by S E Zbasnik
Still, she was heading into an unknown situation, with no intel, no maps, no knowledge of enemy combatants, and just enough ammo to get herself in deep. If she was a decade younger and tripping through a rainforest while loopy from an excess of implan this might make her misty eyed.
A loud whirr replaced the gentle shushing sounds of the engines as the inertia dampeners flowed all their precious cargo into the atmosphere where it could be collected later and scrubbed. The shuttle plopped to a gentle splash as it broke the surface of the landing sea, cordoned off by a row of flashing lights. Mr. Green's eyes flashed open as the water rushed past the ring of windows, and he promptly shut them tight.
Afraid of heights and water? This guy's superiors must really hate him Variel thought as the restraints snaked away, releasing each prisoner from their purchased seat. She shook her hands and grabbed for the briefcase, still empty for "shell collecting" as she told the gate guardians. They mostly shrugged, not in the mood to point out there were no shells on Samudra.
"We have arrived at the dock," the automated pilot croaked out. "Please collect any and all valuables or offspring lest they be sold off to the NERATO company. Thank you and have a pleasing day."
The little girl bounded off her seat over Variel and straight into the lap of Mr. Green. As he opened his eyes, saying a prayer to the gods of water, he glanced down at the girl as she thrust Mister Turtle in his face and shouted, "Can we go again?"
The taxi to the Dacre residence was blissfully uneventful and uninhabited. The driver, one of those people the landlubbers call old salts, asked his passenger only one question after, "Where do you want to go?"
After Variel gave him the location he looked at her aging face, the utilitarian hair cut and clothes just baggy enough to hide a figure but not get caught in anything mechanical and followed up with, "Are ya sure?"
The boat docked quickly with the solitary island, the setting sun bursting upon the bright white eyesore. It was as if someone lifted one of those pristine ideals of future living out of a science fiction movie and dropped it on top of a garbage heap. Windows, each with a well guarded and barred off balcony, encircled the top two floors. A giant picture window covered almost half of the first floor, only reflecting back the sea behind her.
Variel dodged its line of sight, fully aware that it could be switched to open reflection. Knowing Dacre, she suspected it was projecting something of a more carnal nature. The way the kindly driver all but begged her if she really wanted this place to see this man told her how little time changed her target. A pair of stone bear faces hung above the doorway, their eyes lit up from the sensors of the turrets hidden inside the mouth.
People, most dressed as if they wandered in drunk from the beach after getting kicked out for forgetting how to properly attire themselves, milled about in front of the bears. They were all human. A lone troll, painted up with a black suit coat, guarded the entrance to the house.
Great, a bouncer. Variel squared up her shoulders and put on her best "course I'm supposed to be here" face. She stepped around the pair of humans leaning into each other asking if they'd ever touched the stars and looked up into the troll's beady eyes. Granite shifted as its forehead cragged, a large fist nearly the size of her torso rose in front of her.
"You're not on the list."
Variel turned her own beady eyes upon him, the fading sun giving them a troll-attractive black matte quality. "Of course I'm not on the list."
"Then you can't go in."
She tapped the side of her briefcase and lifted it to his nearsighted face, "You see this?" The troll nodded slowly, uncertain if this was a trick question. "You know what this is?" she asked, still dangling the case.
"A briefcase," the troll answered slowly, his eyes slipping over her form trying to spot any hidden weapons.
"A briefcase," she said softly, luring him closer as she flipped the latch, opening up the false top, "with nothing in it."
The troll scratched his chin in thought, then smiled wide. "Oh..."
"Now you're getting it. I'm here to see the man of the house about what's not inside this case."
The bouncer smiled, obviously used to ushering in all manner of people dressed as if they'd flown in from slumming across the galaxy while escorting empty cases, "Of course, Miss..."
"Miss Swiss," she lied poorly, forgetting to make up a false ID incase she could waltz in through the front door. She may not need those siege grenades after all.
