Broken Bottle

By Georgia Knight

This is the fourth book in the Hadrian’s Gate series.

Whilst enjoyable in its own right, it is recommended that you first read the previous episodes, available to download:

Episode One:  The Cairo Accord

Episode Two:  Three Zero

Episode Three:  The Voice

Chapter One

It was dark, cold, and the rain dripping through the rotten roof was impossible to escape.  Soaked to the skin, the back of her head stinging where the market trader had struck, she sat shivering and sobbing.  She was calmer than an hour before, but still a mess.

The strangers busied themselves around her.  They were equally drenched, the shower having caught them all by surprise, but they were far more suitably attired for the weather.  The man with the mop of curly hair had given up his jacket, and it had helped, but it was not enough to stop her incessant shaking.  She wanted to stop, was willing herself to stop, and there were moments when she seemed to have the worst of it contained, but then the pain in her head would bring back the ordeal and every part of her would start to shake again.

“It’s all in your mind,” a kindly voice said, “try to think yourself warm.”

It was the man with curly hair, smiling down.  The smile made her feel safe.  He was not the one who had wrenched her from the grip of the trader, but he was the one who had led her away from trouble.

“It’s not warm though, is it?  It’s freezing,” she breathed, her voice as shaky as the rest of her.  But the chill was only part of her problem, the vicious blow had taken her by surprise and rocked her to the core.  Incredibly, she had not lost consciousness, but she was groggy and still felt like she might.

“Does it hurt?” he asked.

A stronger version of her might have huffed at the question, but this poor soul could barely manage a whimper in response.  Street life had taken its toll.  Months of living hand to mouth, stealing, begging, scavenging behind this city’s less illustrious eateries, had sapped her.  She was weak, she was hungry, and she was scared.

“Well, I reckon the idiot back there will think twice before attacking someone again,” the curly haired man said.  “It will be a good while before he can stand on that leg.”

The sucking sound of the knife plunging into her assailant’s thigh stayed fresh in her memory.  Even in the busy market, with heavy rain smashing on corrugated roofs, she had heard it, and it had turned her stomach.  Amongst those now milling around, she could see the man who had wielded that weapon.  He had stabbed the trader with such venom, barely flinching as he rammed the blade home.  There was no doubt he had saved the young woman from a worse beating, but she was still stunned by his brutality.  Others in this gang had jeered and laughed as the trader had recoiled, screaming.  As she now surveyed the group, they all bore the hallmarks of criminals.  They were not the desperate, petty kind like herself, these were armed and hardcore.

“When did you last eat?” the man who had given her the jacket asked.  It was her desperate attempts to steal a meal that had resulted in the whack around the head and had cost the trader the nasty wound.  In the chaotic moments since, she had forgotten just how hungry she was.

“Yesterday,” she said.  It was a lie; she had not eaten in two days.

“I’ll get you something shortly,” he said.  This stranger’s manner reminded her of her father, the last man who had shown her any kindness.  It was such a long time since she had seen him.

A ‘thank-you’ teetered on her lips, but the words would not come out.  They were struggling to break through the shivers.  Perhaps if there had been more conviction to her gratitude, she would have found a way to speak, but as it was, she was too wrapped up in fear.  What kind of maniac could stab a man without flinching?  What kind of people were these?  Thugs came in many shapes and sizes; this group was no better than the ones who had taken her parents.

This one seemed different to the others though.  Back in the market, whilst his friends had postured and jeered, he had shown no such elation, coolly offering her a reassuring arm up.  Calm throughout, his eyes had been everywhere, politely dipping and nodding to onlookers as he hurried the young woman away.  And whilst his associates paraded their weaponry as intimidating badges of power, if he was armed, it was hidden.

“What’s your name?” he enquired.

For six months she had been on the streets, living off her wits and guile.  Now, when asked her name, she had to dig back through all those days, through all the thieving, the running, the hiding.  There was another place back there, a place with love and happiness.  It was a place of safety and family too.  Back there she had a name, one she had not used since.

Her blank expression prompted him to ask again.

“Your name?  I presume you have one?”

“Kayla,” she said, “Kayla McGann.”

The curly haired stranger beamed.  This was not her happy place and he was not her father, but the smile made things seem a little better.

“Well, Kayla,” he said, patting her knee.  “There are far too many street-urchins in this town, far too many the Union have turned their backs on, but you are a lucky one.  The boss has decided we will look after you.  I’ll find you some food and dry clothes.”

With that, he stood. Before going to retrieve the promised items, he paused, casting down one more reassuring smile.

“Oh, and it’s only right I share my name too,” he said, “I am Jed Luca, and I am going to make sure you are safe.”

+     +     +

She slouched uncomfortably, her back against the sofa.  Cooling vents blew chilled kisses against her bare shoulders.  Clinging to those breezes, she rode back from the hazy recollection, returning her thoughts to the hard floor of Messiah’s base.  The sound of the storm took a moment to fade and even after the pounding rain had gone, the cold refused to budge.  She shivered.  The hunger remained too, but, remembering where she was, now was not the time to be thinking about food.  In the Kamdo prison, she had accepted hunger as a way of life.  Deprived, thoughts of nourishment had been easy to block, but having eaten whatever and whenever she wanted for these last few days, such thoughts now teased.  The strong, sweet aroma of spilt alcohol did not help.  She could feel the tacky substance between her bare thighs and the deck.

Of course, there was also another reason food now chose to infiltrate Kayla’s mind.  She had often witnessed Jed Luca turning their meagre rations into culinary delights, and as he filled her thoughts, so too did his cooking.  Once, that man had been her guardian, her conscience, and her friend.  He had protected her, challenged her, and offered her comfort in difficult times.  Now, though, that memory was soiled.  His recent return from the dead, his parading across the airwaves with his Union buddies, had left her feeling betrayed.  The pedestal she had placed beneath him had crumbled, and as her own consciousness struggled to cling on, so too did any remaining fondness.  His once solid place in her affections was melting into meaningless pools of bitterness.

But boy, she could have done with him here, right now.  She could have used his friendship and strong counsel.  It was no good hoping, though; he had thrown her away the moment he decided to play the Union’s games.  She was on her own, just as she had been before that day in the market.  She was back to being the wretched orphan.

Another time, another place, another man.  The mysterious Messiah Ainge was staring at her with desperation in his eyes.  Whilst enjoying the innocent gardens of her childhood, Kayla had freely thrown around trust, but now it was incredibly hard to earn.  Somehow, this man had started to win her round, despite the terrible mental and physical state she was in.  Unwittingly, he had saved her life, rescuing her from the hell of Petang.  When she had almost left them stranded in deep space, he had shown kindness and forgiveness too.  And when the news of Jed’s betrayal had hit her, Messiah had even found the right empathetic tone, helping her to cope with the anguish and disappointment.  So, she had let him in, allowing him behind the emotional suit of armour.  That hard-earned trust had started to form, but he had proved to be just another let down in her long history of let-downs.  He was just another man who had fooled her with a smile, tempting her to lower her guard only to then reveal his true colours when she was at her most vulnerable.  They were the colours of a liar.

“You don’t need to do this,” he said.

She blinked away the remnants of Jed and focused on Messiah’s words.

“It would be a waste,” he continued, “a pointless waste.  There will be no satisfaction in it.  You are better than this.  You do not need to do this.”

Pain was clouding her thoughts and Kayla struggled to recall how she had ended up crumpled on the floor.  The last couple of hours were a blur and there was a constant heavy thudding on her skull, as if something were tapping viciously, trying to get in.  She could not let it infiltrate, or let dreamy imaginations take over either.  Sleep was not an option.  She had to stay awake.  She had to focus.

Messiah was in pain too.  Winces and moans gave away his discomfort, and his battered face offered obvious signs of injury.  The usual reassuring smile was not there, his lips bloated to double their normal size, and one of his eyes was swollen and threatening to close.  Blood from his nose had formed an ugly moustache and beard, trickling down his chin and neck, soaking his shirt.

“Do not do this Kayla,” he was having difficulty speaking.  “Please, do not do this.”

But she wanted to, and his pleading was not going to change that.  This was her choice; it had to be that way.  Her choice.  Never again were others going to tell her what to do.  Never again would others compel her against her wishes.  There would be no more blind following or allowing kind words to coerce, as where had doing so left her?  Enslaved and imprisoned!  She would suffer no more insults from jailers, no more gun-butts to the face.  No more torture, no more forced showers, no more violent degradation.

No more.

She adjusted her seat, pushing back against the sofa, finding enough purchase to shuffle up.  The weight in her lap shuffled too, it had no choice.

“Someone once told me,” Kayla said, “that my man was not who I thought he was; that Malcolm Gomez was a cheat and a liar.  ‘Only fools trust others’, she told me.”

