Tales: The Benevolence Archives, Vol. 3

by Luther M. Siler

  As far as she could see, anyway. It was getting awfully dark. Infrared goggles. She needed a pair of infrared goggles, and she should have grabbed a pair before she left. She flattened herself against the wall, moving quietly toward the gate.

  There was a cheap hackbox attached to the entry console. The gate was open, if only by a hair.

  They wouldn't have left it behind. Cheap or not, it wasn't like the things were single-use. There was definitely still someone in there. Quite possibly more than one someone. With her ship.

  The only thing to do now was to decide what to do about that.

  * * *

  "Okay." she said to herself. "I can do this."

  What would her parents do? What would Grond do?

  They would go in and scare the hell out of whoever was screwing with her ship, that's what they'd do. She didn't have that option. She wasn't scary.

  Do your own research. Knowledge first. Figure out who was in there. She looked around. Going in through the gate was a bad idea. But the walls around the berth weren't that high. She could climb. She tossed the staff onto her back again and found a spot where she could scramble up to the top of the wall.

  All right. The wall was a meter thick and three high. Plenty of room for her to hide or move around if she needed to.

  There were three of them. She got into position just in time to see one of them break into the Debut.

  Shit. The locks on the boat weren't terribly complicated. This wasn't supposed to be a dangerous enough job that she needed high-level security.

  The two that stayed outside were human, one male, one female. The third probably was human but he ducked inside the ship too quickly for her to be sure. One was holding a long rifle. The other had some sort of pistol. She was too far away to see if it was a projectile or energy gun.

  Binoculars. Binoculars and infrared. Hell, any pair of quality infrared goggles would have the binocs built in. Stupid.

  She had three choices. The first was to let them do whatever they were doing. That was unacceptable. The second was to stop them. That was probably the best option but three on one wasn't odds that she liked. The third was to let them do whatever they were doing and then follow them afterward and see if something would happen to let her even those odds a bit.

  The sound of a pistol being cocked at her ear reminded her of a possible fourth option.

  This isn't going well.

  * * *

  "Stand up," a voice said. Human. Male. "Do it slowly. And keep your hands up."

  "How do I stand up without using my hands?" she asked.

  A moment of confused silence. "Just … just do it, okay?" the voice said.

  Young. Possibly younger than her, developmentally, and inexperienced to boot. And standing in exactly the wrong place.

  She pulled her knees tight to her chest, which lifted the end of her staff off the ground. The business end of the staff made heavy contact with whoever was behind her. She hadn't quite hit him exactly where she'd wanted to, but he staggered and fell backwards off the wall anyway.

  But not without crying out in pain first.

  She watched as the two guards outside the Debut snapped to attention, looking straight toward her, weapons up. The one with the rifle fired a couple of exploratory shots in her direction while the other moved back toward the ship, saying something to the person inside. Darsi dropped flat, risking a look back at where the one who had gotten the drop on her had fallen. He was up, but running away already, limping heavily. She was glad she hadn't hurt him too badly.

  Firing back would probably be a good idea, she thought, suddenly regretting not having brought a gun. She couldn't see the one the runner had had. It had either gone flying when he landed or he'd taken it with him. She scrambled toward the gate as the other three thieves fled. It didn't look like any of them had the box. It was a little too big to conceal easily for anyone smaller than an ogre, and they still all looked human.

  I need to keep one of them, she thought. She needed to know who these people were, and if they were breaking into her ship just because that's what people did around here or if it was connected to the job she was supposed to do. Luckily for her, one of them was a step slower than the other two. She waited for them to pass through the gate, all three of them turning in the same direction to run away, and she dropped off the wall onto the last one's back.

  That was the plan, anyway. The last one out was the female, and she stumbled on something as she was turning. What Darsi intended to be a graceful leap onto her back turned into both of her feet slamming into the human's shoulders and taking her straight to the ground.

  Darsi heard and felt it as the girl's neck and shoulders broke underneath her.

  Oh, no. She hadn't intended to kill her, and the thieves hadn't really tried to take her out, either. She'd just seriously raised the stakes, and for no good reason.

  The second one stopped running, hearing the commotion behind her. The one who had broken into the Debut didn't, disappearing off into the distance.

  He was the one with the rifle. Darsi snatched the girl's pistol off of her hip, pointing it at him and silently hoping the thing wasn't bio-locked.

  "You killed her," he said. "Why did you kill her?"

  Tears streaming down his face. This was his sister, or his mate, or something. He'd forgotten about the rifle, which fell out of his hands as he dropped to his knees.

  "Why did you kill her?" he asked again. "Nothing bad was supposed to happen. This was supposed to be easy."

  "You need to come with me," she said, keeping him covered with the gun. "Right now."

  * * *

  It only took a few minutes to get the girl's body— and girl was the right word, as neither her nor the other thief were grown adults yet— out of sight and the rifleman handcuffed on the Debut. He'd gone compliant, doing everything she asked without complaining. He was obviously in shock. Whoever these kids were, they made her look like a hardened mercenary.

