She could hear laughing. The sound only fueled the icy cold rage inside her, the grim determination to take her vengeance, right then and there. It was something she needed, something that couldn’t wait any longer. Lorillard was dead, and Jammar as well. Some of the others had left, taken the moderate fortunes they’d managed to collect, and fled from the brutality of frontier prospecting. She understood. It was hard to lose so many friends, to press on after such losses. She thought nothing less of any of them, and she wished them well in their lives, thoughts that were tempered only by the pain that they too, were gone in their own way, leaving a pang of loss nearly as cutting as the ones left by the dead.

  This is for all of you…

  Andi couldn’t walk away. Not from the frontier, not from prospecting. And damned sure, not from the revenge she’d vowed to gain for her lost friends.

  She stood right outside the door, peering in, catching the hint of a shadow on one of the walls. She focused, her mind like a laser, creating a view of the room. It was partial, and likely not entirely accurate, but it was what she had.

  She pulled the pistol from its holster, gripped it tightly.

  It was time.

  She lunged through the door, turning to the right almost immediately, her eyes finding the table, with two men sitting opposite each other. They’d been talking…but now they were reacting, reaching for weapons.

  Andi’s arm came up, finding the first target. She’s picked out Darvin as the greatest danger. He was closest to facing her, and he’d seen her first. His own hand was reaching, almost certainly for some kind of weapon.

  She fired her pistol, and Darvin’s shoulder exploded in a spray of blood. Even as her primary target dropped his weapon and screamed in agony, she was moving, bringing her weapon to bear on the second man. Sector Nine, she told herself as her eyes settled on him. Probably bringing this miserable traitor the last of his reward for setting us up.

  No…you are delivering the last of his reward for that.

  She fired twice, both shots taking the man in the head, shattering his skull and sending blood and brain across the room, splattering against the wall like some grotesque work of art.

  It was art, she knew. Her art.

  Darvin had fallen to his knees next to the chair. He was screaming in pain, and his face was covered with a mask of tears. Every shout of pain, every stream of tears, invigorated Andi.

  Revenge was nothing new to her. She’d been wronged before, and she’d taken her vengeance for it. But the rage inside her was stronger, more concentrated than any she’d felt before. She’d loved the Marine like a father, but the old man was as guilty in his own death than anyone else. The system that created a world like Parsephon, that had killed her real father, thrown her mother out into the street to scratch out survival as well as she could, and ultimately die there…it enraged her, but there was a facelessness to it, a strange inevitability that made it seem almost like a natural occurrence.

  But this was much clearer. Her comrades had died because of the man kneeling in front of her. He had set them up, willingly and deliberately, sent them to the depths of the Badlands to die.

  His bill had come due.

  She stepped forward, standing over him, kicking away the gun he was making a weak effort to reach.

  “You sent us out there to die, Darvin. And you succeeded, at least in part. But when you set people up, lure them into a trap…it’s a bad idea to leave any of them alive.” Even she was surprised at the venom in her voice. She could see Jim Lorillard’s face hovering in front of her, and the whimpers and grunts of her enemy, every sign he gave of the pain and fear he was feeling, filled her with a satisfied energy. She had no pity for the miserable creature lying in front of her, no remorse.

  No mercy.

  “No…please…I didn’t know…” He was trying to move his body, to wriggle along the floor, away from the mad woman standing over him.

  “You disappoint me, Darvin. You’re a miserable scrap of human waste, but I thought at least you’d be a good liar. Better than the stooge you hired to give us the job.” She paused, taking a second to savor her victim’s fear. “Yeah, you didn’t expect that to protect you, did you? You banked on us being pretty stupid. That was a mistake. It only took an hour to find the fool, and he spilled his guts—in more ways than one—in just a few minutes. He gave you up before I even really hurt him.” She stepped forward again, offsetting the half meter or so Darvin had managed to slide away.

