by M. D. Cooper
“And the target? How can I get to Paul Rhoads?” Ricket asked.
The woman sneered. “Paul Rhoads dead would be a nice perk. But he’s not the target. Your real target is his sister—Kylie Rhoads. My employer wants her body…. Whether she’s breathing isn’t important. Her blood has something they want. I sure as hell don’t care, just need the job done.”
Ricket silently agreed.
“And the colonel she’s working with, Grayson. My employer will throw in an extra million if you kill him. Settles an old score.”
Ricket’s mind spun in a dozen different directions, but she kept her face neutral. “A lot of risk, killing a colonel and kidnapping a high-value target like Rhoads.”
“Then kill her and put her on ice. We have everything we need to get her out of Silstrand, plus an inside man who can cover it all up, so it’ll be like it never happened.”
“In the SSF?” Ricket asked.
“You ask a lot of questions.”
“Just covering my bases. How the hell did you ever think Grunt would pull this off? He’s not exactly well-adjusted.”
She shrugged with a pout. “Right place, right time. You work with what you got. Not like the one you had is the only token out there. Let’s just say it’s hunting season on Silstrand.”
The knowledge that there were others hunting for Kylie and Grayson sent a chill down Ricket’s spine. Of all the times for them to go off on their own on a date.
Ricket got the message.
“You’ll take the job, then?”
“You know I will.” Ricket grinned as she received an updated token.
“Don’t fail, Mars. If you screw up and make the target harder to get, there’ll be a price on your head.”
Ricket nodded her understanding. “I’ll get the job done. I never fail.”
“I guess we have that in common.”
Ricket tried not to hurry out of the room as she hurried out of the room. Back out in the pub, she found Rogers where she’d left him. He stood, joined her side, and together they strode across the floor and crouched low to pass out of the hole in the wall.
Once they’d walked a block, they ducked into an alley and exited the Virt-Go.
“Well?” Ricket asked, sitting up in the leather recliner beside Rogers. She blinked a few times, feeling Laura’s presence coming back to her as well.
Rogers groaned and held his head. “Well that was a doozy.”
“A sim like that shouldn’t hurt, Jim,” Ricket told him, using his first name to let him know she was serious. “While we’re on Silstrand, I want you to see a doctor. I want you to figure out whatever this is so we can figure out our next step. Get you treated.”
“Can we do that after we save the captain’s life?” Rogers asked and stood up. “Besides, I don’t really trust the doctors here. I’d rather wait till we meet up with the ISF again.”
Ricket caught up with him. “Don’t use that as an excuse to change the subject.”
“I totally am changing the subject.”
A moment later, Ricket’s HUD loaded a map focused on their location. She and Rogers were going to need transportation.
Ricket and Rogers exchanged a glance.
“A mole in the local government…or the SSF?” Rogers asked.
“Wouldn’t be the first time a military or government had a traitor. Laura, arrange for transport. We’re going to need to warn them in-person.”
“Don’t want to take the pizza shuttle, huh?” Rogers asked. “Probably a good idea. It’s not very stealthy.”
Ricket could tell he was worried.
“Kylie can take care of herself. Plus, she has the colonel, who is no slouch in the field either.”
BULLETS AND WINE
STELLAR DATE: 02.18.8948 (Adjusted Years)
LOCATION: Rosetto’s Stellar Palace, Silstrand City, Silstrand
REGION: Silstrand System, Silstrand Alliance
Grayson had certainly upped his game, and Kylie was enjoying every minute at Rosetto’s Stellar Palace. The place was a spectacle for the eyes as well as the taste buds.
The restaurant featured three levels with transparent floors, each spinning on a separate crystal shaft. All around, beams of light passed through the floors, containing a spinning array of planets, asteroids, and stars. As a beam passed near their table, Kylie reached into the shaft and pushed on one of the stars, sending it back up the shimmering a-grav column to the floor above, where it somehow passed through to the next level.
Added to that was an eerie, soft music—though Kylie was soon focused on the basket of breadsticks they had been presented with, brushed with garlic oil and sprinkled with parmesan cheese. Wine was served, and by the time it was gone, delicate chocolate pastries had been set before them, the atmosphere and culinary delights making both happy and relaxed.
