Benny watched as the bartender rubbed a dead half cigarette between her fingers while she studied the holographic bounty profile projected over the countertop.

  Name: RED THUNDER (nickname, birth name unknown): Wanted on charges of felony-level drug distributions on Deimos, Mars, Europa, Hyperion, Sol Station VII, and Titan. Suspected involvement with the Cartel, including several deals with confirmed mob members. Last spotted fleeing pursuit in downtown New Angeles, Deimos, three weeks ago on 2/25/2284. Has been described wearing a black mask and long black coat with red lapels.

  Wanted: ALIVE for a bounty of ¥260,000,000. No payment beyond standard informant fees will be paid for return dead or with proof of death, reward renewable at any Guild Bail Bonds Agency location.

  WARNING: This criminal is known to be dangerous and unpredictable. Furthermore, it is currently believed that this criminal holds active ties to members of interplanetary crime rings. Hunters unwilling to risk Cartel attention, or who possess a history of dealings with the Cartel, may wish to avoid pursuit of this bounty.

Interplanetary Criminal Retrieval Guild Case file #00569378.

  Happy hunting.

  Benny kept his eyes intently on her burned face for any brief flash of recognition, but without much hope—a broad didn’t get a reputation like hers without being able to hold a poker face.

  A few sweet, melancholic chords of jazz drifted from a dark corner of the bar, danced over the smoke-filled air and swirled in the eddies of a lazy ceiling fan, as Benny took a sip from his glass of gin. With a rattle of whiskey stones, he gently set it down again.

  Vicki spoke without looking over. “Mhm…and what’s this got to do with me?

  “We have a mutual friend, Chief Payne down at the local precinct. When I heard Red Thunder was in his neck of the woods, I came around to see if he knew anything, but all he could do was point me here—said there ain’t a cat in N.A. could shake its tail without you knowing. Sorry to bother you and all, but I wondered if you might have any leads on a guy like this?”

Vicki looked up and slid the projector back to Benny, then cast a glance over her shoulder. “Holly, you wanna cover the bar for me? I need to take a few minutes.”

  She led the bounty hunter off to a circular booth nestled in the back of the bar, right next to the alley exit. At four on a weekday the place wasn’t exactly busy, Benny noted, but it was certainly better safe than sorry with information like this. She gestured him into a seat, then sat down, still twirling the half cigarette between her fingers.

  “You uh—want a light for that?” asked Benny, glancing nervously at the burn scar over her cheek and wondering if holding fire near her face was still a sensitive subject.

  Vicki shook her head with a wry smile. “Not just yet, thank you. You’re certainly welcome to light one yourself.”

  Benny nodded his gratitude, removing and igniting a cigarette from a tin case in his jacket.

  Vicki’s eyes searched the ceiling for a moment as she considered.

  “Let’s see now. Red Thunder—runs ether to the Cartels, but he ain’t one. Not yet, leastways. Word is, got another deal coming up tomorrow night.”

  “Oh?”

  “Same M.O. as everywhere else, trading a pretty big shipment to one Arturo Tejero on top of Nelson Tower, uptown. Midnight-thirty.”

  Benny drew in a lungful of smoke with a nod, breathing it out into the shade of the hanging light. “That’s mighty helpful, ma’am. What do I owe you for that much?”

  She shook her head. “Not a rin. Red Thunder’s career is coming to a head anyway; getting time for him to pay his dues.”

  Before Benny could reply, he was interrupted by a mechanical thunk and the sudden sound of glass shattering. His muscles springing into action honed by long experience, he heaved on the underside of the booth’s table, flipped it towards the front doorway and dropped into cover behind it.

  No fool, Vicki hit the deck right beside him, a snub-nosed revolver already clutched in her hands.

