Ophida understood this better than most field agents did. Before she had shaved her head and donned the robes of a Priestess, she had been a naval officer herself, and had commanded a ship of her own. And like Lilith, she had had her own handlers, watching her and guiding her from the shadows.
She still had no idea who they had been, but she was grateful to them for their clandestine service. Anyone who was responsible for the lives of thousands of crewwomen, and controlled a ship capable of destroying entire planetary systems, deserved close observation, and extra attention. Ophida had, and so did Lilith.
***
Lilith’s freeday deteriorated rapidly after leaving the Ships Temple. As soon as word had gotten around that the Commander had suspended her off-time to tend to the Spacewitch, everyone with ship-related business found an excuse to seek her out. They were all very apologetic of course, but each one of them had felt that they had had matters that all required her personal attention.
The first person to waylay her had been Dr. elle’Kaari, the Athena’s Chief Medical Officer, who had presented her with a list of badly needed requisitions for the medbay. The doctor had been followed in-train by the Chief Engineer with a pressing issue concerning fuel consumption by the ships engines. Then the Stores Officer had pounced on her, and after her, others had descended, each with equally important business. By the time it was all over, so was the freeday.
CHAPTER 2
Marpesia District, Thermadon City, Thermadon, Myrene System, Thalestris Elant, United Sisterhood of Suns 1042.11|01|00:64:79
It was raining on Thermadon; a miserable cold drizzle that managed to seep into every centimeter of Maya n’Kaaryn's plastic coat no matter how tightly she’d sealed it. It was like a living thing, determined to get past her jackets feeble defenses and steal away her body heat. Several blocks earlier, she had finally given up trying to fend it off and trudged down the street, doing her best to ignore her discomfort.
It had been two days since she’d hitched a ride to the capital of the Sisterhood on the CSS Carol Curtiss, a merchanter out of Corrissa, but only a few hours since she’d stepped foot on the planet itself. The assault of the incessant rain made it seem like that journey had taken even longer.
To make matters worse, her inocular, which was embedded in her left forearm, hurt like the blazes. Born from the ravages of the MARS plague, the Sisterhood had learned from the fatal mistakes of its predecessors. Like the psiever, and the biochip, the inocular was implanted at birth, and served as a permanent site for the injection of vaccines, which everyone was required to receive.
This was especially true for space travelers. Exit from a spaceport was not granted until the inocular had been scanned for its record of previous vaccinations and new ones had been administered for the latest local bug that was going around.
And whatever it was that was causing the sniffles for the women of the capital city apparently required a cure that felt like it was worse than the disease. She only hoped that her reaction to the vaccine would limit itself to simple discomfort. Like any seasoned nulltrekker, she’d gotten good and sick a few times from the shots that the locals had mandated, and she didn’t relish this happening to her again.
Frowning at the possibility, she fished around in her jacket until she had reassured herself that her chit was still there. She’d obtained it at the spaceport and it guaranteed her temporary lodging at a worker’s hostel. As far as anyone would know, she was just another migrant spacer, with nothing on her record.
The truth was a great deal different, however. Before making the trip to the capital, Maya had had the identity in her biochip changed out, and her inocular history altered to match. Modifying these devices was highly illegal and also extremely expensive. But Delgen had been getting too hot for her, and Thermadon had promised a fresh new start, justifying the expense.
Unfortunately, the directions that she’d gotten from the chit dispenser to the hostel had been poor, and she had been wandering the streets for the last hour looking for the goddess-cursed place. A hovercab would have been the ideal solution, but Maya hadn't seen any around, and she didn't have enough credits left in her stolen account to afford one even if she had.
Like the rain, she told herself that this was a temporary inconvenience. Thermadon was not only the capital; it was also the largest city in the Sisterhood, and fat with possibilities. Anyone with special abilities like the ones that she possessed could make money fast. For the moment though, she would have to satisfy herself with the few credits that she had, and walk to her destination.
Leave it to the Sisterhood to just assume that everyone somehow knows their way around T-Don, she thought unhappily. As she wiped a strand of wet hair from her face, she suddenly felt the all-too-familiar sensation of someone watching her. Her talents told her right away that it wasn't a criminal like herself--it was a kaaper.
A police hovercar came out of the shadows of a nearby alley and pulled up to the curb. But Maya resisted the urge to lower her head, or to run, and kept on walking like any normal, law abiding citizen. She was also careful to project the feeling that everything was normal and that she was really nothing worth bothering with.
It didn't work, but this didn’t surprise her either. Although street kaapers didn't tend to be psis, some of them did possess the innate capacity to sense when something, or someone, just wasn't ‘right’. This kaaper was obviously one of those women.
Although Maya could have tried pushing a little harder, she hestitated. There was a chance that this would backfire, and actually heighten the kaaper’s suspicions. Moderate sensitives sometimes reacted that way, especially when they were on their guard.
The passenger window of the cruiser rolled down and she turned to face the driver.
“Heyas, girl,” the policewoman said with a thick North Zommerlaandar accent. “Vat you doing out here zo late?”
Walking, as if it were any of your business, the girl thought. But instead of saying this, she answered the kaaper’s question in the politest tone that she could muster, “I’m trying to find the Transient Worker's Hostel, Officer.”
