Assassin
Rachel didn’t hesitate to fire three pulse shots into her door, just above where the assassins blade pierced through. All three shots went through her door, but the assassin pulled their blade out of the door and stepped aside just in time. Rachel trained her gun on the center of the doorway, ready for the assassin to burst through and attack, she only had just enough time to dodge out the way when the whole door came off its hinges and slammed into the wall where she had previously been standing.
That door had been installed just for Rachel and her stronger than average deathworlder strength, it was supposed to be durable and sturdy. But it had flown across the hall and embedded itself into the wall with one single kick. Instantly Rachel knew that her opponent was much, much stronger than her. Maybe a Kaydic?
She had just dropped to the ground and rolled out of the way when a blurred figure came for her, she didn’t have time to bring her gun up as the blade came for her head. She only barely avoided a decapitating blow when a second curved blade attached to the assassin’s wrist came at her. It cut into her arm, and would have taken the whole limb off easily if Rachel hadn’t kicked their arm off course. Even then it still got a decent stinging cut in.
The assassin reached back, preparing for another strike, Rachel lifted her gun and landed another three shots into the assassins torso. The assassin lurched back from the point-blank shots and Rachel took the chance to get to her feet and scramble back. Finally able to see her assailant Rachel made several quick assessments. First her attacker was human, they wore a heavy cloak similar to the kind she wore, but with their arms upraised into an attacking position Rachel was instantly able to recognize the five fingered human hand of her attacker. Not the three cloven joints of a Kaydic.
The second thing she noticed was the strange mask the assassin wore, light green, pointed at the nose, with two overly large yellow eyes and a mandible where a mouth should have been. That and the pincer-like blades attached to their wrists reminded Rachel of praying Mantis bugs from Earth. It was one of the commonly cited fauna mentioned when people talked about how insane and dangerous Earth’s biology was. Seriously what kind of creature would eat their mating partner? A deathworld one that’s what.
The third thing was that her earlier shots into her door had set something in her apartment on fire. She could already see the smoke coming out of the broken doorway.
The assassin glanced down at the smoldering hole in their cloak before dismissing the three point-blank shots and refocused their gaze on Rachel. Had those shots really done nothing? Her attacker must be wearing some sort of protection under that cloak. Rachel would need something more potent to pierce it, which she didn’t have. Which meant that she was on to plan B.
Sweet, sweet adrenaline and endorphins entered her system, and she began to feel shaky as her fight or flight instincts took over. The Mantis assassin had broken into her home, flight was not an option. Not giving her assailant a second to react Rachel fired another three shots in the dead center of their chest and charged forward. If her gun couldn’t hurt them then it was on to good old fashion brute force. she used the three gunshots as distraction while she delivered a powerful left hook to the jaw of Mantis assassin. Humans for all their physical attributes had one great flaw, their brains. Several good hits to a humans head was enough stun and disorient them, and if Rachel was lucky she might even knock them out.
Her whole arm went numb and felt like she had hit a brick wall, there was a sickening crack of a breaking bone, and suddenly flight didn’t seem so bad. The assassin wasn’t moved or shook by Rachels strongest punch one bit, they just turned those large eyes down on Rachel as her arm slowly drooped down. Rachel heard a soft chuckle as the assassin griped her by the throat and lifted her off the ground.
Rachel noticed immediately that the assassin’s hand was as cold as the grave and as hard as steel. Their sleeve fell back just enough for Rachel to see glinting metal reflect the lights of the hallway. The assassin just held her there and slowly squeezed their vise grip like cybernetic hand around Rachel’s throat. One of her arms was still bleeding from the cut, and the other was now only now just starting to feel the pain from punching and cyborg, so she couldn’t claw at her throat as her body screamed for air. Rachel wrenched her head from side to side ineffectively in a desperate attempt to break free.
The assassin sighed and spoke in a heavily deep distorted voice. “It’s no fun when they don’t put up a fight. Don’t worry, I’ll send Astarte your way soon enough.”
Why did they mention the space pirate? Why were they in her home? Was this the assassin she had been hunting down for so long. Killing her not because Rachel was a threat, or close to hunting them down, but because she had a vague tenuous connection to Astarte? Her mind briefly wondered in thousand different directions before the all-consuming thought of air overcame her. “BREATHE!” her body screamed. “YOU NEED TO BREATHE!”
Spots appeared at the edge of her vision, and soon the world faded in shadow. Her legs went stopped kicking, and the pain in both of her arms faded away.
VMM!
Suddenly the hand gripping her loosened and Rachel draw in a deep breath.
PING!
This time her attacker dropped Rachel completely and began to stumble back.
Rachel landed on the plush carpet and took in several deep breathes. Weakly she began to crawl forward towards the now mysteriously shattered window at the end of the hall. She heard a soft step from behind her as the assassin took a step towards the crawling Rachel, but another FLUW and CRACK rang through the room as third bullet whizzed through the broken window and winged the assassin’s arm, exposing wires and electronics.
