Rodion spent just enough time at his brother’s place to get all the info he needed. He asked where the Anna Karenina shipped out of, when it had left, and what company it shipped out under. Georgi tried to answer as best he could, but like hundreds of ships that went through Deimos, a lot of the details were hidden from the general public under layers and layers of subterfuge. It made sense. Deimos had a very long history of housing some of the largest organized crime groups, the biggest of which: The Red Sky Faction, basically ran the station in everything but name.

The fact that Deimos was a Martian territory only made things even more difficult. Mars shared only the barest minimum of information needed to keep Earth-Mars relations from becoming actively hostile. Everything else would be locked down behind layers and layers of bureaucrats and literal red tape. It would be like trying to pick a piece of hay out of a needlestack without getting stabbed.

He returned home before it became too late. His apartment was much smaller than Georgi’s, divided only into three rooms: a bedroom, a living room and kitchen combo, and a small bathroom. He also had a small balcony on which a row of sickly plants struggled to survive. The view from the balcony looked into a small, grey courtyard in which bands of children played soccer and the elderly sat to get some of the pale sun before it disappeared all-too-soon. He went outside and smoked a cigarette before he decided to get to work on his problem.

At his computer, he looked up his list of contacts that might be able to help cut some of the red tape surrounding the ship Anna Karenina. For this evening, a good start would be to write a few messages and see what kind of information he’d be able to turn up for the morning. Satisfied that he had made a good start in his inquiry, he decided to call it an evening and retired to the living room where he tuned his tv onto a channel that was showing some re-runs of an old comedy show. But instead of watching it, he let himself sink into thought, turning over what might be going on with Dmitri.

The Anna was labelled as a refitted colony ship, which meant she was about 70 years old or so. Ships that old were guaranteed to break down as years of shitty welds and cheap materials degraded. Maybe the ship’s comms had been damaged. That would be the best-case scenario. Rodion had never spent any time in space, he’d performed too poorly on the tests they had been given during his time in the service, but he knew that long-haul tours tended to have lots and lots of problems which made accurately scheduling things like calls and meetings quite difficult.

Despite this, there was also the distinct possibility that things had taken a turn for the worse. If the state news was to be believed, there had been a recent uptick in mutinies and violent attacks on the stations and ships between Earth and Mars. Such things weren’t uncommon before, but hardly occurred more often than once every few months. Now if felt like every week, the news was giving updates.

Rodion remembered when it had all started to get worse. A group of young would-be revolutionaries had launched an attack on one of the orbital reflector arrays that protected Mars from solar radiation. The attack had failed spectacularly, to the luck of those living under the array, but it seemed to Rodion that ever since, there had been more and more attacks. Perhaps the Anna Karenina had gotten caught up in one of those. It was worth looking into.

The next morning, Rodion found that he’d received answers to a few of the messages he’d sent the night before. Most were unhelpful, but as he was getting ready to leave for work, a message popped up from a certain Captain Anna L. Killian.

She’d been in his basic training class during his service and they’d even served at the same post together for a while. Once upon a time, they’d been pretty close. Even dated.

CAPT. KILLIAN: Got your message, can you take an early off? Might have some info for you.

RODION S: Sure, dinner? Usual place?

CAPT. KILLIAN: I’ll be there, 1900.

Once he’d gotten that taken care of, Rodion headed into work. After his discharge from the service Rodion had taken a job as a security guard in a contracting firm. He was currently assigned to do the rounds at a massive server farm closer to the city center. He checked in with his supervisor on his way in and inquired about clocking out early.

“Why not? You’ve had excellent attendance so far”, the man had shrugged then smiled conspiratorially, “Let me guess, meeting a girl?”

“I am, but I don’t think it’ll be the type of meeting you think it’ll be”, Rodion had answered but the man laughed dubiously then returned to his work.

Rodion changed into his work uniform and began his walk around the building. It was three massive stories of server banks. Since Rodion was just a guard, he didn’t get to know what was on the servers but one of his coworkers was of the opinion that there was some ‘real shady shit’ on them. Rodion was doubtful; it wasn’t impossible but it also wasn’t probable. The real shady shit would have much better guards.

Work was pretty boring. All he needed to do during the day was walk the building, check the cams, and turn away anybody who had questionable credentials. The building was usually empty most days, the only people on-site would be the housekeeping, maintenance crews, and of course, the security. He almost wished something would go wrong, it would liven things up a bit.

