Chapter 2: Beast Mode

The Isaarian System was where the rest of the Consolidate came for cheap labor and maximum profits.  

Isaar-3 was the husbandry world and it was covered with the agriculture of seven different alien races, along with the various animal species bred to provide a steady source of flesh foods to the entire Consolidate.

Isaar-2 was rich in ores and minerals and the Isaarian government made good money leasing mineral rights to alien companies and providing strong Isaarian muscle for inexpensive labor.

Isaar Prime was the factory world. Built by various alien companies, more than half the planet was covered with the factories that provided the Isaarians their only means of legal employment.

Inid City, laboriously carved from the swampy jungle, was a sleepy ocean-side town of medium population, perfect for producing little else besides the natives, themselves.

It was late summer. The city was fighting and losing its yearly battle with the encroaching jungle; gigantic ferns, gray vines and thick blue creepers besieged the jungle-side buildings and exploded up from any cracks in the plastic sidewalks.

Nothing moved on the public spacepatch when Quant landed Kam-Vu, her spaceship, and disembarked. She looked up at Isaar’s eternally cloudy skies that hid the double suns, a closer blue-white primary and a yellow-orange secondary, further away. Not a leaf trembled in the still heavy air as Quant, her travelsak thrown over her shoulder, trudged to the spacepatch’s Control Building, a single-level concrete cube.

Inside, a sleepy Isaarian clerk sat behind the counter, his forest-green skin shiny with moisture. He woke up long enough to rent her spaceship a spot, took a few plastic credit chips in payment and was back to his nap before Quant was out the door and stepping up to one of the waiting taxiglydders.

The young, Isaarian pilot looked impressed when Quant gave her the name of the most expensive hotel in the city. Her travelsak had been taken from her and doors opened for her with much head bobbing, the Isaarian sign of respect.

Vook me, I could get used to this, she thought. She had forgotten the more pleasant benefits of her former employer: the endless food/clothing/weapon expense accounts and pre-paid accommodations at the best places. It had been a rude shock when she tried to duplicate the lifestyle she had always known and found it to be a life she could no longer afford.

Her retirement payment and the added contract bonus for surviving ten staryears of assassin work had seemed incredibly vast at the time, more than she thought she could spend in her lifetime. However, purchasing her top-of-the line, Zy-Kaar-built spacecraft–even with a generous employee discount–had eaten up a huge portion of that wealth.  By necessity, Kam-Vu became her only home because it was cheaper to live in her spacecraft.

When on Isaar Prime, her homeworld, she lived with Vo-E’gli, her lover of two staryears, in his home there in Inid City. Three starmonths ago and against his wishes, she had left for Grenya and he swore he’d not take her back. They had parted in anger.

She wasn’t worried. He’d said the same thing to her for the past two staryears. She knew he would take her back as he always did, but each staryear it became harder to leave and each staryear she liked leaving less.

However, she was an assassin. She couldn’t go work for the local factory as E’gli did. She couldn’t make the kind of money here that she made on Grenya. As much as E’gli loved her, he didn’t understand. He didn’t know Quant, the killer.

I’m going to be here for only a day or so and I can’t face another goodbye with E’gli, she thought, deciding not to contact him. The money from this will last me a couple of staryears if I’m careful. When I come back from this job, I’ll tell E’gli he won and that I won’t leave him again. That will make him happy.

There was no need for him to know it was a partial lie. Once the money from this work season ran out, she’d have to go back to Grenya, but she loved him enough to give him at least, an illusion of security. She had no qualms about her duplicity and even thoughts of E’gli slid away when the gleaming spires of the hotel beckoned from below.

*                                       *                                *                            *

So, this is how the super-rich live, Quant thought. Her rooms were a magnificent penthouse on the 40th level of the Travel & Transport House.

The suite had four rooms: sitting room, bedroom, bathroom and a kitchen/dining room combination for those guests who preferred to cook and consume their own food—whatever it was—in privacy.

The suite–adapted for all species comfortable in sunlight conditions–had white walls and ceilings. The soft modular furniture, designed to fit any species’ body shape, was the color of ivory and the sumptuous carpet, in which her feet sank to the ankles, was the color of cream. On the right half of the room, a wall of glass provided a panoramic view of the city below. On the left, a third of the inner wall consisted of a huge Tri-Dem® screen for visual/audio entertainment. Sophisticated, holographic artwork, representations from all the civilized planets, adorned the corners of the rooms. It smelled like fresh air and money. The suite was fit for a BloodNoble. Quant was impressed.

In the passing of two starhours, she’d had time to inspect her rooms, order up an expensive meal, eat it and then luxuriously bathe in the giant sunken pool of a tub.

She put on her new tan-colored carryvest, loaded her various pockets with the tools of her trade and walked over to the ten-foot tall mirror to admire herself. Her new vest made the silver of her external gill filaments more vivid and complimented her round, silvery eyes. She put a hand on her hipbone and wriggled her tail seductively.

I look terrific. Maybe I should call E’gli, she mused. Her last bedmate had been a whole starweek ago, and she had needs.

She sighed, strode silently into the sitting room, and threw herself down on the modular sofa to await her contact and ponder her situation. Why did Aura Zy-Kaar so secretly need this Theelian? In all her years of service to the Zy-Kaar family, she had never met Aura Zy-Kaar, but she had heard the stories. Who had not?

The real history of the Zy-Kaars depended on who was telling it. Some would say that Auran Zy-Kaar, the founder of the family’s immense wealth and power, was a pioneer of technology who had taken interstellar science and space travel to rarefied heights and had advanced civilization for all species. Others would say Auran Zy-Kaar was a privateer and a space pirate who built his fortune on thievery and treachery. Only the family knew the truth and as BloodNobles, the Zy-Kaars were not telling.

The only known facts were that once they had been impoverished, living in the genteel decline and dignity worthy of one of the original, seven BloodNobles tracing their lineage back to the beginning of their planet’s recorded time. Auran, the eldest son, had returned from spending staryears away in the Outer Consolidates and had shocked the scientific world by introducing the Interstellar Drive that made travel to other starsystems a thing of starweeks and starmonths instead of staryears and insured his vast family fortune.

Though many staryears dead, Auran Zy-Kaar’s legend had loomed large until his feminine namesake and granddaughter, Aura, burst upon the scene.

One hundred and four staryears of wealthy living and indulgences had taken its toll on the Zy-Kaar’s immense fortune and they had been again reduced to virtual poverty, kept solvent by ancient patents on the Interstellar Drive that gave them just enough on which to survive.

Somehow, Aura Zy-Kaar managed to create and sell a high-quality skyglydder cheaper than anyone else and eventually gained a monopoly on glydder production that was unrivaled in the Consolidate. Her company supplied spacecraft, war craft, commercial, consumer craft; anything that flew in space or under the skies, to companies and governments all over the Consolidate, making the Zy-Kaars the wealthiest BloodNoble family on Grenya, if not the richest of the Inner Consolidates.

