Hailey's Comet Anthology

by Selma J Lewis

  “Very convincing. I thought, for a second, you were gonna hug me or something.”

  “If I recall correctly, you were the one who hugged me at T’skala,” Hailey teased.

  Laura stared at Comet a second longer, winding up a response. Abruptly, she turned and resumed her course toward the library. Hailey smiled inwardly. She knew Laura loved her too, in her own way.

  Mystery Man

  “The guy doesn’t have an ID. He’s a ghost,” Laura breathed, sitting back in her chair, reviewing the outcome of the facial-recognition-search: zero records returned.

  “I’m pretty sure he travels,” Hailey added. “Oh, shit.”

  “What?”

  “What if he’s got some kind of secret ID?”

  “Like EURO or SWORD? We can look at internal records.” Laura updated her search parameters. “We’ll do SWORD first since that’s right here… There you go; look these over, Comet.”

  The population of current agents, former agents, dead agents, and Wraiths whisked by at an accelerated rate. Hailey hit the keyboard to stop the parade of SWORD employees. “Hawking help us – he’s a Wraith.” She stared at the man’s record. “Agent Samuel Minutio; codename Raven. Active duty 2270 – 2301. He has all the updated implants from 2297. He retired to Rangtong and has been quiet ever since.”

  “I’ll bet he got bored and went into a new line of work,” Lucky guessed.

  “I thought Ram watched over the retired Wraiths, reigning in the ones who went to the dark side.”

  “This Raven must be very good to escape his notice. Ram is exceptionally diligent.”

  “Uh huh,” Hailey agreed. “He’d throw his own daughter under the bus if I made SWORD look bad.”

  Laura looked at Hailey compassionately. “His work is all he has. It gives him purpose.”

  “I know. I’m not judging him. It’s not his fault he doesn’t care about me – or Karen. I’m just saying he’s good at his job. How did this guy slip through?”

  “We don’t have any evidence that Raven has committed a crime before yesterday,” Laura pointed out.

  “That’s true. But what has he got against me? I don’t even know the guy.”

  “I think you should go through his mission reports. Maybe that can shed some light on his state of mind. I’ll search Empire records to see if he’s been suspected of anything before. I still think he’s a hired gun. A Wraith wouldn’t have any grudges.”

  “OK. Let’s get to work.”

  Hailey read through his mission reports from 2297 to 2301. He still had the implants he used during those years, so he should be essentially the same person he was back then. Modern Wraiths didn’t experience PTSD, or grief, or guilt. They simply existed with their perfect memories of their many violent trials: calm, controlled, and mercifully content. With a clear knowledge of Imperial legality and commonly-accepted morality, Wraiths almost never crossed the line into criminal behavior.

  “He was an exemplary agent,” Hailey reported to Laura.

  “And completely under the radar,” Laura added after her search of government records. “Except for showing up on multiple worlds’ security cameras, there’s no mention of him anywhere.”

  “He doesn’t have an ID,” Hailey pointed out. “How does he travel?”

  “He probably bypasses the checkpoint lines.”

  “That’s easy enough,” Hailey agreed. “Where’s his home base? Still Rangtong?”

  “Officially, but how he manages to afford a home there is anyone’s guess.”

  “I have a guess,” Hailey said, sharing a knowing look with Laura. “Where is he now? That’s what we need to know.”

  “I’m sure he’s following you. But he wouldn’t dare come to the Scabbard, would he?”

  “Why not? As far as anyone knows, he’s just a retired Wraith in good standing with SWORD. He could’ve been here under the guise of needing an implant adjustment.”

  “I suppose you’re right. But if he comes here, we’ll know about it. No one sneaks aboard the Scabbard, not even a Wraith.” Laura returned to her computer, issuing an order to search all recent records of entries and exits on the space station by one Samuel Minutio. “Yep. He was here for two days before we went to Dacara.”

  “He must’ve stowed aboard our transport. That’s how he planted the explosive and still got to me in the terminal.”

