“Attention! This is the Captain. We will be docking with Titan Station within the next few hours, all passengers and crew, please prepare for disembarkation procedures.”

A young woman sitting in her seat in her mid-level cabin looked up at the sound of the announcement. When it became obvious what was going on, she turned to stare morosely through the porthole next to her seat at the planet whose moon they were approaching.

Beyond the moon lay the impressive ringed planet which it orbited. The woman, however, was more interested in the planet that lie further towards the sun, the only planet in the system that was inhabited with life, and whose native beings had captured the imagination of Titans for centuries.

Including hers.

Her name was Lenyalana Dagaramonto and, up until recently, she’d been the Executive Director for the Titans for Ethical Treatment of Humans. This was something that she’d been very proud of, in fact. Then the incident in Medzina had occurred and it had shattered her formerly complacent estimation of the course her life was taking.

Lenya and her colleagues had been notified of a tribe of humans, a small civilization really, living undisturbed in the middle of Korafian farmland. They’d thought it the perfect opportunity to showcase the nascent intelligence of humans and hopefully get people to understand that humans were worth more than living in cages.

And… to do that, she and her colleagues took them from the home they’d built and threw them in a cage.

Lenya’s squeezed her eyes shut and leaned her forehead against the glass window with a small thump. Looking back on it now, it was blindingly obvious how stupid they’d all been. But they were idealists- stupid, stupid idealists- who arrogantly assumed that they were the only ones who knew what to do to fix the situation.

Fortunately, they’d been stopped before they succeeded in permanently ripping those men and women from the home they’d created for themselves. The owners of the farm Lenya and her compatriots had trespassed on came to collect the humans and bring them back. And…

Well, long story short, Lenya’s eyes had been opened.

There was a slight bump as the shuttle touched down on the floor of the station’s docking platform. After a moment, the disembarkation notice flashed on the terminal in front of her, and Lenya undid her crash restraints and pulled herself out of the chair with a sigh.

After their failure, she and the other TETH members had retreated to lick their wounds and contemplate the trajectory their organization was on. However by that point it was far too late… at least it was for Lenya. She couldn’t get back to the mindset that they were doing what was right for humans. Within a week she’d resigned her post and ended a fourteen year career. She hadn’t bothered to stick around and find out, but it wouldn’t surprise her if Lesis had done the same.

Ncaesi, on the other hand, would certainly keep plunging straight ahead, convinced of her own rightness. In fact, Lenya wouldn’t have been surprised if they’d given Ncaesi Lenya’s old position.

Well, she was welcome to it.

Lenya stepped onto the deck plate of the station’s hangar and quickly got into the security line where she and the rest of the crew and passengers waited to be processed by the station security. The line passed quickly as the passengers were processed in an efficient manner. Soon enough Lenya had made it to the front of the line, where she handed her boarding pass and travel papers to the young female security guard.

“What’s your business here?” The young woman, whose name badge read ‘Turo’ asked in a bored tone of voice.

“Just a stop over.” Lenya replied in a quiet voice. “On my way to Azatlia.”

Turo glanced down at the documents in her hand, verifying what Lenya had said to her. “Very well, you’re cleared to proceed.”

“Thank you.” Lenya murmured as she stashed her documents in the pocket of her coat. She passed through the security station without any further incident, and then boarded an elevator that took her down into the civilian areas of the station.

She emerged from the lift onto a somewhat crowded walkway lit by brightly colored lights. She found herself in the promenade. Around her were many shops selling wares from around the galaxy, as well as several taverns and restaurants all looking to cater to the many travelers and sightseers that passed through the station every day.

Lenya hadn’t been lying, exactly, when she’d told the security officer that she was on her way to Azatlia. That was, after all, what her travel itinerary had stated and, fate willing, it was where she’d be heading to next.

But her purpose was on Titan Station.

She ducked into a bathroom and locked the door behind her. After doing a quick scan of the room to make sure there were no surveillance devices she dug into her pack and pulled out a small kit. Inside were a pair of contacts, a small hairband and a spray bottle.