Having had been personally responsible for guarding Zy-Kaar interests, Quant knew their vast influence reached into every planet and government, friend or foe. Quant had been but one of a thousand assassins ready to appease Aura Zy-Kaar’s whims without question. The Zy-Kaars also had a private military force of hundreds of thousands, equipped with the biggest and best of Zy-Kaar battle technology.

Quant was thankful she had never met the BloodNoble, because the stories that circulated within the company about her “antics,” private and public, painted an uncharitable picture of a spoiled brat.

What can you expect from someone who’s had everything she’s ever wanted handed to her; who was denied nothing, along with having immense wealth and the power of life and death in her hands? Certainly not anyone normal.

The last Quant had heard was that Aura Zy-Kaar had taken up with a Coleedian. The other BloodNoble families had been aghast when she had paraded her alien lover in public, because they hid away their alien lovers and would sooner have died than been seen with them. Now, according to Salara, this Coleedian had impregnated this ultra-elite BloodNoble, introducing a barbarian strain into the family genetics.

Wait until that news gets out, Quant thought, blowing out a derisive snort through her nose holes.

“You have a visitor,” the room’s disembodied voice said in gender-less Interstell.

That had better be my contact.

“Open door,” she said in Interstell as she jumped up from sofa and walked up to the entrance. The white door hissed back into its wall slot and she found herself looking at a pair of breasts.

“Space me! You’re Toak, Aura Zy-Kaar’s lover,” she blurted out and her jaw dropped in amazement as she looked up and recognized the Coleedian.

Like the Grenians, Toak was humanoid, bi-pedal and upright, no wings. Of a muscular physique, she stood head and shoulders above Quant’s 6 ft 6 inch height and her skin looked as it ought for someone born on a planet of constant ice and snow. It was a shade of blue reminiscent of a winter sky.

Straight, grey hair swung down to her shoulders and grey eyes, set in slot-shaped eye sockets, peered out from under forehead-covering bangs. There was a neat, aquiline nose and high, jutting cheekbones. Her thin lips, a slightly darker blue than her face, were held in a straight line. She wore the black and gold colors of the Zy-Kaar Company, a black cat-suit with thin gold piping up the outside of her long legs from ankle to waist and up the outside of her thick arms. She looked big, strong and as immovable as a mountain.

Quant closed her mouth and remembered her manners. “Come in,” she said, stepping aside.

Toak bowed her head under the doorway as she stepped into the room. “You are Mauk-Quant?’ she said in a light, somewhat high voice. The alien had the scent of a carnivore: oily, acidic, and slightly meaty.

“Yes, Salara Ni’bal sent me. I arrived a few starhours ago.”

 “Please,” the alien woman said, “follow me. There is someone you must meet.”

They walked down the low-lit, mirrored corridor and around two corners, Quant’s footsteps silent from years of habit, the Coleedian’s thumping boot steps absorbed by the thick black carpeting.

She stopped at another penthouse, said “Toak ab Meedee” and the door slid open. Toak stood aside and tilted her head to indicate entry. Quant never like entering a room without knowing what was on the other side, and she hesitated a few seconds before she stepped into another white room.

Toak followed her into a sitting room as palatial as Quant’s own, but off-white curtain drapes, covered the glass wall and the room seemed smaller. As the door slid closed behind them, a Theelian, seated on a white modular cube, stood up in greeting.

“This is the agent Salara Ni’bal sent. Her name is Mauk-Quant,” Toak said. Quant wondered if the Coleedian was always so stiffly spoken.

“I greet you, Mauk-Quant. I am Theelian1175. Thank you for coming.”

The Theelian spoke in high-pitched tones that Quant found unpleasant to the extreme. It was about five feet tall and dressed in a white, high-necked tent of a garment that hid its body from neck to floor. Quant, remembering Salara’s instructions about politeness, was glad her stiff facial features could not show the disgust she felt as she looked at the alien.

It had grey-white skin, a round, hairless head with no visible ears and two small, round eyes that were all white although it wasn’t blind. Lower down on the face was the breathing apparatus: shadowy, inch-long slits shaped into a V and four inches under that sat a small, lipless crevice of a mouth. She guessed it walked on two legs but no one knew positively since Theelians had three arms, two visible and one kept hidden under their clothing. They were an ancient people, advanced to the point of space travel when the other Consolidate races were communicating in grunts and sign language as they fought to survive their own pre-history.

However, the Theelians were doomed, slowly dying from radiation poisoning caused by a war with another planet, thousands of staryears ago. The legacy of that war was sterility; extinction held at bay only by the Theelian’s very long lifespan. Now they were the diplomats of the Consolidate, against war or violence in any form. Little else was known about them.

They were so shrouded in mystery; no one knew their gender or sexual orientation. The Theelians answered to both “him” and “her” and said they knew no difference between the two. It was rumored they were ambo-sexual—of both sexes—but that sounded too impossible for Quant to believe. If Theelians wanted to play sexual identity games, it was fine with her. She couldn’t care less; she impolitely referred to them as “its”.

As she watched, the Theelian who had been gazing at her with its white eyes and a tiny smile, seemed to shrink smaller and the smile faded.                   

Oh, vook! Has it been reading my mind? she thought, feeling somewhere between embarrassment and panic. What had Salara said? Reading emotions? It must have read her disgust.

“I am pleased to know you, Maktus,” Quant said, hoping the very formal address of respect would save her, and she bowed her head as she would have to any Grenian BloodNoble.

“Let us sit and become acquainted,” the Theelian said and gestured to the white sofa that sat behind a large, octagon-shaped table made of white wires and glass.

The sitting room duplicated hers exactly, down to the art holograms in the corners and it gave her a strange feeling of deja vu as she strode to the sofa and sat down at a slight angle for the comfort of her tail. She noticed that Toak, the silent Coleedian, kept her place in front of the entry door as though guarding it.

Her attention shifted when the Theelian sat on a cube at Quant’s left, its posture straight and perfect, its tiny hands tucked inside the tent-garment’s voluminous sleeves as though it were cold. At such close range, Quant caught its scent: a dry, dusty, moldy-cloves smell.                 

Not horrible, she thought with relief, but it wasn’t fantastic either.

“As you know,” she continued smoothly, in her best talking-to-the-client voice, “I’m here to take you back to Grenya. How many in your group?”

“Five, including myself and Sub-commander Toak. There were more but they died in the R-ly attack.”

That high voice, so close, punished her ears and for the first time ever, she wished they had not been audibly enhanced. However, the microscopic AI implant was self-learning. As she forced her shoulders down from their slight cringe, she hoped it adjusted sooner rather than later.

“I see you find my speaking voice disagreeable,” Theelian said, startling Quant out of her moment of self-pity. “My voice has been surgically altered so that I may speak in the low vocal frequencies used by the majority of Consolidate races. Would you prefer that I communicate by visual display?”

“No, I’ll get used to—I mean, no, Maktus. Your voice is fine,” she lied, looking away from the creature’s unblinking white eyes. Against the white background, dressed in its white tent, it looked like a disembodied, grayish head floating above the cube on which it sat.

