“She’s sure, Commander,” Lipton put in.
Back in her SWORD jumpsuit, Hailey sat in a hospital room composing her report for SWORD and sending a hyperwave to Laura: Finished here. What’s next?
The patient she visited woke and looked around, finally focusing on her.
“Secret agent Hailey,” the boy said sleepily.
“School boy Steven,” she replied with a smile.
“I can’t,” Steven said sadly.
“Why not?”
“My hand is gone.” He held up the bandaged stump at the end of his arm and nearly cried.
“But you’ve got another one on the other side,” Hailey said cheerfully.
“That’s not my drawin’ hand,” Steven explained.
“It’s gonna be,” Hailey insisted. “And maybe you’ll get a prosthetic hand in place of the missing one.”
“What’s that?”
“Prosthetic? It’s like having a robot hand. You’d be the coolest kid in school!”
Steven smiled.
“But for now, you’ll just need to practice your writing with the one you’ve got.” Hailey paused. “Actually, everyone just types. Typing is easy. Just touch buttons, right?”
“Can I try typing?” the boy asked eagerly.
“Let me get the keyboard up on my tab,” Hailey murmured as she tapped her screen. She set the tablet on Steven’s lap and returned to her chair. “OK. Let’s start with your name. Do you know what S looks like?”
“Yep.”
“Find it and touch it.”
After several seconds, Steven tapped the screen. “Got it.”
“Now, T.”
“That’s the one with a stick on top of a stick, right?”
“That’s the one,” Hailey agreed.
“Found it.”
“OK, E. Three lines sticking out of a tall line.”
“OK.”
“V looks like an arrowhead pointing down.”
“OK.”
“E again.”
“OK.”
“N. Two lines with a slanty line connecting them.”
“This one?”
“No, that’s H. No slanty line. Try again.”
“This one?”
“That’s it. That spells Steven. Now, tap all the letters again, but you say them instead of me.”
“S… T… E… V… E… N. Steven.”
“Good,” Hailey replied. “Really good.”
Hailey’s Comet 7: Revenge
By Selma J. Lewis
The Deal
A well-dressed man sat alone at an outdoor café table sipping a mocha-chaiko and reading a tablet. He wore a cap and sunglasses, even though Larisse’s position in the solar system didn’t receive enough sunlight even to make a shadow. The terraformed asteroid in the Belt was lit artificially by the many resorts and casinos that were built there as a playground for the rich and famous. The man at the café was both rich and famous, hence the attempt to hide his face.
Despite his attempt, a man approached the table, not pausing even a moment before he sat down uninvited. The newcomer made no effort to hide his appearance. He couldn’t care less if anyone saw him there. He had spent the past eight years moving about the Core and the Belt unnoticed by anyone. “Is that supposed to be a disguise?”
“What?”
The newcomer smiled condescendingly. “Isn’t it OK for you to sit in front of your own hotel? You have to hide behind a tablet and a hat?”
“Tourists,” the first man replied, trying to manufacture a reason for his weak attempt at anonymity. The truth was, he was a little nervous about this meeting. His research told him that dealing with this man was tricky. He didn’t want to be seen with him, didn’t want anyone to know he was doing business with him, and certainly didn’t want to become his target one day. “Are you going to tell me your name now?” he asked.
“Sam.”
“Sam…?” the man asked leadingly.
“Just Sam. You need to tell me what you want.”
The hotel owner glanced left and right then leaned forward. “My, uh… agent should’ve explained it to you,” he stated quietly.
“I don’t work for people who don’t look me in the eye and tell me what they want.”
The rich man sat back and stared at Sam. “I want you to –”
“Take off the shades,” Sam instructed. “Look me in the eye.”
Hesitantly, the man removed his sunglasses. His nervousness slowly gave way to angry determination. Sam studied the man’s eyes. He was easy to read and had “revenge” written clearly all over his face. “My son was killed by an agent of SWORD. I want you to kill that agent.”
“Killing an agent of SWORD…” Sam breathed. “That’s unusual, and difficult.”