This was the first time Messiah had heard her speak her former lover’s name and she did so with emotion.  Water briefly clouded her eyes, but it was quickly blinked away.

“She had me pinned to the ground at the time,” Kayla explained, “and I am still not sure if she was protecting me from the violence of the fight, or if she feared I might hurt her, but she was angry, so angry.  She felt betrayed herself, felt cheated, felt the need to tell me that I was being a fool too.  ‘Do not trust!  Do not trust!’ she screamed at me.”

“Were you being a fool?” Messiah asked, desperate to keep the dialogue going until he could find a way to stop this.  He was also desperate to ensure Kayla did not lose consciousness, her head having sustained several heavy blows.

“Yeah,” she chuckled, “I reckon so.”  There was no mirth in the chuckle, no smile on her lips. There was murder written all over her face though, and he could not really blame her.

“They shot her in the head to get her off me,” Kayla added in a matter-of-fact manner Messiah was becoming accustomed to.  “I didn’t see the shot coming, but I saw the mess it left.  She was quite a formidable enemy, and it was betrayal that cost her life.  ‘Only fools trust’ were her last words.”

“I have not let you down, Kayla,” said Messiah.  “From the moment we met, I have not let you down.  Please see that.”

She considered his plea.  Was that a slight nod of the head in agreement?  Maybe, or maybe it was just her fight to stay awake.  For a moment, her eyes appeared to be closing but then an involuntary jerk and she was back in the room.  Immediately worried that she might have dropped her guard, Kayla re-affirmed her grip, tensing her biceps around the other woman’s shoulders.  Her thighs, the bruises from the abuse still evident, tightened too, squeezing down on her captive’s torso.  They extracted an uncomfortable groan.

“Still here,” Kayla slurred, “still here.”

Razor sharp, drawing blood from the hand that held it, the make-shift dagger pressed on to the woman’s neck.  There were already several surface cuts on the captive’s throat and where Kayla threatened to slice, another was added to the mess.

“Let her go,” Messiah begged, “please Kayla, let her go.”

Chapter Two

The base was never silent, not really.  Even when the residents were fast asleep, equipment whirled and sighed.  The hundreds of pumps and valves tried their best to be quiet, but with the volume of air they had to shift, purifying, humidifying, oxygenating, it was impossible.  Similarly, a myriad of monitors beeped and clicked their way through the artificial night, making sure those who relied upon them were protected from the deadly cosmos that constantly sought to infiltrate.

One of those in the care of this base was Kayla McGann.  Although the whirls and buzzes were quieter in her quarters, she still struggled to sleep soundly.  There was nothing new in that; peaceful slumber had been impossible ever since the death of her mother and father. Subsequently, her life had thrown up torment after torment, and she doubted she would ever find a place where calming dreams would come easily.  Nightmares, on the other hand, never left her.  She did not even have to close her eyes to find those.

Tonight was no different.  After a session in the gym and a long soak in the bath, this troubled woman felt relaxed for bed.  Of course, it was all relative, and as someone permanently riddled with anxious thoughts and angry emotions, her version of relaxed was still tightly wound by the standards of most.  Perhaps the base’s twenty-four-hour cycle, driven by computer controlled artificial lighting, had helped to soothe the worst of it, but nothing could help this lost soul once the lights went out.  In the dark, things were infinitely worse.  She tried, though.  Each night she would lay down her head and try to keep those tormented thoughts at bay, but within minutes she was sitting up and calling for the lights to be turned back on, dispelling the shadows.

It was nearly two weeks since her opportune escape from the prison at Petang.  Physically, in parts, she was improving.  Strength had returned, thanks to a balanced recovery plan pulled together with the help of intelligent food generators.  The pain in her abdomen had subsided and the area between her legs was less tender, although still a kaleidoscope of colour.  Gradually, her body was getting there, and she had steadily increased the intensity of exercise.  Finding a way to strengthen the mind, however, was proving far more difficult.

Once, an age ago, her image had flooded the airwaves.  From one solar system to the next, citizens had obsessed over her.  Then, with her hair neatly tied up, pulled tight at the temples, the features in that three-dimensional rendering had been that of a young, attractive woman.  Now, her face was thinner, and her hair was different too.  It was no longer tied back.  Instead, a brutally cropped cascade of unkempt strands draped her face.  At least the fringe was long enough to partially conceal the wound, still healing, above her right eye.  When she looked in the mirror, which she did with an unhealthy regularity, the state of the person looking back was upsetting.  That was inevitable, she guessed, and it was impossible to turn back the clock.  When a printer constructed a shelter, each layer was laid on top of the last and every polymer mattered.  Miss one layer, and the resultant shelter would be different.  People were built the same way, with life events layering up to make the person.  Kayla was built that way too, but her layers contained no graduation, no marriage or children, and nothing that might have made her heart a warmer place.  Instead, who she was today, had been built up from murdered parents, a childhood on the streets, incarceration, and rape.

That mirror beckoned, tempting her with another peak, but she resisted.  She focused on the comfort of the bed, letting her fingers stroke the soothing cotton sheets that lay beneath her body.  The feel of the fabric provided a drop of pleasure in the ocean of pain, but after the hell of the prison, any pleasure was remarkable.  It would take her a long time to shake that place from her mind.  It had left her in such a mess, tortured to within a whisker of insanity.  No wonder it was hard to sleep.  And if there was any doubt of the damage Petang had done then she only had to consider how, as ridiculously comfortable this bed was, a total contrast to the cold stone of the cell, the night before last she had slipped from beneath the sheets and taken to the floor.  There had been no rational thought in that decision, her mind in a panic at the time.  Driven by a primeval instinct to seek solace from that familiar place, she had curled up into a foetal ball and lay there until the computers gradually lifted the lights, welcoming in a new dawn.

That, she told herself, was not going to happen again.  As messed up as her head was, one clear thought did prevail, and that was the realisation that she had to find a way through this.  She could not allow the past to destroy her mind, so she had to find focus and win these mental battles.  And if she needed an incentive for taking on that fight, she had one.  It was the mother of all incentives too, a motivator that had shaped humanity throughout the ages, sparking anger, fuelling wars, forging empires.  She wanted revenge, and there was no force quite like it.  Others had to pay for what had happened to her.  Beneath every one of those layers that had built the Kayla of today, there were those responsible, those who had taken decisions that had left her with the nightmares and the pain.  Succumbing to the demons would not help her through this, but letting those demons play, watching them cavort and dance whilst she sat in the corner drinking from her bottle of bitterness, would provide the fuel she needed.  There would be a reckoning.  She would have her vengeance on the whole lot of them, and that focus was how she would cling to her sanity, and how she would keep the suicidal thoughts at bay.

Another night was ticking by.  With the lights up, she lay there, stroking the cotton and staring at the ceiling.  The pattern on the off-white resin panels dared to fascinate and she latched on to them.  It was a honeycomb design, each hexagon about a metre across.  Cheap to print and easy to build into strong structures, this kind of mount was common in frontier settlements.  Exhausted, she absently traced the edges of the shapes, running paths between them, changing direction at the intersections, heading one way, and then another.  It was a similar game to the ones she had played as a child, lying in her bed on a morning, listening to her parent’s busying themselves with breakfast below.

Those soothing thoughts finally brought her some rest, and she was dozing when the unwanted visitors arrived.  As they entered the base, her dreams were wandering amongst those hexagons, tracing the lines, playing her childish game.  For a short while, she was at peace in her family home.  But this was Kayla McGann, and her turbulent life had no place for such contentment.  It was only a matter of time before that peace would be ripped apart.

+     +     +

“Messiah…” the voice taunted.  In the background someone else sniggered, and beyond those sounds he heard others too.

He knew who the taunter was, but at first, he denied it, not wanting to believe she had found him.  For so long, his life had been going well.  He was used to working alone and his trade routes kept him away from the past, putting the bad people and bad times behind him.  But now, this voice threatened all that.  Kayla had already shaken-up his way of life, but this unexpected visitor’s arrival would be an earthquake.

“… you know who this is, Mess, you know who I am…”

“Fuck,” he swore at the empty chamber.  “Fuck!  Lights!”

As the bedroom was bathed in a white glow, the blue neon projection that had woken his slumber changed to black.  A different contrast, but it did not change the message – “Incoming Communications” - and the low growl of static from the channel filled the chamber with menace.  Emerging from his sleep it had taken a few moments to recognise the buzz for what it was.  He tested these channels occasionally, but they had never been used.  Surely, no one would ever venture this far out, to a non-descript asteroid in an uninhabited system.  He hoped the voice that had woken him was nothing more than the haunting last moments of a dream.

“Mesiiiiiah,” it called again.  “Messiiiiah, wake up… time to say hello to old friends, darling.”

Only one person had ever called him by that endearment.  It was a woman who could taunt like no other.

“Fuck!”

