Ad Astra Noctis Part 2

Bering

Zephyrantes 1337, Anno Astra 1002/5/3 0732

Glenn glanced at his watch as he waited with Robinson.  Three minutes felt like an eternity in this cold. "I really wish these assholes had waited until I'd eaten my food.  First real meal since leaving the starport over Vivian and I get kidnapped."

 

Robinson gestured. "Got plenty of food in here if you kept up with dental."  Glenn gave the man an incredulous look. "Look Glenn, even frozen food is better than bland nutrient paste coming out of a food nipple in a helmet." Then Ari took a bite out of a frozen hand pie of some kind, making loud crunching sounds as he chewed.

 

There was a muffled commotion outside the door.  Glenn and Ari tensed, unsure of what was going to happen.   Then the thickly insulated door opened slowly to reveal the guard with a bandage on his nose, hands in the air. He had a defeated look as Helios nudged him further into the room with the barrel of a shotgun.

She was mid-sentence when they entered. "...for browsing social media instead of paying attention."

The guard looked at Robinson. "Just make it look good, alright?" Robinson caught the man's meaning and gave him a pair of precisely aimed lightning jabs and an uppercut, then roughly stripped the now unconscious guard down to his tank top and boxers.

Robinson gave the man a few extra kicks. When Helios and Glenn looked questioningly at him, he simply said "Makes it extra convincing."

The hallway outside the freezer was cramped but far warmer than the freezer. While they rubbed warmth back into their limbs the three of them exchanged glances, asking the question hanging over them: what next?

"Jasper?" Robinson blew on his hands.

Helios nodded. "Jasper."

* * *

 "Why did we stop and get food?" Glenn had an armful of keep-warm containers with their take-out food.

"Ah, it's rude to intrude on an old acquaintance without the gift of food." Helios approached the door to the warehouse-like structure that was linked to the pedestrian tube.  The door was really closer to an airlock and the building superficially looked like some kind of private landing pad near the spaceport proper.  The actual purpose was a mystery to Glenn.

"Besides, we should eat a hot meal after spending hours in a deep freezer." Robinson added.

"Yeah... But what about your kid?"

"Can't fight on an empty stomach, Willows." Robinson said.

Helios fought back some tears, but explained. "If my uncle wanted to kill Riley, he'd have killed him in front of us.  Our son is safe for now.  There's no real time limit because even the famous Richard Khourry has to grease the right palms to smuggle somebody off of Bering.  For people like him who're used to getting others to do the work, everybody from the spaceport's Lord-Operator to the baggage handlers want a cut." She pushed the doorbell.

"What about people like us?"

"Well, we know a guy."

"Jasper?"

"Jasper."

The man that opened the airlock door had a deeply tanned face with an aquiline nose and the suggestion of a dark beard.  That eye though, the way it glinted in the harsh LED lighting of the hallway, told Glenn it was a very good cybernetic replacement.  Not as perfectly unobtrusive as a cloned replacement, but it had certain advantages over the eyeballs that Mother Nature had given humans.

"Ah, Helios and Ari!" The man's accent was unfamiliar to Glenn, slightly nasal but gravely simultaneously. "How dare you wait only three years before troubling my doorstep once again." The man laughed and shook both Robinson's and Helios' hands.

He waved the three in. "Come in, tell me about your new friend and what trouble you're in this time."

Moments later they'd settled around a well-crafted wooden table, a dark blue tablecloth draped over it.  Helios and Robinson had set out the warm food, while their host had gotten plates.  Glenn noted there had been a fifth place set.

Ari beat Glenn to the punch. "Who's the fifth place for?"

Jasper gestured at the empty seat. "Madam Sydney Orlandu.  She'll join us when she finishes cleaning herself up."

"You got a new side piece?  What would Li-Wei say about that?" Helios had a teasing tone to her voice. "Wait, Orlandu? I wonder if she's related to that naval engineer from that one time..."

Jasper chortled. "Capitaine Khourry, she was a naval engineer and naval architect. She probably is the naval engineer you met.  Not many Orlandu leave the shipping lanes of Hytowr." The man was spooning rice pilaf over a fried vat-chicken breast, following the lead of the others.

Small talk proceeded as they ate and Robinson finished his meal first.

"Alright Jasper.  Do you have the item we talked about?" Ari was wiping his mouth clean.

"Oui.  It's just inside the loading dock. You know the way I think?" 

Robinson took his leave just as a tall lanky woman with wet sandy blonde hair and very pale skin walked in.  Not lanky in the thin sense, but more if one took a thin person and stretched them taller than even Ari's imposing height.  The woman sat down and smiled broadly. "Nice to meet you bunch.  I'm Syd.  And you are...?" She looked expectantly at Glenn.

"Uh! I'm Glenn Willows. Used to be a broker on-"

"I didn't ask for your life story, kid."

"I'm not a kid!" But Syd had moved on to Helios.

"Have we met? Your face is familiar."

Helios perked up. "So it is you then!  It's Helios Robinson, nice to see you again after all these years."

Jasper chewed on a cigar that seemed to have appeared from thin air. "Monsieur Willows made some very profitable deals for me many years ago.  Capitaine Kh- I mean, Capitaine Robinson is the daughter of an old dear friend.  The gentleman who just left is her husband and a retired Special Circumstances commando.  Helios and Ari's son has been kidnapped by some rude bastard who-"

Helios stopped Jasper. "That rude bastard was Uncle Richard."

The cigar fell from Jasper's lips. "Non-!" Helios simply nodded sadly.

Glenn had other concerns. "Wait wait wait... how in the Nine Hells did you know all that?"

Helios started to speak, but was stopped by Jasper holding up a hand.  The other man looked at Glenn. "I was your client when you were young and had been blacklisted for whatever fatuous and short-sighted reason.  Helios is the daughter of Gabrielle Khourry, who provides me with many many reclaimed starship parts from their family business in Reddington.  Ari's squad rescued me from a shay-an prisoner camp where I lost my arm, eye, and leg.  I met Sydney while recuperating on Canturbury and call on her expertise on starships from time to time."

Jasper leaned back, accompanied by the creak of his chair and the clinking of Syd and Helios spoon as they ate. "Does that answer your questions, Monsieur Willows?"

Glenn was politely shocked. "But how did you know their son was kidnapped?"

"Very simple: Ari and Helios would never willingly be here without their son along. Since they said they were going to visit and Riley is not here..." The man shrugged with both arms.