Chronicles of a Space Mercenary 0: Tanya (12 page)

The high-rise condo was seven blocks from the office building, but she
got
a room that gave her a view of Handler's office, rented under another of her newly generated identities. This was her second day glued to the telescope and so far there had been no activity in the office whatsoever. The office blinds were open, as if in a signal to her personally, that her coming had been anticipated, and that now they were gone.

That hadn't been the case, in fact, they had simply emptied their desks and departed without bothering to close the blinds, or do anything else. But they’d inadvertently saved Tanya considerable time. Or so she was thinking. As she leaned back in exasperation, a filament thin ruby beam speared through where she’d just been, coming from an entirely unexpected angle. It cut through the dia-glass window without resistance and flashed past her face.

Tanya exploded backwards, twisting and hitting the floor, then rolled away from the window. She didn't bother grabbing for a weapon. Though it wouldn’t have been technically illegal to walk through customs with a fully scoped laser rifle, it would invite scrutiny; something that Tanya could not afford while walking in on forged
documentation. Her only weapons were those on her hips. Tanya hadn’t really expected to find Handler still here, though the q
uickness with which one of his O
peratives had found her was really rather disheartening. In fact, it really pissed her off.

Her dive and roll had been towards the front of the apartment and the front door. To remain here was a death sentence. Tanya went out the door on the run without pause, everything she would need always kept upon her person, the Kievor made blaster in her right hand, her laser in her left. She burst out the door to her left, her laser leveled down the hall to the left and the blaster flung out behind her at arm's length with only a glance in that direction, but there was no one in either direction. Tanya continued to run.

She ran past the elevator and startled residents who were quick to get out of her way. The weapons in her hands and the look which must have been on her face would not have been pleasant to look upon. In Tanya’s eyes there was the look of intent to commit murder, because that was in her heart as well.

She went into the fire escape staircase with her blaster leading the way, but again there was no one. Tanya ran down the stairs, four and five steps at a time and racing around the landings. She met no one at all running down the fourteen levels and cautiously let herself out into the main lobby of the hotel.

Tanya walked out with her weapons holstered, but her hands near to their grips. A right to bear arms was not the same as a right to disturb the peace. Not on such a world as this. The authorities would be called the moment she walked out into the main foyer with her weapons bared and then questions would have to follow. This was no backward
frontier planet. Tanya quickly made her way out the front doors and broke into a run the moment her feet hit the plas-crete sidewalk.

The tiny pinpoint of the brilliant Blue-Dwarf above was bright and merciless, and under it the entirely exposed Tanya ran for her life, not knowing at which moment the red beam would fall out of the sky, or from what building, to put an end to her. She was furious with herself for having been so stupid as to come here, knowing they would be expecting her. But she’d had no place else to start!

As Tanya raced down into the subway and escaped both the glaring bright pinpoint of the system’s star as well as the thin red beam, she decided where she would start after all. She couldn't believe she hadn't thought of it before, it was so obvious!

Chapter 27

Senator Geble's private yacht,
The Lucky Lady,
was right where his website press r
elease had said it would be-
en-
route to New California of all places. Tanya came out of jump and found the ship on scan, a Federation destroyer alongside it. The destroyer was not what Tanya was concerned about, though it could become a concern in only moments.

Tanya didn’t know if she’d arrived before Senator Geble had actually departed for the planet below, but for her plan to work, it didn’t really matter if he was aboard his ship or not. Tanya had brought Starfire out of jump sixteen AU’s beyond the outermost of the System’s planets.
She now brought it to a complete halt as she turned it around to use the main thruster to terminate their forward progress, and left Starfire pointed out into the blackness of
interstellar space once she
had completely decelerated. Then she opened a communication channel;

“Hailing Lucky Lady.'' Tanya said.

“Your b
usiness had better be important!
''
Was the immediate response.

“I’m the assassin that got away.”
 
Tanya said. “I have important information for the Senator.” There was a very noticeable delay. More than ten minutes and probably only that long because they were trying to analyze Starfire's ability to escape them if they pursued her with the Destroyer. She'd be able to get free easily in the overpowered Starfire. Finally the link was reopened and it was the Senator himself who responded.

“This is Senator Geble. To whom do I owe this pleasure?”

“Are you on a secure channel?” Tanya asked. There was another pause, much shorter this time.

“I am now.”

“The man who sent me to kill you was really trying to use
you
to kill me.” Tanya said. “I don’t know if that means anything to you, but I’m betting that it does, and I need your help in locating him. I’d like to return the favor.”

“In fact that does mean something to me.” The Senator answered slowly as he thought about the hit he had just contracted on another politician, who he had been certain was behind the failed attempt on his own life; there had been little question about the motives of the
elusive figure who had showed up mysteriously on their surveillance and then just as mysteriously disappeared, especially once the small heavily shielded ship
was
found and it
was determined how it got
there.

In other words, he had been manipulated like a fool! Yet there was nothing he could do about it. Not
legally. If he attempted to use
his authority to bring them to justice then the story of his own involvement would naturally come out. “Are you accepting any work at this time?”

