An image appeared on screen. Most of it was taken up with Dana’s face. He looked scared and he had what appeared to be a black eye. ‘C-captain? It’s Dana Hillam Beyer. You have to l-listen to what I have to say. H-he’s got Marie. H-he says he’s going to k-k-k–’
‘Calm down, Dana Hillam,’ Courtney said. ‘Who is “he?”’
‘I’m not allowed to say that. He wants the lockdown lifted. If you lift the lockdown, he’ll leave. He’ll l-leave Marie here and take m-me as a hostage.’
‘And you’re okay with that?’
‘I’ll do anything for Marie.’
That much, Nava figured, was true. She was not feeling quite so good about the rest of the speech. Right now, however, she was not worried about what Dana was saying. She was concentrating on the background which could just about be seen behind his head.
‘That’s good, Dana, but we don’t want to lose you,’ Courtney went on. ‘He has to realise that we can’t let him take you away from here.’
‘I don’t think he cares about what you want, Captain. He’ll k-kill us both if you don’t remove the lockdown.’
At his console, Donovan was sweating. Nava was no computer expert, but it looked as though the channel had been bounced through a number of relays before it ended up at Courtney’s ketcom. Donovan was working through them as fast as he could, but it was taking time.
‘I see,’ Courtney said. ‘He’s really not giving me much choice here, is he?’
‘N-no.’
Donovan lifted his head suddenly and raised a thumb in Courtney’s direction. Nava looked over at the display. The origin seemed to be in the administration building. That made a certain degree of sense, if you could block the security cameras. It was the central hub for the campus’s computer system and its primary network hub. The perfect place to direct a multi-legged call out of. But the image on the screen…
‘I’ll get it done,’ Courtney said. ‘Give me… twenty minutes.’
‘That’s acceptable.’ And the connection was cut.
Courtney looked over at Donovan’s screen. ‘Good work, Don.’
‘I’d have liked a few more minutes to check he wasn’t hiding anything,’ Donovan said, ‘but that building seems like a good place for him to work out of.’
‘Right. Kyle, get everyone converging on the admin building. Nava, are you coming?’
Nava seemed to consider briefly before answering. ‘I’ll catch you up. There’s something I’d like to check on before I head over there.’
‘Oh?’
‘Nothing to worry about. I may have a way of protecting against that attack of his.’
‘Well, that would certainly be useful. If we find him before you get there, we’ll try to hold.’
Mitsuko followed Nava out of the room ahead of the others. She spoke as soon as they were definitely out of earshot. ‘That was a lie. You don’t have something to stop his attack.’
‘I do. Kill him before he can use it.’
‘You don’t need to go find that.’
‘No. I think he faked the location. What I could see behind him didn’t look like anywhere in the admin building. It looked like an apartment. I think he faked the origin of that connection to get Courtney’s people away from the transport hubs. He’ll let her get her sting set up and then move Marie to the station.’
‘Why the station?’
‘Because it’s about as far from the admin building as you can get, and he probably can’t pilot a contragrav.’
Mitsuko frowned. ‘And you’re going to wait for him there, alone?’
‘That’s pretty much the plan. He’s going to be watching the SSF, so they have to go to the admin building. But he isn’t watching me, because I still have Scryguard up. I’ll be fine, Suki. This is the kind of thing I do. I’m good at it.’
‘I know. Just make sure Marie comes out of it okay too.’
~~~
If everything was going to schedule, Nava figured that Courtney and her troops were sweeping the admin building by now. Courtney was going to be really pissed off about this, but Nava was more concerned about Marie. If it turned out that she had made a wrong calculation, Courtney was going to be even more angry and Nava would deserve it. And the student council would need a new treasurer. Of course, Marie might not be much use to anyone after this anyway, but she would be of no use at all if she ended up dead.