But the troll smiled warmly, unused to the overt squishiness of human names and customs. "Let me wave you through," he said to Miss Swiss as he entered a code into his security tablet, momentarily disabling the bear turrets.
"Thank you, kindly," she said, nodding towards the troll and entering into the house of sin.
The pristine door slid open to a darkened den. A track from one of the more bass heavy rock species thudded across the plastic floorboards while streams of light bounced across the walls and ceiling portraying various scenes and small animations from popular...you know, that wasn't really the point. A handful of women, having clearly escaped from a death defying fight with a shredder based upon their attire, stumbled past Variel, giggled at the bore clogging up the doorway, and moved on to a pair of men who didn't acknowledge them.
This is where Brena performs? She didn't seem the drug den type. But if you wanted to appear sophisticated in front of a bunch of other sets of new money, an elven bard that sung you the plots to classic movies was the way to do it. Assuming you couldn't get a fancy cheese plate with those triangle squares.
"WEST," Variel whispered to the air, tapping her PALM against the briefcase's handle. She knew it was listening, it was always listening, "can you find our wayward elf?"
"His communication link is severed," WEST responded loudly into her ear, either trying to overcompensate for the noise levels barraging her hearing or to be an ass. It was hard to tell.
Variel smiled at a pair of gnomes of all things, dressed in royal robe costumes, passing flutes of what was probably moonshine to the milling guests. Dacre took skin crawling to depths only a racist flesh-burrowing worm could reach. She accepted a glass and, through gritted teeth, asked her damn computer, "You're telling me you can't track the heat signature of everyone who ever set foot on your ship?"
"It is written in my technical specs that I should not," WEST said diplomatically.
"Should and could are two different things. I've seen your damn algorithms," her whisper shout caught the attention of a half drugged dwarf probably trying to figure out what the blob still crowding the door was up to. "I have to mingle, find him. Now."
She cut off the contact just before the dwarf began to rise from his seat. Variel hoped to lose him in the shuffle of guests as the song momentarily switched to a slow dance. The women in triage dresses tried to drag their various escorts and most likely high rollers out to the floor in the hopes they'd get a better tip, giving Variel the perfect chance to flutter around the walls and make for the looping marble staircase.
Her rubber soles were far softer than the seven inch eye gougers the other invited women preferred, allowing her to slip quietly up the winding case, her free fingers lightly gracing the gilded banister. She couldn't see a fireplace, but if Dacre really had a sword and not some cheap space-port knock off, he'd have it locked up in an office. Which is most likely where dirty deals were going down under cover of morons partying their narrow lives away.
She paused at the top of the staircase as her PALM buzzed. WEST found something. Shifting the case to her other hand, she bumped the trigger across the observation deck's banister, pretending she gave a shit about what happened below. "What is it?" she asked the computer.
But the dwarf, who followed stealthily behind the newcomer answered back, "A relic of the lost kelpie nation, pre-contact I believe."
"What?" Variel flipped in shock to find the man just a little to her midsection coyly pointing to some weird horse statue gracing the entrance to the house.
Hands stuck to the metallic green horse -- at least a dozen -- the owners long torn free, leaving a few of their arm bones behind.
"I assumed you were admiring the art," the Dwarf continued, twirling about a glass of something that apparently wasn't strong enough. He kept his attire a bit less mob, favoring the half out of a suit look. Never a good sign. "Our host has some interesting tastes."
"You could say that," Variel mumbled to herself, trying to pull the screaming computer out of her ear. The damn dwarf kept talking overtop every time it started to give a report.
"Ah," the dwarf turned from the Kelp-thing to look into her eyes. Probably her eyes. It was hard to tell with dwarves, "Then you are familiar with Mr. Dacre. Intimately so?"
"I'd rather shove my head down a kraken's beak and shave my skin off with a vegetable peeler." Variel could probably use a few lessons in tact from the high elf who managed to infiltrate the party and escape without anyone the wiser. She'd only been in for five minutes and already had the ear and eye of someone trying to not look like he was in charge of something nefarious, which meant he most certainly was.
