Star Minds Interregnum

by Barbara G. Tarn

  The pleasure planet also had a lot of residents from most planets of the Star Nations. Corporations of the entertainment industry had their headquarters or at least smaller offices in the main town. Even if the slave traders had been taken down three years earlier, there was still a strong criminal underground world on the planet.

  That was why Aryan Robena had been sent to Vilas Lok a couple of months before Yuki herself went there to investigate the serial killer that had been labeled Angel Face. She hadn't managed to talk to Aryan, since he was undercover, but she hoped to meet him somewhere in town during her stay. If they pretended not to know each other, they might have a drink together and she might find a way to touch him and explore his feelings.

  Sometimes she wondered if she could train to become an undercover police officer. She was a woman from Xi-kong, she could easily go back to her home planet and help the Galaxy Police to control the mob. Except she didn't really want to go back to Xi-kong. Not after trying equality in the rest of the Star Nations. Maybe one day the High Council should teach Xi-kong a lesson like they had done with Duumme – although Xi-kong didn't do anything outside of its orbit. What happened on the individual planets wasn't in the High Council's or the Galaxy Police's jurisdiction.

  She knew Aryan was good at infiltrating covert criminal activity. He didn't look like a cop at all. Before coming to Vilas Lok, he hadn't cut his hair for months and now he looked like a wannabe actor or entertainer who had managed to join one of the clubs on the planet. Yuki had seen him in the streets with another dancer who seemed pretty much smitten by him.

  She wasn't sure she could use sex to get information, not even for the galaxy's security. No, infiltrating criminal organizations was not for her. She was better using her psychometry to find murderers or missing persons instead. She could never be a planted informer any more than she could be an assault team member.

  She'd known Aryan since the Academy, so she could see the real him under his disguises. But he was so good at deception that he'd helped disrupt or uncover three organized crimes on three different planets so far. Vilas Lok was his fourth assignment and he hadn't had a break since he'd started the infiltration job. She wondered if she could lure him into a short break together when they both finished their mission – if they finished at the same time, that is.

  She kept bumping into him as she wandered through the streets of Vilas, trying to find Angel Face. She went out mostly at night, when Aryan was busy playing guitar in a club, and sometimes went to listen to his shows to rest her tired feet. That was how she'd noticed his "boyfriend" who was always his loudest fan.

  And then Aryan vanished from the club where he was playing. She wondered if his job was done, but didn't try to contact him. She didn't want to jeopardize his cover. She noticed his boyfriend wore a worried frown and finally worked up the courage to approach the dancer at the bar of the club where Aryan had performed.

  "Are you all right?" she asked the young man.

  "Yes," the other grumbled and averted his eyes.

  "You look worried... is there anything I can do for you?"

  "No. This is Vilas Lok, people vanish every day here."

  "So? Who vanished?

  "My boyfriend. He went out and never came back."

  "Did you fight?"

  "No." The dancer emptied his glass of alcoholic drink and glared at her. "Leave me alone," he snapped before stomping away from the bar.

  Yuki sighed. That didn't go very well.

  "Can I buy you a drink?" The voice was husky and sexy and startled her. She turned around and her heart missed a beat. Angel Face. His dazzling smile. She had found him.

  She gulped and regained control. "Thanks, but no thanks, I think I'm going back to my hotel now."

  "Is it because the other guy turned you down? I'll make you forget him," he insisted. Honey-tongued, as she expected. She pretended to think about it.

  "I've been so unlucky so far," she complained. "I mean, this is the pleasure planet, but I don't want to pay a pro to find some pleasure, you know?"

  He offered his hand. "I'm Dorial Alers, CEO of Veillon Corporation," he said. "I'm not a male prostitute, I come here to be entertained too."

  "Yuki Zihan." She shook his hand and gasped as images hit her. All his victims. His assaults. His rapes. His latest feat – a gang-bang to punish an undercover police officer. In a few seconds Yuki saw Aryan's death. She let go of his hand, panting for breath, eyes wide in shock.