He jumped up, throwing back the single sheet.  The chill of the controlled temperature tweaked his naked body but despite that cold nip, he was already starting to sweat.  Stress was taking hold.  Snatching up pants, he balanced on one leg and then the other to hastily pull them on, before staggering across the room.  As he fired up the surveillance computer, the bedroom was filled with a myriad of live displays, showing the inside and outside of the complex.  He scanned them rapidly, mouthing that one expletive over and over again.

The images flew past, wafted along by the anxious wave of arms.  They featured every part of the base: sofas, workstations, treadmills, beds… he paused on Kayla, asleep in her room, sheets pushed back, lights ablaze.  She was clad in a white T-shirt and shorts - no nudity this time.  He still felt bad for the previous intrusions and had not spied on her since arriving at the base, but the needs of this situation demanded he checked the entire compound.  Quickly, he moved on to the next scene.  There was nothing out of the ordinary in any of the views.  All was exactly as expected, nothing stirred.

“Oh, Messiiiah,” the voice of that devious, manipulative witch from his past called again.

They were seductive tones and as much as he tried to push them away, as much as fear tried to suppress the feelings, that voice blew on his ear and kissed his neck.  He had not thought of her for so long yet now this most sexual of women was forcing her way back into his head.  A fiery cocktail of emotions was running through him.  He could not allow them to take hold.

“Where is she?” he called to the room.

The room responded, throwing away the internal images, leaving some of the externals.  Those remaining views alternated until one jumped to the fore.  Messiah drew that image forward.  It was the view from the bay doors, the edge of the complex framing the rocky formations of the asteroid.  Above this barren surface sat the dark, eternal expanse.  A million speckles of light filled the panoramic, but one was far brighter than the rest, and circled with a red flashing marker.  Screwing up his eyes, he strained to make out the object.  It was clearly not a celestial body.

“Zoom,” he instructed.  A graphic provided him with the appropriate control.  He adjusted the bar, increasing the magnification, pushing it towards the maximum.  It was more than enough, the image of a silver and black under-chassis of a small ship filling his bedroom.

“Fuck,” Messiah exclaimed one more time.  This was bad, bad news.

“Now come on, darling,” the voice cut in again.  “I know my Mess well enough to know how well you will have secured this little home of yours.  You’ll be listening, for sure, and watching, no doubt, but I do not hear any welcome.  I cannot see any banners.  There are no landing codes coming our way.  Are you pretending not to be home, darling?  That isn’t nice, not nice at all.”

The melodic canter of her voice was as enchanting as always.  Messiah closed his eyes and moaned through gritted teeth.  Why now?  Of all times, why now?

“Open comms,” he growled.

There was a small pop followed by more background static and then the channel was live.  Words were not going to be easy, but he knew this woman would not be ignored.

“I can hear you.”  His tone was cold, low, and spiteful.

Initially there was silence, then came laughter in the form of giggling, childish yelps.  Whomever she now associated with, they sounded imbecilic.  Were they high?  That would not have surprised him.

“Ah… Messiah, darling, so nice to hear your voice after all this time.”

“How the fuck did you find me?” he shouted at the empty room.  “What the fuck do you want?”

“Not nice!” she giggled, a male voice repeating those words a moment later.  More mocking, more laughter.

“We didn’t need to find you,” she explained.  “You have been careless Mess, very careless.”

“What…?”

“Oh, darling, so much to tell you, so much to share, so looking forward to seeing you again.”

“No!” he snapped.  “No!  Turn around, turn around right now, and go back to where you came from.  You and your chuckling monkeys, just fuck off away from here.”

“Oh, that’s only Fatboy,” came the reply.  “He saw my breasts a couple of days ago and he hasn’t calmed down since.  Do you remember my breasts?  I didn’t let him touch them, I’m saving that pleasure for you…”

Messiah did not entertain those memories.  He returned to the image of the ship.  A few quick swipes and the altitude and velocity of the approaching craft were calculated.  It would arrive at the asteroid in ten minutes.  The base was defended with a couple of missiles, but he had no idea of their arsenal so trying to shoot them out of the sky was not a sensible option.  But he was damned if he was going to let them into the base.  They could not force him to do that, he hoped.

The internal pad, inaccessible without the relevant codes, was already occupied by his Noche Pygmalion Three.  The external pad, however, was open.  That was a backup in case there was a problem accessing the internal one, and he would be unable to stop them landing there.  That way, though, access into the complex was via a rarely used docking hatch which was also secured with a coded entry panel.  It was a long time since he had checked that worked.  What if those security measures failed?

He was letting his thoughts run away with themselves.  The encrypted access protocols would be working fine.  It was his own programme, written several years before the construction of the base with the help of coding specialists who had been amongst his associates at the time.  Some of those, he would have once called friends.  One of those, he would have even called his partner.  Surely, she would not remember the programme codes.  It would be an extraordinary feat of memory if she had.

Eight minutes.

Maybe he was worrying about nothing?  Perhaps this ex-lover was just calling by, a warm hello, nothing more.  Had his years as a loner damaged his social graces, made him paranoid to the intention of others?  Of course, there was no paranoia, given the way they had parted they were hardly on friendly terms.  And who did she have with her?  Fatboy was a name from the past so there could be other old associates on that vessel too.  They were not dropping by to catch up on the last few years.  They were not dropping by to enquire about his health and fondly remember the good times.

And then, of course, there was the other small matter sleeping a few feet along the corridor.

Ignoring the chatter from his ex-lover, he shrank the image of the incoming craft and brought back the feed from Kayla’s room.  She still lay on her back, on top of the sheets, appearing relaxed when he knew she was probably anything but.  How could the galaxy’s most wanted ever relax?  Whatever the intention of the unwanted visitors, the presence of Kayla and the bounty she carried added ten million complications.

Panic was starting to bubble, his body now drenched in perspiration.  He was getting angry too, and his temperature was rising, threatening to devour.  Why now?  Why at all?  He had to stay calm.  The sleeping woman was relying on him; losing control was not an option.  A clear mind was needed to get through this.

First thing was first.  He cut off the taunting voice, giving himself headspace to think.  There was not much time until they arrived, what could he do in the minutes he had?

“Computer,” he called, “lock down the base!  Total lock-down.  Disable all access codes other than my voice command.  Understood?”

There was a pause.  It lasted too long for Messiah’s liking but eventually a voice, deep and gentle, calmly announced:

“Complex in lock-down.  All access codes and protocols revoked.  Only the command of designate Messiah Ainge can over-ride.  Please note…”

Another short silence as the mainframe completed its analysis.

“… the incoming craft has activated a landing sequence and will land in approximately six minutes, fifty-two seconds.  Permission to disembark has been requested.  Permissions denied.”

Should he wake Kayla?  Did she need to know?  He quickly concluded that no, she did not.  She was already disturbed more than enough by all her recent traumas, and if he could avoid adding this into the mix, he would.  Hopefully, he could make it clear to those on the ship that their visit was unwelcome and pointless.  They could sit on his landing pad for as long as they wanted, but they were not getting in.  Maybe they would realise the futility and leave.  The past was the past and it was going to stay that way.  He would see they were gone before Kayla woke and she would be none the wiser.

He brought the comms channel back online, a burst of laughter spilling into the room.  How many voices did he hear?  How many individual chortles?  Four, he thought, maybe more.

“The base is locked down, Nazia,” he told his former partner, “you can forget any ideas of a happy reunion, you are not coming in.”

The laughter ceased.  A hushed male voice in the background uttered aggressive, angry words, but they were not clear across the transmission.

“That’s a shame, Mess,” Nazia sighed.  The flirt was gone, replaced with a sad, reflective tone.  “A real shame, we hoped you would be more welcoming.  I hoped you would be more welcoming.  Foolish me, expecting our years together to count for something.  Back then, running for Hab Cyrus, we had some good times darling, good times.”

“I’ve moved on,” said Messiah, “we have all moved on… things have changed.”

None more so than for the infamous Cyrus, whose gang of criminals had been torn apart by the authorities.  The Union commander, Ana Cholewinska, had located them in the previously off-limits Gregorian Territories and had mercilessly smashed the criminal fraternity.  Messiah had often wondered how his old associates had fared in that episode, Nazia in particular.  He now had the answer.

“Yeah, and some of us moved on cleaner than others,” she reflected.  “I, for one, settled all my debts, wiped my slate clean, made peace with old enemies.  I carry no baggage, darling, and the name of Nazia Jwaran has no price tag.  I have no reason to hide away on the dark side of a random rock on the outer edge of an uninhabited system.  What about you, Mess, can you say the same?”

She was mocking, she knew the answer.

“No, you cannot.  Cyrus may have gone.  Most of his crew and gang may have gone.  Your debts, on the other hand…”

Deliberately, she left those words hanging.  They were designed to cause worry, designed to bring that past crashing back.

