Table of Contents

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  THE

  ICARUS

  JOB

  TIMOTHY

  ZAHN

  Baen

  The Icarus Job

  Timothy Zahn

  Hoping to take possession of a new alien star-hopping portal, Roarke and Selene are tasked with transporting an assassin, who is herself being targeted.

  For years Gregory Roarke and his Kadolian partner Selene worked as crocketts, combing through the atmospheres of uninhabited worlds for places that might be colonized or hold valuable resources. Now, they work for the Icarus Group, a top-secret government organization hunting for portals created by a long-vanished alien race, portals that can teleport a person hundreds or thousands of light-years in the blink of an eye.

  Usually, those hunts are long and tedious. But Roarke has now been handed an intriguing offer. A criminal boss, Robertine Cherno, will hand over a hitherto unknown portal to the Icarus Group in exchange for Roarke and Selene agreeing to transport a passenger named Nikki across the Spiral.

  There’s only one catch. Nikki is a professional, high-priced, highly feared assassin. And she’s on the job.

  That would have been bad enough. But when the alien Patth also move to gain possession of the portal, bad quickly promises to go to worse.

  Especially when it becomes clear that Nikki herself is being hunted by someone.

  It’s up to Roarke and Selene to untangle the mysteries and get to the truth before they become someone’s collateral damage.

  BAEN BOOKS by TIMOTHY ZAHN

  THE ICARUS SAGA

  The Icarus Plot

  The Icarus Twin

  The Icarus Job

  The Icarus Changeling (forthcoming)

  Battle Luna (with Travis S. Taylor, Michael Z. Williamson, Kacey Ezell & Josh Hayes)

  Blackcollar: The Judas Solution

  Blackcollar (contains The Blackcollar and Blackcollar: The Backlash Mission)

  The Cobra Trilogy (contains Cobra, Cobra Strike, and Cobra Bargain)

  COBRA WAR

  Cobra Alliance

  Cobra Guardian

  Cobra Gamble

  COBRA REBELLION

  Cobra Slave

  Cobra Outlaw

  Cobra Traitor

  MANTICORE ASCENDANT

  A Call to Duty by David Weber & Timothy Zahn

  A Call to Arms by David Weber & Timothy Zahn with Thomas Pope

  A Call to Vengeance by David Weber & Timothy Zahn with Thomas Pope

  A Call to Insurrection by David Weber & Timothy Zahn with Thomas Pope

  For a complete listing of Baen titles by Timothy Zahn, and to purchase any of these titles in e-book form, please go to www.baen.com.

  The Icarus Job

  This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to real people or incidents is purely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2024 by Timothy Zahn

  All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form.

  A Baen Books Original

  Baen Publishing Enterprises

  P.O. Box 1403

  Riverdale, NY 10471

  www.baen.com

  ISBN: 978-1-9821-9325-6

  EISBN: 978-1-62579-951-7

  Cover art by Dave Seeley

  First printing, March 2024

  Distributed by Simon & Schuster

  1230 Avenue of the Americas

  New York, NY 10020

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Names: Zahn, Timothy, author.

  Title: The Icarus job / Timothy Zahn.

  Description: Riverdale, NY : Baen Publishing Enterprises, 2024. | Series:

  The Icarus saga ; 3

  Identifiers: LCCN 2023048253 (print) | LCCN 2023048254 (ebook) | ISBN

  9781982193256 (hardcover) | ISBN 9781625799517 (ebook)

  Subjects: LCSH: Interstellar travel—Fiction. | Life on other

  planets—Fiction. | Assassins—Fiction. | LCGFT: Science fiction. |

  Thrillers (Fiction) | Novels.

  Classification: LCC PS3576.A33 I285 2024 (print) | LCC PS3576.A33 (ebook)

  | DDC 813/.54—dc23/eng/20231016

  LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2023048253

  LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2023048254

  Printed in the United States of America

  Electronic version by Baen Books

  www.baen.com

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  CHAPTER ONE

  As my father used to say, The best strategy in a barroom fight is to stay completely out of it. I’d always considered that wise advice.

  Of course, as he also used to say, That probably won’t work if you’re the one who started it.

  Which technically I hadn’t. All I’d done was show up in the same taverno as a man named Oberon, bounty hunter and all-around nasty person, who typically came here for his evening pick-me-up. I hadn’t even had to remind him why he was nurturing a long and simmering grudge against me. He’d picked up on that all by himself.

  “We don’t have to do this,” I protested as I backed slowly but steadily across the taverno floor, hoping that I wasn’t about to back into a chair.

  Or, worse, into a person. If Oberon had friends in here watching the show, the whole thing could quickly degenerate into very unfavorable odds.

  Still, I figured that was unlikely. It was true that bounty hunters as a group tended to stick together against the hard and uncaring Spiral, and while I once again had my license I was mostly retired from the business. Given there were probably at least a couple more hunters in a place like this, that mutual support attitude might lead to trouble.

