The morning after the assassination a specially designed medical pod hissed and the lid slid open. Brenda slowly regained consciousness. She stretched and sat up, touching her face.

She giggled. It felt funny. It always did. She wanted to jump up and go to a mirror but she had learned (eventually) that just jumping up out of a medical pod was a bad idea.

She sat there looking around happily. She hoped that her smile would turn out a little less goofy this time but held out little hope for that. It probably wound up even goofier.

I mean someone really shouldn’t do this too many times and she had done this way too many times. Fortunately these days she didn’t have to do that many jobs so she had plenty of time to recover, even get some professional work done should it be needed.

In fact she didn’t have to do any jobs anymore. She only did the ones that sounded “fun”, like this one.

A hatch opened and a grizzled looking man walked in. She waved happily.

“Hi captain!”

He just grunted and kept walking.

“You hear from your wife and kids?” Brenda asked happily. “They having fun on their vacation?”

“Fuck you!” the man snarled.

“Yes, but are they having fun?” Brenda asked.

“The kids are...”

“Well that’s just great!” Brenda beamed. “They are only kids once, you know… So, how do I look?”

“Like a soulless evil bitch!”

“Yeah but am I a cute one?”

The man just stalked away.

She just sighed and shook her head. Some people… they can’t ever enjoy what life has to offer. She went out of her way, and spared little expense, setting up his family (and the families of the rest of his three man crew) with a truly lovely vacation to Luna World and all he could do was grumble.

She would have loved a trip to Luna World when she was his kids age! Heck, she still loves a trip to Luna World!

Her legs seemed to be a bit less rubbery so she cautiously got out of the custom med pod and walked over to the bathroom and looked in the mirror.

She smiled. She liked what she saw. Hey! The smile wasn’t lopsided! Sweet! She went back to her luggage and pulled out a bottle of very nice very pricy nanotech hair dye… A nice golden blond. She hadn’t been one of those in ages! It would go well with the face. She, looking in the mirror, then carefully adjusted her iris color and pattern (gotta love those implants).

She grinned. A blonde haired blue eyed cutie! She turned to the side and frowned. The next pod was going to definitely have some body sculpting options.

After the dye job she went to a chest and pulled out a pair of nice pair of khaki’s, a pretty button-down blouse, and a smart looking tweed blazer.

“Hey Captain,” she called out as the guy walked back in.

“Yeah?” the guy asked cautiously.

“Once the blockade is lifted you guys can scoot!” she said happily. “I got some shit to do. I’ll find another way back. My guys will collect my cargo when you meet up with your families on Luna.”

“Really?” the man asked hopefully.

“Yup. Our business is done,” Brenda grinned. “You guys are off the hook. Go back and enjoy Luna World. You deserve it! The guys that pick up my gear will pay you the rest of my fare.”

“Ok.” the captain said breathing a sigh of relief.

“Just going to pack a bag and then I’ll be off.”

The captain just walked away. His crew would be delighted and very very relieved.

Brenda slid a plug into her neural jack. She interfaced with the medical pod. A menu popped up. She selected “One Jump” and then closed the menu. Deep within the pod a large cylinder marked with a little yellow smiley face sticker beeped once. She grinned. She hardly ever got to use a nuke! Too bad she wouldn’t be able to see it. All traces now removed and no tattle-tales to worry about.

She smiled thinking of the captain. His wife couldn’t pay her much but after reviewing her medical records she waived her fee. It was good to give back to the community, you know? As far as his crew went, the wonderful garden of the human experience needed a little weeding every now and then.

Picking up the same suitcase she entered with, she happily waved goodbye and left the freighter.

***

She was soon munching on some greasy diner fare at the starport. Hashbrowns with chili and cheese with a nice cold beer to wash it all down. She pulled out her trusty guide book. It would be a good while before she could safely leave the planet (Everybody expects you to make a run for it.) so she might as well have some fun. Oh! A nature preserve with campgrounds! Wonderful! She could grab some camping gear and enjoy nature for a bit! A camp fire, hot dogs, pancakes… s’mores! That would be a blast! She hadn’t gone camping in ages! Ooo! She could get a fishing license! Nothing like freshly caught fish grilling on an open flame!

A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

Now that’s a plan! She reviewed the train schedule and headed out.

***

Two days later Gvx-Taa leaned forward excitedly. He had been informed that they finally had something.

“At your suggestion we went over the all the video again and we found something that the AI, and ourselves, missed.” a tall feathered technician said in less than an enthusiastic tone (They drew lots. He lost.) and queued up some video.

“The human, the one in the brown hooded garment. Observe.”

The director winced as footage of the killing flashed in front of his eyes. He was really sick of watching that.

“Yeah, looks a pretty normal reaction.”

“Yes, if they worked for us… or any police force or governmental agency… that person is not one of ours.”

“Abyss take them!” he snarled. “They were just dancing right along!”

“Yes, director. And pay special attention right… here.” the technician paused the video. The human was clearly picking something up.

“She was confirming the kill… that… THAT WAS PART OF THE FUCKING DIRECTOR!!!!!” Gvx-Taa screamed. “She… she probably served it up over rice to that whore…” he buzzed spraying bile across his desk.