About an hour before he was scheduled to clock out, Rodion checked in with his supervisor who, after some more teasing, allowed him to clock out early.

Café Versailles was a small restaurant not too far away from the military post that both Rodion and Capt. Killian had served at. The café had been decorated after the old country French style and served some of the best coffee in Moscow. Captain Killian was waiting for him at the door dressed in civilian clothes which she still managed to make look like a uniform.

“Rodya, it’s been a while. How’s life on the outside?” She asked as they went to find a table.

“It’s been quiet, I’m sure you’d find it boring. And you? I heard you’re a captain now”, Rodion said as they sat.

“Yeah, I’ve been working my ass off to get there”, she replied, “It feels weird being back here, been what? 2 years already? This place hasn’t changed at all…”

“No, it hasn’t…” Rodion let the silence carry so they could reminisce a moment before diving back to business, “So, you said you had something for me on the Anna Karenina”.

“Yes, the Anna Karenina. You remember that we flag any ships with potential ties to organized crime. The Anna has more flags than the entire United Nations combined. I ran a search on her last night and found out this: 20% of the listed crew had direct ties to organized crime, and a further 40% had some sort of criminal record”.

“So, you’re saying more than half of the crew could reasonably be motivated to stage a mutiny then?” Rodion asked, “That’s not really helpful...”

Killian nodded, then asked, “I’m curious, what’s the Anna to you? It’s been two years since we last talked. What’s so special about this ship that it’s made you break the silence?”

“You remember my brother, Georgi? He was the taller, more good-looking one with my mom at the graduation ceremony”, Rodion gestured roughly his brother’s height.

“Yeah, I remember him. Obviously, I picked the wrong brother”, Killian joked.

“No offense, but you’re not his type. His husband works on the Anna Karenina, missed an important call by a little over three days. Not something he normally does without warning. Georgi asked me to look into it a bit, I think the recent events have got him worried that something might have happened”.

“I’m sorry to hear that”, Killian said, “I can send you the crew list if you’d like to do some background. But there’s a few names you should put at the top of your list”, Killian slid a tablet across the table, on it were three profiles. She pointed at one of them, a photo of a pale, haughty looking man.

“Ship’s First Mate, Wesley James, age 28, Martian citizen. His brother, Markus, was arrested last year during a sting operation. Markus was a high-ranking operative for Red Sky Faction and I have a feeling Wesley is picking up where his brother left off”.

Killian pointed to the second profile, a heavily scarred older man who glowered at the camera.

“Listed as the chief welder ‘Thomas Smith’, real name Igor Alexandrov, 59, one of us- or, he used to be. Got those burns when he forced a reactor overload on a prison transport. Killed all the guards and half the inmates too. Hardcore underground. Served time in Luna Max, several stints in the Martian system too. Anything bad went down on that ship, I’d bet good money that he had something to do with it but he doesn’t strike me as an organiser”.

Rodion pointed at the last profile, a thin, very young-looking man – the youngest of this rogue’s gallery, “I have a feeling you saved the worst for last, so, tell me, how is this one worse than Alexandrov?”

“He’s the one we know the least about. With everyone else, there are obvious ties leading back to organizations like Red Sky. With him, there’s basically nothing, until six years ago something happened and he was arrested, two years later he disappears again. Program kid, no family, no long-term associates, no criminal record”.

“Until six years ago”.

“I was able to grab a report from the Martian Judicial Archives that indicated after the event six years ago he spent two years in a Martian prison” Killian explained, “What’s weird is that all the details of the offense and court records have been scrubbed”.

“Completely?”

“Completely. You don’t see that often. Indicates he might have ties to a big shot, a really big shot”, she said, “I’m talking a ‘we-should-be-careful’ even talking about this big shot”.

“So, we have a guy that basically didn’t exist until six years ago and then when he finally slips up, someone very powerful pulled whatever strings they had to make sure he disappeared again… No reason to do that unless he was worth the effort”, Rodion scratched his head, “Sounds to me like some sort of deep-cover operative”.

Killian nodded, “We don’t know his MO, mission, or what he’s capable of. At least, not until you can get the original case records for whatever he was involved with six years ago”.

“From Mars? That’s going to be tough…”, Rodion was beginning to understand how Georgi must be feeling. The worst-case scenario was only getting worse. “I forgot, what was his name?”

“His name’s Sirius, aged 22-ish, from the 4th Deimos Prime Ward”.