by Shéa MacLeod
They were so similar, these images and the scene she’d just visited. The mutilation of the bodies was nearly identical to the ones in the morgue on Formia. She tapped a fingernail on the armrest. His signature had never been released to the public, so it couldn’t be a copycat. It had to be Tanner. There was no other explanation.
The image of the exploding ship was branded in her mind forever. She’d known people on that ship. Their deaths had been swift and shocking. Sometimes she still couldn’t believe Maris was gone. She’d wake up, ready to call the woman who’d once been her closest friend, only to remember her tragic end.
They’d been sure Tanner had died in the blast, along with 230 other prisoners and half as many crew. But what if they were wrong?
“Computer, scan for similar images in the Universal Net.”
“Scanning,” the mechanical voice responded.
The UN was like the old internet, only much bigger. It encompassed worlds. If there were other crimes out there that matched the one on Formia, she’d find them.
A moment later the computer chimed. “Files found.”
“Put them up on the viewscreen.”
Audley scrunched his eyes closed with a muttered curse. She ignored him. He hated the icky stuff, but that was the job. He’d have to tough it out, just like she did.
The images were startling and so much like the ones from Formia, they could have been taken that night.
“Enlarge image one.”
“Enlarging image one,” the computer replied. “Murder victim: Shannon Doyle. Location: Prosperity, ViDan.”
She had never been to ViDan, but she was familiar with it. The red planet was reminiscent of Mars before terraforming and colonization. Prosperity was an ironic name for a poor mining town.
The image showed a woman curled on her side, a bloody stain soaking into the reddish soil beneath her. “Next.”
It was another photo of the Doyle crime scene, showing identical lacerations to the Formia victim.
Zala rubbed her forehead. She could feel a massive headache coming on. “Next.”
“Murder Victim: Dulcie Tran. Location: Robber’s Gultch, New Texas.”
Shiyat. New Texas. What a dump. Another dingy, drought-worn outpost of the Syndicate. The place was basically a heavily polluted desert.
Dulcie Tran was dressed in skimpy lingerie and sprawled on a patch of dried up grass. Blood on the grass had turned the blades gaudy with color in the grim landscape. Tran had identical wounds to Doyle, though the killer hadn’t bothered to remove the cheap synth-lace bodysuit before slicing and dicing his victim.
“Looks like a sex worker,” Audley said. He’d apparently got up the courage to peek at the viewscreen.
Zala agreed. “She’s unregistered, too.” A big no-no, where the Syndicate was concerned. Sex work was legal on most planets as long as the workers paid their taxes and had their regular med evals. “Makes her a low-risk victim. Nobody would notice if she was gone.”
Audley tapped a few keys on his comp. “And they didn’t. Her, ah, ‘employer’ didn’t report her missing until three weeks after the body was found. The authorities on New Texas had no idea who she was until then.”
“Family?”
“None they could find.”
Just like the victims five years ago. Just like the women on Formia. And just like Shannon Doyle and Dulcie Tran.
“It’s him,” she said. “It’s definitely him.”
“So how do we track him?”
She mulled it over. “Computer, overlay all similar crimes on an interstellar grid.”
“Working.”
A moment later there was a ping and a star map appeared, hovering at eye level. The stars and planets took on the color casts they had to the naked eye. Blue stars, green planets, multi-colored nebulas. Over some of the planets, bright red symbols appeared—the ones where Tannen had struck.
She considered the symbols. Yes, there was a pattern.
“There.” She stabbed a finger at a small planet spinning around a single star, accompanied in its eternal dance by two other planets. Such an unassuming system.
“Why there?”
She smiled darkly. “It’s right in the middle of his hunting ground.”
XANDER LODAI WAS NOT in a good place. He’d been in worse, but this one sucked big fat donkey donuts.
