“Yeah, a lousy assassin. You have no play here. I’ll shoot you before you even decide on a target.”
Raven lowered his weapon, setting it down on the ground by his feet. Hailey could only see his body from the hips, up. “Show me your hands, Raven,” she ordered.
The man in black clothes raised his hands. He showed his empty palms. “You can call me Sam, Comet. I don’t really answer to that code name any more.”
Hailey studied Sam’s face for intent. She couldn’t hear his heartbeat or measure other bio-signs from her position. She could only see that Sam turned his gaze toward Carter. Panicked citizens continued to stream away from her. Only Carter walked against the flow, toward Hailey, seeing that she clearly had the suspect in her sights.
“Want me to run up there and cuff him while you keep him covered?” Carter asked from twenty meters away. He looked up at Sam and started to cross over to the building on the other side. Hailey returned her eyes to her target. He hadn’t moved, but he smiled conceitedly as he watched Carter cross the street. She looked toward Carter again and saw him in the path of an unmarked truck. It accelerated on its collision course with her uncle.
“Carter!” she yelled, holstering her pistol and running toward him. He looked at her, still unaware that a truck was barreling down on him. She watched as if in slow motion as his face took on a confused expression when he saw her running at top speed toward him. He opened his mouth to ask what was alarming her, but there wasn’t enough time for him to get any of the words out. Hailey grabbed him around the torso and shoved him to the side. He was equivalent to dead weight, not understanding that he needed to leap out of the way with her. Her shove against his body knocked him over, getting his torso out of the way of the truck just as it barreled over his former position. His legs lagged behind and got caught under the wheels of the heavy vehicle. Carter cried out in pain and surprise.
Hailey used the momentum to roll onto her shoulder and land on her feet, instantly searching the roof line above for the elusive killer. Of course, he was gone. He wouldn’t lose an opportunity like that to escape. She returned to Carter who writhed on the ground. “Help’s on the way,” she said to him, laying a hand on his forehead, trying to pass calmness to his traumatized mind.
“Comet,” Carter whimpered. “I’m sorry, kid.”
“No, Uncle Carter. I’m sorry you got caught up in this,” she said earnestly. “But I’m going to take care of you. I hear the sirens already. The ambulance is coming. Try to relax. I know it hurts.”
“Don’t worry about me,” he said bravely, yet weakly. “Go after –”
“He’s already gone, Carter. You’re my only priority right now.” She took his hand and held it firmly until the medics arrived.
Despite being an asteroid in the Belt, the medical facilities on Smástirni rivaled any in the Empire. Instantly, the doctors controlled Carter’s pain, then got to work mending his crushed legs. While it was not an easy thing to accomplish, Hailey knew they would accomplish it and Carter would be walking again within two weeks.
She paced outside the waiting room, trying to figure out Raven’s strategy. Why draw her close, then disappear without even taking a shot at killing her? His casual confidence at their first meeting that he would kill her at some future day of his choosing was absurd. She was a Wraith! No one could sneak up on her and kill her. No one could stand against her, face-to-face, and beat her. She was a Wraith in her prime, undefeated over the past fourteen years, and as good as any Wraith before her or after.
He’s toying with me. He thinks he’s a lion and I’m a mouse. A little fun before the kill, she postulated. “How does he know who my friends are?” she asked the directory on the wall. “And who is he going to threaten next?”
“Can I help you, ma’am?” a hospital employee asked Hailey.
“What? Oh, no, thank you. I’m just trying to work something out.”
“I can listen, if you need a sounding board,” she said. “My name’s Angie. Your friend said you might need to talk.”
“My friend?”
“Yes. Your friend, Sam. He pointed you out to me and said you need comforting.”
“Where is Sam?” Hailey asked.
“Well, uh, I don’t know. He said he had to leave, but he didn’t want you to be alone.”
“When was that?” Hailey demanded.
The employee became flustered. “I don’t – maybe five minutes – is everything all right?”
