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“You’re from the Sapient Union, aren’t you?” Urle asked the woman across from him.

“Yes . . .”

She looked nervous and Urle could certainly understand that.

Her name was Sem Kassa, born, the records said, on Garden Ridge Station 137 in the quad star system of Gliese 282.  Ten years ago, when she was 16, she had hopped a transport ship and disappeared.  No one had known why, her family were still searching, but beyond Union borders they could not find any traces of her.

Kassa’s stress signs increased in the presence of any men, which he unfortunately understood, given that she had been ’employed’ as a prostitute in a no-holds barred brothel.

Kai Yong Fan leaned closer to her.  “If you want, I can get a woman to conduct the interview,” she said.

“That would be fine,” Urle added calmly.  “But I am second only to the Captain in authority and will have to be involved with the diplomatic side of this either way.”

“No, it’s okay,” Kassa said softly.  “I’m just in shock still.”

“That’s understandable.  I’m sorry to have to put you through this,” Kai said.  “But we need to get the facts quickly to make sure we can keep you safe.”

Kassa’s eyes went wide and she looked up at Urle, then Kai.  “You won’t send me back, will you?  I can’t go back!”

“We’ll do everything in our power to prevent that,” Kai said.

“We will not be sending you back,” Urle told her.  “If you feel your life would be in danger if you went back.  Do you feel that way?”

“Yes!” the woman said, panic in her voice.  “Daze will kill us!”

“Daze is dead,” Urle told her.

“He’s been shot before and not died, the man is a cockroach, he won’t die just from-“

“He is dead,” Urle said definitively.  “His vitals went flat.”

While attempts to revive the pimp had been made on the dock, it had been too late.  Kiseleva’s bullet had hit him in the heart and spine, leaving little intact.  He’d been too far gone by the time he hit the floor.

He’d crossed a line, threatened a combat response officer, and paid the price.  Perhaps he’d just made a mistake or maybe where he came from he thought he was untouchable, but it made no difference now.

Sem Kassa seemed more in shock, leaning back in her chair in silence.

“I can’t believe he’s dead,” she said in a hushed voice.

“He can’t hurt you or anyone again,” Kai told her.

The woman nodded slightly, but still seemed stunned.

“What happened for you to get to us?” Urle prompted gently.  “Can you tell me?  It will help.”

“Yesterday . . . Ozgu overheard Daze talking to Baro and Earl.  They’re his guys, his . . . enforcers.  He thought that I was getting too old and too much trouble.  He told them to take me to an airlock later that night, that he’d already bribed the guards.  It was less of a pain than selling my contract.”

Kai leaned in.  “Too much trouble?”

“I . . . I talked back sometimes,” Kassa said.  “And I heard rumors that someone was asking about me.  I mean, I always hoped but I didn’t think my family would ever find me out here . . .”

“How did Ms. Uzun get stabbed?” Urle asked.

“She told us what she’d heard, and we got Baro and Earl drunk.  When they came to . . . find me they left their guns behind.  But they were keyed to their fingerprints, so when Uzun grabbed one they wouldn’t fire and Baro stabbed her.”

She drifted into silence a moment, and Kai and Urle waited patiently for her to talk again.

“But I grabbed a chair and I hit Baro on the head.  I think the corner hit just right and he went down.  Then Mae jumped on Earl, she was really tearing at his face since she was friends with Ozgu . . . He got his gun back, but I jumped on him too, and he was on the floor so we pushed it down and made it fire and . . .”

“You defended yourselves,” Urle said.  “This was self-defense.”

“What happened after that?” Kai asked.

“After that we took their money and systems and left.  Their systems unlocked the front and we were carrying Uzgu.  We used their cards to hire some taxis and sent them off in other directions.”

“To throw off the scent?” Urle asked.

“Yeah.  Daze knew the owner of the company.  So we knew he’d find out.”

“And did you just walk here?”

“We weren’t on Gohhi Main then.  We hired a produce hauler shuttle to let us on and got here about two hours ago.”

“How long ago did you escape?” Urle asked.

“I don’t know . . . it feels like days.  Maybe twelve hours?”

“All right,” Urle said.  “Thank you for your cooperation, Ms. Kassa.  With your information we can move forward.”

“The others won’t have to go back, either, will they?” Kassa asked, her face pale.  “They’ll be killed.  Even if Daze is dead, we did something . . .  I don’t know if Baro or Earl are still alive, but if they are oh god they’ll come for them, and even if they’re not someone else will just want to make an example-!”

“They won’t have to go back,” Urle promised.  “We can keep you safe.”

Kai said nothing – despite what he’d said, there was a chance they could be sent back.

Because they didn’t know all the facts.  She had just lied to him.

A Response officer, another woman, led Kassa out, and Kei turned back to face him.

“Ozgu Uzun was stabbed less than thirty minutes prior to them showing up on our doorstep,” she said.

“So she’s wrong about the timeline,” Urle said.

“If there’s any more surprises waiting, this could become an issue,” Kai said.

“We’ll smooth them out.  The biometrics are very, very hard to fake without some nice tech that she doesn’t have.  She was legitimately terrified for her life – and those of her friends.”

“Yes, she was genuinely scared, there’s no doubt.  But what did the biometrics say about her story?”

Urle’s voice was grim.  “She lied about a lot of that.”

“And it also matches what the last woman said,” Kai agreed.

“So they got their story mostly straight, but it’s not the whole story,” he said.  “We’re going to have to find out what the truth is.”

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