He pressed his back to the hot wood wall. The bar was one of the few buildings on Omicron 5 that wasn’t made of plascrete or rusted-out metal. Coming here had been stupid. Sure, it was a way-station for Syndicate ships, but it was so far out of the way, it was mostly used by runners, pirates, and other unsavories. The Syndicate rarely showed its face. How was he to know they’d hired a drakking bounty hunter?
The oppressive heat beat down, dampening his hair. Sweat stung his eyes. He ignored it.
Sliding a hand over his blaster, he debated. Blaster had a better reach. Knife was quieter, subtle. Subtle had never been his strong suit.
The blaster was in his hand before he’d even finished the thought. When the bounty hunter rounded the corner, Xander squeezed the trigger. The blast hit the hunter square in the chest, taking the big man down like a sack of spuds, clothes smoking where the energy pulse had singed them.
Xander grinned. So much for being a badass. Dude should go back to bounty hunting school.
It was times like these he wished he still had his Syndicate implants. Instead he had to do this the old-fashioned way. He crouched next to the body and felt for a pulse. Nada. But maybe there was a clue as to who had hired the man or if others were on his tail.
A quick pat-down yielded nothing. Damnation.
He took the hunter’s blaster. The denizens of Omicron 5 would pick him clean. Even his body would be taken away and burned for energy. Nothing gone to waste, and nothing left for his Syndicate masters to find.
Whistling, Xander ducked into the bar. This deserved a drink.
He was halfway to the bar when he felt a sting on his neck. He slapped at the bug only to find a tiny dart. He opened his mouth to cuss, but nothing came out. He crashed to the floor, every muscle frozen.
As his brain fogged over, he heard a voice in his ear. “That was my partner you killed. Now you’re gonna pay.”
Shiyat, there’d been another one. Could he be any stupider?
The answer never came. Xander Lodai crashed into darkness.
Chapter Three
ZALA ADJUSTED THE BREATHING hose of her mask and winced at the discomfort. She wasn’t used to having to supplement. Thanks to her nanos, she could usually do without breathing assistance, even on low-oxygen planets. Bharati, on the other hand, was still in its earliest stages of terraforming. Her nanos couldn’t keep up, hence the annoying mask strapped to the bottom half of her face. Fortunately there was enough atmospheric pressure that she didn’t have to wear a full suit.
She took a long look around her. Bharati had once been an unnamed mining colony. Bare, grim, and gray as far as the eye could see, it wasn’t much to get excited about. After the Syndicate had stripped the planet of its mineral resources, it was sold at auction. According to the data, a religious order had bought it and begun the terraforming process. They’d also named it Bharati after their goddess.
“Okay, Aud, where do I go?” Her voice was weirdly muffled by the mask.
“Settlement is two clicks north.” Audley’s voice crackled over the comms. There was some sort of interference in the atmosphere that made them wonky. “Ain’t got much on it.”
“Why are they living here during terraforming? That’s dangerous.” The machines had been known to drift, especially during storms, and end up terraforming spots they shouldn’t have. Places with humans. They didn’t survive the process.
She visualized him shrugging as his beads clacked. “You got me, man. Dumbass idea.”
Letting out a small sigh, Zala clicked off and walked north. The same interference that messed with the comms made flying the shuttle planet-side nearly impossible
. Landing it had taken every ounce of skill she had.
The ground crunched and shifted, the vague light catching the metallic glitter left over from the mining operation. Why anyone would choose to buy this place was beyond her. She doubted even terraforming could save it. It would never be anything more than a dead world.
By the time she reached the valley that housed the settlement, her breath was coming in short pants and sweat beaded her forehead and upper lip. Her implants were working overtime to keep her going as the dry air and lack of oxygen wore her down. Even the mask struggled to keep up.
She paused at the crest of a hill to catch her breath. As she sipped water from the pack attached to her mask, she gazed at what Audley had referred to as the “settlement.” That seemed too big a word for it.