  “Please…please…”

  “This is for Captain Lorillard…” She paused, just for a second or two. Then she shot him dead center in the kneecap.

  Darvin screamed in pain, an almost deafening, howl of pure agony. He lurched to the side, grabbing at the shattered knee, his face soaked with tears.

  Andi fired again, right at his second knee. “And that is for all that the others have been through.” She listened to his cries, his pathetic screams. To her, the sounds were a symphony, the music of pure satisfaction, of perfect justice…if such a thing could exist.

  Andi stepped forward again, standing directly over Darvin. “I’d enjoy continuing this at some length, you miserable piece of shit, but I’m afraid I have other things to do.” Not exactly true, but Andi had no intention of losing her tactical sense amid her orgy of vengeance. Darvin had more men than the one she’d put down at the door, and she could only guess how many Sector Nine maggots were crawling around Dannith’s Spacer’s District. She had resolved never to forget one of the enemy ships had escaped. The station was gone, so there was no danger of the Union gaining control of its tech, but Sector Nine tended to hold grudges, and she wasn’t sure just how much they knew about her and the rest of the crew. That made it time to get out of there.

  Not to mention conventional law enforcement, at least what there was of it in the District. She was meting out justice, she had no doubt at all of that. But the police might not agree. It was time to finish things.

  “So, I’m afraid we’re going to have to wrap this up now, Darvin.” She raised the pistol, aiming it dead center on his forehead. “This one, you miserable pile of excrement…this one is for me.”

  She pulled the trigger, her finger moving slowly, as she relished every instant of the kill.

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Central Business District, Port Royal City

  Planet Dannith, Ventica III

  Year 301 AC

  Andi walked out of the bank, somber, feeling as though her mind was in a dozen places at once. She’d listened to Captain Lorillard’s message, the recorded instructions he’d left her in the event of his death. Some of it had been meant just for her, to help her to carry her new responsibilities, the burdens he had left her, along with great opportunities. She’d come to admire and respect the captain, and in spite of the—strange—way Andi had become part of the crew, she’d known for some time that Lorillard returned the respect. He’d become another mentor to him, of a sort. The Marine had taught her how to fight, to survive, but his lessons had been confined to the streets of the Gut. Now, she had spent two years prowling the darkness of the Badlands, scouring the ruins of the old empire. The Marine had prepared her, begun her education, but Lorillard had completed it, at least enough to bequeath the ship to her, and with it, responsibility for the others.

  And something else. Andi had been stunned to discover Lorillard had a child, a daughter. The message hadn’t gone into any real detail about their history, save that Lorillard was sure she had no use for him. It was clear they were estranged, and that he hadn’t seen her in many years. But he had never forgotten her, and the only thing he’d requested of Andi, save for taking care of the crew, was to see that his money, the gains of almost a decade’s adventures on the Badlands frontier, got to her, somehow.

  Andi knew nothing about such things, but she solved that by seeking out one of Dannith’s most prestigious attorneys…at least most prestigious among those who dealt in the shadowy gray area usually frequented by Badlands prospectors, and their technically illegal profits.

  She’d set up a trust, the lawyer’s suggestion, and a safeguard against Lorillard’s daughter refusing the money, or giving it away out of anger and resentment. The captain had been her friend. He wanted his daughter to have that money, and if not her, perhaps any grandchildren he might one day have. Andi was determined to see that it was so. There was no way to force Lorillard’s daughter to use it, of course, but the trust would always be there for her, anytime she wanted it.

  Whatever her disputes with her father, he had left her a wealthy woman. The captain had never made a massive score—save the one they had just obliterated—but he’d accumulated considerable gains over the years, and he had spent little beyond the costs of repairing and upgrading Nightrunner.

