Assassin's Orbit

by John Appel

  “Remind Pashun that I found the ones that did for her brother.”

  “Oh yeah, I’d forgotten about that. Goan muscle, tried to move in on her business.”

  “That’s right.” They had been Goan muscle, but part of that world’s military intelligence arm, not a separate criminal enterprise. Taking out some of the opposition while ingratiating herself with the locals all in one operation just happened to have been a fortuitously elegant solution, the kinds of successes that had marked her career.

  Until the Fenghuang debacle, at least.

  “Good, good, I will remind her. That should help.” Kaki seemed more relaxed now. “Is there anything else?”

  She thought for a few seconds. “The One Worlders staged a protest by the Commonwealth Consulate this morning that got out of hand.”

  “I heard. One of my cousins got rounded up by the yellowjackets along with everyone else for a block.”

  “Sorry to hear that.” She adopted her most sympathetic expression. “Do you think the One Worlders are behind the new nastiness, though?”

  “Don’t think so.” Kaki looked thoughtful. “I mean, it could be, and their people got tagged back in retaliation. But they aren’t that subtle. Hitting people in the face, sure-sure. Snatching off the street to drain ’em, not so much.”

  “I see.” She ran a hand through her hair and updated her mental model of the station’s factions and players with this new information. “When I passed through a year ago, nothing like that was going on. I mean, there were rants in the media feeds, but nobody beating up off-worlders in the street. What happened?”

  “That man Miguna made a bigger show in the elections than anyone expected,” he said with a grimace, and his accent slipped from station-standard as his voice got heated. “A lotta people mad they don’t get a seat at the table. Families that made it big during the war choking off the chances for everyone else, ya know? Man took that anger and spun it into hating on the off-worlders, instead of where it belongs.”

  That’s a clearer and more concise summary than all the analysis memos Kumar gave me. Bet it’s closer to the truth, too. “I thought the idea of joining the Commonwealth was pretty popular? The PM wouldn’t have called for a referendum unless she thought it would pass, would she?”

  Kaki chewed his lip for moment before replying.

  “I think most people like the idea, yeah,” he said. “Most of the people I know, they’re for it. Polls said so too. But there’s a hard core, twenty, maybe twenty-five percent hard-set against it.”

  “Thanks, Kaki.” She filed that away with a note to check the polling data. “Anything I can do for you, personally?”

  He gave the hand-sign for no. “Unless you have a way to move five thousand kiloliters of medical aerosol to the south ring, no.”

  Meiko’s eyebrows furrowed. “That’s a pretty specific request. What’s that about?”

  Again, he flashed the don’t know sign. “Heard it’s some experimental treatment for one of the New Arm worlds, treatment for a local allergen. The inert carrier for it, anyway. Mostly legit job, just off the books.” Kaki flipped both hands palm up. “What’s a man to do when the yellowjackets go to war? Can’t move it with them crawling all over the smuggler’s ways.” One of the Fingers’ most prized assets was their collection of hidden smuggling routes through the station’s infrastructure. “We’ll have to go with plan B. Will take longer, but it’s off the yellowjackets’ radar.”

  “What’s plan B?” she asked innocently.

  Kaki just grinned at her. “I like you, Meriel, but not that much.” They shared a laugh at that.

  Kaki recommended she use a different transit stop for her trip out and she took her leave, feeling the subtle change in the airflow as the massive hatch closed behind her. She toggled a set of AR wayfinder arrows into view and pushed off down the corridor in the opposite direction from which she’d arrived.

  She was halfway back to the transit station when she spotted the person lying in wait, if one could be said to be lying in zero-g.

  A large person-shaped bulk hung motionless about thirty meters down the corridor, where a cross-corridor intersected the passage from her upper left as she glided along. The big, blocky man stared directly at her—definitely not a good sign. Another corridor intersected hers between them, just ten meters away and to her right. Without missing a beat in her push-offs she changed course, angling for the closer junction. The watcher pushed off from the wall as if to intercept, but she easily reached the passage before him. She tucked her legs, rotating and spinning in mid-flight before straightening just in time to hit the wall of the cross-corridor feet first. She absorbed the impact with her legs and drove off at a new angle, sailing down the side passage.

