Chronicles of a Space Mercenary 0: Tanya, page 13
They were gone but not forgotten as Adjudicator slowly but inexorably crawled up her wash, her computers sniffing the jump trail, and finding it. Tanya had not meant for it to be difficult.
Chapter 47
“Your domicile has been kept available.” The air near her ear spoke as the strange orange gravity field set Starfire down on the deck inside the Kievor Trade Station. Tanya was startled by the voice but she was sure she didn’t flinch. More of the Kievor’s amusing little games and nothing further.
“I'd like something a little larger.” Tanya said just to throw a monkey-wrench into the Kievor’s arrogance, as cost was no longer an issue. “I'd also like to buy your silence.”
“Your domicile will be modified. As far as purchasing our silence, you would not be able to afford it as you have insufficient funds.” The Kievor said. “However, we do have a small service that might notify you when someone has paid to know your location.”
“Is there anything you don't have an angle on!” Tanya said, not a question, though she was now in a better mood than she had been for a long time. In fact, she was feeling buoyant, but she had to be sure. She had to be positive. “Once I have agreed to the terms of this service, is there any way at all for anyone else to circumvent the process of notifying me when someone has paid you to locate me?”
“Not at all.” The Kievor said. "It would not be fair to offer the locating service if we did not also offer the notification service. A being has a right to a fair fight."
“And a lucrative self-perpetuating business on top of it for you,” Tanya said, “I agree to your terms.” There was no response. Apparently they had come to terms and the interview was finished. Then the air spoke again;
“Notifying Tanya Serensen that the details of her exact location have just been purchased. Deducting five credits Kievor from . . .”
“Yeah yeah.” Tanya said, cutting off the rest.
“Would you like to purchase the location of the being which purchased the details of your location?” The Kievor now asked. Tanya could see where this was all going and she had to give the Kievors their due; they were on top of their business.
“No. That’s quite all right.” Tanya said, but there was one thing she did want to know. “How many of them are there?”
“One being purchased the details of your location,” the Kievor said, “if you would like a more detailed description of . . .”
“Yeah, yeah.” Tanya said, cutting off the rest.
“There were three humans aboard the personal yacht Adjudicator when it docked here. It is in Dock 47,589 at present, and is also where the human who purchased your details still remains. There are three humans aboard but of those only two are alive. One is in a freezer.”
“I’m not paying you for the last part of that assessment.” Tanya snapped as she pondered what she had just learned, that it was possibly just Jason and Felone, and what the implications of that meant. She was not discounting the possibility that other ships could be bringing in more reinforcements but the air was once again quiet and she was not answered. The person in the freezer must have been the one Simian that had been reported to have escaped.
“Nice way to treat your people.” Tanya said to no one, but what she was thinking was that they shouldn’t have killed that lone survivor, because without him it was possibly just the two of them. Tanya was suddenly greatly looking forward to that.
Tanya wondered idly, as she contemplated murder, if they had been smart enough to enquire of the Kievors whether or not they were also informing her of their presence. If they hadn’t known to ask, they might not know. It really wasn’t worth asking the Kievors and having to pay for it, Tanya decided. They were coming for her and they were probably coming now, but she had chosen her battleground and if she didn’t know the Kievor Trade Station as well as she had known the warrens, she was at least positive that she knew it better than Jason and Felone. Tanya would no longer be the rabbit. Already fully prepared when Starfire touched the surface of the dock, she now burst from her ship on the run.
Chapter 48
The Kievor blast rifle felt reassuring in her hands as she ran, the safety free and the capacitors charged, the thought giving her a smile which undoubtedly added an air of insanity to her look as reptiles of all natures made way for her as she left the dock and entered the Trade Station proper. Her boots slapped the trans-metal floor under her feet as her eyes scanned everywhere. At the moment there were no mammals present at all, but that didn’t mean a lizard couldn’t have taken a contract on her.
She ran straight to a lift, stood with her back to the wall, and continued scrutinizing the flow of aliens who were now leaving a wide margin around her. Then the lift arrived and she was inside and the door was materializing closed behind her. Magic, as far as Tanya was concerned. She punched random numbers into the now human keypad which was already there when she entered and the lift was off. Barely felt, it plunged downwards.
The lift doors opened almost immediately, Level 287, and Tanya cautiously made her way out into the crowded passageway. There were few lizards present here and even those seemed to be moving quickly about their business. Mammals tended to congregate together on Kievor Trade Stations for mutual protection and company because they were so outnumbered, mostly putting aside their various racial differences in light of the extreme differences between themselves and lizards as separate groups.
Tanya had stumbled onto one of these mammalian enclaves. Mammals were just as aware of the destructive capability of the blast-rifle as were lizards, and many variously shaped eyes were turned in her direction. It shouldn't really have been a surprise to see a human of her diminutive size carrying such a large weapon. Since humans were actually quite small compared to most of the races, and Tanya was a very small member of the human race, it shouldn't seem odd that she would want a weapon that would help compensate.