  “I guess he figured out how to leave the station undetected.” Laura suddenly looked at Hailey anxiously. “What if he stowed away aboard our return transport? He’d be here now.”

  Hailey immediately stood, unsure, though, where to go with the energy her heart was pumping to her muscles. “Who tracks who’s here?” she asked.

  “Analytics. Deck one.” Laura led the way to the geeks downstairs. There she sought out the same agent who helped her find the Kinkade ship Hailey was on when she disappeared. “Agent Chan, this is Agent Ramirez. We have an urgent request.”

  “Ramirez. Ramirez. Oh, the missing agent from last year, eh?”

  “Yes,” Laura said, “As I was say—”

  “I guess they found you!” Chan said with a chuckle. “I’m just kidding. We had quite a workout finding all the accomplices involved. It was a helluva web of scummy yes-men. Sent eighty-nine names to FU.”

  “FU?” Hailey raised an eyebrow and looked at Laura.

  “Follow Up. It’s a department of EURO.”

  “What do they do besides giggle at their acronym?” Hailey asked, amused.

  “EURO has more boots on the ground than we do. Either they track down the names Agent Chan and his buddies send them, or they shunt it off to Sector Security. With a presence on almost every world, they can usually pick up the suspects. Now can we get back to new business?”

  Agent Chan replied with a grin, “Yes. I’m sorry, Handler Schwartz. What can I do for you this fine day?”

  “We need to know if a retired agent, codename Raven, is on the space station right now.”

  “Oh, you’ve come to the right place. Normal folks would check arrival and departure records. But step over here please and I’ll show you how we do it in the SWORD Basement.” Chan led the pair to a computer display on a nearby wall. On it were two hundred and fifty-one dots. “This uses the security cameras and unique bio signs of all agents aboard and tags them. Touch a dot and this will tell you who it is. Say a name, and his or her dot will blink. Who are you looking for?”

  “Agent Minutio, Raven,” Laura repeated.

  “He’s not here, Schwartz,” Chan said, scanning the display. “I suppose you’ll want me to start scanning the entire Empire for this Raven, right?”

  “You’re the smartest Chan down here,” Laura replied.

  Hailey’s comm pinged. She frowned at the message. “That’s weird. There’s no information about who’s contacting me. I had a comm like this yesterday.”

  “What does it say?” Laura asked.

  “There’s a password lock. I need the next number in the series,” she said, concentrating on the numbers: 3.14159, 8.88576, 16.32419. After a few seconds of using her synaptic hyperlinks, she came up with the answer: 25.13274.

  Chan watched over her shoulder. “How’d you figure that?” he asked.

  “X times pi times square root of x, where x equals 1,2,3,4,” Hailey revealed.

  Chan blew out a breath. “We’d get a lot more done down here if we could have some of those Wraith implants. I need to talk to the director about that.”

  “What’s the message, Comet?” Laura asked.

  Hailey read the comm out loud. “What sound do you hear when you slam a Wraith into a truck?”

  “What the hell?” Laura muttered. “Splat?”

  “Wham?” Chan contributed.

  “It’s not about the sound,” Hailey said, looking up from her comm. “It’s about Carter.”

  “How do you figure?” Laura asked.

  “Slam a Wraith into a truck. It’s a word play, like he did with ‘Lucky.’ He’s threatening Slam.�
� Hailey immediately sent a message to Carter’s comm. Where are you? You’re in danger. Watch your back, especially around vehicles. Comet.

  “Comet, are you sure?”

  “Pretty sure. This ex-Wraith botched his attempt on you. Now you’re safe on the Scabbard. He’s moved on to Uncle Carter. What’s the point? I thought he was after me.”

  “He’s trying to get you off the Scabbard. Here you have back-up, resources. Out there, you’re more vulnerable.”

  “So, he might not even be anywhere near Carter. He’s just baiting me.”

  “It makes sense,” Chan put in. “Why is a Wraith baiting you off the Scabbard?”

