Incident on a Small Colony — Kristine Smith

Set several years before Jani's exploits in Code of Conduct, “Incident on a Small Colony” is a riveting introduction to Jani Kilian, the worlds of the human Commonwealth and the alien idomeni, and the cost of being true to one's self.

This story originally appeared in the December 2006 issue of Baen's Universe Online Magazine.
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Jani Kilian -- broke, tired, and on the run from the Commonwealth Service -- hopes that a short stint working at a shipping company on an out-of-the-way colonial station will provide her some things she badly needs. Money. A place to hide. A little peace.

But all too soon, she is drawn into the staff's habit of making the payroll by diverting cargo, and her offers to help smooth the process only feed her coworkers' suspicions that their unusually competent documents technician is a government spy.

Then there are the hallucinations, a side effect of Service brain augmentation--Jani assumes she's seeing things when she first encounters a young girl in the station bathroom. But not only does the child turn out to be very real, she is on the run herself and in need of serious medical treatment. As Jani is drawn into the deepening crisis, she realizes yet again that no matter how far she runs, her past is never far behind.