  "Are you all right?" he asked, solicitous. "You look as if you've seen a ghost..."

  She inhaled deeply and grabbed her handcuffs. "Yuki Zihan of the Galaxy Police," she said. "You're under arrest."

  "What for?" he protested while she restrained him with quick efficiency. "Hey, hands off, bitch!"

  "You better keep your mouth shut, Angel Face, you're in deep shit already," she replied bluntly, dragging him out of the club.

  ***

  Yuki went back to the orbital station at Alahairo still depressed. Aryan had been discovered and had been raped to death by the criminal organization he'd been trying to infiltrate. And the serial killer she'd been after was actually one of his rapists and murderers.

  Dorian Alers had been arrested for murder, but that didn't bring down the drug trafficking and slave trade behind Veillon Corporation. Aryan's death brought that investigation to a stop. And Yuki couldn't do much with her psychometry and retrocognition.

  She went with Kiril to Aryan's funeral service on the orbital station. On her other side she soon found Hiram Rone, who squeezed her hand knowingly. Yuki fought back the tears. She couldn't tell anyone she'd seen Aryan's death. She had touched his cold skin before it was locked inside the coffin and it had been even more shocking than seeing it from Angel Face's point of view.

  If accidental murderer Yashvardan Samara had a beautiful soul, Dorian Alers's was very dark. She was still repelled by the lust and sadism in that man's mind. She had touched him only once and very briefly when she'd arrested him, but his dirty thoughts were still with her. He had enjoyed killing those people. He had enjoyed humiliating and raping Aryan.

  Kiril gently ripped her away from the memorial stone the Galaxy Police gave to Aryan, fallen in the line of duty. She couldn't speak and let her cousin take her back to her lodgings, where she crumbled on the bed.

  She slept forty-eight hours under Kiril's worried eyes. When she woke up, she was more determined than ever to rid the galaxy of people like Dorian Alers.

  ***

  Yuki lay back in her chair with a sigh. No matter how much she concentrated on the object – a bloodied shirt – it didn't show her anything new about the murder.

  She focused on her cubicle again. The low buzzing of AC reached her ears. She was lucky to have a cubicle instead of a workstation in the open space of the GP's space station, but she needed to be able to concentrate.

  It was very spartan – a desk with a computer and a chair – but at least the walls protected her from the chatter of the police station. It was usually enough for her to "see", but not this time.

  Now that she was on her own, it wasn't easy. She had to balance her ability to find information about a dead person, possibly reliving his or her final moments, with detective work and arresting the culprit. It had been easier when she did the "reading" for Kiril who then took care of everything.

  And she was struggling with her latest assignment even more than the previous ones. Angel Face's arrest had gone smoothly compared to the following two missions. Months had flown by, she had turned thirty and sometimes she still missed Aryan. When she woke up alone in the middle of the night, she evoked Aryan's smile and imagined him by her side.

  Her latest assignment was a hitman who left no traces on his victims. His codename was Mercenary. He was one of the best killers in the galaxy precisely because he left no traces. And nobody knew what he looked like, although rumors said he'd come from Xi-kong. That was why the Supreme Commander had decided to put Yuki on the case.

&n
bsp; Yuki had touched his last two victims, but could see only a shadow – a tall man dressed all in black with icy blue eyes. Even holding that bloodied shirt for hours hadn't allowed her a clearer image. The man's features were blurry, as if the victims didn't have time to take a good look at their killer. Which wasn't so surprising, considering how good the man was.

  A knock on her door distracted her from her musings. Kiril put in his head and waved at her.

  "Hey, you're working late!" he said. "Come and have dinner with us?"

  Yuki sighed and threw the shirt on her desk. "This is the hardest assignment I've had so far," she said, rising and shutting down her computer. "I won't be able to find out who he is."

  "Well, talk to Birgit, maybe she can give you some tips." Kiril winked and she followed him outside, into the corridors of the orbital station.

