The Data Traders

Guild Member Dependents

Members of a Guild member’s immediate family are authorized to live on Guild ships starting at Journeyman level. Each ship may set policy around quartering and board of fare but it is generally recommended that immediate family members be treated equally to their Guild head of household. It is ultimately up to the Guild Master of each ship to ensure the health and welfare of all the Guild members and their dependents.

Excerpted With Permission

Data Trader’s Handbook

Copyright 3250, Interstellar Data Trader Guild

Once again, Leo found himself on the boat deck in a suit liner with a holster on his hip. He was starting to get used to it. He wasn’t sure if that was a bad thing or a good thing. The BR sitting on the launch apron looked vaguely menacing with it’s plasma emitters and massive engine nacelles. Much more intimidating than a standard unarmed Guild shuttle that he was used to piloting.

As they completed the checklist, he went inside the little ship and through the main companionway into the bridge as Ramona sealed up the entry port. The small bridge looked similar to a Guild shuttle but had large weapons consoles to each side of the pilot’s couches in addition to the standard navigation consoles. He wasn’t too worried about those, Ramona would do any shooting required. All he had to do was pilot the ship to Bohemia hab.

Ramona swung into her couch and started strapping in. “What the heck is a Bohemia anyway?”

“It’s a place on old earth.”

“Ya?”

“Ya. I looked it up. I didn’t know either.”

“Wonder why they named their hab after a place on old earth?”

“No idea. Apparently, it’s a co-op.”

“Co-op?”

“Ya, the hab is owned by the residents.”

“Oh, a common stock operation.”

“No, you have to live there.”

“Funky.”

“Yep.”

They had a stunning view of the gas giant as they came over the terminus to the day side on their way around to where the hab was orbiting. The planet was banded like Jupiter, thick bands running parallel to the equator of deep ochre fading into red. The planet also had a pretty impressive ring system and at least a dozen moons. Quite the spectacle.

“Bohemia control, this is Bravo Romeo oh niner with you at one million klicks.”

Leo waited the six seconds for his signal to get to the hab and a signal to return. Waited another 30. After a full minute, he tried again. Still no answer.

“Do you have the right freq?”

“Dunno, did you look it up?”

“Says one five nine point seven.”

“Yep.”

“Strange.”

“Perhaps they don’t get many visitors?”

Leo kept trying every few minutes. After a while they could see it out the viewport and the latency was down to basically zero. “Bohemia, Bohemia. Do you read me? Please respond.”

Finally a sleepy sounding laconic voice came on the circuit. “Yeah, dude. What’s up?”

Leo just looked at Ramona, not sure he heard it correctly. “Ah. Am I reaching Bohemia Habitation Approach Control?”

A long pause. “Duuuuude. Don’t harsh my mellow, man.”

“I’m sorry, I don’t understand your last.”

What sounded like a long sigh. “Duude. You in that ship out there?”

“Yes. This is Bravo Romeo oh niner, requesting approach vector and docking.”

“You the cops, man?”

“The cops?”

“Ya, cops, rozzers, the man. You know, the PO LEESE.”

“No, we’re with the spacer’s guild.”

“Oh, cool man.”

Silence.

“Bohemia Control, this is BR oh niner, request approach vector and docking. Please respond.”

“Fuck, man, you are super uptight. You can park your ride on dock six.”

“Roger, dock six, will advise when locked.”

“Whatever, man.”

Leo had no idea if the person he was talking to even knew what an approach vector was, but the system did seem to be working and the BR got a valid approach vector from the hab’s control system. As they got closer, a docking bay with a large six painted on it started flashing green, a good sign. When the ship finally locked on with a hard CLANG, Leo let out a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding.

“Well, the systems seem to be working even if the controllers aren’t.”

Ramona started putting a jacket and pants on over her suit liner. “That controller sounded stoned to me.”

“You think so?”