  But Oberon’s lovely little niche market of organizing slave-on-slave and prisoner-on-prisoner death battles to amuse the more degenerate of the wealthy class hadn’t exactly endeared him to the general hunter population. It was a good bet that anyone in here who knew him well enough to stick their neck out for him probably wouldn’t bother. More likely they would settle back and enjoy the show.

  Still, as my father used to say, The only sure bet is the second letter of the Hebrew alphabet. If I didn’t wrap this up quickly, I could still end up unpleasantly surprised.

  “Oh, yeah, we gotta do this,” Oberon snarled back, half turning and throwing a roundhouse kick at me that I was just barely able to dodge. “You cost me a good two hundred thousand commarks back on Pinnkus, and I’m going to take it out of your skin.”

  “I think you have to be a media celebrity for your body to be worth that much,” I corrected. “Or maybe you have to be a couple of Ulkomaal slaves.”

  His hand had been drifting toward the Golden 6mm belted at his waist. Now, abruptly, the hand came back up to personal combat position. At a guess, he’d started wondering whether it would be less trouble to just shoot me, but the dig about his lost Ulkomaals had repersuaded him that he really, really wanted to kill me with his own hands.

  As my father used to say, Never make someone madder at you than they already are unless it’s already working in your favor.

  Still, I was the one backing up in the face of his attack, and at the speed I was going I’d run out of floor in another twenty seconds. I passed a couple of burly freight-handler types who were watching us with idle interest—apparently fights weren’t all that uncommon here—and then a pleasant-looking young man gazing down into his drink like he was hoping to find the meaning of life in there. A couple more steps and I’d be right beside a group of rowdies who had looked like they might be inclined to join in the fun if the opportunity presented itself.

  And as I deflected a straight-in punch, the pleasant-looking loner slipped out of his chair, moved silently up behind Oberon, and did a quick double kick into the backs of his knees that sent him crashing to the floor. Oberon bellowed, twisting around onto his back, and grabbed for his holstered Golden.

  His hand stopped short of its goal, the fingers just touching the weapon’s grip, the glare he’d started to direct at his attacker now transferred to the black Libra 3mm pointed steadily down at him. “I wouldn’t,” the gun’s owner said mildly. In his free hand, held high for everyone in the taverno to see, was a bounty hunter ID. “Sebastian Trent, licensed bounty hunter,” he called, just in case anyone was still unclear on the whole thing. “This man is officially in my custody.”

  He slipped the ID back into his pocket, his gun never wavering from Oberon’s face. “Hands on your head, please,” he said lowering his volume to a more conversational level. “Then over onto your stomach.”

  For a long moment I thought Oberon might decide he’d rather have his face splattered
across the floor than suffer the humiliation of getting caught. A lot of the criminal types I’d run into over the years seemed to have ego where they needed brains. But he took another look into his attacker’s eyes, and with reluctance and impotent fury he complied. Trent glanced at me, as if wondering if he should offer to let me do the honors, then crouched down, pulled Oberon’s arms one by one from his head down to the small of his back, and used a set of quick-cuffs to secure his wrists. Only then did he holster his Libra and give me a satisfied nod. “Nicely done, Roarke,” he said, his voice as pleasant as his face. “Thanks for the assist. I think the Spiral will rest easier with this one off the streets.”

  “Actually, I doubt most of the Spiral even knows he exists,” I said. “But you’re welcome. So what now?”

  “Now my colleagues take him to the badgemen—ah,” he interrupted himself as two large men strode through the door. “Package for delivery, gentlemen,” he called, beckoning them over. “Tell the station chief I’ll be there shortly to collect the arrest documentation.” He smiled at me. “My new colleague and I first have another matter or two to discuss.”

  I cocked an eyebrow at that. I did indeed have another few questions to ask him, and in fact had been wondering how I was going to talk him into having a celebratory drink with me. Apparently, he had an agenda of his own.

  Which could either be very helpful or very ominous.

  He and I stood together and watched as the two men got Oberon back on his feet and hauled him out into the night. Then, Trent gestured to the server at the bar. “A puff adder for me, my good woman, and a—?”

  “Small Dewar’s,” I supplied.

  “Large Dewar’s for my friend,” Trent corrected. He sent me a small and slightly lopsided grin. “I’m the generous type, and I’m buying. Come on, let’s sit.”

  “There’s a nicely private spot over there,” I said, pointing to an isolated table near the side wall.

  “You expect a need for privacy for our little chat?” he asked.

  “Don’t you?”

  He smiled in a friendly sort of way that I suspected most people would foolishly take at face value. But I could see the subtle contradiction between lips and eyes. Trent was definitely not a man to take lightly. “Touché,” he said. “Lead on, Macduff.”

