Ahead was a massive metal wall, a square facet over half a mile wide with a yawning metal opening in front of it. Small lights and flashes winked nearby from external mooring buoys and a couple of other small shuttles. Passing in and out of the corners of the screen was a battered hulk of a freighter with a utilitarian Orbit Shuttle docked to it, for whatever reason performing some task outside the Coriolis station.
The vast, yawning entrance drew closer. Why bother staying aligned with it? It was easily big enough to swallow the Worm many times over, and judging by the way the angle constantly wobbled it was not an easy task for the slovenly pilot and its battered ship.
Closer to the docking bay. The space station now filled the entire screen, vast, and solid. The lack of anything outside the field of view made it appear like the surface of weird planet, covered in artificial constructions, and Sura's ground-born mind could not dispel the feeling that they were poised over such a surface, and at any moment they would lose control and plummet towards it. Yet of course they did not. Massive as it was for an artificial construction the station's own natural gravitational field was still insignificant.
With a sudden, unpleasant shudder the Worm was grasped by something and wrenched around into a perfectly match with the station. Only a second or two later the screen distorted into a break pattern as the front of the ship hit the station's protective field and passed through.
Inside the movement was smooth, now it had been perfectly adjusted by the station's traffic guidance systems. Not far past the ingress point huge clamps descended from the floor and ceiling and took hold of the small ship, pulling it further in. They carried the vessel through a massive doorway and eased it towards the floor, touching them down next to a transparent tube that disappeared out of sight through a wall.
Secured in the station, the cabin door slid open. Eager to leave the squalid vessel, Sura jumped to her feet and left the room. The outer door was still shut fast.
"Time to pay," sneered the pilot.
Sura dug out her credit confirmation slip and keyed in the figures for the payment. She slid it through the slot into the cockpit.
The pilot picked up the thin card and stared at it, mumbling randomly.
"Come on," Sura snapped.
The pilot slowly pushed the slip back through to Sura. "Be nice and add another fifty credits to that," it said, gurgling unpleasantly in poor humour.
She was not surprised. There was no way off the ship without the pilot opening the door, and she was cynical enough to guess the pilot would probably not be averse to dumping her in space to rid itself of her. Threaten the creature? No. Pay, and deal with it later. With a show of bad grace she added the fifty credits and handed the slip back.
To her relief the pilot slotted it into his computer and returned it. The door slid open.
"It's been a pleasure," it mocked as she stepped out into the tunnel.
"It will be," she replied without looking back.
Chapter 4 - Qudira Coriolis
The station was a confusing complex. Apprehension once again assailed Sura. To her mind it was cold and mostly gloomy, the artificial lighting that shone from thousands of lamps casting shadows in unnatural places. Once she had eventually found her way into the open the vast size of the station's interior was overwhelming. Walls, covered in splotches of light, rose on all sides and curved around to meet in the ceiling half a mile overhead, and the whole was covered in moving specks of life. And this was only a minor station orbiting an unimportant world. Here, at last, the influence of the famous Galactic Cooperative of Worlds finally had meaning, instead of just being a name to the planet-bound.
Close up, shorn of the mantle of distance, the view was far less impressive. The port area was heavily used, by all sorts of people, and their constant passage had taken off whatever sheen may have been present when the station had been commissioned. Rubbish lay where it had been discarded and the buildings were dirty and unwelcoming. Many of them were simply warehouses, blank, characterless walls lining the streets.
Packed between and around the warehouses and extending out into town were bars, bazaars, brothels, fighting dens, and all the other establishments that arose in places that valued the exploitation of vice over restraint and decency. Some were garishly lit with neon signs, others skulked behind dark doorways.
People, and a huge variety of them, were everywhere. And such a variety of people as Sura had never seen before, from hundreds of worlds, some striding along confidently, some standing around talking loudly and openly, and some trying to keep themselves to themselves as much as possible and hurrying to their destinations as quickly as they could.
At many corners armed police stood, watching the scene impassively. The Cooperative nominally controlled the station, and GalCop kept the peace in this part of town. In such a system as Qudira their jurisdiction extended little further than the docking facilities and immediate surround.
All this Sura tried to take in without staring about mawkishly like the newcomer she was. Don't draw attention to yourself. This place was a free-for-all. It was not home, don't expect anyone to give a damn about you.
She edged herself carefully through the milling masses towards a row of waiting taxis. Her contact on the station was based somewhere near the port, but she did not want to try to find her way through on foot. The streets and closely-packed buildings had the feeling of a maze, populated with all sorts of dangers.
The small, automated car took the address she gave it without question, flashing up the fare above the payment slot. Once she slid her credit slip into the slot the taxi rose gently and pirouetted around and away from the towering hangars and control centres of the docks. As she glided over buildings Sura watched the people below disperse, spreading themselves thinner over the city. When it set her down, the taxi landed on a quiet road. Only a few people were walking along it, but out of sight of the police many were openly carrying sidearms.
Sura hurried glanced along the rows of buildings, looking for a familiar number. When she found it it was on a nondescript door with "Ardith Trade" written above it in faint letters. The door opened to her touch, and led into a short, narrow corridor ending in a steep stairway, covered in threadbare carpet.
At the top of the stairs a tiny landing and another door were all to be seen. The door was lettered with the same text as the one from the street, and was nearly as faded. There was no sign of an intercom, and Sura paused for a moment, wondering whether or not to knock, before shrugging and pushing the door open.
Parts of the office were familiar, seen on the screen of a commlink, but the perspective was different, and opened up by the surroundings. It was as devoid of trappings as most things were in Qudira, but unlike much of what she had so far seen of orbital life it was tidy, papers neatly filed and computer equipment arranged in an orderly fashion on clean desks.
She was also greeted by a startled exclamation from a man whose back was turned to her. When he had heard her come in he snapped something unpleasant at the intrusion, span around in his seat, and bit of a further rebuke in surprise.
"How are you doing?" Sura asked before he could recover himself. She saw him groping for something to reply with, and moved on, preventing him from voicing his surprise.
"Thought I'd better look you up." It was surprisingly rewarding, seeing the man speechless, robbed of the voice he usually used to work through tedious details at tedious length.
"Great to see you," he managed to say eventually. Sura caught herself. She had been expecting a more predictable "what" or "why", but despite the surprise, which had clearly had an effect, he wasn't going to be hit by it for too long. She hadn't had much of an opportunity to know anything about any side of the man that wasn't directly connected to the business they had together. Yet in her judgement, as far as she was in any position to judge, he was the most trustworthy of the people she dealt with.