The assassin stumbled back and fell over backwards. Rachel knew they wouldn’t be down for long. She had no idea who had saved her life, but she was thankful for their help and excellent marksmanship. She kept crawling towards the window as two more shots rang over the assassin’s prone body. One bullet broke a vase, and the other flew all the way across the hall and pierced through the metal elevators doors. The elevator, knowing something had just damaged its doors began to emit a shrill buzzing as the building’s security system finally realized that something was attacking.
Rachel got to the window without cutting her hands on the glass and finally rose from her stomach and on to her knees. She used one arm to prop herself up and instantly regretted it. Her left arm was definitely broken or fractured.
Taking in shaky breathes until her lungs stopped burning and her vision cleared she turned to see that the assassin had flipped onto their belly and was now quickly crawling Rachel’s way. Staying low to the ground to avoid more sniper fire.
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Rachel lived on the fourth floor, and she knew that there were some bushes planted in front of the building. What she didn’t know was if there were any bushes below this window, or if they were enough to break her fall. But either uncertainty was better than the certain death the assassin promised. High on adrenaline and incapable of finding a better solution Rachel rose to her feet, looked out the window, saw a small patch of shrubbery, and hurled herself out the window and towards that one little bush.
She didn’t have time for her life to flash before her eyes, as the ground came up at her like a charging beast. She heard two more whizzing bullets, but not the clap of gun fire.
She felt the wind knocked out of her as she fell through the branches of the bush, her back slammed against the ground. Everything began to spin as hot pain spread down all her nerves. She was too stunned to notice the two patrolling officers that had pulled guns on her. It took several bleary blinks to make out the colors of their uniforms, and even longer her brain to actually comprehend what they were saying.
“Put your hands up Hellworlder!” one shouted over the ringing in Rachel’s ears.
She looked past the hulking figures of the officers and saw the assassin lean out the window, they locked eyes, and Rachel felt the assassin’s anger at her escape. The assassin glanced up and quickly backed away from the window. The imminent threat gone Rachel lifted her arms from her side for the shouting officers, saw the blood dripping down one, the crooked angle of another, and then passed out. Her adrenaline boost totally spent.
~~~*~~~
Alice had been ready to move the moment she saw the dark-skinned human woman fling herself out a window. She got a final two parting shots into the creepy bug masked assassin’s torso, before leaping up the building. Snow Leopards, which were really Snow Tigers, were built to slink up and down the sheerest of rocky walls to hunt down their prey. So this strange alien building, with plenty of nooks and crannies in a low gravity environment was nothing to her.
She had just enough time to roll over the side of the buildings edge when the Mantis masked assassin came to the window to try and find the person sniping at all their vitals. Seriously, Alice had shot them in several spots that should have been fatal. And with flesh shredding bullets too. They should not be walking after that!
The assassin didn’t see hide nor hair of Alice as it searched the rooftops. It them looked down and saw the two SS officers, both of some big shaggy species Alice didn’t know the name of, pointing guns at a clearly unconscious injured woman. Did the Union recruit by lowest IQ, or was cowardice their preferred trait in officers? She had to admit the former would make them easy enough to order around, and the later would make them excellent bullies towards normal civilians. But neither trait was helping them recognize that the unconscious human was clearly not a threat to anyone.
The assassin looked like they wanted to jump down and finish he job, and Alice once again unslung her sniper rifle. She only brought it along to her surveillance mission because Izzy had bet that Alice couldn’t sneak it across the whole station unnoticed. Jokes on her, not only did Alice do so, but it had been exactly the right tool for an unexpected job. Alice fixed her sights on the window, knowing that only a head shot would take them down.
As if knowing Alices intentions the assassin suddenly looked up and leaned away from the window and out of sight. Alice growled in her throat, not the human kind, but a real primal Tiger’s growl. She had lost her shot, should have just gone for another torso shot.
She looked down and saw the tall shaggy officers slowly creeping towards the fallen woman, ready to empty a full mag if she so much as twitched. She could have popped two quick shots into them to make sure they didn’t kill the woman Alice was ordered to follow, but dead SS would bring up more questions than mysterious gunshots saving an off duty officer.
Instead she leaned back over a pulled out her communicator. “Hey boss, there’s been a complication with the surveillance mission. An assassin was waiting in her apartment.”
A pause. “Is the target dead?” Captain Astarte asked, her tone as cold as ice.
“No, it was looking close for a minute there, but I shot the assassin a bunch to give her chance to escape. She jumped out a window to escape and the assassin didn’t pursue.”
“Are you sure she’s not dead?”
“Naw, four standard stories in standard grav with a bush to break her fall. Didn’t look like she hit head so I think she’ll survive.”
Another pause “Why did you bring a handgun to a surveillance mission, it could have caused trouble if someone saw you.”
Alice shrank “it’s actually a sniper.”