“Mauk-Quant, since we are to work together on this journey, I would like you to speak your true mind,” Theelian said in its high, monotone voice.

 Why bother? You’re reading it, Quant thought, suppressing a snort of derision.

“Maktus, I am being paid to keep you safe, escort you back to Grenya and to be polite. I want to do that and nothing more,” she said, the slight snarl of her tones evident even to her. Oops. That hadn’t come out as smooth as she had hoped.

The little alien seemed to shrink in on itself in that disturbing way Quant already hated. Even the white tent it wore crumpled inwards.

 “Yes, I understand…but I had hoped we could be friends also.” The Theelian heaved a barely audible sigh and the round white eyes blinked once slowly. It continued. “I was told to leave everything up to you. When are we to leave Isaar-Prime?”

Quant felt a slight sting of bewilderment.

“Leave the plans to me? What about the Coleed—I mean, Sub-commander Toak?  I assumed—as Commander Zy-Kaar’s Second—that she would be in charge,” Quant said, waving a hand towards the alien who stood at the door and appeared distinctly unconcerned with the discussion.

“Since you are the expert, Sub-Commander Toak will follow your directives,” Theelian said with quiet calm.

Pleasantly surprised, the news relaxed her and Quant sat back against the soft, white pillows of the sofa.

“That sounds perfect. I want to look around the city for a day or so. We can leave any time after that. Have you had any trouble while you’ve been here?”

“Nothing since the Isaarian Planet Patrol saved us from attack.”

“The attack, is that a secret, too or can you tell me about it?”

“It is no secret. I will tell you all I know, little as it is,” the Theelian said. It appeared to expand a bit, the tent garment looking less caved in. “I am a member of the New Worlds Relations Council and I was on special leave from my post in the Fai-ai System. We were passing Isaar Prime on our way to the Grenya System when a group of battleglydders attacked us. They identified themselves as R-lys and demanded that I be surrendered to them. When the commander of my spaceglydder refused, we were fired upon. The Isaar Planet Patrol heard our distress call, came and chased our attackers off. Our spaceglydder was too damaged to continue, so we have waited here.”

Quant shifted her gaze to the holographic abstract art that looked like a sun exploding out of an eye as she digested the Theelian’s words.

Why would the R-lys attack a spaceglydder so close to Isaar? They’d have to be stupid not to know that Planet Patrol would be on them in kronons. R-lys are many things, nasty things, but they aren’t stupid. This doesn’t smell right.

She swung her gaze back to the Theelian. “The Fai-ai System? Isn’t that where the Zy-Kaar Company has that new mining operation?” she asked.

“Yes”

“Have you ever heard of an R-ly called Bayron?”

“No,” the Theelian said, eyes downcast as it smoothed out the lap of its garment with tiny hands. Quant watched it, silent as she attempted to put the pieces together in her mind.

Zy-Kaar project on Fai-ai. The Theelian who was stationed on Fai-ai is attacked by R-lys while it was being transported to Grenya in a Zy-Kaar-marked spaceglydder, and I’m told to find out about an R-ly called Bayron, who has “annoyed” Aura Zy-Kaar. Who is this Bayron and why was he so monumentally stupid to annoy not only a Zy-Kaar, but the Aura Zy-Kaar?

The Theelian, who now gazed at some incomprehensible abstract art in another corner, seemed unmindful of her presence.

“Maktus?” she said in her most polite voice. The Theelian looked at her.

“Please call me Theelian. Everyone does.”

 “Theelian, have you any messages from Salara?”

 “No. Toak handles that.”

Quant heaved herself up from the sofa and walked over to where the Coleedian stood.

“Any word from Salara?”

The slot-shaped, grey eyes focused down on her. “No.”

“If any messages arrive will you be so kind as to inform me at once, Maktus?” Quant asked.

“Yes”

An alien of few words, Quant thought. Coleedians were not known to be an overly vocal race. Probably had something to do with being buried in sub-freezing cold most of the staryear.

“Thank you,” she said politely to Toak and swiveled her head around to look over her shoulder at the Theelian. “I’m going to have a look around the city. Stay inside your room. I’ll report back to you later,” she told it.

Theelian nodded. Toak opened the door and stepped aside. Quant left.

I had a feeling there was more to this than Salara told me, she thought as she walked the quiet, mirrored corridors back to her room.

There’s something about this I don’t like but I’m not sure what it is. Salara never mentioned Toak would be here and it’s not like her to leave out something so important. Murdering Crad, I hate working in the dark! It’s too much like the old days and being back in the Elite.

Then she remembered the 25,000 currently sitting in her credit account and her tight shoulders relaxed. Her tension eased even more when she thought about the promised remainder of her fee, that other 25,000 that would grant her freedom from Grenya and a peaceful existence with E’gli for the next few staryears

Tonight, I’ll ask around about this Bayron and we’ll leave tomorrow, she decided and let the mystery drop from her mind.

 I wonder if that cute drink-slinger still works at the Tooth & Claw? I’ve been stardays without sex and it’s not often I get a chance to carouse around Inid without E’gli. R-lys and Zy-Kaar be spaced! I’m going to have some fun tonight.

*                       *                   *                   *                      *

When she had ordered a taxiglydder for her night out, the computer informed her that since she inhabited one of the penthouse suites, a complimentary skyglydder awaited her pleasure on the rooftop. Muttering to herself about how the “super rich” lived and were habitually coddled, she had taken the lift capsule to the rooftop and found a top-of-the-line luxury skyglydder did await her pleasure. Inside, it was opulent and large, large enough to seat her in absolute comfort, and able to be piloted manually or by computer. Despite not wanting to be impressed, she was. As she started up the glydder and flew off to her destination, she thought that working for the Zy-Kaars again might not be such a bad thing after all.

Inid was more pleasant at night when the temperature dropped 20 degrees. The salty breeze from the bay brought cooling moisture to the over-heated city streets, enhancing the scent of damp earth and the aroma of cinnamon from the surrounding jungle’s tiny blue flowers that bloomed only at night.

She parked the glydder on the street in front of the Tooth & Claw and exited. The slap of the 100% humidity was a blissful caress to her skin.  Because home was so humid, she had no need of the humidifier spray she used on other worlds to keep her moisture-loving skin from drying out.

Inid lacked the luminous sidewalks of Viol City and the citizens depended on merchants’ store lighting to provide nighttime illumination. Subsequently, there were bight spots of light and passages of darkness in the town square that drew most of Inid’s entertainment seekers. Fragrant street food, sold by independent Isaarians and some aliens, had carts illuminated in colorful styles, used both as an attraction and lighting. Music drifted out of shops and restaurants, mostly the current popular music heard in the Inner Consolidates. The majority of languages heard was Isaarian, but she also heard Interstell.

The people were as varied as the food. There was a good sprinkling of off-worlders but most were Isaarians who lived by an ancient Isaarian maxim: “Any day you have ate and not been eaten is a good day”, so every day was a celebration for the natives. The crowds were 75% different shades of green and brown nubbly-skinned, Inland Isaarians and 25% were of the smooth-skinned, Highland branch, their brighter colors of blue, orange and cream looking very exotic among the muted earth shades of their inland cousins.

