I watched the whole series in one go, all ten hours of it. After a few minutes it became obvious Vanessa really had told all, including details of some of our more memorable ‘encounters’. While terrible liberties had been taken with the main characters’ wardrobe choice of white shipsuits which seemed to fall apart at the least provocation, the plot actually followed events pretty much as I remembered them and it was as beautiful a bit of anti-corporate, pro-Neko propaganda as I’d ever seen, with Vanessa as the hero. I didn’t come off too badly either.

  Of course, the actors, real actors, mind you, were stunningly good-looking, the spaceships didn’t look like they were held together with duct tape and hope, but the space battles played out how I remembered them and our many questionable, or downright criminal actions were either played for laughs, glossed over, or left out entirely.

  When the last episode finished, the screen turned back into windows revealing the sky was dark and Kacke had turned into a spectacular multi-coloured light show. I asked the house when the next episode would be as the episodes had been released irregularly over the last couple of years, the hype increasing exponentially each time a new episode dropped. It turned out there was one last big episode coming and it would be released in four days' time. Exhausted, I went to bed. As I fell asleep I wondered whether the series was going to leave on a fluffy, feelgood note or was it going to show what actually happened after we won.

  However it ended, I didn’t want to be alone for the conclusion and my last act before falling asleep was to send Zia what, in hindsight, may have been a badly timed message, asking if there was any chance Vanessa would be out of her pod by the time the finale.

  ***

  I awoke to fake sunlight streaming through the bedroom windows. Zia was sitting on the end of my bed, her legs folded up under a sleeveless light green sundress as she read a book.

  “Afternoon sleepyhead. Did you watch every episode last night?” She greeted me.

  “I did. What are you doing here? How did you even get in?” I asked, poking her leg with my toe just to make sure she wasn’t a hologram.

  “As your Handler and Doctor I’m responsible for your mental and physical well being so I have emergency access to your accommodation,” she replied, giving my foot a squeeze.

  “What’s the emergency? Is Vanessa alright?” I asked, sitting up. Zia smiled and handed me a cup of coffee.

  “I knew you cared about her. Don’t worry. Vanessa’s fine. I was worried about you. You stayed up and watched the whole series. Was it traumatising?”

  “I had nightmares about white shipsuits. No-one, ever, in my entire career, has ever worn a white shipsuit.”

  “Apart from the three of us yesterday. Go on then, hit me. Go through every historical inaccuracy. I’m sure you’re dying to.”

  “Actually, everything happened pretty much as shown.”

  “Really? Even the sex?”

  “Well, Vanessa and I did mostly it without an audience or any concern for aesthetics. And no shipsuits suffered any damage before or after. I mean, have you ever tried to tear off a shipsuit?”

  “You mean you really were doing it during that ambush on the mining carrier?” I smiled at the memory and it wasn’t just because the vessel had been called My Mother’s an Ore.

  “They were ahead of schedule… Anyway, aren’t you meant to be on leave? You should be doing stuff with your friends.”

  “I did stuff with my friends last night, and I will be going back and doing more stuff with them tonight when they have recovered a bit. But right now, I am here to look after you because you are my friend too. And Vanessa asked me to keep an eye on you. She’s worried about you.”

  “Really? I’m fine. Is everything alright with you?” I asked. Zia sighed.

  “It was good to see all my friends, I just forgot about all the drama, so much drama. Which is why I’m going to be spending the days with you.”

  “Did you plan on sleeping at any point?”

  “I’m a doctor. Sleep is something that happens to other people. Anyway this is about you. The Galaxy has changed in ways you can’t imagine in the last hundred years and Kacke has changed more than anywhere else. I don’t want you locking yourself in here with just yourself for company.”

  “I wasn’t planning to.”

  “Weren’t you? What are you going to do until Vanessa gets out of her pod then?”

  “Umm, well I promised to get her a wrist-com, I was going to have a bit of a look around…”

  “Good, I’ll show you the best places to get one. And then I’m going to show you the sights.”

  “What? until Vanessa gets out?”