“Cyrus and his cronies are all gone,” he mumbled, doubting his own words.

“Are they, Mess?” she asked, the tease back.  “Are they really?”

Five minutes now.  That was not long enough.  Five minutes until Nazia touched down on his rock.  Five minutes until the woman who had made him the worst version of himself, and then slowly set about destroying him, arrived.

“The Brotherhood’s reach was far, my darling, far and deep.  Sure, Hab is gone, sure, many of his nearest and dearest too, but the roots were strong, they spread across the galaxy.  You think they all perished that day?  All of them?  Nah.  They are still out there and for all these years I have kept your secret Messiah, I have kept this place hidden from them.”

He wanted to ignore the insinuation.  He wanted to call her bluff, to deny she had done him that favour.  Keeping his secret meant he owed her and that was too big a debt to carry.  Worse still, it was clear his secrets offered her a bargaining chip he had not anticipated, a bargaining chip that could swing the table and bow him to her will.

“How?” Messiah breathed.  “How did you even know?”

“Let us in,” she said sternly, “Let us in or I’ll bring all your worst nightmares, all those who would happily boil you alive, straight to your door.”

Four minutes.

He took another anxious look at Kayla, asleep in her bedroom.  Hunted, scared, in need of his protection.

Four minutes.

It was not long enough.

Chapter Three

Warm summers brought the colata out in droves.  Golden wings rustled across the tops of the bulderberry trees, their soft beaks plucking at the ripest fruits.  Her dad was out each dawn, shooter in hand, picking off as many as he could.  The blighters would destroy a crop in days if left unchecked.  They did make great soup, though.  Some small consolation for the loss of harvest, her father would say as he dished up the unique broth.

Good days.

Golden days, matching the wings of the colata.

She was back there now, but as a tainted version of the child she had been.  Somehow, here, years before being held violently on the floor of a cold shower room, she already carried all that twisted anger, all the fear and spite of experiences yet to come.  Somewhere in her thoughts, she knew this was a dream, but that somewhere did not matter, it felt real, and she wanted to be back in this golden place.

The child had been woken early, the sounds of her father’s shooter – Boom! Boom! Boom! - echoing from the fields half a mile away.  The fog was light today and as this Kayla, the wrong Kayla, the older Kayla, looked out, she could see him in the distance.  Boom! Boom! Boom!

Of course, it should have been impossible to pick him out amongst the crops.  They were too dense, he was too far away, and her room was round the back of the house.  Except she could, and she accepted that as we always accept dreams.  Reality was a little twisted, that was all, and they had fixed the angles, bent the house, so she could see.  That was perfectly fine, and so was father, down below, shooting the flying beasts for the pot later.  He made the best soup.

Someone was shouting up at the window.  Kayla leaned forward.  Further, further still.  How did she not fall?  Below was mother, but not the mother she remembered.  This version was grey and frail.  This version was crying.  She was wearing a blue shirt and dark trousers, contrasting the red dusty earth.  It was a familiar outfit.  Kayla did not want to see her dressed that way because she knew what it meant.  It meant today was that day.

Boom! Boom! Boom!

Standing with her mother was Jed Luca.  He had no right to be there, but he was, and that was perfectly fine too.  As always, the inconsistencies between this dream and her memories were ignored.  Jed was watching, waiting, there to pick up the pieces.  It will be fine, his presence said.  Everything will work out. Ebb and flow.  Yin and yang.  A few fruits lost, a few colata come to join the family dinner, that was the way it worked.

Father was reloading, taking off one power pack, replacing with another.  Hundreds of colata flocked overhead.  Boom!  The charge crackled through the misty air, lighting up a stream of particles, striking several critters at once.  Their wings stopped beating instantly.  They hung there, stunned, inert, defying gravity.  Then, one by one, they fell, screaming as they went, seemingly crying out her name in a vicious caw of accusation:

“Kayla!  Kayla!  Kayla!”

Boom!  Boom!  Boom!

Fear was stalking the bedroom and a dark shadow fell over her shoulder.  She dared not turn, but she knew it was there.  Something was happening today, something in the air, something evil.

Luca was hugging her mother, holding her tight.  Her blue shirt had changed colour; it had grown darker.  There was a shocking splash on her trousers; red, but not sandy like the soil, these splashes were vibrant and alarming.  From her mother’s back, pulsing between Jed’s fingers, a liquid oozed.  It was red too, blood red.

Kayla tried to scream but the shadow had her, holding back her voice.  With their golden wings limp, the colata continued to fall, calling out as they plummeted.  It was a shrill, dreadful noise, taking the place of her own shrieks.  Painfully, they screeched her name over and over, and now her mother’s voice mixed with them, crying out, warning her daughter.

“Kayla!  Kayla!  Hide Kayla!  Hide!”

From the fields, through the mist, her father emerged.  He was running.   Seconds later, several dark objects appeared behind him.  The whine of engines overpowered the colata, as these pursuing heavy vehicles crashed through the bulderberry trees.  Her father was struggling, his gun awkward to run with, but he could not discard it.  Every few steps he turned and looked back, waving his weapon at his pursuers.

At the house, Jed had left the scene and a blood-soaked mess lay discarded beside the porch.  It was her mother’s body, the blue shirt now a deep scarlet.  Figures were crowding around her.  With radios buzzing and barrels pointing, in their crisp uniforms, they proudly regarded their kill.

Bursting from amongst the bulderberry, her dad charged at them.  He was shouting, crying, hysterical with anger, his gun raised and waving at the figures.  But these were not colata, with their golden wings, and his weapon would prove useless.  These were Union Special Forces, and – Boom! Boom! Boom! - they took him down in a barrage of fire.  She saw him fall, his body torn and disfigured from the ferocity of the attack.  And lying in the dirt, he still clung to that rifle, defiant until the end.  No more colata were going to die that day.  There would be no more soup.

A hand was on her shoulder; it was Jed.  He rarely smiled but when he did, his face brought reassurance.

“It is time for us to go,” he said.

He was dragging her away from the window.  She fought, not wanting to leave her parents, but he was strong and pulled her to safety.  The hiding place.  Beneath the floor.  It had been drilled into them from young, a space large enough for five, but with her brothers having left, and her mother and father mown down, it would be just for her.  Buried away, under the boards, taken there by Jed… only there was no Jed, this was not his place, this was not his time, it was not his path along the hexagonal tiles.

Outside her parents lay dead and inside she lay hiding. But it was not her, was it?  How could it be her?  Kayla McGann did not hide!

“Kayla!  Kayla!  Kayla!”

Beneath the floor, with the bugs and the mites, with all the detritus of creation.  Not her, not Kayla McGann.

“It is time for us to go,” said Jed, “time for us to leave.”

+     +     +

Tracing those lines, one memory flowed into the next, bringing her back to another bedroom, the one in Messiah’s base.  She carried with her the horrible remnants of the nightmares, as blazing lights welcomed her back to this reality.  Awake, she was immediately unsure where the dreams ended and an exhaustion-fuelled imagination took over, but either way, the mood conjured was melancholy with more than a dash of bitterness.

Damn this fucking galaxy.

Damn the fucking Union.

She reminded herself that she was safe here.  Those dreams might be the same dreadful ones suffered at Petang Base, but this was a much better place to wake.  What time was it?  A shake of her identifier flashed up numbers.  The first digit was a three; she did not need to read beyond that.  It was the middle of the artificial night.

She had not enjoyed the luxury of a proper day cycle in a long time, not since the plantation; her home planet had rotated once every eighteen hours.  In the prison, the mood of the guards would dictate the day length, and low production had often led to long, exhausting shifts.  Then, unable to track the passing of time, her only gauge had been how strong the bite of tiredness, or how heavy the weight of hunger.  In Messiah’s opulent home, she could choose to sleep for as long as she pleased and yet, here she lay, awake at three.  It was impossible to rest easy when the horrors of the past that rose so vividly as soon as she closed her eyes.  At least here, as she adapted to this newfound freedom, she had choices.  There would be no guards turning up to harass them back to work.  Instead, she could choose to try to sleep again or she could get up.  If she got up, she could grab a snack, or hit the gym, feeding that increasing obsession for getting her body back into shape.  Or she could spend the next three hours staring at the hexagonal panels, to see what wonderful thoughts filled her tormented mind.

Of course, they would likely be thoughts of Jed.

She flitted back to that cold and miserable night.  Fourteen, with her skull throbbing under the impact of an unseen weapon, whilst her assailant back at the market now regretfully nursed a horrendous stab wound.  Luca had brought solace that evening.  As always, he had projected strength and offered wisdom.  He had sat with her, the man with the tight black curls, the first signs of grey not creeping in until the months before Three Zero.  Her memories were of a man so different to the feeble figure in the recent broadcast.  Those images had shown someone beaten and humiliated.  The curls were all gone and the cap covering his head had not fooled her, and his face had been littered with cuts and bruises despite the poor attempts to cover with makeup.  Why had the technicians not altered the image to produce a sanitised version?  She doubted the decision to broadcast live and raw had anything to do with maintaining press integrity, not when the Union were involved, so did that suggest it was rushed, to get it out fast?  Or possibly they just wanted others to spot those signs of brutality and witness the subject’s obvious humiliation.  Perhaps, the whole thing was manufactured for the eyes of this one woman in particular.