“Vat’s your name?”
After years of living under assumed identities, her response was smooth and seemed unrehearsed. “Mindi bel Tala” she replied.
“Show me za chit.”
She produced it, and a bright ribbon of blue light from the car's roof array played over her body, and Maya held her breath. The vehicle was scanning her identification from her biochip implant and the inocular. A casual reading from a spaceport chit dispenser was one thing, but a scan by the Police ‘Plexi was quite another. If the alteration to her identity had any flaws, the remainder of her visit to the capital would be spent in a holding cell, followed by a one-way a trip back to Delgen for trial.
But when the policewoman glanced at the information in her data-monocle and frowned, Maya relaxed. The scan hadn’t discovered a wanted criminal, at least as far as the TMPD Police Network was concerned.
Still not entirely convinced, the kaaper regarded her suspiciously for a long moment, and Maya responded with her best I'm-innocent-and-going-about-my-lawful-business-but-I-am-ever-so-happy-to-help-a-member-of-law-enforcement smile. This was met with a dark scowl, but Maya wasn’t concerned. After all, she told herself, wasn't under arrest, and the policewoman didn't even look like she was going to get out of her car.
“You’re two streets too far to za north,” the kaaper finally said, inclining her jaw in the opposite direction. “Turn left at za corner and go down to N’Rina Boulevard, n’ zen right. You’ll zee it about halfvay oop on za left.”
Maya thanked her and started to walk away, but the policewoman wasn’t finished with her. “Mind you, girl, I don’t vant to see you hanging around at zis hour again. I know vat you look like now and I don’t need any trouble on my shift. Zat klaar?”
“Yes, ma’am,” Maya replied deferentially. The window rolled back up and the cruiser drove off into the shadows in search of oth
er wrongdoers, or more likely, a place to hide so that its driver could get some sleep.
Welcome to Thermadon, she thought sourly. She only hoped that whoever she eventually found in the capital to make the next change in her biochip would be just as good as her last connection, and not quite as expensive.
The hostel turned out to be exactly where the policewoman had said it was. A young woman was seated in one of the few beat-up chairs in the lobby, paging through a holomag. Even though Maya had been in many ports of call, and seen her fair share of strange looking people, this one was remarkable.
She was dressed in an outfit that was a combination of leather and projected light-fields. Her skin was as pale as a Nyxian and she sported what was either a tattoo or a body painting of some kind of beast on one side of her face. But it was her irises that really stood out; they were a shocking shade of bright yellow that glowed so brilliantly that Maya was half certain that they were either artificial lenses, or had been augmented in some way.
As she passed, the woman looked up at her with a feral grin, exposing fangs that immediately identified at least part of her genetic heritage as Nemesian. Maya tried not to reward her with any expression of shock or surprise, and ignored the amused chuckle that followed her as she walked up to the front desk. Thankfully, the clerk appeared to be fairly normal, if somewhat disinterested. Undaunted, Maya presented her chit for scanning.
“That gives you one free night and a meal,” the woman said. “After that, you pay like any other guest worker. Your bed is in dorm 3, upstairs, cot number 14. The house rules are simple: no drugs, no overnight guests, and no weapons. Got that, girlie?”
Maya only nodded, and took the grav-lift upstairs. She hadn’t expected a warm welcome, just a bed.
The dorm she had been assigned to was crowded with small cots and sleeping bodies. Her own little bed sat next to a single, grimy window that looked out onto N’Rina Boulevard.
Right away, she opened the storage locker next to the cot and threw her trekker’s kit bag inside. Then she undressed and tossed her clothes in after it. The locker read her bioplasmic signature and keyed itself to her as she closed it shut. Short of someone blasting the thing open, theft was unlikely, and she'd learned to sleep lightly.
Letting herself into the the bed, and drawing the thin sheets over herself, she began making her plans for the morning. Bel Sharra Memorial Spaceport wasn’t far from the hostel, and it was one of the busiest in the Sisterhood. She didn’t imagine that she’d have much trouble finding a legitimate job there, or illicit opportunities to make some real credits. Spaceports were the perfect workplace for a thief, and she considered herself to be a good one. It wouldn't be long until she would be on her feet, she assured herself. Despite her bad start, T-Don looked like the perfect place to set up shop.
As visions of all the credits that she would make danced enticingly in her head, Maya started to drift off. She was nearly unconscious when she felt something that shocked her back into wakefulness. Her eyes flicked open, and she tried to identify the source of the disturbance.
But she detected nothing out of the ordinary. Except for her, everyone else was fast asleep. She listened for any sounds out in the hall, but it was equally still.
Finally, she rose and looked out the dirty window down to the street below. A single hooded figure in a long, dark cloak was moving along the wet sidewalk, barely visible in the poor lighting.
Abruptly, the woman stopped and looked back up in her direction, and Maya immediately backed away from the window into the shadows. Although she knew that it was impossible, she could still feel the woman's eyes finding her in the darkness.
Then, inexplicably, the woman was gone. She hadn’t just walked away; she was simply not there any longer. Maya shook her head, uncertain of what she had just seen, and waited. But when the mysterious stranger failed to reappear, she went back to bed.
