Page 2 of Smuggler's Beauty

“Firstly, you’re like, ten months older than I am,” Aiden said, popping the candy into his mouth. Artificial pineapple shards flooded his taste buds, the sharp sugar digging into his tongue as he thought.

The sensible thing to do in this situation would be to tell Cairn to turn the ship around and head back to theDawn. This gig was turning into yet one more example of why Aiden was sick of his job. It wasn’t the plotting or the scheming. He was quite good at logistics. He liked the stealing, being places he shouldn’t, getting away with a score. But he had had it with the goddamn clients.

The fact that this goddamn client was offering him enough money to split with a clear conscience was absolutely slaying his reasoning skills.

“It just feels ... hinky.” He sighed and focused on Cairn. “We have everything we need in here to wire me up? I want your eyes on this, too. Shit goes sideways, you take off and get the rest of the crew on it.”

“Relax. How bad could it be?”

“Well, that was a dumbass thing to say.”

Aiden adjustedthe mask of his spacesuit and knocked on the inner door of the airlock, then enabled the security jammer in the inner pocket of his suit while he waited for Cairn to release the outer lock. Crinkling his nose twice, he enabled the streaming function in the old fashioned horn-rimmed glasses he wore under his helmet. With a hiss, the door slid open and Aiden floated out into the vast cold expanse of space.

He had a brief moment of panic every time he left a ship in only the thin material that made up his spacesuit. Surely this would be the time that a pinprick in a seam would cause his imminent death by suffocation. It hadn’t happened yet, but that didn’t mean it couldn’t. They could tout the sophistication of these thermo-polymer fabrics with their self-sealing technology until the cows came home, Aiden wasn’t any more convinced he was zipping himself into anything more secure than a sandwich baggie. Paranoid? Maybe, but his fastidious attention to detail was what made him good at his job.

He used the barest touch of his telekinetic ability to push himself toward the airlock of the medivessel. Triggering the mechanism that opened the outer door, he lurched through the opening, and the entrance swiftly shut behind him.

The hissing and beeping of the airlock re-pressurizing echoed around the stainless steel chamber. A number pad wassituated next to the interior door, and a pinprick camera was positioned in the far corner. Vinnie had promised that the station had a minimal security set up, and it seemed that she was right on that count. So far.

“Cairn? You got the code that Vinnie gave us?”

Cairn’s voice crackled in his earpiece as he recited the numbers. Aiden punched them in, and the inner airlock door slid open. He stepped through the passage and ripped the helmet off his head, running his fingers through his hair as he looked around the ship.

The entryway was sparsely decorated. The walls and floor were a blinding shade of white, the ceiling more of that same stainless steel. Harsh white lighting shone down on him from naked bulbs mounted flush into the ceiling at precise intervals. Aiden winced at the thunderous rustle of his suit in the station’s deafening silence. There was a neat, well-appointed niche beside the door stocked with spacewalk suits, and directly across from the airlock was a sleek white desk. A deactivated reception droid sat behind it, its blank eyes staring at nothing.

“You think they got a bulk deal on white paint?” Cairn’s voice was a touch too loud in Aiden’s ear now that he was through the airlock. He turned the volume down on his earpiece.

“You clearly missed your calling as an interior decorator.”

Cairn sniffed. “I’m just saying, a parlor palm is never amiss in reception.”

Aiden snorted. Cairn was something of a marvel as a horticulturalist. He’d never met a man with a greener thumb. “You’d bring a plant to an execution to brighten up the place.”

Cairn huffed, and Aiden heard the crackle of a candy wrapper. Aiden blinked twice, bringing up an overlay of the map Vinnie had drawn for them on the lens of his glasses. He tucked the helmet under his arm and headed down the indicated hallway.

It feels sterile in here.

The expanse of white walls was only broken by white sliding doors with long, skinny windows. Aiden stopped peeking in them after the third abandoned lab. “There is a bizarre amount of equipment in here, Cairn. Why would anyone leave all this behind?”

“Rampant virus? Fried the whole network?”

“Maybe. Still. You’d think they’d chop the components up and sell them for scrap.”

“Not everyone is as frugal as we are. This place screams government contract. It’s ugly and over the top at the same time.”

Aiden barked out a laugh and took the left indicated on his map. There was a staircase ahead of him, and a door marked STORAGE. He headed up the stairs, then down the corridor to the right of the landing.

“Third door on the left,” Cairn crackled in his ear.

“You know, I can read the map all on my own.”

“Yes, but I’m bored over here, and annoying you is fun.”

Aiden rolled his eyes, and then blinked twice to deactivate the map. “You wanna play conductor, that’s fine by me.”

Aiden approached the door. It was one of the few doors he’d seen in the station with an additional keypad lock. He entered the code Cairn relayed for him and the door slid open.

To Aiden’s surprise, the walls were painted a peaceful lilac shade. The lighting was less harsh in here, due to the natural-toned old-fashioned bulbs in the lamps scattered around the room. There was furniture in here, a dresser and a desk. The room was the only one on the ship Aiden had encountered with any personality. He frowned when he noticed the calendar hung on the wall was ninety-five years out of date.