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"Retirement party: a retirement party is being planned for Lars Anderson the trader of Kaldon system. Guests invited to bring a fitting end to his career."
That was the message on the bulletin board, but it didn't really interest me. Probably some two bit merchant who had annoyed one of the syndicates, no fun to be had there. I was looking for something with a bit more of a challenge to it. I'd know it when I saw. There was the usual stuff, computers were getting a good price on Oori, people needing passage to other systems, missing persons and "retirement parties". It was the last item I was after, there were three or four to choose from. One caught my eye.
"Kentar system: Firearms Company representative, Denar Bris, seeks swift passage from that system to the other side. Previous applicants need not reapply."
It was a code. Easily breakable for those in the know. Kentar system told you where to find the victim, "passage to the other side" was obviously an assassination, "need not reapply" meant other people had tried before, and the important part "Firearms company" which was code for a professional assassin. It didn't come up very often. It wasn't often that an assassin got himself or herself into enough trouble, and most were too smart to get contracts put out on their own heads. They were professional trouble hunters and knew how to deal with most difficulties they would encounter. And more relevantly, they were hard to kill.
Which was what I wanted. I needed one final kill to establish myself as the most sought after professional assassin in the Spiral Arm Empire. I knew I was damn good, but everyone else had to know that too. I needed a challenging kill, this seemed like it, and they even paid well. I contacted the message poster.
"Who are you?" said the voice, there wasn't any picture on the screen to identify him.
"Anam Winter, professional assassin, at your service," I replied.
"A woman? Well, you might get him. The men have failed. You have a good rating?"
"Very good," I said. "You can check."
"Not necessary. You know how it works. You kill him, and bring us some evidence, then you get your money. No kill, no money. If you ever mention this conversation to anyone, there'll be a contract out on you as well."
"I understand."
"You can find him in the Kentar system according to our most recent information," said the voice.
"That's in the Hegemony. I could have trouble with the authorities there, they aren't as liberal as the Empire."
"Your problem, not mine."
"Anything else I should know?" I asked.
"I will send you the personal portfolio on him, that should tell you all you need to know."
"I'll get him," I said.
"If you don't, I wouldn't come back to this system. That is if he doesn't kill you first." The voice broke the connection.
"The money alone is worth the risk," I said to the blank screen. If I succeeded I could buy any ship I wanted and maybe have a holiday between jobs. I had nearly asked what he had done to get a contract put out on him, but it wouldn't have helped me do my job, and as they say "curiousity killed the cat". Although, as everyone knows, Schroedinger, Heisenberg and Crowley all killed the cat and it had nothing to do with curiosity on the part of the cat. May be it would be more correct to say curiosity can get the cat killed. Bearing that lesson in mind, I decided that more weaponry was called for. I wandered through Jurad port town looking for a good armoury. This was the Empire, so I didn't have look far. I found a name I knew was reputable and went into the shop.
"Swords," I said, to the shopkeeper. "Preferably Japanese style. Nothing too heavy."
"Take your pick," replied the shopkeeper, opening one of the doors behind the counter to reveal an array of blades.
"That one," I said, pointing. The shopkeeper took it out of the hooks which held it and passed it to me.
"You have a good eye," he said, "it's one off a kind. Hand made for a prince of the Hegemony, before one of his servants stole it and sold it to me."
"Save the hard sell. How much?" I asked, looking at how the light glinted along the oiled blade.
"For a woman such as yourself, well, 1000 credits would be a fair price."
"I could buy a laser cannon for that price," I said putting the sword back on the counter. "Call it 500 credits and I won't tell the police you've been receiving stolen goods."
"Call it 900 credits and I won't tell anyone you were here," countered the shopkeeper. He knew his trade. You didn't ask for a sword unless you intended to kill someone. I paid the 900 credits and bought a laser pistol as well just to make sure. Then I walked back to the ship yard where Honour, my ship, was being refitted.
Where I had a blazing argument with the technician for overcharging me. Oori itself was small but it was in a big shipping area, I knew what the prices should have been. In the end we compromised, I agreed not to shoot her if she asked for a reasonable price, and she decided it was better to live and be poor, than die rich. You understand that I didn't want to rob her, just show her I couldn't be conned. I paid for the work and I paid a fair price.
Honour was as heavily armed as she could be. She was a long-range fighter craft built for manoeuvrability and speed rather than comfort. I had spent a lot of money on the right combination of weapons, shields and scanners. In some ways the scanners were more important than the weapons. If I couldn't find my target then I wouldn't be able to shoot him. Finding him would be difficult anyway, he knew all the tricks, how to hide his jump destination, how to counter my attacks and the best systems to hide in.
