“So what are we doing on this Azatlia planet, anyway?” Charlotte asked from her place in the breast pocket of Lenya’s leather jacket. She watched in fascination as dozens of building-sized people strolled past, completely oblivious to her existence. Being faced with her own insignificance caused Charlotte’s knees to go weak and she leaned back against the fabric covered wall of Lenya’s pocket to help maintain her balance. She was able to regain her composure after a few deep breaths.

She was also trying to wrap her mind around the fact that she was actually on an alien world. She’d never been a huge sci-fi fan, but even she could admit that the idea was both terrifying and exhilarating. The gravity made her feel incredibly light; the sky was a tad bit grayer than the sky of Earth and the sunlight a duskier shade of orange.

Charlotte was, of course, upset that she might never see Earth again, and that she was millions of miles away from everything she knew, and Molly was missing. Still, the chance to see another planet, to see aliens… well, there was at least a thin silver lining to the mess she’d found herself in.

“Well, mostly, because I needed a logical destination for a stopover at Titan station to be included in. That place isn’t generally a place anybody goes to on purpose, unless they’re really fascinated by the idea of looking at Earth through a telescope.”

“But,” Lenya continued. “I figure as long as we’re here, we might as well accomplish something productive while we wait for a place on a transport to open up so that we can start looking for your friend.”

“So I assume we’ll be heading back to Titan Station to find her?” Charlotte continued.

Lenya sighed. “Yeah. We’ll have to be smart about it though, no doubt they’ll be looking for me.” Although inside Lenya couldn’t help but wonder if the station security would bother that much about a stolen human. She really didn’t want to say that to Charlotte, however.

“You mentioned being ‘productive.’” Charlotte reminded her. “Exactly what did you mean by that?”

Lenya snickered. “It’s likely going to be a few days before transportation to Titan Station will become available again. However, Azatlia is home to the headquarters of the ‘Joyous Human’ pet food company. I was thinking maybe we could have a little fun, cause them a little grief, and then be on our way.”

“What were you thinking?” Charlotte asked cautiously. “I mean, you don’t want to blow up their factory or something right?”

“No.” Lenya shook her head. “That kind of stunt is too dangerous. I was thinking something that’s admittedly a little more stealthy. Something that might open a few eyes in the general public and redden a few faces at the pet food company.”

*.*.*.*

“I’m afraid I don’t recognize her.” The young woman on Vanser’s screen shook her head. “I’ve been trying to track down as many of the Earth humans as I possibly can, Imperator Nix, so if you get any information, please let me know.”

Vanser sighed and nodded. With a keystroke he removed the image of the thief he’d managed to pull from the security footage, leaving only Pryvani’s visage on the screen.

“Well, thanks for your help, Miss Tarsuss.” Vanser’s smile was polite but strained.

“If you don’t mind me asking, Imperator, what’s your next step?”

“The woman’s flight manifest listed Azatlia as her next destination, so that’s where Molly and I will be heading next.”

Pryvani’s brow knitted in confusion. “You know her itinerary? Why do you need me to identify her then?”

Vanser smirked. “She used a fake name. Our suspect is travelling under the name Wyndiss Ro.”

Pryvani chuckled and shook her head. “Of course she was.” The name “Wyndiss Ro” was a stock character name from a number of ancient Archavian fables from before the founding of the Empire or the Dominion. It was often used as a popular pseudonym throughout the Empire… though, mostly as a joke.

“Yeah” Vanser sighed. “The fact that no one caught it is both worrying and embarrassing. Nevertheless, her itinerary is legitimate enough and I’m hoping we’ll be able to pick up her trail when we arrive on Azatlia.”

“I’ll keep hold of this photo, Imperator Nix, and pass it around to a few of my contacts. I’m confident at least one of them will be able to shed some light on who she really is.”

“Thank you, Senator.” Vanser smiled. “I appreciate the help.”

“Not at all.” Pryvani smiled. “Any friend of Rixie’s is a friend of mine, after all.”

Vanser bid goodbye to the young heiress and cut the connection.

“So the lady didn’t know anything, did she?” Molly asked, coming out from her hiding spot behind Vanser’s mug of kaff.

“Unfortunately not, but she’s going to put some lines out, try and find some information. And Pryvani Tarsuss has a knack for finding whatever she needs.”

He picked up the mug and sipped at the hot liquid inside. “In the meantime, we’re almost to Azatlia, and from there we can put the word out to law enforcement there to see what we can find.”

*.*.*.*

Lenya stood outside the fence that surrounded the Joyous Human pet food company manufacturing plant and stared up at the utilitarian brown building with a frown on her face.

