Playing Favorites
“A punishment to some, to some a gift, and to many a favor.”
---Lucius Annaeus Seneca
“No I am not the Assistant Manager of the lab...” her nostrils flared with the riposte. She had to take a deep breath and remember that it really didn't matter what this person, or anyone else for that matter, thought about her, her position, or the lab. She had a charter from the Executive Director to achieve specific goals---this cover was just that: a well constructed mask. In a gentler tone, “...I am just a struggling lass from the highlands, however if you would wait here, I'm certain I can arrange for you to interview one of the management.”
“Thanks Doll, that'd be super!” the agent grinned in triumph. “And if we could be allowed to bring along our cameras?...”
Tera was careful not to roll her eyes, but maintained her grip on civility. “I will see what I can do. If you will wait here?” And she finally made the foyer of her own facility. “Inger,” she needn't have raised her voice; the Chief of Security for the labs was always at the doors in the morning. “Please find Clara or Jack and give them heads up that they have an eager journalist waiting out front...”
“Yes Ma'am. Und guten tag!” Inger was still trying to get used to the position, she reminded herself as she breezed passed the screening machines and the rest of the formidable security measures keeping plain folks at bay.
“Ms. Elphinstone, the progress reports from the night shift are on your desk and I made sure the department heads are aware of the meeting change.” Her lieutenants were nothing if not organized, she thought and flung her coat and shoulder bag onto the layout table next to her desk.
“Thanks Vince, now if the espresso machine is working...”
He winced and disappeared, closing her doors behind him. Talking to herself was just a way of organizing her thoughts she justified and opened her mouth to emphasize, “The Boss does it; must be useful...” reassuring herself. “Now,” she reached for the reports, hoping the milestones that were supposed to have been reached last night--- “are we ahead or trailing?”
Vince glided to the desk, set down the demitasse and let himself out again. She reached for the cup; took a sip...
Her vision began swimming and the scene before her blurred. “Crap!” she struggled up against the restraints. “Another damn memory!” She tossed her head back and forth to get her hair out of her mouth and hopefully dislodge the probes and wires decorating her scalp; her arms and legs strapped so tightly to the bed/table their usefulness was passed futility. The caked and clotted bloody streaks up and down her arms and legs were testament that she had been out of the restraints at least long enough to gain them. “I hope that was entertaining enough for you!” she blasted, though her voice was raw and thin. “Whoop, whoop! Another exciting memory of reading reports! You guys are sooo not getting anywhere!”
Her minor rebellion in the face of her dire predicament was all she really had to keep her sanity over the last... how long had she been tucked away in this Naudi hell-hole? The dim and bare closet of a room with its blank walls and ceiling, and that smell! “What is this stench!” she repeated for the hundredth time at least. She had a suspicion that it was her own loss of hygiene... And again she tried to shake her head clear of the fog descending...
The night closed in on her where she crouched in the shadows of the alley. Her mind always drifted back to those morbid recollections when she wasn't careful. The chill of the fog on her hands and face brought her out of her private hell. She glanced across the street for any sign that her marks had arrived without her noticing. Nothing. Just the erratic pulse of the abused neon sign over the tattoo shop window answered her scan. 'Won't be long...' she muttered under her breath.
She stood and retreated deeper into the shadows. Circling the building without a sound through the narrow alleys was all that suggested she was haunting the shop across the street. The sounds of splishing steps grew louder as she emerged at her other secret peeping spot. The figures of a couple, both the same height, but one stumbling and reeling next to the other, solidified from out of the gloom. 'That's my Jack and Jill; tardy as usual...' As they passed her station she crept out behind them before they could reach the flickering neon light. Silent as death, she slipped 'a package' into the coat pocket of the reeling fellow; the girl none the wiser for the movement. Tera was out of sight again in an instant into the vacant doorway of a neighboring shop. The tattoo parlor door opened and the tinkling of the little bell over it as it shut was dampened by the roiling mists at once.
