Chronicles of a Space Mercenary 0: Tanya (19 page)

Part of that feeling was the fact that it had been two weeks since she, Jason, and Felone had been a
board the Station, and still
no attack. That more than anything had Tanya watching the reptile just a bit closer, but still casually and out of the periphery of her vision. In fact, she was acutely aware even of its breathing. Her suspicions were confirmed a moment later when the reptile detached itself from the bar and began moving in her direction. Since she was in the rear corner with two walls at her back, and there was really nothing else of interest in her direction, there became no further reason for Tanya to delay action.

As Tanya rose and reached for her holstered blaster, two things occurred. The reptile grabbed for its weapon, and two humans came walking in the front entrance with blasters in hands.

Tanya had already been forced to draw her weapons several times since she had returned, all three times against intoxicated lizards, their attacks simply due to the fact that lizards don’t much like mammals and they loved to fight, especial
ly when they were intoxicated- a
nd she seemed to be an easy target. Those lizards had each been blazingly fast on the draw, but
this lizard in front of her
was of a class entirely of its own. It was so fast Tanya could barely register the blur as the weapon came up. Tanya’s blasters were only halfway up when that lizard’s weapon materialized in its hand and tried to settle on her, but she was moving.

The flash of the lizard’s weapon firing first was a shock to Tanya, but the greenish pulse which the weapon emitted coruscated through the air where she had just been as her rise from her seated position
became a dive to the hard trans-metal floor, then to her left and away from the reptile. The concussion of the explosion as it struck the wall directly behind her sent Tanya sliding along the floor among the tables.

The burst from her left hand blaster flashed just above the floor and barely caught the edge of the front entrance, the explosion terrific but the two humans were already out of the explosion’s main concussive force. Not pausing as they entered to fire, but rushing forward instead, saved their lives. The blast still sent both flying to the floor.

Tanya didn’t have any more time to think about them for the moment. Even as her left hand blaster had fired, Tanya was trying to bring the right hand blaster up on the lizard. It’d been buffeted only a little and it was swinging its weapon around even as Tanya was raising hers
as she fired at the entrance
.

The reptile tried to throw itself to the side as it realized it was going to
be too slow, still swinging it
s weapon from the side and down to try to bring it to bear on Tanya
. But she had only to raise her
s and fire, and the blast went into the floor at the reptile’s feet where Tanya had meant for it to go.

It shredded the lizard instantaneously, showering the bar and patrons with blood and gore. There was a great cheer as the patrons applauded the death, but there were still two others coming and Tanya didn’t have the time to bask in the praise of the bloodthirsty mob.

She didn’t recognize yet another armed human as he came
through the bar’s main entrance
way holding a leveled blaster in either hand. If those blasters had been t
urned in her direction as he
walked through the door then it would have been over. Tanya rose and spun to
confront the other two human attackers, who were in the other back corner where they had been tossed, and who were at that m
oment rising to bring their
weapons to bea
r on her.

Then she realized the
blasters in the hands of the newcomer
weren’t
pointed in her direction, and anyway there was no time to delay with the first two. If he was another antagonist he would just have to wait his turn, and she sincerely hoped she would still be alive to give him that turn!

Then the shock of recognition and realization coursed through her like voltage. She had never seen him at this age before, and she experienced the greatest relief of her entire life as she fully absorbed who she was seeing. His blasters erupted then, just a hair before her own and four balls of brilliant incandescent death descended lightning swift upon the two human attackers. The explosions were tremendous and completely obliterated the entire back corner of the bar. The attackers were vaporized.

While Tanya stood there surveying the wreckage she found herself amused; the entire back corner had emptied of patrons faster than the two human attackers had been tossed there, almost, and now another cheer from those very same patrons thundered even louder at the excellent show they had been given.

Tanya now turned towards Malcomb.

Chapter 50

“What the hell are you doing here?” Tanya demanded.

“That's the way the vote went.” Malcomb said with a small smile that contained no guilt.

“What vote?” Tanya demanded, though the anger fell short as she could already see where this was going. Then three more of them walked in the entrance behind Malcomb, who didn’t even turn to see who was there. Apparently he knew simply by their footfall patterns, or maybe that he was sure no one who wasn't supposed to be walking through that entrance would have been. He trusted his people, in other words. The three newcomers were all armed with Kievor hand-blasters.

“Perimeter secure.” One of them spoke, a young man of twenty or so and to all appearances a very competent looking individual, none of the three familiar to her from her recent short stay with them in the ghetto. There had been so many coming and going that it had been impossible for her to keep track of them all. There were more like him in the corridor outside, but of their entire number Tanya was not yet sure.

“I mentioned to you how we operate.” said Malcomb; “We put everything to the vote. My voice was hardly the only one raised calling for a vote. The vote was unanimous by the way, so you won’t get rid of us now.”

“You spent everything I left you to get all these people here? That is not what I gave you that for!”

“I didn't spend any of those credits. They're still sitting in the bank, now in trust to the one I left in charge.” Malcomb answered reasonably.

Tanya just stared at him until he couldn't hold it anymore and he broke out into a wide grin and began to explain;

“You know the money you left us when you first left the ghetto?”

“That was a long time ago Malcomb. What are you talking about?”

“Do you know how much you left us?”