“Wow that’s a big building.” Charlotte muttered into Lenya’s ear. “And not just, you know…”

“Yeah.” Lenya muttered with a sigh. “But, don’t worry, I’ve done things like this before. It shouldn’t be too much of a problem.”

It was night on Azatlia and Lenya had changed into all black attire, including a jacket with a hood that effectively concealed her face. She’d also dyed her hair black so it wouldn’t stand out as much.

“No sense in wasting time.” She said, as she slipped Charlotte safely into her pocket.

Lenya glanced around discreetly, making note of any security cameras or guard stations. It didn’t take her long to find a blank spot in the camera coverage, which was where she decided to make her entrance to the factory grounds.

It took her a little longer than she had expected it to scale the metal linked fence. I had been a few years since she’d attempted something like this, so she was a little bit out of shape. Still, she did make it over the fence just fine, landing on the concrete below with minimal noise from her boots.

Lenya ducked behind a stack of crates and took stock of the situation. She seemed to be near to a warehouse, which put the main factory floor due east. From the building schematics she’d looked at beforehand, her target would be somewhere in there.

Throwing her hood up to cover her face, she cautiously made her way towards the factory building, keeping as much to the shadows as possible to hide from security cameras.

It wasn’t long before she was slipping into a maintenance access door and making her way towards the factory floor. She dug a small device out of her pocket and clipped it to her belt, right before activating it.

“What’s that thing for?” Charlotte asked curiously.

“It jams the feed from security cameras.” Lenya explained. “I would have used it sooner but it has a really short range so it’s pretty useless in wide open spaces like out there on the lot. However, it’s perfect for inside a building.”

She entered a large room with high ceilings. Around her the machines that created, bagged, canned and shipped the human food continued their endless production through the night. It would be in the morning that the maintenance crews would arrive to make sure the operation continued to run smoothly.

However, at that time of night, there was very minimal worker presence. Mostly security.

Lenya made her way off the production floor and towards a bank of offices. She heard a voice and ducked down a side hallway, crouching low to keep from being seen.

“So is this your first night on the job?” A male voice echoed off the empty walls and laminated floors.

“In this location, yeah. I transferred over from the Doterri branch a week ago. Just finished the reorientation yesterday.”

Lenya could see them now. Two men in the dark grey uniform of company security, their flashlight beams bouncing on the floor ahead of them as they walked. She crouched lower behind her minimal cover and held her breath, hoping they weren’t paying too much attention.

“Oh yeah, Doterri. Nice place. It’s a bit different around here.”

Lenya’s heart pumped in her chest loud enough that she was certain the two guards could hear it. She bit her lip as they came upon her hiding spot…

And then they passed right on by, turning down a different corridor at the next intersection down.

Lenya breathed a sigh of relief.

“Everything okay out here?” Charlotte whispered, poking her head above her pocket hiding place.

“Haven’t been caught yet, so… So far so good.” Lenya muttered, pulling herself back to her feet and continued down the hallway, away from the direction the two guards had been walking in.

Lenya counted off the offices as she passed them. There was a very specific number she was looking for.

“Let’s see…” She muttered quietly to herself. “The one I need… should be… right… here.” She found herself at her destination, office number 567-tef. She reached for the handle. It was, predictably, locked.

“Well… it was worth a shot.” She muttered to herself. “Looks like we do this the hard way.”

The “hard way” consisted of dragging a small chair over to the vent that led into the office and, very quietly, popping the grate off.

“Are you sure this is a good idea, Lenya?” Charlotte asked quietly as Lenya lifted her up into the vent.

“No.” Lenya responded tersely. “But it’s the only way I have to get into that office. Now hurry up and get out of the way.”

“All right, fine.” Charlotte muttered, quickly jogging a fair distance down the ventilation shaft, which was the size of a large corridor to her.

Taking a deep breath and letting it out, Lenya hefted herself up into the shaft.

“Oh Emperor…” The titan swore quietly as she began to, slowly, pull herself through the small space. “This is a lot narrower than I was expecting.”

“Yeah…” Charlotte snickered. “I bet those hips of yours are good for a lot of things… but they’re just a tad bit too wide for what we’re doing here.”

“Shut up.” Lenya grunted, moving herself forward a tiny bit more. “I’ll fit just fine. Not all of us can be as tiny as you are.”

“Whatever you say, thunder-thighs.” Charlotte giggled, moving ahead of her.

Several minutes later, Lenya was finally able to pop the grate on the other side.

“Get behind me.” She grunted to her human companion.

“Right, sure. Just give me a second.” Charlotte sighed and made her way over Lenya’s body until she was safely on the other side of the titan and out of harm’s way for when Lenya pulled herself the rest of the way through the vent and landed inside the office with a rather undignified thud.

