Assassin's Hunger (5 page)

Benedetta tilted her head, and the hundreds of braids shifted like little serpents. “As you were taken by Hermitaj?”

Shaxi stiffened. “I wasn’t
taken
. I was
given
, as payment for a debt.” She gritted her teeth to stop herself from blurting out any more of the memories, which had been welling up since the repression subroutine had failed after she lost her links. “Speaking of debts.” She stared at the other woman expectantly.

Retrieving a small tablet from a fold of her skirt, Benedetta tapped out a message then turned the screen toward Shaxi. “I have transferred a token of our appreciation to this drop-box. Is that sufficient?”

Shaxi focused her ocular implant on the link. With a thought, she uploaded the amount to her private account. “You must love your sisters.” Despite the control and imperviousness that had been drilled into her starting the day she’d been taken—
given
—to Hermitaj, she couldn’t restrain the note of wistfulness that crept into her tone.

“Of course.” The other woman smiled, and unlike Eril’s smile, which made Shaxi wary and restless, Benedetta’s was simple. “They are my sisters. They also make me insane. Another ‘of course’.” She tucked the tablet back into her pocket. “Would you be interested in doubling that amount? The
Asphodel
is in Levare to complete a sensitive trade, and we could use another gun while we’re earthbound.”

A faint hitch interrupted Shaxi’s breathing, and for a moment she worried some other piece of her code—say, the one that reminded her to draw air into her lungs—might be failing. But then she decided it was just the promise of riches, however brief.

It certainly couldn’t be the provisional offer of a new position, a new place.

A new purpose.

“I can’t leave Khamaseen,” she said. More regret that soured her voice in her throat. “I have…reasons to be here.”

“Fair enough,” Benedetta said. “But you seem to have an understanding of the local ambiance plus, apparently, an understanding for the twins. That is valuable and we’d compensate you accordingly, if you were willing. The on’Taj units were highly effective in service, and we’d be fortunate to have you, if only for a while.”

Fortune had never been part of Shaxi’s vocabulary, nor flattery, for that matter. Since she’d never chosen her own assignments with Hermitaj, she wasn’t sure what criteria she should consider. She eyed the ship towering over her. She didn’t know what to make of the peculiar crew or the ship that had the lines of a pleasure cruiser and the scorch marks of a warship, but she needed food and shelter.

At least until the storms came and she sent herself out into their purifying maelstrom.

“The
Asphodel
has a running water cleansing unit and a one-pass, no-reclamation galley,” Benedetta said in an exaggeratedly wheedling tone, as if she was trying to sell Shaxi a used sheership. “And your official title can be bodyguard instead of babysitter.”

Shaxi lifted her chin. “With Hermitaj, my designation was assigned with each mission. Since you’re paying, you can call me whatever you like.”

Benedetta said, more seriously, “Hermitaj is gone. You survived, unlike many of your brethren. Don’t give up any more than you already have.”

Shaxi crossed her arms, remaining stubbornly silent.

The other woman let out a soft laugh. “Well, if you want the job, whatever you want to call it or yourself, follow me.”

She pivoted on her bare heel and strode up the gangplank the way Eril had gone.

Should she go? Shaxi glanced over her shoulder at the empty hangar. Despite the bulwarks around Levare that shielded the city from the worst of the sandstorms, a sneaking wind picked up the ever-present dust and whirled it into a hazy funnel cloud flickering with tiny bolts of lightning.

The devastating electromagnetic properties of the rock on Khamaseen had ended the possibilities of any major developments. Those same effects could end her. Or be a new start.

But until then, she’d have a place to be.

She followed Benedetta up into the belly of the beast.

The shriving couldn’t come soon enough.

Chapter 4

Eril leaned against the bulkhead wall outside the bridge while Benedetta introduced Shaxi to the captain. He knew what the cyborg mercenary would be experiencing in there: Corso Deynah’s intense, scrutinizing stare and brooding silence would compel the guilty to spill any incriminating secrets.

Or had that just been his own impression?

While he waited, he updated his intel on Hermitaj. The corporation had a long, storied history creating soldiers for hire. They had experimented with completely robotic weapons systems, but in the end, using human bodies as the scaffolding for their tech was cheaper. Although there’d been occasional protests about their cyber-embed protocols and their use of indentured child labor, most federations, alliances, and coalitions along the sheerways eventually found themselves in need of paid fighters. So Hermitaj prospered.

Right up until about a UTC-year ago when someone had blown the corporation’s enormous artificial asteroid hub out of existence.

Considering the station had based thousands of elite warriors and some of the most advanced weaponry around, that had been a feat in itself. That the perpetrators remained anonymous was even more impressive.

Eril’s underwriters had found nothing to report. The scope and daring of the attack was worrisome, but the universe brimmed with worrisome incidents. Since this one was so definitively over except for the cloud of debris, and there’d been no second act, they’d let it go for more pressing concerns.

Since his covert channels proved less than satisfying, Eril had been forced to consult an even more dangerous source of information: public comm boards.

Conspiracy theorists suggested Hermitaj had grown too powerful or knew something too incriminating to be allowed to exist but offered no specifics, so they’d turned their gossip to the only pieces of Hermitaj that remained: the cyborg mercenaries themselves.

Despite the cessation of orders from Hermitaj, most had finished out their missions. If they could. Some of the more modified soldiers had failed instantly along with the asteroid, dropping in their tracks. Others suffered major biomechanical malfunctions over time. Still others seemed to go insane. Despite their previously impressive reputations, the ones that survived became persona non grata—or half-persona non grata—deemed too unstable except for the most hazardous or illicit duties.

He wondered if Shaxi’s experiences had made her more or less vulnerable. How had she survived? And what had she been willing to do to get this far?