Working quickly, Lenya misted her hair with the liquid inside the spray bottle, being sure to coat from root to tip. Next she carefully put the contact lenses into her eyes and finally placed the hairband onto her head.

She was pleased when the color of her hair changed from her natural auburn to a light gold and her irises became light blue when before they’d been a deep grey color.

Lenya blinked a few times to settle the lenses underneath her eye lids. Once she was satisfied with her disguise and pleased that it worked as well as she’d been told it would, she gathered up her things and stepped out of the bathroom and back into the crowded thoroughfare.

She took a long and meandering route through the bazaar. Lenya knew her destination, but she didn’t want to look too focused on it. She was, after all, playing the role of a bored traveler who was merely on the station so she could make a connecting flight.

Eventually, however, she made her way towards her target. The slightly rundown shop that claimed to sell animals and other oddities from Earth.

Including, or so the rumor went, a confiscated shipment of abducted humans.

Casually, Lenya made her way into the shop. There were two or three other patrons in the store with her, one of which was currently being assisted by the owner. This suited Lenya just fine.

Again, she made a meandering circuit of the store, inspecting the various cages stacked on the shelves that lined the shop. Eventually, though, she found herself in front of a slightly dusty display. On the shelf in front of her were a pair of cryogenic units, and inside each one was a little human female, frozen in time.

Lenya was horrified. She’d heard rumors that a an insectoid smuggling operation had attempted to push abducted Earth-born humans through Titan Station -and it was those rumors that had led her here in the first place- but she’d not heard that they’d been frozen. By the look of the display, there’d been many more to begin with as well… Lenya wondered what had happened to them all…

She shook herself. No use worrying about that, those were beyond her ability to help. She could help the two in front of her, however.

Checking over her shoulder to make sure that she wasn’t being watched, Lenya quickly slipped the two cylinders into the pockets of her jacket, and then casually made her way towards the exit. Lenya felt a feeling of elation as she crossed the threshold; she’d gotten away with it.

Then the alarms went off.

*.*.*.*

“So, as you can see, Legatus-Imperator, adding a fourth duty rotation to the schedule has improved the over-all efficiency of the station’s security by twelve percent over the past two months.”

It took all of Legatus-Imperator Vanser Nix’s willpower to keep his eyes from rolling in frustration. He was on Titan Station as a stopover on his way further in towards the Capital, where he was due to take some leave. It had been an unscheduled stop that had been necessitated by some malfunction in the ship he’d been seeking passage on. He then made the mistake of checking in with his superiors, who had oh-so-helpfully ‘suggested’ that, as long as he was there, perhaps he could do a follow-up on the station’s last inspection.

This was why he was now touring the corridors of the station next to the station’s commander Centurium Aquesil and listening to her ramble on about some new program she’d devised for staff rotation …or something.

Truthfully, he wasn’t really paying attention. Far too much of his brain was focused on finding a way to gracefully extricate himself from the situation, the rest was silently cursing Sebastokrator Zisko for dumping this duty (Which Vanser cynically suspected had originally been Zisko’s) on him in the first place.

Then he heard the alarm go off.

“What was that?” Vanser asked, eternally grateful for the distraction, no matter how temporary.

Centurium Aquesil frowned. “It sounded like one of the boutique alarms. It’s probably nothing to worry-” Her sentence trailed off as the Imperator suddenly took off running towards the noise.

As luck would have it, they were fairly close to the source of the alarm. In no time, Vanser had made his way to the main promenade just in time to see the irate shopkeeper yelling at a fleeing woman.

“Stop her!” The dark-haired woman shouted. “Shoplifter! Thief!”

Vanser bolted after the retreating form of the alleged thief. The woman’s golden colored hair a clear beacon in the crowded corridor.

A string of curse words in several languages escaped Lenya’s lips as she bolted away from the animal boutique. She’d been careless. She hadn’t counted on some small-time shop on a station like this one bothering with security devices on its merchandise.

