Given a choice, Andi wasn’t about to bring a knife to a gunfight.

  She snapped back up to her feet, wincing at the pain in her legs as she did. But even as she was ready to jump back into the fight, she could see Darvin and his people moving back toward the exit. They left two of their own behind, the man she’d killed and another who was badly wounded, and probably dying. She glanced quickly over at Lorillard and his crew. Two of them had been shot, and two others had knife wounds. None of it looked life threatening, but they didn’t seem to have any appetite to chase their retreating enemies either.

  She stood where she was for a few seconds, not sure what to do. Should she run? She’d intervened to save Captain Lorillard, but who was going to believe some vagrant with no identification, no one to vouch for her? Had she escaped a murder conviction on Parsephon only to exchange it for one on Dannith?

  She could hear Lorillard snapping out commands. “Get Jammar, bandaged up. Doc will have to get the bullet out later. And, Tyrell, you help Jackal. We’d better be careful on the way back to the ship. I think those fools had enough, but you never know.”

  “Yes, Cap…we’re on it.”

  Andi turned slowly, thinking she’d better get the hell out, too. She took one step, and then she heard the voice behind her.

  “You are a scrappy little thing, aren’t you?”

  She stopped, and her heart rate surged again. The voice was Lorillard’s.

  She turned around. “I try.” She was struggling to stay calm, which was far from easy under the circumstances.

  “You’re a cool customer, too. I’m impressed. It can’t be easy to pull that off, not after a fight like we just had. I’d have been shitting my pants when I was your age.”

  “I’m from Vulcan City, on Parsephon. Neighborhood called the Gut. They stack the bodies like cordwood there.” She stared back at Lorillard, her eyes cold, focused. She was flipping out inside, but she kept it there, hidden from view.

  “I’ve heard of the Gut. Might be the worst dump in the Confederation, at least some say.”

  “Not if they’ve been there. Wouldn’t be any ‘might’ in that if they had.”

  “Well, you’re sure handy with a knife, so maybe I could make an exception to my usual requirements. Don’t make me regret it, though. Don’t turn into some kind of snotnosed kid on me. Nightrunner’s a tight ship, and we all do our jobs.

  “I’m no kid. I told you that.” Her heart was racing now. She was trying not to jump to conclusions or get ahead of things.

  “So, where’s your stuff?”

  She reached behind her, realizing her bag was gone. She looked around her, spying it on the floor about a meter away. She reached down and grabbed it, holding it up. “Here.”

  “You travel light. I like that.” A pause. “Well, we better get the hell out of here. Clevus over there will smooth things out with the authorities…” He turned and looked over at the bartender, nodding to one of his people as he did. The spacer threw a small sack of coins onto the bar.

  “Yeah, I’ll do what I can, Jim.” Clevus scooped up the small purse as he spoke. “But we got one body, and from the looks of things, we’re gonna have two in a minute. I’ll do my best, but they’re gonna want to talk to you at least.”

  “Good enough. I’ll go down and straighten things out in the morning, okay?” He nodded to Clevus, and then he turned back to Andi.

  “Well, you ready to go?”

  “You mean…” She was trying to contain her excitement.

  “Spacer’s gods, kid…you saved my life. What kind of shit would I be if I left you behind now?” A pause, short, no more than two or three seconds. “Now let’s get the hell out of here. And welcome to Nightrunner.”

  Chapter Ten

  Free Trader Nightrunner

  Approaching Dannith

  Ventica III

  Year 301 AC

  “Andi stared across the table, her eyes fixed on the man opposite her. Everyone else had thrown in their cards, but Gregor had just raised her. Poker games on Nightrunner were cutthroat affairs, just about the only time the tightly-knit crew pitted themselves against each other and not as a team facing off against the rest of the universe. Andi missed the Marine every day, and she remembered her days on Belstar with wistful sadness.

  But she’d come to realize Nightrunner was the only true home she’d ever had.

  She caught a blink, no more than that. It was a nervous tick. Without another thought, she reached out and shoved her chips into the middle of the table. “I’m all in.”

  Gregor was her friend, almost like a brother, but he could expect no mercy, not at this table. Nor, she knew, would he show her any.

  She waited, watching for a few seconds as her shipmate maintained the bluff. Then, she felt a wave of satisfaction as he threw his cards into the middle of the table. “Take it down,” he said, morosely, as if she had just dealt him a fatal wound.

  She smiled, and she reached out to pull the chips in. Poker was no joke on Nightrunner, and a ‘take no prisoners’ mentality was always in play. Andi had sat in for a few hands on Belstar, but the crew of the freighter used the AI to deal and to monitor the game. Her first day on Nightrunner was the first time she’d seen the game played with actual cards, and real, physical chips. She’d watched a couple sessions before she’d sat down at her first game, and she’d lost twice, badly, before she got the hang of it. But now, she was Nightrunner’s resident card shark, a sort of local hero, especially now, when the crew had informal plans to hit Port Royal City’s best card games, and fleece the gamblers there.

  The games in the ship were feral affairs, but once they went outside, they were one, as they were in all other things.

