by J. N. Chaney
I had expected him to get impatient with my slow gait and walk toward me to shove me forward, but he didn’t take the bait.
Damn.
This guy was smart, and that would make killing him a lot harder.
“Eyes front,” he snapped.
As I led him up the stairs and into the lounge, I took stock of everything around me. The chairs by the dining tables, which I might be able to use as a distraction. The couch, which I could use for cover.
Suddenly, I wished I’d left more shit out on the counters—glasses and plates, maybe—but I liked to keep surfaces clear to avoid dishes sliding off and shattering during takeoff and landing.
Damn my safety policy and general cleanliness.
From the way he’d spoken to the person on his comm, it seemed like maybe there were only two of them to worry about—just this guy and his partner. Of course, with the Union, I figured there had to be more, and my name was probably circulating through a network as we spoke. For all I knew, Taurus Station could’ve been crawling with undercover Union agents looking for me when this guy showed up. Maybe he’d just found me first before anyone else, and if so, there could be others waiting to pick me up if I chose to run.
This was already bad, but it could easily become far worse, even if I managed to get away.
The operative grabbed one of the chairs by the tables and dragged it toward me, keeping his gun trained on me the whole time. The chair scraped along the floor, and he slammed it in place in front of me with a loud thud.
He pointed to it. “Sit.”
“Such a gentleman,” I quipped.
“Just sit, asshole.”
I dropped my ass into the chair as I waited for his next move. I was running out of time to figure out a way to overpower him, and no matter what happened, I couldn’t let his partner onto the ship.
I’d be dead if that happened.
With me in a chair and him still standing, I figured this was the part where he would start shooting my kneecaps until I told him what he wanted to know.
“Hands on the armrests,” he said as he fished two pairs of handcuffs from a small pouch at his waist.
That confirmed it. He wanted to tie me down and wring the answers out of me the hard way.
I complied, but only to lure him into a false sense of security. If he wanted to cuff me to the chair, he would have to get within punching distance. Even with his gun trained on me, his guard would be down for a fleeting second, and that was all I needed.
“Don’t move, or you die,” the Operative warned. “Lost intel or no.”
I didn’t answer. Even as I sat in the chair, utterly immobile, I looked him dead in the eye. As he took a few tense steps toward me, I watched his every movement and waited for my chance to strike.
He leaned forward, the gun pointing directly at my chest as he flipped open the cuffs with a clicking noise and reached toward my right hand. With the way he angled his body away from me, he probably expected me to grab his wrist or kick his nuts to throw him off balance.
I wasn’t exactly the nuanced type, though. I preferred more violent methods.
When his gaze darted toward the cuffs to lock them, I rammed my forehead into his nose. He groaned, and the cuffs fell to the floor. I reached for his pistol and turned it away from me just as it went off.
The thundering boom deafened me, and my ears rang from the blast. A bullet tore through my coat and past the chair before landing in the wall.
The operative held one hand to his face as blood from his broken nose streamed over his fingers. “You son of a—”
I didn’t let him finish the thought.
With one hand still on his gun, I jumped up from the chair and punched him hard in the gut. He groaned and doubled over, but I couldn’t shake his hand free from the pistol.
He swept my leg out from under me, and I fell hard. My gun slid out of my holster and across the floor, toward the couch and out of reach.
Godsdammit.
With my fingers still wound tightly around his pistol, I took him down to the ground with me. My head smacked against the floor, and even as my world spun, I tried to wrangle the gun out of his grip. His pistol went off again, the thunder of the gunshot echoing through the lounge as he shot something else of mine.
In the chaos, I couldn’t even tell where the second bullet had gone. As long as it wasn’t in me, I was happy.
The operative kicked me hard in the thigh, and I cursed as pain ripped through my leg. The barrel of his gun began to slowly turn toward me, despite my grip on it, and I grabbed the gun with both hands as I fought to wrangle it loose.
With the two of us still struggling on the floor, he kicked me hard in the gut. I groaned as the wind got knocked out of me.
For a second, I couldn’t breathe, and a surge of adrenaline tore through me like ice in my veins. I figured this was the sort of stone-cold dread a man felt when he looked death in the eye, the kind of chill that made a man freeze at the thought of how small he really was in the scope of the cosmos.
I was the sort of guy to punch death in the face, though, and I didn’t plan on giving up that easily.
As he tried to wrench the gun free of my grip, my head cleared and my breath returned. I punched him hard in his already broken nose. He screamed in agony, and for a brief moment, his grip on the pistol loosened.
I yanked it free from his hand, but he was just as quick. He drove an uppercut into my jaw the instant I had control of the pistol, and for a few seconds I could see only stars. Nausea burned in the back of my throat, and it took everything in me to stay conscious.
The operative ripped the gun out of my hand, and my body moved on instinct in the precious seconds afterward. I raced toward the couch and dove behind it as he opened fire, his bullets sailing around me in a hailstorm of deadly metal.
As the stars began to fade, I could think clearly again, and I noticed my gun at the edge of the sofa. Fluff from the cushions erupted in the air as he blew my couch to shit, and I kept low to the ground while I reached for my pistol. I swiped it seconds before a bullet lodged into the floor where it had been.