  She called up her djinn’s route-finding and asked for an alternate path to the hub. The red arrows pointing back to her original course flipped around and turned green, leading down this passage for a few hundred meters. She glanced back and saw her pursuer keeping pace, though not gaining. She looked ahead.

  A woman hung from a grip bar perhaps forty meters down the passage. She gestured in Meiko’s direction with her free hand to her companion, who zeroed in on Meiko as well. Both pushed off in her direction.

  SHIT. She was being herded. For a brief flash she considered fighting it out; chances are they wouldn’t expect one skinny older woman to put up much resistance. But then she saw the newcomers pull stun buttons and she opted to evade, kicking hard against the corridor wall to somersault gracefully past the pair, just out of reach. Both cursed but didn’t bother reaching for her—a sign of experience in zero-g. She hit the opposite wall, kicked off again, and shot down the side passage the pair had been guarding.

  So much for a solo run. As she landed and pushed off again, the first pursuer close behind, she activated her panic button. Her djinn flipped back to her original ID and squirted a message to both the Consulate and directly to Kumar using her emergency code. She bounced off the opposite wall and pushed off even more strongly, angling to skim along the side of the corridor.

  Did Kaki set me up? She didn’t think so; if he wanted her out of the way, she’d be on ice in the back of his shop waiting for someone to come along and process her organs. On impulse, she shot Kaki a message about her pursuers too.

  She looked ahead and saw two more people clutching objects in their off hands stationed near the next intersection, perhaps sixty meters further along.

  FUCK. She readied herself to use the next push-off post to check her progress and reverse course. She’d have to take the first pursuer out quickly, then hope she could ambush the next two...

  Five meters ahead, ‘above’ and to her left, a door slid open and a pair of six-legged maintenance bots emerged, pulling some kind of mechanical assembly out into the passage.

  New plan. She hit the grip bar but instead of reversing course, she cast herself across the passage, aiming for the newly opened doorway. She missed but not by much, clipping the bot’s cargo with her left shoulder. There was a tearing sound and pain flared along her triceps as a protruding bracket ripped a line of fire down her arm.

  She smacked into wall next to the hatch and flung her good arm out desperately, hooked her fingers on the open door frame, and her body swung around the new pivot point as she rebounded off the wall. She heard shouting from both directions up and down the passage as she steadied herself, then pulled herself inside into the maintenance way.

  Alarms flared as she crossed the threshold, sensors detecting her unauthorized entrance.

  Some kind of spy I am, when tripping the alarm is a good thing.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Noo

  Maseko Circus, Hub Transit Nexus,

  Ileri Station

  Myra’s call caught Noo and Fari in the hub, one bubble-car ride from the home of Parma, the slain environmental-systems builder, whose family had consented to an interview. Noo opened her side audio only; visual distractions and maneuvering in microgravity didn
’t mix as far as she was concerned. “M. Okereke. M. Loh asked me to pass on a new bit of information, and to ask a favor,” Myra said.

  “Let’s hear it,” Noo said as she gauged her transition to the next towline. Fari, younger, more fit, and possessed of better gravity-transition adaptation, glided ahead of her with a grace belying her rugby-player physique. The younger woman coasted to a near stop as she reached the towline and slipped one hand into the grab-loop.

  “There’s another party making inquiries outside official channels,” Myra said. Noo reached and grabbed for a pair of loops. Her legs kept traveling from the momentum of her initial push-off. “M. Loh believes it might be productive for you to meet her.”

  “Who is this person?” Fari said.

  “Another person we do business with,” Myra said smoothly, answering without answering. “She just left one of M. Loh’s associates. Thus, the favor. He asks if you could escort this person to him.”

  “We’re not nursemaids,” Noo snapped as she wrestled her body into alignment with the towline.

