---Success---
---Chhay’s perspective---
My husband walks close beside me, to my left, as we climb the stairs to our penthouse in the ODR’s residential wing.
The party in the gymnasium was pleasant.
A little on the cheese platter and dry white wine side but… well… however we both look, neither of us are young men anymore(!)… Perhaps it’s for the best that the careerpath we’re on precludes attending the kind of ragers I went to at uni(!)
I was glad to see the way Zuzu (ever the outgoing extrovert) got to relax at the expeditionary send off party.
Now that they’ve departed, he’s got one less thing on his constantly overpiled plate!
Since the diplomatic nightmare of the discovery of the lost colony right on the edge of the galactic core, the legal nightmare of how exactly to prosecute that murderer from there, the overseeing of the arrangements for the refugees that the Bright Plume brought here, the work that’s gone into all the last minute preparations to the expedition on top of all of his normal duties, he was run off his feet even before all the stress that the assassination attempt caused!
Of course, he’s no stranger to attempts on his life(!)… We first met when I was a lowly nurse, picking shrapnel out of his cheek after a failed bomb plot, afterall! (‘Failed’ in that it only killed people other than the intended targets…)
It still takes a toll though… every time.
He jokes about it… but I see how it affects him.
Luckily, we don’t need protection inside this building… which means that Gamba was able to babysit for us.
The kids absolutely adore their ‘Monkey Uncle’, as he’s happy to selfdesignate, despite Gorillas being Apes, not Monkeys!
Not a distinction that particularly matters in Khmer but, by mutual agreement, we’re raising our kids with English as their primary language at home, so we need to make sure they understand that others might take offence to careless language like that!
At this point, I feel something squeezing my right arsecheek.
I turn my head left to my husbands face, innocently pointed forward. Apparently, he still has a little energy left(!)
“Darling… what’s on my backside?” I ask, wryly.
“My hand, my love.” he says, visibly fighting off a smile.
“And… why is your hand on my backside?”
“Because you have the most pleasant, squeezable backside in the galaxy, dear.” he answers, simply.
“Honestly, I wonder what the Terran public would think if they knew the truth about what a handsy pervert they had representing them in Parliament and Heading their interplanetary relations agency(!)… Can’t even walk up a flight of stairs without giving his husband a grope(!)” I tease.
Unauthorized content usage: if you discover this narrative on Amazon, report the violation.
“Would you like me to remove my hand, sweetheart?” he asks, his lips pursed in mirth.
“I didn’t say that…!” I grin, returning the favour and extending my left arm to his left arsecheek.
“I’d suggest putting the privacy field up tonight… but I really need a full 8 hours…” Zuzu says, with regret.
As we approach our door, I begin saying “Let’s just hope Gamba’s got Chan and Sai to slee…” but break off mid sentence as, before we’ve taken three paces into our home, I realise that something’s wrong…
Both of us release our hold on the other and our heads whip forward to see our lounge in a state of total disarray!
The bottom drops out of my stomach as I spot a pair of black furry legs, ending in two calloused, prehensile handfeet, protruding from behind the sofa.
My heart is pounding and I take a breath to say that we need to call security.
*Clank* is the sound of something heavy and metallic, landing behind us.
*Thunk* is the sound of something hitting the back of my husband’s neck with the force of an executioner’s axe.
*Thud**thud thud thud thud* is the sound of my husband’s head hitting the ground 4m from his body and rolling another few metres.
Before I can scream for help, I’m slammed to the wall with enough force to drive the air from my lungs.
“Be smart, buddy…” growls the mechanical monstrosity pinning me to the wall with a bright red, bulky, metal right arm that doesn’t match the sleek, clawed, durasteel left arm that he’s pointing toward my throat, only red for being covered in my husband’s blood “…there’s no bounty on your head and I’d hate to be forced to make orphans of your kids!”
“*wheeze**cough*…What have you done to them?!” I manage to ask, through the pressure he’s applying to my sternum. I’m trying not to think about what I just watched happen to the love of my life and focus on what matters now!
“Relax. Your kids are safe… Sedated and lying in their beds… I don’t kill kids.”
“What a hero(!)” I spit, defiantly.
The skullfaced abomination does a slight doubletake before mirthfully saying “You’re braver than I expected the draft dodging, pencil pushing boywife of that spineless backstabber to be(!)… Or maybe just stupider?”
My feet are lifted from the ground as he drags me around 30cm up the wall by the front of my shirt, still applying so much pressure that I get friction burns on my back.
“Let’s get some things straight… What’s gonna happen now is; I’m about to pick up that head and walk out of your apartment with it before exfiltrating this compound and leaving the planet… the only question, is whether I leave behind two orphans and a third corpse… or two kids and a smart guy who knows how to follow instructions?… Are you a smart guy?… Or are you a corpse!?”
I don’t want to answer… but I want Chan and Sai to grow up as orphans less…
“I’m smart…” I wheeze, reluctantly.
“Good!” he says, cheerfully, releasing my shirt and letting me fall to the floor where I crumple into a heap.
Casually, he strolls to my Zuzu’s head and picks it up by his hair, his footfalls making heavy *clunks* over the quiet *whirr* of his actuators as he does.
I’m subjected to a horrific view of my husband’s final expression as his head dangles from the hand that killed him.
Returning to where I am on his way back to the door, the murderer stops.
“You count?”
“I what?”
“Can. you. count?”
“I can count…” I confirm, gingerly rubbing the place on my chest where he crushed me.
“Then here’s what I want you to do; lie on the floor, face down, put your hands on top of your head and count to a hundred… slowly!… When you’re done, you can call security… Try moving before then and killing you gets bumped to the top of my priority list, ahead of escaping… Do we understand eachother?”
I nod.
“Do it then!”
I follow the instructions, bracing myself for the possibility of him changing his mind about letting me live.
I begin counting and hear his (suddenly much lighter) footfalls as he leaves.
“One… two… three… four… five… *sniffle* six… seven… *sob* eight…”
---Jackson’s perspective---
I enter the door to the parked craft, serving as our hideout.
A woman with a mohawk of voluminous, curly, red hair, flopped over the side of her scalp, looks up at me with a pair of emerald green eyes.
“Success?” she asks.
In answer, I toss the head onto the table in front of her.
“Jesus, Stetter!” she exclaims, grossed out.
“You gonna certify that, Kara?” I ask.
“Yeah, yeah, you’ll get your bounty, just… don’t toss heads at people!”
Rather than answering, I instruct “Get everyone ready. We’re taking off five minutes ago…”
“You wanna leave right now?” she frowns.
“Of course… we have a ship to pursue…”