Jim hated travel, especially traveling like this. It stressed him out, being stuck in a tight, confined space with about a thousand people and no weapons. He blamed the idiots who used to rob these things, or whatever it was. It wasn’t like there was a time in his life where this wasn’t the case with shuttling. Commercial Space Travel had been strictly regulated for forever. For as long as he knew, it was like that. And, given some of the articles new research had produced on old Sol customs, since before there was spaceflight. Normally, Jim mused, he wouldn’t fly commercial. Normally he’d rent a ship or find passage as a hand on a mercenary vessel. Unfortunately, he didn’t really have the luxury of time or liquidity to do either of those.
A friend of a friend had warned him that the Service was coming for the human resources of the Glorious backwater known as Hadrian Alpha Centus III, or Hact as the locals called it. A resort world with no real value, Jim had gone there for that reason specifically. He needed a place to lay low and relax, and useless resorts for the rich and idle were pretty much ideal for that. Why the Service wanted the world was beyond him, but he honestly didn’t care. He just knew he needed to get out. He wasn’t about to let them pull him back in.
Which was what led him to the commercial spaceport. Fortunately, Hact was for the elite, meaning the shuttles to and from it were nice enough. It wasn’t like old troop transports where he was forced to sit shoulder to shoulder with someone seven times his size. No, now Jim would get a seat all to himself, complete with mechanical massage elements, arm rests, and drink service. Didn’t mean he wasn’t trapped for the next day, but he would be trapped in a gilded cage. After checking his bag, comprised of weapons and clothing, and going through security, Jim settled in to one of the fancy diners. He wasn’t hungry. He just needed some encouragement to make it onto the shuttle. He held up a finger and the waiter came over. “Whisky, neat.”
“Alright,” the waiter said, and he turned to go.
Before the waiter could move further, Jim added, “Best make it a double.”
The waiter paused, nodded, and walked away. The woman seated at the table next to him looked up at the lithe man. “What are you trying to forget?” she mused.
Jim looked at the woman and shook his head. “I just really don’t like shuttling commercial.”
The woman’s sharp features lightened as she let out a pleasant chuckle. “So, you’re one of those ultra-rich, private shuttle types,” she joked.
He burst into a chuckle, before shutting it down. No way in hell, Jim thought. But his mouth said, “Something like that.”
The waiter came back with his whisky, and asked, “Do you want some food with that?”
Jim held up a hand, shook his head, and quietly said, “No thanks, sir,” before he began to sip.
“See,” the woman said in response, “I’m starting to think you’re lying to me.”
Of course he was, Jim thought. “Why would you say that?”
“Because, I’ve never seen one of those types acknowledge the help, much less be polite and respectful to them,” she said.
No, Jim thought. This was entering dangerously close to a conversation, and a clever one at that. He couldn’t become too open. Not without knowing more about who this woman was. And he wasn’t about to turn on his wrist-tablet and risk someone spotting the activity. He needed to shut it down. He looked her in the eyes as he spoke. “Then you’re either blind or willfully ignorant. That’s a stereotype, not even a trend, much less a certainty.” He turned back to his drink. That should do it, he thought.
It didn’t. “Interesting. And most would get defensive, not aggressive. You’re curious, mister…”
Crap. Jim hated it when people didn’t take a hint. Fortunately, he was saved from answering by an alert on his tablet. Not the secret one on his wrist, but the burner he’d gotten when he first moved to Hact. “Late for boarding, apparently.” Then, downing the whisky, he left a chit with enough money on it for the drink and an alright, but not too exorbitant tip. Best to keep himself as forgettable as possible, Jim figured. He walked over to the airlock and boarded the shuttle, the last of the elite class to file aboard.
Even the supposed luxury of the shuttle he was on right now felt cramped to Jim. He settled in as the other people, those who had not gotten elite class tickets, filed aboard. Just in case, Jim put up his hood. Even here, it was better to keep himself unrecognizable, just in case. The man anyone looking for him was looking for would never deign to wear a set of formal wear, much less one with a luxurious cloak. The man they were looking for hated luxury. Jim hated luxury, but it was better to be dressed to the nines in first class than dead in the comfort of his drab slipsuits. He watched as the curious woman boarded last. Flight Officer. Crap, he thought. That meant he might have to interact with her. He closed his eyes, hid his face, and prayed that she was working the slum class, or at least the Private class. Anything but elite class.
The shuttle detached from the station and began its journey through space. Pulling off his cloak, he looked around the elite class car. Sixteen people, including himself and the flight officer. No threats. No weird woman from before. The first grouping was seven businessmen, who’d obviously been doing some backroom dealings on Hact. Only one of them was younger than eighty. Even without his weapons, they posed no threat. The next group was smaller. Five drunk men. Bachelor party of the idle rich. Good looking, some even muscular, and young, but all far too intoxicated to pose a real threat to anyone with any sort of training. Then a group of three, a captain, a scanner, and a flight officer. People who worked for the company but were on leave. Are on leave still. The scanner was the only of the three who might be problematic. She looked trained. Hadrian Security. Not as trained as he was, but still, a slight threat. Unlikely she would cause a scene on a company shuttle, however. Which left the two loners. Himself, who was no real threat while he was in hiding, and a fancily dressed youth who was the exact kind of man the woman at the restaurant was making fun of. Far too rich for his own good. Likely a gambling addict. Younger than Jim. Skinny. Never done a day’s labor in his life. No threat.
