The J’olpri Black Market: Part 1
“Ah, something has caught your attention?”
I nodded at the vendor, my eyes glued to the display before me. Earrings with crystals bigger than my fist lay beside gem-studded rings. Beneath them was a necklace threaded with so many iridescent jewels that, were it around my neck, its weight would make me hunch over.
“Beautiful, no?” the vendor lifted the tray from where it rested at the front of his booth. He tilted his six arms side to side, allowing his magnificent wares to catch the scant overhead lighting of the J’olpri black market. The jewels cast rainbow prisms across the rickety table and drab, make-shift walls of the neighboring stalls.
Two hulking aliens shouldered past me, sending me stumbling into the vendor and his table. The earrings fell. I reached out to catch them before they hit the ground.
A purple hand wrapped around my wrist. I fought against its hold. Azo’lah pulled me back, snarling, “What did I tell you, Myaxi? Touch nothing!”
The earrings shattered against the metal floor, a thousand fragments of beauty. Except the pieces dulled instantly, resembling dirty plastic more than diamonds. I felt like I had been suddenly slapped awake. “What—what just—”
“Clumsy vimp, look what you’ve done!” the vendor howled, his half-dozen arms clutching the other jewelry that had almost met a similar fate. The nostrils of his bulbous nose flared beneath his solitary eye. “You break it, you bought it!”
“It was an accident,” I argued, voice warbling as I regained my bearings in the claustrophobically-packed corridor.
We had come to J’olpri in search of something...something important. Something I couldn’t currently remember.
I dug my fingers into my temples, attempting to jog my memory. We decided to keep a low profile and split up into teams of two to gather information about... what we had come to find. Chester was attempting to keep Fleetwood in line, while Ryan did recon with Matt, which meant I went with Azo’lah.
Azo’lah had been questioning the vendor selling questionably acquired Xxoli antiques across the aisle when the earrings caught my eye. I looked down at the shards scattered across the grody floor.
I bent over to inspect them, but Azo’lah yanked me back. “Don’t touch anything!” she hissed. She turned her scorching anger on the vendor as she said, “And we owe you nothing! We don’t pay for stolen, cursed goods.”
The vendor recoiled, scandalized. “How dare you!”
“Cursed?” I repeated dumbly.
“Of course, these tawdry pieces are cursed,” Azo’lah said. “What else would make you so obsessed with just one glance? Bespelled by the witches of Huxor. Thankfully, you did not touch them.” She grabbed my chin, forcing my gaze up to hers. “You did not touch them, correct?”
I thought back, my splotchy memory filling in. “No? No, I didn’t. Wait, did you say witches of Huxor? There are space witches?”
The vendor pulled himself to his full stature, an impressive (and intimidating) full head taller than Azo’lah’s seven feet. His jowls shook with indignation as he raved, “You owe me 6,000—”
His protestations died violently as Azo’lah’s hand darted forward and her fingers flexed around his doughy neck. “We owe nothing.” She released him but did not back up. In his terror, the vendor dropped every jewel in his grasp. One after the other lost its irresistible luster when it collided with the ground. “And if you continue to harass us, you will regret it.”
“You don’t scare me, Destyrian,” he returned, “there are no weapons allowed on J’olpri.”
From beneath her tunic, Azo’lah produced her zali’thir, the wickedly sharp stiletto blade unique to the Myax order, and brought its tip beneath the vendor’s many chins. “Like most, I don’t follow that rule. Or any of the others.”
Sputtering like a dying car, the vendor finally acquiesced. “You are correct. It was an accident. The human owes me nothing.”
“Excellent.” Azo’lah stowed her zali’thir and stepped back, grinding the remains of the earrings beneath her boots. “Come, Gretchen,” she said, guiding me away from the jewelry stall and into the flow of the market’s foot traffic. The glaring eye of the jewelry vendor followed our every move.
