Page 60 of Cloverleaf Station

“If I’m lucky,” Kieron muttered as Lizzie entered the atmosphere above the smaller second continent of the planet. Elenus, for once, didn’t push him. Kieron was grateful for that.

Trakta was a developed planet, with thousands of cities, but the second continent was comparatively much more rural than the larger, primary one. Lizzie followed the flight path that would lead them to the northernmost city, Nephra.

Landing was easy—Lizzie handled it so smoothly Kieron didn’t even think about intervening in any step. Once they’d finally put down in a commercial landing space, though, she asked a bit timidly, “Was that good?”

Kieron smiled and patted her console. “It was perfect. You can follow along on my implant and watch, okay? Remember how we practiced?” Slowly, a soft green light came into focus in the bottom right corner of his vision. “Can you see all right?”

“Yes. Thank you. I can’t wait to see a whole new planet!”

“Or at least part of one,” Kieron amended. His implant was beeping insistently with an incoming communication from the port authority. “Hang on, Lizzie.” He switched his focus. “This is Kieron Carr.”

“Mr. Carr, this is Commander Xelo with Nephra Port North. We’re detecting unusual levels of radiation from your ship.”

“We came here straight from the Cloverleaf Quasar,” Kieron replied. “That’s probably why.”

“Our projections indicate that more of that radiation should have dissipated before your arrival here.”

Lizzie’s hull is an older version of Catie’s radiation shielding. It must be more absorptive. In the background, he could hear Elenus swearing softly over the ship speaker. “I’ll have to perform some diagnostic tests to figure out the issue. Is this going to preclude us from keeping our berth?”

“No,” the voice on the other end of the message said reluctantly, “the levels aren’t quite that high. But we’ll have to keep other ships a farther minimum safe distance from yours. You’ll incur as much as twice the original docking fee.”

“Do it,” Elenus urged him almost silently.

“That’s fine,” Kieron said. “Anything else?”

“If the interior of your ship is poorly shielded, your person may have incurred serious radiation damage on your way here.”

That was possible, but Regen could fix a hell of a lot of radiation damage. Ask me how I know. “I presume you have Regen tanks. If it’s a matter of cost, I can—”

“Regen is for citizen use only.”

Kieron was surprised. “Why is that?” he asked. “Regen gel is a readily available resource, and Alliance law states that—”

“Regen is for citizen use only,” the commander reiterated firmly. “If you become sick, you’ll have to return to your ship or leave the planet altogether. Any attempt to circumvent this will be met with force. Is that understood?”

“Yes,” Kieron said quietly.

“Good. You may debark.” The communication ended. A light on the console blinked, informing Kieron that a holo call from Elenus was waiting for him.

Holo calls from this distance took an obscene amount of power. It had to be something serious.

He accepted the call. It was the first time he’d seen Elenus in three weeks, and he looked a bit wild around the edges, the crisp lines of his beard beginning to blur, his hair standing up like he’d been running his fingers through it.

He was gorgeous. Kieron had to clear his throat. “Hi.”

“Trakta is being kicked out of the Alliance.”

Kieron closed his eyes for a moment to help get his brain back online. “There hasn’t been any news of that,” he finally said.

“They’re doing their damndest to make sure there isn’t news about it. The Alliance severed diplomatic ties last month, and they’ll be pulling out their military assistance and major investments soon. The banking system is on the verge of collapse. Trade is going to be hugely impacted. There will be repercussions felt from this for decades.”

“Why, though?”

“Inclusiveness versus fundamentalism,” Elenus said tiredly. “Trakta’s parliament is passing laws that explicitly go against the Alliance charter. They did it knowing they were going to get slapped and have layers and layers of fail-safes in place to make sure word gets out slowly, and the panic can be minimized. Their efforts aren’t going to work for much longer, though. They’re running out of Regen, and they can’t synthesize it themselves.”

Ah. All of a sudden, the worries over radiation and the fee gouging made more sense. “Shit.”

“Yeah.” There went Elenus’s hand into his hair again. “Kieron, they can’t know about Lizzie. If they realize they have a novel, cutting-edge technological wonder in their docking bay, they’ll never let you go. They’ll impound her and ransom her, if I’m lucky, or take her apart in an effort to find out how to make more of her. That’s nothing to say of what they could do to you, which—they’re exiling their own people to other planets; I can’t imagine they’d be too fussed over stealing your things and kicking you onto a transport or just shooting you through the head and being done with it. I can’t—you have to—”