Tera stepped out of the shadow and walked casually back up the way the couple had come. “Four, three, two, one...” There was a flash of light that lit up the narrow lane for several moments. At once it became darker than it had been but for only a split second. She lifted her wrist to her face. “Ready for pick-up...” she uttered matter-of-factly and continued on up the shadowy lane toward the brighter lights and festive shouts and music of the boulevard.
She threw back her overcoat and put on her best 'let's get this party on!' face as she joined a band of revelers just coming out of one of the hundred bars and honky-tonks lining the strip. Her tight red dress glowed as bright as the thousand lanterns swaying overhead to mark the third night of celebration over the people's recent liberation from their overlords. Her matching red heels clicked on the cobblestones behind the little knot of revelers. She moved like a drunken debutant until she reached the Underground. Slipping down the stairs she pulled the coat up tighter again and slumped onto a bench to wait for the train.
'One more errand and I'm shut of this little backwater planet...' she sighed and glanced down at her shoes. 'And something more comfortable...' The approaching screech of grinding metal heralded the train. She rose, intuitively glanced back and forth across the platform; no movement. She positioned herself near the boarding steps still semi-covered by the pillars. The cars stopped with a whistle and whoosh, the doors snapped open. She waited until the last second and leapt as they slammed shut and the train took off for the next stop.
There were only a handful of passengers. The rest of the district's residents were all back up on the strip carousing and drinking their brains out. 'Save two notable exceptions...' she reminded herself with a grim smile. She made a little cough and brought her wrist to her face again, “Fourteen minutes till second package drop.” Her voice was low and her eyes took in the entire contents of the carriage. Still nothing. Through the windows, low lit side tunnels and the under-lit passing trains smeared by. A mechanical gong announced the next stop and she hunkered down in the seat, looking for all the world like a bag lady or other of the teaming homeless vagabonds that were ubiquitous of late.
An elderly lady and her nurse stepped into the car. Tera scrutinized the pair, ensuring they were who they appeared to be. Satisfied, she relaxed a bit and reran her next 'drop-off' in her mind. Another gong and she was up at the door as it opened, and was across the platform like a phantom, no one the wiser for her passage.
Again she emerged from her overcoat like a butterfly from a chrysalis and allowed as much attention to herself as could be offered by this new avenue of celebrants and their raucous singing, laughter and shrieks of ridiculousness. Two blocks later she pushed through the polished glass revolving doors into the elegant foyer of a grand building. Smiling coquettishly at the poor saps who drew the short straws for nightwatchman duties she bounced up the broad stairs drawing both their attentions absolutely. 'Never under-estimate the power of moving mammaries!' she grinned back at them when she reached the mezzanine and ducked into the ladies room.
The door had only just shut and she was transformed again. The seductive costume of the early night replaced by the dark matte skintight suit of a shadow. She leapt onto the sink counter and was inside the ventilation shaft without a sound. “Countdown to drop on my mark,” she whispered to her invisible comrades. “Mark.”
She moved like a cat through the winding shafts with the surety of one who had been there before. Suddenly stopping over a vented juncture, she rose up through the hatch and climbed the service ladder to the maintenance door above her. A moment to trick the lock and she opened the door enough to look down the empty upper floor hall.
She slipped a plastic wedge into the lock and let the door close, her ear pressed to its surface. The clomp of leather shoes barely rose in tempo as she listened. Again she held her breath, waited as the steps passed her door. She moved silently out into the hall, slipped another 'something' into the pocket of the suited gentleman just passing and was hidden in the alcove opposite her door in a blink.
The gentleman turned the corner at the end of the hallway and she opened the door behind her in the alcove. Crossing the suite, she burned the locked latch of the window with a pencil laser and pushed it open. The muted din of the streets below instantly pervaded the stillness of the vacant rooms. She crept out onto the ledge and began the short climb up the wall, moving like a spider over the glass and steel. At the roof, she picked up the backpack left for her there and pulled out her last disguise.
