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“You weren’t expected,” said the man holding my blaster, and I took a good long look at him.
Dark-haired, brown eyed, a little taller than most, and pretty well built, he stood like a fighter, not a soldier. I was willing to bet he moved more like Tens than a Marine. And I was pretty darned sure he’d be hard to drop on his ass...and that was without the blaster. With the blaster, I had no chance, because he’d shoot me first.
His eyes told me that, and his face backed it up. I waited for him to get on with explaining what he meant. He seemed to be waiting for me to ask him something else. That was not how I was going to play the game.
It took him a minute to get the message, but then, he sighed.
“I don’t suppose you’ll tell me what you were doing down here...”
I looked at him.
“Like I said... It’s your house.”
His lips twitched, but he wasn’t amused.
“You’re the guest. Why don’t you introduce yourself?”
He made a fair point, except...
“I didn’t ask to be invited.”
Someone sighed behind me, and I was up and out of the seat, before I’d turned round.
I almost made it.
Two sets of hands grabbed hold and pulled me back onto my ass. This time they didn’t let go, and the holds were painful. A third person came into view. She was carrying an auto-injector that she slapped hard and fast into the base of my neck.
“Don’t be uncooperative,” she said, as my feet tried to run.
I looked at her, as she stepped back, and then around the table and out of view.
Uncooperative? Me?
“Lady, you have no idea,” I told her.
She came back into view, and held the auto-injector up in front of my face.
“You’re afraid of needles,” she said, as my body tried to get away, again.
I hit the floor with an unceremonious thump, and one of my escorts sat on my chest. My head was spinning, and it wasn’t from the rough handling. She stepped forward so I could see her face, but not her hands.
“Why don’t you answer Varian’s questions, okay? That way you and I won’t have to visit.”
It made perfect sense to me. I nodded, fear still curling through my chest, even as rebellion mingled.
The guy, sitting on me, got up and offered my hand. Frowning, just a little, I took it, and let him help me to my feet.
“Sit,” he said, “pointing to the bench.”
“Sure,” I managed. “Why not?
Varian? That was the name of the guy with my blaster? Weird ass!
“So, why don’t you tell us about yourself?”
As an opening to an interrogation, that was not a question I expected.
“Tens?” I asked, keeping it to my comms.
To my surprise, he came back.
“You’ve stuck your head in the lion’s den,” he said. “You might as well tell them who you are and why you’re there. I don’t think they’re going to take anything else.”
Case added her ten-cents’ worth.
“That, and I think they might have hit you with some kind of truth drug. Just tell ‘em why Barangail sent you, kiddo.”
Now, since when did Case ever... And how did she know I’d been hit with whatever it was. Truth drug? As in I couldn’t lie, would have trouble lying, or what? I closed my eyes and tilted my head back.
Great. I leant forward, putting my elbows on my knees as I covered my face with my palms. No one made a sound, so I sighed, rubbed my face with my hands, and looked up at Varian.
“My name is Jocelyn Cutter, and I am a retrieval specialist. I’m down here on commission from Lord Barangail the Asshole”—oops, that was a little more candid than I’d intended to be—“to find a bracelet that he said was stolen by a maid, the lying bastard.”
I stopped. It was hard. Whatever they’d given me made my mouth want to keep going, and I thought I’d shared quite enough. It was time to turn the tables.
“So, who were you waiting for upstairs?”
Varian looked momentarily surprised, and then ignored the question.
“Who are you looking for?” he asked, and I answered before my brain could censor anything.
“Not a who, a what. I just want the bracelet.”
“Do you know where it is?”
“It is being worn by Celia the concubine.”
“So, you’ll be taking Celia back to Barangail.”
“No. Just the bracelet. Not the person.” I shuddered, remembering Barangail ordering Mack’s legs be broken, the beating.... “Never the person.”
“Will you kill Barangail?”
“Not the mission.”
“I could make it the mission.”