But it must've been the look in her eyes, or possibly because she was carrying the blast-rifle leveled and at the ready that forced attention, because they made way for her just as quickly as had the lizards. One shot of the blast-rifle in these enclosed quarters would kill dozens, without a doubt.
Tanya didn't want to kill dozens of innocents, but she wouldn't hesitate for a moment. Jason wouldn't hesitate for a moment. The simple fact was, nobody would hesitate. Tanya was quite sure that many more innocent civilians were killed aboard these Trade Stations than were the actual combatants themselves, and a visit to a Kievor Trade Station could be deadly in many ways. Everyone knew this and they made room for her. No wonder the Kievors had such an available supply of ships, nor was it any wonder why they didn’t mingle!
Still, it wasn’t as dangerous as a human ghetto. The tax-free zones were breeding and training grounds for those humans who were considered the most dangerous and highly volatile. In fact, the unpredictability of humans was the most salient factor regarding what made humans so deadly.
Like the bullied child, normally meek and quiet as he contemplates why the Universe so hates him and then who decides he won’t take it anymore and so walks amongst those of his peers who had once bullied and beaten him with flashing laser pistols filling both hands- and who is later labeled a cold-blooded murderer when he was only doing what his nature instructed; standing up for his life. Humans were capable of incredible reverses of mood and behavior. It is what makes us survivors.
The Kievor Trade Station was like a home away from home for many, Tanya included. That was why she had returned here; there was no place more like the warrens than this place, and no more fitting place to meet her adversaries. For the most part those who visited the Kievor Trade Stations were just your average working class toughs, though comprised of many various alien races.
In fact, the bulk of the visitors to the Kievor Trade Stations were the ships’ crews of the working vessels which most often docked here. The Kievor were first and foremost a trading empire, and the amount of trade that went on here every day was larger than the mind could encompass. Not even on a monthly, daily or much less even an hourly basis; it would simply be impossible. Only the Kievors and their incredible technology could keep track of all that went on here, but how they did it a mystery to all.
To Tanya this would now be home. Until either she or Jason Cormach were dead.
Chapter 49
The reptile was beginning to make her nervous. Tanya was sure she had caught a surreptitious glance in her direction just out of her peripheral vision, but when she looked over at the reptile, just a flick of her eyes, its right-side eye was already swiveled forward again as if contemplating the drink in front of him.
That observation in itself shouldn’t have been odd; she was used to odd looks. Everybody looked at her oddly, no matter what they looked like, because she was by far the more peculiar with her diminutive size and utterly false affectation of incompetence. She knew the ruse served her well, but she was feeling edgy nonetheless, as if all was not as it had should have been.
Part of that feeling was the fact that it had been two weeks since she, Jason, and Felone had been aboard the Station, and still no attack. That more than anything had Tanya watching the reptile just a bit closer, but still casually and out of the periphery of her vision. In fact, she was acutely aware even of its breathing. Her suspicions were confirmed a moment later when the reptile detached itself from the bar and began moving in her direction. Since she was in the rear corner with two walls at her back, and there was really nothing else of interest in her direction, there became no further reason for Tanya to delay action.
As Tanya rose and reached for her holstered blaster, two things occurred. The reptile grabbed for its weapon, and two humans came walking in the front entrance with blasters in hands.
Tanya had already been forced to draw her weapons several times since she had returned, all three times against intoxicated lizards, their attacks simply due to the fact that lizards don’t much like mammals and they loved to fight, especially when they were intoxicated- and she seemed to be an easy target. Those lizards had each been blazingly fast on the draw, but this lizard in front of her was of a class entirely of its own. It was so fast Tanya could barely register the blur as the weapon came up. Tanya’s blasters were only halfway up when that lizard’s weapon materialized in its hand and tried to settle on her, but she was moving.
The flash of the lizard’s weapon firing first was a shock to Tanya, but the greenish pulse which the weapon emitted coruscated through the air where she had just been as her rise from her seated position became a dive to the hard trans-metal floor, then to her left and away from the reptile. The concussion of the explosion as it struck the wall directly behind her sent Tanya sliding along the floor among the tables.
The burst from her left hand blaster flashed just above the floor and barely caught the edge of the front entrance, the explosion terrific but the two humans were already out of the explosion’s main concussive force. Not pausing as they entered to fire, but rushing forward instead, saved their lives. The blast still sent both flying to the floor.
Tanya didn’t have any more time to think about them for the moment. Even as her left hand blaster had fired, Tanya was trying to bring the right hand blaster up on the lizard. It’d been buffeted only a little and it was swinging its weapon around even as Tanya was raising hers as she fired at the entrance.
The reptile tried to throw itself to the side as it realized it was going to be too slow, still swinging its weapon from the side and down to try to bring it to bear on Tanya. But she had only to raise hers and fire, and the blast went into the floor at the reptile’s feet where Tanya had meant for it to go.
