Empyrean Iris Story Collection Vol. 4

Contraband

He watched as a group of his men walked into the hanger, carrying with them a rather cumbersome looking crate on a hover trolley. lThe crate was big, big enough to to fit four grown men in, if you shoved them into boxes in the fetal position and adequately drugged them.

Of course he was sure that was unlikely to be the case.

Still he was curious, sidling over to see what was going on.

Baby K sat with a clipboard, a frown on her half shaved head as she stared down at the clipboard.

She pouted, full lips puckering in mild annoyance.

She had really come into her own over the past few years, and he wasn't just saying that because of their on again off again relationship thing, which was currently on. Red slipped a hand around her waist, brushing the back of his hand over the back of her tight leather pants as he did.

She slapped his hand away, "not while I'm workin' Red."

He grinned and retrieved his hand. He mostly liked it when she got all bossy.

The pout on her face deepened.

He frowned, "Something wrong?'

She shook her head, "This box isn't on our manifest." She turned to look at him, the station commander let it past the contraband office and sent it down here, as per our agreement, but he usually doesn't let go of stuff this big.

Red held out his hand and she handed over the clipboard.

That much was true.

The station commander and himself had a tenuous friendship that amounted to playing rocket ball every other tuesday, and a tentative agreement that he might let a few boxes of contraband slip past as long as red was willing to keep the lower elements of the station under control.

So far their agreement had worked out for the better, but the station commander still had to save face with his people, so that meant, he didn't usually get to send red anything big, at least not this big.

"Odd." he leaned forward to examine the box, "no labels?"

One of his other flunkies shook his head, "No, Boss. It Doesn't even have a shipping tag.'

That was even more strange.

In order to ship cargo to a location, it had to have the proper shipping tag. It was like tagging your luggage at a spaceport. How were they supposed to know where you wanted your stuff to go if it wasn't properly labeled, and even if it wasn't labeled normally, smugglers had their own signs and identifications that would let you know where something was going.

This had nothing.

Red crossed his arms over his chest, "Open it."

His men scurried to do as told, and it took them a few minutes, but finally, they were rewarded with the pop of a containment lid.

Red slid over with the others, stepping up onto the edge of the hover trolley to peer inside.

When he looked inside, Red was immediately filled with an odd sensation of cold.

He couldn't have described why, but, the contents of that crate did nothing but to turn his blood cold.

Little vils of glowing orange liquid neatly packed into containers.

"Red."

There was a pause before Red looked up to see baby Kay holding something out to him.

A holopad.

He took it in one hand, and as soon as he did, the screen burst to life with a static crackle. The screen lit up, though when it did it showed nothing but a black void, and a pair of burning yellow eyes.

"For the acolytes, you know what to do."

And then the image shut off.

Red pulled back in surprise and stared at the holopad, which he turned over slowly in his hands. On the back it said, K to N.

It wasn't for him, that was sure enough, and he had no idea who N was, but he was certain he knew who K was.

"Baby, get me a line to Admiral Vir."

Baby K bared an order at one of the younger women, who hurried over after no less than a few moments with Red's personal holopad. He took it in one hand, scrolling through his list of contacts before finding the one he was looking or.

There was only a few second delay before the screen lit up.

For a moment Red was left confused, thinking he had called the wrong number, but that thought was soon dissipated when the man spoke, "Red, hell its been a while"

His voice belied his age, and Red had to blink a few times before the face solidified in his vision.

"Admiral, is that you.... Holy fuck you look terrible."

Admiral Vir frowned, "You're looking good too red, thanks, never felt better.'

"Sorry but..... Weren't you blonde the last time I saw you."

The man huffed, and ran a hand through his now white hair, "Premature graying runs in my family." He supposed that was believable enough. He still had a youthful enough face. What was he, early thirties now, but still he looked like shit. His human eyes was bloodshot, and dark circles dominated his face below his eyes. From what little of him Red could see, he looked to be laid up in bed part of his upper torso bandaged, though, most of it was off screen.

"Well, I'm sorry if this is a bad time, but I don't think this can wait."

Adam frowned, "I.... well I'm not really in the condition to go anywhere right now, Red. is there any way you can come to me/"

Red glanced over at the large crate and nodded. It didn't mater what he thought was important. Baby K could take care of the operation while he was gone, but whatever this was it took precedent.

"I think I can do that." he glanced back at Adam with a raised eyebrow.

"Seriously, what happened to you."

Adam gave a tight lipped smile.

"What happens to all of us red. Life."

Red shook his head in mild disbelief, "nah, what happens to you doesn't happen to the average person and you know that. The rest of us have all our limbs."

Adam gave a wry smile, "Just get your ass down here, and we can count all my robotic parts together."

"Say any more and a man might think you're filtering with him."

"With you red, not on your life."

Red grinded shortly before cutting off the call, his face becoming serious again as he handed the holopad back to baby K.

He had a feeling there weren't going to be many reasons to smile on this trip.