  Fari cut in smoothly. “What my colleague means to say, M. Obi, is that we’d be happy to act in a spirit of mutual assistance. But we expect our backs scratched in return.”

  “M. Loh said he assumed you’d say that, and that he’d offer compensation when you all met together,” Myra said.

  Fari glanced back at Noo and flashed a hand sign in the agency’s private code, not station-talk or spacer hand-speak. New plan. Noo, still gripping the towline with both hands, frowned but nodded. “Ogun’s tears, this gets more fucking messy as we go. Loh vouches for this person?”

  “She’s done business with our organization before.” Again, answering without answering.

  Noo glanced up at Fari again, and saw an arched eyebrow indicating her partner had caught the evasion too. “That’s a pretty thin endorsement, coming from Pericles.”

  Myra’s shrug came through even over audio. “It’s what I can tell you at this time. Hopefully we can sort this out face to face shortly. Time is pressing. Are you willing?”

  “All right. Send us the location.” Her djinn blipped with the incoming packet and Noo carefully slipped her right hand free to wave up wayfinder arrows.

  Fari beat her to it. “We need to drop the towline at the next platform and catch a transit car. Thank you, Myra.” Noo finally wrangled the packet open and discovered the contact’s name and likeness. The image of Meriel Suzuki revealed a thin woman, medium-brown skin, short straight hair. Her high cheekbones and the shape of her eyes hinted at some East Asian ancestors, but that was true of something like a third of the Cluster.

  Moments later, they debarked into the sort of industrial district Noo didn’t often visit, an area devoid of towlines. They were gliding along the path of their wayfinders when the infrastructure-compromise alarm went off nearby, three long rings followed by two short ones. Myra called at the same moment, and Noo accepted, once more audio only.

  “Our mutual friend is in trouble,” Myra said without preamble. “She’s hit a panic button and reported that she’s being herded by unknown assailants.”

  “Fuck.” Reflexively, Noo checked her weapons in their holsters and saw Fari do the same. “We’ve got a station services alarm here. That can’t be a coincidence.” She blinked up an area map, seeking their target, spotted the green glyph adjacent to the flashing red station alarm. “Shit, that’s her all right. How’d she break into a maintenance passage?”

  “No data,” Myra said with a traffic controller’s calm. “She flashed a message that she was under attack. I have other assets en route but with the alarm I expect station people to beat mine.”

  “Got it.” It was an even bet whether a rapid response team from Infrastructure would arrive before the Constabulary. Normally Noo found the inter-agency rivalry amusing, but she didn’t relish getting in between the responders and the alarm. She and Fari shot down the passageway. Fari effortlessly bounced off the far wall and changed course to sail down the cross-corridor their wayfinders now pointed. Noo gritted her teeth and followed her partner’s example with considerably more effort and less grace. The younger woman moved lightly, bounding from contact point to contact point with the strength and agility of youth and training. Noo trailed behind, struggling to keep up even as she drifted further back. “Not. Too. Old. For. Field. Work,” she huffed as she pulled herself along the grip bars.

  Fari reached the next intersection and flung herself down the new passageway, drawing her stunner as she went. A brilliant scarlet AR tag appeared above her head, announcing she bore a licensed weapon. Noo banged her way roughly through the course change and drew her own stunner.

  Two people hovered near a maintenance doorway, arguing in the light of the alarm flashers. Nearby, two robots clung to the wall clutching a mechanical assembly. “Stand down!” Fari called out, snatching a grip bar to arrest her forward motion while she trained her weapon on the pair.

  The man sprung at Fari with explosive force, hands extended. Calmly, Fari lined her weapon up with her target, slipped her finger over the trigger, and fired.

  Her shot caught the man squarely center-of-mass. He convulsed, arms and legs jerking wildly, putting him into a tumble. Deftly, she pushed off to her left and snagged the next grip bar around the passage’s circumference. Noo, still heading for the point Fari vacated, cursed as the burly man sailed into her track. She was going too fast to brake against the passage wall, but she twisted and got one hand down anyway. She pushed off as strongly as she could and missed the man by scant centimeters.

