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“ T his is how it’s gonna go,” I say to B, but for everyone’s edification.

“You’re headin’ back to the Clouds with Acker to spend some quality time with the rats.

Payton’ll take over Ops here in your absence.

Payton, not another flake of Hex leaves this place.

Shut this shit down any way you want. Kez’ll make the announcement while I have a chat with the bitch who shot me. Twice. Everyone got that?”

I glance right and left to make sure everyone’s on board.

Acker nods grimly. Payton’s already tapping commands into her palmtop.

The three Jielt employees – Mech Tyng and B’s two flunkies – have drawn back to the edges of the room and are watching with expressions of horror and fascination.

They ain’t coming to B’s rescue. That just leaves the three mercs.

I turn my head a little to find Exeter guarding the door. “We good?”

He nods. “If you’re going to meet Miz Agosante, I’d be happy to have your back while Dav and Clarkie cover Miz Kerryon.”

Good man. “Your contract’s gettin’ longer by the minute. Kez? ”

She slides around B and stands with her back to him, facing me. I tilt my head so she can speak close to my ear.

“You’re going to kill her, right?”

“Figured I might ask what she wants first.”

“I can tell you that. Same as she’s always wanted. Credits, lots of credits, and she doesn’t care who she hurts to get them.”

I nod. I don’t doubt that Kez is right. She knows her sister. But I need to know how deep the rabbit-hole goes. “After she tells me that, you think I should waste her?” I ask.

“Yes,” Kez says firmly. “I should have known she was behind this. It stinks of her. Just like when we were kids. Do not give her another chance to shoot you.”

“Okay.”

“I mean it,” she says, looking up at me. Her big blues have gone hard and glassy. Her killing stare, which I’ve only seen a few times. “If you let her hurt you, I’ll kill you myself.”

I let my lips twitch. For a moment there, I thought my kitten had lost her sense of humor.

“Well, we wouldn’t want that,” I say. “Acker, inefficient and insubordinate here’s all yours.” I withdraw the katana, wipe the tip on my pants leg and sheathe it.

Acker takes out one of the kukris I’ve made him and motions B over to the corner furthest from where Payton’s working. When B reaches the corner, Acker makes him kneel and face the corner. I lift an eyebrow at the rat-man who shrugs. “I didn’t think to bring restraints. Did you?”

“Nope.”

“Dav,” Exeter says. The merc moves over to B and secures his hands behind him with a plaz tie.

“Now you’re just showin’ off,” I say to Exeter.

He gives me a wide, white grin.

“Back in five,” I tell Kez. She nods and rejoins Payton at the monitors.

As I head towards the door, B cranes his head over his shoulder. “ Mister Snow, do I really have to kneel? I’m not going anywhere until this matter is resolved. As I’m sure it will be, to everyone’s satisfaction.” When I don’t say anything, he whines, “I have bad knees.”

“Ask him,” I say, cocking my thumb at Acker.

Acker lifts one edge of his muzzle to show a wickedly sharp canine. “I don’t speak to monsters.”

“There you go,” I say and gesture at Mech Tyng and then the door. Whatever’s kept her from being promoted beyond greeter, it ain’t perception. She moves immediately, opening the door and beckoning me through.

“Where’s Erin?” I ask her.

“Miz Agosante is overseeing the final sign-off on the shipment, sir.”

“What shipment?”

“The shipment to the Clouds.”

Jaxon’s sweetener. “When’s it scheduled to go?”

“Twenty-two minutes, sir.”

Not if I have anything to say about it.

Mech Tyng leads us back up to ground level, through the showy lobby and out onto the loading platform.

The outer shield doors are closed, but a breeze still circulates through the platform.

It carries the unmistakable stink of brine from the hypersaline ponds winking in the morning sun beyond the shield.

The platform’s busy, particularly given how early it is.

Massive plaz containers are being checked and double-checked by a dozen techs before they’re loaded onto the industrial-sized skimmer I saw coming in.

I’m more than familiar with those containers: they’re desalinated water of various grades: standard up to T-White.

The grade is holoprinted on the side of each container.

They’ll be decanted at the other end of wherever this shipment is going and sold off bulb by bulb.

Standard carries a ten percent profit margin, while the margin on T-White is nineteen percent.

Too bad they’re nothing like the seventy percent profit the company sees on Hex.

I don’t see any Hex containers at all. They’re not specialized; you can ship Hex in anything so long as it stays dry. But the crystal shit dissolves in water, so it’s not in the big plaz containers.

Guess I was wrong about how they’re shipping the Hex.