Hailey ran for the exit. Bursting onto the street, she looked all around, but there was no sign of Raven. She had no idea in which direction she should search, so she dropped her head and turned back to the hospital. She sat in a moderately comfortable chair and closed her eyes. She needed to calm her mind and body. Turning to her meditation routine, she slowed her breathing and heart rate, relaxed her muscles, reviewed her recently accumulated observations, and tried to channel the mind of a retired Wraith.
She really needed Carter to help her understand what it was like to be a Wraith but not work as a Wraith anymore. How did he turn off the need to take action all the time? How did he keep his enhanced brain busy when there was nothing to concentrate on?
Hailey opened her eyes and pulled out her comm. To Laura she wrote, Carter injured; in surgery. Raven in the wind. Can I bring Slam to the Scabbard for safe-keeping and accelerated medicine?
She waited no more than five minutes before Laura responded. Permission granted to bring CF in. What do you need?
Need to confer with you and Slam. Q: how did you two transition away from the action life of a Wraith? Why did Raven turn out so different?
We’ll talk when you get here. I have news from the research room. Your transport is waiting for you at the space port.
Hailey took a brief nap, keeping her implants on high alert in case Sam returned to the hospital. No one disturbed her until the surgeon came looking for Carter’s next-of-kin. “Ms. Ramirez?” the doctor said gently. Her limbic monitor sent a small jolt of adrenalin through her mind and body. Hailey was instantly awake.
She looked around, determined the area was safe, and gave her attention to the doctor who woke her. “Yes? I’m Ramirez.”
“You’re a relative of Carter Flynn?”
“He’s my uncle,” Hailey answered, semi-truthfully. “How is he?”
“He’s doing well, physically. I wanted to invite you to come into the recovery room and visit with him. He seems very agitated, but he says he only wants to talk to Hailey Ramirez.”
“Of course. Please lead the way.” The doctor led Hailey to Carter’s room. He lay on a bed with both legs in bandages and splints. His hands were in fists as he muttered to the ceiling. “Uncle Carter,” Hailey said, hoping the familial reference would help him feel better. He jerked his head to the side to see Hailey entering the room.
“I’m so sorry, Hailey. I don’t suppose you got him…”
“No, he got away. But don’t worry about that. I’ll get him next time I see him.”
“I don’t know why I was distracted. I didn’t notice the truck. He was on the roof! I thought the truck was out of play. I don’t understand how–”
“Hacked the AI driving the truck, most likely,” Hailey interrupted his self-deprecation. She had thought about that point as well. When he set the rifle down where Hailey couldn’t see it, he must’ve sent a signal to the truck’s computer. “I sent a description of the truck and its registration ID to Sector Security.”
“I’m sorry,” Carter repeated softly. “I guess I’m pretty useless. I thought after the time on Abraxas, I was still a Wraith at heart. Now I’m just old and useless, and broken, to boot.”
“I’m taking you to the Scabbard. They’ll get you on your feet in a few days, I promise. And you’ll be safe there.”
“Yeah. OK. I guess that’s where I belong until the bad guys are caught. When the streets are safe, then I can go outside again.”
“Carter, stop it. You’re not an active Wraith anymore. That’s a fact
. Abraxas was easy; no one was hunting us down. This Sam jerk is still acting like a Wraith – considers himself to be invincible, unbeatable, and smarter than all of us. I need your brain power right now. Yours and Lucky’s. We’re going to the Scabbard the first possible minute we can get you checked out of here. You stop feeling sorry for yourself and stop saying sorry to me and get ready to outsmart the bastard. Got that?”
“Yes, ma’am,” Carter said quietly.
With an ambulance and EMT’s help, Hailey got her party onto the SWORD transport ship and on their way within the hour. She kept her eye out for any sign of Sam, but he was not in the area. As they travelled, Carter slept while Hailey exercised. She went through all the training moves Crash had taught her when she was a trainee. It was a kind of choreographed dance that exercised all the muscles needed to fight. When the whole class did the training together, it looked like performance art. Even Cuss was graceful when he did the tii-cee, as it was called at the Scabbard.