She plowed through the crowd to put as much distance between herself and the pursuing security as possible and then ducked into a side hallway.

Frantically, she took a moment to examine the two cryopods. It didn’t take her long to locate the small tracking tags that had been affixed to each one. Fortunately, they were the cheapest of their kind available. Lenya was confident she could remove them easily.

Shouts echoed from the corridor she’d come from. Security was catching up to her. With a muttered curse, she pushed off and continued running, trying to remove the tag from one of the cryopods at the same time.

“There!”

Lenya glanced over her shoulder and saw the young security officer in hot pursuit. Her legs pumped and she weaved through the crowds as she desperately tried to remove the small tag on the cryopod that would lead the security officers right to her, even if she managed to lose them.

There was an audible snap and the tag popped off. Grinning at her good fortune she jigged to the side and dropped it in the jacket pocket of a passerby before ducking back into the crowd again.

Still, the security guards kept after her.

Lenya dropped the pod she’d cleared into her pocket and took the other one out.

This tag was proving even more difficult than the first, however. She gritted her teeth in frustration even as her long nails worked around the patch, trying to remove it.

She was so focused on her task that she wasn’t paying as much attention to what was in front of her as she should have been. With an audible grunt, she slammed into a body in front of her, sending both of them toppling to the floor.

The cryopod flew out of her grasp and became lost in the milling throng around her. Lenya pulled herself back to her feet and looked frantically for the missing pod, but it was nowhere to be seen.

What was visible, was the young officer who was doggedly pursuing her. He looked up at the same time she did, their eyes locked from a fifty units away. Biting her lip, Lenya turned and ran back into the crowd.

She ran a circuitous route through the station until she was exhausted and out of breath. Eventually, Lenya realized she wasn’t being chased anymore. She’d managed to give them the slip. Feeling relieved, Lenya ducked into a nearby lavatory and leaned against the sink, trying to calm her racing heart. She cursed herself for losing one of the cryos. Who knew what might happen to the poor woman inside now?

After a few minutes she’d managed to calm herself. She’d just have to hope the woman in tht pod landed somewhere safe. In the meantime, Lenya was going to have to focus on getting safely away from the station.

She dug a small controller out of her pocket and fiddled with the controls. After a moment her blonde hair became a deep black with a bright green streak above each eye, which both transformed into a burnt orange color. Next, Lenya carefully removed her jacket and reversed it, leaving the black leather on the interior and the red on the outside.

Satisfied she’d done as much as she could to change her appearance; Lenya stepped out of the lavatory and back into the crowd, walking as casually as possible.

She checked the chronometer on her pad and saw that her departing ship was due to leave in a little over an hour. That would give her just enough time to get to the platform and board her flight.

She secreted the cryo unit in an inside pocket of her jacket and made her way towards her terminal.

Fortunately, the departing platform security had not been made aware of the events in the animal boutique, so were not terribly vigilant in their duties. Lenya made it through the checkpoint with no issues and boarded her departing ship feeling incredibly pleased with herself.

She still wasn’t entirely certain what she was going to do with the frozen woman in her pocket, but at least that woman wasn’t going to be sitting on a shelf being gawked at by tourists any longer.

And for Lenya, that was enough for now.

*.*.*.*

At first, all she could see was blackness. Then, gradually, shades of grey intruded. This was followed by blurry, colored shapes. At first, her entire body felt numb, but then, gradually feeling came back to her limbs and she was able to, slowly, pull herself into a seated position.

What had happened to her? Had she been drugged? That was the first thought she was able to coherently pull together. Her mother had always warned her that these Hollywood types were trouble. The last thing… the last thing she could remember was being in the hot tub with that actor, Sam Rodriguez and Charlotte and then… that horrible noise… that thing in the sky… and then…

What?

Molly Olson shook her head and climbed unsteadily to her feet. She needed to figure out where she was and then find a police station as soon as possible. If she’d been drugged…

Suddenly the ground underneath Molly’s feet trembled roughly, sending Molly to her knees with a startled cry. She looked wildly about herself and for the first time since waking up was able to see her surroundings clearly.

