This is a story that started with a stand-alone post responding to a writing prompt in the Worldbuilding Community, and now we're on Part 4.
I've been trying to use the writing prompts to guide the direction of the story, although I must admit sometimes (especially in this case !) they're more loose guidelines that I stretch to breaking point !
If you like what I've written, I'll list all the previous parts of the story at the end of the post so you can catch up with what has happened so far.
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Knocking back another shot of a clear liquid that was quite literally moonshine, Captain Holmen smiled lazily at the fuzzy-faced orange alien sitting opposite him.
He kept his lips closed while he did this; he knew that the Jarallans' distant ancestors were a prey species, and no amount of evolution would ever rid them of an atavistic fear of a face full of teeth in front of them.
"Soooo," he drawled in his best conversational tone, "Did you hear the one about the tax collector who did a bunk with all the money ?"
The Jarallan's lips made an "O" shape, and his eyes widened a little. "Isn't that just some spacer myth ? Crazy stuff like that doesn't happen for real, does it ?"
Holmen shrugged. "I was hoping you could tell me. After all, anyone who has a reason to run and something to hide eventually ends up on Debris, so I hear."
He looked like that kind of person himself, as a matter of fact. His smart grey uniform was safely tucked away aboard the Tarnished Phoenix. Wearing that openly on the aggregated wreckage that had been mashed together to form the habitat of Debris was probably the shortest suicide note in the universe.
So now he wore a rather flamboyant outfit with scarlet flared trouserboots, a sky blue patterned blouson and a lime green pressure cape. The kind of thing a reasonably successful asteroid miner would wear; comfortable and practical garments that would save his life if the pressure dropped, but in zany enough colours to indicate individualism. He hated the outfit with a passion.
He'd been working the bars of Debris for a fortnight now, seeking information on the fugitive named Fedric. His supply of anti-toxin pills was running low, and he didn't fancy having to sleep off a hangover every morning in the name of investigative research.
Holmen's mind was dragged back to the here-and-now as the Jarallan spoke to him. "No-one's been spending the kind of cash that would get a being spaced. So it can't be true, or it is true and they are clever enough to keep a very, very low profile. Duplicated bankimplants so no-one sees the real credit balance, that kind of stuff. Maybe a face-change, as well. There are some good black market surgeons here on Debris."
"Perhaps you could recommend one to me ?" Holmen asked softly. "I can think of a couple of minor bodymods I could do with, and only want to use the best surgeon for the job...."
Holmen put his pocket welder back into it's hidden space in his cape. It might be awful and tasteless, but he had to admit it had an impressive number of extra-dimensional spaces hidden in the lining.
The neat bead of weld he'd put around the scarred, ancient door was cooling. He'd added some weathering effect to the weld, to make it less obvious that the door had been recently modified.
With any luck, it would be a while before anyone found what was left of the doctor and his operating room. They should be long gone and out of Debris space before that happened.
"Well, Captain. What have you discovered ?"
They were back on the Phoenix, in Captain Greville's quarters. Greville herself was also there; although she held no official rank, both of the ASPsmen recognised and valued her experience and her knowledge of Debris in particular. Not to mention that she was their ride home and needed to be in the loop when it came to discussing courses of action.
Holmen cleared his throat. "Our man Fedric has changed himself totally. He's picked up a new face and a new name. It's a total transformation at a cellular and genetic level. But I couldn't get past the doctor's programming to find out the details. The good doctor turned out not to be an alien, it was an Eiheriar infiltration unit."
Greville and ASP-Auditor Grisaille looked shocked.
Grisaille was the first to break the silence. "I know we've got all sorts on Debris, both Imperial and Confed, but that's a high grade machine. Not something that goes rogue, and not something that's dropped off and left on the off-chance that it might stumble into something interesting. What the hell is going on here ? I have a bad feeling we're missing something."
Holmen nodded. "One thing I did get from the doctor was that Fedric didn't pay. It seems the work would have been done anyway, but I was able to extract a fragment of a data recording of the conversation. It's not that the work was offered for free, it's the Fedric was unable to pay, didn't have any funds. So where is the money ?"
"Leave that bit to me. I'm the auditor. Your job is to find this man and bring him in. Fast. Grab him, bring him aboard, and we get out of here. How quickly do you think you can locate him with the information you have ?"
Holmen's face was grim. He hated being put on the spot like this, and he didn't like dealing with officers from the Auditors department with their inbuilt superiority complex. They were nominally of the same rank, but Grisaille was behaving as if he was in charge of the case.
"I can do it within three days. But we'd better be ready to light jets and run the moment I bring him in. I may have to be somewhat unsubtle."
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Dedric whistled softly under his breath as he worked up the passageway, sweeping his broom from side to side and pushing the dust into the pan-bot that trundled alongside him.
He had surprised himself by falling in love with the repetitive monotony of his new job as a corridor sweeper. No-one bothered him, he was all but invisible to the inhabitants of Debris. He'd get the occasional good-natured insult, as most around this quarter didn't know his name, they just called him 'The Hairy Ape' or 'Bignose'.
But today, he felt uneasy. The hair on the back of his neck tickled.
He had just reached the conclusion that someone hidden was watching him when the bag descended over his face. In a flash, it was pulled tight, his arms were pinned, and he could smell a strong odour of chemicals in the cloth as he
..... blacked....
....... out.....
He woke in an antiseptically clean cabin, staring at the grey-white ceiling, strapped to some kind of bed. He could feel the slight hum that told him he was in some kind of spaceship, and it was pushing the engines to maximum power. Looking down over him were two figures in light grey uniforms. ASPsmen. He felt sick to his stomach.
"How... how did you find me ?" he managed to croak.
The ASPsman on the right stared down at him.
"You made an elementary mistake. Debris is to all intents and purposes a closed ecosystem. Once you were there, leaving would get you spotted. So you couldn't leave. The good doctor did an excellent job on your transformation, but even he couldn't overcome a billion years of evolution. Debris is set at two-thirds gravity because that's what the majority of species like. You couldn't hide the extra spring in your step. Oh, and that whistling-under-your-breath thing you do, that was a dead giveaway. Getting a new face is easy, changing the little idiosyncrasies that you're probably hardly aware of, that's much, much harder."
Then the man's face darkened. "But your real mistake was using the doctor in the first place. There aren't many humans who have Einheriar tech embedded into their DNA. Once I knew the Confed were involved, it was logical to look for their technological fingerprint in places it shouldn't be."
To be continued.......
Previous posts in the series:
Part 1 - Worldbuilding Prompt #490 - Storing the taxes safely
Part 2 - Worldbuilding Prompt #491 - Avoiding trouble
Part 3 - Worldbuilding Prompts #493 and #496 - Hiding on Debris
There are also a few related posts from this setting which introduce some of the characters;
Captain Holmen was introduced in Worldbuilding Prompt #471 - A Question of Jurisdiction
Imperial Infomancer Dranton turned up in Worldbuilding Prompt #467 - The Imperial Halls of Information
Greville and the Tarnished Phoenix first appeared in Worldbuilding Prompt #432 - Debris