by M. D. Cooper
Tanis let the word trail off.
The AI gave a tittering laugh in Tanis’s mind, but didn’t respond.
Despite Tanis’s comment to Jerry that she was headed to bed, she took the long way around the lake, and eventually came to a wider section of the boardwalk where both sides were lined with open-air restaurants that were filled with crowds of half-drunk revelers, many who were still talking loudly about the departure of the Normandy, and how it had given the spire a slight shake.
Not wanting to turn in quite so early, Tanis navigated her way through a stretch of eclectic eateries to a burger bar near the water.
She was examining the menu when her body reminded her that it had other physical needs, and she pulled up directions to the nearest public san.
Five minutes later, she had finished using the evac, and was pulling her hands out of the sanitizer when Darla screamed,
Tanis dropped to a crouch without question and spun on her heel to see a man behind her, swinging a razor-thin carbon blade through the air where her neck had been a second before.
She shot a foot out, aiming to trip him, but the man shifted his weight onto his rear foot, kicking her leg out of the way. Tanis let the force of his blow spin her around and rolled away from her attacker, coming back up on her feet a moment later.
Her opponent, who she realized was wearing a shroud over his face to obscure his features, was already upon her, slashing with his blade. He nicked her on the left shoulder as she backpedaled further.
“Dammit,” she grunted, finally getting a hand down her dress to pull her lightwand out, only to have it slide down her torso as she ducked under a slash.
For the first time since leaving the hospital, the changes made to her body caused Tanis to feel slightly off-kilter, like her limbs were too light…or too heavy, she wasn’t certain.
Darla said as Tanis backed away.
Not caring a whit about propriety, Tanis pulled up the hem of her dress with one hand and caught her lightwand with the other.
A flick of her wrist, and it was activated, humming dangerously between Tanis and her adversary. Though his face was covered, the man’s posture immediately changed, and he backed up a step.
“That’s right,” Tanis whispered. “Let’s see how your blade stands up against mine.”
The man hesitated for a moment, then drew a pulse pistol, firing a concussive blast from the hip.
Tanis dove to the side, landing in a san stall, her back slamming into the evac pedestal. Her right arm was numb from the pulse blast, and her lightwand fell to the floor—sinking halfway into the tile. She yanked it out with her left hand just as the man appeared before her, pistol lowering to shoot her in the head.
With a deft flick of her wrist, Tanis flung the lightwand at her attacker. The blade sliced through his hand and half the pistol, sending both to the floor. A strangled scream escaped the assassin’s throat, and then he turned and ran.
Tanis struggled to her feet to give chase, but realized her right hip was numb too, and collapsed once more before she managed to pull herself up by the san’s door.
By the time she stumbled out on the boardwalk, there was no sign of her assailant.
“Dammit!” she muttered, looking around for any disturbance in the crowds, not seeing anything that would clue her in to a man with half a hand missing, pushing through the throngs.
So much for her being serious, Tanis thought before asking,
Darla interjected.
Tanis nodded and walked back into the restroom, grabbing her lightwand from the middle of the floor and disabling it before stopping at the stall entrance with the sliced off half a hand and pistol at her feet.
She tugged her dress back down and crouched over the remains. Without a second thought, she touched the hand, dropping a filament of nanoprobes onto it. The nanoscopic machines dove into the flesh and began extracting data from the blood and DNA.
While they were doing their work, she picked up the front half of the pulse pistol, carefully holding it by two edges so as not to remove any evidence.
“Nothing obvious,” she muttered, also releasing a passel of nano onto the weapon to pull data from the metal and components.
Tanis did as the AI suggested and set the weapon back exactly where she’d found it. Her nanoprobes completed their inspection, and dropped onto the floor, killing themselves off as she stood and walked to the counter. She set her lightwand down, and then moved to the far wall, well out of arm’s reach of the weapon.
When the pair of security guards burst in a few seconds later, pulse pistols drawn, they aimed them at Tanis, and a woman ordered, “Hands!”
Tanis showed her palms, and raised her hands. “Commander Tanis Richards, TSF. I’m the one that called security.”
Technically Darla had done so, but the AI had sent it through Tanis’s network connection, so it would appear to have come from her.
“That lines up,” the woman said as she lowered her weapon, though the man kept his aimed at Tanis. “You were attacked?”
“Yes.” Tanis glanced at the severed hand and weapon on the floor, and then at her lightwand. “Someone tried to kill me, but I used my lightwand to defend myself, and they ran off.”
“Aw, shit,” the man muttered as he looked at the lightwand. “Looks like we have to call the MPs on this one.”
“No sleep anytime soon for us,” Tanis replied with a grimace.
CONNECTION
STELLAR DATE: 01.17.4084 (Adjusted Years)
LOCATION: Suite 1300-2, Grand Éire Resort
REGION: Vesta, Terran Hegemony, InnerSol
Three hours later, Tanis was back in her suite, wrapped in an exceedingly fluffy towel following a long shower.
Tanis shrugged.
Tanis pulled the covers aside on the bed and flopped down onto the soft sheets.
Darla sent a feeling of agreement.
A groan escaped Tanis’s lips. “Oh yeah?” she asked aloud. “How am I supposed to relax enough to sleep knowing that I’m laying here with no weapons, and someone out there has it in for me?”
