Tanya

The burst from her left hand blaster flashed just above the floor and barely caught the edge of the front entrance, the explosion terrific but the two humans were already out of the explosion’s main concussive force. Not pausing as they entered to fire, but rushing forward instead, saved their lives. The blast still sent both flying to the floor. Tanya didn’t have any more time to think about them for the moment. Even as her left hand blaster fired, Tanya was trying to bring the right hand blaster to align on the lizard. It’d been buffeted only a little and it was swinging its weapon around even as Tanya was raising hers.

Antz First Trilogy FREE!

Gregory Matlin looked up from his work as klaxon's and lights began to ring and flash, not only in his little electronics shop, but in the wide corridor outside his shop as well.

He had only purchased this place four months ago, but he had never seen the alarms triggered like this in that span. Several gawkers out in the corridor seemed as confused as he, but these were obviously tourists, judging by their outlandish garb.

“Attention residents and tourists of Anton Brusele Station,” the intercom spoke as the alarms silenced. Gregory recognized the voice of Anton Brusele the Third, as it was with him that Gregory had made the arrangements to purchase this little retirement spot to practice some of the skills he had learned as a fighter and troop transport pilot within the employ of the Space Corps Infantry Division of the United Federation of Worlds Space Corps Fleet. In between engagements, anyway. A forty year hitch he had barely survived, one which none of his friends had, but it was a wide Universe and most races humans encountered were entirely unfriendly.

“I have bad news,” Anton Brusele the Third went on, “and I'm not exactly sure how to say it, so I'm just going to say it.” In the short pause that followed, Gregory Matlin was already moving. He didn't know what he was about to hear, but forty years in the Service had taught him not to be caught with his pants down. He wasn't surprised when he heard the rest of the announcement. “According to Military sources, an unknown alien element has breached the Protected Zone, destroying a section of the Automated Defensive Shield with, I was told, little hindrance. I am informed that they will be here by tomorrow morning at the latest.”

Screams of hysterical tourists, mixed with the yelled commands of men and women taking charge, most of the Station's permanent residents were ex-military personnel of one kind or another, Spacers tended to prefer remaining in space after completing their hitches, dominated the air. Gregory was most of the way into a space suit and that after removing the side arm he never went anywhere without, except the toilet, shower or bed, and shortly was re-buckling it back into place over his lightweight, flexible suit. After the sidearm came the helmet, which adjusted itself after he had put it in place, then he was moving towards the exit.

Though he locked the door on his way out, Gregory doubted he would see the place, and his considerable investment therein, ever again. He was seldom wrong about such things. Anton Brusele Station was right on the Fringe. A small Jump from the Protected Zone. He had been a fool, but it had been a long time since any race man had encountered had proved technologically advanced enough to breach the Zone, much less breach it with little hindrance. If they had breached the Zone with little hindrance, there was nothing man could throw in their way soon enough to halt their advance upon Brusele Station.

Not that the military would throw anything away to attempt to save Brusele Station. Brusele Station was lightly armed and could put up a defense against the average pirate, but she was by no means what you would call armed by military standards. Unarmed, she had no military value, thus, the military would not value her. They would throw away no ships in a suicidal attempt to save her.

Much of a hardened sort, Gregory Matlin had made few friends here in the four months on Brusele Station, but he had met a woman. An Officer of the Corps Intelligence, now retired like himself, and about as unfriendly a person as he had ever met. They had taken to one another immediately. She was now the only person he thought of in the mad rush for the evacuation vessels he knew would be coming in from every available location.

“Mary Beth Holter.” Gregory thought, the cue all that was necessary to attempt the communication. She responded immediately.

“Yes I heard! How could I have missed it!”

“Need a lift?” Gregory asked, though he knew the answer.

“I should ask you that. That little minnow might get you swallowed up.”

“Broke through the Zone with little hindrance!” Gregory repeated what he had heard.

“Take some doing.” Mary Beth Holter said, then in a softer tone; “Kinda grown fond of you.”

“Where you going?” Gregory asked. Though they had been seeing one another for the past three months, neither really had ever spoken of it in that way. They were both too tough, to querulous and gruff and impersonal to allow such sentiments.

“I guess it will be Stanton Station. We should have them stopped by then.”

“If they don't . . . ” Gregory said, leaving the thought hang. “I'll see you there.”

“They have to.” Mary Beth said. “I'll see you there.”

The line made the little sound that meant it had been disconnected, although of course there was no actual sound. The brain interpreted the signals as sound, just as it interpreted vibrations on the eardrum as sound. Same principle, just added into the circuit farther up the line. Gregory was running. Wherever Mary Beth was, he knew one thing for sure, she was running also. An unknown enemy meant unknown technology. An unknown technology meant an unknown Propulsion System. Gregory Matlin did not trust the assessment that this enemy would not be here until tomorrow morning theory!

Once installed in his little ship, the best of everything money could buy besides square meter-age, he was only moments getting free of Brusele Station. It was a free-for-all of ships clearing the Station but few had gotten ahead of him and none could've caught him once in the freedom of open space.

Piloting his little minnow, as Mary Beth liked to call his Transient, between a huge liner that had not even gotten docked and was now turning ponderously away, and a large luxury yacht, the liner, of Trans Verse Lines, cutting it very close, Gregory applauded the piloting, it was clear the liner's pilot was an expert, but hadn't counted on the little Transient flying between.

On one side was what to all extents and purposes was a massive cliff like wall of liner, on the other the bulk of the luxury yacht, it's nose still embedded in the side of Brusele Station. Despite the gravity field of Transient's propulsion system the mass and inertia of the huge liner would smear him all the way down the side of the yacht if they were merely to touch. The pilot of the liner was cutting it close. It was reversing and turning at the same time, normally a procedure that could cost a commercial pilot his license, but under the circumstances might earn him a citation. If the liner escaped. A luxury liner would have no need of a propulsion system in a ratio proportionate to that of Transients. Luxury liners weren't designed for fast trips. Transient was.

Gregory slammed his control toggle all the way up and felt only the slightest inertia as Transient flipped over and dropped like a runaway elevator. In most cases you weren't supposed to feel any reaction at all but Transient had too much drive field for her own good. Or at least in most cases.

Gregory watched expectantly as the liner closed the gap between itself and Transient. Transient was already but less than a meter from the yacht behind it and Gregory still couldn't see the bottom of the liner. This particular liner might've been as large as a small moon and could carry twenty or thirty thousand passengers in complete luxury.

Some of those passengers might've noticed Transient as it passed, but if they did, by this time all they saw was a blur. Then Transient was beyond and accelerating out into open space beyond, the first ship to . . .