That night, the image of the cloaked woman haunted her dreams.
***
Sarah n’Jan watched as Maya retreated from the window, and then waited to see if anything else happened. The streets around her remained silent though, and, with the exception of a stray kaatze, passing from one alley to the next, they were also completely deserted.
Finally, satisfied that the young woman had been nothing more than a rogue psi—a rarity to be sure, but nothing threatening, she touched a gem set in the center of the ornate silver clasp on her cape. With this action, special fibers woven into the garment deactivated, and she seemed to materialize magically out of thin air.
In reality, it was hard science, and nothing supernatural had been involved. When they were active, submicroscopic cameras embedded in the fibers captured the colors and shades of the world around them. The data was transmitted to equally diminutive displays, which rendered them perfectly, and made the wearer optically invisible.
This was not a standard feature by any means, either in the Capitol City, or anywhere else in the Sisterhood. Outside of the military, or professions like her own, this kind of technology was highly classified. So was the mission that she was on.
Sarah blew a kiss up to the empty window. “Sleep well, my little esper. Perhaps we’ll meet again,” she whispered. Then she walked on, staying alert.
Her relationship with her contacts had changed over the last few days, and it made her uneasy. It hadn’t been anything overt. Rather, it had been a collection of subtle discrepancies that might have been missed by a less experienced agent. And in her expereince, it was the small things that could prove deadly.
Even now, her instincts were warning her to leave the area immediately, but she pushed them to the back of her mind. The transaction that she needed to make was too important to cancel, and she knew that her superiors would demand more than just intuition to justify such a drastic decision. She had to see the meeting through to its end and take things as they came.
The street ahead of her ended at the fringes of N’Dayr Memorial Park, one of the largest outdoor recreational sites in the Sisterhood. It was a wild space, even larger than some of the towns that bordered the Capitol. And at that time of night, it was empty, making it the perfect location for a clandestine meeting. Or an ambush.
Reaching the border of the park, she stopped once again and checked the weapons that she had concealed in the folds of her cape; a tiny needlegun with poisoned rounds, and a black market smart-grenade. With luck, they wouldn’t be needed, but having ‘back-up’ was only prudent, and a matter of habit. Satisfied that they were ready, Sarah surveyed the streets one last time, and left the sidewalk for a paved walking trail.
The shadows grew thick around her, and she briefly considered embracing her symbiote. But she discarded the idea immediately. If things went badly, she knew that she would need all of her reserves for the fight, and the classified implant always exacted a heavy toll on its users.
So instead, she reactivated the cape, and let it wrap her in the darkness. Her form became less than a shadow, and more than a ghost.
After going only a short distance, she spotted the wan light of the park’s lamps shining through the shrubbery, and then her contact. The woman was where she was supposed to be, seated on a bench with her back to her.
Sarah watched her quietly for a few minutes, and then, extending a gloved hand, felt out into the night. But aside from the woman herself, and a few small animals, nothing else registered against the background energies of the area. She wasn’t entirely reassured by this, but in the absence of any discernible threat, she left the cover of the foliage and walked up to the bench, deactivating her cloak.
Her contact jumped at her sudden appearance. Then anger replaced suprise. “Damn you!” the woman snapped, “You didn’t have to do that! You scared me half to death!”
“Let’s talk,” Sarah said, ignoring the woman’s protests and taking a seat. “When can I get my shipment? I need it by the end of this week.”
“This week? Are you fekking klaxxy?” the other woman replied, her
breath misting in the chill night air.
“The kaapers have been cracking down at the port. Getting in a shipment like that is going to be difficult. We can’t just walk it off the ship and out to the street! Someone’s got to be paid off!”
Translated into Standard, this meant that the woman wanted more credits. “How much will that take?” Sarah asked.
Her companion was just about to answer when Sarah suddenly felt an esper somewhere close by. Whoever the psi was, she was good—very good, she thought. She had managed to mask her presence completely, and that wasn’t an easy trick.
She looked around her trying to get a fix on the intruder, and failed. Then a second presence registered in her consciousness. It was another psi.
One glance over at her contact told her, even without using her talents, that the woman was completely unaware of the new arrivals or the ambush that they intended to spring. Despite herself, Sarah had to smile in admiration.
Someone had tipped the smugglers off that she was a psi, or they had simply puzzled it out for themselves. Whatever the case, they had obviously realized that a non-esper would have been unable to conceal the knowledge of their betrayal. So they had opted to sacrifice an unknowing pawn, just to get close to her.
Capture the queen and checkmate. If it worked.
Sarah had no intention of letting this happen however. Nor did she grant any reprieve to the woman seated next to her. She was still a potential threat, even if she had been nothing but a lure.
“What’s wrong?” the woman asked. Comprehension was just beginning to dawn on her features, and she started to reach into her jacket pocket.
Moving with bioaugmented speed, Sarah reached out and expertly snapped the woman’s neck. As the corpse slumped over, a compact needlegun fell out of the dead woman’s grasp and clattered off the bench onto the wet grass.
Sisterhood of Suns: Pallas Athena Page 6