“No.” Tanya answered slowly, although beginning to understand, because of course then, at that time, she'd had no comprehension whatsoever of the total value of the piles of notes and credit chips which she had left Malcomb and the rest of the children. “How much was there?”

“Over fourteen million credits, Tanya. We haven't even begun to spend it.”

“If you had fourteen million credits, why did you stay in the ghetto?” Tanya accused, unable to believe, but begi
nning to believe despite
. Fourteen million credits!

“To carry on the mission you began, Tanya. I've saved the lives of thousands of children since you disappeared, and my worst regret the entire time was that I had not been able to save you as well. That's why I've stayed. That's why I'm here now.”

“They're just children!” Tanya said.

“They're not just children, Tanya, they are far more than that, and they're your children, your blood, you protected them all this time, all of the thousands who have passed through my care, by leaving us that money, and now we're going to protect you, like it or not.”

There were none in the group under the age of sixteen or seventeen, and every one of the hundred Malcomb had brought with him had the hard steely eyes of the competent; competence through trial and error, and success. Success in the ghetto was easy to measure; those who lived were successful, those who died were not. Still, Tanya did not want them involved, no matter how competent they were and no matter that they, every one of them, had voted to come here because they considered Tanya blood and this to be a blood feud.

Blood feuds were something that those in the ghetto understood. Families were invariably large where birth control was difficult to obtain, and those families that remained together only did so through the strength of unity. So when you killed someone in the ghetto, you always had to keep in mind that there were likely to be brothers or sisters and that they were very likely to be really pissed off. The type of pissed off that leads to murder. There was nothing thicker than blood in the ghetto, and that was why Tanya could not see a way out of this predicament with Malcolm and the children. The only possibility she could see was to simply get in her ship and leave, but knowing Malcomb and seeing the determined looks of the children that seemed unlikely to work. Just getting in her ship and leaving did not mean Malcomb and the children would leave or give up their own hunt for Jason Cormach. Or maybe they would just follow her. Or worse yet, they might split up and do both.

“Damn you Malcomb!” Tanya said, not seeing any way out of it and not happy about it.

“It's no longer a matter of just your participation, Tanya. There is no changing the fact that we are all now involved. For better or for worse,
we made that bed when we helped you the first time.” Malcomb said.
“Now we’ll just have to sleep in that bed, just like we always have.
There’s nothing preventing this Jason Cormach and his Organization from coming after us once he
's finished with you
, or retaliating on the others who were left behind, or anywhere any of us might go. You can't deny the fact that we are now all involved and we will have to see it through to the end together.”

“You pose an irresistible argument.” Tanya said. “I never knew you to be so persuasive.” His argument was as reasonable as they cam
e, and there was no way out
Tanya could see, at least not for the present.

“You're just easier to convince now.” Malcomb said.

“Is that what it is?” Tanya asked. She could clearly remember
the hours upon hours Malcomb
spent entreating her to stop what she
was
doing and of course what her response
was
. She had not listened to him then but it was clear he already understood he’d won this time and Tanya was going to listen. What choice did she have? Leave them to fight the Organization alone? Malcomb had won the debate and the small smile turning the corner of his lip left no doubt in her mind that he was as aware of it as was she. She would be staying on, it seemed.

Chapter 51

Felone had been storming back and forth through t
he ship for hours since they
received news of their latest failure. In Jason’s opinion she was beginning to become unglued, not that she
was
put together all
that well in the first place. Felone was not one to take defeat lightly and it had been a long time, if ever, certainly not in her time with Jason, since she had tasted defeat in such measure. Tanya was thwarting them at every turn, and now she had an entire force of very competent soldiers at her disposal. They could be nothing else than
highly
trained soldiers the way they had so
easily decimated their Simians. T
here could be no doubt that it was the same force which was responsible for both incidents, while of their own full time Operatives they were the only two who remained.

“The two of us against an army!
How fucking wonderful!” Felone sneered from the open hatchway to Jason’s Study where he
was
sitting and drinking
since they
received the news. To a
dd insult to injury they had
to pay the Kievors to get the news.

“I think it’s quite fitting.” Jason slurred, already well into his cups and starting to get that certain feeling. Getting a case of the
fuck its
Jason liked to call it, where he was likely to do or say anything just to get the ball rolling towards a resolution of one kind or another; getting tired of Felone’s new aggressiveness towards him as well, not that he let any of that show now. He did not. “It began as her against an army and now it’s us against an army. That’s Karma.”

Felone just stared at him but bit back whatever she had been about to say, seeing the hard look come over his face and finally realizing there
was
a limit to how far Jason would let himself be pushed, and realizing she had finally pushed him to that brink, where he wasn’t going to take it anymore, at least not while he had hot Scotch whisky coursing through his veins. What she didn’t know was that she had already pushed him over that brink.

Jason certainly recognized that this entire mess was his doing but Felone’s attitude was more about taking control of him and the Organization than merely about anger at his errors. Felone had decided she no longer needed him and she was just building herself up to finalizing it. The o
ne thing that Felone was not
very good at, however, was hiding her feelings. They were written
plainly on her face
. He could see the play even as Felone dealt the hand. Jason wasn’t an expressive person. He let things stew inside him until they reached the boiling point and then the lid would blow, but it wouldn’t be visible until the explosion actually occurred. He was boiling already.