The chocolates came with a rich and strong cappuccino, piping hot with a sprinkle of cinnamon. She had been quiet for too long; when she finished the last of her coffee, she noticed Grayson was staring at her.
“Sorry,” she licked a bit of foam from her upper lip. “You can’t get coffee like that in deep space.”
“I’ve always been impressed with your ability to pack a meal away. Watching you eat somehow transcends the passage of time and space.”
“I don’t know what that means, but I’m going to take it as a compliment.”
Grayson chuckled. “You know, Kylie,” he said and straightened up, causing a cascade of nervousness down her back. “It’s been a long time now since we came back into each other’s lives, but what I did, the false pretenses, your arrest…and everything after that…I’m sorry. I’m not sure how to ask you to trust me again.”
“Can’t you tell I already trust you?”
Grayson blushed with a snort. “Yes, but I still have to say my piece.”
Kylie nodded. She could understand that.
“You saved me when you had Jerrod removed. But I was still angry, hurting from his betrayal and what I had done to you. It was wrong for me to leave how I did. I thought you and Nadine would be happy.”
“If she wasn’t a spy, maybe we would’ve been, but as soon as we spent more time together, I felt myself cracking. I didn’t leave you because I stopped loving you; just the opposite. Except I didn’t think I could be the girl you wanted me to be.”
Grayson cringed. “I was a fool. My worldview was too small. I never want to change who you are. The pressure I put you under…I’ll never do that again.”
Kylie smiled at him. “I’m sorry too. I was so snarky. So angry. But it was the only way to protect myself from you. I didn’t think we had a future.”
“And now?”
She thought about her answer. “I think it’s spreading out in front of us. Lots of paths. I’m not sure what’ll happen, but I think we’ll walk it together. If we want to.”
“I can’t think of anything nicer.”
Kylie reached across the table as the music changed into a swell of string instruments. The tempo
was soft, rhythm slow, and she knew exactly what she wanted to do.
“All this talking is nice, but want to dance? Like when we were cadets?”
Grayson’s eyes widened. “I still have two left feet.”
Kylie pouted. “Just one dance. And for the record, you don’t have two left feet.”
Silently, he took her hand and led her to the dance floor one level up. It orbited clockwise around the central shaft, unmoored, as it moved in a slow figure-eight pattern past the bar and above the diners below.
Kylie rested in Grayson’s arms as they swayed in time, and it felt like the most natural thing in the world.
“Nervous?” She couldn’t help but notice that Grayson looked like he might puke.
He nodded. “It was much easier when we were eating.”
She could agree with that. “The food was good…thank you. It’s been a great night. I’ll remember it forever.”
Grayson smiled. “It’s been my pleasure.”
Kylie’s fingers danced up the lapel of his jacket, and she tickled his skin, just at the neck. She watched him shiver slightly as he bent down to kiss her.
He held her close, and they danced like there was no space between them—physically or emotionally.
“You ready to head home?” he asked.
A shiver raced across her skin, and in that moment, Marge called out a warning.
Dammit…what a total buzzkill.
Alice must’ve issued her own warning, because Grayson looked up at the same time she did.
As the dance floor continued its spiral, Kylie got eyes on the encroaching enemies while looking for any cover in the largely exposed position. Their table neared a catwalk that wrapped around a support pillar, and they glanced at one another before both leapt across the gap, pulling themselves over the railing as a pulse blast swept across the dance floor.
“This way,” Grayson shouted, and Kylie followed him to a shimmering crystal column.
All around, diners screamed, some ducking for cover, while others ran for the exit.
Kylie knew resolve when she saw it.
he said.
She smirked.
Kylie glanced back, over the edge of the catwalk. It was a ten-meter drop to the broader level below, a piece of cake for her—and Grayson, too, provided his injuries from earlier in the day were patched up.
They stayed crouched behind the pillar for another ten seconds, then both turned and jumped over the railing and landed behind the bar—right beside the bartender.
“Stay down,” Grayson told her.
The bartender nodded and ducked, her ponytail bobbing up and down. “You guys want a drink? On the house?”
“Maybe tomorrow, if we don’t die. Don’t break cover,” Kylie said as she turned her attention to Grayson. “Any ideas?”