  Andi had done more than set up a trust. She’d used her time in the bank to multiple ends. She had transferred funds from the numbered accounts directly to Sylene and Tyrell, both of whom had decided the nightmare they’d just come through, and the losses they had suffered, were just too much. They weren’t monstrously rich, perhaps, but they both had enough to retire in reasonable comfort. Andi had also dealt with Jammar’s money. There was a file in the ship’s AI, with instructions all of them had left in the event of their deaths. Jammar had parents on Garillon, a world out near the Far Rim. Andi didn’t know much about it, but she suspected it was a pretty poor planet, and she had no doubt the money would make her comrade’s parents very well off indeed, at least by local standards.

  Though, she suspected it would be a poor swap for their son. Andi didn’t know anything about Jammar’s relationship with his parents, but she remembered enough about her own mother, and the almost sole focus she had placed on protecting Andi, whatever the cost. She tired to imagine how her mother would have fared if it had been Andi who died, leaving her mother staring down at her young daughter’s corpse.

  She’d shed some tears for Jammar’s parents when she’d read the file entry about them, though she suspected they were, in fact, mostly for herself. She’d come a long way from Parsephon, but there was still something deep inside, a self-loathing of sorts. She was driven to create a better circumstance for herself, but there was always guilt there when her own advancement contrasted with her memories of her mother dead in the street, or the Marine, as his life slipped away. She’d some to realize just how much of the rage that drove her had come from those thoughts, from the realizations that the people she’d cared the most for were gone, and no matter how much success she found, there was nothing she could do for them.

  The rest of the crew had decided to stay with the ship, which left her with half a crew, at least. Even Gregor had insisted he would return, as soon as he got out of the hospital. Andi wondered what the giant would look like with his new prosthetic arm. She’d been to see him twice, but as of the last time, the doctors still hadn’t attached it yet. It had been a special order, of course. Few hospitals stocked such things in the giant’s size.

  She’d had one more task in the bank. She’d converted almost every credit she had herself into portable platinum coins. Durango’s contact had given them a very fair price for their swag, and she’d seen the proceeds added to the crew’s accounts. All save her share.

  The repairs on the ship had cost her every milli-credit she’d cleared from the mission, plus most of what she’d already had from past missions. She’d just withdrawn the last of it—a transaction that wouldn’t have been possible, at least with the needed confidentially, at another bank. But Lorillard had chosen institutions well, as he’d done with everything else she’d seen over the past two years.

  She had enough money left to fill up the fuel tanks and the food lockers. Maybe. She needed another mission, a fresh job, one that would allow her to replenish her cash and put her on less shaky ground, and she needed it fast. She was wealthy, of course, at least on paper. The ship was valuable, even more so to the right buyer who would appreciate some of the special features Lorillard had installed over the years. But aside from Nightrunner, she hardly had a couple of coins to rub together.

  That was nothing new, but somehow, she didn’t think a Badlands prospector and a ship owner was going to make up any cash shortfalls by lifting packages on the streets or robbing plush houses. She didn’t need that anymore. There was money to be made, she knew that.

  But it wasn’t on Dannith. It wasn’t anywhere in the Confederation.

  It was out there, somewhere.

  Out in the Badlands.

  * * *

  “I’m going to miss you.” Andi’s face was somber, her sadness on display. She’d become close with all of her comrades, but she’d forged a special bond with Sylene. They were nothing alike, of course. Sy was highly educated, Andi was a street rat from the Gut. Sylene had never been much in a fight, and Andi had become a practiced killer. But there had been something between them, a chemistry of sorts, and they’d quickly gone from shipmates to best friends, almost sisters.

  And now, Sy was leaving. Andi understood. Her friend had served a long while under Captain Lorillard, but she’d never really been suited to the life. Losing the captain and Jammar, and coming so close to death herself…it had just been too much for her. They’d been back for months now, and Andi had noticed Sylene’s hands still shook uncontrollably. She’d almost tried to convince her friend to stay, but she knew Sy didn’t belong out there, certainly not anymore. As much as it hurt her to see her friend go, if she convinced her to stay, that pain would one day be a hundred times worse, mourning her comrade’s death instead of her departure.

