The Convoy; Shadow Raptors Volume V by Sławomir Nieściur

Author:Sławomir Nieściur
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: aliens, space war, stargates, colonization, space habitats, alien invasion, Epsilon Eridani
Publisher: Royal Hawaiian Press
Published: 2023-11-27T00:00:00+00:00

14.

Sigil Autonomy Council Building

Moon of Sigil

The Epsilon Eridani planetary system

"One hundred unitas or ten local petrals," the sentry announced phlegmatically, placing a payment terminal on the counter. The device's display pulsed with the message that the transaction needed to be confirmed.

Standing in front of the counter, the two planetary counterintelligence officers looked surprised.

"Excuse me?" asked one of them. "Should we pay for entry?"

Broad in the shoulders, wearing a muscular body-hugging traveling uniform, even hunched over he towered over the guard by a good thirty centimeters.

"Not for the entrance, but for the passage of the transport capsule," the soldier explained calmly. "The dome is more than four kilometers in diameter and has a spiral layout of transportation routes. The chairman's office is in the very center of it. If you docked in the upper hangar, you could get to the administrative sector in five minutes, and so only the magnetic train remains." He spread his hands. "Well, unless you want to crawl an hour on foot."

"We don't have payment cards," the second officer, shorter and fatter, spoke up. Drops of sweat pearled on his shaved head.

"In that case, you must return to the transport ship and go around the dome. There is no other option."

"Listen, Private..." began the taller man threateningly, reaching over the counter to grab the soldier by the lapels of his uniform. The sentry immediately put his hand on the handle of the flechette thrower.

"Miguel!" growled the bald man, then with a swift movement grabbed his comrade by the wrist and forcibly pulled him away from the countertop. "Forgive us, Private, the colleague is a little irritated. You know how it is when you pull a man out of bed in the middle of the night," he said, smiling apologetically at the guard. "Why don't we settle this... uhm... less officially?" he winked communicatively, then took out a purple-gold bill folded in half and put it in front of the guard. "Is this much enough?"

The soldier immediately nodded.

"Yes," he replied briefly. He opened the drawer and scraped into it first the bill and then the terminal. "Capsule number three," he added after a moment and nodded with his chin toward the bulkhead twenty meters away, over which a red lamp was lit. "Code two-two-zero-two." He tapped out something on a keyboard built into the countertop.

As the men took a quick step in the indicated direction, he called the garrison commander through the communicator.

***

"Somehow empty..." muttered Inspector Delgado, looking around the deserted magnetic train platform. The walls, lined with shiny metal, reflected perhaps a hundred percent of the light, and upon exiting the plunging semi-darkness of the capsule until he stopped, blinded by the glare.

The capsule from which they had just disembarked moved with a hiss to return. After a few seconds, it disappeared around a bend in the corridor.

"Have you ever been here?" asked his companion, Markus Grimm. As deputy director of planetary counterintelligence, he rarely left AEgir, concentrating instead on overseeing the activities of subordinate services, which

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