It had worked; it had gotten her attention.  She had watched it dozens of times, slowing it down, speeding it up, zooming in on his eyes, looking for emotion.  In a man who always oozed confidence and charisma, it was horrible to find nothing but despair.  If she had not taken that time to look properly, and to re-look and re-look, she might not have believed the depth of anguish she saw.  Sandwiched between two Union officials, who were unmistakably Secret Service, he had been a pathetic shadow of the man she had known.  And yet, even witnessing all that, it was hard to find pity or understanding.  His words of appeasement - words of defeat - had sickened her to the core. After all those years suffering in the mines, after all the abuse she had borne, how could he so readily capitulate?

She was angry as hell at him.

It did not matter what they had done to turn him into the feeble specimen because even in her darkest hour, she would have not betrayed her friends.  Back on the shower floor, her head banging down hard, those monsters grabbing, scratching, slapping, punching... and that pain between her legs, first one, then another, then another, forcing, tearing, ripping.  Had Jed been through anything worse?  She doubted it.

She would have given anything to be able to ask him that question, and a good many more besides.  And to show him too, to show him what they had done to her.  She would let him see her scars and bruises and let him look at her face, to search for the emotion in her eyes.  Then, he could ask himself how he could sit so comfortably between his Secret Service buddies.

A few weeks after finding herself adopted by Malcolm Gomez and his associates, the gang had left her home world.  There were about two dozen of them, all secreted away in the cargo hold of an interstellar freighter.  There would come a time when the group numbered three times that and would no longer have to rely on favours from sympathetic pilots, but back then, Gomez was an idealist without the strong following that would later develop.  They were all so young too.  Kayla, on the brink of womanhood, was not even the youngest.  There was a twelve-year-old boy, Paddock, another street-urchin rescued from the grasp of the local police.  It was not an unusual story for this bunch of early recruits.  Most owed Malcolm in some way, plucked from trouble or drawn to him by a need for a home and a desire to belong.  For Kayla, orphaned, her brothers’ whereabouts unknown, the gang offered a safe place, steady food, and a sense of family.

As that freighter departed, it had not seemed momentous, but looking back now, she saw that it was.  Not only was she leaving her home planet for the first time, but hiding in those large containers, the only light available filtering through the air vents, this was the start of a new phase in her life.  It had been another junction on the hexagon panels and she had taken a particular path.  Now, as she hid away on this base light years from anywhere, did she face another momentous decision point?

The hiding was a definite theme.  Always, she seemed to be peering through vents in crates, or gaps in floorboards, with Union forces nearby, searching amongst the cargo, or desecrating her dead parent’s family home.  Same old, same old.  And on emerging from those hiding places, that was when she faced the new challenges and decisions presented themselves.  It was less like emerging from a chrysalis, reborn, new wings, ready to fly, and more like believing she was escaping one nightmare, only to find the new reality was another dreadful dream.

Despite the horrors, Kayla wished for more time back beneath the floorboards of her family home.  As awful as it had been, she wished she had stayed longer.  Then, despite what she had witnessed, there had been hope that maybe, somehow, her parents were still alive.  She would give anything to have that hope back again.

Lying amongst the scurrying tiny creatures, terrified, listening to her own breaths and the occasional stifled sob, the minutes had rolled into hours.  Long after the thud of boots and rattle of voices had faded, fear had held her there.  As time had ticked by, bugs and mites creeping over her skin, she had tried to drum up the courage to emerge, focusing on the hope that she might find her parents.  Denying the images in her head, denying what she had witnessed, she told herself they were alive.  Eventually, it would be thirst that forced her to move, and when that moment came, she tore at the boards, taking no care in shifting them, ignoring the sharp edges that cut into her fingers.  She burst up into the bedroom, brushing away the bugs, shaking her hair violently to get the critters out.  With vomit rising, she had dashed to the bathroom, spewing into the toilet bowl.  Seconds later, at the sink, she slurped up as much water as her belly would take.

Her parents…

Now out, the cold reality of the situation had hit her.  It was in the air, in the smells blowing in from the fields, in the gentle whistle of the wind, in the eerie emptiness of the house.  In an instant, all hope brutally evaporated.  If she had not been holding on to the sink, her legs would have collapsed beneath her.  Under the floorboards, she could deny the truth, deny what she had seen.  Now, though, there was no denying it, and it hit her like a brick.  They were dead, mown down before her eyes.  Panic rose quickly.  Fear, horror, and an overwhelming need to get away from that place.

Taking nothing but the dusty clothes she stood in, she headed down the back stairs.  From the kitchen, the full length of the house was visible, along the resin inner hall, to the covered porch out front.  There was no atomic printing there, the porch was the labour of her father’s hand, the wood of the bulderberry tree chopped, sawn and nailed to form the showpiece of this pioneering homestead.  Now, at the foot of his handiwork, lay the butchered corpse of his wife.  Kayla did not look; she did not want to see her mother that way.  Despite those earlier foolish hopes, she did not need to check on her father either.  Without pausing, wrapped in the smell of vomit, Kayla fled through the rear door.  She did not look back, not even for the briefest stolen glimpse.

Oh, for more time, for more hope.

The twisted and tortured adult so wished she had not been so hasty to flee.  Did anyone bury them?  Did anyone sit at their graveside and mourn?  Did anyone stay with them and shed a tear?  It was too late.  Likely, the scavengers had gotten to them, their remains used as nests for colata eggs.  Now, they would be nothing but dust.

Why?  Why them?

Kayla rolled on to her front and punched the pillow.  She was frustrated by the lack of sleep, frustrated by these cursed memories.  Weeks before, she had woken strapped to a medical table.  A sadistic square-faced nurse had been glaring down at her.  Then, the memories had been so hard to bring forward, hidden behind a veil of exhaustion and starvation.  Now, those recollections all flowed freely, and she wondered, with the pain they brought, if she might have been better with them being lost forever.

Another punch of the pillow, and another.   Pushing up, she glared down at the white bed linen.  Such comfort after years of sleeping on the floor, but it was comfort that she did not deserve. Kneeling, she reigned down punch after punch.  Again, again, she slammed her fist into the soft material, not holding back until the muscles in her shoulders and biceps ached.  It was three in the morning, and the scarce snatches of sleep she had mustered had brought her nothing but nightmares.  Damn those memories!  And damn those who had made them too, every fucking one of them!

+     +     +

Jed was not of her world and knew nothing of colata other than what she had told him.  On one rare occasion, when they had dared to go online and found images, he had pretended to vomit at their repulsive appearance. When told of the soup, he was incredulous.

“Soup!?” he exclaimed.  “You ate those… things?”

Kayla had been with the gang about a year now, travelling the local systems.  She was no longer the newbie. Their mysterious leader had drawn several others to the group, and they had even gained a name along the way: “Freedom”.  These were exciting times for the young woman but frightening ones too, and in the face of worries and fears she had clung to her friendship with Jed.

“My father boiled them…” she explained.

“Alive, I hope!” Jed scoffed.  “Did they taste as bad as they looked?”

They were dreadful creatures.  All over the galaxy, eco-systems threw up monstrous creations, and in her backyard, the colata fit that bill.  Winged vermin, about a foot in length, covered in a golden, wiry fur, with snaggle-tooth faces even their mothers could not love.

“Yes,” she laughed back, lying because it was easier, “they tasted awful!  We hated it!”

He saw through that untruth, but Jed would have never highlighted her awkward attempts to fit in.  She was still just fifteen and few of the gang spoke to her.  When they did, the men mostly did so with lecherous intent, typically seeking her out when she was alone, coming too close with unwanted hands.  Of the women, some were the same, whilst others just ignored, perhaps threatened by her youth and good looks. She had a face, Jed regularly warned her, capable of getting her both into trouble, and out of it.

“I’m sure your father made excellent soup,” Jed said, “and perhaps I should not knock what I haven’t tasted.”

Later that night, Kayla lay awake in a side room.  As always, she faced the door, listening to mumbled plots and plans of Malcolm’s inner circle from the next chamber.  In there with her were a couple of the younger ones, tucked up on their makeshift bunks.  They were dozing soundly, but she would stay alert until the sounds of others quietened.  It was the same every night, only allowing herself to drift away when she felt it safe to do so.  If she was struggling to sleep, then she would wrap herself in thoughts of her family and the plantation.  If that brought tears, so be it.  Always, she would weep silently, hiding these moments of grief.  This was not a good place for tears, even the tears of an orphaned child.  But then, this was not a good place for an orphaned child at all.