  “Raven confronted me on Dacara. Said he was going to kill me. But he’s been aiming at people around me. First Lucky, now Slam.”

  “A Wraith turning on other Wraiths? What’s this Empire coming to?”

  “Chan, can you start tracking Raven and Carter Flynn?” Laura asked.

  “Yes, ma’am. I’ll get Agent Chan to help me.” The analyst hurried off. Laura looked back at Hailey. She was about to speak when Hailey’s comm pinged again.

  “Raven again?”

  “No, it’s from Carter. Says he’s on approach to the space port on the asteroid Smástirni.” She typed back quickly: Rogue Wraith out to get to me through my friends. Stay inside. Wait for me.

  You have so many friends! Maybe he’ll hit someone else first… Hailey read on the return comm.

  No joke, Carter. Lucky already injured; OK now. Be careful!

  Hailey sighed with the next message received. “OK, he’s taking it seriously. Lucky, you stay here and let me know if the geeks come up with anything. I’m going to Smástirni.”

  “You be careful, Comet,” Laura said seriously.

  “Yes, Mom.”

  “I said kid sister, not daughter!” Laura called as Hailey left the geek zone.

  Smástirni

  The asteroid called Smástirni was one of the first terraformed rocks in the Sol system’s asteroid belt. It was a cold world, home to people with Icelandic ancestors, mostly. In the early days of human colonialism, ethnic groups tried to settle together to preserve their ancient Earth culture and language. On Mars and most of the worlds humans conquered, the population became so intermingled that ethnic differences, religious affiliations, and languages other than Common just died out. The human race had become homogeneous in that each human was constructed from so many racial and ethnic parts, that even if they could tell by looking at someone what their make-up was – which they couldn’t – no one cared anymore where their ancestors were from.

  But some of the names of cities, planets, asteroids, and even ships carried a memory of the original home of the human race. Smástirni was one: the Icelandic word for ‘asteroid.’ New Hollywood and Nyny were two more. The Navy christened some of their ships with names of countries of the old world, like Italia and Singapore. Smaller Navy ships – corvettes – were often named after rivers from Earth, like Ganges, Amazon, Thames, and Seine.

  Hailey knew the history of the United Orion Empire and its expansion away from Sol toward other suns and other planets, but at that moment she was only concerned with Smástirni. Her priorities were: one, keep Carter safe, and two, catch Raven. As her transport landed at the space port, she stood at the airlock, waiting anxiously for the hatch to open. At the first possible moment, she sprang from the ship and entered the terminal, instantly scanning the area for Carter. She called out to him, not terribly loudly. She knew he could hear her across the building and the crowd.

  In less than a minute, Carter showed up in front of Hailey. “Hey, kiddo! It’s great to see you!” he said happily as he hugged Hailey. Hailey returned the hug because, firstly, she knew it would make Carter feel good – he didn’t have a limbic monitor – and secondly, she knew she cared about him, even though she was in full-on mission-mode, relying on her LM to keep her focused, on task, and unemotional. Carter released her and looked at her face. “What’s going on, Comet? Who’s after you?”

  She pulled him out of the crowd, behind a barrier so Raven wouldn’t see them meeting. Then she explained what she knew. “Former Wraith: Samuel Minutio, codename Raven. Did you ever know him?” Hailey asked.

  “Raven…” Carter muttered as he searched his vast memory banks. “Nope. Can’t say I ever met the guy. What makes you think he’s after you?”

  “He told me to my face that he was going to kill me, but so far he hasn’t even made an attempt. He’s just been giving me clues that lead to people I love being in danger.”

  “He led you to me? I’m in no danger.”

  “I think he must be here,” Hailey said, scanning the space port. “He referenced you being hit by a truck.”

  “A truck inside a space port?”

  “I reckon he’s waiting for you to step outside for a taxi. I’ve got to get this guy before he hurts someone. You’d think a former Wraith would be precise, but he left an explosive on our transport and missed Lucky.”

  “Why would he aim for Lucky? I thought you were the target?”

