This excerpt is from the beginning and doesn’t really need much explaining. Bear in mind that it’s in draft form. And no, I couldn’t come up with a better name for the agent than XYZ.
They were persistent, she’d give them that much. Sabella cursed as a blip showed up behind her on the scan. She rubbed the grit out of her eyes and fought back exhaustion. If she didn’t get some proper sleep soon, she was afraid she was going to pass out, and then it would be game over. She thought she’d lost them in the nebula two days back, but she’d no sooner shut her eyes then the alarm from the scanner sounded.
A little over a week ago she’d been contemplating a change of career. Her work as a linguistics specialist provided enough credits to pay for a small apartment of her own and a few luxuries, but working for the Talarian Corporation wasn’t what she thought it would be. And when the rumors of their shady dealings started to surface, she started looking for a position somewhere else.
In fact, she’d been approached by an agent for the Federated Security Alliance to help them, undercover of course, to investigate some of the company’s dealings. While he was adamant that she not take any unnecessary risk, they were getting desperate for inside information. All she needed to do was keep her ears open.
It seemed simple enough, when he laid it out for her, and she readily agreed. To be honest, her job was a little monotonous and her skills were underutilized. And it bothered her, the rumors about some of the shadier dealings, the arms dealing to smugglers and the trafficking in human and alien slaves.
So she kept her ears open as she went about her work, and paid close attention to who was coming and going in the offices of the supervisors. Then four days ago she had been in the break room when she’d been close enough to a table full of executives discussing details of a shipment of hominids. They were speaking in Frezian, an uncommon dialect but one she was trained in. She’d edged as close as she could to them, but one of them grew suspicious and spoke to her.
“I’m sorry,” she said, smiling apologetically. “I’m afraid I don’t understand what you’re saying.”
“You are a linguist, are you not?” the man asked, voice heavily accented.
“Yes, I specialize in Cretian and Zenarii. What language were you speaking, I don’t think I’ve ever heard it before,” she said, striving to show an innocent curiosity.
It must have worked, because the man muttered something under his breath and then turned away. She worked to the end of her shift, conscious the whole time of being under scrutiny and trying not to react to it. But she breathed a sigh of relief when her shift was done and she was able to leave, chatting and laughing with several of her co-workers as though she hadn’t a care in the world.
The moment she was safely in her apartment she activated the null field and then contacted the agent on the secure communicator he’d supplied her with.
“You’re sure of the day and time,” he’d asked her.
“I have an eidetic memory,” she told him. “I remember exactly what they said.”
“Good work. If we can get our people in place, we might be able to take the entire network down. But what about you?”
“What about me?”
“Are you sure they didn’t know you understood Frezian?”
“I’m pretty sure,” she said, not sure at all. “They’d have to do a deep dive into my records to find out the truth. I’m pretty sure it was one of the languages I listed on my resume.” She was starting to get a little nervous.
“But they don’t know who you are to do that, right?”
“Well . . .” she hesitated. “We’re required to wear our ID badges. If he caught a glimpse of the one I was wearing he might have caught my employee number.”
The agent swore. “I think just to be on the safe side, I think this would be a good time to take a vacation.”
“A vacation? Do you really think that’s necessary?”
“Maybe, maybe not. But better to be safe than sorry. I can arrange for you to go to a safe place. If something goes wrong, we’ll need you to testify. How soon can you be ready to go?”
Now she was seriously getting nervous. “I’ve got plenty of vacation time accrued, but won’t it look suspicious if I take it now?”
“Pretend you have a family emergency,” he directed. “I’ll meet you at the spaceport in 90 minutes. South entrance, bay two.”
“You’re starting to scare me, Agent XYZ,” she said.
“I’m sorry, but what you’ve stumbled on is bigger than I expected. I’ll get the take-down in motion and meet you at the space port.”
“South entrance, bay two,” she repeated.
She’d sent a message to her supervisor at work, telling her that she had a family emergency and would need to use some of her vacation time. Her supervisor messaged her back telling her to take as much time as she needed, things were slow at work right now anyway. Then she threw a few necessities – toiletries, a couple of changes of clothes – into a shoulder bag and headed to the spaceport.
The space port was always busy, day or night. As she passed through the south entrance and headed towards bay two, she couldn’t help but feel like she was being followed. She looked around furtively, but couldn’t see anyone, but the sensation of being watched didn’t abate.
The bays usually held six ships, but bay two only had one. As she approached she realized there was something lying at the base of the ramp leading to it. Something that resolved itself into Agent XYZ. She knelt beside him with a gasp.
He reached up with one bloody hand, and pressed a security disc into her hand. “Take the ship,” he gasped. “Run!”
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