The dwarf laughed, the hearty "we could all be hurled violently into the sun tomorrow, may as well live it up" laugh his people were famous for. He folded his fingers below his box jawline and said softly, "I find it most interesting that a woman with, if I may be so blunt, more than a generous share of wear and tear to her face..."
"Flatterer," Variel interjected, too busy to be bothered by the accurate statement. She had decades to adjust.
"Ah," it momentarily threw the dwarf, but he rebounded beautifully, "A woman who enters unannounced and far into the festivities carrying an all too familiar briefcase favored by the type who do not like to answer too many questions."
The dwarf paused, savoring in his deductive skills just long enough for WEST to blurt out, "The fifth east room on the second floor. He's moving through the maintenance system. About to find a messy end thanks to a...oh, disabled that one. Hm. Well, there are still a whole lot of..."
"I believe we skipped past the introductions," Variel said to the dwarf.
"I am not the type to give my name freely," he responded, not enjoying the way the game turned.
"Nor am I the type to care. What is your relation to the master of ceremonies?"
The dwarf's lips twisted up into a half smirk, "It is, as you humans say, 'on the ice' at the moment. And I fear it shall be irreparably damaged."
Variel nodded and flipped open the true bottom of the case, revealing her treasure inside, "Then, Mr. Nameless, I believe you and I can be of great benefit to each other."
He stepped back from her packed arms, a rather outdated model by the size but much beloved for its steadfastness in the event of jamming. A heavier handle made for a heavier blow to the head after the battery ran down. The dwarf looked up into her eyes and smiled wide. "Madam," he hoisted up his manicured hand and she grabbed it, shaking, "it was a pleasure making your acquaintance."
Then he hooked a well trained arm through one of the blindly wandering women and said loudly, "I was hoping to have a word with our host. Is he still sequestered in the back office with his guards?"
The woman looked down at the man with his arm around her waist and blinked slowly, "Wha' are you talking about?"
But Variel got the message. She slipped down the hall, counting the doors, and hoping WEST meant from her position and not the other. One. She opened the case. Two. Three. She slipped the pistol into her holster. Four. Yanking out the submachine gun and regrettably tossed the case aside, she stopped before the fifth door. She steadied her nerves, hugging the edge of the wall as her fingers tapped against the locking mechanism. The panel beeped a calming blue as it gave in to a universal command. Just as she was about to rush in, a shot cut through the air.
Another set, blam blam, burst through the end room, tearing apart the walls and splintering wood, as a pair of black jacketed guards rose from the rooms adjacent to the end. The office. Where Dacre was.
"Fucking, son of a lich," Variel cursed. Without pausing, she lifted her pistol from the holster and flipped off the safety.
A red light flared beneath her finger just as the first guard reached the door. She pulled the trigger and a bullet laced out, striking him in the head. His second turned, getting one in the neck. Variel broke into a run, her steps heavy against the marble facade floors as the party goers finally woke from their stupor to find bullets whizzing past their heads and into the stereo system. The entire bass sputtered and collapsed, waking them from the Neverland.
In the rising cacophony, Variel failed to hear the third guard as she approached the office door. She turned just as he lifted his own gun to her head. Her arm rose but she wouldn't be fast enough. As his own red light flashed, ready to fire, a shadow broke from behind the dimly lit guardroom and a pair of black hands slipped around his head, snapping the neck like a piece of celery.
The crunch was a little hard to stomach as the broken body collapsed in on itself. Variel held her gun on the killer but watched the guard to make certain this wasn't some trick of a party necromancer.
"Captain, what are you doing here?" Taliesin asked as if he just ran into her outside the bathroom. The elves must have ice for blood.
"Saving your hide," she said like he hadn't saved hers.
The elf's crystal fine features crumpled. He glanced to the two guards she got, like she broke some strict assassin code, "I do not understand."
