"A Delicate Shade of Rust" by Meyari McFarland

[tirepanted3]

Opening chapter of a sci-fi story, first published in 2016.



Lauren ran her hands down her thighs, the rough fabric of her stolen jumpsuit catching against her palms. So much thicker than anything she'd ever worn before. It felt like she was going to be strangled by the damn thing. Her thighs already felt like they'd been chafed raw and she'd only put it on a couple of minutes ago.

Another quick look around showed that no one had noticed Lauren club the woman. Pure luck there. There were cameras all over the warehouse the Ceelen used but none in this area. Most of them were at the entrances, a few along the aisle, but none pointed down here where it was nice and dark. Getting past them had been tricky but Lauran was desperate to catch her prey before she could escape.

About the same height as Lauren with similarly dark skin. Lauren had always been too dark for Melin but she was about the right darkness for the Ceelen, brown so deep that it looked almost black though the woman had a bluish tint to her skin instead of Lauren's reddish tint. Not tall enough for a proper Ceelen, only five ten instead of six foot plus, but then the Ceelen woman she'd knocked out was the same height. Five eleven, maybe. No more. That's why Lauren had been so desperate to catch her. Three was no way she could successfully impersonate someone significantly taller.

The Ceelen's hair was cropped so short that it felt like fuzz under Lauren's hands as she carefully arranged the woman in a nicely shady corner of the port. Two long rows of crates that had been stacked three high made a lovely twelve foot plus high wall with a deep dark spot at the end. Perfect for hiding a body for a little while.

Now all she had to do was jury rig the woman's ID long enough to get herself onto the transport. Not much time for it but Lauren had done harder in less time. The back of the ID was one of the ones that responded to sharp implements, not fingerprints and bio-signatures, and Lauren had her little lock pick set. Hadn't had to sell that to eat, thank goodness. Not yet.

The chip-breaker worked like a charm, telling the ID that a new picture was needed. Lauren blanked her face, held her breath and held the ID up so that it could scan her.

Three too-long seconds later the image changed from the Ceelen woman's face to Lauren's. Recorded bio-signature changed, too, so that the ID thought that Lauren was… Idowu. Idowu Mas. Pretty name for a pretty woman. That should do it. To start with.

Maybe.

If Lauren was really, really lucky.

This whole thing was proof that Lauren needed to work on her impulse control. Stalking through the port for someone to beg for a job shouldn't turn into stealing someone's ID so that Lauren could get on a transport out into space.

It'd been a snap decision and Lauren was doing her best not to turn around and run away now that she'd, hopefully, done it. Would they space her? At least on Melin no one could space her. Deny her food and water and a place to stay, yes. Keep her from getting a job. Laugh in her face when she begged to be allowed to get an ID. Asshole. Didn't matter that Lauren screamed and pleaded and offered to let him fuck her raw because a woman her age should already have an ID. What was wrong with her that she didn't just get it reissued like a normal person?

Lauren wasn't a normal person. Obviously.

Not something to think about now, though. She could do this. She could. The job was simple, dock worker, handing goods. Heck, she'd done it for years for Hasenkamp but now he was gone, off to Tasma to be a respectable politician and she was left hanging. It sucked.

No one was willing to give her a job now. The new government on Melin, especially in Hexal City, were all about following the law. And Lauren had grown up in the Undercity without parents, without a name, without an ID. Not even a fake ID. She'd never saved up enough to buy a fake one from Hasenkamp and now he was gone so she couldn't even offer to fuck the man to get one.

No one dared offer fake IDs anymore and the stupid government representatives didn't believe Lauren when she swore that she'd never had one. No ID. No job. No place to live. No food. No nothing but starve to death and be swept up in the trash collection that happened every single day now instead of once a month or two or three.

There weren't any options left.

She didn't exist.

Lauren had never existed. Her parents were undocumented, slaves brought in to work for the rich people and then abandoned to scrape by in the Undercity. When the new ruler of Melin, the all-powerful Borna Truman, had put her policies in place she'd declared that everyone would get to have IDs, undocumented or not.

But that hadn't been true. Lauren knew dozens of people turned away and there was no way for her, for any of them, to get the message to Truman that her policies weren't being followed. Because the very people Lauren was supposed to complain to were the ones who'd denied her an ID and sent her on her way.

As things stood, Lauren couldn't even take her last resort idea and become a Consort. They'd changed the rules there, too, and if you didn't have ID or at least someone to vouch for you then you couldn't get in. Everyone Lauren knew was gone or they'd gone fearfully respectable so she was out of luck.

Unless she could get off planet.

Things were different in space. If she could just get up there, somehow, she knew she could get a job. If not with the Ceelen than with the Hyun-Ju. Lauren wasn't picky. She'd do almost anything. Living in the Undercity at least taught you a lot of different skills.

Including how to properly club a Ceelen dock worker over the back of the head without breaking her skull and stealing her jumpsuit in the probably vain hope that she could sneak on board one of the transports. Lauren ran her hands over the jumpsuit again before clipping the ID to her chest exactly where it had been for the worker.

Idowu Mas.

Such a pretty name. Lauren had to pretend that it was her name just long enough to get onto that transport. Idowu was a pretty woman, too, long and lean with strong arms, full lips and…

Lauren gasped and scrambled backwards. Idowu's eyes were open. Awake, no, awake, damn it! She turned and ran towards the end of the aisle of crates, going as fast as her feet could carry her. No, no, no, she couldn't fail, not already!