Most Isaarians wore their talons short and rounded off for practical purposes of running machinery, cooking, or anything else that called for fine hand skills. Those Isaarians who preferred to wear their talons long—as Quant did—wore some kind of claw-coverings on their hands, but metal mesh gloves were considered fashionable and Quant saw a lot of admiring glances at her tarrellum-mesh gloves.

To her great delight, the cute bartender was on duty at the Tooth & Claw tavern. After a few rounds of drinks and heavy flirting on both sides, she remembered to ask about R-lys and the information he whispered to her knocked all thoughts of sex out of her head.

Bayron was well known in Inid. He was the criminal leader of a gang of cutthroats who did anything from murder and theft to kidnapping and contraband goods. It was also well known that Bayron had a grudge against Aura Zy-Kaar, but no one knew why. Regarding that, Quant questioned the R-ly’s intelligence. Bayron was no more than a bug to the Zy-Kaars and she the means by which they were attempting to crush him.

Against Zy-Kaar wealth and power, Bayron doesn’t have a chance, Quant thought. She promised the cute drink-slinger she’d return by the end of his shift for a romantic rendezvous and reluctantly left.

Her next stop lay across town, on the outskirts of the great factory sector that employed 90% of the city’s Isaarians. A little off the beaten path, this rectangular metal box, more rust red than gray, was Sumper’s, an eatery that catered to aliens of the criminal underworld. Fifty staryears ago, the place had been built by offworld companies that had factories there, to Isaarian specifications. That meant metal durable enough to resist the impetuous strength of the planet’s natives, but not necessarily strong enough to resist the corrosive effect of the sea air. That would have cost far too much money.

The entryway had double doors, tall enough and wide enough to permit two Isaarians side by side. Once, doors had whisked open with the approach of a customer, but that had been in its long past. Now a large and dirty rock held one door open, making it as humid inside as outside. The smell of greasy food, sour and sharp, wafted out. Quant’s nostrils twitched as she entered.

Inside, the lighting was low enough to raise questions about the cleanliness of the establishment. Alongside one wall, stretched a long counter with tall metal stools. On the opposite wall clung four booths. In the open space between the two areas, sat three round tables with 6-legged chairs of broad and sturdy backs. Tattered tapestries that smelled of mildew fluttered on the metal walls, hiding rust marks and jagged cracks, doubtlessly remnants of ancient, Isaarian brawls. The flooring was ridged metal covered with such a layer of grime and grit that Quant surmised its last cleansing had also been in ancient times.

R-lys were there. There were a few Isaarians also, along with some Khibanese, doing several things at once with their two heads and four arms.

Quant sat in a far booth and drank the addictive Grenian wine, somaal. It had no effect on her Isaarian metabolism, but it kept her from being noticed and she’d had a few intoxicating drinks at the Tooth & Claw; probably more than she ought to have had. However, in her defense, she hadn’t known she was going to some underworld dump to gather intel. All she had wanted to do was have sex with that cute drink-slinger.

As she watched the R-lys sitting in a large booth talking and eating, the thought that by rights she ought to be rolling around with a cute hunky male instead of having her nostrils clogged with the sour milk stench of R-lys, made her present situation even more annoying. Even as aliens went, Quant thought the R-ly appearance revolting.

The race stood about 4 feet tall with amber-colored, faceted-textured skin that was hard to the touch. Their bodies were perfectly round with two skinny legs, slightly bowed from the weight they supported, two thin arms, and no discernible neck. Their lemon-shaped heads sat laterally on their round shoulders. The hairless R-lys had two large, elf-like ears on either side of their heads, tiny eyes that were matte-black with red, pinpoint irises and wide froggy mouths filled with jagged interlocking teeth. Because the race considered fat to be a sign of beauty, they all wore form-fitting clothing.

Quant hated R-lys. Though it had been 200 staryears past, she couldn’t forget the history of the Interstellar War that had split the Consolidate apart.

How could anyone forget a war where Isaarians, Grenians and other prisoners of war had been served up on eating platters by those spaced R-lys? she thought as she sniffed their pungent scent. Anyone of them could be Bayron. Maybe I’ll just go over and ask.

It was late and she was bored. She drained her cup of drug-wine, put her hand inside her outer vest pocket, and clasped it around her small handrayer. With a deft touch of long practice, she switched it from nullify to stun, got up and strolled over to where the R-lys sat. They stopped chattering at once and looked up at her with malignant stares. 

“Greetings. I’m looking for an R-ly named Bayron. Have I the pleasure of addressing him?” Quant asked pleasantly in Interstell and opened her mouth slightly to show her teeth—her version of a smile. No R-lys answered.

“I said I’m looking for Bayron. Do any of you know where to find him?” she asked again, not quite as pleasantly as before. She put one hand on the tabletop and tapped one claw as she waited. The metal mesh of her glove sparkled in the low light and the tapping tinks of metal on metal were easy to hear in the sudden silence of the room. All eyes were upon them.

“We know no R-ly by that name,” one R-ly said in low, gruff Interstell. Quant leaned slightly on the table. It tilted in her direction, the cups and bowls sliding towards her hand. She angled her long neck down and peered at the one who had spoken.

“You’re lying. Every R-ly in Inid knows of Bayron.” The R-ly was silent. “I’ll pay good money for information,” she said loud enough for everyone to hear. No one spoke. It was so quiet she could almost hear the humidity creeping in through the open door.

I won’t get anything more out of this space-trash. Might as well have some fun with them. She bared all her teeth and ran her purple tongue over them.

“You R-lys are nice and plump. I’d bet you’d make a good meal.”

She was bluffing. R-lys tasted bad to the Isaarian palate. She meant only to frighten them, but the R-lys judged all carnivores by their own behavior. They must have believed her because she was rewarded by seeing two or three R-lys shrink away from her, sudden fear in their black and red eyes.

Quant laughed, a sound somewhere between a hyena’s cackle and a cough, spraying the table with a delicate mist of her saliva, and then straightened up. She looked around the room. Everyone was suddenly busy looking into their drinks.

 She left.

Outside the air had turned much cooler. A gray-white mist hovered over the streets.

I may as well stop for the day. If anyone knows anything about Bayron, they’re too scared to talk. How long has this been going on? How could those R-lys get so much power on Isaar? We’ve always hated them! I never heard of any of this when I was here last, but I didn’t ask either. I don’t like it. I wonder if E’gli knows?

“Cousin!” Using the common term of address among Isaarians, a high tenor voice called.

She swiveled her head around to look over her shoulder and saw a young, Isaarian male approach. His head came up to her waist; he was barely more than a child.

Unlike Quant, who’d descended from rough-skin Isaarians of the dryer inlands, this youth had the smooth skin of the highland Isaarians. He was pale of face and along his throat and sides; his creamy skin had rakish black spots that bisected the colors of his bright blue back and orange belly. A bright red carrybag hung by a strap across his chest. As he neared and stopped in front of her—well beyond her arm’s reach she noticed—she saw his round eyes were pale gold with bright, black irises. 