“I was told you could handle any job!” the man whispered forcefully. “For the price you’re charging –”
“My fee is pocket change to the likes of you,” Sam interrupted. “If your son was killed by a SWORD agent, he was probably on the wrong side of the law,” he added calmly.
“He was my son! He wasn’t a saint, but neither is anyone else. You certainly can’t claim the high ground here.”
“Look, I don’t really care about your reasons. I only care about your determination. Wouldn’t you rather kill this agent yourself? Revenge is a personal thing.”
“A man in my position can hardly go after a Wraith.”
“No man in any position should go after a Wraith. They’re unbeatable.”
“But you can do it, right?”
“I can.”
“How will you do it if you just said they’re unbeatable?”
“Don’t concern yourself with the how, just the how much. I require half-payment up front and half when the job is done.”
The man got back to the matter at hand, opening an app on his tablet. “I can transfer the funds right away. I need your routing number and account.”
“You put it in this holding account and I’ll pick it up,” Sam said, setting his comm on the table for the man to see.
“Smart. No connection between you and me,” the man said as he forwarded the money.
“I protect my clients’ privacy.” Sam retrieved his comm and proceeded to withdraw the money from the holding account and deposit it into his own. “Very good. Now name the agent.”
“Agent Hailey Ramirez.”
Crash
“Hi, Crash,” Hailey said as she entered the Scabbard’s wrestling gym to find her former training coach watching a pair of advanced students practice.
“Comet!” Crash replied upon seeing her. “I haven’t seen you in…”
“Fourteen years.”
“I guess you’d know,” Crash said with a smile. Agent Dent – Crash, as he was known by his fellow operatives – was an old-school Wraith, like Carter Flynn: no limbic monitor, though he did have a temporal data node and other implants, so Hailey was not sure why he couldn’t come up with the number of years since she graduated from the training academy. “How’ve you been?” he asked.
“Busy,” Hailey responded. “How are you, Coach?”
“Not so busy. We don’t have any recruits this year, and only three second years, and two third years.”
“Really? My class was so large. I thought they were all like that,” Hailey observed.
“Your class was the outlier, Comet. Large group, but every single one of you made it to active field duty. I didn’t think that could happen.”
“You must be an excellent coach,” Hailey said with a smile. Crash shrugged off the compliment. “Actually, it’s true,” Hailey insisted. “More than once my life depended on using the skills you taught me.”
“A Wraith’s life is hard,” Crash agreed.
“I mean, every day I jump and tackle and roll and regroup and all those things, but one time I was trapped under a dead nexacor. I swear I heard your voice in my helmet as if you were on comms: ‘What do you think we do a hundred push-ups a day for, C
omet? Get up! That’s it, Comet. Now get a knee under ya!’” Hailey mimicked.
Crash laughed. “That sounds like me.”
“If your students ever question your training methods, you tell ‘em I’m living proof that they work!”
Crash chuckled again. “What are you doing here, Comet?”
“My handler is forcing me to take a few days’ R&R, but there’s no beach or casino on the Scabbard, so I don’t see the point. This is not my favorite R&R location,” she confided.
Crash smiled. “So, what do you do? Get massages every day, play in the VR lounge?”
“I’d rather be in fight class!”
“Well, you’re welcome to spar with these two. You can handle two opponents, can’t you?” Crash asked with a glint in his eye.
“Pfft,” Hailey replied. After a few stretches, she stepped onto the mat.
Crash blew his whistle for his students to stop. “A former student of mine has stopped by for a little workout. Swat, Pauper, meet Comet.”
Hailey approached the girl named Swat. “You like to swat things, do you?”
“What gave you that idea?” she replied sarcastically.
“Snarky. You’ll only get so far with that, I can tell you,” Hailey cautioned the young woman. “And Popper… I’ve got no guess about that one.”
“Pauper, not Popper,” the young man corrected her.
“He tells us he comes from royalty,” Crash supplied. “We told him at SWORD he’s no prince, he’s a pauper.”