  They weren't siblings, or at least they probably weren't. He was dark-skinned, tall and thin, as if he hadn't finished growing into his body yet. She was petite and much lighter skinned. They appeared to be about the same age, maybe sixteen or seventeen standard years old.

  The inside of the Debut had been tossed pretty thoroughly, but the third thief hadn't managed to find the box. He'd left another one behind, though, this one wooden. It smelled of blood. She really didn't want to know what was in it.

  Darsi's head was swimming. She'd known for years that her parents— and Grond, who might as well be a surrogate parent— were killers. She didn't really want many of the details. But she wasn't ready to become one. Not by accident. The first time she killed someone was supposed to be for a good reason.

  She shook her head. This isn't the time. Just because she'd never killed anyone before was no reason to fall apart in front of this kid— who, she reminded herself, had shot at her first.

  She took a deep breath, calming herself and clearing her doubts from her head.

  "Explain," was all she said. She'd secured the gun, but kept her staff to hand and between the two of them. This guy wasn't about to break the cuffs she had him in.

  "It was two days' wages for just watching," he said. "And in money, not scrip. We … we're both laid off from the mines right now. No money coming in. Xe said to watch for anybody paying too much attention to the ship and to scare them off. I've never even fired a gun before."

  "Xe?" An elf. Interesting.

  "Yeah," he said. "Paid us in advance and everything. It wasn't … this wasn't supposed to happen."

  "Who is the girl to you?"

  "A friend," he said. "I've known her for a long time."

  "She have a name?"

  "Lee," he said. "I'm Anzel." He looked at her expectantly.

  "So the elf either didn't know my name or didn't bother sharing, huh?" she asked. "Xe tell you xir name?"

  "Xe said it was Relict," Anzel said. "I don't know if I believe xir or not."
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  "What's xe look like?"

  Anzel shrugged. "Like an elf. They all kinda look the same to me, honestly. Scars all over xir face, but other than that I couldn't tell you anything. Xe kinda kept covered up."

  Scars? Every elf she'd ever met, which wasn't many, had made regular use of skin rejuvenation. "Old? Young?"

  "Who knows?" he said. "I don't even know how old you are."

  Provincial, she thought. The kid had grown up here, and this Relict was probably the first elf he'd ever laid eyes on. It was a wonder he was getting the pronouns right. Lots of times humans didn't bother and just assigned elves a gender based on their first impressions.

  "So this elf finds you, tells you to watch xir back while xe goes through my boat, and offers you two days' wages? What about the third guy?"

  "Didn't know him," he said. "But yeah, that was it. Xe wanted some backup. Don't know why xe picked us over anybody else. Xe gave us the guns. I wasn't even sure the thing worked until I shot at you."

  "Any idea where I can find Relict?"

  Anzel shook his head. "Never seen xir before. Probably never will again." He looked at her.

  "Are you going to kill me?"

  "Should I?" Please don't give me a reason, she thought. She'd killed enough people on this trip already.

  "I don't want to die," he said. "I want to forget this ever happened. What the hell am I going to tell her parents?" This brought forth another burst of sobs.

  Darsi got up and left the room without another word, taking the wooden box with her.

  * * *

  She went to her tiny quarters, locking the door behind her.

  "Grond, you listening?" she said. "I know you bugged the hell out of the boat. This is getting complicated."

  She paused, waiting to see if she would get a response.

  "Good," she said. "Because I'm handling it. This is still my job, get it?"

  She was greeted with additional silence.

  Okay, then.

  "Debut," she said. "Scan the box. Any electronics in there?"

  There was a whirr, and a beam of light flickered over the box from two different directions.

  BIOLOGICAL MATTER ONLY, the Debut answered. AND A FEW NAILS. NOTHING ELECTRONIC.

  "I'm not going to like what's inside this box, am I?" she said.

  UNABLE TO DETERMINE, the boat answered.

  Darsi sighed. If this had been her ship, she'd have made sure the AI had some more personality. Maybe not as much as the Nameless, but something.

  She dug a claw into a seam and pried the lid off the box.

  What she saw inside did not make her terribly happy.

  "I knew it," she said.

  * * *

  "One more question for you," she said, holding out the object she'd found in the box. "Who's this?"

  Anzel screamed, trying to shove himself away from the ogre's head she was holding. "I don't know! I've never—" and at that point completely lost it, devolving into hoarse screaming, scrabbling with his feet and trying to yank his hands out of the cuffs.

  Well. He's not lying, she thought, and went back into her quarters, dropping the head back into the box. It was Fahrhad. It had to be Fahrhad. There was no reason for anyone to leave any other ogre heads in her ship.

  She paused for a moment, savoring the ridiculousness of having just had that thought.

  The kid really was just a hire. He didn't even qualify as muscle. He was just a hire.

  "I'll be honest. I'm not sure what to do with you," she said, walking back into the room with him. He was wild-eyed, still panicking about the head. "I don't need you deciding you're tough enough to come back and take revenge for your friend. I don't need you deciding you and five or six of your friends are tough enough for that. And I don't need this Relict realizing you're a loose end and deciding to take you out, either. I've already got one dead body on my conscience today. I don't need another. So you need to disappear. And so do I."