A blip he had his computer programmed to recognize was out there ahead of him, though he was slowly gaining on it. Before he could pull close it vanished into the spectacular light show that was Jump.

“How in the hell!” Gregory swore, but there was no answer. Communications between the dimensions, or normal long-distance communications at the span they would now be separated, were not possible with either Transients technology or his internal link. Gregory allowed his computer to plot a Jump, then both he and ship disappeared into its maw.

Gregory exited Jump well behind Mary Beth, fourteen minutes after he and Transient had entered. Jump velocity was fixed, of course, nor did velocity at entrance matter except in the minimum velocity requirement. Try going into Jump too slow and you wouldn't come back out. Most theories on the subject tended towards the belief that you were separated at the atomic level and spread across a vast section of Real Space, that a certain velocity was required to make the push through the dimensions, or folds of space, though nothing had ever been conclusively determined on the subject.

“That was foolish!” Gregory said when he regained contact with Mary Beth. She had gone into Jump just above the required velocity, probably only just to beat him.

“You forget my instrumentation.” Mary Beth responded. “I was well within tolerances. Better hurry up, slowpoke, or you won't get a berth.”

“I'll dock to you and pay the berth.” Gregory said. “There's going to be a lot of ships coming in.”

“Yeah.” Mary Beth said. “I was trying not to think about that. Don't worry about the fees, there aren't any. Military Emergency Act 2714.”

“Right.” Gregory said, though of course he had never heard of it.

Gregory followed her and her Mystical into a plot relegated to the smallest of ships. Mystical wasn't as small as Transient, but was still small enough for these berths. Gregory set the autopilot to dock them and locked onto Mystical even as she locked onto Stanton Station.

There were few ships as small as Transient. Large sleeping quarters, a small kitchenette, a very small head, a living/dining area and small rec room. The rest of her area was made up of drive, reactor and weaponry. She was overpowered in those areas, by some large percentage. Mystical was three times her size, and for its credit, almost as fast. Once docked, the two ships were essentially one.

“Slave your engines over,” Mary Beth ordered, “then come over, if you like.”

Mary Beth was used to giving orders, a full Bird in the Service before her retirement. Gregory didn't argue with her. A man who had spent most of his life alone, who had found it difficult to get along with those of the opposite sex, he had somehow found it easy to give in to Mary Beth. It was simply one of those things he had been unable to explain, it simply was what it was. He slaved his computer over to hers, making them in essence one ship with now nearly double the drive, and walked into Mystical through the open hatchway.

Mary Beth sat at the Captain's console reading a military briefing displayed there. Of course she didn't look her sixty-eight years. Rejuvenation treatment came free for Officers and at a reduced cost for all Service personnel. Physically she was no more than twenty-six, her last Rejuv having taken place right before her retirement. Rejuvenation was the main reason the ranks and files of the Service were so full, when the state of near constant warfare was perpetually thinning them. Gregory's own hopes for an escape from military service, if he also wished to maintain his youthfulness, would be destroyed with the destruction of Brusele Station, if this new enemy force took interest in it. All of his savings had been invested there.

“Admiral Nelson Sandgarth and the 401^st Destroyer Detachment are proceeding to intercept.” Mary Beth said, turning her beautiful eyes on me. Tragic, beautiful eyes. Those were the eyes which had captivated me, but she was a beautiful woman in every aspect, from her honey coloring to her muscular, 1.7 meter, lithe frame. I knew why her eyes were tragic.

“What is her complement?” Gregory asked.

“Nineteen Destroyers and forty-seven Frigates.” Mary Beth said. “They are essentially a police force. They were having piracy problems along the Frontier here.”

“They'll never stop a force that broke through the Zone with little hindrance.” Gregory said, setting his own youthful frame into the copilots lounge. Young in body but old in spirit. “Warfare appears to be the natural state of affairs. When I retired I vowed never to participate again. Now it looks as if I'll have no choice.”

They had never talked of such things. Each had had their own reasons for their decisions. Perpetual youthfulness had not been enough to allay the weight of the things he had done in mankind's name. If he had not retired he might one day have turned the guns of his fighter or transport on his own Commanding Officers. The Service Psychs must have reported somewhat similar findings because he was given his retirement without argument, when pilots of his skill were seldom released graciously.

Mary Beth made no comment and went back to the news release she was reading. She knew she had never been as close to the actual fighting as had Gregory, she knew she could never feel what he felt, but her reasons for retiring had been similar. In her opinion man had forever been too eager to make war on those races it had encountered. Complete subjugation to mankind's rule or complete destruction. She had always agreed that no enemies could be left within man's ranks, but those in positions of authority had always gone farther than she would have. Disarmament, she had always thought, should've been the answer.

Now however, Mary Beth was not so sure. Now an alien race had come to them, showing an aggression and an ability previously unknown to any but man. Maybe war was the natural state of affairs and survival belonged only to the fittest. Unlike Gregory, Mary Beth was not crushed by the weight of the things she had done. The decisions which she had made that had caused the deaths of untold enemies, the actual number of whom she would never really guess. What she understood that Gregory did not was that with which Gregory was made. Mary Beth Holter was an instinctive commander of both men and women and what she had seen in Gregory Matlin, why she had taken him both to her heart and her bed, was the carbon which underlay his personality. It was something the Psych Techs could never understand with all their ridiculous little tests and questions. When the chips were down was when Gregory Matlin would be up. He was a survivor.

Brusele Station

Anton Brusele the Third sat in the luxuriously monstrous chair behind his desk of real teak wood in his office aboard Brusele Station and watched the monitors on the walls for the first telltale signs of either the 401^st Destroyer Detachment or the incoming alien fleet which had breached the barrier of the Protected Zone and according to reports was heading directly towards him. He realized he was a fool for remaining, but he wasn't the only fool to have done so. There were still hundreds aboard who had refused to go, though there had been plenty of available transport. His own yacht was still berthed in its slip, its crew dismissed and gone, with their pay. He had heard the military analysis, as had they all. He was surprised they were attempting a military intervention at all.

More than likely, Anton guessed, the Federation Destroyer Detachment would make a feint to try and forestall further aggression, but would pull back if a superior force continued its advance.

Everything Anton Brusele the Third possessed was tied up in this Station, however. The whole venture had been a calculated risk. His only insurance coverage was for his remaining debts. The Station had only just begun to pay for itself. Fifty years was the mortgage and then he would have become a very rich man. To flee now, to flee the destruction of Brusele Station, would only be to flee into poverty. Anton Brusele the Third had decided to stay and pit his tiny guns against whatever alien horde had broken through the Zone. He hadn't long to wait.

