Beyond the core of the milky way lay a dimming star, only a few light years from Nova Earth. Around this star, and mixed in with the clutter of a few asteroid mining operations, was a space station that made a hog’s pit look clean. This was where Detective Shilo Zander’s new to him apartment-slash-office was. He’d been running his private investigation services from there for a few months now, with mixed success.
He’d quit the precinct for many reasons, the top being he wanted more. More freedom, more excitement, a new life. Perhaps to forget a few things as well. But he wanted to make a name for himself, solving the biggest problems and taking out galactic crime bosses and bringing down corrupt organizations. The galaxy was rife with alien species, which oddly had that familiar feeling of general corruption or discontent one would expect from a run-down human city of the early twentieth century. And Detective Shilo Zander might have found his biggest case yet.And did Shilo ever need a job? A paying job. Those bills were pressing down on him. His landlord was not pleased with the cost of repairs. It’d only been a few bullet holes and a dented door. The broken hologram display, however, Shilo’s. This job would provide the credits he needed. And, more importantly, put his name on the map, if he could survive it.
A sowbu—think humanoid but with much thinner legs and arms, possibly four arms or they might just be so quick to give that appearance—had arranged to meet him at the finest diner the station offered. The sowbu, a specialist for High Jam Logistics, a rival of Shilo’s personal favorite Zyrback’s Armory Technologies was just completing his lengthy monologue. The companies had a fierce grip on all the markets, from high-tech custom armor like Shilo’s stylish trench coat and fedora to blaster weapons and sonic weapons, and High Jam Logistics appeared to be missing something.
A good old case of corporate espionage. Shilo had been warned that the case would send him directly to a planet control by the mech heads, a prospect so daunting the sowbu hadn’t blinked when he’d asked for double the credits along with a suitcase of illegal technology. His request for supplies had been sent ahead and the briefcase rested by sowbu’s legs. Shilo discreetly pulled the case to his side of the table
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Detective Zander had ironically learned during the pickup of his gear that the technology plans he sought were already located in a vault in the dining establishment. It was extremely bold of the sowbu to have the meeting with Shilo at the restaurant. Shilo’s best guess was the sowbu was hoping he’d spook the thieves, but Shilo just saw it as an announcement that the game was on. It would likely make the second part of this case harder, but Shilo had the issue of surviving the first part and fetching an old-fashioned physical key.
The sowbu finished explaining to him that without causing a scene of bringing in a large asteroid mining laser and cutting through the walls; the vault was secure enough. The key couldn’t be copied and the safe couldn’t be opened in time for other, more extreme, counter measures. It all boiled down the irony of the situation that Detective Shilo Zander would have to retrieve a physical key from debatably the most advanced civilization in the galaxy, sentient machines. A simple key. It looked like a broom closet key. Shilo grabbed the print of the key along with a map outlining the most probable location.
He declined a refill of his drink from the waitress and made sure the restaurant security camera got a good look at his face. “I’ll get right on this.” He picked up the briefcase. It better have the gear he needed, or this case will be a bust.
The sowbu frowned at the dining receipt. Shilo had slipped in an order for a full dessert pie to-go. That pie was now waiting at the front door for him. He grabbed the briefcase and his pie and made it straight for the parking garage. The lights went somehow from too bright to nothing at all. Places in the garage were stooped in darkness and grime.
He had a few more tricks to help pull the heist off; starting with his spaceship, a classic but reliable eighty-year-old model with custom restoration. He loaded the briefcase, stuffed with sowbu tech, into his ship’s external storage compartment. Then he updated his transponder to a spoofed code.
It could travel the FTL network and now legally do so as the sowbu had provided the transponder code, allowing Zander free rein of the galaxy.
One last item was a teleportation pad which he cursed his way through installing. Something about eighty-year-old systems and modern interfaces that made getting the darn thing powered up, his morning’s dreadful challenge. He took a slight break and had a slice of the pie. After a third cup of coffee and another round of swearing, the system gave him the green light that he was looking for. No use delaying now.