“I heard you inside,” he said. Quant looked down at him with narrowed eyes.

“I didn’t see you in there.”

“I work in the back.”

“You serve vooking little R-lys? What’s the matter with you?”  He shrugged.

“My parents are dead and I’m too young to work in the factories. I have to do something to survive. That place pays high wages because not too many people will work there, but I don’t like it! I spit in all the R-ly’s food before it leaves the back.”

Quant threw back her head and laughed her hyena cackle-cough.

“That’s the way to do it! Instead of spitting, try pissing in their food!”

“Will you really pay money to find Bayron?” the boy asked.

Quant sobered up quickly.

 “You know where he is?” she asked in a low voice, doing a 360-degree visual survey as she tested the air. The street was empty and quiet and she only scented the boy, so young his personal scent was pre-pubescent briny, lacking the musky scent of an adult male. When she looked at him again, he was nodding.

“For five credits I’ll lead you to him.”

“How would you know where to find him?”

“I’ve worked here a long time and I can understand a little R-ly speak. I listen to the cooks talking; they never pay attention to me. They all think I’m stupid!” His last sentence a spat-out hiss.

At last! Someone who isn’t afraid to talk to me, she thought. “Alright, I’ll give you one credit,” she haggled, patting her front vest pocket.

“Four” he countered.

“Two.”

“Three credits, cousin. It’s worth that!”

“Just because you’re an orphan, I’ll give you three credits. You must need the money if you’re working in that spew,” she said, jerking her chin in the direction of Sumper’s.  He held out an eager hand. “That’s three credits after you’ve shown me,” Quant added.

“This way,” he chirped.

They walked further down the empty street and he stopped before a rusted metal door that opened to his touch. A nostril-choking smell of alien cooking rushed out. Quant looked up and down the empty street before she followed him down a corridor decorated with alien graffiti of a distinctly sexual nature and lined with numbered doors all lit by overhead, intermittent neon-green lightglobes. At the end of the corridor, they stopped at a door with no number.

“What is this place?” she asked him, trying not to breathe too deeply.

“Shusssh! You must be quiet! This is a compartment complex for off-worlders,” he whispered.

Quant sniffed what she knew was urine. “Bayron lives in this bug-trap?” she whispered.

“This is one of the few places in Inid where R-lys are tolerated. No Isaarian wants to live here. He’s in there.” He pointed to the door. “Where are my credits?”

“You get your credits after I see Bayron.”

The little Isaarian bared his short, jagged teeth. “You said I just had to show you where he was!”

“I wasn’t hatched yesterday. You’ll get your credits after I see him,” she hissed and bared her own formidable set of teeth.

The youngster retreated two steps as he covered his teeth and bowed his head in an submissive pose in acknowledgment of her physical superiority. “As you wish, cousin. Go right in,” he said meekly.

Quant reached out a long arm, took his shoulder in hand, and pushed him ahead of her. “Like I said: I wasn’t hatched yesterday. You go in first,” she said as she took her rayer from her pocket.

With the unconcern of the very young, he shrugged, pressed the control panel for entrance and the door slid open onto a faintly lit darkness.  “Hurry up, then!” he said with childish impatience and moved forward, his moist skin making it easy for him to slip from her grasp and enter.

Quant silently cursed the entire slippery Highland clan—little boys in particular. As she waited for her neon-green blinded eyes to adjust to the dimmer blue lighting, she stuck her head forward to sniff the air. She heard the air being cut by a swift-moving object and a hard blow slammed into her head just under her left ear dimple. Stunned, she stumbled forward, a great wind howling in her head.

Automatically, she shook her head to clear it. A second blow crashed down on her neck where her spine joined her skull. It was a deathblow and only the thin, stacked sheets of tarrellum—placed under her skin and attached to her spine for just that reason—saved her.

Partially paralyzed, she fell forward onto her knees as the door closed behind her. She was dimly aware of her rayer being jerked from her hand. She felt slices of pain along her back and her vest was ripped apart, throwing her forward onto her hands now to keep from falling prone as the two sides of her carryvest slid down her arms.

More than one, her disjointed thought, her vision spinning, nauseating her. Her stomach roiled. She swallowed the sudden bile rising in her throat; she’d rather not humiliate herself by vomiting in front of these soon-to-be-dead idiots.

“What? She’s still conscious and alive? Hit her again. Hard as you can,” a faraway voice said.

Her right hand reached out for the voice and her head turned in that direction. From the opposite direction, another blow exploded against her jaw and then, nothingness.

                      *                            *                            *                           *

Consciousness was Quant suddenly aware of bright light on her closed eyelids. Her body felt as heavy as lead. The back of her head ached with every beat of her pulse. She smelled the rotting scent of old garbage and the sharp, musky odor of Isaarian males as she became aware that her body was not leaden, but that she was being held down on the dirt ground, on her bare back. Her vest gone? The ensuing jolt of panic obliterated any lingering intoxicants clouding her mind and threw everything into a razor sharp focus. Still feigning unconsciousness, she opened her eyes to bare slits, her dark, nictitating inner eyelids cloaking the silver of her irises.

She lay in a pool of dim blue-white light shinning from a fixture over the doorway she’d so unwillingly exited. Instantly, she knew where she was: a garbage alley. It was a space just big enough to permit passage of the ten foot wide, automated garbage collection vehicle, with a couple of feet to spare on either side to prevent accidentally crushing anyone careless enough to get caught in the rust-stained alley without a nearby exit.

The dark silhouettes against the light were Isaarian males, each one leaning on and holding down one of her four limbs and her tail. They were still and silent, their raspy breathing the loudest sounds in the quiet night.

She got angry. She tensed every muscle in her arms and legs and sprang forward, her furious snarl loud and sudden.

“LET ME GO! WHICH ONE OF YOU VOOKING TURDS HIT ME?” she yelled in Isaarian.

It almost worked. The shock and strength of her abrupt transition from unconscious body to snarling fury, shook free a couple of the males’ grip on her left arm and tail, but they recovered quickly and pressed down harder, more painfully on her limbs.

“You stupid ewts! I told you to keep that ewte smatchet QUIET!” came a deep growl of a voice from beyond Quant’s view.

“She’s stronger than she looks!” one Isaarian answered, turning his head to that voice. Footsteps pounded over to her and she saw the speaker, another Isaarian, towering over her.

“Quiet, smatchet!” he said and kicked her side.

Sharp pain radiated from where his foot connected, making her clench her teeth together and growl. She didn’t think he hadn’t broken any ribs.

All right, playtime is over, she thought, and was ready to lean her head over and clamp her teeth down on the arms holding her down, when a rayer pressed against her temple.

“Move again and say goodbye to your head,” said the male who had kicked her. Quant lay still. The rayer was removed and the male moved out of her sight again.

What could they want? It wasn’t robbery; they already had her vest and everything in it. It wasn’t rape; that would have started while she’d been unconscious. Inside her head, she cursed herself savagely.

Stupid, stupid, stupid! That little turd of a Highlander was sent to walk me into this trap and I fell for it like some off-world tourist!

