She'd had to wait in worse places, Edfa admitted to herself. As close protection officer for the Ambassador it was her job to keep him safe, but there were limits. She couldn't exactly test each of the girls heading up to the apartment for unsociable viruses, she giggled to herself at the thought.
No, the Ambassador would have to be responsible for his own indiscretions this evening, while Edfa waited in this rather plush piazza. She contemplated sending his wife photos of the girls on offer to the Ambassador that evening, but that would be very unprofessional of her.
He was a jerk though.
Did his wife know what happens when he goes away on these corporate junkets, she wondered. Surely she must have her suspicions.
Edfa didn't normally work Close Protection, she was an intelligence case-officer really. She was a crack shot with a P-15 though and had been bored to death this week so volunteered for a little excitement taking care of the ambassador on his trip to Cupinook.
Then she'd met him, really met him, in private met him, and wished she hadn't bothered.
"Would it look really bad on my appraisal if I let someone kill him?" she'd asked her boss before he'd managed to swallow his first sip of morning coffee. She'd had to change her blouse after that. She liked coffee as much as the next girl (more in fact), but not sprayed over her blouse by her choking boss.
So here she was, sitting in a far too comfortable chair in a bronze and gold encrusted piazza guarding the poshest apartment block in Vonarburg Terminal. The Ambassador had been enjoying questionable company for a couple of hours, forty floors above her, and she felt literally zero guilt at being so far from his side.
Most of that guilt had been assuaged by the generous portion of red velvet cake lying partially eaten on the table in front of her. They'd walked past the cake store just before arriving at the piazza, so after escorting the Ambassador to the apartment, she'd wasted no time in diligently checking their tail for trouble and cunningly ended up back there.
It was delicious, she thought as she violated yet another mouthful, leaning back in the chair to savour the thick cream cheese icing. At which point all hell broke loose around her.
She recognised the girls rushing out of the elevators, stilettos clip clopping across the golden marble floor behind her. Hard not to recognise such obvious hookers. They were leaving in a hurry, had the Ambassador even managed to offend a professional with his groping hands and unsuitable vocabulary? The thought brought a smile to her face.
Did one of them just say someone had died? That wiped away the smile. She jumped to her feet and ran for the elevator ...
She doubled back to grab the remaining cake, and then made for the elevator once more. Somethings were just more important than the lives of Ambassadors - besides, if he was already dead there was nothing she could do. Nothing that was, besides eating cake while waiting for the medics.
"Damn!" she quietly screamed at herself as the elevator doors opened. She couldn't go up to the apartment, there were two elevators, what if he was alive and came down the other one.
The doors of the other one chose that moment to open and more girls came rushing out. Edfa grabbed the least concerned-looking of them and asked, non-too gently: "Hey, who died?"
"Err, just some girl, I dunno."
Holy shit, she thought to herself, what twisted game had the Ambassador made them play up there that it kills one of the girls.
"Are the others coming down, the men I mean?"
"Yeah, I guess, I dunno."
Well that settles it, she thought. If he's coming down of his own accord...
She looked at the cake in her hands. "whatever, it's fine," she returned to the comfortable seat and took another bite.
==
The elevator pinged behind her and she heard shuffling feet, manly feet, walking towards her. She just had time to stuff the last piece of cake into her mouth, it was quite a small mouth, people always told her, but they were wrong, judging by the size of that last piece.
"Edfa," she heard from behind and turned round to meet her principle towering above her. "What the hell?" he asked, visibly not impressed with the bulging cheeks.
Oh I bet you were more impressed by the last girl you saw with her mouth full tonight, she did not say.
"We need to get off this station and away from Cupinook," was all he said. "Fast."
"Mmhmm," Edfa replied incoherently, licking her lips and chomping at the remains of the cake before one last swallow. "The Auriel is warming up," she lied, but it sounded good, and he wouldn't know the difference. "We will be jumping out of this jurisdiction within half an hour. This way, Sir."
There was no danger of being stopped by authorities in that time frame. Much as she would have loved to see the Ambassador arrested and charged with murder, if that's what had transpired forty floors above her, he was still an Ambassador from a friendly Federation star system and immune to such things.
Even so, she couldn't allow him to be traced back to that party. Edfa knew what she would have done if presented with the same information about a high profile opponent. It was her job to keep him safe, and now that she'd established he wasn't dead - unfortunately - that meant protecting his privacy too.
She guided him back to the hangar bay and safely aboard the Auriel. There was nothing like an ugly big Federal Gunship to make a girl feel safe. Once the flight control formalities were complete, she was lifting her beloved off the pad and heading out into the blackness of space.
Ten minutes later the sleek black box flashed out of existence, leaving only a high wake signature behind them in Cupinook. A few seconds later that too would disappear. Edfa and the Ambassador had gone for good.
==
This was her favourite place: in the ring, sparring, in her favourite gym on Lorentz Dock. Today's opponent had severely underestimated her, even by her own assessment. The newbies often did, she was often told that afterwards by coach and spectators alike, but it was rare for her to feel the same way during the bout.
The regulars were gathered around waiting for his inevitable downfall. Another victim of the short, slim, flyweight of a blonde girl who never stayed in one spot long enough for a punch to make contact.
His right boxing glove zipped past her ear, close that time, but she was already skipping round his left shoulder and managed a well placed strike to his cheek bone. If he could land a blow she may well be down on the canvas, out for the count, but his foot work was slow and his punches telegraphed well ahead of time. He was flagging now too, she had certainly tired him out.
"Hey Edfa," the coach shouted from down below, and waved her device at her.
"Sorry dude," she shrugged at the beaten wreck of a man in front of her, "work beckons." And with that she threw herself over the ropes as she always did to be met with high fives from the coach.
"I ignored the rings the first time," he explained to her, "didn't want to spoil his baptism."
She took it with a smile.
"But they kept ringing, so I guess it's important."
"Thanks, man."
She hit recall then tried to control her heavy breathing before the need to speak.
"Edfa I need you back here," her boss said before any pleasantries were exchanged. "Your ambassador situation might be getting a little bit more complex than originally thought."
Uh oh, she thought she was rid of him. Case work had piled up during her sojourn into the world of close protection, and she was glad to be back to it.
"Some young hot-shot investigator appears to be digging into the girl's death hoping to make a name for himself."
"Oh the worst kind," she knew.
"Sure is. Anyway, we need you over there keeping an eye on things. We have a few assets you can make use of to make his investigations difficult."
This was more like her idea of fun. Screwing with the opposition, a bit like how she approached boxing. Don't take the punches, deflect them, skip around them, then land an unexpected subtle blow that takes all the points.
Half an hour later, she was back in the Auriel and pointing it towards Cupinook.