“I’ve run into worse when I was in the Guard. Drunk, stoned, high, I’ve seen people operate ships in all kinds of reduced capacities.”

“That would explain it.”

Leo and Ramona had agreed to keep a “low profile” on the station by dressing in civilian clothes and concealing their weapons. They still had their suit liners on if they needed to get out in a hurry, but by wearing more normal hab clothing they hoped to blend in a bit.

They needn’t have bothered.

Leo couldn’t help but stare as they walked into the main part of the hab. Everyone had long, unkempt hair. Men wore long shaggy beards. Dozens of children ran around shrieking with laughter, pursuing games only they understood. Barefoot and dirty, the children looked like pre-spacefaring primitives, not like the relatively well groomed and well behaved children of the Guild. Living in a spaceship meant that children had to understand and OBEY the rules at all times. Lack of obedience in space can be deadly. The residents of Bohemia apparently didn’t know or didn’t care that space could be deadly for children left unsupervised.

The pair were ignored completely despite standing out like sore thumbs. They were able to navigate the hab and eventually found the home of Marcus Vinogradov. Except, of course, he wasn’t there. Leo pressed the call button several times, but he was pretty sure the apartment was empty.

“Yo man, you lookin’ for Marcus?”

Leo turned to the bearded man coming out of the doorway across the hall. “Yes, do you know if he’s home?”

“Naw, I don’t think so man. Haven’t seen him in a while.” He reached over and pushed the door open. He leaned into the apartment and let out a bellow. “YO!! MARCUS!! YOU DEAD?” Laughing, he turned back to Leo. “Marcus is a strange dude. Neat, freak, you know?” With that comment he wandered off, leaving the door open.

Leo looked at Ramona who shook her head. “I guess we can go in.”

“I guess so.”

Entering the small apartment, they looked around. It was surprisingly ordinary. Very clean, even by Leo’s standards. “I’m not sure what I expected, but this could be my mom’s quarters on the Connie.”

“They’re not Bohemian. They’re dirtyfoots.” The small high pitched voice startled Leo so much that he jumped. Turning, they found a child. A little girl with tangled blonde hair and freckles. She was barefoot and wearing a flower printed dress that had definitely seen better days. “That’s what momma said, ‘dirtyfoot.’ Is that a bad word?”

Ramona went down on one knee so she could look the child in the eye. “I wouldn’t say it’s a bad word, but you might hurt their feelings if you call them that.”

“Oh.”

“Do you know the people who live here?”

“Oh, yeah. I live there.” She pointed vaguely to her left. “Momma says I can play grenn-ball with Leah if she’s home.” She looked around. “Is Leah home?”

“No, sweetheart, I don’t think so. We were looking for her daddy.”

“Oh Mister Marcus is NEVER HERE.” She nodded with emphasis so much that her hair completely obscured her face. “Mamma says he’s obsessioned.”

“Obsessed?”

“Ha ha. Ya, that’s a funny word. Obsessed.” She said it a few more times, trying the word out.

“Do you know where Mister Marcus usually is?”

“Oh, mama says he’s in his lab all the times. All the times.”

“In his lab?”

“Ya, in his lab. You know, the oort astranoomy lab?”

“Oort astronomy lab?”

“That’s what mamma says.”

“Is your mamma home now?”

“No, she’s at work.”

“Ok sweetheart. Thank you for helping us.”

“I like helping people.”

“Well, you’re good at it. Maybe you’ll be a teacher when you grow up.”

“Oh no, then I’d be like mean old Miss Peabody. Telling all the children to sit and be quiet.” A dramatic shudder. “She’s the meanest old lady ever.”

Leo and Ramona went back into the corridor and closed the door. There was nothing to learn in there. The little girl was staring at Ramona with unfeigned interest. “Are you gonna help Mister Marcus like the other diamond lady?”

Ramona stopped as if struck. Keeping herself under strict control, she turned back to the child. “Other diamond lady?”