“Space witches? Why didn’t anyone tell me there are space witches?” I repeated, grabbing onto the sleeve of Azo’lah’s tunic so as not to get separated by the crowd. Tucked away in the shadow of a moon, J’olpri was a beaten-up, cylindrical rust-bucket held together by spit, tape, and bad intentions. For such an exclusive, secret black market, J’olpri’s thirty-seven floors were packed with criminals fencing, buying, and trading illegal goods.
Azo’lah directed me to the left, down an aisle of stalls full to bursting with luxurious fabrics. “Why were you never told? You never asked about them.”
“Space witches are not something I should have to ask about,” I said. My gaze trailed across elaborately embroidered velvets and diaphanous silks hanging from stalls. More rolls of thick material jutted out into the aisle, making the maze-like market even more dangerous to navigate. A rich crimson material caught my eye, reminding me of...“The cloak!”
“You see it?” Azo’lah pulled up short, causing a series of collisions behind us as the aliens behind us ran into us and then each other.
“No,” I shook my head, tugging Azo’lah forward amid a hailstorm of cussing, irritated aliens. “I finally remembered it. Those earrings made me forget.”
“The jewels of Huxor are known for their hypnotic qualities,” Azo’lah explained lackadaisically, as though witches and magic were an everyday topic, on par with farmers’ markets and avocado toast. “Those who touch the jewels have been known to forget their lives and wander aimlessly across the universe until their deaths.”
We took a left turn down a narrow passage, where an indigo alien smaller than my palm fluttered its wings above a stall full of metal jars, shouting, “Wos’kit pollen! Get your Wos’kit pollen here! The universe’s strongest, purest aphrodisiac!”
Wide-eyed, I carefully sidestepped the Wos’kit pollen stand. “Cursed to aimlessly wander until they die? That’s awful!”
“It’s an effective deterrent against thieves,” Azo’lah replied. “Though, apparently not against opportunistic grifters. I wonder if it’s because he only had one eye—”
My earpiece—a new addition that Captain Thorley had insisted upon for all of us—dinged. I tapped my Ran’dyl to allow communications. “Yeah?”
Chester’s voice was the first to come through. “Anybody find anything? We’ve got nothing up here on floor twenty-nine.”
“That’s false,” Fleetwood corrected. “We’ve found many things, but Chester won’t let me purchase a crate of Virilian wine.”
I could hear Chester’s eyes rolling as he said, “FleetMerc, it’s 100% alcohol. Even you will die drinking that.”
“We would dilute it, my beloved dumbwaiter,” Fleetwood said.
“Majumdar and I have nothing down on eight,” Ryan crisply cut in.
“We also have not acquired the whereabouts of the cloak or its seller on seventeen,” Azo’lah reported.
“Though we did find jewelry cursed by space witches,” I added, darkly.
“Shut the front door,” Ryan crowed. “Space witches are a thing? That’s so dope.”
Coming to the end of the passage, Azo’lah and I were forced to turn left into a felonious cul de sac. Here, the stalls were more spacious, clearly designed for the sale of larger items. A gleaming, solo racing ship parked on a rotating display caught my eye.
“Myaxi and I are going up to the next floor,” Azo’lah said.
“Ryan and I will head down one then,” Matt replied.
“We should all try to cover at least one more floor before meeting back at the ship,” Ryan directed.
“That’s a good plan, Captain,” Azo’lah agreed as she scanned the stalls for anything of interest. She stilled suddenly, like a lioness on the hunt when her keen eyes landed on the racing ship.
I grinned. “I didn’t know you were into racing—” Azo’lah violently jerked me behind the dirty tarp wall of the nearest booth. “Azo’lah, what the hell?”
“Quiet, Myaxi.” The hand that wasn’t held across me darted beneath her tunic, where her zali’thir was stowed. She craned around the edge of the stand and cursed softly beneath her breath. Tucked beneath Azo’lah, I stuck my head out just far enough to see what had her on high alert.
“Azo’lah, what’s wrong?” I asked.
“Sadrilla,” she replied.
“What’s a Sadrilla?”