  “I don’t know his game, but he said something cryptic about Lucky right before the ship blew. Now he sends me a comm saying, ‘What sound do you hear when you slam a Wraith into a truck?’”

  “That’s pretty generic, Comet. He could’ve been talking about you.”

  “No. I’m sure it’s a play on your codename.”

  “How would he even know we’re connected? We have no records in common.”

  “I don’t know. He’s got connections, and he’s been to the Scabbard. He was there while I was there for R&R, but he could hardly take a crack at me on the SWORD space station.”

  “Where did he confront you?”

  “Dacara. I was sent there for another mission, but I think he slipped onto the ship with us. I brought Lucky back to the Scabbard. Then he baited me back off it again by threatening you.”

  “What’s your plan, Comet?”

  “I can’t get into a battle with him in a place like this. Who knows his philosophy on bystander casualties? He’s willing to kill a fellow Wraith, after all.”

  “What’s his motive?” Carter wondered aloud. “Why go after you? Do you know him?”

  “No. Lucky thinks he’s a hitman.”

  “Someone else wants you dead? Well, that could be lots of people. Someone you put away, probably.”

  “I’ve put hundreds of people in prison. Any one of them could be angry enough to want me dead,” Hailey pondered. “But who has the resources to pay for a contract killer like Raven? He clearly thinks very highly of himself and his abilities, so he probably commands a fee to match. It’s got to be someone with resources.” Hailey ran her mind through every mission of her career, finding seven baddies she had put away who might have the money or connections to put a price on her head. “Revenge from inside a prison?” she asked Carter. “I can narrow it down to seven possibilities.”

  “Well, if it’s a contract, it doesn’t really matter who hired him. You need to deal with him first and ask questions later,” Carter advised. “Presumably, he’s here, right? And he thinks he can take me out first?”

  “Normally, I would say it’s just a ruse to get me off the Scabbard, but he did actually detonate a bomb.”

  “OK. Proper respect for the gravity of the situation: check. But as long as we’re here, how about I bait the sonuvabitch and you knab him?” Carter suggested.

  “What do you have in mind?” Hailey asked, not sure she wanted to put Carter in harm’s way.

  “I go outside and wait for a truck to slam into me. He’s probably driving it, right? So, I’ll jump out of the way and you jump on the truck and get the S-O-B.”

  “That might work,” Hailey said hesitantly.

  “What? Don’t think I can get out of the way in time?”

  Hailey smiled briefly. “Yes, I’m sure you can. There’s just… something I can’t quite put my finger on.”

  “C’mon. Let’s get this over wit
h. Your assassin is most likely waiting outside. Once you capture him, we can go have a nice dinner and catch up, OK?” Carter smiled warmly. Hailey would much rather catch up with Carter than deal with a psycho killer.

  “Right. Let’s get this over with. You go out first. I’ll be a few steps behind. Be careful, Uncle Carter.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Carter said happily, immensely pleased that the daughter of an old friend called him ‘uncle.’ He emerged from their hiding spot and strode toward the exit. Near the street, he stopped and pretended to look for an available taxi. Hailey waited out of sight of everyone on the street. There were several delivery trucks, shuttle vans, and vendors passing the terminal. Carter stood near the street, making himself a visible target. He watched the approaching vehicles cautiously.

  Hailey scanned the area left and right. Then a distinctive sound reached her enhanced ears: the click of a rifle being cocked. She followed the sound to its source and saw Raven on the roof of a building across the street, thirty meters to her right. He didn’t see Comet; he was staring at Carter. She slipped out of her hiding place and dashed toward him. She pulled out her weapon, causing the civilians around her to gasp and scatter, yelling to others that there was a person with a gun on the street.

  Raven turned his gaze on Comet, staring down at the barrel pointing up at him. He didn’t turn his weapon on her; he knew he would be shot if he twitched an arm muscle. Instead, he looked her in the eyes. A smile began to spread on his smug face. Comet spoke to him, knowing he could hear her. “This is over, Raven.”

  “So, you figured out who I am.”