Chronicles of a Space Mercenary 0: Tanya (7 page)

She bega
n frequenting places where violence could be counted on to occur, hidden in the derelict buildings and studying the tactics of the combatants. Usually it was random drug-induced violence, but upon occasion she saw a real fight between two very determined opponents, and it always came down to two things; he who got his weapon out first killed his opponent, if he didn't miss. So number one, get the weapon out first. Number two, don't miss. She was already practicing to perfect both.

She had traveled for days to get to where she was now, sleeping in crevices when she grew tired, traveling the black darkness of the old sewers with only a small crank-light to guide her path in the
unfamiliar
places too dark to see at all. They were watching for her near to her home and she was sure they were watching for her here, though she had detected nothing overtly. It was just a feeling. She wondered if it was possible that they were watching for her everywhere, and what it would mean if they were. She knew nothing of the latest news, and she had no friends to ask anywhere here besides the children. But she knew there was gossip throughout the ghetto and it was probable that everyone was aware of her and her activities throughout
the entire tax-free zone
.

She was at the rotted sill of a window looking at another building four lots down the street. This was by far the boldest enterprise she had yet contemplated. This wasn't the ordinary drug and prostitution den. This was an upper class joint. The building was even remodeled. Security
was tight and there was an unending stream of people coming and going, their luxury and sports cars parked all the way up and down the street.

There were no open windows in th
is
building, and no obvious means of entering or leaving other than the front door. Tanya couldn't even explain to herself what she thought she was doing here except that there was so much wealth that she simply couldn’t stop herself from coming. She had no idea yet how she might acquire what she was seeing, but she saw much that she wanted.

Tanya let the memories slip away again as she ran on through the entire night. She ran at a sprint when she could, but the forest had thickened again and it was almost impossible to move at that pace. Still, she was moving a lot faster than she had coming in, and by midday had drawn near to where she had left her little ship.

She had not detected pursuit, but that would be nearly impossible considering the geography. She wouldn't know they were behind her until they were on top of her. Or it was very possible they were simply waiting for her, already knowing everything about her. She had to consider every possibility. That was the reason she had been so successful. If anyone should be aware of what treachery human beings were capable of, it was Tanya.

She did not immediately think that Handler had done this on purpose. She could imagine no reason why he would. But the fact that she could not imagine a reason why he would turn on her didn’t mean that he had not. Maybe he even had a good reason. Tanya wasn’t sure that Handler had turned on her, although
that
was
her first impression, the
ver
y first thought which had risen
, and it was usually the first intuitive thought that came to mind that was
always
the correct one.

The fact that she could think of no reason why he would turn on her was the only reason she had not fully come to believe it
was
Handler's treachery behind the failure of the field-nullifier. She suppos
ed that such things did occur
on occasion. The fact that one had never failed before didn't necessarily mean that they couldn't fail. Still, the first thought that had come to her mind had been that it was Handler. She could hardly forget that, even if it made no sense to her at the moment.

The safest course was that she
operate
on the presumption that her initial intuition had been correct. That meant he knew where her ship was. That meant that if he really was behind it, someone would be waiting near her
ship and
she would
not
detect them
as she approached
because they wouldn’t move. Not until it was too late. They wouldn't send an amateur.

Although she had covered most of the distance to her ship, she now turned away from it with a heavy heart. There was nothing in this Universe she wanted more than to go directly to that ship and flee with every kilogram of thrust it could provide, but she simply could no longer take that risk. Trying to reclaim her ship was the fastest route off this planet, but it could also be a trap. It could mean her death. Though Tanya was an assassin and regularly risked her life, Tanya never handed it over to chance.

Chapter 15

Tanya had decided that if there were going to be risks then the payoff should be commensurate. It was two we
eks since she had been back
. She had been very busy during this time. She had committed numerous thefts and given everything to the children. Most of her stash as well, but not the drugs. Those she had dumped. She was no longer trying to hide from the children how she was doing her providing, because she was more afraid of what would happen if she didn't return. One day she probably wouldn't return for one reason or another.

Her shoulder tote was full again; hard-tack, rice, hard beans, and other hard to come by staples. The children now had enough staples to last several years, and plenty of money for when that ran out. Tanya had come to the inescapable conclusion that they were now on the lookout for her anywhere she might
surface
. The only reason her recent thefts had been successful at all was because of her return to stealing food instead of valuables. After this string of recent thefts Tanya knew she would no longer be able to steal anything with any assurance that she wouldn't soon walk into a trap that she couldn't escape.

She had discovered through eavesdropping that others, emboldened by her success, were copycatting her. If the people she was stealing from hadn't been on guard before, they were now. Everyone was on guard, though it wasn't always immediately obvious. Tanya had come to the conclusion that they would like to catch her alive, and not because they wanted to addict her to drugs and prostitute her. That wouldn’t be good enough anymore. It was speculated that an example would be made of her. That meant torture and death. The screams of the tortured could often be heard i
n the various places she had
been frequenting, and in one case Tanya knew for a fact that the torture was the result of Tanya herself, for allowing a robbery. His torture hadn't
lasted long, but whatever it was they had done to him must have been terrible beyond belief, because the screams had been bloodcurdling and horrible beyond the ability of words to describe.