This asshole was shooting my ship, and it would take more than what he’d paid me to fix it.
As more of the couch cushions erupted into white fluff and ribbons of what had once been fabric, I knew I had to end this soon.
Without much in the way of a better plan, I yanked off my boot and slid it to the edge of the couch, until it poked just enough into view for him to think I’d accidentally put my foot in a place that was visible.
It wasn’t the most ingenious plan I’d ever come up with, but it would have to do.
At that moment, the hail of bullets stopped. He probably needed to reload, and I raised my gun to eye level as I inched along the back of the sofa toward the other side. A shadow appeared by the boot—just a head at first, and then his neck and shoulders.
Whether it was because he was delirious from blood loss or because he thought I was an idiot, he’d taken the bait this time.
I peered cautiously over the sofa as he inched toward the decoy boot.
Now or never.
In the same moment, he trained his gun on the shoe while I stood and aimed my pistol at his face.
“Don’t move,” I said, echoing his earlier warning as I cocked my gun. “Try anything, and you die.”
For a moment, he didn’t speak. The two of us breathed heavily, our chests heaving as we recovered from the fight. Blood still snaked down his face from his broken nose.
“You’d really kill a Union operative?” he asked, raising one eyebrow to drive home the consequences of making that choice.
“Try me,” I dared him.
He watched me with a wary expression, and I could tell he was seriously debating whether or not he should test me. I was just some nobody to him, after all. He probably wondered if I was faster than him, or if he could shoot me first.
I didn’t want to have a dead body on my ship. I didn’t wan
t to have a dead Union operative in my lounge. But if I didn’t kill this guy, I didn’t know what my other options were.
I needed a second to think.
His shoulder tilted away from me, the first sign that this asshole was going to lift his gun, and I beat him to the draw. As he twisted the barrel of his pistol toward my chest, I shot him clear through the neck.
His eyes went wide with surprise, and his gun clattered to the floor as he held the wound with both hands. He stared at me, apparently baffled that he’d lost the draw, and I shot him between the eyes to finish the job.
He crumpled to the ground with a meaty thud, his hands limp at his side while blood pooled beneath his head. He stared up at the ceiling as a thin red trail leaked from the hole in his forehead.
I lowered my gun and staggered to the kitchen counter, then I leaned on it while I stared at the dead body lying before me. With my ears still ringing, the whole thing felt oddly surreal, like I was in a nightmare and would hopefully snap the hell out of it at any second.
I didn’t.
“Sir,” said Sigmond through the ship’s speaker system.
I flinched at the sudden voice, and another surge of adrenaline shot through me. “Damn it, Siggy!”
“Apologies. I would just like to confirm for you that the operative is deceased. His vital signs have flatlined.”
“That’s good,” I muttered. “And also very bad.”
“Yes, it is quite the dilemma we’ve found ourselves in.”
“That’s an understatement, Siggy,” I said as I rubbed my tired eyes.
This was life-and-death levels of bad, and all over a data stick. I didn’t need the stress in my life.
I wasn’t getting paid well enough for this.
Part of me wanted a shot of whiskey, but I needed to have a clear head to make my next move. This guy’s partner was probably still on the way here. If the Union would send two or more operatives after me, I had no idea who would buy the data stick now.
I had no plan and no idea of how I could even sell the damn thing anymore.
One thing was clear: I needed to get the hell off of Taurus Station and possibly take on some other jobs to cover my trail.
First things first, though.
I stalked toward the operative’s corpse and snatched the comm from his ear. Though I was tempted to destroy it, I held it to my own ear and listened to it over the steadily fading ringing from the gunshots.
“Hello?” a man asked. “What the hell was that? Are you there?”
I debated trying to mimic the operative’s voice to see if I could wring any information out of the corpse’s partner, but I knew it wouldn’t be convincing enough to work. I also debated having Sigmond analyze the comm to see if he could hack it, but I didn’t want a live feed into my ship in the meantime.
I dropped the comm to the ground and crushed it under my boot. The little device sparked once before it became nothing but broken parts beneath my shoe.
“Siggy, is the tracker still scrambled on the data stick?” I asked.
“That’s confirmed, yes,” answered the AI.
“Good. I don’t need more of these assholes on my tail.”
“Are you alright, sir?” asked Sigmond. “Preliminary health scans show that you have no major injuries, but I would like to perform a more in-depth scan to ensure—”
“No time,” I interrupted. “I’m fine.”
I grabbed a cloth by the sink and wiped my face and hands. I got most of the blood off of me, but there were a few stains on the lapel of my coat and a few more on my pants. Since my clothes were dark, the fabric would hide them, but I wanted to get them cleaned as soon as possible.
I didn’t like the idea of having another man’s blood on my jacket.
I tossed the rag aside and stared down at the body on my floor. Bullet holes riddled the walls around him, and the couch barely even resembled what it had once been. He’d made a mess of my lounge, but more than that, there was a chance someone might have heard the gunshots in the loading dock. I needed to make myself scarce.
