I tried to focus on the surroundings, to keep an eye out for trouble, even as Airah pulled me along. Somehow, speaking of a new name and a new identity had brought back the feelings I had right after leaving Celraph, the feeling of loss and confusion. I had thought that I had dealt with those feelings, that I had accepted the fact that my life had irrevocably changed the moment I had saved Airah but apparently not.

Not even the impressive and exotic environment was enough to bring me out of my funk, but having Airah literally hold my hand helped, giving me something to focus on. Our next stops were the chandlery, a one-stop-shop to resupply space-ships with everything from air-scrubbers to zero-g lubricants. We didn’t need to buy too much, mostly replenish our food-stores and a few other consumables we had used up on our way from Celraph. Overall, it only took a few minutes before Airah brandished her tablet again, paying for her purchase.

She arranged for it to be delivered to a locker at our landing-bay, so we could transfer it aboard at our leisure.

By the time we were done in the chandlery, I had myself pulled back together to the point that I could actually enjoy Airah grabbing hold of my hand again, simply walking with her. Part of me was a little embarrassed just how much I enjoyed the closeness but I wasn’t willing to pull away, just because of that embarrassment.

“Let’s see if we can get a job.” Airah told me with a grin on her face, making me raise an eyebrow.

“How? I mean, you mentioned that small couriers for data and important goods are in demand but who would give some random crew they’d never seen before such a job?” I asked, leaning in a little so nobody would hear us. In turn, Airah stopped and turned us around, gently pushing me towards a wall, causing my breath to catch at her sudden closeness. But, to both my relief and regret, she was only making sure that we could talk without attracting undue attention.

“No, nobody would. There is a complicated system of codes, trust and identifications in play, with every group out here having their own scales of “trustworthiness”, for lack of better word. In my case, I have the codes and identification for one of them, the Void Guard, so if a message goes their way, we can take it. In turn, if we make the shipment, the guy here will know that we are good with our word and might send some more work our way, possibly to different groups if he trusts us enough. As I said, it’s complicated and more than a little nebulous.” Airah explained, making me nod in understanding.

We continued walking and after a bit, I decided to ask a question I had been curious about for a while.

“How does my new identity work?” I asked, still speaking softly, partially because I hoped she’d push me against a wall again. “I mean, how does it get into the databases my documents would be checked against?”

“You know how the Federation-databases are linked together?” she asked in return, causing me to nod. I knew that pretty much every space-ship in the Federation was used to carry updates from one system to the other. That went for both civilian- and military-ships and a dedicated computer was installed in each of them, free of cost. That computer was highly encrypted, to ensure that the data was neither corrupted nor read.

“Not sure how, but Cowboy has some sort of backdoor to get updated information into that system. What he’ll send over isn’t just the documentation for you, but also a small update for the Tyton’s data-system, allowing us to spread the data but I also paid for it to be spread by people going into the Federation. It’ll take some time, but the new identity should propagate through the entire Federation.” she explained, making me wonder why the system even had such backdoors. The only reason I could think of was that the powerful mega-corporations used similar backdoors for themselves, maybe even the same backdoors.

“That won’t get the dedicated military databases, so you’ll always be a little limited but it shouldn’t be a problem.” she admitted, her voice more subdued now.

“How did your information get into the military-databases?” I asked, in a flash of curiosity. My question just caused her to chuckle for a moment, before answering.

“Simple, the Academy put it there. I applied properly, using a civilian identity and was accepted. Did you think I needed to cheat to get in?” she asked, sounding a little offended.

“No, I was just curious. So the civilian part should be fine, right? Unless I try to get employed by the Starfleet, there shouldn’t be a reason to check my information against the military-data because there are quite a few identifiers that simply cannot be changed and that are in their databases.” I explained, trying to make her understand my fear.

“You mean things like your genome and the wealth of information gathered for the implantation of your headware? Yeah, those can’t be changed, not without some sort of high-level access. We might be able to do something about that, but it’ll require help that can’t be simply bought with money, no matter which currency you are using. We’ll have to wait and see.” Airah admitted, making me wonder at the implications.

But at the same time, while the specifics of my genome and brain-architecture were on file with the Federation, testing against those wasn’t something casually done, especially with the brain-architecture. That required major surgery and was the reason headware wasn’t widely spread. That, and the problem that not every brain seemed to be able to interface with headware as efficient as mine, a quality that had been tested before I had been accepted into the Starfighter-command. Even today, the specifics of the human brain and its effect on the consciousness were a complicated and researched subject.

“We are here.” Airah quietly told me, turning to another door with a sign proclaiming it the office, with strange characters beneath, looking like nothing I had ever seen before. When I asked Airah, who was tapping away on her tablet again, she said that the second one after human-letters were Lox, the third Tellurian but that she had no idea about the rest.

Moments later, the door opened and she strode in purposefully, with me trailing behind a little insecure again. Inside, it looked quite ordinary, a short hallway with a few simple doors, nothing like the sturdy airlock to the plaza, all painted in an off-white colour. Without the lack of gravity, it could have been in some boring office-building on any random Federation-planet. Which maybe was the whole idea, some perverse sense of humour.

Following behind Airah, I stepped into one of the offices and my first idea seemed to be confirmed. There was a normal desk, with a human male behind it, just standing up to greet us. Behind him, installed into the wall, was a large screen, showing the image of a cityscape, as if looking through a window.

“Good Afternoon, Mr. Johnson, I presume?” Airah greeted the man. There was a small, tiny trace of insecurity in her voice, something I only noticed due to the time we had spent together.

“Good Afternoon, yes, you can call me Mr. Johnson. What would you like to be called?” the man asked, a slightly amused tone in his voice.

“You can call me Airah of Tyton and this is Twitch, also of Tyton.” she gestured to me, getting a nod in return, without even a frown at the strange name.

“We are currently en-route to the Nebula and we have the requisite credentials to carry information their way. If you have a shipment, we can take it.” she offered, again fiddling with her tablet. Mr. Johnson nodded after a moment, gesturing to a data-port for her. It only took moments before he focused on his screen, his eyes going wide for a moment before he had his face back under control.

“Interesting. Yes, with these credentials, there are a multiple transfers you can take, especially if you can also carry small cargo, in addition to data.” he explained.

“Do the standard conditions for the cargo apply and do you guarantee them?” Airah asked, her voice now audibly tense.

“They apply, yes.” he checked something on his screen again before nodding and assuring Airah that they were guaranteed, whatever that meant. She let out a slow breath, before glancing over to me for a moment, as if looking for agreement or disagreement from me. Sadly, I had no idea what he meant, so I could only shrug to her silent inquiry.

“We can take them. Please transfer the data to Tyton, we are docked in bay 17.” she explained, fiddling with her tablet again. “For the cargo, is it too sensitive to be stored in one of the transfer-lockers?” she asked.

“No, that can be done. It’ll be there by tomorrow.” he assured her, getting a nod in return.

“Good. Pleasure doing business with you.” she told him, a sentiment the man returned.

We left the office and as we walked, I softly asked Airah just what had happened inside.

“There’s a certain form involved, as I’ve told you earlier. Mainly, I gave him credentials that demonstrate that the Void Guard trusts me and he agreed that we can carry information for them. The cargo is a bit of a surprise, but standard conditions essentially mean that we carry nothing that is a danger to our ship but also that we won’t look into the cargo. It is a bit of a contract between courier and handler, something both sides need to acknowledge for the system to work.” she explained, speaking softly.

“We’ll head out soon and for now, there’s one more thing we need to do. Leona Torn is twenty-three and never celebrated her birthday. We’ll have a lot to make up for.” she grinned and, again, pulled me along.