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discovered another difference between shopping malls and backwater space stations. Shopping malls are teeming with pretty girls. Backwater space stations, not so much. Every male eye tracked Michelle, some of the men going so far as to stop working or walking and stare openly at her. Busy looking at everything, a big smile plastered on her face, Michelle didn’t notice the stares.
    “I think we should go back to the ship, Michelle.” My gaze darted all around, looking for any possible threat from the men around us.
    “Why? Because all the men are staring at me?”
    “You noticed?”
    “I’m a trained bodyguard, Matt. Of course I noticed.” Her sweeping gaze met mine for a second. “If I fooled you, then I fooled them, too.”
    “So you see why we should go back to the ship?”
    The memory of my run in with the gang on the maglev train was still fresh in my mind. Facing a repeat of that experience, this time with Michelle beside me, had no appeal to me.
    “No way, buster. You promised me a burger and fries. Besides, none of these guys are going to do anything but look at me.”
    I tried staring down some of the more obvious oglers in the crowd. To a man, they ignored me.
    “How can you tell they won’t try something?”
    “These guys all follow me with their eyes for a while, then they go back to their work. I’m just a distraction, a bit of fantasy to get them through their day. Real troublemakers would tail us, making rude comments in the hope you’d overreact and give them an excuse to start a fight.” Her hand brushed the blaster on her hip. “Besides, we are prepared for trouble.”
    Men continued to stare, but Michelle’s read on them was right. No one tailed us or even spoke to us during the five minute walk to Ore Sons, but I still breathed a sigh of relief when we entered the bar.
    Through a transparent wall, we had a fantastic view of the system’s gas giant. It glowed orange with golden clouds swirling across the surface. I’d been told Saturn, back in Sol system, was the most beautiful planet in the Federation. If so, the planet before us must run a close second.
    I felt Michelle stiffen beside me and dragged my attention away from Rockville Station’s lone sight. Four young men rose from a table in a dark corner of the bar. I was immediately reminded of the gang on the maglev train.
    “Hey, hey, hey, looky here, boys.” The man spoke in a light-hearted sing-song, but he had a predator’s eyes. “Someone brought us a pretty little present. Let’s take her home and unwrap her.”
    Michelle sighed, real regret in her voice. “So much for the burger and fries.”
    The leader of the little gang swaggered out of the corner of the bar, his three buddies snickering and trailing him. You can find guys like him in every dark and dingy little corner of the Federation—and in just as many bright and prosperous corners. I didn’t even have to speak with the guy to know he thought himself a supreme badass, a man who men feared and women wanted.
    I hated him on sight.
    The barkeep sighed. “I don’t want no trouble in here, Paco. Take it out into the corridor.”
    “Ain’t gonna be no trouble, Tom. Leastwise, not if this boy knows what’s good for him.”
    That exchanged answered another question. Paco had more than attitude; he wielded some actual power in the station. He was too young and too cocksure to have earned his power. That meant he got it by proxy, probably through his father.
    “Aw, isn’t he cute, Matt?” Michelle’s pose looked casual, but her balance was evenly distributed and her right hand hung just below the handle of her blaster. “Do you want me to drop him and his little friends?”
    That brought Paco and pals up short. It wasn’t what Michelle said, so much as how she had said it. Her voice held absolute conviction that she would have no trouble handling all four of them. Now it was my turn.
    “No, not after we came all this way to speak to Paco.” I smiled at him.