The mission had gone smoothly, without a single hitch. They found the evidence they were looking for in record time. Midii had gotten them off to a strong start by quickly narrowing down the possibilities of where their captured smuggler (Tangio) had hidden his beloved ship to two and as luck would have it, they’d hit gold on the first spot.

The ship had been located stowed away among the junk on a large floating trash barge currently running the L2 Cluster to L4 Cluster route. A clever hiding place as the ship itself looked like a cobbled together collection of bits of technology welded together around a central engine… essentially it looked like part of the junkpile itself. The interior of the ship did little to improve ones impression based on the exterior. It was crowded (crammed would be a better word) there were places where the paneling had never been replaced and the wiring was apparent, the cargo holds however, were huge. The cockpit was about the only area he’d noticed on his cursory tour of the vessel that was neat and orderly. He settled himself in front of one of the display screens and accessed the fuel logs and itinerary, intent on beginning his work right away.

Trowa had checked the ships logs and tallied up the fuel usage versus the average amount used for trips of that speed and duration and came up with a completely different set of numbers. By calculating out the fuel usage for acceleration and deceleration (as with docking) plus the amount of extra fuel required for a side trip he had been able to narrow the possibility of extra stops within the cluster he could have made to only about twenty colonies. Midii Une had come n at that point and told him the location of five places of business on the seedier side of the sector that Tangio was said to frequent. After that, Trowa had taken on the job of reconstructing the doctored ships logs in hopes of there being enough for him to rescue to be used as evidence.

Midii, for her part had taken the task of exploring the ship for the hidey holes he surely had riddling every bulkhead. A smuggler obviously smuggled things and needed a way to transport them all that would pass preventor Space Force inspectors. The smuggler they’d caught was sly and clever with a good many tricks up his sleeve, but she herself had had dealings with tangio’s kind before, even worked on a “business ship” like this for a few months; if anyone would know where to look, Midii would. It took her maybe five hours to find all the little nooks and crannies he’d had hidden away. She found the main cache under the flooring of the secondary cargo bay, but she also checked in the wall panels, the maintenance ducts, behind fake food dispenser consoles, inside and under the built-in furniture. In all of these places and more she hit paydirt. Midii knew what she was doing and it showed. But it was, predictably, in the captain’s quarters that she found the most useful articles.

She walked into the cockpit where Trowa sat reconstructing the logs with a rather smug little smile on her face. She handed him two clear colored data-slots three inches long by two inches wide, by a halr centimeter in depth, a storage device commonly used in place of disks, with an air of triumph and said

“Here, these should help.”

“What are they?” Trowa questioned, looking at them for markings.

“Those would be the missing logs, the doctored cargo manifests, and… Well, goods and drugs weren’t the only things that Mister Tangio smuggled. Information was also on his list. The blue slot has the information, the green slot has everything else. As soon as we get this hulking rust bucket to the nearest Preventors dock, we can go home. There’s enough evidence here to convict him five times over. And if we were really feeling generous we could round up a few of his friends on the way home. We have enough evidence to nail their heads to the wall right beside Tangio’s.”

If Trowa hadn’t known any better he would have thought that Midii was enjoying her first assignment with the Preventors. This thought was a little misleading at first; technically she was working for the Consortium, so she should have been finding ways to foil him at every turn such as concealing evidence, misleading him and sabotaging his work. Instead she was giving him her full and complete cooperation without any sign of hesitation. She could be doing that simply to gain his trust and get him to lower his guard, but she seemed downright amused by something. It was only a few hours later, when Midii had begged weariness and went off to bed and Trowa was decrypting and looking over the information on those data-slots she’d given him, that he saw what had tickled her so. Mister Tangio worked in loose conglomeration with the Consortium. If Trowa decided to go after any of the fences or contacts on that five times encrypted list they’d uncovered, the Consortium would be out several of its own agents.

Most likely it wouldn’t be Trowa or Midii that was assigned the particular task of tracking the petty thugs but a few of the lesser field agents, so there would really be nothing tieing Midii to the apprehension of a few petty ring members if she was careful. So in the end she not only got the Preventors commendations on a job well done and a mission pulled off to perfection, but she also got a subtle bit of revenge on her Consortium slave drivers. Midii Une could certainly be canny.

It was exactly the moment he was thinking that when his private palm-console beeped softly at him. He’d already rigged Midii’s palmtop with a small transmitter bug that would allow him to see and hear everything that was happening on her computer be it communications or accessing a computer database remotely. He’d know exactly what she did when she accessed it, he’d considered installing a small listening device in one of her preventors apparel, like her badge or something, but concluded that it would be unwise. She’d most likely look over everything they gave her with a fine toothed comb, and if she was a spy worth her salt she’d find the plants no matter how cleverly they were concealed. It was with reluctance that he had decided that he would also not tap her office or apartment either. Again, Midii was a spy and most likely would be the first to search for signs of the game; if she’d found any monitoring devices of any sort in her office or apartment she’d likely think that they were on to her and act accordingly. Trowa didn’t want to make his job any harder than it had to be.