It shredded the lizard instantaneously, showering the bar and patrons with blood and gore. There was a great cheer as the patrons applauded the death, but there were still two others coming and Tanya didn’t have the time to bask in the praise of the bloodthirsty mob.
She didn’t recognize yet another armed human as he came through the bar’s main entranceway holding a leveled blaster in either hand. If those blasters had been turned in her direction as he walked through the door then it would have been over. Tanya rose and spun to confront the other two human attackers, who were in the other back corner where they had been tossed, and who were at that moment rising to bring their weapons to bear on her.
Then she realized the blasters in the hands of the newcomer weren’t pointed in her direction, and anyway there was no time to delay with the first two. If he was another antagonist he would just have to wait his turn, and she sincerely hoped she would still be alive to give him that turn!
Then the shock of recognition and realization coursed through her like voltage. She had never seen him at this age before, and she experienced the greatest relief of her entire life as she fully absorbed who she was seeing. His blasters erupted then, just a hair before her own and four balls of brilliant incandescent death descended lightning swift upon the two human attackers. The explosions were tremendous and completely obliterated the entire back corner of the bar. The attackers were vaporized.
While Tanya stood there surveying the wreckage she found herself amused; the entire back corner had emptied of patrons faster than the two human attackers had been tossed there, almost, and now another cheer from those very same patrons thundered even louder at the excellent show they had been given.
Tanya now turned towards Malcomb.
Chapter 50
“What the hell are you doing here?” Tanya demanded.
“That's the way the vote went.” Malcomb said with a small smile that contained no guilt.
“What vote?” Tanya demanded, though the anger fell short as she could already see where this was going. Then three more of them walked in the entrance behind Malcomb, who didn’t even turn to see who was there. Apparently he knew simply by their footfall patterns, or maybe that he was sure no one who wasn't supposed to be walking through that entrance would have been. He trusted his people, in other words. The three newcomers were all armed with Kievor hand-blasters.
“Perimeter secure.” One of them spoke, a young man of twenty or so and to all appearances a very competent looking individual, none of the three familiar to her from her recent short stay with them in the ghetto. There had been so many coming and going that it had been impossible for her to keep track of them all. There were more like him in the corridor outside, but of their entire number Tanya was not yet sure.
“I mentioned to you how we operate.” said Malcomb; “We put everything to the vote. My voice was hardly the only one raised calling for a vote. The vote was unanimous by the way, so you won’t get rid of us now.”
“You spent everything I left you to get all these people here? That is not what I gave you that for!”
“I didn't spend any of those credits. They're still sitting in the bank, now in trust to the one I left in charge.” Malcomb answered reasonably.
Tanya just stared at him until he couldn't hold it anymore and he broke out into a wide grin and began to explain;
“You know the money you left us when you first left the ghetto?”
“That was a long time ago Malcomb. What are you talking about?”
“Do you know how much you left us?”
“No.” Tanya answered slowly, although beginning to understand, because of course then, at that time, she'd had no comprehension whatsoever of the total value of the piles of notes and credit chips which she had left Malcomb and the rest of the children. “How much was there?”
“Over fourteen million credits, Tanya. We haven't even begun to spend it.”
“If you had fourteen million credits, why did you stay in the ghetto?” Tanya accused, unable to believe, but beginning to believe despite. Fourteen million credits!
“To carry on the mission you began, Tanya. I've saved the lives of thousands of children since you disappeared, and my worst regret the entire time was that I had not been able to save you as well. That's why I've stayed. That's why I'm here now.”
“They're just children!” Tanya said.
“They're not just children, Tanya, they are far more than that, and they're your children, your blood, you protected them all this time, all of the thousands who have passed through my care, by leaving us that money, and now we're going to protect you, like it or not.”
There were none in the group under the age of sixteen or seventeen, and every one of the hundred Malcomb had brought with him had the hard steely eyes of the competent; competence through trial and error, and success. Success in the ghetto was easy to measure; those who lived were successful, those who died were not. Still, Tanya did not want them involved, no matter how competent they were and no matter that they, every one of them, had voted to come here because they considered Tanya blood and this to be a blood feud.
Blood feuds were something that those in the ghetto understood. Families were invariably large where birth control was difficult to obtain, and those families that remained together only did so through the strength of unity. So when you killed someone in the ghetto, you always had to keep in mind that there were likely to be brothers or sisters and that they were very likely to be really pissed off. The type of pissed off that leads to murder. There was nothing thicker than blood in the ghetto, and that was why Tanya could not see a way out of this predicament with Malcolm and the children. The only possibility she could see was to simply get in her ship and leave, but knowing Malcomb and seeing the determined looks of the children that seemed unlikely to work. Just getting in her ship and leaving did not mean Malcomb and the children would leave or give up their own hunt for Jason Cormach. Or maybe they would just follow her. Or worse yet, they might split up and do both.
