Page 1

I hang in an exhaust vent, trying not to drool, and listen to the Bale brothers plot to kill my kitten.

They’re eating Makan while they plot. Kez introduced me to the old Earth cuisine, and I can’t get enough of it now.

A rich mélange of coconut, galangal, native thet grass, garlic, ginger, and chili fills the airvent.

In a minute I’m going to take out these fuckers just so I can steal their midnight snack.

The smell wafts up from the table where they’re eating, which is almost directly below the shaft.

The rest of this floor is empty except for some tables, or it least it was this afternoon when I did my last reccie.

A burned, chemical smell lingers in the wide vent, mingling with the food.

Reminds me of Phogath: smudges of smoke from the PB-Ex fires smearing the cool morning air.

I shake my head to clear out that old memory. I need to stay focused on the here and now.

“I still think we’re better off doin’ their ship.

We might get him, too,” Chaz Bale says. Chaz is the brightest of the three, although plotting to kill me while I’m hanging three meters above him is not all that bright.

To be fair, there’s no way any of the brothers could know I’m here, since I took out their piece of shit security system first. Still, bright or dim, his designs on my ass seal his fate. He dies first.

“Cracking that ship’ll take weeks. We can take her tomorrow. She’s got a regular run: Hemos to Nock.”

That’s Reg Bale, the youngest brother. He’s been quiet during the family pow-wow, but what he’s had to say has bothered me the most. He knows entirely too much about Kez’s schedule.

Either he’s been watching her, or he’s got inside information.

I’m inclined to let Reg live until I find out which it is, although none of the Bale brothers will be leaving the warehouse tonight, so leaving Reg to last might not be any kind of mercy.

“She won’t have any comms while she’s passin’ through Red territory,” Reg continues.

He’s wrong, as it happens. Kez has a kick-ass viewie that can punch through even the Reds’ comms blanket. But he’s got no way of knowing that.

“No one will miss her for a couple of hours. We’ll have some time with her.” His voice thickens. The skin on the back of my neck crawls. I can guess what he plans to do to my kitten during those couple of hours.

Definitely not any kind of mercy.

“How much you think it’d cost to get the Reds to do it?” Thumb Bale asks. He’s been looking for a way out of the wetwork since the start of this little conclave.

“Stop bein’ such a pussy,” Chaz snaps to an accompanying impact of flesh on flesh. “Keep your eye on that hundred hard.”

Curiously, for someone called Thumb , and in a time when it’s as easy to regenerate body parts as is it to change the color of your skin, Thumb Bale only has one eye. He wears a patch over the other, and rumor has it there’s nothing under the patch. I might see if the rumor’s true, after he’s dead.

“It’s not enough if he finds out it was us,” Thumb insists.

Assuming I’m the he , it’s nice to know my reputation is something of a deterrent. But evidently not enough in the face of all those hard credits.

Since all I wanted to know was how much they were being paid for the hit, and since hanging upside-down with the smell of their dinner filling my nose is beginning to make me both hungry and queasy, I drop out of the airvent.

I spin in my spidersilk harness as I drop, and land on a crouch on the table, careful to keep my boots out of the food.

Chaz Bale meets the business end of my kukri first. I follow the slash across his throat with a crouch-kick to his stomach.

I don’t want him spraying whatever drug-laced crap is running through his veins over the very fine food.

Thumb backpedals away from the table, knocking over his chair.

Reg is smarter, keeping his ass in his chair and reaching for a weapon.

But he wasn’t smart enough to keep his holster on while he was eating, so as he’s fumbling around on the back of his chair, I reach up, grab the harness line, pull myself up for leverage and slam the fist I’ve got gripping the kukri into the side of his head.

I want to talk to him before he dies. And maybe make him suffer a little for what he was thinking of doing to Kez.

Thumb is just drawing breath – to yell, maybe, although I don’t know why he’d bother because no one is coming to save his ass – when I snap a throwing knife out of my wrist-sheath.

He goes down with the knife in his one eye.

It’s a good throw, but even if the knife didn’t penetrate his brain, he doesn’t present much of a threat blind.

I grab the harness line again and use it as a pivot as I kick-over to the floor, keeping the kukri out to my side.

If Reg is faking, I want it ready. A quick check shows he’s not, so I clean the kukri on his shirt and sheath it.

The cessation of wet noises from where Chaz landed reassures me that he’s bled out.

Thumb’s not moving, so the blade probably did penetrate his brain.

I unwind some spare spidersilk from my harness and tie Reg to his chair. Slap him until he revives. Then I lean against the table, pick up a container of rendang , clean the chopsticks Reg was using, and take a couple of bites while I wait for him to come ‘round.

Tasty.

