboard, there were far fewer buffers for their mutual animosity. Doprel had been able to run interference for about a swap before getting the worst headache of his life.

“Cunt,” Kamak muttered under his breath. He headed to his chambers, took a seat, and kicked his feet up on his desk as he pulled up his datapad. He skimmed past contacts for Corey and Farsus and then found the contact info for the mystery voice, which he had labeled “Assholes”. He’d always been planning to make the call, naturally, he just didn’t want to concede that Tooley had said something intelligent.

“Kamak. You actually called,” the synthesized Voice said. “I just won a bet.”

“Should’ve bet against me,” Kamak said. “Would’ve been smarter.”

“Yet here we are,” the Voice said. “What’s the occasion, Kamak?”

“Just want to coordinate with you,” Kamak said. “I assume you were spying on our conversation with Nible-”

“It’s not spying, Kamak, you were in a maximum security prison,” the Voice said. “There were cameras everywhere, you knew that.”

“It’s still kind of spying,” Kamak said. There were security cameras in a lot of places, it was still weird to track someone’s movements with them. “So what do you think?”

“I think it’s a little embarrassing you needed a serial killer to tell you things would escalate like this,” the Voice said. “We were assuming that from the moment we heard about Quid.”

“Thanks for keeping me up to speed,” Kamak grunted. “So, given your tendency to ‘not’ spy on us, you probably know I split up with Farsus and Corey Vash, right?”

“Watching over To Vo La Su and Ambassador Yìhan respectively,” the Voice said. “They’re doing fine. It’s a good idea, watching over your friends, though splitting the group is always questionable.”

“Wasn’t my idea. I assume you also have people in place?”

“Naturally. We were keeping an eye on both of them before this even started, and we’ve expanded our efforts now.”

“Great,” Kamak said. “Now what about Catay X-F-N and her daughter? You have eyes on them?”

“Periodic check-ins, but given their situation, a permanent watch would be too conspicuous,” the Voice said.

Kamak accepted that explanation. Unlike To Vo and Yìhan, who lived in the crowded heart of civilization, Catay and Vatan operated a carbon-capture farm in the remote plains of Tannis. They were so far from other people that their food got delivered by a drone.

“Do you have eyes on them now?”

There was a long pause. Kamak initially took it as the Voice simply checking some video feed or perusing a file, but the longer it dragged on, the more suspicious he got.

“Hey, spooky mystery voice, what’s the hold up? Do you have an update or not?”

“Patience, Kamak, just getting up to speed,” the Voice said. The synthesized tone made it impossible to tell if they were being sincere or trying to cover for something. “I don’t keep myself up to date on everyone you’ve ever acquainted yourself with. Had to do some reading.”

“So what’s your reading say?”

“That you don’t have much to worry about,” the Voice said. That sounded alarmingly ominous to Kamak.

“You’d be shocked how much I worry,” Kamak said. “I’m heading to Tannis to check in, maybe help relocate them somewhere safe. Anything you can do to give me a hand?”

“Bang Gate traffic is beyond even our control,” the Voice said. Hundreds of vessels queuing in either direction were a bit hard to manipulate. People tended to get really mad if anyone messed with the queue. Interstellar dogfights had been started over jumped queues. “We’ll see if there’s any government employees we can reroute, hand their queue spots over to you, but I wouldn’t count on it.”

“Every little bit helps,” Kamak said. Then, more reluctantly, he managed to spit out one more word. “Thanks.”

“You’re welcome, Kamak,” the Voice said. Even their heavily distorted voice betrayed a sense of satisfaction at getting Kamak to swallow his pride. “Good luck. And be ready for anything.”

“The fuck does that mean?”

The line was silent and dead.

“Fucking ominous mystery voice horseshit,” Kamak mumbled to no one. He headed back to the cockpit and told Tooley to double-time it, to which she responded by calling him a bitch twice. Kamak gave up before she threw in a third.