<By now she probably already has some jamming devices installed in her office anyway,> he thought as he brought up the screen that would be showing him the mirror of Midii’s palmtop console. She clicked onto a cache with a private code; Trowa made a mental note of the password to the encryption lock and the access numbers to gain entry to the account, and continued his observation. There was a message waiting for her from the Consortium. As was to be expected it was short and cryptic giving vague allusions but never actually coming out and saying anything. In code speak however, it said: Midii Une, do you have any information yet? Report in as soon as it is safe to do so. Signed, your boss. And P.S. Your family is doing well… so far.

<Not that there’s any pressure, mind you> Trowa thought with conscious irony. He continued to monitor the activity on her screen while simultaneously decrypting the second lock of coding on the evidence they’d gathered and perusing the photograph evidence of the “special” (meaning hidden to be smuggled) cargo shipments Midii had carefully taken.

After a few minutes the activity on Midii’s screen started getting interesting. She disguised her own access to the interplanetary net-links leading back to Preventors HQ by piggy-backing it onto an information spurt in the constantly flowing data stream that composed communications between Earth and Space. From the general earth-bound location of her original data spurt she then hitched a ride on another spurt leading toward the general location she wanted. From there, she caught several more different communications bursts within that location to disguise her trail. Only then did she sneak in her own signal via one of the garbage files. Garbage files of Preventors HQ were regularly purged of irrelevant data so as not to waste memory, one of those purgings was scheduled for this time tonight. Sure enough, when the system’s automatic erasure program reached that file, Midii used it to gain access to the main system and from there she had free run unless she were caught. Trowa didn’t intend to rat on her, merely observe her and see what she was after.

<Personnel files?> he thought with a raised eyebrow. He would have thought that she’d go after the upcoming missions dossiers or the Preventors secret security files. He was further perplexed by the type of personnel files she accessed. She wasn’t looking up information about high ranking Preventors (people who would mostl likely know the information she was after) or even accessing information about him for that matter; instead Midii seemed to be concentrating on lower level staff personnel. People like office clerks, or cabinet bunnies, or coffee walkers… those people didn’t have access to anything remotely sensitive, they were just always there running errands and gossiping, and sharing news, and listening and-

<Oh! I see,> he thought as Midii’s screen flipped through file after file of pictures with names and personal information and histories popping up beside them. When she had finished there were three dossiers selected out of the pile.

<Set a spy to catch a spy I suppose.>

She was looking for other spies. Likely other spies from the same organization she was working for, people who could report back to their fearless leader of Midii’s activities. With her family held hostage by the Consotium, Midii wouldn’t dare oppose them (at least not while she was being watched). Searching out rivals and/or observers was sensibly the first thing she would do. Cunning.

<Now that she knows who they are, I’d imagine she intends to avoid them from now on,> he assumed. He found out a few minutes later that his assumption was completely wrong. Middi had no intentions of avoiding them, quite the opposite in fact. Midii hacked into the three counter-spies’ account histories and reconstructed the accesses to the files they’d deleted and then to the histories they’d deleted to hide this fact. From there she reconstructed their mail accounts to the Consortium and intercepted a bit of mail from Mr. Smith. After changing the content of the mail she carefully erased her tracks, then sent falsified email data to Mr. Smith’s account from the three counter spies telling their mysterious boss that they had possibly stumbled onto something and were going to check it out.

After this, Midii signed off probably feeling pretty pleased with herself. She’d just sent three rivals out to die. The first would be caught up in a weapons bunker explosion while awaiting a message drop for different orders that were not going to be coming. The second would likely be killed as the resource satellite he’d been sent to investigate was scheduled also to be destroyed. The third would likely die another anonymous death as the victim of a collapsed building being demolished, he’d been ordered by Midii disguised as Mr. Smith to await orders there. All three neatly taken care of and if one or more of them survived their deaths… well they’d be out of action long enough for something else unfortunate to happen to them.

Trowa supposed he should probably feel more emotional about this. That woman had just mercilessly sent three Preventors out to die. However, Trowa often thought as a soldier first. Those Preventors had been spies, therefore they were the enemy. Midii was still, by definition, the enemy but she was a useful enemy so she could stay where she was.

* * *

With their mission completed, their trip back to HQ was a pretty quiet one. Trowa piloted the Preventors craft while Midii continued looking over and cataloging the evidence against Tangio. With their part of the investigation over with, it would now likely be delivered into the hands of those more seasoned to the realm of courtroom battles and the wars of innuendo. Trowa kept his nose out of that for the same reason he didn’t go sticking it into snake pits, they were dark scary places in which the mentality of the resident’s was uncertain and the only real certainty was that he would likely get bit.