The child stuck out a dirty finger and pointed to the small diamond tattoo on Ramona’s face. “The other lady had a diamond on her face like that. Do you know her?”

Ramona smiled. “Yes, sweetheart, we’re kinda like sisters.”

“Oh, that’s good.” With a shy smile she wandered off down the hallway.

“Leo, we need to go. NOW.”

Leo had promised himself to listen when Ramona was concerned so he didn’t argue. Ramona didn’t say a word, just quick marched back to the ship as fast as she could without running. They disconnected in record time and were a thousand klicks from the hab before he finally couldn’t stand it.

“What is it? What’s the matter?”

“The Guard is here. Special forces.” She pointed to her tattoo. “This is a Special Forces selection mark. Someone from the Raeburn Guard Special Forces was here.”

“What? Why would they be here?”

“Same as us. Looking for Mister Marcus.”

“Shit.”

Leo ramped up the gravimetrics to maximum. He had a feeling they needed to be back at the ship, pronto.

Ramona was sitting in her couch, a thoughtful expression on her face. “Hmmm. I wonder.”

“Wonder what?”

“Well there are certain protocols to follow if you get separated from your unit when operating in a foreign system.”

“Protocols?”

“Yes, ways to get in touch using civilian comms. You know, in case your comms are lost, damaged or compromised.”

“Oh yes, of course.”

“Hey, this used to be my business.”

“Yep. Right.” Leo checked their course. “So, protocols?”

Ramona turned to the terminal and logged into the local system network. Started a search. “Yes, there are key words we are supposed to use. You leave them in message forums. The message looks normal, but if you know what to look for it will tell you how to exfil.”

“Exfil?”

“Exfiltrate. You know, leave. Go home.”

“And do you think that’s what they’re doing?”

“I don’t know, but if we show up at the exfil site, we can get into contact.”

“Is that what we want to do?”

“I think they have Marcus.”

“Right.”

After much searching of local social forums and for sale ads, Ramona discovered what she was looking for. “OK, there’s a bar on Neston hab. That’s where we need to go.”

“A bar?”

“Good place for an exfil. You can wander in, sit for a minute for a whole day. Nobody will say anything. Lots of people coming and going.”

Leo was working out astrogation. The Neston hab was in system from Bohemia. Luckily, it was on the same side of the star that they were currently on, but still a full day’s travel. “OK, looks like about 26 hours if we max the gravimetric drives.” Gravimetrics had made interplanetary travel a practical reality, but a solar system was still a very big place. Journeys of several days from one planet to another were not uncommon in many systems.

Apparently, Bohemia was not typical for the system. “Neston Control, this is Bravo Romeo oh niner with you at one million klicks.”

About thirty one seconds later, “Bravo Romeo, we have you on the scope. Engage approach control.”

“Roger Neston, we have a good handshake.”

And that was that. The automated system did its normal efficient job and directed them to a docking ring on the cylindrical hab’s outer surface. This hab obviously used artificial gravity like a starship, it was basically a giant pressure vessel in space. It was orbiting a small rocky world which the hab residents clearly didn’t care about, the hab had only a small smattering of windows or other external ports.

Once locked on with the ship’s systems safed, Leo and Ramona once again dressed in civilian clothes and concealed their weapons. The bar in question was very near the docks, probably a hangout for spacers or other transients. As they made their way around the curve of the station docks, Leo couldn’t help but notice random spacers standing around. Normally, spacers on a station were always moving. If you’re tied up to a station, you’re not making money. Time in dock was wasted time to be minimized. Not time to just idly stand around.

“Ramona….”

“Yes, I see them.”

As they got closer to the bar they were looking for, Leo could hear the music. He could feel it also. A deep bass beat that hit him in the chest with each thumping low note. Then he smelled it. Stale beer, sweat and… was that piss? He shared a look with Ramona. She just nodded grimly.