  “During the daytime, yes. At night I have a busy schedule so you will have to make your own entertainment. And whether Vanessa’s out or not, I have VIP tickets to the public screening of the final episode of Centauri Dawn. You’ll meet the actor who played you.”

  “I don’t think…”

  “And before you argue, how many years is it since you last had free time to yourself, like proper free time where you could do what you wanted without anyone trying to stop you.” I thought back, actual free time hadn’t featured much in my life.

  “Hmmm… The last thing I did purely for fun by myself? Probably when I Threaded the Needle back in ‘18.”

  “What is Threading the Needle? Please tell me it’s not some sort of sex thing because you would have been, what? 83 then?”

  “No, Zia, it’s not a sex thing. But old people are allowed to have sex.”

  “Not in front of me… I have trauma from my time in the geriatric wards.”

  “Fine. I will make a point not to have sex in front of you then. Threading the Needle is jumping a ship through the Hawking Cluster. I was the first person to ever do it in two jumps. It was the second to last thing on my bucket list,”

  “Oh. What was the last thing?”

  “Dying in bed with Vanessa,”

  “Aww, how sweet. Well, you still have that to do,”

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  “Err, no, actually, that happened. Believe me it’s overrated. For both parties.”

  “Oh god, I don’t want to know any more. In fact I am banning you from talking to me about sex. Ever.”

  “You started it.” I pointed out.

  “And I’m finishing it. Now hurry up and put your clothes on… These clothes” Zia said, throwing some brightly coloured clothes on the bed.

  “You’re not dressing me as some other fictional character are you?”

  “No, I’m dressing you to blend in and not look like you wandered off the ice fields a hundred and fifty years ago.”

  I got dressed. To be fair to Zia, the clothes weren’t too bad and it meant I fitted in with the crowds, although I suspected I could have worn anything and got away with it, modern Kacke seemed to be that sort of place. I rather liked it.

  Zia took me to the main shopping area, the only one in human controlled space where not only every major Corporation had a store, but the many of the Free System planets and stations were represented… but not on the same street. According to Zia, not even Kacke’s atmosphere of friendly equality could make the Corps and the Free Systems good neighbours. Zia assumed I knew who, or what, the Free Systems were. I made a promise to myself that tonight I would dive into the massive briefing document I’d been given.

  I pointed out to Zia that going into any Corporate stores wouldn’t be the smartest move after tweaking the noses of Sahara Galactic, so we merely enjoyed the light shows and huge animated adverts that each corporation had spent fortunes on trying to outdo each other, then went to the Free System’s streets where sensory overload was an optional extra.

  I have to admit Zia made the whole experience fun, getting me to play the jaded but loaded offworlder trying to impress his native girlfriend. We tried on clothes and played with expensive gadgets, our obviously top end wrist coms allowing us to get away with stuff normal consumers couldn’t get away with. We even bought a few bits and pieces like good little consumers should. In one store we found Neko tail and ear prosthetics adapted for human use that the sales assistant told us were becoming best sellers. Zia had tried on a full sensory tail and found the experience a little overwhelming, but not as overwhelming as I found the price tag.

  We beat a hasty retreat into a quieter street nearer the canyon walls, an older part of the city, full of high end shops and eateries. Then I saw a landmark I recognised. What looked like, and probably was, an ancient saucer shaped alien spaceship embedded at an angle into the canyon wall, and beneath it a shop had been built. Back when I’d last been here it had been a workshop refurbishing the better grade of salvage with an under-the-counter trade in illegal alien tech and information about events outside of Human Space. Now it was an artfully tatty establishment, crammed to the brim with high end merchandise that wasn’t as much second-hand as a carefully curated collection of interesting curios that the owner might be willing to part with.

  “I used to know the… umm… being who ran this place,” I told Zia as I entered the shop.

  “An alien, here? In human space?” Zia said, suitably impressed. I nodded. It hadn’t been all that unusual back in the day, especially here on Jeckon. To my disappointment the counter was staffed by a wizened old woman with startlingly dark skin and a slight waxy sheen revealing she’d had multiple rejuves. She also looked vaguely familiar. She raised an eyebrow as we came in, then she frowned at me.