A soundless growl vibrated her chest. The male on her right flicked a nervous glance at her face.

She could imagine Salara’s mirth upon hearing this little story.

Curse that smug little Grenian! She told me I was careless about security. Careless and overconfident and I ignored her. This is one story that will follow me to the grave. Just like these idiots, once I get through with them, she thought, her attention shifting back to her captors. She was almost angrier with herself than these Isaarians who were sitting on her as though they were—?

Waiting for something, her thoughts finished.

She heard the door slide open and the patter of approaching feet. She smelled the unmistakable sour milk scent of an R-ly.

“Is this the one?” the R-ly said in squeaky Interstell.

The kicking Isaarian appeared to be the alpha, the leader. He all but groveled with respect when he answered. “Yes, Maktus.”

“Do you know her?”

“She is Mauk-Quant. She divides her time between Isaar Prime and Grenya.”

“What does she do?”

 “On Isaar, nothing. We don’t know about Grenya. That’s all Anhya knew, Maktus.”

The R-ly came into Quant’s view. She recognized it as the same one who had spoken in Sumper’s.

“Who sent you, Mauk-Quant?” he asked.

“Are you Bayron?”

The intensified kick the alpha Isaarian jolted into her side left her gasping for breath.

“You answer questions, smatchet, not ask them!” he growled down at her.

Quant re-gained her breath and glared up at him. “I’ll get you for this,” she told him through bared teeth. She expected another kick and steeled herself for it.

His foot slammed down on her side with a force that had been absent from the others. Quant wanted to scream from the pain, but she refused to give him the satisfaction. She squeezed her eyes shut, gritted her teeth and imagined raying his head off.

“Who sent you?” the R-ly asked again.

“No one sent me! I live here! What’s your excuse?”

The Isaarian kicked her again, the restraining hands the only thing that kept her from arching half off the ground. She couldn’t stop the steamy hiss of pain that escaped from between her teeth or the quivering that racked her body afterwards.

“You’re not as tough as you pretend to be, are you?” the alpha said, derision in his voice.

Quant looked up at him. His lips were peeled back from his formidable teeth and his yellow eyes glinted with glee. He was enjoying every second of this.

She silently cursed her traitorous body, but when she spoke, her voice was calm and even. “I am going to kill you,” she promised him.

“Why were you asking about Bayron?” the R-ly said, interrupting the charged moment.

“I just wanted to meet the little monarch. I thought he might have a job for me.”

The kick she expected didn’t come. The R-ly turned away and spoke to someone she couldn’t see.

“What did you find?”

“Credits, a rayer, a sonic key and some other things. I don’t know what they are. I can feel some things in other pockets, but I can’t open them.”

Quant recognized the voice of the young Isaarian who had led her into the trap, and muttered curses under her breath, cursing herself as well for trusting him.

“Let me see them,” the R-ly said.

She heard the rustle of fabric as the R-ly went through her vest pockets and a soundless growl again vibrated her throat.

“These are weapons; the kind of weapons an assassin would own.” The R-ly came back to her. “You have come to assassinate Bayron.”

“No! I don’t even know what Bayron looks like! I heard that he pays well and I need the work!”

There was a silent pause as the R-ly thought. The intensified musky funk of the Isaarian males surrounded her like a miasma. Her left side ached horribly. The night was so quiet and still it seemed frozen.

“You could be telling the truth or you could be lying,” the R-ly said, at last. “It doesn’t matter. We have no need of you.” He looked at the Isaarian leader. “Kill her.”

“What? Hey, wait! WAIT!” she cried. She heard him walk off and a door close. The Isaarian leader coughed a chuckle as he switched on his rayer.

“Too bad, ‘Assassin’,” he said, making the word a jeer.  “It looks like you won’t be killing me after all.”

“Hey, I was just kidding, cousin! I wouldn’t kill another Isaarian!”

He lolled his red tongue out at her. “I would,” he answered placidly.

“Crad’s Teeth! You’re going to turn against your own kind because some stinking R-ly said so? They’re R-LYS! Didn’t they eat any of your ancestors? Are you all crazy? How can you do this?”

“The R-ly pays us well,” the alpha replied casually. “And,” His sniff expressed his contempt. “I don’t like you.” He stepped back and aimed the rayer at her head. “Snool, Pelf, get out of the way,” he told the two males holding down her arms.

Snool, on her left, instantly released her arm and sprang back. Pelf, on her right, was slower to react.

The instant he released her, she clamped her hand around his retreating wrist, and snap-rolled her upper body to the left, yanking him into the line of incoming fire. A burnt-rubber smell filled the air, and Pelf didn’t even have time to scream as a thin, purple ray bored into his brain, superheating it in nano-seconds until it exploded, splattering her with hot blood.

The Isaarian holding her tail shrieked in shock and lost his grip. She jerked her tail free and whipped it back to slam against his long neck. The force of the blow sent him reeling and loosened the holds the other two males had on her legs. The one on her right got the backswing of her tail across the chest. He yelped and fell away. The one on her left got a vicious kick to the belly, dislodging his grip as he was thrust away.

 It had taken three seconds to free herself. She anticipated the next incoming rayer blast and she dodged it quickly, rolling out of the way and onto her feet. The purple beam missed her by inches, eating a foot-deep hole in the packed dirt ground, its burnt-rubber smell overpowering every other scent.

As she steadied herself on her feet, Quant slapped the wristbands of her tarrellum gloves together and the metal cones contracted down into the slender rings at the base of each finger, exposing her 3-inch amber-colored talons.

Her enhanced hearing caught the scuffing sound of feet at her back and she spun on her heels to meet the charging rush of another attacker.

 She sidestepped him like a matador against a charging bull, catching his out-stretched right arm with both of her hands, her scalpel-sharp claws easily piercing his tough hide and sinking deep, his hot blood spurting against her palms.

At the same time, she pinpointed the alpha, standing well out of the fray and trying to get a clear shot at her. Pivoting on her heels and using the force of his charge against him, she spun her captive around and hurled him into the alpha. The two males collided with a solid, meaty thud, the alpha’s rayer flying off into darkness before they both slammed into the alley wall with a hollow, metallic boom.

Quant’s own pain vanished as a killing rage burned red behind her eyes.

“Now this is more evenly matched! Five against one assassin! WHO ELSE WANTS TO DIE TONIGHT?” she roared out in Isaarian as she swiveled her head 180 degrees to look around her, her arms held wide, her hands and face dripping with red blood, her bare chest splattered with the grey gore of brain matter, her silver eyes bright and as baleful as twin moons.

The two Isaarians she had kicked off her legs, picked themselves up and ran towards escape at the far end of the alley, awkward and thumping in their haste. She let them go and looked at the others. One male lay still, crumpled up where her first tail-strike had left him. Her flung male was dragging himself to the side, mewling in pain and shock, clutching a dislocated shoulder and profusely bleeding arm.

Quant faced the alpha.

Freed of the weight of his flung comrade, his teeth were bared in a snarl of rage as he slowly heaved himself to his feet, his eyes burning like yellow fires. She bared her own teeth in a killing smile.