Once inside, the music was painfully loud and the smell worse. Ramona made a beeline for a booth towards the back, where she could sit with her back to the wall and see the door. She picked the right seat, keeping her gun hand free. Leo sat beside her, unsure if he would be any help if a gunfight broke out but determined to keep his eyes open so nobody was able to sneak up on Ramona.

Using the console in the tabletop, Ramona ordered a couple of beers for them without consulting with Leo. He looked a question to her. “We’re not going to drink them anyway, it’s just camouflage.”

Once the beer came, Ramona picked hers up and put it to her lips, but the glass was still pretty much full. Leo figured out what she was doing and did the same. Holding the beer to his lips, he realized the smell wasn’t piss, it was the beer. If he wasn’t already convinced, the smell confirmed that he wouldn’t be eating or drinking anything in this place.

Casually, Ramona picked up a paper napkin from the table and began to fiddle with it. After a few minutes, she had folded it into a rough diamond shape. She leaned over to shout into Leo’s ear. “Now we wait.”

“For what?”

Ramona just shook her head. Casually, she picked up her beer and held it down under the table. When she put it back, half was gone. Leo watched her and did the same, pouring half of it out under the table. After what seemed like hours of anxious waiting but was probably less than twenty minutes, a drunk shambled over to their table and put his face inches from Ramona’s.

“Hey sugar hips, wanna dance?”

“Fuck off.” Ramona gave a shove that should have knocked him over but only pushed him back about a foot.

The drunk grinned. “I like that kinda dancing.”

Ramona slowly stood up, she was at least six inches shorter and probably a hundred pounds lighter than the drunk. “I said.. FUCK.. OFF..”

“Ha. That’s the idea, sister.” The drunk took a wild swing at Ramona’s head. She leaned back, out of the way and grabbed his arm as it went past her. Using his own momentum against him, she grabbed his upper arm and pushed him in the direction of the swing. The combination of his own wild swing and Ramona’s expert judo move sent him tumbling down onto the table, beer flying in every direction. Leo rolled to his left, trying to get out of the way. The drunk twisted around and reached out with amazing quickness to grab Ramona’s arm. With a grunt, he tossed her like a rag doll. Ramona rolled as she hit the ground, spinning to face him from the doorway. With a yell, he got to his feet and charged her. Grabbing her around her midsection, he hit her in a flying tackle that carried both of them out of the bar and into the corridor.

Leo drew his pistol and ran after them. By the time he had gotten to his feet and out of the door, Ramona and the drunk had rolled down the corridor and into an alcove. Leo kept running and darted around the corner after them, weapon drawn.

“Leo, put that gun down!” Aiming the gun at the deck, he was surprised to see Ramona and the drunk sitting on the deck, both of them smiling.

The drunk was rubbing his arm. “Specialist Eddington, it’s nice to see you again. I think you may have dislocated my shoulder.”

“Sorry sarge, just trying to sell it to the local yokels.”

Leo took a second to figure out what was going on. “You’re from the Guard?”

The drunk… or rather the Sargent got a cold look on his face. “Who’s the wimp? Smells like guild.”

“Relax sarge, he’s with me.”

“That’s not the way this works Eddington, you know that.”

“Who’s running this det? Lou?”

“No, Tex.”

“LT Ornasis?”

“It’s Captain Ornasis now.”

“Shit.”

“He’s not that bad, he’s grown up a bit since you saw him.”

“Does he still quote regulations every five seconds?”

“Down to once or twice a day now.”

“Well, this isn’t a by the book problem I have.”

“What, you found a working quantum comms device?” The big man laughed, obviously quite pleased with himself.

“Actually, yes.”

The Sargent abruptly stopped laughing. “No fucking way.”

“Yes.”

“Shit.”

Leo was getting antsy. “Isn’t there someplace we can talk more privately?”

Ramona stood up and offered a hand. “Sargent Ramirez, I have a story for you.”