  She stacked her chips, her fingers moving quickly, with practiced excellence. She counted them swiftly, coming up with about two hundred credits in winnings. That brought her total for the trip to just over a thousand. It was the most she’d ever won, but that was no real surprise. The stakes in Nightrunner’s games had increased with the successful conclusion of the mission. It hadn’t been the big score—the retirement score—not by a longshot, but there were circuit boards and half a dozen highly advanced processor chips in a secure box in the hold. It was a haul, a good one, worth enough for the crew to go on one wild bender in Port Royal City, and even for them all to take suites in the Regency or Starlight, or one of the other high-end hotels far away from the Spacer’s district, and its tawdry establishments.

  There would be money left, a good amount, to add to their stash. The crew kept their funds together, mostly so the total was high enough to maintain an elite level numbered Aurelian account. Aurelius was the banking center of the Confederation, at least for those desiring privacy and discretion, and the Nightrunner account had become sizable. Andi’s share was small, of course. After two years on the ship she was still the rookie. But it was more money than she’d ever had, and if it wasn’t enough for a nineteen—soon to be twenty—year old to retire on, it was enough, at least, to make her feel strange. For the first time in her life, she didn’t feel like she was standing on the brink, at least not financially. There was danger, of course, and she’d taken a pretty bad laser hit about nine months earlier. It had been painful, and it had left a large scar on her thigh, but beyond that, it had heeled completely, leaving her only with an increased appreciation for imperial defense systems well-constructed enough to remain operative more than three centuries after the Cataclysm.

  She was still the newest member of the crew, but she was one of them now, utterly and completely. She’d gained her way onto the ship by saving Captain Lorillard’s life, and she’d since saved Anna’s as well, and possibly Jackal’s, too. And, Yarra had saved hers, and taken a bullet for it. It was of such things that a Badlands prospecting crew—a team—was made.

  Through all the danger, the last two years had been good ones. They’d been profitable, at least reasonably so and, more importantly, no one had been killed or injured seriously enough to be put out of the game. If they hadn’t won their fortunes in one killer score, at least they’d moved steadily toward it. And they were all still there, still at it.

  Andi sometimes felt a touch of guilt at how content she’d become on Nightrunner. She remembered her mother fondly, and the Marine, Captain Hiram…the people she now realized had helped her to survive, and ultimately to prosper. Some of them had paid a price for that, her mother certainly. She’d been ten when her mother died, too young to be of much help. She tried not to think of the things her mother had been forced to do to keep them alive, the constant fatigue and fear and sadness she had felt every day. She didn’t speak to anyone about her mother. She’d hardly even told the Marine about her, but she still missed her terribly, and some mornings she woke up sad, tears on her face.

  She ached for the Marine, too, and she still seethed at the way he had died, but she’d come to understand she hadn’t been responsible for his death. He had brought that on himself, and if anyone else had been to blame, it was those who had pushed undeserved misfortune on him, sending him on a downward spiral that ended in a pool of blood in the Gut. Thoughts of that angered her, and it only increased her hatred of authority and her grim certainty that all who tried to impose their will on her were her enemies. Appointments by political allies and corrupt elections didn’t add any ethical validity to unjust laws, not in her view. The government, and the naval forces that patrolled the frontier and, periodically, went on a run of chasing down exploratory ships and searching them for contraband, were just like any other danger. To be watched and avoided—or defeated, if necessary—but never to be respected as some sort of moral authority.

  She scooped up the chips, and walked over to the small bowl that held the coin the crew members had put up as their stakes. Nightrunner’s poker games were always played for hard currency, and never for electronic credits. The ship’s AI could link to any normal bank on Dannith, of course, but the ship’s crew kept their money in the numbered account…or in their pockets. Andi wasn’t the only one aboard with little or no trust for the system.

  “Alright, you gambling degenerates back there, pack it up and get yourselves all strapped in. We’ll be moving into orbit in ten minutes, and commencing landing ops as soon as planetary control gives us the go ahead.”

  Andi took a deep breath. This had been her fifth run on Nightrunner, and the whole process had become familiar. She was somewhat excited about some time in port, though not as much as the others, if she was being honest with herself. Still, she knew they had to come back, if only to pick up some intel or leads for the next mission. A ship with Nightrunner’s reputation wasn’t forced to simply wander around the Badlands hoping to find something. There were information brokers all through the Spacer’s District, gathering data from scientific missions and other sources—even naval ships, Andi had been told—paying the sources in immediate cash and then leveraging their intel by partnering with experienced captains and crews. Captain Lorillard would put the word out that Nightrunner was looking for a mission. Then, he would comb through the offers, weeding out the ones that didn’t smell right. There were enough scams and plenty of useless leads making their way around the District, and no small number of traps and deadly dangerous expeditions. A captain like Lorillard had considerable experience in sifting through such things looking for the best. It was far from a guarantee, of course, but Andi had come to trust the captain’s judgment.