Nava checked the time. About ten minutes since the twenty-minute deadline was done with. That was enough time, right? Surely that was enough time. Where was the bastard? Maybe he could fly a contragrav and he had a way of getting past the security on one…
And then she saw them. With her night vision, Nava spotted the two figures moving toward the station across an open area meant for handling goods transfers. She would have called it a car park because that was what they had called places like this on Earth. There were very few cars on Earth now – intact ones anyway – and there were few here too, so the term was wrong. Still…
Exactly who she was looking at was difficult to tell, but she could make out a woman in school uniform with a bob of brown hair and another figure, probably male, walking behind her with his hand on the back of her neck. She waited until they were halfway across the car park before she stepped out of the shadows and pointed one of her SAH-301s at them. By then, she knew her suspicions were correct.
‘That’s far enough, Dana,’ Nava said, her voice calm, flat. ‘Let her go.’
Instead, the blonde young man stepped close in behind Marie, keeping his hand firmly fixed on her neck. ‘We’re in love,’ he said. He knew roughly what he was doing. He held Marie close and exposed only his right eye from behind her head. ‘She wants to come with me.’
‘And that’s why you’re holding her like a shield.’
‘She’s forgotten what we had on Aquaria, that’s all. I know someone who can make her remember. Now, stand aside. You know what Pierce can do to someone, right? It’ll go through her spine. Even if she lives, she’ll be paralysed from the neck down.’
‘You have a strange image of love, Dana.’ Nava’s eyes shifted to check on Marie. She seemed unhurt, but she was also just standing there with her eyes on the concrete. ‘You’re saying you’d kill the woman you love if I don’t let you go?’
‘If I can’t have her, no one will.’
Nava lowered her pistol to her hip. ‘I see. My options are to let you go, and then you’ll take Marie off to be your love slave, at least until you get tired of her.’
‘I’d never–’
‘Or you’ll kill her. Have I missed anything?’
‘No,’ Dana said. Nava could not see his mouth, but his voice had a grin in it. He was grinning. He was sure he had won. ‘Those are your choices.’
‘It seems to me that you’ve given me no choice at all.’
‘That’s ri–’
The sound was too sharp to be called a pop and too soft to be a crack. By the time Marie had registered it, Dana’s hand was falling away from her neck. She jumped as she also realised that she had felt a rush of air, as though something moving fast had skimmed past her neck. She lifted her eyes and stared at Nava, blinking rapidly.
‘Marie,’ Nava said, ‘you should walk toward me now. Just walk straight toward me.’ Nava started to close the distance between them. ‘There’s nothing to worry about now.’
‘He…’ Marie began.
‘He won’t be bothering anyone, ever again. Just walk toward me.’
Shaking, Marie did exactly what Nava had not wanted her to do: she turned around. She let out a squeak and backed quickly away from the corpse, but, considering what she was looking at, Nava thought she took it very calmly.
~~~
‘You shot him,’ Courtney said.
‘He didn’t give me much choice,’ Nava replied.
‘You shot him at twenty metres with a pistol.’
‘Twenty-two, but who’s counting?’
‘Through the eye, while he was hiding behind
a hostage.’
‘Magic Bullet. Range isn’t an issue and his eye was the fastest way to his brain. Magic Bullet expands on impact, so if I’d hit him in the skull, there was some possibility of it not penetrating with enough energy to kill him. The eye socket is thin enough that it wouldn’t be an issue. I had to take him out in one shot or he would have had the chance to kill Marie.’
‘When you lay it all out like that, the individual bits make sense. It’s just the whole thing that sounds insane.’
‘I am sorry about the mess.’
‘I’ll pass your apologies to the cleaning robots.’
There was quite a mess. Nava’s spell had opened Dana’s skull up like Christmas. Blood, bone fragments, and brain matter were scattered in an arc across the concrete. It was a really good thing that Melissa was not around to see it. Mitsuko was; she was busy taking care of Marie while Kyle assisted Courtney in handling the aftermath.
Courtney gave a sigh. ‘You recorded it all?’
‘I’ve sent the file to your ketcom,’ Nava replied.
‘The hostage is safe, if traumatised by the experience.’
‘She took the sight of his body pretty well. She’s tougher than she looks, I think.’
‘We get to pass some information to the ASF about that spell. All in all, I suppose this is a win.’
‘Anything you can walk away from is a win, Courtney. This… This is a victory.’
235/9/23.
Mitsuko frowned at her ketcom. It was making a noise at ten past nine in the evening on a Friday. The noise suggested that someone was outside wanting to come in.