The screens on the walls to his left erupted in brilliant colors, like a star suddenly opening its eyelid and staring out in fusion brilliance. Out of the blazing eye emerged the massive body of a Federation of Worlds Destroyer, emerging slowly but steadily into a new existence. All around it other points of light erupted, also spewing forth their massive machines. Many, many more points of light spewed forth the smaller Frigates.

On Anton's screens the Detachment seemed like an invulnerable force, but the military authorities had made no bones considering their estimation of the Destroyer Detachments probability of success. The 401^st wouldn't have a snowballs chance in hell of successfully penetrating the Protected Zone, so unless this unknown assailant had lost most of its force just penetrating the Zone, they had no chance of stopping them.

“This is Anton Brusele the Third,” Anton said, hailing the 401^st, “welcome to Brusele Station.”

“Thank you. This is Admiral Nelson Sandgarth. You are to evacuate.” Came the response, nor did he sound particularly happy to find civilians still aboard. “I'm sending a Frigate over. Your life is in grave danger. Is there anyone else aboard?”

“No.” Anton said slowly. He had already attempted to talk those who had remained into leaving. Those who were too hardheaded to leave before now had made up their minds. Anton didn't want to complicate Nelson Sandgarth's job any more than it was already. “Just me, and I'm staying. Brusele Station isn't completely defenseless. I'll fight for what is mine. In any case, my time is up.” The right-hand screens had begun to blossom with their own spots of brilliance, though these were farther out.

“Jump technology.” Anton heard Sandgarth say. “Last chance?” Sandgarth added.

“Too late.” Anton said. “Anyway, the Captain is supposed to go down with his ship.”

“It's your funeral. Good luck.” Then the circuit was dead. Anton brought his weapons systems online, targeting the distant Armada still entering Real Space.

There was no question shortly that he had pulled his own hole card as the unknown alien Armada continued to appear in Real Space. His computer continued to annotate each distant blip with its schematics. The ships coming through were huge, some nearly the size of Brusele Station. They kept coming for four hours, slowly advancing on Brusele Station to make room for the smaller ships which followed. That lasted even longer. In the interim Admiral Sandgarth docked a Frigate and took aboard several Stationers who changed their minds. Anton had nothing beyond Brusele Station and stayed with the few recalcitrant's, who, like himself, had their entire investments tied up here. Several others, who owned small ships, there were no ships of any size remaining now, he had sent someone else on with his own, had taken up positions of defense between the growing alien Armada and Brusele Station.

Admiral Sandgarth and the 401^st slowly fell back as the alien Armada advanced. Anton still had some hope he and Brusele Station wouldn't be destroyed, but it gradually decreased over the day as it became obvious they were moving directly towards him. He had never seen a Federation Detachment besides the one now retreating, so this was his first glimpse of anything so massive. These massive alien Capitol Class Ships literally dwarfed the Luxury Liners which frequented Brusele Station, and there were thousands of them. Later in the day, when the last of the advancing alien Armada's ships had finally all entered Real Space, Anton attempted a communication;

“This is Anton Brusele the Third and this is Brusele Station, welcome, in the name of mankind.” He sent this message out on every channel at his disposal, but there was no response. The Armada just continued to advance.

Admiral Sandgarth sent out similar messages, which Anton viewed, and got a similar response. Nothing.

“Admiral Sandgarth, Sir.” Ensign Rawlings, a mere tech said, interrupting his reverie. “The enemy has ceased advancing.”

“I can see that.” Admiral Sandgarth said, but a little too harshly. Like nearly everyone else in military service he appeared young. He was young, physically. In standard years he was two hundred-fourteen and felt the weight of the years squarely on his shoulders as he assessed the strengths and weaknesses of the advancing alien Armada.

He refused, yet at this point, to call it an enemy Armada. To do so would be to admit that he was powerless to stop what would be the destruction of many millions of innocent human lives, due to the fact that the Fleet had nothing close enough to stop them.

“We are beginning to gather some preliminary findings.” Jennifer McClury, his Chief Engineering Officer, said from her Station. “The gravitational fields they are using are not drive fields.”

“Then what are they?” Sandgarth asked, not able to imagine what else they might be.

“Purely defensive, as we also use them.” Jennifer said. “Their drives appear to be primitive fusion. Possibly Cold Fusion with helium 3, but I wasn't able to get an accurate reading through their particle fields. Unless their fusion engines are some type of backup, which I can't imagine, they'll never be able to catch us, Sir.”

“Nor will we be able to stop them!” Sandgarth said. “And we're the only thing between them and several dozen inhabited worlds.”

“Not to mention Brusele and Stanton Stations.” Lieutenant Commander Bradley Vincent said.

“Do we have any type of weapons analysis yet?” Sandgarth asked Vincent.

“We can't read anything through their shields.” Lieutenant Commander Bradley Vincent said.

“They're attempting a full spectrum analysis of our own capabilities.” Tamasia Dalby, his Chief Electrical Systems Engineer said. “They can't read us any more than we can read them.”

“Yet they seem to have no intention of communicating.” Sandgarth said. “They're looking for weaknesses.”

“Or strengths.” Lieutenant Commander Vincent said. “Their intentions are obviously hostile. Our refusal to run has probably confused them, considering their numerical advantage.”

“That confusion will be cleared up when they do attack. If their arsenal is merely atomic and nothing more advanced, which I doubt,” Mark Kennedy, his Chief Weapons Systems Engineer said, “they'll still walk through us as if we weren't even in the way. Anything heavier, anything as sophisticated as we carry, and it will be a short battle.”

“I'm aware of our limitations,” Sandgarth said, “but thanks for pointing them out. We are here to hunt pirates. These aren't pirates.” Sandgarth felt the wave of relief from those on the Bridge, but if he had thought for one second that sacrificing every ship and every life of his command would save those planets he wouldn't hesitate for one moment. There were millions of civilians who would never get evacuated in time, notwithstanding this intruder Armada's slow propulsion system.

“How are the evacuations going?” Sandgarth asked.

“Word of the invaders,” Chief Communications Officer Brenda Stanford began, then paused at Sandgarth's look, and corrected herself, “word of the alien force reached the general population before authorities could institute Martial Law.” She said regretfully.

“Which in layman's terms means those with ships escaped without care for those left behind.” Sandgarth snarled. “I want every one of those who fled in empty ships charged with Treason.” There were several gasps of astonishment in the huge Bridge of Sandgarth's Flagship Bellefontaine, but he didn't care. Mankind had never been so threatened before and he wanted to make examples. To flee and leave your fellow humans to perish was as cowardly an act as he could imagine and this would help stem its repetition if the enemy continued to advance. If the enemy continued to advance, the planets only now directly in its path wouldn't be the only ones to fall. Man's domain spanned trillions of light years and millions of inhabited planets. Admiral Sandgarth could imagine no enemy strong enough to exterminate man, but an enemy of sizable proportion and technological ability could cost her billions or trillions of lives.