A roar erupted in the floors beneath her as she smiled mischievously and jumped from the roof.
The dank night air rushed over her face. She blinked back the gathering moisture in her eyes and glided toward the rows of piers at the harbor. Spotting the one vessel she knew was waiting just for her, she made a barrel-roll to drop some velocity and pushed herself into a spread eagle that fully dampened her descent. Dropping softly onto the upper deck of the ship. Two assistants helped her out of the flying gear.
“It's good to have you back Boss;” said the slightly shorter of the two.
“Mistress is waiting. If you take my meaning, ma'am,” intimated the other.
The first one held open the hatch leading to the bridge of the vessel, “We're cleared for lift off, at your discretion Boss...”
Tera marched onto the bridge and sat in the captain's chair. “Let's blow this backwater little satellite! Mama's got an appointment with her majesty and she doesn't want to be late.”
She turned to the pilot, “Our two 'guests' situated securely? Sadly, I over estimated the charge for the third... Que lastima...”
“Yes ma'am,” came the curt response as the ship shuddered and rose. “Anticipated docking in forty minutes...”
Tera touched a panel on the arm of the chair, “The Elf, here. Special delivery expected inside the hour. Please have my bounty waiting, we shan't be docked longer than necessary. Her Eminence is expecting me and I won't keep the Matriarch waiting!”
The blurred points of light through the main viewer crystalized into a familiar pattern of stars, then just as suddenly they blinked out as the little scout ship went into wrinkle drive. “Good. Alert me in twenty. I'm going to have a bath.” With that she left the bridge and sauntered across her quarters dropping bits of her clothes in trail behind her. “Shower.” She said with not a little anticipation in her voice. The hot spray of water and steam filled the bright chamber and she was enfolded. “Aah...”
Tera Elphinstone. Born Earth. Recruited Lascor Special Operations after first contact. Indentured Contract Operative for three years and four months following her extensive training period with the Selective Services Adminstration. Answerable only to the Matriarch. Anticipated release from indenture: three days, seven hours and... “Twelve minutes. Can't come too soon...” she repeated to herself as she toweled off and pulled her court robes from the drawer. “Dressing like a geisha is one of the things I'll be missing about this gig!” She writhed and wriggled into the costume and did a turn in front of the mirror, making a practice flourish. The translucent, billowing folds of the robes swelled then snapped around her figure like saran wrap in the blink of an eye.
“Perfection;” a voice uttered mechanically through the speakers as the Elf gazed, satisfied at the display.
“Yes. It should be; I've only done it a thousand times...” the Elf responded. “Inform the Matriarch the Naud's last remaining 'errant children' from Tabila are on their way to the 're-education' facilities.” She smiled “Via channels, naturally. A girl's allowed a kickback from time to time. These two were very naughty boys and girls. The one I left in pieces was positively... evil. I'll have his price in rhodium if you please.”
“Understood,” retorted the voice and the speaker went silent.
Under her breath, “Damn snooping, department staff...” she muttered at the pervasive monitoring busybodies who intruded at the most inopportune moments.
The Elf was on her last assignment. “Where shall I visit first?” she mused half aloud to herself. Crossing to the view port in her quarters she gazed out at the smears of light that were the passing stars. “Not a Naudi outpost or haven, that's a given!” she stamped and turned to return to bridge. 'Had enough of that lot on behalf of our latest well-paying clients...' It was always best to appear at command when dealing with these quasi-directors. 'Directors,' she sniffed at the title. As if the witless automatons directed anything in reality. A pinging chime announced her return to the Bridge.
“Bring us out of wrinkle, and hail the Directorate of Naudi Diaspora Re-assimilation;” she commanded.
The screen filled with the well-groomed face of a man she didn't recognize---and no wonder, the Directorate had a higher turn-over than a brothel of lepers. “Docking permission requested and bounty dispersement expected, as notified...” her com officer announced to the blank face of the director.
“Dock ten.” The face mouthed mechanically and added, “Disbursement delayed...”
