Chapter Project Financing

Chapter Project Financing

Deputy Kolun leaned back in his desk pod bouncing a hard rubber ball against the wall. He sighed flaring his vestigial gill-slits as he did so.

“Gods I am so darn bored,” he said as he caught the ball for the hundredth time.

“Boredom is good in our line of work,” the chief said as he surfed the worldnet, “Boredom means nothing messed up is happening.”

“Nothing messed up ever happens in this pond-scum town.”

“What about Matron Goloriux’s kid getting all hopped up on zip and swimming around in the town pond naked last week?” the chief asked with a chuckle, “That happened. It took both you and Parsxn to haul him in.”

“Yeah, that was fun,” Kolun said. “That kid ok?”

“Yup. Got out of the hospital today,” the chief said and then chuckled again. “Wouldn’t want to be him when he shows back up at school tomorrow.”

They both laughed. An unfamiliar electric car drove up and parked right in front of the doors. The chief frowned. That was beyond rude. It wasn’t even a marked parking space. He was definitely going to write them a ticket.

The doors of the car opened and two bipedal creatures, dressed in long coats and wearing dark sun visors almost completely covering the top half of their faces got out. The chief grinded his plates. He was not a xenology expert but everyone in the Federation knew what a human looked like and everyone in the Federation knew that humans meant trouble. He snarled. First it was some jolpura moving into Slolmothu and now humans showing up here? The whole planet was going to pot.

The humans entered the station.

“Um, may I help you?” Deputy Cynlth asked as the doors to the station opened.

“Yes, sorry for troubling you,” Jacob said pleasantly through his visor. “We-”

“What are you doing here, humans?” The chief asked in a less than hospitable voice.

“Our vehicle is acting strangely,” Jacob said pleasantly, “I think the navigation software is off. Either that or I messed something up,” he laughed.L1tLagoon witnessed the first publication of this chapter on Ñøv€l--B1n.

“Kind of hard to mess up a navigator,” the chief said in even a less pleasant tone, “You tell it where you want it to go and the car takes you there. Pretty damn simple, even for a human.”

The deputies looked at the chief in complete confusion. This wasn’t like him at all.

“Umm...” Jacob said looking at the chief and then at Greg, his companion. Greg nods slightly and slowly starts to move his hand into a coat pocket.

“Look. We aren’t looking for any trouble we-”

“Not looking for trouble? Half of you start a pond sucking war and the other half of you tear the Federation apart and you aren’t looking for trouble? The Waters help us all if you one day do decide to look for it.”

“Hey, we had absolutely nothing to do with that,” Jacob said backing away slightly and glancing around the room. “We are just a little lost and are looking for help,” he said as he slipped one of hands into a coat pocket and gripped the handle of a small stunner.

“KEEP YOUR HANDS WHERE I CAN SEE THEM, HUMANS” the chief yelled as put his pads on the grip of his blaster. Both Jacob and Greg immediately complied and both removed their hands from their pockets and let their arms hang loosely at their sides.

“Don’t be this way,” Jacob said, “It doesn’t have to be this way, please.”

“Don’t you move,” the chief said his pads still on his blaster. “Show me your papers. Cynlth, Kolun, cover me.”

“Chief?” Kolun asked.

“You heard me. Cover me.”

“Dude, please, it doesn’t have to go down like this,” Greg said calmly.

“Yeah, don’t,” Jacob said as it took a deep breath and exhaled slowly.

The chief started to walk forward as his deputies, still really confused, put their pads on their blasters.

“Let’s all just calm dow-” Greg started.

The deputies started to draw their blasters. As soon as their weapons started to move the hands of both humans turned into blurs each one drawing a Terran submachine gun and opening fire. The explosive rounds tore the chief and his deputies open before they could even get their blasters out of their holsters. The humans then moved through the entire station like wraiths clearing each room with unearthly speed, surprising an unlucky communications officer who was gunned down before he could even get out of his pod.

“Fuck!” Jacob yelled as he kicked a wall.

“Yeah, that could have gone better,” Greg said as he looked down at what was left of the communications officer. “Fucking hate it when this happens.” He laid his hand on Jacob’s shoulder. “We followed protocol. Skip the stunners once real weapons come into play.”

Jacob just shrugged.

“What’s done is done.”

Jacob pulled out a communicator.

“Strike team, this is Tac-1. The target is secure. We’ve had complications,” he said calmly.

“Fuck. How many?” Sheila asked.

“Four if you count the one manning the radio.”

“How many does that leave unaccounted for?”

“We just have the two patrol cars,” Jessie chirped brightly. “Bringing up their locations on your HUD’s now. Based on their patterns over the past few days they shouldn’t be a problem.”

“What’s happening?” she whispered to me in a terrified squeaky (she always squeaks when she is nervous) voice.

“We’re getting robbed.” I whispered back.

She breathed a huge sigh of relief.

“Thank the Waters... I thought we were getting invaded,” she whispered. I couldn’t help but giggle but shut up real quick when that one they called Gloria looked at us. I couldn’t see her eyes but boy could I feel them.