“Just you and me left? Good. You know when I said I wouldn’t kill another Isaarian? I lied.”

“You should have taken the rayer, smatchet. It would have been much quicker and less painful. Now, I’m going to make you suffer and I’m going to enjoy every kronon of it!” he said, his voice a deep-chest rumble.

Quant sneered. “You’re scaring me to death.”

With the experience of a thousand battles, she surveyed him. An alpha male in his prime, he stood a head taller over her, muscular, heavy and slow on his feet. She was lighter and quicker but she knew he was the stronger. His head was twice the size of hers, his muzzle 10 inches long compared to her 6 and even with her ability to unhinged her lower jaw to open her mouth inconceivably wide and have it snap back with the force of a bear trap, she knew he possessed the very same ability. She must be careful.

In the time-tested manner of their kind, they slowly circled each other, wary and alert, looking for an opening or weakness.

She feints an attack to gauge his reaction, pretending to slash at him with a quick, clawed hand. He hops back and dodges to the right. She feints again. He does the same little dance, but this time, tries to slash her back. She dips her body away from him in a graceful, almost boneless motion without missing a circling step. Satisfied, she rates him as the standard Isaarian street fighter, using the ever-predictable charge-and-bite method of battle. She keeps circling with him as she looks for a sign that will tell her when to attack.

“Stop dancing around and fight me!” he calls out to her.

“You’re so big and bad; why don’t you come after me?”

She sees his gaze flick to his fallen comrades, his glance lingering slightly longer on the ones that hadn’t moved again.

That’s it! He’s afraid of me! she thinks with heart-pounding joy. 

She feints again with a swift, clawed hand and when he jerks back and hops to the side, she cartwheels forward onto her hands towards him, her tail whipping through the air. It cracks across his chest and arm like a weighted whip and she back flips upright and away, putting five feet between them.

 Her attack staggers him, but he stays on his feet, looking at her with a mixture of amazement and pain as he holds his dangling left arm.

Broken, she accesses and opens her mouth wide, amused at his surprise. No one ever expects an Isaarian to move as she did. The Elite had trained her well.

She whispers to him, the words even more chilling for the softness of her tones.

“Are you beginning to understand what makes me an assassin? Can you see your death in my eyes?”

Without warning, he charges her. Quant collapses to the ground in a ball and rolls out of his path, uncoiling and springing up in time to slash a handful of talons down his back, laying open the skin like a filleting knife, the feel of his hot blood spurting against her palm bringing a savage delight, its briny, faintly metallic scent firing off more neurons of primitive fury inside her skull.

The alpha stumbles to a stop against the opposite alley wall and spins to face her, flinging his red blood in a ruby arc that dances briefly in the cool blue light. He draws himself up to his full height and splits the silence of the night as he bellows a rumbling, guttural cry that ends in a chain of coughing barks.

Quant blinks in surprise. Crazed with fury and the same genetic-bound bloodlust that gripped her, he was challenging her as he would have another alpha male. Amused, she laughs at him, merriment in her eyes. This was a first!

In the split-second she lets down her guard to laugh at him, he charges her.

She had been counting on his anger making him careless but she hadn’t counted on his anger giving him speed. He runs up on her too fast, leaving her no choice but to meet him head-on or risk being run over and pinned under him.

He slams into her, the brute force of his charge skidding her back to the alley wall, the impact driving the air from her lungs and exploding agony from her injured side.

Faster, much faster than the alpha can move, her hand darts out and grabs his unbroken arm at the wrist as it moves toward her, her other hand grabbing his thick neck just under his jaw with a stiff arm, stopping his attempt to bit her face off.

His panting, carnivore breath is foul in her nostrils as he attempts to press his attack by sheer weight, her arms straining to keep the huge, snapping jaws away from her head. Even with one of his arms disabled, it was getting harder and harder to keep those jaws away. Her straining, quivering arms start to bend at the elbows until he’s pressing so close she has to snake her head from side to side to avoid his death bites.

He’s too strong for me to fight this close! I have to get some distance!

The alpha towers over her, his stance wide, leaving her legs free and some space between their lower bodies. Already pressed against the rusty wall, she braces her back against it and briefly balances her weight on her tail. Bringing up both feet as high as she can, she plants them in his belly and kicks out with all her strength as she lets him go.

He flies backwards across the narrow alley, hitting the rust-splotched wall with a satisfying thud and groan.

Giving him no time to recover, Quant leaps after him, going airborne. In mid-air, she tucks into a brief ball, whirling, gaining velocity, and then she unfolds, her carefully aimed tail strike whips down against his remaining unbroken arm.

 The stinging impact rattles up her spine, but she feels and hears his bones snap and his accompanying short scream, before her first foot hits the ground, then the other foot, completing the motion and twisting away from him.

With a sound like sandpaper on wood, the alpha slides down the rusty wall to puddle on the ground, legs and tail flopping, knocked off his feet at last.

Her chest moves in deep, shuddering heaves, loud in the quiet of the night, the scents of blood, musk, burnt-rubber rayer emissions and rotten garbage flavoring her nose. Prudently, Quant backs away from his still-useful lower limbs, not knowing if he had the presence of mind to use them. She didn’t think he had, but making assumptions got assassins killed.

“Get up,” she says quietly and clearly. The fallen male glares at her and doesn’t move. She knows he is resting; the light of surrender is not yet in his eyes. She tries a bluff.

“Get up or I’ll kill you where you sit,” she says, making her voice a half-choked snarl, her toothy jaw agape and her upraised hands curled into claws as she takes a step forward.

His eyes spark fear and he attempts to get up, a difficult task with two broken arms dangling and every movement bathed in excruciating pain.

She waits as he slowly heaves himself up, his breathing coming in little hisses of pain, his back bracing against the alley wall and his legs stretched out and anchored as he pushes himself up the blood-smeared wall. He is almost on his feet before Quant suddenly takes two steps and leaps at him, her right foot coming down on his left kneecap, snapping it backwards. His screams tears the silence of the night to quivering shreds.

“There’s your last lesson: never trust an assassin,” she says with savage elation as she watches him writhe on the ground. No longer the attacker, the big alpha lays on his side, three broken limbs and mewling with pain. She put one foot on his tail, pinning it down.

“Given up? You’re not as tough as you pretend to be you, are you?” she says, her voice contemptuous as she towers over him. “How do things look from down there? Fun, isn’t it? Now you know how I felt.”     

“M-mercy! Mercy,” he manages to say, his voice a croak.

“Mercy?” Her voice is a snarl deep in her throat. “You weren’t thinking of mercy when you stuck that rayer up my nose!” She feels his tail wiggle under her foot and presses down harder. “Hold still!”

He looks up at her with pain-wracked yellow eyes and lies still. His breathing is loud and raspy. She picks up his tail and twists his lower body onto his belly, ignoring his howl of pain at the ungentle movement. Leaning over his tail, she tilts her head to her serrated side teeth, opens her mouth wide as she jacks her lower jaw open.

