Since the team was famous because of its name, the history of the team, and some already prominent members, The Arcane Operators rarely took public portals to travel to their missions. Enter Jans, the team’s chauffeur. As part of the revitalization of the old team name, Kalazan had footed the bill for a shuttle outfitted for their everyday contracting needs. To keep a somewhat low profile, and for stealth purposes, the ship itself was an unassuming boxy shape with some curvature to the corners to give it a sporty feel. To Nate, it looked like someone had put two or three school buses together. The exterior was a matte black finish instead of following the usual team color branding on almost everything they used. Tessi hated that the ship didn’t follow it, but Dane was insistent for tactical reasons.

  The team left the elevator after their very long ride down from their penthouse in the residential district to the garage, which was home to every vehicle that anyone else in the building owned. Inside, they greeted Jans and stepped into their respective changing booths to put on their equipment.

  “Howdy folks, ready to rock and roll?” Jans called back to the team while he was tapping away at his pilot console.

  “Someone’s been watching Earth movies again. What’re you on now?” Nate asked.

  “Still on that western kick, Mr. Nate. Your planet’s historical movies are only a couple hundred years back, but on Mara it would be like fifteen thousand or something,” Jans said.

  “If you think that’s trippy, then you should watch our science fiction stuff. You’ll probably see it as a comedy because of the way we thought things would work.” Nate said.

  Nate opened his locker in his booth to find his non-stealthy combat suit. Unless Dane thought otherwise, Tessi demanded that the team use the suits with their signature color branding on them. The suit had cushioning all over to mitigate impact damage and soften other blows that might come from any sort of attack. Iggy had decades of experience in the business, and now that he had the money, he outfitted the team with the best protection his mad genius mind could invent. The outer layer was made of a material Nate had never heard of but was assured by Jax that it was similar yet better than Earth’s kevlar. Even though Nate had his repulsion shield ability, the extra layer of protection was comforting.

  He first put on the shirt, which felt thick to the touch, but was just as lightweight as any other t-shirt. It was perfectly tailored to his chest like a spartan’s breastplate but without the muscled molding, much to Nate’s disappointment. The pants felt the same, being made of the same material, yet not as tight as to allow some breathing room. Lastly, he strapped on his boots, which were the most comfortable pair of footwear he had ever owned. The ankle support coupled with the way the inner sole cupped his foot perfectly made him wonder why he didn’t wear them all the time.

  Mech suits like the ones Lindy, Donna, and Gemini wore were, with some exceptions, proven to be mostly useless to Nate and Dane because they stifled many attuned abilities and their full capability. A perfect example of this was Dane, where he could conjure a head to toe set of near diamond tough bone armor. His equipment kit differed slightly from Nate’s in that he had slits in his suit that allowed the bone armor to come out and interlock in on itself. Lindy, Donna, and Gemini all had armor packs that attached on their backs like a backpack and, when deployed, would cover them in a layer of titanium panels.

  Once the team had finished getting their suits on, they exited their booths to take their designated seats. Unlike other sci-fi shows Nate had seen, he didn’t have any controls or anything he needed to manage while in flight. It would have been cool if he at least had a control panel for a gun turret to fend off the swarm of aliens they might fight. That would most likely never happen, or ever be in a position like that since they had not equipped their ship for deep space missions.

  There were ten seats in total: one for Jans, two for Jax and Iggy at their operations console, six for the field team, and one for Tessi. Jans, Jax, and Iggy occupied the front of the ship, while the other seats ran parallel to the changing booths that were on the far side of the ship’s walls. Nate looked at the empty sixth seat where Dee was supposed to sit with them. Lindy squeezed his hand, having followed his gaze as they sat down and strapped in. Her pink hair was in a tight bun hugging her head for when and if she needed to deploy her armor. Her smile never failed to fill his soul with warmth.

  “Right-o folks, where are we going?” Jans asked.

  “Calpentross, should have coordinates on your console, Jans,” Tessi answered.

  “Look at that! I guess we’re off!” Jan declared.

  The back hatch of the ship closed as the engines came to life with a loud hum; the noise was deafened once the door finished closing. Nate had been on small ships before back on Earth, but only on the water. Once, his family took a cruise down the Mexican riviera and went whale watching at one of the stops. The vessel that took them on that adventure was a catamaran capable of holding about fifty people. The sea in the bay of Cabo San Lucas was abnormally rough that day, causing Nate and his Mother Caroline, to find out with sad experience that they would get seasick if the waters were too rough. Jans was a skilled pilot, but sometimes he got a little excited when he flew the team to their missions. He slammed on the accelerator, and the ship launched forward out into the open space beside The Hub.