The officer came around for drink orders. As at the bar, Jim quietly said, “Whisky, neat.” And the man continued around the room.
“Don’t you hate it when you have to fly commercial,” the far too rich kid mused.
Jim ignored him. He pulled the pen out from his inside jacket pocket. In a confined space like this, he thought, best be prepared. No threats visible in the elite class was not the same as no threats. He slowly began to take the pen apart.
“I’m just saying, it’s below us, you know?” the kid clarified.
Jim shot the kid a look that said shut-it. The woman from the restaurant walked in with the tray. Looking around, the man was nowhere to be seen. Crap, Jim thought, then turned to the kid. “I know, right? It’s like, why would I ever want to fly commercial.”
“Exactly, my man. I knew you got it.”
The woman was beside him. “Here you go, sir,” she said.
Jim looked up at her. “Thanks.” He took a drink. The woman served the rest of the elite class seats. He finished taking apart his pen, laying the pieces of the pen out on his small table. He felt intoxicated. He shouldn’t feel intoxicated.
“What’s with the pen?” the kid asked.
“Stress,” Jim absentmindedly answered. Something was very wrong. He’d had three drinks. He should still be relatively sober. Maybe a tad tipsy. But he was struggling to form full sentences. He took the cup of whisky and dripped it onto his watch. He needed to risk it.
Pressing the button on the side, it took less then a second for the digital screen to pop up. Poison. He would survive, if he didn’t drink any more. He wouldn’t be totally functional, but he’d survive. Who could have done this, he mused. Then the answer came to him. The woman. She handed the glass to him deliberately. She was the only one to touch it. He stood up, put the pen pieces in his pocket, and headed for the restroom. Best keep up the demeanor of being confused and drunk. The woman came up behind him. “Are you feeling alright, sir?” she asked, innocently.
“No,” he answered, “I think something’s wrong with the whisky.” He was a rich dilettante. He wouldn’t know the difference between food poisoning and poison poisoning.
“That would be the cyanide,” she whispered in his ear. She was good. To everyone else in the car it would seem like they were flirting. “One does not abandon their Service,” she added.
The baggage pod access on these things were in the front, one of the many reasons I had chosen the elite class. People probably assume the elite class passengers were enough of non-threats that no one would try to break in. Seventeen seconds to the hatch. Getting into my overlarge bag. He stumbled, accentuating each fall. She’d figure it out in ten, meaning he had five to six seconds to make his move. On the third fall, she helped him get back up. It was better for her if he died in the bathroom alone than in the middle of the cabin. Less chaos. Jim, on the other hand, didn’t care about chaos. As she lifted him to his feet, his hand slid out of his pocket, clasping the center of his pen. He slid the pen’s core into her neck. One of the many advantages of pens in the modern era of ubiquitous tablets and rare paper, the average onlooker doesn’t know what they’re supposed to look like. So, the pen always gets overlooked by security. Makes it easy to sneak a knife in the core instead of an ink cartridge. A knife coated with a fast-acting paralytic makes for quite the effective weapon of self defense. They were far enough down the corridor that the only person to notice would be when someone went to the restroom. He thought about moving the body. Too much blood would smear. He began to walk slowly towards the baggage area’s hatch. Hacking it open was a matter of seconds with his watch now on and functional. Opened, he saw the flight officer bound and gagged. Maybe this might just work, he mused. He helped the man out from the hatch and ungagged him. “What the hell is going on?” the officer demanded. Putting his hand back into his pocket, he got to work. Thank goodness for his training.
A Service Agent had knocked this man unconscious to put cyanide in the whisky they were serving, Jim thought. “I don’t know,” he said, “But that crazy flight officer was trying to kill me. She said she poisoned me.”
“She isn’t one of ours. I recognized that right before she went and hit me. Why would anyone want to kill you?” The officer was asking the right questions. Unfortunately, Jim couldn’t answer those questions honestly. After all, it was well known across the galaxy that one does not abandon their Service.
“That isn’t important right now,” Jim said rather than answer, “I want to avoid a panic.” He was lying. He didn’t care about the panic. He just would rather spend the next twenty hours in the relative comfort of elite class chairs than inside his bag of clothes and weapons.
“What do you mean, panic?” the officer asked.
Jim pulled out his pen, which was put together and had a bloody tip. All together, it looked like a pen, not a knife. “I may have slightly stabbed her with my pen.”
“Is she alive?” The man asked.
No. “I don’t know, I panicked and ran to here. That’s when I found you.”
The man nodded and walked over to the body. “Alright,” he said as he opened and locked the bathroom door, “That should buy us enough time clean it up a bit. But this’ll be a ton of paperwork once we dock again. Do you mind helping?”
Sure, Jim mused, after all, it wasn’t the first time he’d cleaned up a body. “I mean, I guess,” he said, and held his hand over his mouth as though he were about to vomit, “Sorry. I don’t like blood.”
“No problem. Just, help me move her to where she shoved me. We’ll take this step by step, okay.”
Jim looked scared as he nodded. This was even easier than he expected. Shaking that thought away, he picked up the woman’s feet and with the officer, carried her to the hatch.