  An instant later, the flashbang grenade that had been fired into the bar went off with a single piercing note and a blinding flash of light. The music was replaced with the screams of reeling patrons, barely audible over the ringing in Benny’s ears. A moment later, the liquor shelf behind the bar exploded into shards of multicolored glass and gallons of spilled alcohol as fully-automatic gunfire raked from wall to wall. Over their heads, the wall crumbled into a flood of splinters and showered down onto their backs with a sound like Martian hailstorms on a tin roof. Benny remained pressed against the ground, but the dame beside him was crazy enough to rise to a crouch, stepping over him and surging to the back door. She ducked beneath the row of lead-punched holes as she popped the door open and slipped into the narrow strip of daylight beyond. Benny swore, pushing himself halfway up before a stray bullet burst through the table mere inches above his head. With a grunt, he dropped back down to the tiles, rolled onto his back and grimly resolved to wait till the storm had passed.

  After an absurdly long hail of bullets, Benny could hear the tramp of boots storming in over shards and wooden splinters, accompanied by the bark of a commanding voice—a tone universal between the sergeants of private armies, Cartel kill-squad captains, and his childhood gym instructor.

  “Clúdaigh na bealaí amach agus seiceáil na corpáin do Adria Tejero!”

  Benny’s ears pricked up. Tejero—the name of the Cartel agent Red Thunder would be meeting.

  He could hear them combing through the rubble, calling continuously to one another as they searched the bar—professionals then, not just hired grunts. One voice in particular was growing closer and closer to where he lay behind the table, and he aimed his 1911 upwards at arms’ length in case he should see a head looking over it. Suddenly, a woman’s scream joined them, along with the sound of someone being half marched and half dragged across the debris on the floor.

  “Shut your mouth!” shouted the accented voice of command.

  The screaming collapsed into subdued, panicked sobs.

  “D’you know who we are?” the commander continued. To the miserable lack of response, he answered, “We’re Green Canvas. And I am Major Doyle, of the sixth division.”

  Where he lay, Benny swore silently to himself. Mercenaries. However they were involved with Tejero and his bounty, it wasn’t likely to make things easier. Especially with an introduction like this. Slowly, carefully, the hunter twisted himself onto his stomach.

  “We’re here,” continued Doyle “because this fine establishment is hiding a person of interest to us, to our mercenary company. You seen this woman?”

  Some of the Green Canvas soldiers turned away from the interrogation, returning to the searching of the shot-up bar. One near the back door moved towards the overturned table in the back, cautiously putting his rifle to his shoulder

  The sobs continued.

  “Yes or no, iníon?”

  “N-no,” she managed.

  “Hm. See now, something’s telling me that ain’t quite right, iníon. Take another look…and mind, she might have got a few scars since this picture was taken.”

  The mercenary moved the final few feet up to the overturned table—set a cautious hand on the edge, and pulled it back to expose what was behind it: nothing. He grunted and returned to the middle of the lobby.

  Benny watched from where he crouched behind the bar as the Green Canvas soldier moved away from his previous hiding place. Keeping an ear out for the interrogation by the door, he keyed as quietly as he could through the bar terminal. Employee files…Molly Travis…Dale Mullins…ah, Vicki Yeates!

  “Wait! Wait!” sniffled the woman before the major. “I do know her! That looks like Vicki, if she didn’t have that burn on the side of her face!”

  “There we are! Now, we’ve got it on good authority she’s working today—” the dreadful sound of a revolver hammer being drawn back—“So be a good lass and tell us where she’s at.”

  Benny’s fingers danced over the keyboard as rapidly as he could manage, cursing its noisiness. Schedules…application…and there! Her labor tax form, and on it, a current legal address.

  “Oh God!” breathed the woman in the front “She…she stepped out to speak to a man right before you arrived! Honest, I have no idea where she is or who she was talking to—I can describe him but please don’t hurt me. I have a kid sister! She needs me!”

  The mercenaries looked up in unison as the back door clicked shut.

  “Go tapa,” shouted Doyle, pointing, “tar éis di!”

  By the time the soldiers had finished pouring out into the alley behind the bar, all that was left was a shadow flickering high up on the walls and the sound of a T-17 model hovercar burning off into the golden noon sky.

*      *      *      *      *     *

  Vicki shut the door to her apartment behind her, engaging both locks and slamming her back against the cool wood. Closing her eyes for a moment, she breathed a deep sigh of relief. She raised the ancient, half-smoked cigarette to her face and pressed it against her lips, then ran a thumb over the red burn scar. Dead flesh now–but still searing with the memory.