"Your target, Dacre, turns out he's an ex-knight." The assassin's pout puckered at the fresh information but he did not interrupt. "Your sister seemed to think it was important you not die, so here I am. Let's go."
The elf could have argued, she'd even anticipated a bit of "I must finish my mission" bravado, but he nodded deeply, a few strands of his pulled back hair slipping in front of the yellow eyes. "Yes, that is wise."
Well, that was easy, she thought, about to holster her pistol and try to slip out with the panicking guests when the office door to one Mr. Magalar Dacre slid open. The man wiped his hands slowly on a white towel, dabbling off the blood of mobsters come to collect their cut as he boasted in front of the men who did all the work. Slowly, he looked up at the woman and elf hovering around his doorstep. Variel squared her shoulders, but she was at the wrong angle, and his eyes stopped upon her scar.
The mouth of the endless night could not match the cruel joy that took Dacre's lips as he remarked first to himself, "You," then to his guards carrying enough ammunition to take down a squad of orcs, "Kill them."
Variel shoved Taliesin into the guard room just as Dacre's goons thought to open fire. Bullets bounded across the hall, slipping above the tumbling pair as the elf's leather-bound hide crashed through the card table, scattering dice to the four corners. The door slammed shut. Variel jammed her hand into the locking mechanism, her fingers flipping through for the manual override.
The assassin hopped to his feet, seeming embarrassed by the destruction his ass caused, just as Variel found what she wanted and yanked on a blue wire. Flashing momentarily, the locking mechanism stuck, unable to be compromised by anything short of a battering ram...or a pair of men armed with state of the art Crest weaponry.
Sounds of batteries being replaced and slotted in eclipsed the fallen silence. Taliesin grabbed Variel's wrist, dragging her to the ground.
"What are you doing?" she hissed, counting the time it took for the oafs to cock their guns. A familiar warning beep turned up the corners of her mouth. That damn safety was so touchy.
"Their weapons can shoot through the plastic of the doors and straight into us," he annunciated as if speaking to a green recruit or a child that peddled its school candy to the very wrong house.
But Variel shook her head, "Nah, it's triple frictionless. The energy from their weapons will absorb." To punctuate her point, they fired on the door, the rat-a-tat turning into a reflected rainstorm of pings as the magic plastic did its bulletproofing job. She smiled smugly when one
bullet slipped through the micro-gaps in technology and shot directly above the pair's heads. No safety feature is absolute
"Mostly absorb," Variel admitted. She crawled back from the heating door, the plastic white burning to the dangerous red of Gene's eyes. "How'd you get in here?" she asked the assassin as she pushed the table against the melting door. Another hour of charge and they might actually get through.
Taliesin pointed above her to the narrow air duct, just wide enough for one ass at time. "Perfect," Variel muttered, and tossed him the pistol, "Here. I hope you know how to use one."
He nodded and slipped it somewhere hidden beneath the black folds of his clothing. They were stained with grey dust along his knees and sides. The work on Samudra required finesse and skill, and the lack of any firearms due to strict travel restrictions. Apparently, the captain could work marvels on even that.
"I'll go first," she said, tossing the submachine gun into the duct where it made a satisfying thud. "Give me a boost." She stepped a foot up, expecting him to create a ladder with his hands.
Instead, the elf lowered down and wrapped his taut arms around her hips. As if she weighed less than a small child exhausted from a day at the beach and wanting a piggy-back ride, he lifted her body high above his head. Her fingers gripped the stainless sides of the duct and she wiggled in, pushing the gun before her in the rising darkness of air supply.
"Do you need help?" she asked the echo in the ducts, uncertain how she could supply any with her ass wedged dangerously tight in the duct.
"No," the elf was calm, calmer than he probably should be given the situation, "but please move forward a few meters."
Variel crawled on her forearms, nudging the gun along. Behind her she heard the endless rapport of bullets meeting with immoveable plastic and a few slicing through the armoire probably containing enough contraband to get her a new ship if she had time to loot. "Taliesin..." she whispered to the elf.