“Kill them,” he answered.
“Is that what constitutes a plan in your book?”
Grayson drew a pistol from inside his jacket. “Pretty much.”
“You always go on a date locked and loaded, soldier?” Kylie asked.
“Only when I’m on a date with you,” Grayson kissed her cheek and leant around the end of the bar, firing several shots.
“Such a romantic,” she muttered, and to her surprise, actually meant it.
She brought up her HUD, able to see that the enemies on the level above were moving back down, but there were three already below, moving past the now-empty tables.
Movement to her right caught her attention, and she saw one of the thugs crouching low as he snuck toward them. A moment later, the area was filled with light and then smoke.
Marge sighed.
Grayson ducked back down beside the bar.
Kylie kept her eye on her tactical overlay. The man on the right had used the grenade’s distraction to rush toward the bar and was nearly upon them. Activating her flow armor’s stealth, she crept past the bartender—who had a rag over her mouth, gasping for air—and hopped over the smooth bartop, the soles of her bare feet slamming into the would-be assailant’s chest, then kicking out with her left foot to send his rifle flying.
He fell back, and Kylie landed on the balls of her feet as she activated her shoes. A shimmering silver blade extended from each heel, their monomolecular blades glinting in the shimmering lights.
She swung at him with one of the shoes, and he backpedaled, falling to the ground. There was no mercy in her heart as she fell upon him and drove one of her heels’ sharp blades through his chest.
In her mind, Marge raised her eyebrows.
She spun and turned her attention to Grayson as he fired on two attackers and broke cover. He flipped over the bar and took cover beside a smoking servitor.
Two enemies were approaching from around the back of the bar, directly in his blind spot. She sprinted toward them to intervene as they raised their weapons.
He pivoted and ducked low as he leant around the bar, firing at the attackers. Kylie followed a moment later, leaping across the bartop and clotheslining one of the men. She stabbed him in the side with a heel, and a moment later, Grayson was next to her, throat-punching the other enemy.
Shots rained down around them, and Kylie glanced up, seeing the four enemies on the catwalk. Without a second thought, she rushed toward them, her flow armor shedding the rounds, though she nearly fell as parts of it solidified.
She sailed up, her chest tightening from the field, making her hold her breath until she forced herself out on the third floor.
The diners were huddled against the wall, cowering and holding their loved ones.
One of the shooters broke and ran, and Kylie caught up with him just as he reached the door for roof access, and deactivated her invisibility.
She grabbed him by the shoulder and spun him around. “Who the hell are you?”
He kicked at her, and Kylie deflected it, issuing one of her own, and he collapsed backward, flipping over some chairs and a table.
Rolling over, he made to crawl away, but she grabbed his ankle, pulling
him back. He groaned, his eyes rolling upward, and Kylie noticed a scar on his wrist that looked like an old tattoo had been removed.
She peered down at her attacker. “Who sent you? Does this have to do with my brother?”
The man’s hand twitched, and Kylie stepped on it so he couldn’t reach for anything.
“Tell me what I want to know, and I won’t kill you. How about that?”
“It’s too late,” he groaned. “I’m already going to die.”
“They put something in me. In all of us.”
“Why?” Kylie demanded.
“That’s how bad they want you. You’re worth a lot of money to the right people.”
A moment later, the man groaned, and his eyes rolled to the side. Kylie didn’t have to ask Marge what happened. The guy was dead, just like that.
Who would do something like that? Kylie had heard of some cruel ways to suicide, but nothing as brutal as that. She glanced toward the catwalk and saw that the other shooters were dead.
“Thanks for the save,” Grayson said.
“Is he…”
“Dead, I’m afraid,” he confirmed, and he stood up with a sigh. “His heart just stopped.”
“My guy too. Seems someone put them up to this…forced them to come after me. But who?”
Grayson stroked his chin. “There’s no shortage of people who hate the Rhoads name because of the Revolutionary Fleet—not to mention any one of them who survived…or half the people in Gedri….”
“Gah, OK. I get it. Sorry about our date.”
Grayson took her hand as they approached the restaurant doors. Through the windows, a collection of lights blinked as the police arrived.