Intergalactic

Red slammed her fist on the metal table, the clang echoing through the dimly lit backroom Yezzania used as an office. „Trouble? You got us into a heaping supernova of trouble!“ she roared, her voice barely contained.

The women across the table sat unflinching. The network of glowing tattoos snaking across her face and visible skin pulsed faintly, mirroring the anger simmering in the room. „Captain Rodriguez,“ she rasped, her voice clear and calm, a steady counterpoint to Red’s fury, „I merely provide the intel as best as I can. My sources didn’t indicate anything unusual.“

Red refused to be soothed. They had docked the Rusty Bolt barely half an hour ago and she had rushed to meet Yezz immediately. Twitch sat beside her, fidgeting with a non-existent speck on his sleeve, clearly uncomfortable in the charged atmosphere. Grubs had parked his tinkering soul at the docking bay, to work out what repairs and maintenance work their ship needed.

„Well, do your sources tell you just why the Xylars are jumping up and down over this?“, Red demanded, with a voice like a laser cutting through plasteel.

„Xylars can’t jump.“, Twitch mumbled, earning twin glares of withering intensity. He held his hands up placatingly. „It’s in their biology. Like the elephants on Earth?“, he trailed off as both women stared him down.

„What’s that got to do wi…“, Red started, „Nobody cares, Twitch.“, Yezz interrupted, leaning forward and returning her attention to Red. Her voice was low and urgent as she continued: „Look, Red. I don’t yet have answers. All I know is that our border scouts are all agitated about the Xylar, and word is that the planetary presidents got official diplomatic messages essentially saying ‚turn over the criminals or else…‘. If Binary Bloom were a bit more famous, we’d be having human warships breathing down our necks by now. And who knows how much longer until someone decides there might be credits in it if they talk.“

„It’s a damn hyper core. The Xylars churn out thousands of them every year.“, Red scoffed.

„I know, and not just because you say that every heist.“, Yezz conceded, „There must be something about it that we don’t see. Something in the higher dimensions perhaps.“

A heavy silence descended upon them. Each mind wrestled with the unknown, the weight of the Xylars' unusual reaction pressing down. Finally, Twitch broke the quiet. "So, Yezzania,“ he drawled, his voice strained, "you got any shady scientist contacts who can peek into those higher dimensions and see what's going on?"

„I might“, the fence said slowly, her eyes glinting with a hint of mischief. „I’ll make a few calls and let you know. Until then, you lot lay low and the story you’re telling everyone is that the heist was a fail, got it?“

Red and Twitch nodded.

„Good“, Yezz continued, „Because I have something else that’ll cheer you up and make it easier to keep this hush-hush.“. She paused a second for dramatic effect, and got the full attention of the other two before continuing, „I might already have a buyer, and they’re paying in intergalactic.“

A small whistle escaped Red’s lips, „That’s hard to come by in human space. We can get some alien tech for it on the trade ports. So I guess…“

„Don’t.“, Yezz interrupted her softly but firmly, and Red took the hint.