  “I’m going to miss you, too, Andi. But we’ll see each other again, hopefully soon.”

  Andi just nodded. That was the kind of thing people said, and she understood why, but that didn’t make it any more likely. It felt better for people to tell themselves what they wanted to believe. There was often only pain in facing reality. But Sy was heading for the planet Callisto, halfway across the Confederation. Andi had her new responsibilities, and she couldn’t imagine when she’d ever get the chance to go there.

  She wasn’t sure she’d never see Sylene again, but she also knew the goodbye was, for all intents and purposes, as good as a final farewell.

  “My brother is here, Andi. You remember, I told you about him.”

  “Yes, of course.” Andi hadn’t even though yet about recruiting replacements for the crew, but when that painful duty came on her, she figured she would be tougher even, than Lorillard had been on her. Anybody who wanted a place on her ship had to prove he or she was worthy. She’d make them walk over hot coals, just to see if they could take it.

  But not this time. She didn’t know anything much about Sy’s brother, save that he’d been in some kind of military training back on their homeworld, when whatever scandal had destroyed her career, had also rippled out and derailed his. Andi could tell how deeply responsible Sylene felt for her younger brother, and she hadn’t found it in herself to do anything but promise she’d take him aboard the ship, sight unseen.

  “Come in now…” Sylene turned and shouted toward the other room.

  A man walked through the doorway a few seconds later. He was young, tall, reasonably muscular. He looked like a good match for the crew, save for the unbearably eager expression on his face.

  Remember yourself back in the Shooting Star and hold back your judgments…

  “This is Captain Andromeda Lafarge. She has agreed to take you on the crew…because I asked her to. Never forget that. If I hear you’ve been anything but loyal and dependable, I will come back here and deal with you myself.”

  “I will, Sis…I promise.” He turned toward Andi. “Captain, thank you so much for the chance. I promise I will do whatever you need me to do. I won’t fail you, whatever it takes.”

  Andi nodded, but before she could say anything, Sylene spoke again.

  “Andi, this is my brother. Vigorsky Merrick…but everybody calls him Vig.”

  * * *

  “It looks great, Durango. Better than I’d dared to hope. Not cheap, by any means, but a solid job.” Andi had gone over every system in Nightrunner, with Yarra in tow. She was still an old ship, and far from a luxury ride, but Durango and his shady team of engineers had done right by her. They’d charged her almost every credit she had, but they’d gotten the old ship ready to go, as promised.

  “It was a big job for us, Andi. We usually fix ships that are banged up, or where some old system finally gave up the ghost. You guys had one hell of a fight out there. We barely managed to get her back in shape for you.”

  Andi didn’t elaborate on the battle. What had happened in the Osiron system was between her and her crew.

  “There’s one other thing…”

  Andi turned toward the engineer. “What is it?” She wasn’t sure if Durango was going to try to pull something, some kind of last-minute scam. She tensed up.

  “I’ve got a pretty good ear to the ground, Andi…I think you know that.”

  “I do.” She was confused. Where is this going?

  “Well, you don’t have to tell me what went on out there—in fact, I’d actually prefer you didn’t—but there have been some folks asking around about a ship. A ship called Nightrunner.”

  Andi stared back at him, her eyes like lasers. “Some folks?” She knew he could do better than that.

  He looked around, in both directions, and then he leaned toward her. “Sector Nine.” For the first time since she’d met him, Andi could hear fear in his voice.

  “Sector Nine is looking for us?”

  Durango looked around again, in both directions, an uncomfortable look on his face. “Well, all I’ve heard is the ship’s name. I can’t speak for what else they know…but it might not be the healthiest thing to fly back to Dannith and broadcast your arrival.”

  Andi shook her head. Great, just great. She needed to get back out here, and the Spacer’s District was the first step to that. What the hell am I going to do now?