Spending his days and most of his evenings on display made his daily few hours of solitude aboard the Omari-Ekon precious; he savored them for their simplicity. Crisp, cool, clean sheets. Relief from the driving noise and narcotic odors of the game floor. The passionate embrace of the only woman who ever saw the inside of his bedroom, even though no one ever saw them within five meters of each other outside of it.
Neera sat in front of the vanity on Ganz’s right, pulling a jade-handled brush through her thick sable hair. She worked the brush in long, seductive strokes that had an all but hypnotic effect on Ganz. Her skin was a slightly brighter shade of green than his own, and her eyes were a pale aqua—an unusual color for an Orion woman. Though he knew it was wrong to let himself love her, she was irresistible to him. Outside, managing the male and female companions who worked aboard the ship, she was savvy and subtle and cunning. When distracting the gamblers at the tables or screening new arrivals to see whether they harbored bad intentions, she could instinctively adapt to whatever they desired her to be: coy one moment, brazen the next; meek and innocent for one man, a salacious flirt for another, a warm and caring heart for the ones who needed confidants.
There was no denying the effect she had on him, and it unnerved him. On his upward climb to affluence and power he had learned that there was only one universal principle in business: fear. His goal had always been to instill fear in those below him, while managing his fear of those who sought to undermine him—and there were many individuals and groups that fell into the latter category. Superiors, rivals, competitors, governments. There was always a reason to be afraid when so much stood to be won or lost on every decision he made, but he had become a self-made merchant prince of Orion by obeying one simple rule: Never show fear to anyone. Especially, he thought with a self-deprecating grin, not to the woman you sleep with.
She noticed his stare in the mirror. Her reflection looked back at him with a soft, caring expression. “Finally awake?”
“I was having a dream,” he said. “Then I realized you weren’t in it, so I decided to wake up instead.”
Holding a lock of her hair in a firm grip, she worked the brush through some tangles at its end. “Ready for another night of impressing the masses?”
He rolled onto his side to face her more directly. “I’m just hoping the tables do better than break even tonight.”
“I spoke to Danac about that,” she said. “He understands that he’s supposed to finish the night with a profit.”
“Good. I’ll have Zett watch him, just in case.”
A sour look darkened Neera’s face. “I know Zett’s quite good at what he does,” she said, “but I don’t like him.”
“Neither do I,” Ganz admitted. “But we’re not supposed to like him. His job is to keep people in line, not win them over.”
Neera put down her brush and half-turned in his direction. “You need to keep a shorter leash on him,” she said. “He has an unhealthy obsession with that drunkard Quinn. I don’t want it disrupting business.”
Never show fear to the woman you’re sleeping with…especially when she’s your boss.
“Sure, Zett holds grudges, but he’s disciplined,” Ganz said. “He won’t act unless I tell him to. He knows Quinn is useful to me.”
“Quinn is a liability,” Neera replied. “Too angry to be an underling, too volatile to be a middleman, and not smart enough to stay bought. He could be trouble.”
Ganz sat up on the edge of the bed. “All true,” he said. “But like I said, he’s useful. He gets jobs done that other people can’t.”
“That’s no reason to trust him,” Neera said.
He got up. “I don’t trust anybody.” Walking over to her, he continued, “Someone with muscle’s pulling his strings from the other side. I don’t know who; maybe one of the other bosses, maybe Starfleet. I don’t care, really. Smuggling gets harder every day, but whoever’s backing him makes it possible.”
“The only reason smuggling is difficult for us is that we’re docked at a Federation starbase,” Neera said. “If we made port in one of the neutral star systems nearby, we could move much more freely.”
With a firm but tender grip, Ganz started massaging Neera’s shoulders. “You’re right…. But how long do you think we’d last without armed escorts? And how much do you think it’d cost to hire them?” She closed her eyes and relaxed into his kneading hands. “I’d rather deal with a few delays and do our business from here. As long as we’re docked at Vanguard, no one’ll come gunning for us.”
In a teasing voice she quipped, “You’d give up your liberty in the name of security?” She smirked. “Some might call that a foolish bargain.”
“No liberties when you’re dead,” he replied.
Her personal comm device, which had been sitting among her assortment of cosmetics containers on the vanity, beeped softly. She picked it up, flipped it open, and pressed it to her ear. “Go ahead,” she said to the person on the other end. After listening carefully for several seconds, she said simply, “I understand,” then flipped the device closed. Setting the device back on the vanity, she met Ganz’s questioning gaze in the mirror. “Get dressed,” she said.
Not wishing to comply too easily, Ganz asked, “Why?”
“Because there’s just one problem with relying on Starfleet’s protection,” Neera said, rising from the vanity. “Every now and then, they want something.” Turning to face him, she added, “Commodore Reyes would like to see you.”
The last time Ganz had met with Reyes, the Orion merchant prince had come away with a clear understanding: his ship could remain berthed at Vanguard only so long as its illicit trades remained confined to its interior and his clientele remained free of Starfleet personnel. Reyes’s terms had been reasonable, though the brusque manner in which he had detailed them had left Ganz wanting to separate the commodore’s head from his neck.
Ganz arrived at the rear service entrance of a building in Stars Landing, the crescent-shaped residential development inside Vanguard’s massive terrestrial enclosure. As the invitation had specified, the door was unlocked. The burly Orion opened the door and slipped inside.
A narrow hallway led past some storage rooms and a pantry before opening into a large professional kitchen. Waiting there for him was Manón, the establishment’s owner and namesake. “Right on time,” she said, offering Ganz a courteous nod. She was one of the few women whom Ganz considered comparable in beauty to his own beloved Neera, though the two women could not be more different. Neera was dark, athletic, and almost feral in her mien. Manón was pale, delicate, and refined; her elegantly shaped crest of multicolored hair and almond-shaped eyes were arresting, and as he neared within a meter of her, he sensed an aura of physical warmth emanating from her.
Manón’s tasteful turquoise-colored wrap billowed gently around her as she led him out of the kitchen into the main room of her club. The main room had an open floor plan, so that every seat had a clear line of sight to its stage. Despite the height of the ceiling, the room’s use of recessed lighting and strategically placed shadows contributed to a more intimate ambience. The opaque front doors were closed and, Ganz presumed, locked; there was no sign of any of the club’s staff.
Standing beside a table in the middle of the club was Commodore Reyes. The lanky human Starfleet officer regarded Ganz with a stern expression.