An Intergalactic Smugglers Guide to Homecoming by Tia Tashiro (Clarkesworld #211, April 2024)1 opens with Miko going through customs at a starport orbiting Terra Three:
There are seven hundred aliens hidden in Miko’s backpack, and the Galactic Security Agent currently studying her passport (hopefully) has no clue. The agent is an alien themselves, some tentacular species with assistive devices hooked into its uniform to mist its soft skin every few seconds. A puff of evaporated solution exits from one of the devices by its neck as it draws her passport closer to its pitted eyes.
[. . .]
The GSA agent already swiped a scanner over her prosthetic hand and asked her if she had any prohibited or restricted items to declare, including but not limited to organic life, non-prescribed drugs, proprietary starship blueprints, unregistered AI systems, radioactive material, and fresh fruit. Miko, eyes wide, relinquished a cloverfruit from the X10 systems, apologizing profusely for not realizing it was classed as prohibited. She tripped over herself to explain that she “just wanted a snack on the ship!”
Let them get you for something small, and they don’t think you’d dare with something big. Rina taught her that.
It materialises that (a) Miko is a particularly successful smuggler (although she has had one or two lucky escapes in the past) and (b) Rina is Miko’s estranged sister, who she hasn’t seen in years. (Miko wanted to get off Terra Three and travel the worlds but Rina refused to join her, staying on-planet for a career in computing).
Miko subsequently spends the night in a hotel pod on Terra Three before going to deliver jellyfish-like aliens to Sting, her boss, and she spends some of her time talking to the Xellian refugees. They express their profound gratitude to her—even though they have paid handsomely—for their rescue from an intraspecies war on their planet.
Then, the next day at the handover, Miko realises that Sting is going to give the aliens to a waiting third party who intends to make them into psychoactive drugs. After getting her money (spoiler), she punches Sting in the face with her prosthetic hand and goes on the run with the Xellians.
The rest of the story sees her attempt to make her way off-planet, during which she is almost discovered in a transport shuttle crate by one of Sting’s henchmen. However, his scanner reboots and then shows nothing but dead fish. We subsequently learn that Miko’s sister Rina has tampered with the device and, furthermore, has been acting as Miko’s guardian angel for years (explaining Miko’s escape from her earlier close shaves). Rina then fakes Miko’s death so she is no longer pursued by Sting.
This deus ex machina development is perhaps predictable (it’s foreshadowed a little previously) and somewhat collapses this light SF adventure into a family soap opera. That said, it’s a pleasant and readable enough piece of (perhaps YA) fiction.
**+ (Average to Good). 7,050 words. Story link.
1. This is one of 2025 Clarkesworld Readers’ Poll short story finalists.