Those would be her screams if she were caught. She couldn't imagine what it would take to make a hardened enforcer scream like that, but she had little doubt that if they caught her, she would be screaming just as horribly, or worse, and probably for a far longer time. Tanya did not want to scream for eternity, and she was sure it would seem like eternity however long it took her to d
ie. Still, this was what she
decided to do, and here she was, as if functioning outside of her own volition.

Tanya smiled at the teller as she moved up to take her turn at the window. She was no longer Tanya, no longer blond, no longer blue eyed and her identification chip impeccable. It was not an identity she had gotten from Handler and she’d not used
it
since the last time she was here. It had been kept safe all this time, along with a private-account bank chip, in a long-term safety storage.

Now that long ago planning was paying dividends. Tanya had not visited this bank in over forty years. Still, that didn't guarantee that Handler wouldn't know about it. It was a risk she was not at all happy about having to take, but it was a risk that simply could not be avoided. She needed those funds. More than the funds, she needed the legitimacy that this old account would add to her presence here, just as every other permanent resident would have; a financial history that did not have to be hacked into the system.

They wouldn't suspect a quasi-resident of forty years as much as they would be looking for a
non-resident,
and with the amount of traffic coming and going from this prosperous world the authorities would
have their work cut out for them in the first place. All Tanya could hope was that she slipped through the cracks. Again, the risk was considerable, but to remain here was an even greater risk; she had to get out now while any chance of success at all still remained.

Tanya's next stop was the spaceport for a ticket off-planet. Unless Handler had informed on her, they wouldn't give her a second look. Her completely innocuous appearance was one of her greatest assets. If Handler had been the one who had informed on her, and knowing how very capable his Organization was, there
was
no doubt in Tanya's mind that he would have found out about her identity and bank account. It wasn't the risk that going to the ship would have been though. There was no way to fight a hidden bomb, or the missiles of scrambled fighter craft if they were alerted to her and ready for her
when she lifted off, or even a F
ederation destroyer just sitting up in orbit waiting for her to do something that absolute
ly stupid. The ways a careless O
perative could die were endless.

She relinquished her weapons to Security as everyone else was doing, at least those weapons which could be detected. They would be returned to her, and everyone else, once they were aboard the Luxury Liner. There is no law against carrying weapons, in fact it was practically a law that you had to carry weapons, if you were a person who liked your life, but the passengers weren't allowed to carry them in the small shuttle-craft w
hich would take them up to the Luxury L
iner above. A weapons discharge aboard the small shuttle-craft would kill everyone within. If passengers wanted to kill one another they would be allowed to do so once they were aboard the liner.

If they came to arrest her now she could be in serious trouble. A few would pay with their lives, but to delay now and give Handler the time to perhaps change his mind would only make it harder to get out later. Better to take the risk now. The line continued to move forward.

Chapter 16

Tanya was back at her place at the rotted sill watching the garish whorehouse across the street. She still didn't know how she was going to do it, only that she was. Her last big score, as she saw it. She would take what she stole and use it to escape the tax-free zone. Or it would be her last stand. She couldn't keep doing what she was doing because too many people were doing it now and sooner or later she was going to be caught.

Sooner or later she was going to be caught whether she did another robbery or not! It was simple and understandable, and completely clear to her. She was not deluded into thinking this could go on forever. It could not go on forever. In her eyes her days were already numbered; whether she continued to do what she was doing or not it was simply inevitable. So, she had decided that if she was going to risk her life anyway, and her life was already at risk, then she was at least going to get paid for it.

It was then that she had seen the pimp again, her second remembrance of him. He had just pulled up and gotten out of a fancy land-car and was walking towards the building which was her intended target. His hand was still bandaged, Tanya saw with some small measure of
satisfaction. He stopped and made small talk with the door detail thugs and then walked in. Tanya hadn't gotten the impression he was a customer. He had walked in like he owned the place. Was this his place? She had no way of knowing.

The creak of a floor-board behind her as she was working her way back down through the old building towards the warrens below was her only warning she wasn't alone. She spun towards the sound but was far too late. He had been waiting for her the entire time, over a week now, and had not moved a muscle nor made a sound since Tanya had entered the building. An expert, brought in to do what no one else had
been able to do
, when all that had been needed was a bit of patience. The solid military baton caught her on the side of the head and that was the last she knew.

Tanya sat up abruptly in her seat in the shuttle as the dream woke her. She wasn't sure how she had fallen asleep in the first place, when to do so could
mean her life, but she pushed that thought aside
as she
considered
this
her most recent remembrance. They were coming more and more rapidly now. She was suddenly positive she would remember everything eventually, whatever everything turned out to be.

Tanya told herself she was still here today, so whatever had happened to her, and at this point she was quite confident it would turn out to be horrible, it had not meant her death. She had a dread of finding out what was going to happen to her younger self, but trying to dredge it up from the dark recesses of her
locked
mind at this moment was getting her nowhere at all. The memories would reveal themselves to her when they decided, as if they had a mind of their own. No matter
how badly she needed to know, the rest of her youth was still presently no more than a blank spot in her life.