“She is.” Azo’lah gestured subtly with her chin to the alien intently studying the racing ship. She was startlingly humanoid save for her rose-pink skin. Her turquoise hair was neatly pulled back in twin braids that fell past her shoulders. Even from this distance, I could see the dark ink that wrapped around her throat and crawled up her left cheek, an elegantly scrawled tattoo that covered half of her face. She wasn’t particularly tall but was slender, her all-black ensemble barely concealing the strong lines of a powerful physique.
My stomach churned as though filled with spoiled milk.
Azo’lah pulled me behind the stand again as I asked, “Who’s Sadrilla?”
Instead of answering me, Azo’lah tapped her earpiece and said, “Captain Thorley, change of plans. We need to pull back to the Gold Dust Wo’man and regroup immediately.”
Ryan replied, “Reason?”
“We have spotted the mercenary, Sadrilla,” Azo’lah said, with the quick, militaristic precision that emerged whenever danger did.
“Fuckbuckets,” Fleetwood breathed.
Azo’lah continued, “Sadrilla and her crew are known for their ruthless tactics and carelessness when civilians get in their way.”
“Do you think they’re here for the cloak?” Ryan asked.
“Possibly,” Azo’lah mused. “But I do know that we do not want to be wandering about J’olpri, separated and barely armed, with Sadrilla present.”
“You heard Azo’lah, everyone back to the ship for a debrief now,” Ryan ordered. “Be quick and careful. No one gets off comms until we’re back aboard the Gold Dust Wo’man.”
Azo’lah grabbed my elbow and ducked back the way we came, hurrying toward the ship.
Azo’lah, I sent across our strange but useful technopathic connection, what aren’t you telling Ryan? Who is Sadrilla really?
She is who I told the Captain she is, came back to me. The messages usually relayed the flavor of the speaker's thoughts somehow, but this one was suspiciously monotone.
Azo’lah, I scolded. We both knew a regular mercenary would never set Azo’lah on edge like this. She’d laughed at Shockley while he shoved weapons in her face. Azo’lah, please, tell me.
Sadrilla and her team aren’t just thieves. They’re killers. Azo’lah’s grip tightened on my arm. They assassinated the previous Auh’tula of the northern continent.
“Fleetwood, feet off the conference table during debriefing,” Ryan instructed from their place at the round table.
“Awwww, sir,” Fleetwood protested but complied with Ryan’s orders, removing her feet and allowing her chair to rock forward into an upright position. This was our first time using the official conference room on the Gold Dust Wo’man. Until now, our debriefs had been informal information exchanges in the mess or the comfort of our communal lounge area. The conference room was small, with a large viewport on one side and a tapestry depicting the first Auhtula and her First Myax. In the corner stood a statue of Auhtula Rey’val, the first Auhtula of the central continent. I recognized the glyph for Myaxi on the back of the chair between Azo’lah and Fleetwood and took a seat. As well as having each of our chairs marked with our position on the crew, the table was adorned with a winding, ancient prayer for safe passage.
“Alright, Myax, on a scale of one to totally terrified, how scared are you of this Sadrilla?” Ryan asked, much too calmly.
“Very much so,” Azo’lah replied, just as calmly. The answer sucked our crew’s typically genial air of camaraderie out the metaphorical airlock.
“Wow, we’re really screwed,” Chester observed, shooting me an uneasy look from across the table.
“Give us the rundown,” Ryan directed, folding their hands on the tabletop. I marveled at Ryan’s ability to shift from teenage nerd living their space dream into a calm, quiet authority.
Azo’lah tapped her Ran’dyl. The eyes of the statue of Auhtula Rey’val flared blue-gold, projecting a 3-D rendering of the same pink-skinned woman we’d seen in the market above the table.
“Sadrilla is unlike anyone we’ve dealt with before. She is a ruthless mercenary who will do anything for the right price. Unlike the Dangerous Ones, Sadrilla’s only compass is compensation, and she is single-minded about the completion of an objective. She does not have morals, and she kills routinely and without compunction. She also assassinated the Auhtula of the northern continent.”
“And six of her Myax,” Fleetwood added with uncharacteristic seriousness. “She’s evaded a group of elite Myax from all seven continents tasked with tracking her down for 105 binary cycles.”