‘Staring at it won’t reveal who’s there,’ Nava pointed out.
‘Mm.’ Mitsuko tapped at the device’s screen. ‘Mitsuko Trenton,’ she said.
‘It’s Melissa. Can I come up?’ The voice over the speaker sounded less than happy. Mitsuko glanced at Nava. Nava shrugged.
‘Of course, Mel,’ Mitsuko said, tapping a button to release the lobby door. ‘See you soon.’ She cut off the connection and turned to Nava. ‘I thought she was supposed to be banging Chess by now.’
‘Yeah,’ Nava replied. ‘This doesn’t sound good.’
It was not good. As soon as the apartment door was opened, it became obvious that Melissa had been crying. Her eyes were red. Her eyeliner had run and that was supposed to be impossible. She managed to get the door closed behind her before bursting into tears again. ‘I’ve l-lost him!’ she wailed into Mitsuko’s shoulder, Mitsuko having pulled her into a hug as soon as the blubbering began anew.
‘Just to be clear,’ Nava said, ‘who are we talking about?’
‘Ch-ch-ch-Chess. I’ve lost him!’
‘I’m assuming you don’t mean that you don’t know where he is.’
‘I’ve lost him!’ Melissa said again. It was more of a screech at this point. ‘He’s f-f-fallen in l-l-love with Ho-Ho-Hoshi!’
Part Two: Grey
Shinden Alliance School of Sorcery, Shinden, Clan Worlds Alliance, 235/9/24.
It was a foregone conclusion that Melissa would spend the night in Mitsuko’s apartment. She was a mess. The apparent collapse of her first love affair was an emotionally devastating event for her, which seemed pretty reasonable.
It was not that Nava and Mitsuko doubted her claim, but they had questioned her regarding Rochester’s infidelity. Perhaps infidelity was the wrong word since neither Hoshi nor Rochester seemed the type to break the law. Then again, even a non-physical romantic relationship was pushing the limits of propriety when she was his teacher; maybe they had gone the extra kilometre.
‘I got dressed up in my teddy,’ Melissa had explained, ‘and called him. Video call. He could see what I was wearing. I asked him over and said he could do anything he felt like. I emphasised the “anything.” He said he had to work on the paper with Hoshi.’
‘Ah,’ Nava had said. It was a particularly poor excuse given that Nava knew the paper had been sent out to internal reviewers at the school the day before. It was unlikely that they had got comments back so soon. She had decided not to mention that to Melissa.
So, Melissa had stayed the night in the spare room. That was after she had cried herself to sleep on the sofa between Nava and Mitsuko. Mitsuko had put through an order for six new boxes of tissues before bed. Nava had suggested that was too few.
And now it was Saturday night and Mitsuko had decided that things were going to be different from Friday. She was bringing out her secret weapon. That turned out to be…
‘Is that alcohol?’ Nava asked, peering at the bottle of clear liquid Mitsuko was holding along with three shot glasses.
‘It sure is,’ Mitsuko replied, grinning broadly. Possibly, the grin was a little maniacal, actually.
‘Where did–’
‘I swiped it from the liquor cabinet in the townhouse before we left.’
‘The liquor cabinet was locked.’
‘Oh, that’s to stop Uncle Spencer getting in. More or less the whole family knows the code. My parents know I’d only ever use it if I felt it was an absolute emergency.’ Mitsuko walked over to the sofa and settled down to wait for Melissa to emerge from the shower. ‘In this case, I wanted alcohol to drown in if you weren’t coming back from your debriefing with the ASF.’
‘But I did.’
‘Yes, so the bottle remained unopened. I hid it here in case we ever broke up, but I think Mel’s first break-up takes precedence.’
‘That seems reasonable. The shower’s stopped.’
Melissa emerged a couple of minutes later, dressed in the white robe Mitsuko had given her. Mitsuko was in her red robe, so it was hardly a break in decorum.
‘Is that booze?’ Melissa asked, squinting at the bottle Mitsuko was now opening. ‘I’ve never had alcohol before… Now does seem like a good time to try it.’