The Elf leaned forward menacingly from the captain's chair toward the screen. Through clenched teeth she repeated evenly: “If this delay is greater than a nano-second, this facility will be missing its charter the next second later...”
The screen blipped with static for a moment and the smiling face of a woman replaced that of the droll little man's visage. “Miscommunication. 'Delay' is a misnomer. A simple exchange is all, we take custody of the packages and you have your bounty. No delay, I assure you. The Matriarch need not be involved in the slightest...”
“Satisfactory;” the Elf replied smoothly and cut the link. “Skip protocols and put us at dock ten. Now.”
“Yes Captain,” the smirking voice of her pilot answered. This was more like it!
There was a bumping and a sudden stillness. “Oops, we may have crumpled their umbilicals as we transited, Captain...” her pilot pointed out without remorse.
The Elf was at the docking hatch in a flash. Her two 'packages,' the 'emigrees' who had at last been returned, flanked her, blindfolded and bound. She pushed them through to the platform ahead of her. The waiting 'reception committee' took custody and a tallish woman stepped forward extending a small shimmering cube in her hand as she did so. “Your bounty Captain. And may I add...”
“Not interested;” the Elf spat as she turned, grabbed the offered reward and shut the hatch on the emissary before she could finish her short speech. “Bounce!” the Elf said without hesitation.
The little scout ship blinked from the dock and was in wrinkle toward Lascor inside three seconds. “We'll arrive at Court in eighteen hours and thirty-three minutes Ma'am;” the voice of her navigator announced over the speakers.
“I'll be in my quarters. Please knock three times....” That was ship's code for disabling the snoop monitors' signal.
A moment, and there came: “Captain, free to be yourself ma'am. All department signals jammed.”
“I'll be in my quarters.” the Elf strode up through the short corridor removing her official robes as she went. “I need a nap...”
There is a back story to this little escapade.
The Elf; Tera Inghean Elphinstone, was the second child of a very happy couple residing on their ancestral highlands in the village of Fortingall. The Elphinstones were a modest folk but not provincial by any stretch. Their children, as they themselves before them, were shuffled off to the Universities on the continent as soon as admissions were secured. Tera and her older sister were natural scholars and graduated with highest honors in less than the prescribed four years. Fortunate, that. Their parents died in a rail accident a few months later.
Her sister, Mara, accepted a research/teaching position at the Max Plank Institute; Tera went into the corporate world with a definite attitude. The Drummond Group made her an offer she couldn't refuse and in seven years after the first months of her employ, she became one of a handful of Directors overseeing the most vast and influential engine for change on the planet.
Then company operations took a turn for the interplanetary and Tera's future went with it.
It seemed innocuous enough. Just a little assignment to inventory the Seranath Trade Guild holdings outside the Nourii systems before formal negotiations for merger would be drafted by the Drummond Group attorneys. A precious few people from Earth had ever heard of the Naud, let alone the Lascorii. The latter was intentional.
History Lesson One---the Lascorii:
Setting: Central band of star systems in Nourii traded space within the Orion Spur. Colonization had been ramped up to ensure that their hold on the habitable worlds nearest at hand provided a buffer. A necessary barrier of sorts for discouraging any other peoples from reaping the resources needed by their own ever-growing and expanding culture.
On one of those, less hospitable colonized worlds---Lascor---a strange mutation began to appear in the second generation of the settlers. The Emigration Commission's lead biologists were summoned, tests and research concluded the unthinkable. The environment of the colony's planet had worked with surprising swiftness to twist their genetic heritage. The younger generation suffered not at all in the rather dangerous environment of the planet supporting the remote colony. The only really disturbing side-effects of the mutation were that the offspring were all female and upon adolescence exuded a most distinct and powerful pheromone---Wonderful for further protecting them from the harsh atmosphere, however deleterious to common interaction with their former Nourii brethren.