I’m not wrong about the woman who looks up at my entrance. She flips the long, blonde banner of her hair over her shoulder and hands her palmtop to a tech. Her blue eyes, a shade paler and several layers of Hell colder than Kez’s, hold mine as she saunters across the dusty permacrete loading dock.

“Manny, how nice to see you,” she says as she draws near.

I should never have told her my SAWL nickname.

She leans in to give me a kiss, but I step back. I don’t want this woman touching me, not under any circumstances.

She pouts, pursing lips redder than the sunrise. “No hello for your sister-in-law?”

“Pretty sure you told Kez she didn’t have a sister,” I remind her. “What’re you doin’ here? Thought you took my ship and upped system.”

“Why should I leave? You’ve done such a fine job of eliminating anyone who posed a threat to me. I’m much safer on Kuseros than off-world.”

Kuseros would be safer if she was off-world. “If I’d known you were still around, I’da had you help with the cull. Earn your keep. Why’re you hiding here in Jielt?”

“Actually, I’ve always been part of the SoBo team. Zhonnys was just an unpleasant vacation. But even if this wasn’t home, Hemos wouldn’t be a good place for me right now, would it? You never know who might hold a grudge.” She winks at me. “Besides, there’s plenty here to keep me busy.”

“Yeah? This looks pretty routine.” I nod at the loading process. It is routine. Much too routine for Erin-the-Assassin to be supervising.

“Does it?” Erin arches an eyebrow. “I’m so pleased.”

Definitely a cover. “Where’s the Hex, Erin?”

“Wouldn’t you like to know?” She flashes white teeth between those red, red lips. “Shall I let you in on a secret?” When I nod, she leans in close and blows into my ear before she says in a stage-whisper, “It’s in the water.”

“Hex dissolves. Drinkin’ it don’t even give you a buzz.”

“True,” she says. “But B’s real gifts aren’t in administration.

He’s a chemist, and he found an alternative form.

A polymerase, I think he called it. Dissolves completely.

No taste, no smell. Add a catalyst and the Hex precipitates out.

Into beautiful crystal flowers, I’m told.

The water’s a loss of course, but that’s incidental. We just run it off. Isn’t he clever?”

“Explains why you’ve kept him around.”

She gives me another predatory smile while she cleans under one of her stiletto fingernails with another. “That and the day-to-day management of this place is so tedious. But you’d know all about that. I hear you and Kez are managing the company top to bottom now.”

“Yeah, what else you heard?”

“This and that, Manny, this and that. Not everyone is happy with the changes you’re making. Or the plans you have for the company.”

“No? You’d rather ship the shit off-world? Poison the whole system?”

“Oh, my, my,” Erin simpers. “Let that slip, did B? He’s terribly clever, but not terribly bright.”

“I’m shutting it down, Erin. End of the line.”

“Are you, when we’re just getting started? What a shame. But how will you shut it down, Halemano ?” She emphasizes my real name. “When you authorized each and every step?”

“You figure it out or someone tell you?” I ask.

“Does it matter?”

Someone told her.

“Probably not. What I did, I can undo, and I’m startin’ here, today. Tell your little friends to stop loadin’. None of this is goin’ anywhere.”

Erin’s teeth flash again. “Don’t you think you should check with Kez first? If this shipment doesn’t go, the company will be in serious breach of contract with its distributors in the Clouds. Thirty million liters. That’s a lot of thirsty people, Manny.”

I glance over my shoulder at Exeter. “Ask your boys to bring Kez up here,” I tell him.

He nods and cups his hand over his ear. Speaks low and fast.

“You want to involve Kez? Fine by me,” I tell Erin. “Just remember when she hands you your ass, it was you that asked for her.”

Kez arrives a few minutes later. Lightning should be crackling around her, she’s so pissed off. Payton’s a step or two behind her and her expression’s pretty black, too, but nothing to match the rage on my kitten’s face.

Kez stalks straight to her sister and without telegraphing the move, punches Erin in the nose.

Erin lands on her designer ass. The crack of her tailbone on the ceramsteel floor makes everyone within hearing-distance wince.

“Kezzy—” Erin protests weakly. She dabs at her nose, which leaks a thin stream of blood a shade brighter than her lips.

“You fucking bitch!” Kez roars, shaking out her hand. “I left you alone! I didn’t even look for you. All you had to do was go. But no! It’s never enough for you! When will it be enough, Erin? Do you need to own the whole galaxy!”

Erin blinks up at her sister. Guess she’s never seen Kez lose it before. I have. Once at Ape. Once at me. Only the people you love can drive you this far over the edge.