“Ah,” Hailey acknowledged. “Well, you two look awfully fit, but I’ve been in the field for fourteen years, and there’s no better training ground than the real world.”
“You mean aging ground,” the boy muttered to the girl.
“Have you gotten your aural implants yet?” Hailey asked. The two looked at each other, then shook their heads. “Well, I have.” They diverted their eyes from Hailey’s stare.
“Whenever you’re ready, Comet.” Crash said.
“I’m always ready,” Hailey whispered to her two opponents. “Go for it.”
They rushed her together. She viewed the attack in slow motion, their sub-Wraith reflexes giving her plenty of time to figure out how to dispatch each of them. She opted for the fancy approach – there was no shame in showing off.
As Swat and Pauper both reached striking distance, Hailey ducked, undercutting Pauper’s attack and throwing him far behind her when she straightened up again. At the same time, she held her arm out to clothesline Swat. Hailey absorbed the impact, careful not to crush Swat’s esophagus with the force of the collision, and used that momentum to turn and land a kick square on Swat’s back.
Pauper recovered with admirable speed, but it wasn’t fast enough. In a fraction of a second, Hailey tackled him, and quickly subdued him in a headlock.
Gasping for breath, Pauper slapped the ground in submission.
“Good call,” Hailey said. She let him go, just as Swat was getting back to her feet. Hailey faced the student and read her bio-signs. Swat’s eyes darted around minutely, looking for a way to attack the veteran. With Pauper already out of the mix, she showed signs of stress and self-doubt. “Want a head start?” Hailey asked.
“What are you talking about?” Swat asked.
Hailey closed her eyes. “Come and get me,” she taunted. She stood with her arms dangling at her sides, her body relaxed, her senses alert. Swat looked at her coach. Crash held out an open hand, as if to say, “What are you waiting for?”
Swat looked at Pauper and signaled for him to attack from the left as she attacked from the front. Pauper looked at the coach to check if he should rejoin the fight. Again, Crash held out an open hand. Swat ran at her, Pauper a second later. Hailey heard their footsteps, their breathing, their almost-imperceptible grunts. Swat came in low, intending to put her shoulder in Comet’s gut. With an arm across her chest, Hailey protected her core and deflected the attack with a quick turn, causing Swat to veer off to the side. Pauper came at her from what was now her back. She pivoted on one foot and lifted the other leg parallel to the floor, hitting Pauper square in the chest. Despite the impact, he grabbed her leg and held on tight. Hailey was thus encumbered when Swat returned to sweep her other leg out from under her.
Hailey hopped up and threw her body on top of Swat just as she reached Hailey’s leg. Pauper was jerked off balance and Hailey kicked him in the head with her free foot. He staggered back and fell on his ass. Hailey rolled over on Swat and pinned her arms.
Crash called a time out. “Swat, Pauper, take a break,” he said as he stepped up to Hailey. “How’re you feeling?”
“Never better,” Hailey replied as her breathing returned to normal.
“Good. Very good demonstration. Thank you for the lesson for the juniors.”
“Uh, sure, Coach. Any time,” Hailey said, feeling distinctly dismissed. She turned and started off the mat. Crash grabbed her from behind and kicked out one of her legs from under her. Hailey felt herself beginning to fall backwards with Crash holding onto her, taking her down. She used her other foot to push off the mat and slam herself down on top of him. With an “oof” Crash lay on the mat, holding Comet securely. Her arms were pinned to her sides, but her hands and legs were free, not to mention her head. She lifted her head and slammed it down onto Crash’s face, but he had anticipated the hit and turned his head to the side. Their skulls collided.
Hailey lifted her legs and threw them to the side and turned her body at the same time, forcing Crash’s arm to let go of his competitor, allowing her to roll away and stand in one fluid move. Crash, too, immediately stood, facing his foe once again.