“No, you couldn’t. I’m not the assassin—”
“Don’t go there, sweetheart,” Case said, and pain spiked through my skull.
I screamed, vaguely aware that Tens was shouting, and he wasn’t very impressed. Not at me, though. He was mad at someone else. Oh...good.
I let my head clear, and then realized I’d grabbed hold of it with my hands and was doubled over and rocking. I froze, before slowly straightening up. Varian waited until I was sitting upright.
“Who is the assassin?”
And my head rang with more pain. This time, I kept the reaction down to a gasp, but it was enough to cue him in. He handed off the blaster and came and knelt before me, resting a hand on my shoulder. Looking carefully into my eyes, he spoke—and he wasn’t speaking to me.
“Riders,” he said, and I wondered what the fuck they were, but what I wondered was nothing. “This is Varian of the Alpha Nine resistance. We have a commission for an assassin. Terms are as follows...”
I listened as he rattled off the terms for a darn fine contract, not trying to break the eye contact he seemed to find so important. Tens stopped shouting, and Case was silent. Stepyan surprised me by being the one to answer.
“Tell him Arc and Hammer agree to his terms, and will carry out the termination, once your contract has been honored.”
I blinked, and Varian stopped looking into my eyes, and drew back a little. This time his attention was completely on my face.
“What did they say?” he asked.
I licked my lips and met his gaze.
“They said to tell you that Arc and Hammer agreed to your terms, and would carry out the termination, once my contract has been honored.”
He snorted and patted my shoulder.
“Arc and Hammer,” he said, pushing to his feet and taking my blaster back. “Even I have heard of them. The Shady Marie carries an interesting crew.”
He resumed his position, and aimed the blaster at my head, while I sat and stared at him. Part of me was horrified that he’d rumbled the name of the ship, but another part of me was too busy agreeing with him to care.
“Yes,” my mouth was saying. “Yes, she does.”
Which was rapidly followed by, “Fuck it! When does this shit wear off?”
Even he found that funny.
Inside my head, though, Case, Stepyan and Tens were far from amused—and I didn’t have anything I could say to make it any better. I didn’t even have time to try and work something out, because Varian wasn’t finished with me.
“So, how do you intend to fulfil the mission without delivering Celia to Barangail?”
I shrugged, figuring there was no point in concealing the folk roaming about in my implant, seeing as he’d worked them out already, and seeing as my mouth was racing to give him the answer...
“Link to the ship. Tens will see what he can do.”
“Tens?”
“Comms guy,” said my mouth, while my brain was screaming ‘shutupshutup. Shut. The. Fuck. Up!’
“More...”
“Oh, Hell to the Hells, no! No. No. Nononono!”
“Stars, girl. You keep that up, you’re gonna break something. I can see why Mack likes you.”
I gasped. That was not what I needed to hear from Stepyan, or, maybe I did. Either way, I was grateful for the distraction, even if his mention of Mack and his likes had me blushing redder than a blood beet. I was even more grateful for his next words.
“Tell him Hammer says to keep his prying to himself, or he’ll be next, no commission required.”
I froze, the blood draining from my face as Stepyan’s words hit home. It took a second for me to realize my mouth was hanging open, and then I closed it, darting a nervous glance at Varian.
“What is it you don’t want me to know?”
So, it was going to be like that, was it? Well, in that case...
“Hammer says to keep your prying to yourself or you’ll be next, no commission required,” and then I clapped both hands over my mouth, but Stepyan wasn’t finished.
“Tell him this interrogation is over if he wants to live—and nothing had better happen to the feed from your implant, or I’ll come down there and go looking for him myself.”
“I can’t,” I whispered, squeezing my eyes tight shut, and hunching over my knees.
“Tell him!” roared through my skull, and my mouth complied.
When I was done, I raised my head, and studied Varian’s face. The others in the room were staring at me, and Varian was glowering. I guess he didn’t like being threatened by a renowned assassin. I raised an eyebrow, and pushed to my feet.