Tanya hadn’t thought of that angle but it made perfect sense. It made more than perfect sense. Now not only was Geble going to help her,
but
had decided he
was
going to pay her as well; his contribution to the effort and his personal vengeance. Tanya loved it. “I'd say there's a real good chance.” Tanya replied coolly.

“The standard fee?”
Senator Geble asked.

“I'll do this one for half.” Tanya said.
“Transferring my routing numbers.”
What was the difference? He could not come after her unless he could be assured of killing her and silencing her, any more than he could go after Handler for the same reason. An accusation such as that coming from someone as insignificant as Tanya might not receive much approbation, but then again it might. A person in Senator Geble's delicate political position could not afford the stain of impropriety, much less the accusation of terroristic activities. Things like that were easily hyped up in the media and an exposure like that would probably mean the end of his career.

“Transferring everything I know about Jason Cormach.” Geble said. “I’ve had him investigated. His real identity wasn't easy to root out, but he's not quite as careful as he thinks
.
”

“He's made mistakes.” Tanya agreed, liking the Senator despite how their circumstances were bringing them together.

“Haven't we all?” Senator Geble said, and the communication was ended.

Chapter 28

Starfire exited jump and immediately beeped to announce recognition of the ship that Tanya had programmed it to
locate and identify
. She realized with mild shock that it was bigger than a destroyer. As she studied the detailed schematics that appeared on her screen, Tanya saw that it was also equipped
with a
n
independently
tracking photon cannon.

That wasn't good, she thought with a sinking feeling of frustration. Starfire wouldn't have a chance of gettin
g close to it, because with the
independently tracking photon cannon they would cut her into pieces long before she could get near enough to use her own puny plasma cannon. If she did somehow get close enough to use her weapon, then the armed yacht's
many
plasma cannons would make quick work of her. The ship’s name was
Adjudicator
, as if Jason Cormac
h was in some way a legitimate Government O
perative. It was simply hanging in orbit, apparently not planning to go anywhere.

Tanya had been searching for this ship and Jason Cormach for three weeks now. Adjudicator had not been registered as docked anywher
e that she had been able to find
through the normal legal channels, and
so the job had been done the hard way. She had begun to worry that he might have left human space altogether or was hiding out, but she had known better; she
knew
she would find him, that he could not hide from her forever.

Handler, or Jason Cormach as she now knew him, wasn't going to run. But neither was he going to make it easy for her. He could hang right there in orbit until one of his Simians finally got to her and there would be little she could do to roust him from the safety of his ship.

Tanya realized that baiting him out of his safe orbit wasn't going to be a concern as Adjudicator turned and began to burn in her direction. How he had known it was her really didn’t matter at this moment. There were thousands of ships constantly coming and going from New California and her arrival shouldn’t have raised any more alarm than any other ship entering the system, but that had not been the case.

Their own recognition program had recognized her as quickly as her own had recognized them. Tanya considered for a brief moment the possibility that the Senator had turned on her after all, and cast it aside as ridiculous. No. It was just Jason Cormach’s connections or Felone’s technical abilities, though Tanya knew very little of Felone or of what any of her full abilities were, and in any case it didn’t matter. All that mattered was the here and now. The game was out in the open. It was a new type of game for Tanya, where both parties were simultaneously hunter and prey, but it was a game she intended to adapt to as she had adapted to everything else in her life.

Adjudicator was fast, but not on a par with her much smaller and overpowered ship, and of course Starfire was just out of range of Adjudicator's photon cannon. Just being within range of Adjudicator’s
photon cannon did not mean they would be able to hit her as she fled, either. Starfire was a cockpit strapped to a fusion reaction thruster, and a big one at that. Tanya jammed the throttle forward and to port and asked for everything the little ship could give. The lateral forces slammed Tanya into the side of her crash-seat as she pushed Starfire through a wide slewing turn, testing even her great enhanced strength to hold the stick in place, rather than turning Starfire first and then just accelerating away. She was pushing herself to the near blackout threshold as she did so, experiencing the tunneling of the vision that precedes unconsciousness, but she could still take more than this ship could dish out. That much she knew. She hoped it made a nice lesson for Jason so that he might not forget what he had created, or with whom he must now deal until one or the other was dead.

But as impressive as she knew she was, she had to keep in mind that Jason and Felone had obviously spent considerable time, resources and effort discovering her new identity. They undoubtedly had all of her new identities. Tenacity was an attribute of her enemy that she must keep in mind for future reference.

They were not to be underestimated. They had resources. They were cunning and crafty. Add to
that the army of Simians
and Tanya was well aware that she was fighting steep odds. But at least she wouldn't be at a loss for funding with the Senator's large payment sitting in one of her accounts; it was triple what her fee would have been, and only half the Organization’s normal rate. Nor would she now refrain from using any of her older personal accounts. The game was out in the open. Starfire hit jump.

Chapter 29

The area was slowly being revitalized from
the desperate state it was
in when
last
she was here. Tax-free zones sometimes came back when enterprising people who were willing to live in these places moved into the vacant buildings and restored them for their personal use. It took a certain breed. And the price of the real estate was right! Tanya’d had no reason to research it, was not even sure it would still be there, and in all honesty was expecting to find little but ruins. That actually would have been sufficient to her needs, but the ghetto of her youth was still
thriving as it had
for hundreds of years.