  “I know you,” she said to me, glancing at Zia who smiled sweetly.

  “Do the oldies want to talk? Would you like me to stand over here and pretend not to listen?” Zia asked.

  “You’ve found a feisty one there,” the woman said.

  “She found me. Where do we know each other from?” I asked.

  “Well, apart from a brief few trips off planet over the years, I’ve mostly been here,” the woman said. I looked at her closely and suddenly I remembered.

  “Mistress Molly,” I said in triumph as the memories came flooding back, “Finally, someone I know.”

  “Wow, now that’s going back a few years. I can’t seem to be able to remember your name so I hope we weren’t lovers. I’m pretty sure you were trouble though, the interesting kinda trouble,” she replied. I laughed.

  “We weren’t lovers and I can’t actually remember what alias I was using when I was on Jeckon last. I probably looked older too.” Molly smiled.

  “You ain’t denying you were trouble though,” Molly said, looking me up and down, “I thought you had that freshly rejuved look about you, a nice job too, they used the good stuff. Not a Corporate job, either,” she leaned forward and lowered her voice, “I don’t suppose whoever did you is taking on clients. My usual guys are outside human space and you can’t get a ship beyond the border for love nor money nowadays.”

  “It was a sort of one off deal, but they may offer you a deal as well,” I said. Back in the day Molly had used her spaceship spare parts business as a front for her information brokerage. “Do you have contacts beyond the border?”

  “Maybe. What sort of contacts?” Molly asked cautiously.

  “Terraformers, planet brokers, people who might know where there’s a deathworld no-one wants, ringworld manufacturers, literal planetary movers and shakers” Molly looked at me, shook her head and sighed.

  “Really? Ringworld manufacturers. I remember you now… Del fucking Bird. You know, that’s probably the worst alias ever.”

  “Yet you never realised who I was,”

  “Yeah, I must have been blinded by all the cash you were flashing. How many ships did you manage to steal from the icefields in the end, Admiral Hawk?”

  “Enough to keep the Corps on their toes for forty years.”

  “And that ended so well for you, didn’t it,” Molly mocked, I shrugged.

  “I’m here ain’t I, looking younger than you and asking you questions. Which, by the way, you’re not answering.”

  “I’m pretty sure you used to pay for answers.”

  “I’m pretty sure I know people who can help you with your little rejuv problem.”

  “So, you’re after a planet?”

  “My clients are after a planet… A habitable planet… Or they might settle for something movable with the surface area of a planet,” I said.

  “You know, back in the good old days, when I was actually an information broker; people used to ask me if I knew about movements of a certain ship, or what factions were bidding on what, or who a certain person works for. Not ‘know anyone who’s got an entire planet they want to get rid of in a hurry.’ What the fuck makes you think I have contacts amongst aliens who sell fucking planets,” Molly asked sounding quite irritated.

  “Okay, I get it. Your information broker days are over. You don’t know anyone. We only actually came in here to buy a wrist-com.”

  “There’s a nice one over here,” Zia called from the other side of the shop.

  “Really? Of all the places, on all the planets in all the galaxy, you decided to pop into my shop just to buy a wrist-com,” Molly said.

  “I didn’t know it was your shop. Now the old owner, he may have been able to give me a lead.”

  “You mean Gary?”

  “You knew Gary?” I asked in surprise.

  “Oh yes,” Molly smiled, turned around and made a sound like a blocked drain emptying, a door at the back opened and a grey-skinned, blacked eyed, skinny, hairless, two metre tall, humanoid entered the room. He was wearing a fashionably colourful shipsuit and their toothless mouth was open in something approximating a human smile. A Zarathian, the only other humanoid, oxygen breathing species humans come across. Zia gave a squeak of terror and hid behind the counter.

  “Del Bird. Why are you here?” the alien asked in a Jeckonian accent.

  “Mummy and daddy were required by law and custom to produce offspring to continue their noble lineages?” I replied. There was a pause.

  “Ha. Ha. Ha.” the alien said. “You are still a funny Del Bird. It is good to see you again after all this time.”

  “It’s good to see you too, Gary. Where’s my money?”

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