The religious order had taken over one of the old mining camps. A single dome, no more than twenty feet across, rose from the center. Rectangular, windowless boxes about twenty feet long by eight feet wide spread out from it like spokes. The dome was so encrusted with metallic dust, it was impossible to make out anything inside. Stupid. It was probably their one way of growing anything. Letting it get dirty like that blocked sunlight. Really, some people needed to have their heads examined before they were allowed to settle the outer planets. The number of morons high on dreams of a better life who lost their lives out here was staggering, and all because they were too busy building dream castles instead of preparing themselves for the reality of the hard life of a settler.
She should know. She’d been coddled most of her life, only to be thrown to the outer reaches when she disappointed the matriarch. It had been learn fast or die young. She had always been a fast learner.
She started down the gentle slope toward the dome. She was beginning to doubt her extrapolation of Tannen’s whereabouts. Why on Earth would he come to some backwater planet like Bharati? She reached the dome to find the door standing open and a person dressed in an old-fashioned pressure suit standing in the doorway. The figure waved her inside. They either saw her coming or Audley had finally gotten through on the comms.
The pressure door sealed behind them, and after a moment the light flashed green. Zala took out her breathing hose while the other person took off the pressure helmet and shook out long, inky-black hair that was smooth as silk. She felt a momentary stab of envy. Her hair had frizzed in the dry air. It would probably take a gallon of conditioner to get it back under control.
“Welcome to Bharati,” she said, her inflection almost musical. Her smile was vague though pleasant. Dark eyes in a pretty oval face showed little emotion.
“Captain Zala Lei. Infinite Justice. I’m here on Syndicate business.”
“You are welcome nonetheless,” she said with a friendly smile. Her eyes warmed slightly. “I am Parbati, First Attendant of the Goddess.”
Zala had no idea what that meant, but she nodded anyway. “Pleased to meet you. I’m hoping you can—”
“Come.” Parbati cut her off. “I will take you to the Mother Superior.”
“Sure. Lead on.” She followed Parbati through the inner door and into the main part of the dome. As she had suspected, little outside light trickled through the dust-covered roof, leaving the interior in perpetual gloom broken only by the greenish-gold glow of numerous small bio-lamps.
The dome had once been a large open space divided into areas of social interaction. Along one wall was a kitchen area with many cupboards, appliances, and workspaces. They looked at least a decade old. The area to the right of the kitchen was designated for eating. Small, square tables with matching chairs were scattered across the space. Next to that was a recreation space with game tables, and then there was a viewing area for vids. The last section was meant for sitting and socializing or possibly reading, though she saw no books. Likely the miners had used e-readers, if they’d read at all. She’d heard many of them hadn’t had the learning.
Many people had gathered, some playing musical instruments and others chatting softly as they painted, sketched, embroidered, or engaged in other types of artwork. They wore colorful pajama-like outfits in saffron and burnt orange, peacock and crimson. It took her a moment to realize all the settlers were women, which would explain Tannen’s interest. A rich feast for his psychosis, and it was unlikely they had weapons with which to protect themselves, based on their religious leanings.
“This way,” Parbati said , wending her way between the couches. Soft voices greeted her in a lyrical language Zala’s implants had trouble translating. It was a form of ancient Hindi, but it had been changed, transformed into something entirely different. It was lovely.
They crossed the dome, and Parbati stopped in front of a door. A symbol was painted on it in gold, another thing her implants couldn’t translate. The paint job looked recent. She guessed the door led to one of the many rectangular spokes she’d spotted from outside.
Parbati knocked and it slid open to reveal another woman dressed in colorful silks. On the middle of her forehead was painted the same symbol in gold paint as had been on the door. The woman stepped back and let Parbati and Zala pass.
The long, narrow room beyond was even darker than the main dome, the air hot and close, and heavily perfumed with spicy incense. The only light came from a few candles flickering on a sort of altar. In front of the altar knelt a woman dressed in a rich blue sari. Her back was to the door. On either side of her knelt two attendants dressed in white.