Not that that helped them to make any sense whatsoever. A massive wall of what looked like steel rose next to her, impossibly high, so high that she couldn’t see where it ended. Beneath her feet were large tiles, each one about ten feet on a side.

The ground trembled again and Molly fell on her backside. Not from the tremor, but from shock. Because a large boot had just landed right in front of her.

Molly gaped silently, too shocked even to scream, as her gaze traveled up the length of the black rubber boot, past the dark blue pants and shirt, and up to the massive cloud of neon green hair that topped the giant woman’s head.

She was only in view for a second, before her step took her out of Molly’s view. But it didn’t matter because a second later two more giants, this time a man and a woman both, slid into view. Then, another woman, followed by a group of six whose colossal footsteps seemed to rattle Molly’s bones until she was ready to vomit.

Frantically, Molly backed against the wall; her mind refused to believe what she was seeing was real. She curled herself into a panicked ball and closed her eyes, praying that everything she was seeing was just a hallucination. That soon she’d wake up and everything would be normal again. She prayed that she would just wake up from this nightmare she’d found herself in.

Then everything was suddenly quiet. Cautiously, she cracked one eye open, hoping to find herself safely in a hospital or something.

Instead, she found her view dominated by another pair of black leather boots. This time, as her gaze travelled upwards, she saw a pair of black slacks that almost looked like a uniform. A shadow fell over her and she briefly saw the outline of a black gloved hand. Something closed around her, blocking out both the light and sound, she was restrained securely, but not painfully and the only thing she could sense was the overwhelming smell of leather.

And then, her mind reaching the breaking point, Molly passed out into blissful unconsciousness.

Vanser gently cupped the unconscious human in his hand and raised himself back into a standing position. He quickly inspected the small woman and checked her over to make sure that she hadn’t suffered any injury. Satisfied that she wasn’t hurt, just out cold.

With a sigh, Vanser lowered her into the pocket of his uniform. Rescuing her from the crowded floor had caused him to lose sight of his perpetrator, but he’d known it was the correct decision. Something silvery caught his eye and he noticed the opened cryo pod the woman had no doubt crawled out of.

Vanser bent down and picked it up, before slipping it into his other pocket.

It didn’t take him long to make it back to the animal boutique, where Centurium Aquesil was being verbally accosted by the rather irate shopkeeper.

“Just what is taking your security so gorram long to recover my merchandise?” She roared at the placid commander of the station. “You’re the frakking Imperial Military. Supposedly the best in the galaxy!”

Aquesil sighed and rubbed the bridge of her nose. “Ma’am, I can assure you that… ah. Here’s Imperator Nix. Did you have any luck, sir?” She asked.

Vanser shook his head and pulled the empty cryo out of his pocket. “Tracker led us to this.” He told the shopkeeper. “But the perpetrator was nowhere to be found.”

“Great. Just great.” The woman snarled. “My last two Earth humans and now they’re both gone and I have nothing to show for it.”

Vanser’s eyes hardened. “I appreciate the position you’re in Miss…”

“Jeska.”

“Jeska. I have no doubt that Centurium Aquesil will do everything in her power to make sure that the thief is found and your possesions returned.”

“I’ll believe it when I see it.”

“In the meantime.” Vanser’s voice was ice. “I’ll be confiscating this cryo unit as evidence.”

“Go ahead and take it!” Jeska growled. “It’s no good to me empty anyway.” And with that, the young woman turned on her heel and stormed back into her store.

“I’m sorry Imperator Nix.” Aquesil sighed. “She’s always been a bit… difficult.”

“Hm.” Vanser nodded. “I’ll need to see the security tapes. Those from around the store and for both the arrival and departure platforms.”

“Why?” Aquesil asked. Then, belatedly, “Sir.”

“Because.” Vanser said with a smirk. “I want to know just who this thief is.”