“Is that a skull splitter?” Felixroh whispered to me.

“Quiet,” I hissed at her. It was too late. Gloria walked over to us and crouched.

“How do you know what this is?” Gloria whispered in a very very scary voice as she held the skull splitter entirely too close. This is it, I thought. We are going to die.

“Red Sunset... We play it a lot.” Felixroh said cheerfully.

I could have killed her if Gloria didn’t do it for me. Last thing we wanted to do is say we can identify anything... and she let everyone know we played video games too! I love her but pond scum! She can be so stupid sometimes.

“Excellent historical accuracy but the engine sucks,” the scary woman said in a much more friendly voice, “Now shut the fuck up.”

She stood and stepped away.

“Where was I?” their leader said, “Right. Believe it or not banking is something that the Federation does right. They use normal communications for basic shit but the actual transactions, the credits, go through a completely independent network, their own hyperspatial relays, the works. There are only three ways to get into that network. A terrestrial network hub, a hyperspatial relay, or a bank. The network hub and that hyperspatial relay? Those are among the most secure locations in the Federation. Fighting a Fed cruiser is easier. Banks are the only practical way to access it. Of course in a bank there is a lot of extra computer security shit in the way. If I felt like torturing you I would have Jessie explain it. What our little firecracker is doing right now is trying to bypass that security and access accounts directly. Once she pulls that off and we can start making, pardon the pun, bank.”

“You mean you will be able to start emptying entire accounts?” my boss asked looking kind of sick.

“Yep, down to the last credit. We’re doing some ‘fundraising’ for a little project we are working on,” their leader said happily, “Don’t worry. We aren’t going to steal from you guys. Each account takes time to breach and has a whole new layer of security. Takes too long to go after little fish. You guys are safe. Some other assholes are going to have a very bad morning tomorrow. Don’t feel too bad for ‘em. They deserve it.”

Wow! I did not know that’s how it worked. Neat! Then it hit me. They weren’t here for thousands. They were here for millions! By the Waters of the Eternal Pond!

I don’t know how much time passed. It felt like forever but the police never came. I still hadn’t figured out why.

I knew was definitely going to stand up my date. This was the worst. He didn’t believe me when I told him what happened until he saw it on the news. You bet he called me right back after that. Too bad he turned out to be a total jerkface!

“Clock’s ticking, Jessie,” the leader said, “How much do you have?”

“Coming over to your HUD.”

HUD’s are neat! They show you stuff inside your helmet! (I learned that from video games too!)

“Fuck it. That’s going to have to do. We gotta go,” their leader said, “We just had someone show up early for their shift. That early bird just got a couple of worms.”

“Sucks to be them. Ok. Aaaannnnddd... Done!”

It was right then that I realized why the police weren’t showing up. I still get the shakes thinking about how I set off that alarm. I could have been killed! I should have been killed!

A cargo van pulled up next to the door and the side doors opened.

“Pleasure doing business with you folks and sorry about the cops. We honestly didn’t want it to go down that way.” the leader said and then they all bolted out of the door and into the van.

***

They turned the whole system inside out looking for those guys. They never even found the van! My boss told me later that they stole over sixteen million credits. Sixteen million! The odd part was that they stole it from other humans. Weird.

We just had the last funeral yesterday. People are all talking about taking up a collection so they can post a bounty. I don’t have the heart to tell them they are just wasting their time. Those guys are long gone and probably have plenty of bounties on them already.

A lot of people are also talking about getting blasters or something in case they come back. I just shake my head. They aren’t coming back and if they do I really don’t think some hick with a civilian pop-gun is going to be able to do anything besides get some firecrackers in his guts. That looked like mark six light combat armor and you need at least a class four energy weapon to get through that stuff. A normal person can’t get that sort of thing around here. Oops. I don’t want to sound too much like a separatist, a cultist, or a tomboy. I just really like Terran video games (Don’t tell anybody. My parents would freak).

The bank and the Federation are just about done investigating. Rumor has it they didn’t find a single thing. Doesn’t surprise me. Boss says we are going to re-open next week. My mom doesn’t want me to but I’m going back to work. A girl has to eat and I would much rather get thrown across a bank lobby than move back in with my parents. There is no pooping way that is going to happen.

***

I get back from lunch with my boss. She is so happy I am staying on I'm getting a pooping raise!

There is a knock at my door. There’s a kind of shabby looking guy there holding a box.

“Yes?” I ask as I open the door.

“Here,” The guy just hands me the box and walks off.

“Wait,” I say but he just keeps walking.

That was weird. I take the box inside and open it. Holy Waters of the Eternal Pond! A skull splitter! A real one! It has the pattern welded laminated Terran steel blade, bone handle, and everything!

There is also a crystal in there. Pads shaking I load it into my computer...

It’s Federation Fun Time! Oh scum! With Species Master! Oh double scum!

I have a few days before I go back to work. I know what I will be doing until then!