“And what if whoever is behind this has more people to send my way?” Tanis asked, staring at the intricate fresco painted on the ceiling.
“Oh, you’re hilarious.” Tanis snorted, then tapped her forehead. “You’re in here too, aren’t you a bit worried about that?”
“Could have shared that,” Tanis muttered. “I’ve been doing the same. I’ve likely a whole cadre of people out there in the ‘Not Fans of Tanis’ club, but I don’t think any have the means to attack me on Vesta, let alone here in the Grand Éire.”
“Actually…” Tanis mused. “What about that Gentry Arnold guy who owned those drone freighters we seized four months ago? He might have the means—though I don’t know what he’d get out of killing me.”
Tanis thought through all the ships her patrol teams had boarded over the last two tours. At the end of the list was Captain Unger and the Norse Wind. She still remembered the rage in his eyes as he bled out in his engineering bay.
They ultimately had put his body in stasis, but the man had been long gone. Stasis had just been a less messy way of dealing with the remains.
I bet he would have wanted to kill me—though I still don’t know why he put up so much of a fight to stop us from boarding him. Now that the Arizona has the ship, I doubt I’ll ever know.
A quick thought dimmed the lights in the room, and Tanis pulled the sheets up over her body, enjoying the smooth, almost slick feel they had as she continued to think over past encounters in a deepening state of half-sleep.
She had nearly drifted off, when her thoughts came to the three Scattered Worlds officers she’d seen with Admiral Deering earlier in the evening.
Something about the last person to arrive at her table…Captain Tora…still stuck out in her mind. Then, just as sleep overcame her, the memory of how Captain Unger of the Norse Wind had moved across the engineering bay of his ship sprang to mind, and she noted how his leg turned out a half centimeter, rotating at the hip socket when he walked.
She brought up her visuals from the Chez Maison, watching as Captain Tora was led to Admiral Deering’s table.
The man’s leg turned out exactly the same way.
“Shit, Darla! I know who tried to kill us!”
PERSEVERATION
STELLAR DATE: 01.18.4084 (Adjusted Years)
LOCATION: Suite 1300-2, Grand Éire Resort
REGION: Vesta, Terran Hegemony, InnerSol
Tanis poured herself a cup of coffee and cradled it in her hands as she paced across the suite’s kitchen, the robe she’d grabbed billowing out behind her.
“No one ever said that a set of answers to a mystery doesn’t uncover more questions,” she retorted. “Have you managed to find where the Arizona towed the Norse Wind to?”
“You’re telling me. Especially when I was the officer in charge of the takedown.”
Darla didn’t reply, and Tanis left the AI to her own devices while reaching out to a few contacts in the contraband inspection division, many of whom were sleeping—given that it was Vesta’s third shift. Those who weren’t were unable to find any record of the Norse Wind.
A snort came over the Link.
Tanis made a rude noise and closed the connection with her friend. If there was one thing Jordan loved to do, it was needle anyone within earshot.
The AI ignored Tanis’s tone.
Tanis took a sip of her coffee, then set it down before stalking into her room and rummaging through her duffel for a hair elastic. She pulled her blonde locks back and wrapped the band around the hair.
“I don’t know, it’s just what I do.”
“You just love to psychoanalyze me, don’t you?” Tanis asked caustically, then took a deep breath as she re-entered the common room and walked to the kitchen area. “Dammit, I’m sorry, Darla. I’m being a bit of an asshat. You’ve been a fantastic help.”
Darla said, a hint of mirth in her mental voice.
“Meaning?” Tanis asked.
Tanis imagined her AI as a duck swimming around in her mind, and snorted a laugh as she picked up her cup of coffee once more.
“OK, so, I need to get my head on straight, and think this through. Despite what the records show, I know there was a ship named the Norse Wind, and it had a captain, and a cargo of engine components for ships that haven’t been built in centuries—ships that aren’t built or in service anymore, anywhere. We were going to bring the freighter in, but we got orders from Admiral Deering—no coincidence there—to let the Arizona take control of the ship, its cargo, and crew.”
“Can you get time on any scopes or sensors?” Tanis asked. “A ship the size of the Arizona should be visible from a thousand Jovian stations and ships.”
“Doesn’t hurt to have extra proof.” Tanis polished
off her coffee, and signaled one of the servitors for another cup. “Might get a clue as to who is behind all this, as well.”
“Has to be. Who else can do all this? Admiral Deering is the obvious candidate, but would she really do something like this? Any accusation against her would have to be ironclad.”
“Which all makes sense, except for the two glaring issues.” Tanis paused to drink from the fresh cup of coffee.
“Well, two major ones. First, how the hell is Unger alive? And secondly, if you’re going to smuggle shit across Sol, why do something stupid like grab some weird old engine components that end up getting you flagged by Cune’s port authority, and then boarded when you cross out of Hegemony space?”
“Sure.” Tanis nodded as she walked to the pool at the edge of the room and dropped her robe before wading into the waters. “That would line up just fine if Unger was just some freighter captain. But if he’s SWSF, then it makes zero sense whatsoever.”
Tanis reached the edge of the pool and leant over the edge, staring down at the lake below.
“There’s not a lot on him. In fact, the more that I poke at it, the thinner his file feels…dammit!”
“What we really need is to get to Cune and find out what Unger was up to there. Someone has to know something.”