“I’ve heard of Sadrilla, mostly rumors from when I was flying for Shockley,” Matt added. “He made a point to avoid people who’d hired her, which spoke volumes to me.”
And to me. If even Shockley avoided Sadrilla, then we needed to keep our distance. Matt continued. “I don’t know much about her crew, though, besides the fact that she runs with mostly humans. Her right-hand man is some plain-looking bloke. I wouldn’t have noticed him at all had Shockley not beat feet the moment he laid eyes on him at a drop point once.”
“That is correct,” Azo’lah nodded. “This is him. He is known by the name Jordan.” A mousy-looking human man replaced Sadrilla. He was pale with drab, short brown hair, a pointed chin, and eyes set just a bit too far apart under thin eyebrows. “Her other crew member, Anders, is quite intelligent, known for his abilities at deceit, subterfuge, and con artistry.” A third projection appeared, showing a stocky man with an aquiline nose and a double-dimpled smile. With his science joke t-shirt and square-glasses, he was nerdishly cute.
My brow rose as I pointed at the projection. “That guy’s a con artist?”
“Hey, geek’s can run a con,” Chester interjected.
Azo’lah glared at us, unimpressed. “Sadrilla employs others, but those two are her constant companions.”
“Okay, so what’s the plan?” Ryan said.
“Obviously, the Destyrian’s have to stay on the ship,” Chester said.
I nodded in agreement, then shrugged at Azo’lah’s betrayed look. “If Sadrilla’s being tracked by black ops Myax, she’s gonna take one look at you and assume you’re here to bring her in.”
“I would happily do so,” Azo’lah snapped.
“And leave the Fulyiti in dire danger?” Matt said lightly. Azo’lah leveled a glare at him that I hoped never to receive. Matt quirked a small, understanding smile. “Yeah, I’d want her gone too...but your job is to protect your princess on her mission to get the cloak. Sadrilla’s not the mission unless we find out she’s after the cloak too.”
Fleetwood, who had looked like she was hoping Azo’lah was about to declare that no one would be going anywhere without their undoubtedly strongest fighters for protection, groaned when Azo’lah’s expression fell into one of resigned capitulation. “No fair, you squares! I want to help grill out too!”
“Stakeout,” Chester corrected, patting her back sympathetically.
“So, Azo’lah and Fleetwood are laying low. What’s about the rest of us?” I asked, biting the inside of my lip. “We still don’t even know if the cloak is here, and if so, how to get it.”
“And recon’s been a total bust,” Ryan said definitively. “Any ideas on where to start?”
“Someone’s got to be keeping track of what’s coming in and out of here. If not an exact inventory, then at least the value of the cargo and ships’ origins,” Matt suggested.
“I can try to hack the system,” Chester said, “poke around and see what I turn up.”
“I can give you something that may help,” Azo’lah said, avoiding my eyes. No doubt she was banking on being able to use her powers to hack in remotely.
Ryan nodded. “Alright, you two will be on that.”
“And what will you be doing, Captain?” Matt grinned.
Ryan leaned back in their chair, humming contemplatively. “This cloak is valuable, right? But practically unusable these days unless you have extensive knowledge of ancient Destyrian tech, which, like, no one does…”
“Hit the square peg on the head,” Fleetwood said.
“So...it’s like an expensive but useless antique,” Ryan continued.
I protested, “It’s not useless, even if all it does is provide insight into—”
Ryan waved their hand. “Yes, but who is in the market for these kinds of items?”
“The alien version of Earth’s one percent,” Matt shrugged. Then, he, Ryan, Chester, and I looked at each other.
My eyes widened with understanding. “Oh. So all we have to do—”
“Is find a space Bezos and then follow them to the other white-collar criminals on this market, because they’re the ones most likely to want the cloak,” Ryan finished. “Borowicz and I will focus our recon on the bougie floors to see if we can overhear some fancy pants gossip.”
Azo’lah gripped the table, her long fingers obscuring a portion of the blessing carved into it. “And how are you supposed to ascertain who is wealthy and who is not on J’olpri? You can’t just go around asking. The point is for us to blend in.”