  Whoever Macduff was. I led the way across to the table. The rest of the patrons, I noted, had gone back to their drinks and conversation. Apparently, like a stray barroom fight or two, a bounty hunter popping in to nail a target was just another Tuesday here.

  “First things first,” he said, digging into his pocket as we sat down. “The five hundred commarks I promised for your assistance.”

  “I’m glad we could make it work,” I said, taking the five bills he handed across the table. “Just out of curiosity, who finally got tired enough of Oberon to put a bounty on him?”

  “Ah-ah-ah,” he said, wagging a finger reprovingly. “You know we’re not supposed to kiss and tell.”

  “Just curious,” I said. Confidentiality was indeed a major part of bounty hunters’ protocol, but we’d been known to bend the rules on occasion. “He must have led you on a merry chase, though.”

  “Oh, that he did,” Trent said, shaking his head in memory. “Two days ago we both came in from Niskea—nearly nailed him there, but he ducked out early. Before that was Bardeenia, before that was Hopstead, before that was Kelsim, before that—well, you get the picture.”

  “But now you’ve got him,” I said, tucking the four planetary names into my memory for future reference.

  The server appeared at Trent’s side, set our glasses in front of us, and smiled thanks as he put a hundred-commark bill on her tray and waved away her offer of change.

  “Some days I’m a millionaire,” he explained, taking a sip of his drink as he watched her head back to the bar. “Millionaires tip well, I’m told.”

  “Well, if they don’t they should,” I agreed. “Wait a minute. Oberon was on Kelsim? I’d have thought an Ihmis world would be a terrible place for a human to try to hide.”

  “Maybe he wasn’t hiding,” Trent said, his voice and expression changing subtly. “Maybe he was doing a job. I assume you heard about the ship hijacking there a few weeks ago.”

  “No, actually, I hadn’t,” I said, frowning. Hijackings—successful ones, anyway—were pretty rare birds, which should have made such a thing the talk of the Spiral, at least for the ancient rule of fifteen minutes. “Who got hit?”

  “The ship was Saffnic registry, but there were no details on who had cargoes aboard,” Trent said. “You ever hear of Oberon going in for that sort of thing?”

  I shook my head. “Far as I know, he stuck with hunting and his sordid little death matches.”

  “Oh, this was a death match, all right,” Trent said grimly. “They left thirty dead behind them.”

  I stared at him. “Thirty? What the hell did they do, roll a bunch of hellspawns down the corridors?”

  “No, they just came in with a team and shot everyone in sight,” Trent growled. “Funny, really.”

  “I’d hardly put that in the funny category.”

  “No, I mean I’d actually been thinking about trying to find a hijack crew for a job when I heard about this one.”

  I frowned at him. “Seriously?”

  “Seriously,” he assured me. “A good job, great pay, and no less than four solid bounties to split up afterward. Whoever came up with the Kelsim plan would be perfect to lead it.”

  “Not if his endgame usually comes down to mass murder,” I said. A hijacking with thirty dead—why the hell hadn’t I heard about this?

  “That part may not have been his idea,” Trent said. “I mostly put that down to having a few trigger-happy psychopaths in his crew. But the planner himself . . . ” He shrugged.

  “Yeah, maybe,” I said. “But as my father used to say, If your boss’s Plan A involves death, your Plan A should be to find a new boss.”

  “I suppose,” Trent said. “Pity, really. I guess now I’ll just have to nail the four of them one at a time. So much less efficient.” He cocked an eyebrow. “I don’t suppose you’d be interested in joining me. Like I said, great pay.”

  “I appreciate the offer,” I said. “But like I told you before, I mostly work as a crockett these days.”

  “Money’s not nearly as good,” he pointed out.

  “Neither are the chances of getting shot at.”

  “There is that,” he conceded. “Well, I appreciate you coming out of retirement long enough to help me out here. Moving on someone with Oberon’s reputation is a lot easier if he’s busy looking somewhere else.” He looked at his watch. “Speaking of moving, I’d better. Don’t want the badgemen deciding Oberon wandered into the station all by himself and figuring they can split the bounty. See you around, Roarke.” He stood up, gave me a final friendly smile, and left the taverno.

  I gave him a count of sixty, just to make sure he wasn’t coming back. Then, picking up my drink, I crossed to the white-haired woman sitting quietly at a table by the door. “Did you enjoy the show?” I asked.

  The delicate features of Kadolian faces didn’t lend themselves to emotional expression nearly as well as human faces did. But the pupils of Selene’s deep-set gray cat’s eyes more than made up for it. Right now, they were showing a nice mix of relief and dry humor. “I still don’t know why you agreed to decoy Oberon like that in the first place,” she said. “We could have found another way to talk to Trent.”

  “But it wouldn’t have been nearly so entertaining,” I pointed out.

  “Or as dangerous.”

  “Or as productive,” I said. “You saw how reserved he was earlier tonight. I’ve seen men like that get positively chatty once the job’s finished and the tension’s gone.”