Here on the Fringe the planets were yet sparsely inhabited, but only a short span farther into man's sphere of influence, it would be a totally different story.

“They're doing something.” Lieutenant Commander Vincent said.

Chronicles of a Space Mercenary

The thing I hated most about working for the government, any government, they all seemed to think alike, was that then they invariably thought that they owned you. Patriotism, duty and all those other words that meant they thought they were entitled to what was yours. All meaningless trite to a world-less vagabond like myself. My ship was my home and I needed no other.

“They’re waiting for a response, Captain!” Tanya Serensen said, my strong First and the meanest bitch I have ever met.

The war was over. We were, had been, part of the Federation forces which had unsuccessfully attempted to unify the four hundred and seventy-two known human worlds. We had been smashed ruthlessly, to put mildly what had been a lost cause from the beginning. I had been paid handsomely with trade goods and supplies; semi-precious metals and fuel rods, to be exact, plus I’d brought my ship, Last Chance, and my crew through without a scratch. So I had not complained when everyone started signing peace treaties.

The problem began when I informed my erstwhile employers that with hostilities ended, so too were my obligations. I had fulfilled to the letter our contract. I owed them nothing more. They had not agreed.

There were now three of my former allies, positioned in attack formation outside Last Chance’s hull. Not only did they not feel as if I had not completely fulfilled my end of the bargain, but I was getting the distinct impression they would not be satisfied until they had added Last Chance herself to their now depleted arsenal. I guess they felt, that with all the losses they had suffered, that Last Chance would be a welcome addition to their much depleted Navy. I guess they hadn’t quite learned their lesson about attempting to force their wills on unwilling subjects. Some people are simply incapable of understanding. Especially people in positions of power, like governments, for example.

“You bastards!” I snarled. I should have known these ungrateful hypocrites would try to back stab me, especially now that every planet was a law unto itself, only answerable to itself, and they angry at the defeat they had suffered. They were quick at jumping on the bandwagon of self governance, now that no unifying government held sway. That was for sure.

“Is that your response?” Tanya asked, no inflection in her voice.

“No!” I snapped. The crazy bitch would repeat it too, if I didn’t specifically say no! A first impression of Tanya Serensen would never give you the insightful depth that existed behind her innocent appearing, stunningly beautiful face. Blond hair, blue eyes, body and face of a love goddess, barely fifty kilos soaking wet, but as vicious as a Tarnian Bola Raptor when angered, and if you’ve ever been to Tarnia you know there is no living creature meaner nor better able to defend itself. That’s my Tanya, in a nutshell. A very tough, unbreakable nutcase.

“What are we going to do?” Demanded David Bren, my Science Engineer, when I didn’t immediately make a decision. Bren is a mathematical genius and quite able to compute our odds, no matter which decision I ultimately made; whether we fought or fled, against the three Class Four Katon Destroyers which were arrayed around us now in a roughly triangular formation. Not that it took a mathematical genius to figure these odds. We were fucked, and that was the long and the short of it! To fight would be bad. To flee, worse. To surrender, the worst! They weren’t going to let us survive to go running around telling anyone who would listen how we had been robbed by the honest, law abiding Katons. They had their tourism and immigration to think about, but they also needed ships to patrol their borders. Hell, I was seriously worried, and I, Marc Deveroux, am usually quite unflappable. There was really only one answer.

I keyed ship’s intercom; “Battle Stations. Delegate targets. Fire on orders only!” I looked into Tanya’s cool blue orbs and winked my left eye. A left wink meant to be prepared to fight. The wink was redundant, of course. There was no other option but to fight. She smiled at me serenely, the calm before the storm.

“Tell them,” I said, “that we surrender.” I smiled my own smile back at Tanya, my goodbye, if that was what it would come to, but we had been through so many such tough scrapes, that it seemed impossible that this one could really be the end.

“You damned maniac!” Bren yelled, jumping up from his seat at his computer console, glaring at me furiously, but he shut his mouth on whatever he had been about to say when Coto, my pet Xiong, chittered insect-like at him from the ceiling above me where it was resting. Impossibly, and as comfortably as I was myself sitting in my own seat, it clung effortlessly to the seamless, smooth ceiling panels like a fly, or spider, and this under full gravity. I was not one of those Captains who preferred his ship’s gravity at near zero for the comfort it provided. I liked my full gravity, and even more, upon occasion, to keep my body fit. Coto clung to the ceiling now under that full gravity, as if on some invisible perch.

Coto appeared to be some kind of sick hybrid of ant and spider, except on a mammalian scale. Six legs, segmented brown body with bristly short black hairs, lusterless matte black eyes (it was impossible to tell where Coto was looking) and razor sharp pincer mandibles. Though only the size of a small dog, it could be a vicious killer if antagonized, and it didn’t like anyone yelling at me!

Xiongs were considered partially sentient, able to use simple tools when it was necessary, but having been adapted to survival so well from the beginning (they had been at the top of the food chain on their own world until humans arrived) that they hadn’t needed to evolve further. I had saved Coto from a gang of boys with shock-sticks and the aggressive little creature had been my loyal friend and protector since.

Not that I needed a protector.

Tanya ignored the little drama and passed along my message.

“Prepare for boarding!” The Bridge speakers relayed immediately, aggressively.

My answer was to buckle the acceleration harness of my Captain’s chair. David sat back down, looking as petrified as he always did before a confrontation, but he buckled himself in as well. Tanya was already secured.

“Melanie, Janice, Manuel?” I asked over ship’s intercom.

“What’s happening?” Manuel Terrarium asked. “Why am I looking down the barrel of a photon cannon? What the hell did you do now?”

“Thanks for the vote of confidence.” I said sarcastically. “The Katons want to confiscate Last Chance. I think you can guess what will happen to us if we let that happen.”

“It looks like they’re succeeding.” Melanie Vang said.

“Do you have a plan?” Janice Ortiz asked. “One that doesn’t involve breathing vacuum or copious bleeding!”

“No.” I said. “Be ready to fight. There are no odds in surrender. They’ll kill us sure as I’m Marc Deveroux. Anyway, there are only three of them, so the odds are in our favor.” I thought I sounded convincing, and no one contradicted me, though Bren was staring daggers at me from his station. If looks could kill . . . !

Maybe I am a maniac and maybe I sometimes enjoyed risking the lives of everyone around me (as well as my own), but there was absolutely no doubt in my mind that we didn’t stand a snowballs chance in hell once we’d surrendered Last Chance, and ourselves, to the merciless Katons. Our time remaining in this life could at that point be measured in the number of steps it would take to march us to the nearest airlock. No. Surrender was not an option.

