Charal DePriest.

San Marino Spaceport

Achernar

11 February 3133

Customs Security Officer Raul Ortega glanced up from his handheld noteputer, distracted. The spaceport’s underground service area bustled with a sudden burst of frenetic activity that only came with the arrival of a new DropShip to Achernar.

Dozens of tram-haulers crawled along electric tracks, flatbeds stacked high with colorful plastic crates and large, metal shipping containers stenciled from dozens of different worlds. A trio of LoaderMechs stomped along beside the haulers. The Loaders’ high, hunched shoulders nearly scraped against the tunnel ceiling and the high-pitched whirr of their flywheel batteries stressed toward fingernails-on-slate with each heavy step. On the far outside of the wide corridor moved foot traffic as cargo handlers and shipping agents fought against a flood of able-bodied spacemen heading into River’s End, Achernar’s capital, on shore leave.

Thick air carried the warm tastes of ozone and sweat and cheap cologne.

Raul stood just outside the trunk corridor in one of many warehousing routes, waiting in the company of Lord Erik Sandoval-Groell for the industrial parade to pass. The young noble glared at the interruption, arms crossed, one hand tapping an impatient rhythm. “Everything is in order,” Sandoval said loudly, trying to hurry Raul along.

Erik Sandoval wore an officer’s uniform and the captain’s bars of his honorary rank, both privileges granted him by his uncle, Duke Aaron Sandoval, The Republic’s Lord Governor of Prefecture IV. He shaved the sides of his head for the traditional topknot of a Sandoval dynasty scion, braiding what was left back into a short, dark queue. The youngblood had eyes of heavy amber, which burned softly with an inner fire. Only three or four centimeters taller than Raul’s medium one-seventy, he carried the extra height with shoulders back and proud chin thrust forward as if it conveyed some sort of extra superiority.

“I do have other business to complete today.”

Apparently Sandoval had conveniently forgotten that he had flagged down Raul’s cart, interrupting the CSO’s call to Docking Pad Seven. Raul wanted to put the short attitude down to the prerogative of an off-world noble, or the frustration of an officer with bureaucracy. Erik Sandoval-Groell was both. But Sandoval had also been on Achernar long enough to allow for some social graces, and his local command was part of the problem with any red tape delays and he damn well knew it.

Sandoval either wasn’t likable, or simply wasn’t trying to be.

But Raul nodded politely, returned to the noteputer he cradled in his right hand. He paged down through manifest logs, comparing his noteputer’s glowing green screen to the hardcopy pages Sandoval had pressed on him. He traced a set of serial numbers to three large-class lasers stockpiled in one of the spaceport’s secure warehouses. And there was more. One hundred ten tons of armor composite. Fifteen tons of various munitions. A Mydron eighty-millimeter autocannon.

“It’s all restricted-access.” He paged back up the list of serial numbers. “Why do you need all this?”

“I need it because I have the permits which say that I can have it. I only require your local release.” Reminded that he did, in fact, require local release, Sandoval relented somewhat. “I’m leading my people into the Tanager Testing Range on a live-fire exercise.”

His people.

Nausea clutched lightly at Raul’s insides, and he worked to keep his revulsion from showing inside his dark, near-black eyes. Sandoval meant the Swordsworn, one of several factions that had cropped up in the Republic since the Blackout. The Swordsworn openly swore their fealty to Erik’s uncle, believing that Exarch Redburn had abandoned Prefecture IV in his worries for other sectors within The Republic of the Sphere. Erik Sandoval wore his loyalty brazenly with the small patch sewn over his uniform’s left breast pocket—a longsword cleaving across planetary dawn. The thought of The Republic breaking down into “us” and “them,” into his people and Raul’s people, left a sour taste at the back of Raul’s throat that he hadn’t known since attending Charal DePriest’s commissioning ceremony two years back.

A sarcastic reply would have gone a long way to clearing his palate, scoring cheap points off the visiting noble. It might also have been a solid step toward that new career his fiancée occasionally asked after.

A LoaderMech swung out of its lane, saving Raul from a heated reply by barging through a gap in pedestrian traffic in an attempt to cut the corner and move ahead of a slower-moving tram. It carried a flanged barrel in its forked pincers, swaying dangerously close to the two men as it tried to squeeze in between them and the pair of electric carts parked nearby. Raul stiff-armed Sandoval back into the wall—perhaps a bit rougher than he needed to—then yanked off his black service cap, using it to flag down the LoaderMech’s driver.

The LoaderMech rocked to a halt in midstep. A look of guilt flashed over the Loader driver’s face as he identified the silver badge sewn onto the right front pocket of Raul’s black uniform, quite clearly a Customs Security Officer. There was no chance for conversation, not with the driver encased in ferroglass and plugged against the high-pitched whine of the Loader’s flywheel-battery conversion. He offered Raul a sheepish shrug and cocky grin, the half-serious apology of a man who knew the worst Raul could do was take down the Loader’s serial and generate a letter of warning.

Raul waved the man through with a frustrated slash, standing aside as the bulky Loader finally squeezed past and still made it ahead of the tram. The distraction had given him the moment he’d needed to regain his composure. He tucked his hat brim into his belt at the small of his back, combed his curly, dark hair back with long fingers, and turned again to Erik Sandoval-Groell.

“My apologies, Lord Sandoval.” Raul smoothed the words over, meaning them about as much as the LoaderMech driver had meant his guilty shrug. Perhaps a little more. Eric Sandoval wasn’t the enemy. “I’ll get someone on your request right away,” he said, performing some quick input into his noteputer.

The young noble straightened his uniform, glaring. “Your supervisor told me that you would handle this.” Sandoval’s tone somehow carried the full weight of his authority as well as that of Raul’s boss. “Personally.”

A tight smile strained at the corners of Raul’s mouth. “Personally,” he agreed, resigning himself to another twelve-hour day. He fought to keep the irritation from coloring his dark brown eyes any blacker. “If you will send some men to”—he checked his screen—“warehouse alcove one-twelve, I’ll meet them there as soon as I’m done with my emergency call to Docking Pad Seven. All right?”

The pinched expression on Sandoval’s face didn’t say it was all right. But it was hard to argue when Raul had basically conceded the point and had played an “emergency” trump.

“I’ll send some of my people over,” Sandoval promised. “I’ll also be talking to Superintendent Rossiter, you may be certain.”

Raul snagged his service cap from the small of his back and tugged it on smartly. He nodded a respectful salute to Erik Sandoval-Groell. “Sir,” he said, skimping a bit on the title but maintaining a professional manner even when his inner sense of decorum agreed that Sandoval deserved little more than flat competency.

Eric Sandoval returned to his cart and shifted it into gear, leaving Raul free to climb back into his own battery powered vehicle. Merging into the trunk corridor, Raul steered carefully around pedestrian and LoaderMech traffic and tried to set aside his frustrations. He didn’t worry too much about what his boss would say. Carl Rossiter was a reasonable man stuck with an unreasonable job these days, and Raul’s call to Pad Seven was an emergency—of sorts—in the manner that it came directly from the office of Achernar’s military legate, Brion Stempres. If it came down to who deserved Raul’s attention first, the CSO would bank on Achernar’s ranking military officer, Stempres’ friendship with the Sandovals notwithstanding.