Pause. “Captain Fidelis, why did you bring a sniper rifle to a surveillance mission on a station with incredibly strict gun control laws?”
Ooh, last name, and rank. Better not tell the truth “I had a feeling I would need it, can’t explain it.” It was a bad excuse, but better than the truth.
“Coincidence or Fate” Astarte murmured on the other end of the comms. She seemed to buy it entirely, cool. “Is she safe?”
Alice looked over the edge and cringed “Not sure, one SS officer is currently trying to handcuff what is clearly a broken arm. While the other has a gun directly on her head. They’re shouting a lot of orders, but I think she’s still knocked out.”
Astarte sighed “Good’ole SS living up to our expectations. Return to the Astaroth, there’s going to be too many eyes on the target now.”
“Aye aye sir”
“And Ghost?”
“Yes.”
“Next time I would like you to run all heavy weaponry by myself or Karega for approval. Feeling or no.”
Her ears flattened against her head “Yes sir”
~~~*~~~
Aster slid the communication device back into the folds of her dress. Karega finished saying goodbye to the two senior Hearts who had hosted the party in Karega’s honor and broke away towards Astarte. Something about their hosts made Astarte’s skin crawl like when she saw the scaly heads of Egh’ahds. Something about them put her nerves on edge, like she was looking at something that was only pretending to be human. She doubted either would care if she told them their daughter had just been attacked by an assassin.
Not like the stern-faced Gin-Sama who had just received a call and was already storming out of the party. He shot Astarte one parting glance as he left. Astarte hid the roiling disgust and hatred she felt when she looked at the man who was likely her father.
There was every chance that this man could have been completely unrelated to her, but too many little details lined up for that to seem plausible. His eyes were the mirror of her own, and his taller than average height would go aways to explain why Astarte was so tall as well. He had been in New Mombasa, though she didn’t know at what time. And most importantly his name was Gin.
Astarte had only gotten her biological mother, Lucile, to recount the story once. And the one thing she knew about Astarte’s father was that he was a powerful man called Gin-Sama. His servants hadn’t been afraid to use his real name in her mother’s presence because she wouldn’t be allowed to escape with her life. She wouldn’t have if they hadn’t been sloppy about chocking her.
Her father’s presence complicated their goal here at Unity, if Lucile ever found out that Astarte had her father with arms reach but didn’t kill him on the spot she would be beyond pissed. Though she would also be pissed if Astarte stole her vengeance. And his connection to the SS officer who had tried to storm her ship made her also suspicious.
Her original goal of teasing info out of the Arbiter had evolved since Gin-Sama showed his disturbingly familiar face. Now she was the key to Astarte learning more about her father, like where he worked, where he lived, and if he had any weaknesses? That’s why she had sent Ghost to stake out the Arbiter’s home, follow her around for a bit, establish a pattern they could use to set a trap. But now there was an assassin involved.
Karega waited until they were in the privacy of the luxury shuttle Astarte had rented before he asked “What happened?”
She could tell him about the assassin but she knew that wasn’t what he was asking about. Kar knew her so well that he could tell she was shaken, even if she kept it well hidden. “Did you clock the tall Japanese dude the Hearts were saddling up to?”
“Yes, they seemed surprised he came, surprised and put upon. But the hid it well. He must be too important to not invite, but also the kind of guy who doesn’t accept.”
Aster nodded “His name was Gin-Sama.” She said softly.
Kar’s face dropped and he instantly got up from his side of the shuttle and sat next to Aster. “Are you sure?”
“I am. Its him. Its too coincidental for it not to be. After all these years of hunting he just shows his face at a random party, stupid bastard.” She clenched her fists and forced back her tears.
“So what’s the plan? We fly the Astaroth up to his house and fire point blank then make a break for the gates?”
Aster snorted “Too risky we’d need at least the whole fleet inside Unity, and a couple surprises.”
“That’s doable. We just need a few months to slowly move them in.”
Aster looked up and smiled at her friend “That’s very thoughtful, but we can’t expose our whole fleet to kill one stupid bastard. Even if I really want to.”
“So then what’s the plan?”
Aster took a mental step away from the flame dumpster fire that was the revelation that her Father was here on Unity and thought about from a tactical perspective. “In midst of Chaos, there is also opportunity. Right know we don’t know what we don’t know, any move we make that isn’t intel gathering would be marching into defeat. Right now we need to make sense of this chaos. There’s more than two sides at play here.”
Karega, ever the scholar and intellectual, recognized the quote and grinned. “Know thy enemy, you’re going to see the Shadow league tomorrow then?”
Astarte nodded “Not yet, but soon. The Hearts have extended an invitation to us for another large gathering in half a month, we need to use that time to gather vital intel.”
“I’ll put together some extra teams to get the lay of the land. See what the grape vine has to say.”
Astarte nodded, before looking down once more at the seemingly small platform of the core. Somewhere down there was her Father, and soon she would come for his head.