Powered by 3,700 psi, her jaws snap shut and sink deep through skin, muscle and finally bone, severing his spinal cord in two places. She hears gurgling sounds issue from his mouth as she pulls her teeth out of him. Quant stands up, shakes away the dark blood that dribbles from her muzzle and glares at him for almost 30 seconds. Abruptly, and with all the force she can muster, she launches her foot into his side.

He screams as she punts him over onto his back again. She waits patiently for his cries and convulsions to quiet down before she speaks.

“I’ve met your type before too many times. You think you’re unbeatable and you get overconfident. You didn’t believe a little female like me could take you out, did you? You slimy, groveling toady of a leshworm! Siding with R-lys against your own kind. I’d be doing Isaar a favor killing you.”

She saw flickers of fear ignite in his eyes and bonfire its way to the rest of his face.

“No! Please—!” he croaked, yellow eyes glassy with fear and shock.

 “Oh, but yes!”

She drops to her knees beside him and opens her mouth, her lower jaw jacking open to 90 degrees turning her mouth into an arc of red teeth and death. With one hand under his chin pushing his head back and the other gripping the base of his throat, her talons sinking into the tough hide, into muscle, and locking deep.

“NOOOO!” he shrieks a gargle, struggling weakly under her.

Her eyes roll back, the niticting inner lids sliding up and shielding them. With cobra-like speed, her head darts forward, her teeth cutting through the thin, soft skin of his throat, sinking deep, through cartilage and rigid muscle, then scraping down to bone, her jaws snapping shut and locking together. Powered by her thick neck muscles, with a quick, sideways jerk of her head, his throat comes away in her mouth, hot salty blood gushing from between her teeth and painting her muzzle a sticky red.

Dropping his twitching body, she spits out the chunk of jagged flesh in her mouth, shakes the blood from her eyes and stands up. With her opponent dead, her berserker-rage leaves and her killing fever recedes with it.

She became aware of her own pain as she hugs her side, letting her breathing come down to normal, alert for any sound or movement. She hears someone breathing very quietly as though they didn’t want to be heard and if her hearing had not been enhanced, it would have worked. Someone was playing dead. She pinpoints the location before she walks over to the closest fallen; the Isaarian she had tailed. His neck is bent in a 45-degree angle, his glazed eyes staring sightlessly.

 She turns to the last living male, the one whose arm she had almost torn off, the one who had watched her maim and kill his alpha leader. She approaches him. His eyes snap open.

“Dontkillmedontkillmedontkillme–!” he begs repeatedly as though it were a prayer against death, his face pressing against the rusty wall. She stands over him, her teeth bared and dripping her amusement.

 This one will tell me anything I want to know, she thinks. She makes her voice a threat.

 “Maybe I will and maybe I won’t kill you, crad turd! It all depends on you telling me the absolute truth.”

“Anything! ANYTHING!” he babbles, looking up at her with hope in his purple eyes.

In an alley, surrounded by three dead bodies, was not the place for the sort of interrogation Quant wants. Her skyglydder isn’t far. Most of his bleeding had stopped and he would just have to bear the pain of the dislocated shoulder until she got him back to her hotel room for an injection of painkiller and a very long talk. She points a blood-dripping talon at him.

“You give me any trouble at all and I will happily tear off your other arm. Understand?”

He nods so hard, it seems his head would fall off. Quant taps her wristbands together and the tarrellum cones flash out from their rings, covering her bloody talons with much less deadly metal tips. She leans over, grabs his good arm and pulls him to his feet.

The metallic parts of her aural enhancement quivers as a sub-sonic sound wave hits them. It’s the hum of a suddenly activated rayer. Quant’s head whips around in time to see a dazzling green light.

 It hits her head and her brain catches fire inside her skull.

                       *                        *                                *                            *

The rain woke her up. With consciousness came pain. She opened her eyes. Raindrops pattered down all around her. Her pounding head was tenderly cradled in a lap? She swiveled her eyeballs up to see whose lap? Her line of vision traveled up from a bloodied chest to empty shoulders.

Her surprise jerked her head up and the sudden movement brought so much pain, she whimpered. She sat up slowly and looked around.

The Isaarian alpha was where she had left him, bloodied, broken and dead. She saw the body of the one who had taken that first rayer blast and further beyond was the body of the one she had tailed.

This was the one who was going to talk, she thought as she looked at the headless body propped against the alley wall. Someone stunned me and killed him. Space my luck, but better him than me. Vook, my head hurts!

The only one who could have stunned her was the traitorous youth who had first lured her into the trap. She had assumed he had left with the R-ly, but he must have stayed and hid during the fight.

Yeah, assumptions will get you killed, was her cynical thought. Why wasn’t she dead?

The gathering twilight told her morning was close. Everything around her stank of blood, guts and garbage. She had no idea how long she had been stunned out. Every movement jarred her head with pain. She heard something behind her. Ignoring the pain, she looked over her shoulder.

There at the near entrance of the alley, stood two Isaarians with the distinctive bright yellow sashes they wore over one shoulder and across their chests that identified them as Inid City Security; the cops.

Running was something Quant or any Isaarian hated to do. Their body structure was made more for swimming than running on land. Besides that, running was cowardly and below the pride of a people who were known as the deadliest of unarmed fighters. 

However, considering that dead bodies surrounded her and being an assassin was illegal on any Consolidate world, punishable by long staryears in prison, Quant decided to ignore her genetic distaste and run.

Whimpering with pain, she scrambled to her feet and started running toward the opposite end of the alley.

“Stop! City Security! STOP!” came the shouts in Interstell and Isaarian.

 “Halt or we’ll fire!”

Quant looked over her shoulder and saw one of them trying to waddle after her down one side of the alley, while the other stood with his feet planted wide and firing on her. The green stunner beam crackled toward her. Quant dived to the ground and rolled into a ball; hearing the stunner rays crackle over her so close, she could smell the burnt rubber scent. That was too close. She flipped out of her protective ball and sprang to her feet.

Crad’s Teeth! These boys are serious!

Fear of sustaining another stunner blast gave her speed. She picked up her ungainly pace and sprinted a zigzag course out the alley. There was no more stun blasts and she risked a quick glance over her shoulder to see both of the cops staring after her in flatfooted amazement of her speed before she darted out of the alley and around the corner out of sight.

She kept up her pace until she reached her skyglydder, a street away. She jerked open the back door and threw herself on the floor of the glydder, her panting breath loud in her ears.

Her heaving gasps intermixed with groans of pain were the only sounds she heard in the moments that followed. She peeked through the clear bubble top and scanned the streets. Empty. She climbed into the front seat, slouching low. Her new vest, along with the skyglydder’s sonic startkey, was gone but she knew the craft would respond to her vocal commands.

“Activate! Home!” she spat out, and as the glydder started and lifted off into the sky, she felt unexpectedly grateful for the slave driver of an Elite instructor who had forced her to learn how to run.

Rain pelted against the bubble top as she flew back to the Travel & Transport House. Somewhere behind Isaar’s constant cloud cover, the suns rose.

To be continued