“Forward Destroyer moving in to dock.” Tanya said. “Ten seconds. Nine. Eight. Seven. Six. Five. Four. Three. Two. One.” The hull rang as the pilot of the Katon Destroyer brought his vessel up against Last Chance’s docking locks.

“Engage locks. Seal all airtight hatches.” I told them. Bren’s fingers moved over his keyboard and we heard the locks engage gratingly and seal with a clang. Our two ships were now one. Locked together. Our Fates inseparably intertwined. That left only the two unengaged ships able to fire on us from their attack formation, and even they would have to worry about damaging their own comrade if and when they did, or the secondary fusion reaction if we were destroyed while the two of us were still mated. The Katon ship now locked to our side was as fucked as we were, because I did not feel for one moment, not one second, that the two remaining Katon ships would refrain from firing just out of consideration for their comrade. When we opened fire, they’d return it, in spades.

We had no time to dally. The engaged ship could blast or cut through the lock in only moments. If I gave them those moments.

“Fire on free targets!” I yelled into the com, at the same time engaging Last Chance’s main fusion engine, throwing the controller over hard to thrust away from the Katon locked onto our side, hoping literally to rip it loose and fill it with nothing. Fill it with the vacuum of space and the joys of explosive decompression. If they had not thought to seal their interior airtight hatches, it would be all over for Destroyer number one. A rather gruesome way to go!

The thrust threw me back in my seat despite Internal Gravity. It could only compensate for just so much. Last Chance groaned desperately under the dangerous stress as she tried to pull away from the ship attached to her side, and failed, the metal straining but somehow holding, the Destroyer coming along for the ride with us.

The two loose Destroyers, shown on separate view screens, were glowing with stripes of luminescent green death as Last Chance’s plasma cannons poured the green fire into them at such close range, the gelatinous plasma smeared across the hulls of the ships sticking where it struck and eating into the thick armor like napalm on flesh. Nothing but nothing could scrape it off once it adhered. The thick armor of the Katon ships boiled away into space in billowing clouds as the plasma tried to eat its way down into those ships.

The image on my right hand main screen (Last Chance sported two main view screens plus twelve smaller, secondary screens) showed the Destroyer to our stern taking fire from both Janice and Melanie’s rear guns, though the way we were beginning to rotate, those targets would soon swap positions, and the Destroyer on the left screen would be under those twin guns, Janice and Melanie’s, which were mounted above and below the main rear fusion engine. The Destroyer now under those guns was losing armor quickly. It was taking a hell of a beating.

Melanie and Janice were pouring their fire into the same area amidships on their joint target, hammering the same spot over and over again until the whole section was glowing green fire and which was rapidly creating a huge sink hole in the side of the ship. Atmosphere exploded outwards from the red-hot and green glowing area as the Destroyer lost hull integrity, blowing a green and yellow flame many meters out into space as the red hot plasma ignited the escaping oxygen into open flame.

I shoved my controller back over to avoid throwing us into a complete spin and to maintain those two stern guns on the damaged ship as long as I could, and in the hope that I could get the bow Destroyer under Last Chance’s photon cannon, at whose controls Tanya was eagerly awaiting the opportunity to fire the powerful weapon.

As powerful as the plasma cannon were, they were but a minor nuisance compared to the energies of the photon cannon. The photon cannon was too large to track independently, however, its mounting fixed and immovable, so if I wanted Tanya to get off a shot I had to bring the enemy under our nose, even if only momentarily, for the opportunity to become reality.

The bow Destroyer realized my aim and lit her own engine, shooting past us before I could give Tanya her chance, but we striped her with green fire as she flashed past, but doing insignificant damage.

“Destroyers falling behind!” Bren yelled.

“We can see that.” Tanya said, glaring at him for a moment while she had nothing else to do, angry that she had not been given her chance.

The Destroyer we had hulled was floundering behind us, but the second Destroyer, having spun out to our side and having missed its first opportunity to fire its photon cannon at us, either out of surprise or the fear they would hit their own companion locked to our hull (a plan that paid off for once) were thrusting side-wise to get around behind us and realign their main gun again, evidently willing to risk their companion now in their own fear and anger.

I couldn’t allow them a shot down our fusion engine. One such direct hit would mean the end for a certainty. Maybe for them as well, as they looked to be well within the blast radius, if I were any sure judge. Space battles were seldom fought at such close ranges. They were usually long over before two such vessels could get to such intimate proximity. It was much easier to target the photon cannon on a long distance target than it was to try and twist around to get it within your own moving targeting brackets. Such contests were normally determined by which ship possessed the largest capacity to generate fusion electricity, because that ship would have the longest striking ability. I on the other hand, am quite familiar with this close in infighting. It was my style. Last Chance was far too small to engage the larger vessels she most frequently found herself contesting. And anyway, I wasn’t interested in a victory that included my own destruction.

Last Chance’s plasma guns were firing wildly, their green streaks of fire fanning off into space around the second Destroyer as I pushed Last Chance hard into her spin, the Destroyer riding our side helping our spin as I fought to get our gun on our enemies before they finished their turn and got their big gun on us. A battle of orientation, of maneuverability.

“Be ready.” I told Tanya calmly, but it was hardly necessary and I doubt she even heard me. Her entire concentration was centered on her fire control screen and the ship I was slowly putting in the cross-hairs of her photon targeting brackets. She was smiling suddenly.

Last Chance was swinging around rapidly now, her exterior cameras, under Bren's sure control, tracking the second Destroyer, keeping us on target.

Suddenly the Destroyer whipped across the screen. Whipped across the red targeting cross-hairs. Tanya stabbed at the fire control on her console. The pencil-thin red beam of the condensed particle stream flowed out along the the cross-hair targeting bracket, following it even as Last Chance continued to turn, the beam curving away into space, and then it cut across the nose of the Destroyer, separating it cleanly from the rest of the ship.

There was time only to begin seeing the sections separate before the Destroyer exploded in painful brilliance and the video dampeners blocked the screens to save us retinal burns.

“Hit their photon cannon!” Tanya said cheerfully as the screens slowly brightened and we could see where we were going again.

I pushed the stick over and fought Last Chance’s inertia to twist us around for a photon cannon shot at the first Destroyer, and to keep the pressure on our piggy-backers, whom I couldn’t forget would be doing all they could to get inside us. This I could not let happen. The turn threw me over hard in my seat but I wasn’t in time to give Tanya her shot and the Destroyer slipped out of our grasp as it went tumbling beyond us, tossed mercilessly by the explosive force of its dying comrade.

