Arax was an industrial world. Massive factories sent black smoke in the air, residential skyscrapers towered over all else, air purifiers did what they could to counteract the pollution, men and women walked on the roads with a briskness that was full of purpose. Hundreds of thousands of speeders flew up in the air, guided by special electromagnetic sensors. The smoke in the air was too thick for speeders to be driven manually.

Most people wore helmets with respirators to breathe, the lower half of their faces covered by polymer tubes, the upper half covered by glass. He had bought one of those at the dock for two credits. The smoke could harm one’s eyes and the perpetual smog made things too hard to see without an external visual sensor. The signboards on buildings shone with a strange shade of white, perhaps to be easily sensed by the helmet visors. John could smell the oily residue in the air. He was not used to this. It was acrid and disgusting. Things were okay inside the buildings but the outside was hell.

John put on his helmet and walked the roads towards the duke’s palace. He walked around it, memorizing the exterior of the palace, looking for entry and exit points, noting the position of cameras and the guards. He had a more detailed plan of the compound stored in his chip, but it didn’t hurt to check himself. He wanted to get a feel for the place.

John saw a convoy of speeders leave the palace. That must have been the duke and his entourage. They had a meeting in an hour at another city. His target would be with them. It would have been easy to blow the speeder up here and now but John was supposed to complete this mission with stealth, and only one man had to die from this operation. He was the executioner in the dark, invisible from the public.

“What are you doing loitering about?” a patrolling guard asked John, when he took his third round.

“I got lost,” said John. “Do you know where the Abdi Plaza is?”

“You really are lost. That’s halfway across the city from here. Head down the main road.”

John thanked the guard and went to Abdi Plaza just in case he was being followed. He knew he was being paranoid but it never hurt to be careful. He bought some plastic jewelry in the plaza and then returned to his hotel room.

John made his move that night. He put on the stealth suit in his room, activated his stealth circuit and jumped out of his window on the forty fifth floor. When he was around fifty feet off the ground he weaved air to soften his fall. He landed without issue and walked towards the palace. There was no point in rushing there now. He had more than enough time. He schooled his mind while he walked, calming himself down. As he neared the palace he stopped his breathing. It was more accurate to say he changed his breathing. His blood was still being oxygenated through the weaves of air he had surrounded himself with. His temperature dropped to the ambient temperature with another layer of weaves around his body. The Empress was right in choosing him. He was the perfect assassin.

John jumped over the compound wall and ran towards the first residential wing where Sandar was staying. Laser sensors passed through him like through air, and thermal detectors found nothing as he moved past. The palace’s security officer would be in trouble tomorrow, after John’s handiwork was found. John activated his code breaker program on the residential wing’s door. The security lock was easy to hack and the program did everything automatically. So far so good.

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This was the riskiest moment of the operation. If someone saw the door open its own they might grow suspicious. The other way was to scale the wall and enter through Sandar’s window, but that would invite even more suspicion. The windows were locked tight, with two layers of glass. They could not be open or closed. He’d have to break through them, and if anyone saw a laser beam cutting through glass they’d immediately alert security. Besides, it was a lot more work, making a hole and then pasting the glass back. John was not lazy but he hated doing extra work when there were easier alternatives.

The door opened and John crept in. There was nobody on the other side. Sandar stayed on the topmost floor. Taking the elevator was risky, so John took the stairs. Elevators here weren’t like the elevators on earth. They were flat circles of wood with a metal railing. They could fit only one person and could fly to any part of the atrium.

Sandar was on the ninety fifth floor. John activated his speed circuit and ran up the stairs. He had to stop on the sixty fourth floor as there was a gathering of some sort on the stairway. What were people doing here at this late hour? This was an emergency fire escape. He made to go past them but their conversation caught his interest.

“Datna,” said one of them, “are you sure we’ll be safe. If the duke finds out we’re betraying him...”

“The Empress will protect us once she finds out how valuable the information we hold is,” said the man John presumed to be Datna. “This will hold Duke Pular’s plans back by several years. She could also try him for treason if she can turn enough of the Houses to her side.”

“Duke Atarex would skin us alive if he found out. He’d flay our bodies and use our skins as a wall decoration. Have you seen his collection?”

Datna shivered. “We won’t be found out, Sola,” he said. “I’ve arranged for a ship to take us to Tanis tomorrow. Let’s do the deed now and be out of the system before anyone’s the wiser.”

John wanted to knock them out. Their plans might clash with his own. If they screwed up, they might also implicate him. He clenched his fists, but decided not to do a thing in the end. He just hoped they’d be lucky. They left the stairwell, and John made his way upwards once more. He soon reached the ninety fifth floor, and crept to the east wing where Sandar’s room was located. He hacked the door.

“Who is it?” Sandar jumped out of bed when he saw the door open on its own.

John went into the room without making a sound and waited for the door to close. He slowly drew his imli dagger from the compartment in the suit. If Sandar had turned his head he would see a dagger floating in mid air. John moved quickly, his dagger accurately stabbing Sandar’s heart.

“Who are you?” Sandar said his last words and fell to the ground. His vital signs were being recorded live. All the big people had their body’s vitals live streamed in case something happened to them. The Empress’ people had already hacked into the system and made sure that no alarm would be triggered at Sandar’s death. John picked up the body and placed him on the bed, covering his body with the red bed sheet. It was a good thing it was red, it would cover up the bloodstain.

John jumped down to the first floor of the central atrium and made his way out the building. When he was near the compound wall he heard a siren. Had he been found out already or was it those two idiots, Datna and Sola. He’d have to get off this planet as soon as possible. He leaped over the wall and ran towards the hotel. There was a speeder he’d rented in the parking lot. He tried to activate the speeder but it failed to move. All it said was ‘Code Red Procedures Have Been Executed. We Regret the Inconvenience.’

John ran towards the space port. His stealth suit was running out of juice. He dumped it away in someone’s garbage and continued running. He’d already activated the ship’s take off procedures. He’d be able to fly out of here as soon as he reached the port, as long as the patrol ships left him alone. It took him a good three hours. He found his ship without issue.

John began take off procedures, but received a message from the port to cease and desist immediately. All activity in the port was currently restricted. He ignored the constant audio messages and took to the skies. A cannon opened fire at him from the ground and explosions raged throughout his ship. This was bad. His ship was falling apart quickly. It would never make it to space. John had no choice left. He had to abandon ship. He activated the escape pod.

His chair turned into a small capsule, encasing him completely and dropped out of the ship. He quickly deactivated the pod’s SOS signal, and directed it towards the outskirts of the city. A few seconds later his ship exploded.