+     +     +

A four sat on the clock.

She had suffered enough, perhaps it was time to get up.  Drawing on the positive, that was another night survived.  Exhausted, she would face whatever today chose to throw at her.  It was time to push away the torturing memories, shake out those constant aches, and go and find something to distract.

The pillow, beaten until her arm could beat no more, lay across the other side of the room.  She snarled at it as she slid off the bed.  Dear god, her breath stank.  In it, she could smell the filth of the prison cells.  At least here, she could readily freshen up; small mercies in a life full of shit.  Stretching her arms, palms facing away, she pushed hard at nothing, feeling the bite of the muscles in her shoulders.  Was it good to be alive?  Given the dark shadow over her soul, it was an astonishing question and even more remarkably, she considered that here, safe, perhaps it was.

A new day indeed!

The gymnasium beckoned.  First, a quick trip to the bathroom whilst avoiding the mirrors.  They were an unhealthy distraction, tempting her to obsess with how she looked.  A thinner face, the lifeless, bedraggled hair, and an unwelcome memento above her right eye – she knew what that reflective truth-teller would show.  It was not an image that she needed to see today.

Teeth done, quick wash, then she braved the toilet.  Urinating still stung but not as much as it had.  The discomfort was a useful reminder, in the unlikely event she would ever forget, just how many were on her payback list.

Partially refreshed, Kayla moved to leave.  Expecting the door to open automatically, when it did not, she nearly walked into it.  She frowned, stepped back, and approached again.  Nothing.  Sure that she had not locked it the previous evening, she impatiently slapped the manual release.  Enough time had been spent in locked rooms.  She was damned if that was going to continue now that she had her freedom.  The lock flashed on contact, but the door still failed to operate.  Another slap, harder, with a loose fist instead of the palm of her hand.  A second flash, nothing else.

Confused, she stepped back.  Her fist was clenched but she thought better of it.  The panel was not a pillow and she did not need any more pain, her knuckles having only just recovered from smashing the face of the nurse back at Petang.  Instead, she glared at the obstruction, narrow eyes working from top to bottom, willing it to open.  It did not.  Angry, she returned to perch on the bed, her gaze not leaving the door.  What now?  What would Messiah do if his base played up like this?  He would probably call on the omnipresent system, something she had previously avoided doing so far during her stay.

“Computer?” she cautiously ventured.

There were no spoken words in reply.  Instead, the mainframe communicated in three-inch high holographic letters, seemingly projected wherever it pleased.  Messiah had explained that the voice had been turned off many years before, to preserve his sanity.

“Good morning designate Kayla McGann,” the first words said, “Messiah welcomes you on board his asteroid and hopes you will make yourself comfortable.”

That message was a little out of date, Messiah perhaps expecting she would have tried the systems before now.  She had used much of the standalone equipment - clothes printers, food producers, entertainment centres - but this Big Brother had been left well alone.

“My door is locked,” she told it, abruptly.

The previous message snapped out of existence.  Another, a few feet to her left, appeared.  Annoyingly, she had to stand to read it.

“Designate Kayla McGann is politely asked to remain in her quarters whilst an incident is resolved.”

Her frown escalated into a snarl.  What?  She had resolved several times over that no one was ever going to imprison her again.  He could ‘politely ask’ all he wanted but Messiah had still locked her up.  Why?  What was going on?

Her first thought was the bounty.  That huge price tag hung around her neck.  Had that vast sum tempted her host and he was planning to hand her in?  He was a gunrunner to the Kamdo; a man of few scruples, she knew that.  The worthless, scheming bastard!

Yet, as angry as she was, as tired and confused as she was, that suggestion did not ring true.  Again, that damn trust was trying to kick in and cloud her judgement, but there was more to this than foolish, blind faith.  There was no logic in him going after that bounty now, several days after it was first offered.  Why wait if he was tempted? And he was no fool either.  Surely, he realised that his part in her escape would do him no favours when it came to collecting the reward?  So, if not that, what was it?  Why confine her to the bedroom?

“Override,” she tried, not hopeful, “open the door.”

“That is not possible,” came the reply.

“Where is Messiah?”  She considered, with more than a touch of panic, that he might have left her alone in the base.  “Show me.”

A visual popped up.  It took a squint and a moment for her eyes to adjust to the lighting before she could make out the large, familiar sofas.  It was the lounge area at the centre of the floor beneath this bedroom.  She had spent a lot of time on those soft seats.  Indeed, it was there that she had watched Jed capitulate to the Union Secret Service.

On one of the sofas sat a man she had not seen before.  At first, he appeared muscular, but then he moved and it became obvious that his bulk was fat.  He was at least twenty-five stone, perhaps bigger, which was unusual for someone this far from a major first world planet.  It took some effort to get to that size on the protein-rich, fat-reduced diets the food machines produced.  Even now, he was eating from one hand, whilst puffing on a pipe of some sort with the other.  Who could that be?

“Identity!” she hollered at the computer.  Her anxiety levels were rising.  With legs weakened from the nerves, she fell back on to the bed again.  “Identity!  Who is that?”

“Designate unknown,” the text, thankfully projected closer, declared.

“Where?  Where is he from?”

“Designate arrived on an unidentified vessel.  The vessel landed approximately thirty minutes ago.  Four occupants disembarked, sensors indicate two others remained aboard.”

Kayla felt sick.  Trapped, again.  Caged.  Unable to flee.  Unable to help her mum and dad, her skin crawling with the itch of bugs and mites.

“Show me the ship,” shaky, worried words.

A new visual opened, the image of the large man moving aside.  This second shot showed the sleek, dark exterior of a craft parked slightly off-centre on the external pad.  She did not recognise the make, although she had seen similar before.  It was built for speed and she noted the weapons - several, forward facing.  This far out, such vessels were the hallmark of pirates and runners.  Not a single emblem, insignia, or any other distinguishable mark blemished the bodywork.  There was no Union badge either, which provided a little comfort - that arrogant, self-absorbed regime would always mark their vessels.

Kayla breathed deeply.  A little comfort, perhaps, but not much.  Her concerns were continuing to mount.

The computer had advised that four of them were inside the complex.  She could see the fat guy but the other three were not in shot.  This loner lifestyle Messiah had claimed had not made sense to her from day one, and now it seemed her suspicions were well-founded.  The criminal fraternity seldom operated in isolation, they relied on networks and gangs.  His set up, from the super-charged Noche to this amazing base, were all far too excessive for just one man.  Were this group his missing associates?  Had he shut her in so he could conduct business in private, perhaps even hoping that she slept until they were gone?

Whether she had hit the nail on the head, or the truth was a variation on that theme, this was a deceit she would not be willing to let pass.  No one was hiding the truth from her.  And worse, he had locked her up and that was a cardinal sin.

“No more games, Messiah!” she snarled.  “No more games!  Computer, show me the others!”

The system dutifully complied and two more screens popped into existence.  Her eyes darted between them as she digested what was going on.  On one, two more men stood not far from the sofas, and on the other, Messiah was nearby, in animated dialogue with a woman.  Although there was no sound, it was clear there was tension in that exchange.  If this was a business meeting, it was not being conducted cordially.

Then, suddenly, the feeds froze.  A second later, they faded and flashing text jumped into view.  She adjusted her focus and read these new words, and then read them again.  It was not until the third time that they made any sense, and when they did, they did nothing to ease her anxieties.  This was not good, not good at all.

Chapter Four

The years had treated her well, much to his annoyance.  His life’s obsession sat across from him, her brown legs stretched out, the snake tattoo drawn down one, slithering seductively in his direction.  Nazia Jwaran.  Nazia fucking Jwaran.  Damn, she looked good, and damn, he hated that.

Sat beside her was her new man, or so Messiah assumed from the hand confidently resting on her bare thigh.  The intervening years had done nothing to soften her appetite for racy attire, which was even more provocative than he recalled.  She had always been the distraction during a heist, often playing the bait, and she had been damn good at it.  Sexually, she was turbo-charged trouble.  For many years, she had bamboozled Messiah with her charms, blinding him to the darkness of her soul.  It had taken the tragedy for him to realize just how manipulative, dangerous, and wicked she really was.

Keen to retain some self-respect after being forced to let them enter his base, he had refused to go meet them.  Instead, he had waited for them to come to him, perching on one of the raised stools in the main sitting area.  With body scans deployed as they had crossed the airlock, he was confident that the only gun inside was the pistol resting on his lap.  Since their arrival, he had not moved from that perch, and his fingers remained near the trigger.  They would stay there too, until these unwanted visitors were back under the stone from which they had crawled.  Hopefully, they would soon grow weary of whatever game they were playing.

Whatever game she was playing.