  Looking out the window at the space station where Nate had been living for the past two years never got old. The ship came up on the large cylindrical structure known as the Planetary Ship Nexus, not to be confused with the Planetary Nexus, which was inside The Hub. This structure was purpose-built to be the central traffic hub for the entire galaxy. Portal travel and creation were highly regulated, and there were only a few interplanetary connections made outside of each Nexus that was housed at the Hub. Traffic wasn’t much of an issue as ships could move fairly quickly between portal destinations. Planets with enormous populations that had recovered quickly from the Vortani Conflict experienced a longer wait, but the team normally only had to wait about ten minutes before being permitted to enter a portal.

  Calpentross was not a densely populated world, so the wait was quite short. It was a world filled with crustacean humanoids that had long gestation periods, which slowed down their bounce back from when the Vortani decimated their planet and species. Nate looked out the window to see a planet covered with more water and less landmass than Earth. Most of the islands Nate could see couldn’t be any larger than Iceland or Hawaii. Calpentross was known for its beautiful beaches and fun island life, but the Union was strict about buying land or homes there. Non-native species were limited to buying property if they planned on making it their permanent residence, or they could buy a vacation property on one of the very few islands where the planet allowed their tourism business to develop.

  Jans lowered the ship down to the small port where the team was to board the cargo ship for their mission.

  “See ya folks, we will meet you at the other port tomorrow.” Jans pressed a button on his console to open the hatch for the team, allowing them to exit.

  “I’ll be waiting with Jans and Iggy since there won’t be a good place for us to hide out. Jax, please make sure you get me some action shots!” Tessi shouted as the team walked off with their gear. Jans closed the back door and flew off with Iggy and Tessi in tow.

  This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

  “Alright, we need to find the contact for our contract. Jax, do you have that for us?” Dane asked.

  “Yup, we are looking for Kestis, and she should be at the port office by the loading dock. Looking at a map that appears to be…” Jax swiveled from left to right, looking up from his link as he tried to orient himself. “This way.” He pointed.

  “Okay. Lindy, you’re up.” Dane said.

  Over the past year, the team dynamic settled in nicely as they learned to rely on each other’s many strengths. Dane, who had been trained by the original Arcane Operators, had been a contractor the longest, making him the team’s de facto leader. Even though Iggy was also one of the original Arcane Operators, he was deaf and couldn’t speak, so Jax did the talking for all things operations. Lindy was the face of the group. Her striking beauty and very warm personality put most people on the back foot, allowing the team to take a lead in negotiations or interrogations. Donna and Gemini were the stealth specialists. When the team needed a quiet approach, they would take the lead. And then there was Nate. His abilities were weird and powerful, so he was just happy to be there and beat stuff up.

  The port they had been dropped off at was smaller than they expected. Two humongous floating cargo ships were both being loaded, one shipping container at a time. Nate imagined that there were millions of credits worth of cargo aboard and, Coming from earth, was interested in the operation's economics. Why were portals so regulated? Surely it would be cheaper to use those instead of spending all of this time and manpower to load these ships and hire contractors to protect them. As he pieced some of the puzzle together, something dawned on him.

  “Guys, wait, are we about to fight pirates?” Nate said with childish enthusiasm.

  “I assume that’s why we are here.” Donna said.

  “Awesome!” Nate shouted.

  The team rolled their eyes. They had watched many Earth movies and knew that Nate was thinking of pirates from the Pirates of the Caribbean, but these would be less cool than that. After a short walk, they arrived at the port office and met their employer, Kestis. She was a Crustacean, a humanoid crab-like being that had a hard exterior shell with otherwise human-like features, including hands with opposable thumbs. The big difference though were her beady black eyes that were set back inside a head that looked similar to a great helm crusaders wore in medieval times.

  “Hi, are you Kestis? I’m Lindy, and we are The Arcane Operators. You hired us for a cargo escort contract.” Lindy said.

  “Oh good, we are about to board. Here’s your pirate forecast, most recent raid reports, as well as ship roster and detailed ship blueprints.” Kestis held out a miniature hockey puck that Jax took and placed on the screen of his link.

  “Thank you! Could you point us to where we need to board?” Lindy asked.

  “You’re going to be in the green ship on the left there. If you walk straight from here, you will see the personnel gangway.” Kestis said.

  “Awesome, thanks for hiring us. Be sure to leave a review with our manager once the job is done!” Lindy said, adding high inflection at the end.

  Kestis nodded and returned to the task she had been working on before the team walked in.

  As the team made their way to the ship, Nate had more thoughts and questions to share with the team.