“Nice landing.” Charlotte deadpanned from inside the vent.

“Shut up.” Lenya grunted good naturedly, even as she reached up to pluck Charlotte from the vent and place her back inside the jacket pocket. “Fortunately we won’t need to do that to leave, we can just use the door.

Lenya screwed the grate back onto the vent and then turned her attention towards her objective, the small computer sitting on the desk in the middle of the office.

“And there we are.” She muttered in a satisfied tone, sauntering over to the computer and activating it.

It was, of course, password protected. Lenya had expected this. She dug out her own data pad and activated the decryption program she’d used many times before. She was beyond the password in but a few minutes.

“I’m starting to think you’ve done this before.” Charlotte said as she watched Lenya’s hands fly across the keypad.

“Once or twice.” Lenya muttered distractedly, her face illuminated by the screen in front of her.

“So what are we doing here, exactly?” Charlotte asked.

“Just a little harmless prank.” Lenya responded cryptically. “I’ll tell you all about it when we get out of here.”

“Right.”

It was another minute or so before Lenya tapped her last decisive keystroke.

“Done!” She crowed triumphantly, rising from the desk chair as the computer screen deactivated and they were once again inside a darkened office.

“Good. I think we need to get out of here then.”

“Right.” Lenya nodded. She left the office, making sure she hadn’t left any trace of herself behind. When she was back out in the hallway, she quickly replaced the grate she’d used to gain access to the office and then quickly retraced her steps until she was back on the production floor.

That was when she heard voices.

“Man I’m starting to get hungry. When do you usually take breaks around here?”

Lenya stifled a surprised gasp and quickly ducked behind one of the assembly machines. She hoped the roar of the machine would cover her own breathing as she attempted to slow her heartbeat back down to a more manageable level.

“Did you hear that?” One of the guards muttered to the other.

“What?”

“Sounded like footsteps.”

“Yeah that was us.”

“No besides that, genius.” There was a click and the beam of the head guards flashlight appeared on the ground in front of him.

Lenya held her breath as the guard’s beam of light probed along the ground, getting closer and closer to her hiding spot.

Lenya bit her lip almost to the point of bleeding to keep from crying out.

Suddenly, the flashlight beam clicked off.

“Eh.” The guard muttered gruffly. “Must have just been my imagination.”

“Told you.” His partner laughed. “You’ve been doing this job for too long. You’re starting to see things.”

The two security guards moved on and Lenya was finally able to let the breath she’d been holding go.

“Man that was close.” She muttered to herself, crawling out from her hiding place.

“Damn right it was.” Charlotte gasped, poking her head up from inside Lenya’s pocket. “Let’s get out of here before I have a heart attack.”

It didn’t take long, after that, for Lenya to make her way out of the assembly building and back onto the factory grounds outside. From there it was a relatively simple matter of retracing her steps from earlier, hopping from one security blind spot to the next and keeping herself as hidden as possible. Soon enough, she was climbing back over the fence and swiftly making her way from the Joyous Human pet food company.

When she’d managed to make it several units away from the building, a safe distance, Lenya collapsed against a tree; grateful to have made it through the caper unscathed.

“Well, that was fun.” She said to Charlotte with a grin as she carefully fished the human woman from her pocket.

“It was, in an insane kind of way.” Charlotte admitted with a grin. “So what did we just do, exactly?”

Lenya laughed. “I just changed the design of the label for the bags and cans for their products. Nothing major, but by this time tomorrow, bags and cans of human food with pro-human rights propaganda printed on their labels will be shipping all over the Empire. Everything is so automated in there that they might not even realize there’s a problem for several days. And by that point it will be too late to stop it.

Lenya shrugged. “It’s not much, and it won’t free any humans, but maybe a few of their owners will stop and think for a second about what they’re doing.”

She paused and grinned at the human. “Besides.” Lenya chuckled. “This was just the warmup act. I have a lot more planned.”

*.*.*.*

Vanser Nix undid his crash restraints and climbed out of the cockpit of the small shuttle he’d commandeered from Titan Station. It wasn’t the most comfortable mode of transportation he’d ever used, but it was serviceable, and it was the best Titan Station could offer on such short notice.

“Well Molly.” He said to the little human clinging to his shoulder as his boots touched the pavement of the landing strip. “This is Azatlia.”

“It’s nice… I guess.” Molly muttered, awed by the fact that she was presently on an alien world. It was finally beginning to sink in how far from home she was.

“The first step is to get in touch with the local law enforcement and see if they’ve seen any sign of our lady thief. And, hopefully, from there we’ll be able to find your friend.”