“You are very quiet,” Nazia smirked.  “Surely you wonder how I have been?  No warm welcome for my friends, either?  No introduction?  Not like the polite Messiah of old.”

“I am not the Messiah of old,” he said, coldly.

“No,” she shook her head, “the Mess I know would never point a gun at a friend.  Or am I not even that now?  Am I not even a friend?”

He sighed and glared at her through narrow eyes.  She had to be kidding.  Their parting had been far from cordial and with a decade for the animosity to fester, to suggest they might still be on good terms was ridiculous. She was poking fun, teasing as always.  It was the only way this woman knew how to be.

“You know the answer to that; I would have thought I made that obvious to you?  Friends once, sure, but I could not stay after what you did.  It was unforgivable and you left me with no choice.  And this gun is not aiming at you, it’s just here as insurance because I know what a monster you can be.”

The man with his hand on her leg had been silent since entering the living quarters, but now he spoke.  His voice was slow and drawn with a definite hint of inebriation.  Messiah had already concluded that he was doped up from the stagger in his walk and the vacancy in his eyes.

“Hey,” he slurred, “you are not been very hospitable, don’t insult my girl again.”

This stranger was not what Messiah would have expected in Nazia’s new love.  The man was diminutive, several inches shorter than her, and had a complexion so pale that blue veins could be seen around his temples.  And despite his brave words, he appeared nervous, looking away every time Messiah met his gaze.  Even the way those thin fingers rested on Nazia’s dark leg was awkward.  But it wasn’t just him who was a little odd, this whole group did not fit together.  They did not appear to be the hardcore hoodlums with whom Nazia more usually associated.  Messiah recognised Fatboy and knew that he and Nazia went back a long way, so his presence was perhaps no surprise, but the fourth was another kooky character.  No sooner had they entered this area than that weirdo had made for the sofas and laid down.  He had not moved since.  Just what sort of crackpots was Messiah’s ex now mixing with?

Ignoring the feeble threat from her boyfriend, Messiah continued to address Nazia: “What do you want?  You are obviously playing some sort of game here, but it’s lost on me?  Help me out?  Give me a clue?”

“We were in the neighbourhood…” the pallid man giggled.  It was the same giggle heard over the communications channel earlier and interestingly, it prompted a glimpse of annoyance in the face of the woman whose thigh he held.  She tried to bury that expression before replying to Messiah, but he had already spotted it.

“As Tomack says,” she smirked, “we were in the neighbourhood and just thought we would say hello.”

Messiah was having none of it.  He knew this woman too well.  It was an obvious lie, maybe meant to tease, but he was in no mood for playing.

“Like hell you were,” he spat, “no one ever ‘just happens’ to be in this neighbourhood, its twenty light-years from the nearest Class A settlement.  You only end up here if here is the place you planned to be.  How did you find me?”

With another imbecilic contribution no doubt lined up, Tomack went to speak.  She placed a hand on his, patting it gently, silencing his foolish mouth.

“I’ve always known where you were, Mess,” she said softly.  “You had clearly planned your exit well and you would never have fled, having siphoned millions, without already having a bolt hole in mind. You sourced this rock long before running and you foolishly left traces of your research in our shared archives.  There were a number of locations listed - it was not hard to narrow them down.”

He was calm on the outside but inside his heart was racing.  Surely, that was not possible?  He had covered his tracks well!  He had been so careful!  Could he really have been foolish enough not to delete an archive?  This threw everything up in the air.  If she knew, who else did?  The threat offered by this motely bunch was nothing compared to those who might follow.

“Why now?” he asked, confused.  “If you knew where I was, why leave it until now?”

Nazia was not someone renowned for patience, indeed, she was known for her short fuse.  It was incredulous that she would have left him here, living the quiet life, with the rage she must have felt at his sudden departure.  She had to be lying that she had known all this time.  Had he recently been careless on the identifier?  Had he opened his profile to the network by mistake, activating trace programmes?

“Why, after all these years?  Why haven’t you come to find me before now?  Who else knows?”

“Who do you think I would tell?” she scoffed.  “Those first few years, they were watching me like a hawk.  If I had tried to find you, they would have been on my tail.  It was hard enough trying to convince them I had nothing to do with your betrayal without leading them straight to you; they would have never believed me then!  And so, the years passed, gangs came, gangs went, then there was all that stuff with Cyrus – I’m guessing that news even made it out this far – and I ended up with this little group, and the drugs, and fun, and shit, and… well, you just never found your way back to the top of my list.”

As he digested her words, his own words fizzled away, swamped under a muddle of thoughts.  For years he had worried that others would come after him, only finding reassurance in the solid belief that no one knew the location of this base.  Now, here was Nazia claiming to have known all along?  Surely, she could not be telling the truth.  For her to have kept that secret to herself all that time was incredible.  It was not just the fugitive tucked away upstairs that carried a huge price tag, there were quite sizeable bounties on Messiah too, from far worse paymasters than the Union.

“Why would you keep it quiet?”  he asked.  “Why would you hold my secret?”

There was a sudden moment of awareness in Nazia, and she reached for Tomack’s hand, lifting it off her leg.

“I did not want you dead,” she simply said.

Messiah chose to ignore the obvious sentiment.

“What do you want now?” he repeated.  “Why are you and your friends here?”

“You ask a lot of questions,” slurred Tomack.

“And you are a drugged-up arsehole!” snapped Messiah, the strain of the situation breaking his cool.  “I’ll ask as many questions as I want, this is my place!  If you don’t like it, fuck off!”

Nazia gripped her companion’s hand, hard enough that his knuckles turned white.  Tomack showed no reaction, probably unable to feel it beneath the narcotics.  He showed no reaction to Messiah’s aggressive words either, just staring straight ahead.

“Strictly speaking, it isn’t really, is it?” she offered.

“What do you mean?”

She gestured at the large chamber.  “This, it isn’t really your place, is it?  I think there are a few out there who might like to stake a claim!  Hamesh Montefort, Dagger, Xi Cha, Taylor Red… shall I go on?”

Messiah frowned and lowered his gaze.

“And I will tell you what I want in due course,” she continued, “once we’ve rested, eaten, and done pretty much whatever we want to do around this pad.  For now, you can stop playing the hard-man, Mess, and stop toying with that gun because you will never use it.  Stop with this pretend menace, it does not suit you.  Besides, I hold all the cards.  You would not want me to inform the gangs, would you, and have them pay you a visit?  I think not.  Sure, you could get away before they arrived, but where would you run to next?  This is a damn good set-up, ‘your place’, and you wouldn’t want to lose it.”

Only a few days before, Messiah Ainge had left this haven to travel to a nearby system.  Security code upon code, encryption upon encryption, aliases, fake guarantees, secure transfers.  That was all routine for him now, or as routine as those kinds of things ever got.  It had been a straightforward drop off, sample crates already tested by the customer, on the brink of completing the deal.  Everything had been going to plan.  Credentials cleared, no problems from the Kamdo, the goods all set to be offloaded.  Then those sirens had sounded, and it had all started to go wrong.

Never had he imagined that only a short time later, things could be such a mess.  He had worked so hard to keep his life private, rejecting friendships, avoiding the traps of relationships, settled with the idea that his lonely existence was the only way to protect him from his past.  Now, he found he was veritably flooded with problems of the people kind.

“You know how the gangs work,” Nazia said.  “Xi Cha, for instance, give her a trail and she would not let it go, hounding you until she caught you, and we all know how Xi Cha treats those who betray her.”

He did and he preferred his head on his shoulders.

“Tell me what you want,” there was a slip in the bravado as he took on a humbler tone, “and then, please, get on your way.”

“More food for Fatboy,” she said, “he gets moody if he doesn’t eat every two hours, and then you and I need a chat, Mess, darling, a good, long chat.”

Messiah glanced at the large man on the sofa, who smirked back, still chewing.  Fatboy had always been a bit of a joke, and never much of a gangster, and it was the man on the sofa opposite, who still lay with his eyes closed, that felt far more of a threat.  Messiah had little doubt that this man was only pretending to be asleep.  He was likely listening to every word of conversation, and whilst Messiah understood Nazia’s ability to wreak havoc, this stranger was an unknown quantity.  Since entering the base, this man had offered nothing, not even when the rest of the gang had exchanged impressed whoops on first seeing the interior of the complex.  That lack of expression and now the sleeping log impression left Messiah in the dark as to the character.  All he had was the man’s appearance - slender, short, older than the rest by a good thirty years.  There had been a white-haired air of authority about him too, a maturity, a sense of intelligence that further belittled the starry-eyed Tomack and the glutenous Fatboy.  This was the one to watch.

“What have we got to chat about?”  Messiah asked, still watching the intriguing man on the sofa.

Nazia rolled her eyes: “Oh I think we have a lot to talk about, don’t you?”

