Xantoverse Shadowkill (9 page)

Lanat cut Kina down the back and peeled away her nanoweave suit, exposing her bare skin to the coldness of the ship’s stale air. “You have pretty skin,” she said, running her hand down Kina’s spine. “Shame to let it go to waste.” Pressing the blade against her skin, Lanat began cutting and Kina could do nothing to stop her.

CHAPTER 7

Kina refused to scream
. Refused to give them the satisfaction. With each cut, with each flaming sear of pain, she went into herself, let the pain wash over her. Ironic really, given this was a technique they had taught her.

Didn’t make it any easier though. The effects of the injection were wearing off, bringing a new level of pain and discomfort as her muscles cramped with all the prior exertion. Blood dripped down her back onto her hands and wrists. She tried to reach down for the strap that pinned her to the board, but her shoulders wouldn’t bend quite far back and low enough.

From her position, she couldn’t see Dzagnev. Mingled with the scent of her blood and the stale ship air, she got a waft of Lanat’s sweet scent. Kina’s breathing became ragged as the pain from the cuts increased, bringing tears to her eyes.

“Don’t worry,” Lanat said from right behind her. “We’ll soon be finished here and you can join your whore in whatever afterlife your kind believes in.”

“I don’t,” Kina said, croaking out the words from her sore throat.

“You don’t what?”

“Believe in an afterlife. There’s just there here and now.” Every word brought a flash to her vision, but she tried to thrive on the pain; use it to motivate her into action.

Lanat stopped from her cutting and slid round to Kina’s side to face her. A few patches of blood spotted Lanat’s cheek and chin. A smear on her forehead indicated she had wiped it with the back of her wrist. She held the knife up, the blade crimson and reflective under the yellow algae lights.

Kina looked up and into the shadows behind Lanat. No sign of Dzagnev.

The room was featureless apart from the damaged wall panels. Probably some kind of storeroom.

“I never liked you,” Lanat said. “I only tolerated you because Dzagnev said we needed to expand. I blame that bitch Miriam Cauder. Her expansion into the arms trade has made anyone on
Haven
with enough credits a would-be assassin.”

“So is this what this is all about?” Kina said. “You’re teaching the station, me, and her son a lesson in what real assassins do? Finding it hard to make a living these days, eh? I imagine at your rates, your customers are finding cheaper alternatives.”

“Economics is not our business.”

“That’s right. Outside of Hollow Space, you had the Penumbra do all the hard work. You just turned up and collected a paycheck. Well, those days are gone. On
Haven
, no one owes you a goddamned thing.” While Kina worked on keeping Lanat’s attention from cutting her some more, she stretched down trying to grab the loose piece of strapping. If she could reach it and unclasp it, she’d be free from the board.

Tensing her shoulder she subtly pushed down. Her eyes closed tight with the effort and she clenched her jaw against the pain—the very real pain burning up and down her back provided an ideal cover.

“We don’t want anything owed to us. We take it. We’re top of the food chain, you should have learned that already.”

Kina couldn’t reach. The cuffs around her wrists were tight, restricting her movement. Though as she tensed her shoulder she realized what she had to do. But it wouldn’t be enough to cover the effort in her current state.

“Then show it, you freck! You think a few cuts is all I can handle?”

Lanat punched Kina in the face, cracking her nose and making her eyes water. That’s it! With the pain and yell she let out, she cracked her shoulder back, trying to dislocate it. But it wasn’t enough.

Kina spat blood at Lanat.

The assassin dodged aside and stepped behind Kina, dragged the blade of the knife down her back once more, bringing a scream from Kina’s throat. Lanat couldn’t help but goad her; she leaned over the side, got right in her face. “Still not enough, eh, tough girl?”

Kina cracked her shoulder once more as she roared back at Lanat.

The joint gave; her shoulder came free.

The pulse of pain made her stomach clench, but she bit down hard, driving the pain into motivation. With the new movement, she reached down and grabbed the strap, pulling it to the left to remove the clasp.

She lurched back of the board as the strap came free.

Lanat leapt toward Kina, just as she had anticipated. Kina brought her head back and snapped it forward as hard as she could, her forehead connecting with Lanat’s nose. The cartilage broke in the impact. Kina staggered back—the pain in he forehead just adding to her mounting wounds.