The explosive repercussion of its comrade had snuffed out the fusion fire of its main engine or the green plasma fire it took would have been blown away like so much chaff on the wind. Several of Last Chance’s plasma guns now poured the green fire right into the bowl of the extinguished engine as the great ship spun past us, completely out of control. I knew what was going to happen next before it happened and threw my stick forward as far as it would go, racing to get as far away from the doomed ship as I could get us, before . . .

If I had thought the explosion of the first ship bright, it was as nothing to that of the second. Unaware that the bowl of their engine was full of burning plasma, or maybe they were aware, and knowing their only chance at that point had been to ignite their engine to attempt to blow away the plasma, they had lit their engine and allowed the burning plasma an inlet to their fusion reactor. Instant cataclysm. A minor star going nova might not have been the brighter. It was the same stuff, only on a smaller scale.

Though we were running and putting distance between ourselves when it went, the explosion sent a tremendous shock wave through us that rocked us to our core. Stressed metal screamed and groaned and I let off the stick immediately, fearing if I didn’t I would tear us apart.

“Release docking locks!” I yelled at Bren as all of our screens once again went dark. Even our forward screens, which were pointed out into the blackness of space. It was a sure measure of the forces which had been unleashed. Universal forces. The stuff of creation, except in this case, the stuff of destruction!

The locks grated momentarily, pinned under the pressure of the spinning ships and dissipating force from the fusion explosion, then gave way silently. I felt it as a change in our inertia when the Katon Destroyer left our side, but it wasn’t until the screens came back up that we could see for ourselves the ship was gone. It was spinning away from us, out of control, having been unprepared for its sudden release.

“They’d already released their own locks.” Bren said redundantly. Tanya gave him a look which was easy to interpret and which he ignored.

Our plasma cannons were lighting up the third Destroyer even as it spun away from us, but it had twisted in a way that did not give our guns an open shot on its engine and suddenly it was burning and the ship trying to right itself, and throwing plasma fire right back at us. From four turrets!

Last Chance shuddered under the attacks from the larger plasma cannons but continued to put distance between us as I held the stick forward, outrunning most of the fire but not all. We seemed to stagger under each new blow, but then we were beyond range and accelerating rapidly.

“I wouldn’t plan any vacations in Katon for awhile.” Tanya said conversationally. “I hope everyone cleaned out their bank accounts before we left.”

“Never did like Katon anyway,” I said, “and I brought my bank account with me.” I patted the armrest of my Captain’s chair.

“You sure know how to wear out your welcome.” Tanya added.

“I burn my bridges as I go.” I said. It was the story of my life. “As I recall,” I went on, recounting a worn out story, “you had more than worn out your welcome on Teva when I came along and saved your bacon. Something about some missing Crown Jewels! Suspiciously like those you’re wearing around your neck right now!”

“Allegations.” Tanya replied.

“Yeah, and you almost dragged me down with you.” I said. “You just couldn’t leave without the goods!”

“They’re worth more than this crappy ship you set so much store by.” Tanya replied. “A crappy ship we all just risked our lives to save, need I remind you!”

“That’s really amusing,” I said, “when this crappy ship is the only place you can wear those jewels!”

“Funny,” Tanya mused, “but I bet the Katons report Last Chance as a stolen ship!” Now she really smiled. An evil smile if I ever saw one, and one that meant she had scored the point. “Plus we wouldn’t have been in this mess in the first place if you hadn’t lost all your money gambling on the Kievor Trade Station. A fool and his money are soon parted!”

“We wouldn’t have been in this war in the first place if it hadn’t been for you.” Bren accused. “We nearly lost our lives a dozen times all because of your sure thing on the card table.”

“They cheated!” I defended myself. It was true; they had to have cheated.

“Put us in warp space, Bren.” Tanya said disgustedly, playing her advantage to the hilt, as was her wont.

Bren’s fingers worked over his console board and suddenly space shifted sickeningly around us. I really, truly hated the transfer in or out of warp space. Human bodies weren’t designed for this. Warp space is a completely different dimension. When you transferred in or out of warp space, you felt the transfer right through your body, all the way down into and within the very smallest particles of your body.

Yet I didn’t like the idea of hanging around and fighting it out with the Katon Destroyer, either. Once again I had scraped us through an impossible situation unscathed, so now was the time to make my curtain call, and get out.

The Katon Destroyer would not be able to follow us. It was not equipped with the drive necessary to enter or travel through warp space. Only the Katon’s big boats came equipped with warp capability, and the rest, their Destroyers, mine layers, torpedo boats, fighters, scouts and all else rode piggy-back through warp until back in normal space again where their conventional engines would once more find purchase. It wasn’t a good system but one that they thought would save them money in the long run. It hadn’t. I had seen too many of those unequipped ships left behind in battle zones when their transport vessels either left them behind under fire, they couldn’t get docked in time or the Capitol ships hadn’t made it through the battles themselves. It was the latter in most of those cases. Those planets had been fighting for their independence and there was no man who fought harder than the man who was fighting for his home, his family and his freedom. The Katons had shown little regard for those left behind.

I began gagging dangerously as we pushed into warp, taking much longer than usual because of our slow relative velocity. We'd had no choice in the matter with the Katon Destroyer swinging around to get a bearing on us. It was either warp out at our slow velocity or face the Destroyer’s photon cannon while our own was pointed out towards open space. My mouth flooded with saliva and my stomach lurched. Nausea washed through me in a wave that reached from all the way down into my guts and outward and upward, nearly rising into my throat. Goose bumps rose over my entire body.

I reached to unclasp my safety harness so I could get out of my seat and get to Bren’s station to shut off this hell. The controls for the warp space engine had been deactivated on my own console for just that reason. I would shut it off mid-jump and damned the consequences, not caring where we came out, or even if we did. Suddenly we were through the wall of normal space however, and fully into warp and the terrible sickness was gone. Gone as quickly as it had come, and all that was left to remind me of the horror of it all was the taste of the bile in my mouth and the burning sensation it had left in my throat. I had held it down but only barely. I glared at Tanya;

“We could have gotten up a little more velocity first! We had plenty of time!” I had been watching the Katon Destroyer’s progress as it came around onto us and we had still had plenty of time. I knew that she had ordered the early warp just to make me sick.

“Screw you.” Tanya replied sweetly. “You’re not risking my neck to save yourself a couple moments of warp sickness. You can shove it right where the sun doesn’t shine!”

I have always been able to bring out the best in a person. Any person. It’s one of my unimpeachable assets. I smiled at her to let her know she had won no points with me. She smiled back, not the least bit perturbed.