  “Long day?” asked Benny, from an armchair obscured in shadow.

  Like she’d received an electric shock, Vicki shot up straight as a rod before breaking into a chagrined smile.

  “I hope you don’t mind,” he continued, “I poured you a drink as well. Been sitting out on the counter for a bit, but it’ll be nice for you to have something to sip on while you explain yourself.”

  Twirling the cigarette, Vicki moved to the counter and picked up the tumbler of liquor—bourbon on the rocks. She took a slow sip and noted the glint hovering in the armchair’s shadow: lamplight on a gunbarrel.

  “You got me,” she replied in a bittersweet tone.

  “Mhm,” said Benny. “And just who have I got? You’ve got a private army after you on a no-expense-spared personal grudge, have a suspicious amount of information on Red Thunder which you’re awfully free with, and evidently share the name ‘Tejero’ with Cartel brass.” The stones rattled as the bounty hunter took a slow, smooth drink. “So start at the beginning, go till you hit the end, and then stop.”

  Vicki stared at her half cigarette pensively for a long time, then slowly crossed the room and sat down in a chair across from Benny. She crossed one leg over the other, drank a deep sip of bourbon, and at last set the glass down on a jade coaster.

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

  “As you may have guessed, my name’s not Vicki. I’m Adria Tejero, sister of Arturo Tejero, and it seems these days, better known as Red Thunder.

  “My brother and I were always bright, ever since we were little kids. Scored so high at our one-room schoolhouse on Tethys that we got bumped up to these special government-sponsored academies—scored high there too. Picked up a lot of learning in ’em, but we never really took to the manners so much. We got real close after Ma died too, so we ate together, studied together, got into scraps together, and won ’em together…used to say barfights and brain cells ran in the blood. Anyhow, with a whole world of prospects for us, it was our uncle who clued us in to how much money we could make working with Green Canvas. Arturo heard those figures and I saw his eyes light up like he was watching fireworks. I wasn’t the keenest I’d ever been, but hell, I couldn’t look into those eyes and say no, so after a little talk we agreed that same night.

  “See, our uncle had connections high up in Green Canvas, and apparently they needed two technical engineers on the controls for a fancy new piece of equipment they’d cooked up. Fresh off Mercury’s conveyor belts, trim with the shiniest lights and the clickiest buttons, they called it the Green Canvas Hippogriff Battle Station; most expensive piece of privately-owned tech in the galaxy, at the time. Held a few dozen companies of troops with mess and tack, but most importantly, the Orbital Strike Array. That’s where we came in: when things got too hot for the ground teams, they’d radio up and we’d burn our initials into whatever rock was giving them trouble. Precise like a broke barman ringing up a tab, and just as devastating. We could give you a comfortable shave from the other end of the solar system, if you asked nicely.

  “Now running with mercs, you’re bound to run into some cases you’re less than thrilled about. I ended up seeing a side of Arturo I wasn’t sure I liked, how fast he’d turn the key over some rival company’s hideout or how quick he’d laugh it off afterwards. Made me feel sick to my stomach, sometimes, and it all snapped one day over one of Saturn’s moons. We’d been hired by the Plex Corporation, sent to clear out some colonists that had settled there before the rights had been given away and weren’t moving off. Stubborn as oxen, the dumb things. They weren’t being smoked out, starved out, or strafed out, and we were on a deadline. So they call on up, the order gets cleared by our superiors and tumbles on down to us—wipe them out from orbit.

  “Considering what I’d done before that—considering what I’ve done since? Guess I don’t know why I froze up just then. Had this image in my head of a bunch of folk across the galaxy waiting for letters what never came and—I just couldn’t do it. Sat there in the control room with my arms folded, wouldn’t move a muscle to turn my key. Arturo got angrier and angrier, started shouting at me, said I had to do this, even if we quit after. It was the first time in ten years I saw him get mad at me; but he couldn’t look me in the eyes for a moment of it. He knew I was right. But when I still refused, he reached into his jacket—and pulled a gun on me.”