The Lascor colony was quarantined, all settlers screened and those not possessing the mutation were evacuated. Sisters were ripped from brothers, wives from husbands and little girls orphaned by their grieving families. The 'afflicted' generation was abandoned to their own devices. The 'Lascorii,' as they were referred to by the hushed and shamed voices of the few Nourii directly involved in the action, were left without any apparent means of self-continuation. An all-female population boded ill for any future they might have wished for themselves, in the face of complete isolation, with the complete lack of Nourii contact there was a total vacuum regarding material support. That was well over twenty-seven hundred years ago.
At the time of the enacted quarantine, a mere couple dozen of the women were with child. Hope against hope arose in all of them that male children might be forthcoming. Some glimmer of a chance that perhaps their doom was not sealed. Such was their brief joy when in fact there were male offspring born. Sadly, as it turned out, they were sterile...
Lascor itself is situated at the farthest boundaries of Nourii occupied space and as such was visited infrequently by scout ships and the occasional trading vessels requiring refueling and resupply over the vast range of their routes. It took the Lascorii little experience with those impromptu 'guests' to realize what an affect their own bodies' atmospheres had on the unsuspecting travelers---whatever their origins. In a word, they were mesmerized and compliant.
The first Lascorii woman to recognize the potential of their natural influence over any and all visitors also took advantage of that first opportunity from the unlooked for visitors to guarantee herself, and her clan, supplies from the visiting vessel, the indefinite company of several of the male crew and: children. She was Lei'tressa Reja Tei Emiclairsenne. Thereafter honored by her 'sisters' as Lei'tressa Reja Tei Emiclairsenne I, first Matriarch of Lascor.
With their survival no longer hanging in the balance, the subsequent centuries saw the blossoming of their society and culture. The force of natural selection had created them and their world; they responded the only way they could. They developed their own version of their history, codified their own traditions of proper conduct, of leadership, of succession, of lifestyle, training children---all girls for the most part---and most importantly for this particular story: their own very unique foreign policy.
It might occur to lesser minds and hearts that the use of the Lascorii Flame, as their singular enchantments were reverently referred to, might be used as a weapon of conquest, of absolute control and domination. That was not the path down which the Matriarchs of the Lascorii guided their people however. They had had to develop superior cunning, become masters---mistresses, rather---of illusion, supreme manipulators of deceit and misdirection as their native weapons. All valuable strategic tools in the arsenal of the most adept culture of espionage ever birthed in the galaxy.
The Lascorii exported their sole sovereign gifts to the highest bidders. A veritable black market of black ops. Ships, they had. Resources, they acquired. A reputation... they cultivated. The 'Matriarch of the Lascorii' became a title synonymous with power and unqualified obeisance among their clients; but with fear, mistrust and loathing from the Nourii peoples who had shuttered their memories of any connection with the shadowy sirens of Lascor.
It should not be surprising how several centuries of professional espionage shapes a culture. The children of the 'royal' household bore the brunt of the rigorous and methodical training disciplines prescribed for every Lascorii child---girl. The patterns of instruction, the structural scaffolding of their path began at last to resemble more the tenets of a spiritual discipline more than the rigors of clandestine occupational training. With that evolved an ethos of self-justice, a pervasive sense of destiny, an atmosphere not just of legitimacy---but de facto Lascorii superiority and absolute spiritual authority.
The Lascorii were nothing if not devout. That their 'business' was other peoples' secrets was merely sauce for the goose, as it were. Fast forward to the last decades, and the emergence of a distant frontier world entering into the commonwealth of systems already enjoying peaceful trade—naturally moderated and manipulated by the shadowy puppet-masters of Lascor. A frontier world remote and isolated, now shedding it's former provincial cosmic perspective and being welcomed by the rest of the civilized systems of the Spur---Earth, or as was referred to by everyone else: Enta.
