Garret Kellan exited the Hijinx as it closed for the night, and headed for his quarters. He had to escape his work for a few hours to get a few drinks. Decoding subspace harmonics was hard stuff. Walking along the corridor, Kellan did not notice the shadow trailing him.

Reaching his quarters, the physicist placed his hand on the console, allowing him entrance. The door closed behind him with a silent whoosh, locking automatically. Flopping down in a chair he ordered the lights on. Activating instantly, the full of the quarters came into view. It was rather Spartan and didn't have much space. 'Tis the life of a scientist, a whole to of work for little pay.

Getting up, Kellan headed to the replicators and ordered some coffee. As it materiel, he went to his desk and activated his desk computer. As it blinked on he inserted his data crystal and headed back to grab his coffee. Two weeks ago, he had received some info from a friend working for Terran Exploration Corps stating that a science vessel in the NGC-5638 system, just beyond the Clotho system. It held some sort of anomaly that held something beyond it. But nobody at Terran Intel could figure it out. Since Kellan had graduated first in his class in subspace physics at Rigel University, a very renowned place of learning, they had sent to him.

"Computer, select at random classic song from Ireland, my personal database." As the music unfolded, Kellan sat back, soaking in the music. He had loved this type since he was six.

Taking a sip, he inputted his command to activate it fully and thought about it. He had made some progress, learning that it might be a jump point to a new unexplored system and that it would take a certain resonance wave to access it. But there were countless millions of those waves and it would take years to get results, if any. The info popped up and Kellan turned to it, ready to read. Taking another sip, his eyes adjusted to the print. Glancing over it, he spit out the coffee and took a closer look. This wasn't the annalist of the data. According to records, this was copy of some chapters to the book Oliver Twist. A good book, but it wasn't his. The crystal should have displayed algorithms and numbers and encoded text, not text to a classic Earth book.

Then it hit him. The Hijinx Café, the bump in with the merchant captain. Damn it, he had grabbed the wrong crystal! And that was the only copy he had. "Great. Denis is going to kill me when I tell him about this."

He heard a silent muffle and turned around. It had come from the bedroom. Kellan silently cursed. Someone was in his quarters. Probably just a kid looking for some credits. He would scare him a little before calling security. Grabbing the nearest weapon, a metal candle holder of old Earth design, Kellan headed over to his bedroom door. Leaping in, he lifted the make-shift weapon up to bring down.

Then he heard the sound of a pulse blaster powering up. Oh damn.

He saw a black dressed and hooded figure his height holding the blaster, pointed at his mid-section. A golden badge was on his left breast, displaying a hawk, the symbol of the Purifactation Patrol Terran Secret police, and assassins. That was Kellan's last thought. The hooded man fired and blue blast hit the physicist in the chest, vaporizing him from the stomach down. The rancid smell bothered the figure little.

Holstering his weapon, the assassin walked over to the lab top, intent on downloading the information held in the data crystal. As he reached it and took in the data, he slammed his fist down on the desk and cursed vividly. It was a novel! And a bad one at that. It must have been mixed up when the scientist ran into that captain earlier. No matter; all it would take would be for him to get a few ships after him after reporting back to High Command. He took out the data crystal and inserted another crystal.

Accessing the file, the assassin spread a virus throughout Kellan's files, wiping them clear and leaving no trace of them. Walking back over to the body, he drew his weapon and blasted the already charred remains of the body, vaporizing them. Making sure that not even a drop of blood remained, the assassin slinked out the quarters undetected, leaving as if he had never had been there.

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