  Her evasion came at the price of tumbling. This close to the wall, the usual starfish maneuver to stabilize herself in zero-g risked a broken limb, or at least a sprained joint. She managed to get a foot into contact with the wall and steadied herself just in time to hear Fari fire a second time.

  “Dammit. She ducked inside,” Fari said. She glanced back at Noo, then at the first attacker, now hung up on one of the grip bars and still paralyzed by the stun shot. The alarm rang out relentlessly, woowoowoowahwah, woowoowoowahwah. “We follow?”

  Noo got her legs under her and launched towards the hatch. She caught herself on its lip as Fari did the same. “Hot pursuit,” Noo said. The two women locked eyes, nodded at each other, and pulled themselves into the promise of danger.

  Meiko

  Maintenance Accessway 4976H, Hub Zone,

  Ileri Station

  A cluster of maintenance bots surrounded the inner side of the doorway as Meiko sailed through, waiting their turn to exit, or perhaps their next set of orders. A row of conduits a good quarter-meter wide took up one wall of the hexagonal corridor. A large pump projected out from the wall about ten meters to her right. Red lights flashed in a slow rhythm, three flashes, a pause, then two more, then the cycle repeated. She heard an audible alarm from outside, and angry AR tags sprang to life everywhere she looked: RESTRICTED ZONE, AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY, ACCESS STRICTLY FORBIDDEN, VIOLATORS WILL BE VIGOROUSLY APPREHENDED. She hoped that help of some kind would be inbound double-quick given warnings that strident.

  She hit the far wall feet first, spun, and pushed off to her left.

  The service way ran at an oblique angle relative to the regular passage she’d come from; she wasn’t sure where it led, but at this point, she didn’t care. Without a map for this non-public space she had to rely on her djinn’s inertial dead-reckoning system, which while certainly better than average, was hardly infallible. Still, she thought going left ought to take her to public spaces, if station people didn’t intercept her and her pursuers first.

  She pushed down the monkey-brain fear that threatened to bubble up at the thought of being caught in a dead end and sought the calm of rhythm.

  Her maneuver shook free the blood welling up from where the machine had sliced into her triceps. The oblong scarlet blob sailed towards the entry and hit the first of her pursuers, the big man, across the face. Startled, he jerked and twisted, which put him into a tumble. He cursed
in one of the local languages as he slammed into the far wall and ricocheted off it towards the pump assembly.

  Almost without thought, she grasped the opportunity hanging before her like a shiny apple. Her thighs screamed as she hit the wall and drove off it with all her strength, changing course to arrow straight at her pursuer. She rotated through another 180 and came at him feet first. Hard.

  The man managed to arrest his headlong spinning progress by grabbing onto the pump. This meant his hands were firmly wrapped around the rigid metal assembly when Meiko’s feet slammed into them. She felt bones give way and heard a horrible crunching sound, which was immediately drowned out by his scream.

  Contact made and damage done, it was time to make good her escape. She allowed her body to fold until her hands made contact with the pump housing and immediately launched herself from all fours, flying back down her original course before the man had drawn a second breath to continue screaming.

  Her victim’s partner sailed through the doorway just as Meiko passed it. The woman’s outstretched hand bumped Meiko’s left thigh, causing Meiko to spin round and tumble off course herself. She felt the woman’s fingers scrabble in vain for a grip on her trousers but she scissored her legs, swinging them free. She tried to catch the attacker with a booted foot but missed.

  The woman barked out to the screaming man to collect himself in that same local dialect. The linguistics module in Meiko’s djinn caught up and identified it, and now provided her with a running translation. She ignored her pursuers for the moment and focused instead on trying to convert her imminent collision with the wall into something more productive. Her kick exacerbated her spin and she couldn’t kill it in time. She hit the wall left arm first, gasping at the pain and leaving a bloody smear. She righted herself and pushed off with all fours again, skimming along the a few centimeters from the wall like an underwater swimmer gliding along the bottom of a pool.