While other cultures were securing trade agreements for import and export of goods and such particular to the worlds themselves, the Lascorii had a slightly unique take on the notion of import/export. The Lascor made sure they had the 'pick of the litter' when it came to developing 'partnerships' with the new people. Agents were dispatched and directives were issued demanding the best of the best be brought home to Lascor for possible 'recruitment and training.' As it happens in many quasi-religious movements, there is a drive toward selective proselytization that is too seductive to be ignored. The Lascorii had the rarest form of that infection. They 'allowed' selective inclusion into their ranks for the betterment of other cultures.
That was the sole charter of the Lascorii Department of Selective Service overseen by her eminence herself and offering term contracts of indenture to only the most fortunate of candidates—long contracts to those with obvious and demonstrable potential; short-term contracts to those of marginal ability but with verifiable possibilities. In the not so distant past of the aforementioned frontier world, that particular activity was referred to by the epithet: shanghai-ing crew-mates---a gross interpretation of the Lascorii version.
History Lesson Two---The Naud:
From the boundary worlds of the Spur bordering the Sagittarii Arm, a people arose who weren't given to peaceful coexistence in any form, whether with themselves or, as it became apparent, with anyone else. Their only solidarity came in the form of mutual cooperation when they encountered 'visitors' the first time. That first trading scout ship disappeared and was not heard from again. The Naud were not inventive, they didn't construct engineering marvels, they weren't even terribly adept at finding their way around. However they discovered that they were masters at usurping technology. The first scout ship, her crew summarily dispatched, became the Naud ticket to other worlds ripe for the picking.
Lacking any navigational prowess, it took centuries for them to stumble upon the civilized worlds of peaceful commerce. Their infrequent encounters with any vessels in their path added to their fleets and to their ever growing arsenal of destructive technologies. One of their talents lay in the twisting of useful and harmless technology into offensive destruction. That talent aided them in so far as the worlds they ultimately found offered little or no armed resistance. Their empire was in its infancy, but growing rapidly and becoming a force to be reckoned with by the elder alliances of worlds established in the central bands of the Spur.
The Naud methods of operation had changed little from those first early days of raiding and pillaging: Make first encounter, Determine the worth to themselves of the resources available, Commandeer the technology---and enslave those who knew how to use it, until such time as the Naud themselves were competent enough to operate it, Dispatch 'assistants,' Move on to the next. Simple.
So it happened that when Tera Elphinstone, on her reconnaissance mission for the Seranath Trade Guild and Drummond Group, blithely showed up on one of the worlds infrequently visited by the Naud, she was 'welcomed' with a bit more than open arms. She was 'invited' to remain indefinitely as a 'special guest.' Her 'hosts' were more than a little curious about the frontier world of her arising and more importantly the technological achievements of that world. Her extended stay with the Naud 'interviewers' was a living hell in the midst of which she had a growing wish to just die and be done with it. It was a stroke of greatest good fortune for her, then, that a Lascorii Contract had been accepted by the Matriarch to penetrate the ranks of the prison world in which Tera had been a heavily restrained guest. Within a fortnight of the Lascorii infiltration of the odious network of interrogation levels at the main complex, Tera was found, identified as being unique among the other inmates of that particular ring of hell, and as quickly liberated from the escape vessel chartered to remove many of the more valuable 'guests.'
She was offered transport for return to her former life, yet to her way of thinking, the obligation to her rescuers outweighed the mundanity of the interplanetary surveying she had occupied herself before her Naudi 'vacation.' She was enfolded into the Lascorii Selective Services almost as soon as her physical and mental wounds were healing and she was exemplary in adopting even the most nuanced of the culture and its people. It was during her training period that the Matriarch herself took special notice of the immaculate young warrior rapidly rising through the programs.
The Elf shuddered out of habit when she awoke from her nap and looked out of habit at the scars on the backs of her hands and arms. A grim reminder that she had successfully graduated (read: been liberated) from the nightmare that was the 'Naudi Investigation Institute.' She had, from the capable and brilliant Director of the most prestigious trade and negotiations entity on her home world---through the bowels of hell itself---to become the multi-talented, superlatively lethal Las