Adria took another drink, then began rolling the cigarette between her finger and thumb again. “I knew there wasn’t a thing I could do to stop him, either. Worst came to worst, he could just do my part and call in some meat-headed grunt to turn my key, so I did the only thing I could think of: closed exhaust vents throughout the station and reversed the Strike Array’s coil feed, then I turned the key.

  “And it all started coming apart around us. The bottom two thirds were burned into molten slag in about thirteen seconds, the bulkheads sealed and emergency lights went on. Sometimes I hear police sirens and for a second I’m back there again. Arturo screamed and took the shot, but it was too late. He got me in the chest, right here.”

  Adria pulled her collar down only a few inches, for modesty’s sake, but Benny could see the seam where her skin met the smooth steel of an implant.

  “Then he looked like he’d just woken up,” she continued, “like he didn’t know what he’d done. He dropped the gun, ran over and held me in his arms, crying, crying. He said he was sorry, over and over, but I couldn’t say I’d forgiven him. I ought to have—but truthfully I don’t think I did. Or have. That might have been why he still didn’t look me in the eyes, not the entire time. He lit me one last cigarette, then ran for an escape pod and left me for dead.” She held up her long cold cigarette stub, turning it in the lamplight.

  “Somehow, as you may have guessed, I did survive. Long enough for some early-bird scavvers to pick me up and get some life support cybernetics into me. Spare-part trash, but hey, I was alive. And to pay off that service I had to run with them for two years, picking space hulks way out by the Tannhauser Gate or off the shoulder of Orion. When I’d finally worked that off, I returned to civilization and immediately started tracking down my brother, changing my name and keeping as low a profile as I could. Turns out, he’d quit Green Canvas after making up with them about Hippogriff—and moved right into shipping ether with the Cartel. So, I followed his path, making connections, meeting synthesizers and proving my worth. When I dealt ether, I became Red Thunder, the mysterious, untraceable, uncatchable narcotic supplier.” She drank from her tumbler again, draining it till the stones ran against her lips.

  Benny watched with his head cocked to one side, a ghost of wonder managing to slip past the guarded stoicism his face was accustomed to. He breathed as much quiet menace into his voice as possible, but it was impossible to mask that two-hundred-and-sixty-million yen had just become a person. “All this,” he said at last, “To meet your brother? Running from the cops, Green Canvas—”

  “And Plex Corporation,” Adria finished. “I reckon it was them put out the bounty on me. Listen—Benny, right?—it’s been five years. Five years I’ve dodged Plex for laming their expansion, dodged Green Canvas for blowing Hippogriff, just shooting forward for tomorrow. For the day I get to make a deal with my brother. Back in the bar, I told you it was about time for Red Thunder to pay her dues, and that’s perfectly true. I don’t know what I’d do the day after tomorrow, so I don’t give half a damn at the thought of spending it staring through bars. All I want—” Adria paused, her knuckles going white as she gripped the glass and her voice wavering for a moment. “All I want is to look him in the eyes. And then…then one of us can finish this cigarette.”

  She looked up and met Benny’s gaze, her eyes like hazel storms bound into marbles.

  “Take me in, take him in, take the ether in for an extra paycheck from the feds, just please. Don’t take tomorrow from me.”

*     *     *     *      *     *

  Arturo Tejero breathed a wispy cloud of cigar smoke into the night air, watching it shimmer an incandescent red in the glow of a massive neon billboard. Fifty stories up on top of Nelson Tower, the smoke was quickly shredded by the midnight winds and vanished over the black Cartel hover van parked on the roof. He stirred the gravel with his black Oxford shoe idly, and cast a glance over his shoulder to the mid-air traffic that flowed between the uptown skyscrapers. None high enough to see onto this particular rooftop, of course, he wasn’t a fool.

  He returned for another draw on his cigar, a fat, slow-burning Neptune, with notes of coffee and pepper; a Cartel paycheck allowed for such luxuries.