Kentar was a good system to hide in. The most highly populated world in the system was Irini. War had been raging on Irini for several decades now, and not an ordinary war, this was a quadripartite civil war of extreme aggression and malice. The four factions had once had some reason to fight but by now it had become lost in the never ending hatred they all had for each other. And I would have placed bets on Denar Bris picking that planet to hide out on. Not only could he find work for his skills, but it was such a dangerous place to be that no one would willingly go there. Except for me.
I left Oori and made the jump to the Kentar. While we were in transit, I took the time to read Denar Bris's personal file, it was then that I realised exactly who I had pitted myself against. He was the number one assassin for the Empire's largest organised crime syndicate, the Terraza, whose influence spread across several inhabited planets. If he was their number one assassin, that meant he was the best of the best, maybe the number one assassin in the Empire. Was I good enough? I thought to myself and immediately dismissed the idea, that kind of thinking would get me killed as soon as being over confident. I spent years becoming a good killer and now I needed to prove that I was a great killer.
I entered the Kentar system with some trepidation. If you're not worried about going to Irini then I don't think you're human. It probably should have had a warning note on all the interstellar maps, "abandon hope all ye who enter here". I flicked Honour onto autopilot as we came into the range of Irini and prepared for planet-fall. Beacons were spread around the approach paths to the planet and chanted a message to unwary travellers day and night "This planet is currently in the midst of a civil war. It is unsuitable for casual travellers. Please do not alight from your craft unless you have urgent business or are in an emergency situation". The message wasn't meant for killers like me. I had expected some trouble as I entered the area, but strangely none came.
I wasn't going to land at any of the space ports. That would have registered my support for one side or the other, something which you did not want to do on Irini if you could help it. I had decided to land on the one neutral area that the planet had, a small enclave of relative calm, the neutral medical centre where the Peace Corps had set up camp. The Peace Corps were the only truly intergalactic group, they were the only ones who could cross boarders and war zones with impunity. They provided impartial medical aid and a place to meet and iron out differences if it was needed. I didn't think that there was much call for mediation on Irini, but there was obviously a desperate need for hospitals and doctors. Hell had truly been brought to Irini.
As I landed Honour, I looked around us and saw the landscape laid waste by the years of fighting. It was pitted with craters and burns, not a place I would want to visit again. We touched down on the landing pad, one of many ships which had braved the war to come to Irini. I recognised some of the Peace Corps ships, others were planetary shuttles used as ambulances and there were a few merchant ships delivering medicines and other supplies to the camp. Where ever Denar Bris was he hadn't landed here, or at least he wasn't here now, but then it was the obvious place to start and Denar Bris would not be obvious.
I left the ship and went to find the camp office. The Peace Corps had many uses in a war situation but the most useful one from my point of view was that they kept a record of those involved in the war. If Denar Bris had been registered, even under another name, their computer would give me some idea of how to find him. I spun the usual tale. I was a private investigator, hired by his worried family when he had disappeared from home and my information had lead me to Irini. I had faked documentation to prove it and I gave them his picture for the computer to process. The Peace Corps loved nothing better than to help missing persons be reunited with their families, so they were all too willing to help me. Luckily for me they found a match to his likeness, he had been treated for burns a few weeks ago in the Peace Corps hospital, he probably hadn't even realised that they had kept a record. He had joined the Saudan army, the largest of the four factions, and was probably doing his best to blend into the background. I had a few questions to be answered that the Peace Corps couldn't help with though. What had he done with his ship? And how did I get across a war zone to my target?
I would bet that his ship was at the Saudan space port, Tobrath, but I didn't know for certain. I didn't want to corner him only to have him escape to somewhere else where it might not be so easy to find him. His ship, Razor, was quite distinctive, it was a converted police piranha, no longer with the distinctive black paint job but a deep blue. I called the Tobrath port authority, telling them the same story I had told the Peace Corps, they hadn't seen a piranha of any kind for some months. Which left me with a dead end. Except that one of the Peace Corps overheard my call and he said that he had seen a deep blue piranha only last week. Not at Tobrath, but at Concheel, the Palstan space port. That almost made sense, since he wouldn't leave it in the obvious place for anyone to find.
Which lead did I follow? Should I go to Concheel or should I try to find Denar Bris in the war zone? Either way I was going to have to leave the safety of the Peace Corps enclave. Their goody Peace Corps behaviour was beginning to irritate me anyway, but they afforded more protection than I could gain alone. I decided to take Honour and make for Concheel, but before I went I took the liberty of painting the Peace Corps logo on her hull, that would make my passage across the planet a bit easier.
So I lifted off from the camp and travelled over war zones, across burned and dying land. I could see soldiers running across the ground as I flew overhead. I kept low to avoid the radar, hoping that they hadn't developed a better system for their homing missiles. This area probably wasn't even where the worst fighting was. Some attack craft came up on my left once but they noticed the Peace Corps symbol and left me alone. I got to Concheel in one piece.