‘My thoughts exactly,’ Mitsuko replied. ‘We can all have our first drink together and–’
‘Sorry,’ Nava said, ‘but that particular first is something I can’t join you in.’
‘You’ve had it before?’
‘They wanted to know what my alcohol tolerance was. I’ve got the whole abnormal biochemistry thing and some engineering that was supposed to increase my resistance to various biological hazards. They spent three days trying to get me drunk.’
‘Trying?’ Melissa asked.
‘Turns out, I can get drunk. It just takes more alcohol than a normal woman of my weight. I’m also not prone to hangovers, but they were.’ Nava paused. ‘It wasn’t an especially scientific experiment. I seem to remember it was around the end of the year. I was… twelve. Twelve Earth years.’
‘Oh. Oh, but you were physically an adult by that point, right? They speeded up your development.’
‘Correct. Anyway, this won’t be my first alcoholic beverage. And I can probably down half that bottle without worrying. I’m happy to join you, however.’
Mitsuko poured the liquid into the glasses. ‘Well, this is brandy from Floridia three. It’s supposed to be nice. It’s also supposed to be very alcoholic. Maybe the Orlando clan’s brandy will trump your weird biochemistry.’ She handed out the glasses.
Nava raised hers in salute. ‘Don’t bet on it.’ Then she downed her drink in one go.
~~~
‘Truth,’ Nava said.
‘Okay,’ Melissa said. ‘Um… Something girly, because you’re not. Girly. Yeah.’ Melissa was drunk. To be fair, Mitsuko was fairly happy, but Melissa was drunk. ‘Who was the first person you kissed?’
‘Easy. Suki.’
‘There wasn’t anyone before?’ Mitsuko asked. ‘I mean, they plied you with drink…’
‘They did have some plans to do “live personal interaction” lessons, but I think even they had their limits and they weren’t going to go there until I was a little older. I’m also not sure that kissing was to be involved. That would have been slightly romantic.’
‘That’s… kind of depressing. Sorry I asked. Next!’ Reaching d
own, Mitsuko took a card from the top of the deck lying on the floor in front of the sofa she was sprawled on.
Also in front of the sofa, sitting on the floor, were Nava and Melissa. Nava was leaning against the sofa where Mitsuko could absently touch her when she wished to. Leaning forward, Nava picked a card off the deck: a king. Melissa followed suit.
‘Six,’ Melissa said.
‘Four,’ Mitsuko said a little sourly.
‘King,’ Nava said. ‘Truth or dare, Suki?’
‘Truth then.’
‘The name of the first person you kissed.’
‘Huh.’ Mitsuko narrowed her eyes, which did not come off as shrewd or menacing given her tipsy state. ‘I bet you’re thinking I’ll have a huge list and you can embarrass me.’
‘Actually, I’ve never played this game before and I’m running out of imaginative ideas.’
‘Uh, oh. Well, aside from the cheeks of relatives, you are the first person I’ve kissed. I… Well, I was educated at the mansion. I knew some of the children from around the estate, but I was never that close to any of them. So, you were my first.’
‘That’s romant-hic!’ Melissa said.
‘Romant… hic?’ Nava asked. ‘You’re drunk, Mel.’
‘I’m just lightly toasted.’
‘Sure.’ Nava reached out and took a card. ‘Nine,’ she said when the others had taken their own cards. The game was simple: highest draw got to give the orders to the lowest. If you failed a dare or forfeited, you took a drink. It had slowed down Melissa’s intake.
‘Three,’ Melissa said.
‘Ten,’ Mitsuko said, grinning. ‘Truth or dare, Mel?’
‘I’m going to take… a dare.’
‘Oh, so she’s going for a dare. What shall I have her do?’
‘Don’t ask me,’ Nava said. ‘I did say I was running out of creative ideas.’
‘I was building the suspense.’
‘Ah. I think Mel’s too drunk to really get that.’ Nava shifted, stretching out her legs in Melissa’s general direction. Unlike her two friends, Nava was not in a robe. She had got into the swing of things by changing out of her uniform, however, and she was now wearing a teddy she had bought in Alliance City. High hipped and with a netting panel over most of the torso, it showed off her legs rather well, and she noticed Melissa following her movements rather closely as she rearranged herself.
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