Cyber Witch

Chapter 5.1 - Pink

[Zach]

"Beautiful..." Avia muttered, gazing at the forward viewscreen. Bubba laid beside her chair, grooming himself, seemingly unimpressed by the view.

The turquoise-blue world Thalassa, appropriately named after the Greek primordial goddess of the sea, was a water world, except small polar icecaps and a smattering of green archipelagos. Swirling white clouds overlaid multi-hued oceans like abstract art. But as terraform projects go, it was a financial disaster, long ago written off by the Sol Federation and sold to the Thalassa Investment Group, what locals called the Cartel. With so little dry land, legendary cyclone storms, lack of exploitable commodities, and remoteness from other Federation worlds, it supported only a few settlements.

But for those wishing to avoid Federation and Omni-Corp scrutiny, this was paradise.

Alpha Station first appeared as a dark dot above the planet, growing larger as we approached. Except for numerous points of light and ships connected to the docking gantries, it looked more like a pitted oblong rock. Once a mined out asteroid, it had been towed into geosynchronous orbit and repurposed as a space station. A high-tension cable tethered it to the planet below on which a space elevator rode, shuttling people and supplies.

"Can you trust this Arthur Ricter?" Avia asked, swiveling her chair to face me.

"Only so far," I answered. "But he is no fan of Omni-Corp." Once a talented engineer, his fiery ego clashed with corporate leadership, and they parted ways, and not at all amicably. He and Omni-Corp filed lawsuits against each other, which were eventually dropped on a tenuous agreement to leave each other alone.

I tapped my head. "I'm sure you checked him out with your computer brain."

Avia shrugged. "As much as I could. Data bandwidth through your long-range com is limited. Besides, the info-web is no substitute for actual human intuition."

"Regardless, we should be careful. Alpha Station is a seedy joint."

"I've been through places like that. I can handle myself."

"Yeah," I replied, nodding. "I chased you through a few of them." And she left more than a few digital trip wires behind for me.

"How are you going to explain my presence with you?"

"Hmm, you'll be my latest girlfriend. So, dial back your intelligence, and," I reached over and pinched her plain green t-shirt, "wear something sexy."

Good thing Avia's eyes couldn't actually shoot fire, or else I would have become a smoldering heap. "Really?" she huffed.

"Yeah. Otherwise, he will suspect you."

"You want me to be some ditzy bimbo?"

A smile grew on my face. "I'm sure you could pull it off."

Intensifying her glare, Avia's lips formed a heated retort, but instead, she blew out a breath. "Fine."

The dismissive way she said 'fine' made me think it was not. Besides, Avia agreed to that much too easily.

*****

Either by design or indifference, Alpha Station had no customs or immigration controls of any kind, so we strolled unhindered from the port, through the pressure isolation doors, and into the station main.

Avia hacked into the security system. "Phfft!" she spat. "There's hardly any security at all. Half the sensors don't work, and the other half are not monitored."

"And that's why there are so many shady characters here. Who knows, there might even be a dangerous Aberrant?"

Avia put hands to her cheeks and dropped her jaw in an exaggerated melodramatic style that dripped with sarcasm. "Oh, no! Not one of them!"