“Ah, Myax,” Ryan grinned and, defying their earlier directive, kicked their feet up on the table, “Rich assholes are the same everywhere. We’ll find one who acts like it, trust me.”
“Hey!” Fleetwood leaned over the table to swat at Ryan’s feet. “You said no feet on the table, Captain.”
“During debrief,” Ryan clarified breezily, clasping their hands behind their head and wagging their eyebrows at Fleetwood. “Debrief is now officially over. I want all ship hands changed out of flight suits and into something less conspicuously Destyrian fifteen minutes after lunch. No one leaves this ship without checking their tech with Azo’lah and Chester.”
“Yes, Captain,” we chorused, rising from the table and heading for the mess hall. It took me several minutes before I realized I had just let a seventeen-year-old boss me around.
I caught Azo’lah’s eye as she passed me. I do not like this flashed across my mind. I tried to smile in an encouraging manner. But I had to admit, as we followed through on another half-plan, I didn’t like it either.
”Lucky number thirteen, huh?” Ryan said, eyeing the floor markers as we exited J’olpri’s rickety escalator. Beneath our boots, the flooring changed from grimy metal to plush, cardamom colored carpet. The pristine mirrored walls were practically unrecognizable from the rest of the market. The crowds that I experienced with Azo’lah had thinned to a small, loitering group of impressively dressed beings speaking over indulgently filled glasses. They browsed along a row of glass-encased goods that ranged in size from needing a magnifying glass to see it to needing a bulldozer to move it. Instead of open-air stalls, most vendors had establishments with sliding metal doors guarded by intimidatingly large security personnel.
“This is where we’ll find the richy-rich aliens according to our eavesdropping,” I replied. Our shoulders jostled as I attempted to keep stride with Ryan and tripped in my haste.
Ryan looked dapper in their ensemble for the evening, a spacey take on a 1930s suit. They had forgone the jacket and, to Fleetwood’s delight, added suspenders over their silver dress shirt. I felt rather ridiculous in my drapey forest green dress and boots. Though it did not have a train, its awkward length kept tangling around my shins, tripping me up. When she had presented us with these outfits, I had almost asked Fleetwood how many various wardrobes she had commissioned for all of us; I was terrified of what the answer would be.
“Careful, Borowicz,” Ryan said, a steadying hand at my elbow. “Azo’lah would skewer me through the eyeball if I didn’t bring you back in one piece.”
I snorted at the absurdity of their assertion. “No, she wouldn’t. If anything, she’d be annoyed at me for making a difficult mission that much harder.”
Ryan rolled their eyes and patted my arm; it would have been condescending were it not for their warm grin. “Oh, Gretchen.”
A humanoid alien with crab pincers instead of hands passed us, laughingly telling a hologram of two yellow, tentacled aliens, “You should’ve seen the pile of Vimps trying to get their hands on it. Honestly, it was as though they’ve never seen a piece from Destyr.”
Like a racecar on a hairpin turn, Ryan gracefully redirected us to follow the pincered alien while his projected friends guffawed at his joke. “It’s most likely a forgery,” the man boomed, his self-important voice carrying to everyone around him. I was beginning to suspect that was his intention. “The likelihood of a piece of that nature being—”
Before I could stop them, Ryan stepped forward and tapped the man on his shoulder. “Excuse me. I couldn’t help overhearing—”
He jolted beneath their touch, a sneer splitting his lipless mouth as he pivoted to face us. Up close, his face—lipless, eyelidless, and with an inverted nose—looked much less human.
“Did you just touch me?” he demanded. I wilted beneath his slow annunciation. I could feel the eyes of every alien on J’olpri on us, and my panic rose. I had thought my time in space had helped me with my social anxiety, but this moment made me want to hide beneath my bedsheets forever.
Instead of withering, Ryan’s spine steeled. Sensing my anxiety, they grabbed my wrist and squeezed as they said, “I only did so because you so unforgivably ignored my hails for your attention. Do you know who we are? Who we work for? We are ambassadors representing Vicerenne Tov-ri of the Covlax.”