Unfortunately, the quarters of the Preventors craft in which they traveled were…cozy, to put it mildly. There was a cockpit, two bunk quarters that were so narrow he could lay his hands flat on the walls of both sides if he stretched his arms out, a small sanitizing/toiletry unit shared between them, and a tiny pantry that held all the plastic-wrapped freeze-fried bounty of the earth that a spacer could ask for. The bulk of the cruiser was taken for such necessities cargo hold, fuel, and engines. The lack of space made him aware of precisely where his partner was and what she was doing at all times; he spent the majority of his time in the cockpit, even if he didn’t need to, there was more room there than existed in that closet of a bunk where the bed was about half a foot too short for him. Damn he hated being so tall sometimes.

Midii, he noted, didn’t seem to have any trouble at all sleeping, she was a very quiet sleeper too; no snoring, that was good. The only changed positions a few times in her sleep which was natural since the body resisted being kept in one position for too long. She tended to hit the snooze button twice before she got out of bed.

<Speak of the devil,> he thought. His sleepy spy-partner had finally decided to grace him with her presence. Even just out of bed she looked kittenishly cute with her hair still a little rumpled for her having only run a hand through it. Her enchanting aqua blue eyes looked more greenish blue this morning, like the color of a Caribbean grotto and were still heavy lidded with sleep.

Trowa nodded a quiet good morning as Midii helped herself to the pot of instant coffee that had already been prepared by him when he’d awoken earlier. Midii made a face as she sipped the brew, Torwa raised an eyebrow in question; it wasn’t that old.

“How dare they call this coffee?” she grumbled. “Sacrilege I say.”

“I didn’t know I was dealing with a coffee coinsurer,” Trowa said with mild jocularity.

“I require my daily dose of caffeine just like everyone else, but there must be a way of getting it without offending my delicate and discerning palate,” she replied with mock-hauteur. 

Trowa had grown to look forward to seeing her in the mornings, they generally didn’t talk about much before they separated to attend to their self imposed tasks, but for some reason he really didn’t wish to examine too closely he looked forward to seeing her emerge from her room every morning.

* * *

Midii slid her half of the mission report into the inbox followed half a heartbeat later by her “partner.” Their quick and efficient work had garnered the pair of them with some praise and notoriety. Trowa, naturally, was already famous around the Preventors headquarters, but Midii was a little unnerved by all the attention she was getting. As both a spy and a bounty hunter, Midii had stuck close to the shadows, never getting noticed or seeking attention; this constantly being stopped in the halls by perfect strangers who just wanted to congratulate her on what a fine job she did was beginning to wear on her. It was bad enough that she had to be here in the first place, she felt the usual terrible creeping guilt about lying to everyone no matter how much she tried to shove it aside; but then they had to go being all nice to her.

<Spies and bounty hunters don’t have friends,> she reminded herself sternly. <Remember the rules Midii, trust no one, never reveal a weakness, and work alone.> Well, that last one was pretty much shot, even if working with a man as quiet as Trowa Barton was the next best thing to working alone it wasn’t close enough; it wasn’t nearly close enough. He was so damned perceptive. Why couldn’t she have gotten anyone but him? Did he suspect her? Even if he did, what could she do about it? She couldn’t just get rid of him like she did those three watchers, for one thing if he was suspicious of her he’d likely be on guard against that and for another…

<Stop it Midii Une, you are not going soft!> she commanded herself, but she caught the note of desperation even in her mental voice. It was bad enough she had a family who was currently being held hostage against her by the Consortium in exchange for information on the Preventors activities, there was no way that she could possibly even contemplate involving him in this mess any more than he already was. If she allowed herself to care for him, even worse, to fall for him… if she let him into her heart she’d only end up bringing him down with her. No, there was no way she’d let herself hurt him anymore than she already knew she was going to. She knew that sooner or later she was going to have to cut ties and skip out on the Preventors, at that time she would leave him with the bitter knowledge that she had lied to him from the beginning of their “partnership.” All of the work they would be doing together for the next few months would be revealed as a sham. She could already see the future of this road laid out before her, but she had to walk this path, there was no other choice. For the sake of her family, there was no other choice.

“Finished with your half of the report Miss Une?” a quiet voice from behind her broke into her reverie. She turned and there leaning against the wall with his arms crossed over his chest sat the source of all of her real emotional turmoil. The chiseled planes and angles of his face stood out like shadow and sunlight and Midii found herself with the insane longing to reach up and run a hand over his face wondering if she’d find smooth skin or marble when she touched him.

“Yes,” was all she said as she made her way past him. As her heels clicked sftly on the bare florring of the office building Midii called over her shoulder

“We get our new orders tomorrow, you should go home and spend time with your family while you can.”

“What about you?” he called softly after her. “Will you be spending time with yours?”

“They’re beyond my reach right now. Good night Mister Barton.”

“Good night Miss Une.”