  “Do you think we look cool? Like, are we cool right now? I feel cool,” Nate asked.

  “It’s not about being cool; we have a job to do just like these dockworkers.” Dane said.

  “Yeah, but we kind of have a cool job. Back on Earth, if my old co-workers knew I was about to go on a ship to protect it from pirates, they would think that was pretty cool. Also, I’m wearing a bulletproof bodysuit. If that’s not cool, then I don’t know what is,” Nate added.

  “You look very cool, babe.” Lindy smiled as she squeezed his hand.

  “Gross.” Jax stuck her tongue out as if to fake puke.

  “We need to get you a girlfriend, Jax,” Donna chimed in.

  “Yeah, you’re like one of the most eligible Raccoonan bachelors in the galaxy. You’re a contractor, come from a super rich family, you’re super smart, the list goes on.” Nate nudged Jax as they continued walking.

  “She would have to be pretty special. Pretty, smart, money obviously wouldn’t matter, but I couldn’t have a gold digger situation on my hands. My dad would probably make us do a pre-nup anyway, what am I saying?”

  “So just the basics, huh?” Donna laughed. “What about a personality?” She added.

  “Oh yeah, for sure. But she’s gotta be smokin’.” Jax said.

  “Boys,” Lindy muttered.

  The team finally made it to the gangway and looked up at the hulking ship floating in the air. Its size astonished Nate. he doubted how they were going to cover what looked like two football fields of space with just the five of them. Along the green-painted hull of the behemoth read “Everblue”, the name of the ship they were hired to protect. The gangway led them into the belly of the ship. Despite what pop culture had taught Nate, this cargo ship had wide hallways, similar to those of a cruise ship. That’s where the similarity ended, though. Instead of decorations, restaurants, or shops trying to sell duty-free items, there were faded mustard-colored walls with white laminate floors with a fake speckled quartz design imprinted on them. On the walls were employment law bulletins, days without accident counters, and inspirational posters that attempted to motivate people to work hard. They reached an elevator and took it all the way to the operations deck. There they followed the signs to the bridge to meet with the captain.

  Lindy stepped up to a Crustacean man, who had a fancy enough looking cap with some ornate symbols on it, and a more formal-looking outfit than the rest of the bridge crew. She tapped on his shoulder to get his attention before surprising him with her exuberance.

  “Hi are you the captain?” Lindy asked.

  “I am; who are you, and why are you on my bridge?” The captain grumbled.

  “We are The Arcane Operators, the contractors that were hired to escort your ship. We are all aboard and ready to set up our equipment.”

  The captain scoffed. “I didn’t hire you, and we certainly don’t need you; we can take care of ourselves. We’ve traveled this passage hundreds of times without issue.”

  “There is no doubt about that; you look like a very capable man.” Lindy put on her best smile and tone that borderline flirted with the Crustacean.

  “Yes, well. You can refer to me as Captain Dusant. I assume you will need access to the security wing and our lookout nest?”

  “That would be great! This is our operations lead, Jax. He will monitor your surveillance systems and give us real-time actionable intelligence. Gemini is our scout and reconnaissance specialist. She will need access to the lookout nest on top of the ship.”

  “It gets very lonely and hot up there.” Captain Dusant said.

  “Oh, she loves her alone time, and she’s a Lizzan, so the hotter the better.” Lindy said.

  The Captain looked down at Gemini, who was looking around the bridge while she was blasting a loud audiobook through her noise-cancelling headphones.

  “Right… Bosco, can you show these people to the security room and to the roof access?”

  “Aye, capn’.” Bosco acknowledged.

  The team followed Bosco to a locker room next to the bridge that had safety equipment should the ship go down. They then dropped off Jax at the security station and found a Crustacean man sleeping in his chair. He shot to attention when Bosco kicked him and explained that Jax was there to support him on the short voyage. They then made their way to the roof via an external staircase. Dane poked Gemini to get her attention and pointed to the crow’s nest that stood fifty feet in the air above the top of the bridge. A big smile crossed her face as she ran over to the ladder and climbed.

  Nate leaned on the railing, looking over the stacks of shipping containers, observing the units being loaded onto the ship. It was late afternoon, and the sun was setting, so he went to the other side of the roof to watch the beautiful pink, red, and orange hues paint the sky. Lindy came to his side and wrapped her arm around his and put her head on his shoulder.

  “Hopefully, this will be a quiet trip and we can just relax, hmm?” Nate interlocked his fingers with hers as he took her hand.

  “I’d love to get a tan,” Lindy mused.

  The two stood there silently, watching the sunset, waiting for the ship to finish loading its cargo and crew to disembark.