If anything, Sargent Ramirez looked even bigger crammed into the tiny galley on the BR. Cradling a cup of coffee, he just stared at Ramona. “So, you’re telling me the freaky geek wasn’t lying?”

“Freaky geek?”

“Vinogradov. The hippy.”

“Hippy?”

“Yeah, have you been to Bohemia station? They’re all hippies there.”

“You’ve met him?”

“Yeah we have him on ice in a safe house. After the Guild kill squad went after him, we figured that he may have something, but then when we tested the device it was a dry hole. You know, the usual score.”

Leo was becoming more and more confused. “Kill squad?”

“Yeah, you know, the dudes who kill people the Guild doesn’t like.”

“No, I don’t know.”

Ramona placed her hand on Leo’s arm. “Leo, you met one. On buoy six.”

Suddenly something clicked. “Is that why?”

“Why what?”

“Why the masters didn’t ask where they had come from or why they were on the buoy.”

“Yes, they knew very well why they were there.”

Leo looked at Ramirez. “So, what? You run around the galaxy rescuing IP holders the Guild is trying to kill?”

Ramirez laughed. “Well, we started off with every quantum comms IP holder we could find. However, it turns out that most of them are nuts.” He took a big slurp of his coffee. “Once we figured out that some of the folks we talked to were winding up very dead, we realized the Guild had kill squads running around. Seemed to us like they knew something we didn’t. So, we decided to tail them. Mebbee they know more than we do.” He shrugged. “This is our third one, no joy. We are pulling out.”

Ramona put her coffee down. “But this one works.”

Ramirez shook his head. “Nah. The freak has been trying to make it work for us again for a month. I’m tellin’ ya, no joy.”

“Where was this?”

“Where?”

“Ya, where did he try to replicate his results.”

“In the safe house, like I told ya.”

“And where is that?”

“Oh no, that’s a step too far. You’re not even in the Guard anymore. Court-martial is one thing; if I give you the guy I’ll be shot. Fuck, I’d have to shoot myself.”

Ramona waved a placating hand. “Relax. Just answer one thing, was it inside the e-limit?”

“What? Of course. There ain’t no habs out past the e-limit.”

Leo smacked the table. “Oort astronomy lab.”

Ramirez looked puzzled. “No guesses, not gonna tell ya.”

Ramona laughed. “No sarge, that’s where he worked. Wanna guess where it is?”

“Oort cloud?”

“Ya. You know, outside the e-limit.” She leaned over the table. “So, was it inside the e-limit?”

Ramirez grinned. “Guess it’s no harm, ya, we stashed him in a hab. So, ya, inside the e-limit.”

Ramona looked at the ceiling. “God in heaven. Could it be that simple?”

Leo just nodded. “Seems to be.”

Now Ramirez was confused. “What?”

Ramona smiled. “The device. It only works outside the e-limit. My guess is that Vinogradov was tinkering around with this thing while on duty at the Oort station. He makes it work there, comes home, tries to reproduce the result but he can’t. Meanwhile, you jokers show up and stash him in a safe house that’s also inside the e-limit. He tries to make it work, but still can’t.”

“You mean the doohicky works?”

“Yes.”

“And how the fuck do you know that?”

“We tried it.”

“We?”

“Ya, we. On a Guild Data Ark.”

“Guild Ark?”

“Are you gonna just repeat everything I say but as a question?”

“Just back the fuck up. How did you get here and why are you here?”

“I’m a Seeker.”

“Ya, so what?”

“This is Seeker business.”

“Well shit.”

“If you’re done with Vinogradov, I want him. I have an offer he can’t refuse.”

“A bullet to the head?”

“No sarge. Guilders. More Guilders than he has ever seen.”

“You’re gonna buy it?”

“Yes.”

“Then what?”

“Then we end the guild and get rich.”

“Oh.”

Leo grimaced. “I don’t advise you use that answer, Ramirez.”