“Siggy, I’m going out,” I said without tearing my eyes from the corpse as blood continued to pool beneath his head. “Lock up the ship behind me and tell Ollie I’m coming for a visit. It’s an emergency, and I need to talk to him in private. Don’t tell him anything more than that.”
“Right away, sir,” said the AI. “Don’t forget your shoe.”
My eyes darted to the decoy boot, and I snatched it from the floor before tugging it on.
If the Union and the Sarkonians were both after me, I was truly screwed. On top of that, however, was the mystery of who stole the data stick in the first place—and whether or not they knew my name, too.
15
As far as I could remember, the operative had never explicitly said Ollie’s name. I’d just assumed my agent had sent him when he’d said he wanted to hire me, but I could’ve been wrong.
I wanted to know for sure if Ollie was involved before I put a bullet in his brain, too.
That would be too bad. I’d had high hopes for my new RBO agent, but if he was the one who betrayed me, I’d make sure he never got the chance to do it to anyone else again.
If he hadn’t betrayed me, though, Ollie had the connections to give me a place to lie low for a while until the heat burned off. It would give me time to come up with a plan, at least. If anyone knew how to make a dead Union operative disappear, it was a good RBO agent.
Per the instructions Ollie had given Sigmond when we reached out to him earlier, I ducked through a maintenance hallway that snaked behind the shops near Trinidad’s Trinkets. The bustling noise and bright lights of the main promenade quickly faded, replaced with the thud of my boots on a lone walkway and the flickering of a busted bulb down the narrow corridor.
Blank doors lined both sides behind the shops and glistening storefronts. It was mostly used for deliveries and back entry into the businesses. Most importantly, it gave me backdoor access to Ollie’s shop. If the Union knew I was still here, they could possibly be keeping an eye on the storefront. For all I knew, that was how they’d found me in the first place.
In the silence of the narrow hallway, the path only wide enough for a few men to walk side by side, I rested my hand on the butt of my gun and kept watch both in front of and behind me.
I didn’t like this at all. On one hand, it helped to be out of sight and out of range on the security cameras along the main walk. On the other hand, an isolated corridor was the perfect place for an ambush.
Any of these doors could open at any time, and any number of officers could pour out and intercept me.
It was a gamble, going to Ollie’s, but there wasn’t a lot of choice—especially not if he was involved in this. If I had told him to meet me somewhere instead of going to his shop, he could’ve just sent the Union Operatives and called it a day.
Even though going to his shop had risks, I needed to see him face to face because that was the only way I’d learn the truth.
As I reached the door with his shop number on it, I hesitated to center myself and prepare for the worst.
Better to be surprised with good news than with bad news, after all.
I was a full twenty minutes early, which was by design. I wanted to catch him off guard and get an upper hand on the situation, and the best way to do that was with the element of surprise.
I tried the handle, and to my surprise it was open. It didn’t seem smart for a businessman to leave the rear access to his shop unlocked, and my dread got a little stronger at the thought of what could be waiting for me on the other side of the door.
For a moment, I wondered if this was a bad move. If maybe I should’ve gone out into space and dumped the body myself. If taking the heat and figuring this out on my own was the best move here, instead of going to an agent I still barely knew.
I waited, my thoughts racing as I stared at the half-turned knob in my fist. I was screwed either way, and Ollie was the better bet�
��provided he hadn’t set this up in the first place.
Only one way to find out.
I drew my gun and held it at the ready, my thumb brushing against the hammer as I cocked it. The loud click assured me that I wouldn’t be going in totally blind, and if Ollie tried something stupid, he’d be dead by morning.
After all, I’d managed to kill a Union operative. I could kill a two-timing rat if it came to that.
I pushed the door open and peeked in, using the steel panel as temporary cover as I scanned the back room of Ollie’s store. It looked like a workshop of some kind. The walls were lined with shelves, except for a workbench placed in the middle of the far wall, near the front of the store.
There was junk everywhere. Ship parts. Engine pieces. Bits of twisted metal I couldn’t even identify. It sat in piles anywhere it could be stuffed, crammed, or loaded away for future tinkering.
Ollie apparently took his trash-hobby seriously, by the looks of the sheer volume of materials he had to work with. It was piled on the shelves, it hung from the ceiling from little hooks, and it overflowed from bins, boxes, and trash cans.
A neat row of paint cans filled one of the shelves near the workbench, and various tools and hammers were hung on a board above the bench. A lone hammer sat on the surface beside a half-finished pile of twisted metal that had multi-colored coils of wire sticking out of it.
With my gun raised, I did one last scan of the room to make sure no one was hiding out of sight. Despite the piles of trash, there weren’t many places to take cover without at least part of a body being seen.
By some miracle, the room was clear.
I darted toward the open door that led deeper into Ollie’s shop, careful to sidestep the piles of engine parts on my way. I couldn’t make so much as a sound, or I’d give away my position.
I peeked into the hallway that connected the workshop with the main storefront, and I noticed a few closed doors on the other side of the hall. I pressed my ear to each of them, but there was nothing—no shuffling, no conversation.