“Why have you come?” The woman in blue spoke without turning around. Her voice was strong but dry. She must be the Mother Superior. “My name is Zala Lei. I’m a Syndicate captain—”
“The Syndicate has no place here,” Mother Superior’s voice lashed out.
She was right. Since the sect had purchased the planet outright, the Syndicate had no jurisdiction, which meant Zala had none. Except in very particular circumstances.
“I came to find a killer.”
The figure in blue went very still. “Explain.”
“There is a man named Tannen. He is as evil as they come. He’s been murdering women across Syndicate space, and it’s my job to stop him. Has he been here?”
Mother Superior asked a question. “How does he kill?”
She wanted to snap at the woman. She didn’t have time for this.
You are too impatient, child, her mother’s voice echoed in her head. To attain what you wish will acquire the twin skills of persuasion and persistence. Otherwise you waste your time and mine.
“He beats their heads in, then slashes their torsos with a knife. Any other questions?” Her voice was as sharp as Mother Superior’s had been.
There was another long pause and then, “Parbati. Take her to the crypt.”
“Yes, Mother Superior.” Parbati bowed and gestured that Zala should follow her.
She wanted to protest, but it seemed the old woman was done talking. Her best hope was Parbati, but where was this crypt, and why were they taking her there?
Parbati led the way back into the dome and to one of the other doors. The rectangular room inside was brightly lit by overhead halos and filled with various machinery for the running of the bio filters and whatnot.
“This way.” Parbati lifted a trapdoor.
Zala hesitated. No way was she going down first. Parbati grinned knowingly, flung back the door, and descended into the bowels of the base.
Zala sighed and followed her. In for a penny, in for a pound.
Chapter Four
“WHAT IS THIS PLACE?” Zala asked, glancing around. They were in a small area perhaps six feet wide by three feet deep and five feet tall. She had to duck to avoid hitting her head. The walls were hand hewn out of rock, and a ragged curtain partitioned off the back half of the “room,” leaving its true size hidden.
Parbati shrugged. “The miners dug it out for their secret stills.”
“Moonshine? You’re kidding me.”
“I am not. What else did they have to live for in this place?”
She had
a point. The Syndicate convinced people to sign up for mining colonies with promises of fat paychecks. What they didn’t admit was that the miners would have the cost of everything, from food to tools, taken out of their pay, leaving them so broke they’d never work out their contracts, turning them into virtual slaves. Booze would have an exorbitant price, so why not make your own on the down-low?
She shivered a little as her implants adjusted to the cooler temperature below ground. Though air tight, the underground room was unheated and on the chilly side. “Why are we here?”
“This way.” Prabati pulled back the curtain to reveal a large white wrapped package. A body-sized package. This time the shiver wasn’t due to the temperature.
ESCAPING THE PLANET’S atmosphere had been easy enough. His ship, while small, was in perfect operating order. Those nuns had been so drakking stupid. So naïve.
He grinned, humming a merry little tune. Something he’d picked up deity knew where, but it had stuck in his mind.
He felt good. On cloud nine, as they used to say on the old world. But he could feel the need tugging at him again, begging to be filled. It seemed it roused more often these days.
“Patience,” he reminded himself. “It’s a virtue, no?” He laughed, the raucous sound filling the tiny cabin.
A light on the console flashed red, warning that another ship was near. Fragdamn, they couldn’t have found him already.
His fingers flew over the keyboard, calling up information on the other ship. He scanned the info and sat back stunned. It couldn’t be.
But it was.
Rage burned hot in his belly. His skull felt tight, like his head might explode. How the Hades had she found him?
A sly smile replaced the rage, and the anger was gone as soon as it had come. She wanted to play this game, did she?
Very well. He would play.
Chapter Five
“TANNEN WAS ACTUALLY there? On Bharati?” Audley’s eyes were wide.