  Yuki had always thought Kiril was a handsome man and wondered why he couldn't have a steady relationship until she'd started working with him. Policemen usually had relationships with colleagues, but when she'd joined, Yuki herself couldn't find anyone worth spending time with. Until she'd met Aryan Robena. Except Aryan was dead now. And Kiril had chosen a mercenary instead.

  When Yash had chosen to take a stolen rental starship beyond the edge of the galaxy and away from all forms of known civilization, Kiril had felt bummed. He had sympathized with the accidental killer and upon meeting Birgit again, he'd found an eager ear, since the Sylvanian had been quite fond of the young man herself.

  How it had happened that a policeman and a mercenary had fallen in love still amazed Yuki, but she thought they were a wonderful couple. Birgit hugged her as soon as she stepped into their house and asked how she was doing.

  "You must be very busy, it's been a month since you last came over," she chided.

  "True." Yuki sighed as she sat at their dinner table. "I'm after the Mercenary... Did you hear anything about him when you were on Friport?"

  "Ah, no, sorry." Birgit's smile vanished. "He's unaffiliated. He works on his own. And in spite of the codename, he's a hitman, not a mercenary."

  "I got that part," Yuki grumbled. "I know you mercenaries are not really outlaws."

  "I heard he might be from Xi-kong," Kiril said. "That's why you were given the case."

  "He's too tall to be Xi-kongian – as tall as you are," Yuki replied. "He might have been trained on Xi-kong, but he's not one of us."

  "I've been to Xi-kong once or twice... I know some Alahairian residents are sometimes allowed in the Xi-kongian schools. Not Ypsilantian men, mind you!" Birgit glanced at Kiril who sighed. "But Alahairians..."

  "They're everywhere," Yuki muttered. "They're traders, they go back to their home planet only to die."

  "Yeah, well, still... how many non-Xi-kongians can say they've been trained by the mob?" Birgit shrugged and looked at Yuki again. "That's the only tip I can give you about that guy."

  "That's more than anyone else could give me," Yuki said, relieved. At least she had something to work on now. "And Kiril, stop bothering about Yash and Ryo. You did what you could to bring them back. It was their choice to die out there instead of being brought to justice."

  "I've been telling him this since we got together." Birgit smiled, squeezing her husband's hand. "Your cousin is a tenderhearted man, Yuki. I don't know how he managed to stay in the homicide section of the GP for all these years."

  "Because I love my job," Kiril replied. "And when Yuki helped me, it was even easier. She also sympathized with the victims a lot. Maybe we should ask to work together again."

  "So you're having trouble on your own too?" Yuki asked him, puzzled. Kiril was much more experienced than she was.

  "Let's say we were a good team." He winked and smiled at her. "We should ask our superiors to recreate it..."

  "Let me nail this Mercenary and I'll definitely request that!" Yuki said, determined.

  ***

  Charleston Rose had two lives. Officially he was married to Iulia and had four children – Micaela, six, Leo, four, Mara, two and Ambra, only a few months old – and worked for a company that Yuki had discovered didn't exist. Most natives of Alahairo were salesmen and traders who moved around the galaxy a lot, but Charleston Rose was paid by elusive Targeting Magnet Inc. who gave him a regular salary for who knew what.

  With Birgit's input, Yuki managed to narrow the search and discovered his double life, but now she wasn't sure how to proceed. Iulia Rose knew nothing of her husband's real job and nobody had seen him in action. Charleston Rose might not be the only man who had a fake job to cover his real job. Unless she managed to tie him to the Mercenary's murders, Yuki couldn't arrest him.

  The Mercenary worked for anyone willing to pay for his services. If he'd been trained by the Xi-kongian mob, he wasn't one of them. And Charleston Rose had spent his teenage years on Xi-kong, following his father's trade. Now he had settled on Serenaide and looked respectable, but who knew what he'd actually learned on Xi-kong.

  The man is good, Yuki thought. She had tried to hire him, but his clients would never give his contact to a stranger. If I could touch him, I'd be able to feel everything... Although he'd have to confess to be convicted. Maybe I could convince his wife to betray him.