My intention had been to walk my way out of there, just as casual as you please, but you know about intentions, right? Mine ended when my ankle gave way and I ended up landing, face first, on the floor.
“Oh, for pity’s sake!”
I knew that voice. I rolled, just in time for the woman with the auto-injector to plant her foot firmly in the middle of my chest. She caught my panicked glance, and held up empty hands.
“I need to strap your ankle,” she said, catching my eye. “Okay?”
“Okay?” she repeated, when I continued to stare, bouncing her foot.
“Okay. Okay.”
“Good.” She took her foot off my chest. “Now, stay right there.”
I propped myself up on my elbows and watched her walk back around the table to the cabinet built into the wall, and then I caught sight of someone standing above me. I looked up, and met Varian’s eyes.
“You heard the lady,” he said, and I rolled my eyes.
“And for Pete’s sake, Varian. Put the stars-be-damned blaster away.”
I held out my hand, and he shook his head.
“Not an ice cube’s chance in...”
He stopped, abruptly.
“Hell,” he finished, after a brief pause, but I got the distinct impression that hadn’t been the first word he’d wanted to say.
“Why not?” I challenged, pushing the tiny piece of strangeness aside, and hoping it wouldn’t come back to haunt me, later. “It’s not like I need to shoot you. You’ve made a bargain with an assassin, and he’s said to leave me alone, so you’re not exactly a threat, are you?”
He glared at me, as three voices made their annoyance known.
“I guess the pentosdial works really well on you,” he said, and I closed my eyes, listening to my know-it-all mouth drop me in the shit, again.
“Sure it does, and so do most of the others.” I closed my eyes. “I hate you. I hate this shit and I ha—”
The sentence ended in a yelp, as the woman returned and wrapped firm hands around my ankle and boot.
“Looks like I might need to cut these off,” she began, which only brought me protesting upright.
“Don’t,” I stopped. “Let me try to take my foot out of it first.”
“How about we just leave it on and strap over the top of it?” Varian suggested. “There’s a few miles to walk to base, and we don’t have time for nanites.”
These guys had nanites?
My eyes widened, and I searched the woman for any sign of another injector, my leg going tense in her grip. She glared at Varian, and slapped me on the thigh.
“You,” she said, stabbing a finger in his direction, “need to call ahead and let them know we’re coming, and you,” she added, pointing her finger at me, “need to calm right down. Pentosdial. I’m not injecting you with anything, just strapping your leg. See?”
And she held up a roll of bandages. I nodded. I did see. I just didn’t believe her. She looked like she knew her way around doctoring, just as good as Doc—and Doc was full of tricks, when it came to sticking me with the shots we both knew I needed. The man was a trypanophobic’s nightmare—and I figured this woman wasn’t far behind him.
“What’s your name?” I asked, as she smoothed the leg of my combat fatigues down flat, and started wrapping.
“Judith,” she said.
“You been a medic long?”
She smiled, a small, tight smile acknowledging what I was doing.
“I think I’ve been doctoring since the time you were in diapers.”
I frowned.
“How old...” I let my voice trail off, as she shook her head.
“Don’t make me hurt you.”
Well, fine, then.
She caught the look on my face and laughed.
“I stopped counting when I hit fifty-six.”
“Why...” but her smile faded, and she shook her head, and I caught the looks of concern that flitted across the faces of the people standing around us. “Nev—Ow!”
“How are you intending on getting the bracelet off Celia’s wrist?” Judith asked, easing the bandage she’d just pulled tight.
“Tens?” I asked, calling him through the comms.
“I’ve found a way to reverse the locking mechanism in the absence of Barangail’s thumb-print.”
I relayed that to Judith, the rebels listening with interest.
“I’d like to speak with your Tens, one day,” Varian said, and I dodged an outright no.
“That’ll be up to him,” I said, wincing as Tens snapped his refusal.
“Oh, Hell to the Hells, no!”
It was something I didn’t relay.