"Get back here!" Idowu shouted.

There was the slap of bare feet on Lauren's heels. She ran faster, not looking, never look, never, ever, or you'd stumble, slip, get caught and raped and killed.

A hand grabbed at Lauren's shoulder. She ducked and swung an elbow hard, missed, ducked again just on instinct and then a leg swept her legs out from under her. Damn!

Lauren rolled, kicked at the dim movement of Idowu diving at her. Connected, hard, to the gut.

Hands grabbed her ankle, twisted hard. Lauren bit her lip and rolled with it, kicking at Idowu's knee this time. Connected!

Damn it!" Idowu shouted. Lost her grip and then cursed in clipped, sharp tones as Lauren rolled and then scrambled back to her feet. "Get back here you!"

Lauren ran.

End of the aisle, right to port, to transport, left deeper in. Lauren went right. Stick to the plan, the plan was good. It wasn't going to work but maybe they'd believe her, take it on instinct, jumpsuit and ID meant Ceelen and all she needed was to get to space.

She could prove herself--

Something hit her hard in the shoulders. Arms clamped onto Lauren. Legs tangled with hers. They tumbled, landed hard enough that Lauren saw stars. She squirmed, screamed at the pain of fighting that grip and then tried to bite. Missed, missed, sobbed and then grunted as the floor smacked hard into her head.

So many stars. So much pain. Shouting, lots of shouting. Lauren whimpered, struggled, tried to get free but no, the grip was too tight and she couldn't fight. Her arms and legs felt like lead…

Oh…

A second needle struck her shoulder and the world drifted away into nothingness as Lauren went under.

Failed.

***

"You okay, ma'am?" Eshan asked as he helped Idowu up.

"As much as I can be when I was clubbed, stripped and had my ID stolen by a very creative thief," Idowu said.

She stared down at the woman, frowning. Quite lovely, really. Rich dark skin with a warm red undertone. Full lips of the Ceelen meshed with the narrow nose and high cheekbones of a Hyun-Ju, topping the round full body of a native Melinni. The best blend of the three races that Idowu had seen in quite some time. Add that to luscious long black hair with a gorgeous natural wave that hung down past her shoulders and the woman would be temptation incarnate if only she weren't quite so intent on getting away with Idowu's ID and clothes.

Idowu knelt down and took her ID off the woman's chest. Then grunted. "Now that is quite amazing. In less than a minute she managed to reprogram it to have her picture but she left my information intact." A quick check sent Idowu's eyebrows towards her hairline. "Her bio-scan but my other information. I hadn't thought that was possible. What is a woman so talented doing stealing my clothes and ID?"

"I don't know, ma'am," Eshan said. He fidgeted, great heavy boots making scraping noises against the heavy concrete of the warehouse floor. "We heard a sound but didn't think anything of it until you shouted. I am sorry. We'll implement scans, make sure that no one can get in here in the future."

"Please do," Idowu said. "And bring a stretcher for her. I believe I will question her more closely. And that, honestly, is not a thing I wish to do on Melin's surface."

Eshan's eyes went wide and then he started snickering when Idowu looked towards the many, many cameras that Borna Truman had installed throughout the port. There were few here in the warehouse as it was Ceelen owned and operated but from where she knelt Idowu could see three.

Very interestingly, the woman had chosen a site with no camera coverage at all for her little attack. So she'd known of the cameras and added that into her plan, whatever it had been. Quick thinking for Idowu hadn't actually intended to check on the loads for the next several runs into space until the last second. And certainly quite skilled not only at managing computerized systems but also in fighting.

If it weren't for Idowu's improved programming on her healing nanites, Idowu would still be unconscious. With a very bad headache but not a cracked skull. Not to mention the battle to subdue her. Idowu had barely been able to catch her, and then had only kept her because she got a superior grip on the woman that would have dislocated both shoulders had she continued to fight.

The woman was a very good fighter, fast and skilled even in her desperation to escape. Truly, it was only Eshan's speed with the sedative needler darts that had kept the woman from escaping outright. With Idowu's ID.

Getting permission to bring the woman on board the Graceful Swan would have been impossible. No unknown with skills such as hers was going to be allowed on the flagship of the Ceelen spaceship fleet, not after the waves of assassins that their leaders had battled over the last couple of months. Fortunately, Idowu was currently assigned to one of the small freighters that peacefully traveled between Melin and Tasma. They weren't important enough for any assassins to infiltrate.

"She hacked your ID that quickly?" Captain Sidney Christopherson asked. Short, round as a ball of water in microgravity and with the pale skin of a true albino, Captain Sidney was no stickler for rules. "Well, bring her up. With all the trouble we've had removing the Collective's bombs and computer hacks we can use her. Just do your best to keep her calm."

"Eshan hit her with two sedative needles," Idowu said, nodding that she would do her best. "She should wake fairly slowly. I suspect that she has only the base nanites that all children receive from their mothers during gestation. She was… quite surprised that I woke so quickly."

Captain Sidney snorted, grinned and waved a quick 'take care of it' battle sign before cutting off the comms. So. They had a new crew member to integrate.

And Idowu had best go find the woman's clothes so that she could get her jumpsuit back.