Deep undercover meant while Gaz and Alaya could live together and spend time outside of work, they could not regularly contact their ship or crew, not with details of their heist. The plan they’d laid out before established timescales, ways to pass information without catching the eye of an attentive signal watcher, and the means for either team to pull the emergency brake and evac.

  Gaz’s bad feelings about this job had persisted. Her hand hovered over the virtual abort button constantly. With Alaya’s life on the line, it had been a quick and easy decision to take this mission. But now that she had Alaya’s life in her own hands and the mission underway… the conviction something was going to go wrong only got stronger.

  Their day job was tedious, easy, and inconsequential. It had taken Gaz minutes to observe they were being monitored for security, training, and metrics purposes. All of the work they did had already been done by someone else. This was, in effect, a trial period in their employment during which the company decided whether Alaya and Gaz were worth the time.

  Based on the flow of work coming in, Gaz worried they’d already drawn the attention of someone in upper management. Their work had grown more complicated quickly, though still old, non-secure, and clearly handled by another group before it arrived with Gaz and Alaya.

  Alaya hadn’t noticed, but that might have been because she had a fork running the simulation tasks for her. Now that she’d seen the systems and had infected them with her own nanites, Gaz’s systems would start to evolve the multi-casting capabilities Alaya possessed. It was simply a matter of time. Hard to say how long, but hopefully not enough time for Gaz to need to employ those implants here at PDP.

  Every time Alaya stepped out of the simulation — at the start of every work day — Gaz’s output slightly dropped. It was hard for her to stringently monitor her own processes when Alaya endangered herself, even distantly. It had gotten far harder after Bahl-Mau.

  Alaya rejoining her fork in the simulation had a subtle tell, one only Gaz really knew. When she stepped in, her blinking went off rhythm for a while. She sent a quick one line message to Gaz, the kind that would only dock them a minute or two from their shift.

  “Lunch? 12:03 on the dot.”

  Mission was on. 3:05 PM. Right before their shift ended for the day. Systems kicked in and began full-body last minute checks. Scenarios played out at the level of her subconsciousness while Gaz committed her active processes to her work. Slacking now might bring attention to her. No reason for that.

  The two of them logged out at 2:55 and Gaz started a series of microsecond clocks, all of them synced with Alaya and the others. Outward comms meant they’d triggered a security review. But Gaz had already initiated her morphic transformation: into a streamlined, void flight craft capable of carrying one person. This leg of her journey she’d be on her own unless something went wrong. They reached their chosen airlock with minutes to spare. Though they’d be using some propulsion to start their trip, Alaya and the others would be flying dark once they cleared the station’s radar albedo.

  Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

  Gaz hit the door open sequence, triggering the nanites she’d lain throughout the PDP station to start causing security to go crazy, while carefully ensuring the airlocks remained open. The door didn’t budge. Her sequence was correct and the latch didn’t move. Neither did the piezoelectric actuators in the panel release the door.

  Time slid by while Gaz and Alaya troubleshot their door and pursued alternate routes, their coprocessors hitting the red while they planned and formed contingencies. The other airlocks were too far now, in fact time was running out.

  “We got a problem in the airlock.” Gaz sent a shortwave to Evan and Isham. “Evan are you onsite and can you check?”

  It took precious time for the nano swarms to infiltrate the door. Smashing their way through it was an option, but would have created its own problems. “You have a couple making love in there, they’ve jammed a shim in the activator circuit so it can’t close. Outer door won’t open with the fault detected, but the door won’t register as open to the sensors.”

  Evan had gone on longer than Gaz needed. Now that she knew where the breech in the door was, she sent her nanoswarms in that direction, seeking out the object jammed in the door controls. It was the size of a card and just as light. The whole thing popped out with a click and the door slid open.

  Two people, mid-coitus screamed at the sight of Alaya and Gaz, surprised by the sudden intrusion.

  It was already 3:07. Their flight window closed in seconds. After everything they’d done here, they wouldn’t have this launch pad a second time. Plus, if PDP had a security arrangement with any nearby ships… this was chance zero.

  Gaz cleared her mind and tried to freeze the two people’s faces in her memory. The woman’s hair was short, shorter than Isham’s. She’d painted the side of her scalp blue and had pulsing light tattoos leading down the front of her body and into her crotch.

  The man was fit, with well-defined muscles one only acquired through fleshfab or serious training. His hair was longer than her’s and he sported a healthy member along with… huh He’d been augmented with male and female primary parts.

  She’d read about the modification, but had never met anyone with it. Now she was about to kill someone with it.

  “Please help me save them.” Gaz had dropped into slow time the moment the go hour struck. She wasn’t used to Alaya speaking at pace with her.

  “You’re sure?”

  “After Bahl-Mau? Please?”

  Gaz was stuck. The door slid shut behind them, her spare processors already speeding along on the only timeline where they succeeded at their mission. She was intended to fly back to the Mousehome to rendezvous with the others. Isham and Kirk waited aboard the ship. Well alright then.

  With two aboard her small void ship form, Gaz would have less range than with only one. But she could reach the Mousehome without a problem. At least in theory, assuming nothing else happened. Worst case scenario: she jettisoned mass to push herself the last leg.

  “Thanks Gaz…” The outer airlock flashed green and the rush of wind being sucked into tanks roared over the rest of Alaya’s words. She hugged Gaz, quickly and kissed her on the cheek. Their lips brushed for the first time ever as outer door opened, Alaya kicked off of the airlock floor, and hit the side of the outer wall with her hand to correct her course. Evan and Vora jumped with her, the three of them only eleven seconds inside of their window.

  Gaz wrapped the screaming pair of nude lovers up and sedated both of them as she formed her impulse jets and launched herself away from PDP. Technically she could have stayed on the ship the whole time. But then Alaya would have been on her own on this mission. And Gaz might have missed that kiss.