Crash threw his arms around Hailey in a tight bear hug. She nimbly slipped down and out of his grasp. She grabbed his shirt and rolled onto her back, taking him with her and kicking him up and over her body. Crash tucked into a roll and emerged standing on the opposite side of Hailey from where he started. She turned her back to him, baiting him to come and get her. But when he barreled into the back of her knees, forcing her legs to buckle beneath her, she threw her weight on top of him and flattened him on his stomach. Quick as a flash of lightning, she flipped herself over and pulled his arm up behind his back, but before she could force an “uncle” out of him, he pushed up with his free hand, throwing Hailey off to the side.
They grappled again, twisting and rolling around each other until Hailey wasn’t sure which limbs were hers and which were Crash’s. Seizing up to hold Crash still, she analyzed the situation and, sure of her position, yanked her arms back. With a crack, Crash’s arm broke, forcing him to relinquish his grip.
If he felt any pain, he didn’t show it. Instead, Crash lunged, feinting right before ducking left under Hailey’s strike and grabbing her by the forearm. He twisted hard, dislocating her shoulder. Pain shot up Hailey’s spine, but she ignored it. They were both at an equal disadvantage, which meant that, still, neither of them was winning.
Crippled, Hailey switched forms to kickboxing, holding her injured arm against her chest and taking calculated strikes at Crash’s torso until he adapted to the fighting style and began to counter it. With his good arm, he caught her last kick and floored her. Hailey rolled into a jump to right herself, just as Crash came barreling forward, ramming his shoulder into her chest. He followed with a knee to the gut.
Hailey reeled, tasting bile in her mouth, and looked up just in time to see Crash moving in to finish the job. He went low again, so she went high. Hailey vaulted his attack, rolling over him, and grabbed the back of his head, slamming it into the mat. Then she broke off, still trying to find her breath. Crash staggered to his feet.
Comet and Crash stood facing each other, hands on their knees, panting. Pauper and Swat were silent. They had never seen their coach do more than demonstrate, watch, and criticize. “Wraith-v-Wraith, Comet. It’s gonna be a stalemate every time. I know your moves, you know mine.”
“I haven’t fought a Wraith since the day before I shipped out. Could
n’t beat Spice or Dutch or any of ‘em.”
“Y’never will, unless you do something a Wraith wouldn’t see coming.”
“Like what?”
“Y’got me,” Crash said simply, then laughed quietly. He straightened up and went to his pupils. “Go to the med bay. You’re both a mess.” Swat and Pauper obeyed their coach. He turned back to Hailey. “You, too, Comet,” he said with a smile.
Comet pondered his advice while she strode to the water supply and quenched her thirst. How do you surprise a Wraith?
Hailey let Crash and his students receive treatment first. She had shoved her arm back into her shoulder socket, but it needed to be inspected by a doctor. She lay on a treatment bed relaxing while a nurse washed dried blood off her face and hands. Laura entered the room. “What were you doing?” she asked with a sigh.
“Playing with the trainees,” Hailey replied, not opening her eyes.
“How long will she be here?” Laura asked the nurse.
“She needs a few liqui-sutures, then a dose of accelerants. The shoulder needs a little work. Half hour, probably,” the nurse replied.
“You were supposed to be recuperating from the stress of work, not getting beat up in the gym,” Laura chastised.
“I’ll go get a massage, OK?” Hailey said facetiously. “And you should’ve seen the other guy!”
Laura smiled in spite of herself. “Oh, to be young again.”
“Middle-age not your thing? Getting soft, are we?”
“Comet, I haven’t sparred in years. I’m a mental powerhouse now.”
“That you are.”
After getting fixed up in the med bay and having a pleasant lunch with her handler, Hailey retreated to her room and stretched out on the bed. She had to admit that a few days out of her SWORD jumpsuit and her Chameleon Adaptive Armor was comfortable.
She looked at her comm and retrieved a single message from an unknown source.
Couldn’t beat an old Wraith...tsk.
Nice, Crash, Hailey thought. She forgave his boasting. He probably felt pretty good holding his own against a Wraith in her prime. Her comm pinged: a new message.
Hailey's Comet Anthology Page 17