Lanat dropped the blade as she clutched at her face.

Seizing the opportunity, Kina yanked her arm up with everything she had, breaking the wrist so she could pull her arm free. She flashed out a kick, driving her sole into the side of Lanat’s head, sending her to the floor.

With her right shoulder dislocated, and her left wrist broken, she had little choice to use her feet. Roaring with rage and agony, Kina dashed to Lanat’s prone position, and lashed out again, kicking her first in the chest, winding her, and following up with a kick to the back of her head.

Even as she saw Dzagnev entering the room, Kina didn’t stop kicking until Lanat was dead.

Dzagnev grabbed her by the shoulders and threw her to the wall. Kina hit the hard panels with a clang. her head bouncing off the surface. Her left eye took the bulk of the impact, blinding her for a moment. She spun round to face the Wraith. A throwing dagger smacked into her upper right arm, slicing the muscle. The strike knocked her back and she looked down with horror as the realization sunk in.

It was stuck there, buried inside her up to the hilt.

Seeing Lanat’s body, Dzagnev bent down and grabbed her by the arms, screaming for her to wake up. But she wouldn’t wake up. Kina had felt her neck snap.

In a fit of rage, he dropped Lanat and looked up at Kina with nothing but hate in his eyes. With all self-control gone, he resembled a wild vul as he snarled, spittle frothing from his mouth. With out stretched arms he rushed toward her.

Kina waited. She pulled her arm in, clenching her jaw against the pain from her shoulder, and placed her hand on the hilt. He reached out for her throat. Kina smiled as the momentum brought him closer. She pulled the blade from her arm with one final effort and drove it into his throat, pushing him back.

Dzagnev tried to clutch for it, but as he fell back, gravity pulled him off the blade, leaving it in her hand. He hit the floor hard, his head cracking against the metal deckplates. Not wasting any time, and in too much pain to do anything else, Kina fell on him, the blade pointing downward. Her weight forced the dagger into his heart, her final aim true.

She collapsed against him.

He gurgled something, but she couldn’t make it out.

In a world of agony, she just closed her eyes and waited. She heard his final breath as her own became shallow and weak. She had enough energy to roll herself off. She laid on her back next to the two dead assassins and just stared up at the lights with her one good eye and welcomed a swift death.

CHAPTER 8

Was that the smell of
a… a… kronac? The musty earth scent overrode the coppery blood smell. If she could smell, did that mean…

“She’s still alive,” a voice said.

Hands now on her shoulders, shaking her gently. “Kina, can you hear me, girl?” The voice was pained but familiar…

“Tai?” she said, opening her good eye. She instantly blinked, the overhead light making it painful for her. But she caught a snapshot of three forms.

“Help me lift her, Tooize,” Tai said.

Then her body became weightless as she was lifted off the deck. Definitely kronac. She recognized Tooize’s whistles and chirps.

“Don’t say anything,” Tai said. “We’re getting you out of here. Just hold on.”

A number of med-patches with their stingy analgesic compound that kronac’s made from the pulped leaves of their trees, were pressed against her arm and eye, instantly numbing the pain.

“My… back,” she said.

Tooize carefully placed her on her feet while supporting her by her shoulders.

“Holy freck!” Tai said. “They did this to you?”

“No,” Kina said. “The tooth fairy.”

She screamed a little at the shock of the med-patches being applied to the wounds on her back. She fainted under the sudden drug assault.

When she came round, she was aware Tooize carrying her into the elevator. Tai was besides her, giving her one of his stupid grins. Beside him, not looking at all interested in the events, Hela worked the levers on the presumably repaired elevator and they started their slow ascent up through the station.

Kina let the powerful drugs do their thing and take her away into a soft bubble of unconsciousness as their active healing compounds got to work on encouraging new cell growth and all that marvelous jazz.

***

Kina sat up in bed. Her head still throbbed, but this time from the after effects of the drugs rather than the beating she suffered at the hands of the Wraiths. Her left eye was still swollen but she could at least see out of it.