“Scans!” the director exclaimed. “There were scanners all over the fucking place. Did we get her?”

The technician winced.

“No, director.”

“How!?!?”

“They were adept at avoiding being scanned even in the chaos. I mean it’s unnatural. All those scans and she wasn’t in any of them. We don’t even have that clear of an image of her face. It’s like she knew the location of every single camera in the area.”

“Impossible!” the director hissed. “How could she avoid all those scanners?”

The technician pulled up a map.

“As you can see the scans focused either directly on the impact area, the perimeter looking for fleeing suspects, and the rooftops. As you can see this whole area is almost completely unscanned. That area is where she remained. The situation was further complicated by the number of people who acted as natural obstructions.”

“How the fuck did she escape?”

The technician sighed and then backing out of bile range pressed play.

“BZZZzzzzZZZZZzzzzZZZZZzz!!!!!!!!!”

“Wait! She was eating! Yes! The box! She left it! We have frozen trash collection! It’s still there! It’s-”

The technician winced and queued up another video from the evening of the killing, after the site had been secured. In it a small object with the caption “Federation Evidence Collection Drone” flew into view and hovered over a certain trash bin. Shortly thereafter a box could clearly be seen lifted out of the bin and then lifted out of frame.

They didn’t even have them! Nobody had them! Federation Evidence Collection Drones didn’t even exist! The director made a faint but very distressing sizzling noise. The technician backed away.

“Find…. Her….” He buzzed flaring his wings angrily. “I want that Terran slut… ALIVE!!!!! I don’t care what it costs! I don’t care what it takes! I don’t even care if you get fucking Military Intelligence involved! Fuck! I’ll pleasure a fucking Terran myself if that’s what it takes! FIND HER!!!...”

***

As very good computer projections of what she probably used to look like were flashing across every tablet and every screen in the entire system Brenda with a completely new face was sitting on a pier holding a fishing rod and sipping a cold Comet Soda. It wasn’t Ultra Cola but hey, for the Feds it wasn’t that bad of a knock-off.

The bobber attached to her line started to wiggle!…

That evening as every point in the whole capital where someone who remotely resembled her had been recorded was being scanned and double-scanned, Brenda was sitting by a campfire (real wood!) and smushing a freshly roasted marshmallow and some chocolate between two graham crackers (real graham crackers!).

She took a bite, getting chocolate all over her face, and smiled happily.

As countless technicians were realizing in dismay that any place where they knew she sat and everything they knew she touched had literally thousands of human genetic identifiers (It was like she rolled in people dust… which is pretty much exactly what she did.), Brenda snuggled into her sleeping bag and turned off the lights.

Brenda smiled happily as she drifted off to sleep. It had been a truly lovely day.

About that same time Gvx-Taa replaced his bile bucket with a larger one as he reviewed the results of the search.

How can someone move through this fucking city and not be captured a single fucking camera?!? he thought as he started to spit before he realized that he was out. He had run out of bile. Oh that couldn’t be healthy.

The next day they went over every hotel in the city. Unfortunately there were a lot of “hourly rate” and “love hotels” that didn’t use cameras for obvious reasons. Even so they found a clerk who did recognize the picture but couldn’t exactly recall which room. This led to a number of very startled and mortified guests just a little bit later. They scanned the place until every particle shook but nothing conclusive was found. A lot of people use those rooms on a fairly regular basis. Finding human genetic material wasn’t noteworthy. There was some excitement when they found traces of sani-clear but it turned out that the staff used it on a depressingly regular basis. In fact, the faint scent of sani-clear was what made Brenda chose this particular establishment.

Brenda had a crisis. She ran out of marshmallows. It was too much of a hassle to get more. She just decided to suck it up and soldier on.

Two days later they had no choice but to lift the blockade. They posted both large rewards and dire warnings but no ship of any type reported any passengers of that description. There were a host of “sightings” and false reports but they all amounted to naught.

Later that day Brenda caught a huge and wonderfully edible fish and the freighter that brought her here made a jump to hyperspace… In a completely unexpected twist of fate that freighter never did return to the Republic (or anywhere else for that matter)

A park ranger paid a visit to every campsite with a picture of old Brenda on his vehicle’s display. Brenda cheerfully waved at him. Satellite images were taken to check for any humans hiding out in the bush. A few primitive campers were quite surprised as a result.

Four days later and the human travel ban was lifted. Better images of old Brenda made with the best AI they had updated the old facial recognition images of old Brenda across the whole Federation.

Brenda took a native draft animal excursion up a nearby mountain. On said excursion she met a cute guy! That night as Gvx-Taa filed what he knew was a completely pointless report to Republic Interpol Brenda got lucky!

The guy had marshmallows! Oh, she also got laid.

As the search for The Hatchet went from a raging inferno of rage to a slow smoldering hate Brenda and her new friend hung out for a few days drinking beer, smoking weed, and making s’mores.

Brenda eventually bid her new friend a fond farewell and brought her camping trip to a close.

She took the train to another starport. Even with everything that took place there was always a freighter looking to make some easy money.

Brenda even let them live.