  From where he stood on the top steps of the fire escape, Benny risked a glance up onto the rooftop proper to ensure Arturo hadn’t moved, then pushed up his sleeve and checked his watch—any moment now. One last time, he ejected the magazine from his sniper rifle, counted the .50 caliber rounds inside, and after a brief inspection replaced them into the gun and silently racked the bolt to chamber one of the massive bullets. From what he had seen, Cartel at this level were unlikely to be wearing plates. If they expected a firefight, they’d pass the risk down to the grunts. Still, there was no such thing as over-armed, and ¥260,000,000 was too much to leave to chance. Adria had to be brought in alive, but he had no such restrictions on Arturo.

  From the rooftop exit, Benny could hear a faint click, followed by the crunch of a boot stepping out into the night air. Craning up to peer over the edge, he saw Adria walking onto the roof from the stairwell inside the building; though perhaps it would be more accurate to call her Red Thunder now. Her eyes and nose were hidden behind a black brocade mask, the kind you might see in robber barons’ masquerades on Phobos, and complimented by a long dark coat. The inside had been lined with a rich carmine silk, and with the lapels turned outward they did indeed give the impression of twin red lightning bolts. A hover pallet stacked with aluminum crates glided quietly behind her, humming to itself as it threw up a faint dust cloud from the rooftop’s surface.

  Arturo smiled and watched a cylinder of ash crumble from the end of his cigar.

  “Punctual like a flush barman at closing time, with an opera mask and a comic-book villain coat. Either it’s Halloween on this rock or you must be Red Thunder.”

  Adria stopped about fifteen feet away, allowing the pallet to slow to a halt at her heels. She cocked her head slightly to the side, but remained silent, staring at her brother. He raised an eyebrow, then gestured for the crates of ether. “Yeah, good to meet you too. Let’s see the goods.”

  She still didn’t move. After a long moment, she finally spoke. “You look older—Not just five years older. Like you’ve stared some lines into your face in front of the mirror, thinking about what you did and wondering if it was worth it.”

  “What the hell?”

  “And was it worth it, Arturo? Did it buy you enough gin to forget?”

  Arturo’s face twisted into a sudden scowl and he dropped his cigar, grinding it out under his shoe. “I don’t know how much of your own supply you’ve been sampling,” he said “but if you’re not showing the goods you’re not getting a single yen.” He turned and stormed around the front of the hover van and threw open the driver’s side door.

  Reaching up behind her head, Adria undid the mask and let it drop with a soft clatter to her feet. Arturo froze where he stood, with one hand still on the door. Bathed in the red light of the blazing sign, both were completely silent. The distant sounds of midnight traffic echoed up from far below. Benny adjusted his grip on the rifle, his muscles primed to spring into action for whatever would happened next.

  After a long while, Arturo finally managed to whisper, “How?”

  Adria cracked a bitter smile. “You’re a lousy shot,” she said, with a slight sniffing sound.

  Arturo barked a laugh, cut it off a little too quickly. “No,” he said. “To answer your question, never could get enough gin. I did try to drown my sorrows, but—the bastards learned how to swim. Bah. And I hate weepy drunks.”

  Adria chuckled as well, and her brother continued. “But…I reckon after seven years you’re not in the mood for catching up.”

  Her smile faded as she sighed. “No,” she said softly. “I always imagined that when I did find you, one of us would end up shot. Properly, this time.” Her hand drifted towards her hip, her fingers just turning back the flap of coat that obscured the path to her revolver.

  Arturo nodded bitterly, and the fingers of his right hand splayed as he stretched them.

  From the fire escape, Benny raised the muzzle of his sniper rifle and set it against the lip of the rooftop. He shut one eye and looked through the scope, centering in on Arturo’s heart…and he paused. If Adria was killed, he lost the bounty, but how could he possibly kill Arturo now? He swore silently at himself, damning whatever foolish notion had put him here and double damning whatever foolish notion still held him back.

  The air between the two siblings grew statically tense, hands hovering inches above their triggers. The wind whipped up a paper from the rooftop, swirling it and casting it over the edge to spiral down fifty stories. When that breeze died, the only sound on the rooftop was the buzzing of the neon sign, burning its eternal carmine vigil. The moment was shattered like glass.