Paintings of naked women in combat adorned the wall opposite. She sighed—they’d brought her back to Tai’s place. She sat forward and checked her back. At some point someone had reset her shoulder. It still hurt, but she had full range of movement. Her wrist however wasn’t so good—they’d splintered it and applied a stiff nanoweave compress around the fracture.

Her back would take time to heal with the synthgrafts, but the system of patches they applied were still there, renewed. At least the pain was just a dull ache now. Nightmare memories of being cut, and images of her sweet Galeia came to her, but beyond that, the satisfaction of killing Lanat and Dzagnev brought a small degree of comfort that her lover’s torturers had paid with their lives.

The door opened.

“Oh you, it’s you,” Kina said. “I was expecting Tai.”

“He’s out there, settling the bill with his mother,” Hela said. She closed the door and walked to the side of the bed carrying a mug of steaming liquid.

“Bill? What bill?” Kina asked, not understanding.

“Dr. Zoura said you’re to drink this. Got some crap in it to help your skin growth or something.”

“Thanks.” Kina took the drink and recognized it. It had a nasty flavor, but full of nanotech to help speed along the healing process.

“Oh, the bill,” Hela said. “Don’t worry about it, it’s on Tai’s tab.”

“But what’s it for. I don’t understand.”

“You don’t think Tooize and I came to help you and you fool friend for free, do you?”

“What? He’s her damned son. She charged him?”

Hela shrugged. “You got out alive didn’t you? If it wasn’t for us, both you and Tai would have died down there.”

“What happened to him? I lost him and well, I couldn’t…” shame and guilt filled her. She looked away from Hela’s unflinching gaze. In another time, Kina could have seen Hela as a Wraith. Far too cold for her own good.

“The Wraith’s had a group of Iron Council goons on tap. They dragged Tai off and beat the living shit out of him. But you know Tai. He doesn’t die too easily. He was still fighting when Tooize and I turned up and took control of the situation.”

“Oh god. Is he okay?”

“No worse than he’s been before. Came out better than you, that’s for sure.”

“Charge or no charge,” Kina said reaching out a hand. “I want to thank you. And Tooize.”

Hela didn’t shake her hand and just left it hanging. “Thank Miriam, she was the one who figured what you two idiots were up to.”

“How?”

“That fool Linus. Miriam saw him hiding in one of Tai’s lockups. He soon spilled everything he knew.”

“They’re supposed to be secure,” Kina said. “Tai would go crazy if he…”

Hela gave her a look that said he won’t. “For his own good. He owes her too much money to go unmonitored.”

Kina was sure it wasn’t just about the money. The debt was a handy tool for Miriam to use to keep Tai in check—for good or bad.

“You’ll be up and back to normal within a week, Zoura said.” With that, Hela turned to leave and reached for the door handle when Kina stopped her.

“Wait, there’s just one more thing I don’t understand.”

Hela sighed with impatience. “What?”

“Back at the Gear and Socket. You and Miriam knew I had the contract for Tai and told me take the advantage. Why? Why tell me that then come to our aid?”

“It wasn’t in reference to Tai,” Hela said rolling her eyes.

“Then what? I don’t understand any of this. Just what role does Miriam have in all this? It doesn’t make any sense.”

“The Wraiths are dead, aren’t they? You’re free and alive. You took the advantage.” Stepping back to the bedside, Hela dropped her voice, took a little of the condescending edge off her words. “Consider it a reminder. Always take the advantage to fight for your freedom and the ones you care about.”

Hela stood up and left the room, leaving Kina to think on her words.

Tai entered shortly after and sat beside her.

“Thank you, for being you,” Kina said.

Tai hugged in her close. “Likewise, girl. But less of the maudlin’ I just struck a deal with Mother dearest to claim first rights to a new ship that’s arrived in Hollow Space. A Galaynian cruiser. You know what that means?”

“Oh great, zero-G salvaging for borium.”

“Better than a knife fight to death, girl. I’ll take a dull, arduous job right now. Besides, it’ll pay for this plan…”

Kina shook her head and laughed as Tai cooked up yet another scam of epic proportions. She let him go on and on, spinning out the angles and the all while knowing that if it came to it again, she’d take the advantage—to save herself and save him. She’d soldier on even if she got to Sarod’s age, because on
Haven
, life and friendship is all anyone truly had.