  "I won't tell," he said. "I promise."

  "You say that now," she said. "I even think you mean it. But you don't know. Somebody tough enough to take the head off an ogre is out there somewhere. Probably your elf. You gonna stand up to xir when xe comes looking for you?"

  Anzel didn't respond.

  "Yeah. I didn't think so. You have any way to get offplanet?"

  "No," he said. "And I— my family's here, I couldn't—"

  Ugh, she thought.

  "Disappear," she said. "I don't care how. I'm blowing this berth the second you're gone. And if I ever see you again I'm going to assume you don't have my best interests in mind. Your friend was an accident. You won't be. Clear?"

  He shook his head.

  She moved behind him, disengaging the cuffs and snapping a tiny tracker under the collar of his jacket as she hauled him to his feet.

  "Go," she said. "Come back for the body in a few hours."

  "Thank you," he whispered, and fled the boat.

  * * *

  True to her word, she took off a few minutes later, putting the Debut into low orbit while she thought through her options. Even if the head wasn't Fahrhad's, the job was obviously blown. The elf had specifically raided her boat, and even if xe had left the head behind by accident, the mere fact that it had been brought along spoke volumes. She spent a couple of hours going over the interior of the Debut as carefully as she could, running a decontamination routine and making sure nothing else was missing or had been left behind. Along the way, she found two bugs, both with tiny notes attached. One of them said Good job! Keep looking! and the other said Good job! I'm sure this is the last one. She kept the notes, leaving the bugs behind. Grond had likely stashed one or two behind wall panels somewhere anyway and she didn't feel like literally tearing the ship apart to find them. So long as he didn't try to interfere, she didn't mind him listening in. At least one of the bugs was actually planted right on the control panel for the ship, meaning that he knew she was going to find them. He wanted her to know he was listening.

  Might be something on the outside of the ship, too. She resolved to go over the ship carefully as soon as she figured out where she could safely land. The good news was that Untkaar didn't appear to be heavily policed. There were plenty of planets where any attempt to land a boat outside of a regulated spaceport would be at least noticed, if not acted upon immediately. Untkaar wasn't one of those planets. She just needed a flat, clear area. Preferably two, actually: one to check over the outside of the ship for anything else that wasn't supposed to be there and one to move the ship to after that check was finished.

  The only question was what to do after that. The job was blown, and through no fault of hers that she could figure. She'd barely been on-planet long enough to make any mistakes. Either someone in her mother's organization or Fahrhad had screwed up, and she had a pretty strong suspicion that it wasn't her mother. She could justify just keeping the package and heading directly back to Arradon.

  That was leaving some work incomplete, though. The first thing Rhundi would do when she got back home would be to send Grond and Brazel back to Rainwyr to find out what had happened. If she played her cards right, she might be allowed to accompany them, but there was every chance that she'd have to stay behind.

  No. She was going to figure this out. She wasn't going to take any stupid risks— there was absolutely no chance that she was winning a fight with anyone able to behead an ogre— but if her first mission had been blown she wanted to know why.

  She was, at the very least, going to have to go to the damned brothel and ask some questions.

  * * *

  She got lucky— the brothel was in a wooded area, which had made her think it was going to be difficult to find somewhere to put the Debut, but there was an acceptable landing spot where the woods gave way to the water a couple of kilometers to the west. She spent an hour climbing all over the ship looking for anything that didn't belong there and didn't find anything. She was going to move the ship, but had a better idea, strapping a r
emote comm onto her wrist and sending the Debut back into low geosynch orbit. It would be fine up there unless someone actually attacked it, in which case the AI was programmed to do everything it could to escape— which was good for the Debut, but less good for her, as she'd be stranded on Untkaar until it was safe to bring the boat back down to the surface again.

  Maybe she'd steal a ship, if that happened. She'd never done that before. It might be fun.

  The last thing she did before sending the boat off was load herself up with every single dangerous thing she'd thought to bring with her. Her staff, half a dozen knives, a couple of flashbangs that she was pretty sure Grond had left behind, and, after thinking about it a bit, the dead girl's gun. She shaved her arms and her eyepatch again and rubbed her skin down with Grond's antiseptic gel, adding an interesting sheen to her bluish skin. Anzel's rifle was a bit too big for her to carry around, but she buried it near the landing zone in case she needed it. She buried Fahrhad's head, too. The package came with her. If it was going to be stolen from her, she was going to see the faces of the people doing it.

  She wondered if the name of the brothel really was the Deep Shaft.

  "Time to find out," she said, and headed off on foot, the sound of the Debut's takeoff roaring behind her.

  * * *

  From the outside, the ogre bar looked almost rustic. The outside was all logs and natural-colored local wood, and the entrance was through saloon-style swinging doors, which were a common affectation in ogre buildings. She could easily have just ducked underneath the door without trying very hard, but she pushed it open anyway.