  With the thunk of floodlights switching on, an armored hover transport lifted up over the roof, shining bright white spotlights onto the two. Benny reeled back blinded as a massive voice boomed through a loudspeaker,

  “Adria Tejero, ye are wanted by the Green Canvas mercenary company for the devastation of company property and the murder of company personnel! Lay down your weapons or ye will be fired upon!”

  Blinking enough to make out the two black silhouettes of the Tejeros against the glaring rimlight, Benny could see that both had drawn their handguns and now stood holding them and staring at the new development. For one instant they turned and glanced at each other, then dove for cover alternately to the left and right. Arturo leapt and rolled behind his black van even as Adria slid behind a rooftop generator, and the guns of the mercenary hovership opened fire.

  In a way Benny considered to be growing decidedly tiresome, the automatic blasts raked across the roof, casting up sparks and chips of concrete before they settled for a moment on the van, blasting massive holes through its side. The glass in the windows shattered, crumbling and toppling out like red and white rain to the ground. As Arturo took shelter, Adria leaned out over her generator, firing off a few shots at the ship—a useless gesture, of course. .22 was hardly going to do serious damage to a plated vehicle.

  Clearly reassessing risk, the chopper began to turn, marking out a spray of fractured gravel as the bullets weaved their way towards Red Thunder.

  Benny’s eyes shot wide as he realized how few shots the generator would actually be able to absorb before it became totally useless as cover. Quickly returning the stock to his shoulder, he focused through the sniper’s sight and did his best to guess where—given the position of the two blinding searchlights—the cockpit would be.

  The hovership’s gunfire had only just reached the generator by the time he pulled the trigger, and for a moment, time was frozen. Inside the barrel, there was an infinitely brief hiss as the primer was struck and ignited the propellant, blasting the bullet out of its case. It accelerated as the rifling twisted it into a furious spiral before it finally burst free of the barrel, emerging with a hundred and sixty decibel crack and piercing the night air so swiftly that it left a vacuum in its wake. It spat out over the rim of the rooftop, flying between where the two siblings crouched in cover and climbing higher and higher between and above the two searchlights. Invisible to the bounty hunter against the glare, it pierced directly through the plated glass, punching a small circular hole through the windshield, shattering the pilot’s skull like a ceramic plate, and at last burying itself in the instrument panel behind him.

  The ship guns cut out immediately, leaving only a ringing in their wake as the corpse slumped forward onto the joystick. With a buzzing sound, the whole hovership keeled forwards and down, propelling itself towards the rooftop.

Only marginally understanding what had happened, Arturo stood just in time to see it hurtling towards him, and spun around to sprint for the edge of the rooftop.

  It slammed into the side of the van with a force that shook all three off their feet, detonating an instant later in a blossom of smoky orange flame. The corner of the skyscraper was blown into rubble, hurling out into the night and plummeting fifty tall stories to the city streets below. The top three levels of the tower were exposed in the crater, and the sheer concussive force of the impact threw the scalded hovervan several meters. The burning wreckage protruded out of the building, the golden flames and black smoke still lit by the undamaged red sign.

Shaking the sound and force out of his head, Benny reeled to his feet, rushing up the steps onto the rooftop proper—and he saw where the van had landed.

  Arturo’s bottom half was crushed beneath the vehicle, and he stared silently upwards with a pale face and a set jaw. From behind the generator, Adria struggled to her feet, clutching a bloody spot over her heart. The bounty hunter could do no more than stare as she staggered over to her brother, dropping down next to him and laying back against the van. He shifted his gaze over to her as she sat, still silent. She reached, wincing, into her pocket and drew out a dry half-cigarette and a tin lighter. She placed it in his mouth, igniting it with a gurgling cough.

  Adria lay down gently, spilling blood onto her brother’s chest as she rested against him. She watched as he drew in a lungful of smoke and breathed it up into the night sky. At last, he raised his head and stared into her eyes, like a sun-burned man drinking from a desert well. He watched as they frosted over, till the only light that remained in them was the sanguine reflection of the rooftop advertisement. When his head dropped to the ground again, his own eyes were likewise glazed over; and the cigarette tumbled limply out of his mouth.