I unbuckled myself and breathed a sigh of relief, but quietly. No one could know that the great Marc Deveroux had been sick or concerned, not about three lousy Katon Class 4 Destroyers and certainly not about any little old warp jump sickness. Not miscreant Marc, as my loving mother, bless her honest soul, had so unwittingly called me as a child. Marc Deveroux didn’t get worried, because no matter what, Marc Deveroux was going to come out on top!

I’m an indomitable specimen of mankind. Six foot, two hundred and ten pounds of solid muscle and aged at only about 21 Terra Standards. I had just undergone my first rejuvenation treatment even though I had been, at my thirty-nine calendar years, just as handsome as I had ever been. At least I had thought so.

“We’ve jumped out of the frying pan,” Bren said, “so where’s the fire?”

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She was running for her life, exerting every ounce of strength. Her pursuer was right behind her. His footfalls on the plas-crete sidewalk beating themselves into her consciousness as they steadily caught up to her. She had no time to look back to see but had reached the place to which she was fleeing. It was a rotten gaping hole in the mortar foundation of a massive tenement building. One of thousands of such entrances throughout the ghetto that let into the old sewers below- now known as the warrens.

Tanya jumped straight into the opening with the footfalls of her pursuer right behind her. She slipped and slid, gouging out a long deep patch of meat along her lower thigh on the rough edged opening. She hit the ground within and instantly turned with the scrap of carbon to slash at the hand reaching in for her through the opening.

Her pursuer had not expected the beautiful, frightened, filthy slip of a girl-child to turn on him. Nor had he expected the razor sharp scrap of carbon. He had not expected the raggy street urchin to turn and attack, like a crazed animal rather than a human being.

Tanya was a thirteen year old ghetto-vagabond who had already seen the worst life had to offer and clearly understood what this one wanted with her. She’d seen him before, with his girls, and now apparently he had seen her. There was no law here in the tax-free zone, so whatever could be taken and held was property. To be sold or bartered to the constant stream of those who frequented this place.

Whatever could be taken and held was the property of the holder. That was the only law of the ghetto, the tax-free zone. That was the only law Tanya knew, so she would struggle just as ferociously to escape the jaws of a predatory lizard as she would this man, or the many others like him who thrived in these places. The outcome in both cases would be the same.

Showing the coordination of a trained gymnast, the ferocity of the gladiator, or maybe it was only her utter terror which drove her. Tanya spun as her feet hit the ground, slashing at the hand reaching in for her. The piece of carbon was sharp, its edge only one atom thick, but of this or anything else which would be learned in an educational institution Tanya was unaware. She knew there were places where people lived normal lives, but of those place’s inner workings she knew nothing. She could neither read nor write nor even spell her own name.

Tanya knew only that the merest touch of the scrap would sever anything of flesh and bone. She took off the last three fingers of his left hand with a desperate stroke. The fingers left the hand to flip almost as in freeze-frame through Tanya’s vision. Before the first squirt of arterial spray left the severed ends of newly shortened fingers, she was running again while he screamed his agony and despair.

Then she was gone into the darkness of underground passages she knew better than the streets above. Better than she could remember her own mother, now seven years gone, and a killing ground for anyone foolish enough to attempt to follow her. Many followed. They wanted the credits she would earn. Many just wanted her alone. They wanted her blond hair and her blue eyes, because she was different and because she was beautiful.

She stood out in a nearly homogenized race. Her mother and father came here from someplace else, but hadn't survived long once they got here. Her father simply failed to return the last time he went out, the victim of a violent social structure he had not been able to adapt to quickly enough. Tanya understood intrinsically what had occurred, her father’s sad but smiling face still in her memories. He was tormented with the knowledge of his failures but trying to put a brave face on it for her.

Her mother had worked as a prostitute at the end, but there was little else she could remember of those times. They had not been good times. As a thirteen year old girl, Tanya was now well acquainted with the lusts of men. Those who had pursued her recently met death in the underground warrens, the scrap of carbon flashing out of darkness too Stygian to comprehend, then Tanya fleeing like a ghost while the predator turned prey pumped his blood onto the thirsty plas-crete.

.………………..
Those old memories faded away even as Tanya came to understand what she was remembering, and then her target walked into the cross-hairs of her scoped flechette rifle and her thoughts returned to the business at hand. There were better weapons for this type of sniper work, but this job wasn't work. This was personal. Tanya took a brief moment to note the hand; it looked to have been repaired to perfection, as well as his youth restored through Rejuvenation, but she knew that these were recent changes. That he had climbed the ladder of success and he had been just recently able to afford it. She had thoroughly researched him, and she had learned everything there was to learn. What a shame for him that his success was to be so briefly enjoyed!

The flechette rifle was merely her touch. It would shred him like hamburger. They would have to pack his body into sandwich bags. He was walking out of a restaurant with three of his girls. Not the same girls he'd had then. All of those and many more had died along the way working for him, that life a brutal and short one for the girls caught in it.

His now opulent lifestyle was financed by dozens of whore-houses in several ghetto locales, which was why Tanya was here. She had seen him by accident only, but instantly remembered him with a flash of knowledge like a stab of brilliant light from the blackness of a childhood forgotten. Amnesia, she had been told, though why she suffered it and knew nothing of her childhood was a mystery. With sight and surfaced memory had come the first glimpses into her forgotten childhood- the first that she had ever received. She then studied him and learned everything about him- far more than the government records showed- as well as his quasi-legal ghetto activities. She learned everything, and now she was here.

Though he actually never harmed her, other than the deep scrape, and conversely she had harmed him, the fact remained he had tried. He tried to catch her, and if he had caught her he would have beaten and raped her, strung her out on drugs and then prostituted her until the end of her days. If she was stronger than most and survived until she became too worn to draw even the worst dregs of those who purchased such things, she would be cast aside as the useless flotsam she had become and then to die a quick death of starvation on the cold streets.

Tanya didn't forget such things. Tanya didn't leave enemies behind herself, even if they would never know who she was. Even if they would never recognize her with the years gone by and she grown and changed! Tanya didn't leave enemies behind herself, and maybe just a little vengeance for all the girls, though that was hardly the primary reason. Tanya wasn't interested in correcting the wrongs of the Universe. There were far too many for that, had she cared about such things; her concern in this matter was entirely personal.

Tanya's finger slowly depressed the trigger as she exhaled a slow even breath. The cross-hairs were rock-solid steady on her target. The flechette rifle sighed in her hands. She held the trigger depressed, not letting up, the cross-hairs remaining centered on his body even as he was flung back into the building behind him- Tanya anticipating the reaction with the precision that only an expert could know.