Hailey’s mind went to her last conversation with Crash. All Wraiths know all Wraith moves, he had said. That was why, near the end of their three years, the classmates couldn’t beat each other in training. That was why Hailey and her coach fought to a stalemate a few days before. Now she was in a bout, of sorts, with Sam. But Sam wasn’t using Wraith moves. He was violent for no reason, entertained by causing Hailey to panic for her friends, and comic-book villainous for sending clues as riddles, pointing Hailey to where she should go next.
He was making her jump through hoops for his amusement, and she didn’t like being his performing puppy one bit. She didn’t like games at all, especially since the episode with Artemis Kinkade. His games were malicious and demeaning. She vowed she would never again underestimate the power of money. Wealth could buy accomplices, silence, information, and escape from justice. It was infuriating to see how some people put themselves above the law simply because they could afford it.
But not Sam. She wouldn’t allow him to escape justice for what he was doing. And he hadn’t even attempted, yet, to execute the threat he started this game with. Was it part of the contract to torment Comet mentally, or did he fulfill his contracts via whatever means entertained him the most?
She needed to get ahead of him for a change. Unexpectedly, her comm pinged. She opened the message from Agent Chan and read silently.
Raven spotted on Smástirni security cams.
Hailey sighed. “Thanks, Chan.” But there was more.
Appears to have boarded a transport at gate 17.
Hailey sat bolt upright, instantly ready to spring into action. The SWORD transport – her transport – had been at gate seventeen. Where is he hiding? she wondered. She ran to Carter’s bunk first. He was all right: just sleeping under the effects of the pain killers he got from the hospital. Hailey went on a systematic search of the corvette, starting at the front. “Seen any passengers on the bridge?” she asked the pilot.
He looked around the very small bridge, hardly big enough for the three stations that were manned. “Don’t think so, Agent Ramirez,” he said with a weak smile. Hailey knew it was not likely, but she would leave no crevice unsearched.
She left the bridge and checked the storage lockers just behind the bridge door. She checked the galley and every cupboard in it, the washroom, the bunks, the airlock, every closet and bin, and finally the engine room. The engineer on duty was startled to see an armed Wraith enter her domain. “What’s going on?” Agent Um’am asked Hailey.
“Looking for a stow-away. Don’t suppose you’ve seen a man wearing black sneaking around, have you?”
Um’am laughed nervously. Hailey noted her bio signs were all on the agitated end of the emotional spectrum. She looked at Um’am carefully. “Are you all right?” she asked.
“Yes, Agent. You just surprised me, coming in with your gun drawn. I’m just an engineer for SWORD. I’ve never used a gun; never been comfortable around them.”
“Sorry,” Hailey said. The ship shuddered slightly as it came out of compression.
Um’am looked at her displays. “Nearly home,” she said to Hailey. “Praise Einstein,” she whispered.
Hailey didn’t understand a space ship engineer’s relief at reaching her home base. “Sure no one’s in here with you?” she asked Um’am.
“Nope. Just me,” Um’am replied with obvious lying markers all over her bio signs.
Hailey locked eyes with her. “Where?” she mouthed to the frightened engineer. Um’am shifted her eyes to a grate in the floor. Hailey searched her memory for a schematic of a corvette and recalled that beneath the grate was a seldom-used ladder that led into the bowels of the ship’s engine. If Sam was down there, he was trapped down there. She got right up next to the engineer’s ear and whispered, “what’s he got on you?”
“Explosive under the chair. If I get up, it goes off,” she admitted softly. Hailey got down on one knee, keeping an eye on the grate. She glanced at the base of the work stool. A pressure-sensitive pad was slipped beneath it, connected crudely to a comm-activated detonator. “He said if I told anyone, he’d blow it remotely.”
Hailey put a reassuring hand on Um’am’s shoulder. “Stay calm.” Um’am nodded ever so slightly. Hailey tried to see down into the grate from where she was, but the lower level was not illuminated unless someone was working down there. Obviously, Sam had not turned on the lights. Hailey got between the grate and Um’am. She put her hand on the remote detonator and yanked it out of the explosive pad. Then she put her hand on the stool and applied pressure, nudging Um’am off the stool on the other side. When the engineer was on her feet, Hailey ordered her out of the room with a wave of her hand. Hailey sat down on the stool, crossing her legs and staring at the grate. She held her gun casually on her knee, ready to confront the assassin the moment he lifted the grate.