  Maybe Iulia could find proof or force her husband to confess. Yuki wasn't sure how a non-Xi-kongian woman would feel about it, but she assumed anyone discovering she'd married a hitman would be suitably upset and would demand answers from her husband.

  Yuki munched on her lower lip and sighed again. She hated what she was going to do – upset a mother of four – but if she was right, she'd arrest a wanted criminal and have leverage to change jobs. Although if she pulled this off and then requested to work with her cousin again, it would mean admitting defeat.

  But then, she couldn't say she'd had such a great career in the Galaxy Police. On Xi-kong women were considered breeding cows, but in the Galaxy Police only Sylvanians and Wegan women seemed to be able to have some kind of career. They were more ruthless than the other women, obviously, and Yuki's gift wasn't enough to make her stand out.

  She left the GP orbital station and took a rented starship to Serenaide. She checked her black uniform before leaving the spacecraft and took a flying cab to the Targeting Magnet Inc. offices, which proved to be an empty building, so she continued her ride to the Rose household.

  "Charlie isn't home," Iulia apologized, letting Yuki in. "Do you need his direct number?"

  "No, I know where to reach him, Ma'am," Yuki answered stopping in the entrance. "I couldn't find him in his office, so I came here to ask you a few questions if you don't mind."

  "Oh!" Iulia's eyes widened in surprise. "I'm just a housewife with my hands full..."

  "With four kids, I know." Yuki smiled. "Have you ever wondered about your husband, Ma'am? Where he goes and with who?"

  "It's his job," Iulia shrugged. "I never ask him about it, it was one of the deals for our marriage."

  "So he brings the money home and you don't care where it comes from."

  Iulia shifted from one foot to the other, eyes darting around. "That's right. His office is on the other side of the town, I saw it years ago, but haven't had time to go back there since."

  Yuki assumed not since the birth of the first child. The place had looked abandoned, but maybe Charleston Rose had rented it for a couple of years to throw dust in his prospective wife's eyes.

  "Don't you think it's a little weird?" Yuki insisted. "What if your husband is the Mercenary? I'm sure you've heard of him. What if you have a merciless killer who doesn't leave traces in your house? With four children, I'd be worried sick that he might turn on us without warning..."

  "You don't know Charlie." Iulia frowned and looked away towards a room where a baby was cooing. "He's not a hitman, he's the sweetest father that ever was and the most loving husband that ever lived. He makes up for his time away whenever he comes home and calls every day whenever he's traveling."

  "How long have you been married, Mrs. Rose? A
re you certain you know your husband's every little secret?"

  "It's none of your business." Iulia glared at her. "If you have a problem with him, arrest him."

  Yuki bowed out. "Thank you for your time," she said, a little disappointed. She'd have to find another way – figure out where Charleston Rose's real office was. Maybe in that abandoned building there were still objects that had belonged to him and could lead her to him...

  ***

  Charlie noticed Iulia was brooding, but he waited until the children were in bed before asking her what was wrong. Instead of going to the bedroom, she went back to the living room – farther away from the kids' rooms, which puzzled him a little.

  "What's bothering you?" he insisted, sitting on the couch next to her and putting one arm around her shoulders.

  She crossed her arms on her bosom and stared ahead with a frown before answering.

  "A GP commander came while you were away," she said at last. "She thinks you're the Mercenary."

  Charlie's heart missed a beat. That was close. Someone had been smart enough to figure out who he was. Now he needed to throw dust in his wife's eyes again. Pity he had given up the fake office. He'd have to find a suitable replacement as soon as possible.

  "And do you believe her?" he asked quietly, gently squeezing her shoulder. He might find an office to rent in that new mall just outside of the town.

  "I don't know!" she blurted out, turning to look at him with a worried expression. "You never allowed me to ask questions, but now I want to know. What is your trade? I know Alahairians are traders, but can you prove you're legit? You're not a smuggler? You don't work for your family business, so who pays you?"

  "Iulia," he chided. "You promised you'd never ask."

  He took her face in his hands, but she slapped his hands away.