Concheel was not big. I got the impression it had once been larger, before half of it had been bombed away. I contacted the local police, not something I would normally do, but I felt it was the only way I could catch him. Professional assassins kill for one of two reasons: either for the money or because they like it. I'd read Denar Bris's record and I knew he liked killing, the money was only a bonus to him. Every assassin kills in a different way, a way they've grown used to and works best for them. Some use knives, others use guns, I have my sword and Denar Bris used a stiletto blade, straight to the heart if he could. I gave the policeman enough money and he produced a list of all the reported murders for that month. As I had expected, there were several murders involving a thin blade of some type. All around the same area of town. Denar Bris had been getting careless. Or maybe he was just so sure of himself that he didn't care if anyone found him. I suspected the latter to be the case, Denar Bris would not be careless.
I headed for the east quarter where the last murder had been committed. There were several bars near by, I went into the first one and sat down in a shady corner as if I was waiting for someone. I stayed an hour or so, listening to the conversations around me, and then I left and moved onto the next bar. I repeated the process until I came to the last bar, and I was just about to leave and return to the first when he entered. There was a great deal of chatter when he entered, he joined a group at the bar and behaved as if they were all old friends. This was strange, since the Peace Corps had him listed as a Saudan soldier. War is a difficult thing though and a change of sides was not unheard of, people deserted everyday from all four sides.
He drank with his friends for a couple of hours, nothing alcoholic I noticed, and then he left for his ship. I followed him to the space port. This was what I had been waiting for, he was now alone and it was late night in Concheel when very few people were out on the streets. I had taken time to study the street layout of Concheel and I knew I could head him off before he got to the space port. I ran quietly between the buildings, keeping an eye on my prey who did not seem to have noticed me. Finally I ducked back towards the space port and prepared to jump Denar Bris, with sword drawn I leapt out of the alley. Of course I should have known better, Denar Bris stood in front of me with his own sword held ready for attack.
"Anam Winter, I wondered when you would arrive," he said. He had known I was coming all along.
"Welcome to your final moments," I replied.
I made the first move, making a practised lunge at him but he was as fast as me and easily parried my attack. This was not to be a fight of great finesse though, it was more hack and slash than anything else. Each blow rang down the blade and was felt in my arm. I know I could have taken him there but he didn't want to fight, he wanted to run. He kicked me in the stomach sending me flying against the wall, I got up again but by that time he was running down the street towards the port. I followed him as fast as I could but I knew he was heading for his ship and I had to catch him before he could get to the jump gate. Instead of following him to his ship I made for my own and began the emergency power up sequence. Honour fired up her engines, I didn't wait for clearance to take off and I as I ascended into the sky I saw the light of another ship's engines just ahead of me. It was the piranha. No mistake there, and he was right in my sights, but as I had predicted he was making a run for the jump gate.
I fired, he dodged and turned to face me, bringing his front guns to bear on me. Suddenly the hunter had become the hunted and I moved wildly out of his sights, firing my own guns as I did so. He sustained a hit on his dorsal wing, not bad enough to knock him out of the sky but bad enough to drive him back down towards the planet. Neither of us had noticed the other dog fight going on below us, and as Denar Bris fell he crossed their path of flight and was caught in their fire. He wasn't quick enough to move out of the way and I watched as his whole ship turned bright red and headed into the atmosphere. I followed him down rather more cautiously.
He had crash landed on the planet, my scanners picked up debris but I didn't have time to scan for life signs. I was under attack myself. I tried every evasive manoeuvre I knew but there were too many of them for me to cope with, Honour was going down and there wasn't a thing I could do. It was perhaps the worst landing I have ever made, but I made it down in one piece. Honour wasn't going anywhere, the interstellar drive was damaged beyond repair and the vertical thrusters were not responding to the controls. She was a write off. And I hurt all over.
Denar Bris's crash site wasn't far away from my own. I extracted myself from the wreck that had been Honour and made my way cautiously over to his ship, with my laser pistol drawn. I wasn't going to be surprised a second time. I climbed up to the hatch but Denar Bris wasn't there. He was lying a few metres away and he wasn't moving. I went over to where he lay, he wasn't dead but he certainly wasn't going to be alive for much longer. He opened his eyes.
"Did you ask them why they wanted me dead?" he said.
"No, curiosity and cats, you know, not wise," I replied.
"I was too good, I was the best assassin they had ever employed, and it worried them. No one could beat me, so they put out a contract on me, knowing I'd be occupied fending off assassins who wanted to make a name for themselves for the rest of my days."
"And I finally did it," I said.
"No, you didn't kill me, I got myself killed. Just remember you will always be second best."
And I knew that he was right. I left his body on the battle field and began the hike to the Peace Corps camp, where I intended to get a lift as far away from here as possible, and take on a few easy contracts. Or maybe get some army contracts, they were a lot safer than killing unkillable assassins. I had realised one thing, kill the unkillable and you put a contract on your own head. I would settle for being second best.
© Thalia Drogna, September 2000
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