The ship docked with the Scabbard and agents ran into the engineering room with a bomb-containment box. “What’s the situation, Agent?” they asked Hailey.
“Pressure sensitive. You need to put a weight on here and then box it up.”
One of the agents ran back to the airlock and returned a minute later with a heavy tool box. He slid it onto the stool as Hailey slipped off. With the bomb squad on the case, Hailey turned her full attention to the grate. Her IR vision didn’t see anything with a heat signature, other than the normal machinery that was located there. She crept closer, until she looked directly down into the access hole. Sam was not on the ladder. He must’ve crept deeper into the bowels of the ship.
Hailey had a suspicion that he was waiting for her to go down. He had the advantage: he was hidden and probably had eyes on the ladder. That’s what she would do. She was not stupid enough to go down that ladder under those circumstances. She left the engine room and commed Lucky from the airlock of the corvette.
“He’s here, on the corvette. I’ve got him cornered but can’t get at him.”
“Be right there. Wait for me!”
Lucky arrived at the airlock within two minutes. “Where is he?”
“In the j-tubes. Went down a service ladder in engineering.”
“How about tossing some knockout gas down there?”
“Good idea. Can you get your hands on some?” Hailey asked.
“I’ll be back,” Laura said, hurrying away.
Hailey took the opportunity to check on Carter. SWORD medics were transferring him to a gurney so they could take him to sick bay. He was awake, but weak. “Hey, Carter,” Hailey said, getting to a spot where he could see her. “I’ll expect to see you walking day after tomorrow. Don’t disappoint me, now.”
Carter smiled tiredly at Hailey. “I won’t disappoint you, kid.” Then he looked at her seriously. “You be careful with that maniac.”
“Almost got him now,” Hailey answered. “He’s trapped in the j-tubes of the ship.”
Carter raised his brow. “He’s on the ship? Don’t underestimate him, Comet. He’s a Wraith, too, remember.”
“I’ll
remember, Slam. You just worry about you, OK?”
Carter nodded, then the medics took him off the transport and into the space station. Hailey followed as far as the outside of the airlock. She spotted Laura coming back. “That was a stupid play on his part. How did he expect to get back onto the Scabbard when he knows we’re on the lookout for him now?”
“I don’t understand his thinking,” Hailey replied. “C’mon, let’s gas the asshole.”
Hailey descended the ladder with a filter mask over her face. The gas had been in the compartment for five minutes – plenty of time for it to knock out Raven. Even if he held his breath, the gas would affect his eyes and penetrate his nostrils. If he blocked his nose and eyes and held his breath, then after five minutes, he’d be in no shape to attack Hailey. With her gun drawn, she searched the lower level. As she rounded the last corner, she knew he had to be there. With a quick step forward and her gun pointed at the spot where he had to be, she saw… nothing. She doubled back, looking up, down, and sideways. She returned to the ladder and climbed to a waiting Laura. “He’s not here.”
“What?” Laura exclaimed. “Where could he go?”
“I need to speak with that engineer.” Hailey marched toward the airlock. She asked the hangar manager where Agent Um’am went.
“She was ordered to her supervisor for a debriefing, Agent Ramirez.”
“Who’s her supervisor?” Hailey asked.
“Agent Carlsen. Deck three.”
Laura caught up to Hailey. “We have to get Minutio and Um’am pinpointed. Will you comm Agent Chan?”
“On it.” Laura stepped away to make the call. Hailey paced. If he’s here, and he got off the ship, then he’s got to be on the station. As if Laura could read her thoughts, she replied to Hailey’s assumption that Sam was on the Scabbard. “Why would he risk coming back here? We’ll find him anywhere on the station just with tech. We don’t even have to go looking for him physically.”
Just then, Hailey got another comm from the unidentified sender, which she now knew to be Raven. “Another stupid riddle. ‘I’m always there, some distance away. Somewhere between land and sky I lay. You may move towards me, yet distant I stay. What am I?’” Comet and Laura looked at each other. “I like the math ones better,” she said.
Hailey's Comet Anthology Page 20