Did she ever wake in the middle of the night on the verge of screaming?

Or maybe once again that was only his own problem.

His intel trail ended abruptly. Any specific record of who she’d been before her conscription was lost with Hermitaj. There wasn’t even a data point marking her emergence from the corporation’s obliteration. The many governmental entities that comprised the sheerways kept incompatible information systems—because while FTL travel had become possible
four hundred years ago with the discovery of the sheership biotech, data entry was still the purview of disgruntled civil servants and underpaid interns. Hermitaj had made Shaxi a cipher, one of many. Now she was one of only a few, but still an unknown.

Even to herself.

Eril almost envied her that ignorance.

He straightened and tucked away his secured tablet when Benedetta and Shaxi emerged from the bridge.

“Corso approved your idea, Eril,” Benedetta said. “And Shaxi has agreed to work with us while we’re on Khamaseen.”

Only while they were planetside? Eril considered the timeline. If he was going to use her as a tool in his plans, then the twins’ days were numbered, and that number was smaller than he’d anticipated.

He refused to let himself shudder. There was too much at stake for him to weigh two girls’ lives. His soul was forfeit regardless. The underwriters had made that clear when they’d taken him in—a starving boy, hunted by his own father for his unforgiveable crimes.

At least the underwriters had offered him a way to pay. He could never be absolved, but he could help prevent ruination such as he’d once unwittingly caused. His humanity had been the coin he doled out, bit by bit, in blood not his own. One day, though, it
would
be his own blood, and he imagined it would trickle out of him in a dust more parched and empty than this abandoned moon.

“I’ll show her around and set her up in a bunk,” he said, even as his mind ticked through his grim history and even uglier future.

Benedetta eyed him for a moment, and he wondered what she saw. Although the l’auraly had been designed simply to be perfect lovers, their empathic skills would have made them excellent artists or therapists. Or interrogators.

But she merely said, “Put her across from the twins. And, Shaxi, when was the last time you had a real meal?”

Shaxi shifted from one foot to the other. “It’s been…some time.”

“Get something to eat while you take your tour,” Benedetta said. “You’re less useful to us if you die of hunger.”

Shaxi ducked her head, the almost bashful motion at odds with her warrior physique. “I think you must be a good older sister.”

“If you can convince Torash and Alolis of that, I’ll add a bonus in danger pay.” Benedetta jerked her chin at Eril. “Hit the mess hall first, Mr. Morav.”

He indicated the way to Shaxi. “Shall we?”

But she glanced back at Benedetta. “Thank you for giving me a place.” She bowed with stiff formality. “In return, I will give my life to protect your sisters and this ship. That is what I was made to do.”

Benedetta nodded, a certain brutal set to her mouth, as if she expected nothing less, although her eyes shone with a suspicious glitter.

Not ruthlessness, but tears. She might pity the poor programmed killer now, but he had no doubt she would be the first to fire when he hijacked Shaxi’s empty code and unleashed her on the twins. But it would be too late, for all of them.

He was silent as he led the next of his many victims to one of her last meals.

The motion sensor lights flicked on at their entry, and he turned with resignation to face her. “What do you like to eat?”

“I have no idea.”

He cocked his head. “Hermitaj programming doesn’t override your personality. At least when you aren’t on a specific mission. You must have some preferences.”

She was scanning the mess hall as if there might be some peril concealed in the tidy food prep area or between the banquette seating where the crew gathered for meals. Mostly, he suspected she was avoiding his gaze. “I do have preferences. In…some things. But not food.”

He wondered what preferences she
did
have, that she’d hesitated to mention. But he didn’t want to push her. Yet. “I suppose your employers kept you on battle rations, and you were taken young enough that you hadn’t developed an adult palate.”

“I wasn’t taken—” She let out a sharp breath. “I like pixberries. Fresh off the vine.”

He raised his eyebrows. “Well, you don’t want much on a spaceship, do you?”

She jerked her chin in. “I’ll eat anything, but you asked—”

He raised his hand to quiet her. “So I did. Let me see what we have in stores. Won’t be quite the same as fresh, but better than nutri-bars.”

He kept one eye on her as she prowled through the mess hall while he found a dessert package with the ubiquitous purple sphere on the label. Pixberries were always one of the first terraforming plants introduced to a new planet since they could be engineered to thrive in almost any soil and atmosphere to produce fat, sweet-tart berries that made the early days of planet-busting less dreary. He broke the seal on the package and set it in the wave-oven then dug around for a spoon while the dessert heated.

When he straightened, Shaxi was standing on the other side of the counter, just beyond arm’s reach.

For all his covert training, his pulse skittered. He hadn’t heard her approach. The gold ring around her irises widened, shrinking the blackness; she was scanning him.

He handed her the spoon. “Do you want ice cream with that?”

“I…don’t remember.”

“I always recommend berry cobbler be served a la mode.”

“If that means with ice cream, then yes.”

Even when he opened the freezer compartment and let out a blast of super-chilled air, the deep burn of her gaze still prickled between his shoulder blades. He took a steadying breath before he turned back. When he plucked a laser cutter out of a drawer, she stiffened.

He kept his movements slow and easy, making sure his hands stayed where she could see them. Other ex-Hermitaj commandos had gone rogue, and he didn’t want to trigger a shoot-out with this one; he’d seen what she was capable of. “We can cryo-preserve long-range sheership passengers, but science still hasn’t found an easy way to spoon up ice cream.” He adjusted the depth of the cutter and sliced out a generous portion of the frozen treat. The sound of the cutter sizzling around the softening edges was lost in the ding of the wave-oven. He pulled out the cobbler package and neatly centered the ice cream on top. “There are certain benefits to traveling with two young women, three if you count Benedetta.” He handed Shaxi the dessert.