Pleased by the remorseless spray of flechettes, thousands upon thousands of micro-thick aerodynamic flying razors tearing through his body, literally shredding him as the girls leapt away from the silent death assaulting him from nowhere, screaming in silent horror through the magnification of her scope.

When she had expended the magazine Tanya quickly slid back from the edge of the roof-line and rose to her feet. Still wearing her gloves and the weapon clean, she spun like a discus thrower and launched the weapon out into the air towards the roof of the next adjoining building. It sailed through the darkness invisibly and landed with a clatter. She ran towards the opposite edge of the roof from which she had been firing and when she reached it simply dove out into a swan dive and began the twenty-one story drop to the plas-crete street below.

The wing-suit didn't have lift and wouldn't hold her in the air long, but four blocks away Tanya pulled the rip cord of her parachute and came to a rough landing in the small park she had already designated during her planning. She rolled and came up, quickly disengaging the harness and simultaneously scanning the park for witnesses, but she had seen no one as she was floating in and there was no one here now, lucky for them.

Tanya was wearing a ski-mask and no one would be able to identify her from a description of a black wing-suited ninja that floated out of the sky, but she wouldn’t have hesitated to terminate any who had been unfortunate enough to be here when she arrived. She would neither be stopped nor later identified by anyone, and that was a rule Tanya did not break.

She left the parachute where it lay and made good her escape, the ground car exactly where she had left it, and no one yet the wiser.

Chapter 2

Tanya ran through the twisting warrens still fearful she was being pursued. Running and fighting, had become her existence. Her feet were hard and thick with calluses tougher than shoe leather. She had no shoes and didn’t need them. She could not remember ever having any. After running in the wrong direction and after making sure she hadn't been followed, she turned and made her unerring passage through the consuming darkness.

She couldn't see anything- there was no light trickling down from above at all- but she didn't need to visibly see to know where she was going. This place, a monstrous derelict building, and the old sewer systems that ran under it and under all the ruins here, had been her home since her mother had died, some six years ago. A worthless measurement, as time had ceased to have meaning for her. Existence was hand to mouth and that was what Tanya knew.

The squeak of a rat was the call of the sentry. Tanya returned the call.

“Come in.” The sentry whispered.

Tanya moved forward until she was standing beside the sentry. She couldn't recall his name quite yet although she remembered now who he was. Perhaps the name would come to her, but for the moment it remained elusive within her newly resurfacing memories. She was beginning to remember a great many things since she had seen, recognized, and assassinated the pimp.

The sentry gave the signal of the day, a complicated series of knocks on the old carbon door and a small slot in the door opened, allowing a shaft of pale light to spear out into the darkness of the plas-crete tunnel.

“It's Tanya.” The sentry said, though that wasn't really her name. That was the name they gave her when they found her, though of that original group six years ago only a few remained, and only children who had been younger than Tanya at the time she had been taken in. The door was unbarred from inside and Tanya entered. The door closed softly behind her and the makeshift bar was thrown back in place.

When the door was closed they allowed themselves a small bit of light, the lamps coming on once the door was sealed and there was no chance of the light betraying them. Their only light sources were several old but nearly indestructible crank-lamps that were used by many who lived in these places where there was no electricity. Tanya moved over to the room's one table as the children all gathered around her. From the folds of her rags she produced the treasure she had procured and set it reverently upon the table.

“Rice!”

“A whole bag.” They chorused in their astonishment and surprise. A whole bag of rice would feed the twelve of them for a long time. None had large stomachs.

“How did you get a whole bag of rice?” The second oldest asked. Malcomb. His name was Malcomb. She suddenly remembered the only true friend she had ever had, he asking vocally even though he knew she wouldn't answer, because he knew she couldn't. He always spoke vocally to her anyway, never giving up on her and hoping that one day she would respond. Tanya couldn't utter a word no matter how hard she tried. She could make sounds, the calls they used to communicate, but she couldn’t speak a word. It was as if her throat would just seize when she tried, a terror she could not understand seemed to grip her throat and nothing would come out. She didn't know why, what trauma she had suffered that so devastated her sense of self-confidence, but she just couldn't. Not since her mother had gone. Not a single syllable.

The Tanya of now swallowed the memory and forced herself to concentrate on the business at hand. The strange memories had come again. Brief flashes of her very own life if she could believe what she was remembering, these the first such hints Tanya had ever received of even having a life prior to what she now knew. Not until now and so far only the two brief flashes. The first glimpses of her forgotten past. She put those thoughts aside for the moment and looked through the scope of the laser rifle.

The target would be visible through the dia-glass bay window of his high-rise condo as he opened the curtains in the morning. It was the only routine Tanya had been able to find in his schedule, this fifty-fourth day of her surveillance, which also forced her to extremes of action she would rather have avoided. But he was a careful man and Tanya had to make necessary allowances.

Six days in a row she watched through video surveillance feeds as he opened his curtains every day at roughly the same time, and now she waited. The couple who owned the condo where Tanya was now lying prone on the carpeting of the living room, her laser-rifle propped with a monopod and steady in her hands, were at that moment lying dead in their beds. Tanya did not leave witnesses.

The memories rose again suddenly from nowhere and flooded her mind, trying to wash away her concentration, but she could not allow that to happen and forcibly changed what she was thinking, subduing the memory from repeating itself, at least for the moment. She had replayed the first remembrance over and over again, attempting to dredge up more memories, but nothing had come, until now. Possibly the stressful situation, Tanya thought, though it wasn't all that stressful. This was her job and she was more than just an expert. She was the best in the business. Cool, calm and collected, she waited.

The curtains began to open, the mark now coming into plain view. He was walking across his living room when Tanya took her shot. With the cross-hairs centered on the back of his head Tanya depressed the trigger. The laser-rifle was held rock-steady in sure hands, and the shot took him in the back of his head. He was dead before he was falling to his floor. Still, Tanya was thorough and put in four more shots as he went down. It would be a closed coffin funeral.

She left the rifle where it lay as she got up and went into the bathroom to check her appearance in the mirror. Her disguise was still in perfect order as she had known it would be, but she liked to check it anyway. It was a good one with tight black curls, olive skin set off by even darker brown contacts, puffed out cheeks to ruin computer recognition and a few more kilos than she normally wore around her midsection. Altogether making it entirely impossible to recognize her once the disguise was gone. She couldn't escape the security cameras of this building, but this had been one of those jobs where extenuating circumstances drove her to do things she wouldn’t ordinarily do. Walking past a security camera after a hit was a bad deal, but there were no other options in this case and they would never find the person they thought they were looking for.

In her business suit and briefcase in hand, carrying all manner of weapons, Tanya walked out of the building and disappeared into the crowds. No one gave her a second glance.

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