The eyes that had been boring, judgmental holes in my back suddenly averted in fear. It was as though Ryan had invoked divine wrath upon those surrounding us.
The irate alien’s face contorted in alarm. “V-V-Vicerenne Tov-ri?”
Ryan stepped forward, their smile widening. Even though the alien had half a foot on them, Ryan’s presence swallowed him whole. “She has personally sent us to collect a most valued prize that my associate and I overheard you blathering about. An ancient Destyrian piece?”
Ryan’s bravado gave me strength, and I took up their lead. “Yes, the Vicerenne left precise instructions,” I said, “it would be such a shame to inform her that we could not obtain her heart’s deepest desire because you refused to point us in the proper direction.”
The alien’s mouth—as well as those of his holographic buddies—slackened in terror as Ryan nodded sagaciously. “Vicerenne Tov-ri does hold a grudge so very well.”
“Go to the auction house, The Zys-Zyssal,” the alien stammered, pointing his pincers at the turquoise storefront three doors down. Two bodyguards, the size and shape of boulders, stood outside its door. His voice and pincers trembled as he said, “P-lease, the Vicerenne...”
“Go, and she never need know of your insolence,” Ryan intoned with a regal wave of their hand. The alien rushed away, head bowed as he whispered to his holographic facetime, looking back at us every five steps as though we were going to rush him.
I turned to Ryan, wide-eyed. “The Covlax? How in the hell do you know about the Covlax?”
“Matt told me about how he broke his friend Ovlas out of Covlaxian prison,” Ryan said with a shrug. “Sounded hella intense. So I looked the Covlax up in the database, and they are legitimately terrifying. Apparently, every other alien species just gives them the widest berth possible because the Covlax will pick a fight over the smallest indiscretion. Did you know that Vicerenne Tov-ri is 65 years old and has murdered all 23 of her husbands in public displays? She keeps their hearts in jars in her throne room. Which, if you ask me, is equal parts awesome and gross.
“So, the Zyssal,” they finished, pointing towards our new destination. I followed in shock. How did I keep underestimating Ryan Thorley?
Winning smile in place, Ryan walked up to the doors and said, “Pardon me, my good aliens, if I could please—”
The mountainous bodyguards extended their thick arms, bringing us both up short. “No invitation, no entrance,” the boulder on the left said. How he did so was a mystery, as neither security guard had a discernible face or mouth.
“Vicerenne Tov-ri told us a ticket would be unnecessary,” I said, resuming our charade. I felt safer, bolder, playing a character alongside a crew member. It had been the same with Matt on Ynoom. It was as though, as long as I forgot I was myself for a few moments, I could forget my anxiety as well.
The security guards, unimpressed with my lie, did not budge.
“Our mistress will be very displeased if we are not given entry,” Ryan added, voice dripping with superiority.
“No invitation, no entry,” reiterated the guard.
Ryan opened their mouth to continue arguing when the metal door slid open, revealing a blue alien slightly shorter than me, wearing a uniform similar to that of a bellboy at a swanky hotel. A Zyssal employee, no doubt.
“Excuse me, excuse me,” he said, ducking past Ryan and me. He elbowed one of the boulders and said, “See you guys later at B’beeco. Drinks are half off tonight,” he told the boulders, and an idea caught me by surprise.
“Have a good evening,” I told the boulders as I towed Ryan after the blue alien.
“Gretchen, what the hell?” Ryan hissed as they stumbled in my wake. “Where the hell are we going? The mission is in the opposite direction!”
I tugged them harder, jabbing my chin after my query. “We’re following him, to B’beeco whatever that is—”
Ryan stopped fighting my hold. “Drinks are half off tonight. Sounds like a bar to me.”
“We’ll go and see if we can ask him a few questions. Dressed like that, he definitely works there. And who knows more about a store and the merchandise than the people who work there?” I held up my Ran’dyl and continued. “Matt can meet us there, be our back-up, just in case.”
Ryan picked up our pace, eyes glinting maniacally. “Borowicz, you’re a genius.”