Reg groans before he opens his eyes and looks up at me. His right pupil is blown. Concussion. Hope I’ll still be able to get some sense out of him.

“Know who I am?” I ask, before popping another piece of incredibly tender, spiced meat into my mouth. Fuck, I need to find out where they order from. This is even better than the stuff Kez gets.

He turns his head and spits blood onto the floor. He must have bitten his tongue, ‘cause I didn’t hit him in the jaw.

“No,” he mumbles.

“No? Never saw me while you were watchin’ Kez?”

His eyes widen before he looks away. “You’re not Snow.”

“I am, actually.” Well, as much as anyone is. “And I’m the one who decides how long you’re gonna live, and how much pain you’re gonna be in before you die.”

Reg doesn’t bother with any protestations, which at least saves time. “I’ll tell you anythin’ you want to know, man.”

“Who hired you to kill Kez?”

He’s not going to tell me, not the truth anyway. But sometimes a lie is just as revealing.

“I don’t know. Chaz took the meet. He never saw a face.”

“Who set up the meet?”

“I don’t know. I don’t know.” He shakes his head and lets out a noise that’s just short of a sob. “You killed them both, you fucker.”

I put down my rendang and chopsticks and take another knife out my wrist sheath. Let it catch the light before I use the razor edge to slice off the tip of Reg’s nose.

He screams, high and thin. Bucks wildly against the restraints strapping him to the chair.

All he manages is to knock the chair over and bang his head on the permacrete floor.

I circle him slowly, right the chair, then resume my position and take another few bites of rendang while he bleeds and curses. Let the pain soak in, soften him up.

When it seems like the pain has done its job, I say, “Focus, Reg. Your brothers are dead. Nothin’ you can do for them now. But you determine how bad the next few minutes of your life get. I only need your mouth working. Your eyes, your ears, your dick. Those are all expendable. Got it?”

He sobs harshly, spitting blood out of his mouth. But he finally nods.

“Let’s try again. Who hired you to kill Kez?”

“I don’t know,” he burbles. “I swear, I don’t know.”

“Who set up the meet?”

“Jaxon. His name’s Jaxon.”

That’s an answer I believe. The name rings a bell, but I can’t place it, so I move on to my real question.

“How’d you know Kez has a regular run to Hemos?”

He hangs his head and refuses to meet my eyes.

I sigh. Set down the food and pick up my knife again. I take his left ear this time, since he’s got his head down and his eyes are at a bad angle.

I flick blood off my blade, set it down on the table, and resume eating while Reg screams and thrashes.

“Your dick’s next, Reg,” I say when he finally settles down. “How’d you know?”

“There’s a runner in her crew. Duncan somethin’. Jaxon’s been getting information from him,” Reg sobs.

“Has he, now?” I ask, but it’s just to give me time to think. Kez will be hurt by Duncan’s betrayal. I never liked the bastard – he had designs on my kitten – but I don’t want to upset Kez. Might be best if Dunk just disappears.

Reg nods and blows through the blood sheeting over his mouth and chin.

“Well, Reg, I think we’re about done here.” I scrape my chopsticks around in the empty container and set it down. “You’re outta food and I’m outta questions.”

I don’t need to ask him what he was planning to do to Kez before they killed her. I already know the answer to that one.

Reg’s eyes widen again. “Wait! No! Ask me anything. Anything! I’ll tell you, I swear?—”

I don’t give him time to finish. He jerks, once, when I slam my punch blade down through his collar and into his heart.

But only once, and then he’s still. Mouth open.

Eyes wide. Caught in the moment of disbelief that his life is over.

The fastest kill I was taught. No point in dragging it out any further.

Although SAWL taught me how to apply pressure to get answers, torture’s not my bag.

I pull out my knife, clean and sheath it.

Then the one from Thumb’s eye. Rumor didn’t lie.

There’s just a smooth socket under the patch.

Wonder why he didn’t have it regenned. Maybe he felt the same way about it that I feel about my scars: they’re just my life’s history, carved into my skin. Nothing to be ashamed of.

I glance around, assessing the scene. I’ve worn ThinSkin on my hands to avoid leaving my new fingerprints anywhere, and I don’t have any hair to shed, but I pocket the chopsticks, just in case, and unwind the spidersilk from Reg’s body.

Covering my tracks comes natural after so many years of doing it in SAWL.

Maybe I should be resentful about having to play assassin again, but I’m not. I’m doing what I do best, and killing in defense of my kitten is the best cause I’ve ever had.

When I’m sure the scene is clean, I dust my boot prints off the table, then tap the panel on my harness to reel myself back up into the airvent.

From there, it’s an easy climb to the warehouse roof, an easier rappel down, and then two blocks through the quiet streets of Nock to where my trike waits.