  The rest of the crew would enjoy varying degrees of debauchery, but Andi mostly stayed behind when they did. She’d participate in the planned poker onslaught—the more money they could lift from District rubes, the closer she was to building her fortune—but the drinking and the rest of it had no allure for her. She’d grown up surrounded by the human debris of life, people living in misery, people who had ended up there, as often as not, because of their drinking or drugs or wild behavior. She didn’t think anybody from Nightrunner was going to slide all the way down to the equivalent of Gut street trash, but her memories guided her own behavior, nevertheless.

  She walked back to her chair, the last one in the row along the back of the ship’s main wardroom, and she sat down, strapping herself in. Despite her lack of drive to hit the hotspots, she was anxious to get to Port Royal City, more so this time than most. Testing her poker skills against the Spacer’s District hustlers would be an amusing diversion, especially knowing she had her shipmates at her back in case of trouble.

  But even more exciting, she thought Captain Lorillard was going to take her with him when he scouted out the next mission. She wanted to learn from him, to understand as much as she could about how the game worked on the frontier. And, if she was right, she was about to take a big step forward.

  * * *

  “I trust you understand why I am here, Rolf.” The man still stood at the doorway, looking inside, despite two invitations to come in and sit. He wasn’t doing anything threatening, and his voice was calm and moderate in volume. Still, he was entirely menacing, and Rolf Gavereaux could feel the sweat beginning to bead on his forehead and along the back of his neck. He’d never before met the man standing before him, but he’d known about him for years. Sector Nine agent, confidante to the head of the agency, virtuoso killer. Ricard Lille was a living nightmare, one who struck terror into the hearts of enemies and allies alike. Gavereaux suppressed a shiver. Gaston Villieneuve would only have sent his top henchman for two reasons.

  He’d have killed me already if that’s what he’d come to do.

  There was logic to the thought, but it was far from convincing enough to drive away the fear that had taken hold inside.

  The other reason was nearly as foreboding. If Lille had come only to pass on orders, or to express disappointment at the results of the last mission, his presence as a messenger sent a message that couldn’t be misinterpreted. Gavereaux knew whatever orders Lille had brought would have to be carried out successfully.

  The ‘or else’ hung in the air like a thick fog.

  “Certainly, Mr. Lille.” A nervous pause. “I sent a complete report back to headquarters. I did everything possible to ensure…”

  “I am not here to discuss the past. Let us simply state that Minister Villieneuve understands that there were certain…difficulties…at play that somewhat mitigate your failure. I imagine I might be here with other instructions myself if that were not the case.”

  Gavereaux sat where he was and suppressed a shudder, mostly at least. Then he just nodded. He’d almost gotten up—he felt intensely uncomfortable sitting while Lille stood—but he’d decided that might make things worse.

  “With Minister Villieneuve’s recent appointment to a seat on the Presidium, he is now tasked with wearing two hats. It is a considerable drain on his time, and he will be relying on his key aides, and on sector chiefs like yourself, to carry more of the burden.” Lille paused. “Just to clarify, Rolf…your orders are to mount another mission to penetrate the imperial installation and retrieve the artifacts that are almost certainly there.” Lille’s didn’t raise his voice, but the tone became deeper, colder. “And, you are not to fail this time. Is that understood? I do not want to be forced to come back to this miserable planet.” Lille narrowed his eyes, and he stared right at Gavereaux. “And, I can assure you, Rolf, that you do not want that either. Do we understand each other?”

  Gavereaux understood, all too well. It was taking everything he had to hold back the shivers trying to break loose in his body.

  “Yes, Mr. Lille. I understand perfectly.”

  “Good.” Lille took a few steps forward, and finally, to Gavereaux’s relief, he sat down. “Then let us discuss specifics. Minister Lille has sent you more than orders. I have five million Confederation credits in untraceable coin for your use, as well as updated intel and scouting data on the subject system. And there is a small gunship that will be positioned in the Heckmere system, en route to the target. On it are two squads of Foudre Rouge soldiers, which are available for your use in penetrating the target and retrieving the artifacts.”

  Gavereaux felt tension and relief at the same time. The resources would be extremely helpful, no doubt, but he still remembered the results of the last mission he’d sent. No one had returned from the landing parties. The ship he’d sent returned with two crew remaining, both so profoundly terrified by what they’d seen, even his interrogations of them—harsh ones ending in eventual executions—had done nothing to increase his knowledge of what had happened. Something there, most likely some ancient imperial defense system, had killed the crew he’d hired, and he had no idea how to proceed, how to ensure that another mission didn’t end with the same result.

  “I will see it done, Mr. Lille. You may assure Minister Villieneuve that no resource, no effort will be spared.”

  “The minister is concerned only with results, Rolf.” The assassin managed to make his use of Gavereaux’s first name sound deeply sinister. “I will leave the details to you. With the added funding and increased intelligence, not to mention twenty elite soldiers of the Union, I have no doubt you will succeed…and redeem your reputation.”

  Gavereaux nodded silently for a few seconds, before he managed to force a verbal response through the tension and fear. “Your confidence is appreciated, Mr. Lille. I will see it done…whatever it takes.”

  It was all he could think to say, though he questioned how much faith Lille had that he would, in fact, succeed.

  There was one thing he didn’t doubt, however, not in the slightest.

  The content of the assassin’s next orders if he failed.