“Just the two of us?” he clarified.

She glanced over her shoulder at her colleagues.  “Just the two of us,” she confirmed.

“Let’s get this over with then,” he said.  “The sooner I listen to your shit, the sooner you can leave!”

+     +     +

Looking back, the ten years had passed quickly.  Living through them though, they had dragged.  In those first few months, every day had been lived on the edge, moving from place to place, shifting funds to avoid them being traced, anxiously trying to stay one-step ahead of any pursuers.  After a while, the first strokes of confidence had begun to soothe his nerves and he had come to the asteroid, to start work in establishing his base.  The Noche power-horse had provided the energy, topping up from nearby stars when needed, and for the best part of a full Earth year the droids and printers had laboured on his blueprint.  By the time it was nearing completion, those soothing strokes had turned into a calm belief that his location was unknown.  He had gotten away with it.  Soon after, other things had started to slip into place, a new life, a new routine, new deals, new sources of income.  It became steady, it became safe, but by god, the almost entirely solitary existence had been slow.

As each day ticked by, he had regularly found himself looking back on what he had once had.  Sometimes he did so with sorrow, sometimes frustration, but never any sense of guilt.  He was sad that he had been compelled to act as he had and angry that his own past decisions had contributed to the mess he had ultimately fled.  Sad, too, that many of the gang members would have undoubtedly suffered as a result.  There was no guilt though; he refused to believe he had done wrong.  His liberation of the ill-gotten gains was not stealing; he had simply taken from the others what was not rightly theirs in the first place.  Deceit, he could go with, treachery, yeah, but you could not steal something that was never owned.  And those who suffered?  Ultimately, he had reconciled that they had probably deserved it.

But ten years was a long time, a span in which people usually aged.  He had himself, but not Nazia.  Enhancements may have helped her along the way, but she was working with strong natural attributes.  She was tall, slim, athletic, with those long limbs always on display.  Whilst not black like Messiah, her skin was an attractive dark tan.  Of the many tattoos that adorned her body, the most obvious was the serpent wound around one leg, with its fanged mouth striking out on her calf.  There was an impressive eagle across her chest too, which peered between the laces of her top.  Her style of dress, best described as minimalist, had always been a huge part in her appeal – she positively oozed sexiness - and her style had not changed in the intervening decade.  Tiny shorts cut into her thighs just a couple of inches below her crotch and when viewed from behind, the bottom of her backside squeezed out.  The top, cropped at the navel, was little more than two stretched pieces of fabric covering her breasts, held together front and back by a complexity of laces.  There was no denying she looked good, and that annoyed Messiah even more.  It was a completely impractical outfit for space travel, but that was Nazia.  He suspected this particular attire had been deliberately chosen to provoke a reaction in him.  It had done just that, but perhaps not the one she might have hoped for.  The way she looked was making him seethe.

She was a manipulative bitch.  Everything was a game, others just toys for her to play.  Taking him away from her associates was just such a game, designed to give Messiah the impression she was in charge.  Messiah was not falling for it.  The leader of the group was obvious and as they moved away from the sofas, the white-haired man opened his eyes and sat up to watch.

They crossed to another bank of stools identical to the one Messiah had just vacated.  Again, he perched, and she did likewise.  The gun was straight back on his lap, his fingers on the trigger.  His former lover was always one for the surprise move, he could not let his guard slip.  She just rested there, though, looking at him, her eyes examining every inch of his face.  Her stare was incredibly seductive and that annoyed him further.  The others were behind her, he could see them over her shoulder.  They watched on in silence: the Fatboy, the junkie, and the one to be wary of.

“Do you still take?”  Messiah eventually asked.

“Take what?”  It was a nonchalant reply.

“You know what.  Clam, Brick, Rum, whatever takes your fancy?  Are you still putting that shit into your blood?”

“My own business,” she shrugged, “nothing to do with you, is it?”

Making that a question betrayed a weakness in her reply and there was no flirt either.  This was a calm, reflective Nazia, and she wanted to know if he cared.  It was a version which rarely surfaced, and she drew him in.  Perhaps she did want to talk after all.

“No,” he admitted, “I guess not.”

“You don’t care either, do you?”

She was searching, testing, seeing if the water he carried was tepid or ice cold.

“Nope,” came the chilly reply.

She sucked in air through pursed lips and averted her gaze, staring at the stairwell several metres beyond him.  Her indifference had slipped; he had dented her with his hostile response.   Or, perhaps, that was just what she wanted him to think.  He had been around this house several times before.

“It hurt, y’know,” she said.

“Don’t give me that!”

“No, it honestly did.  After the anger faded, it actually hurt.”

“Not as much as it did those kids…”

Messiah left that hanging and she offered nothing back beyond an uneasy silence.  That was a low hit, a dirty hit, but it was justified.  It was hard to feel any sympathy for this woman, no matter how good her acting.  He was not going to discuss his sudden departure without reference to the terrible incident that had helped to push him over the edge.  If she was going to play out the past, then he was not going to let her edit the highlights, she had to face it all.

“If I could take that back,” she mused.

“Ha, as if!” he swiped.  “Is that what all child killers say?  Do not give me the fake tears!”

It was all gameplay.  She could avert her eyes like some upset little girl, but he was not buying it.

“Whatever the reasons,” she said, “I still did not want you to go.  Sure, I was furious at first and if I could have got to you in those first few weeks, you would be a dead man.  They blamed me for it too, blamed me for what you had done, but then you probably expected they would.  They beat me badly, tortured me, worse.  There were times I was sure I wasn’t going to come out the other side, but eventually one or two of them accepted that I had known nothing of your plans, and they encouraged the others to back off.  My days with Cyrus were over, though.  My reputation, my livelihood, my place alongside the best… all gone.  I was as good as banished.  Cyrus made it clear I was to go nowhere near…”

“That probably saved your life.”

“Yeah, ironically, it probably did.”

“And the rest?” asked Messiah.

“From what I heard most went down in the raid.  A few were on jobs when the Union attacked, but not many.  Most of the big hitters fell.  Those left either formed their own crews or went to join smaller gangs.”

“It’s a safer galaxy without them.”

“Huh,” she scoffed, “really?”

Behind her shoulder, only Fatboy remained on the sofas, the other two now mulling around.  Her drugged up boyfriend was sauntering aimlessly back and forth with no real purpose, but the white-haired man stood examining a bank of equipment.  There was something unnervingly familiar about this stranger, something in the way he stood and his profile.  Had Messiah met him before?  He wanted a good look at his face but Nazia was commanding too much focus.  He managed a few nervous glances at the stranger, but even with the gun still resting on his lap, he dared not let his attention wander too far from his former lover.

“You think it’s any safer out there now?” Nazia laughed.  “Seriously, Mess, you have been far too isolated in these dark sectors.  Hab Cyrus made the galaxy stable.  His influence and power kept things in balance.  The loss of his network left power vacuums all over the place, in so many systems.  Those holes have been filled by unruly gangs and despots.  Entire sectors now live in the grip of anarchy and fear.  And worse, much worse, these new groups are often aligned with the Union.  Criminal fraternities masquerading as political parties, gang masters hiding behind the masks of senators.  The Union have it all their own way now.  So long as the hoods keep paying their dues and keep the dissidents in line, Chilake does not care.  Hab Cyrus lived by a code, and he died by that same code.  This new breed, they have no code, no rules, no… ethics.”

“Honour amongst thieves?”  Messiah mocked.  “Listen to yourself.”

“The galaxy is on the brink of chaos,” she ignored his cynicism.  “These gangs are getting more powerful, controlling more planets, spreading across systems.  Chilake thinks he’s got his hands full with the Kamdo but he fails to see the troubles brewing in his own back yard.  Fingers are pointing at the Kamdo over the assassination attempt, but there are many rumours out there, and many other places they should be looking.  It’s easy to focus beyond Hadrian’s Gate, but the culprits are much closer to home.”

A lot of what he was hearing resonated.  The vitriolic speeches from Chilake in recent days would certainly lead to a more volatile galaxy.  McGann’s escape had served as a trigger, and a convenient blame tool, but tensions ran much deeper than one fugitive.  Reports were circulating of escalating conflict with the Kamdo and high casualties on both sides.  The heroes of Cyrus’s annihilation had suffered humiliation at Eropidous, with Commander Meyer now in charge of a stricken battlecruiser.  Cholewinska, Cyrus’s vanquisher, was rumoured to be amongst the dead.  Major offensives were underway, with Eropidous now occupied and the Kamdo home world on lockdown.

If Messiah had needed a reminder who he had tucked away on the upper deck, then this talk of the Union provided just that.  In truth, though, Kayla had not left his thoughts since being woken by these unwanted visitors. Whatever was going on in other parts of the galaxy was of little concern right now, when all he wanted was these home invaders gone and his guest safe.

“That’s all very interesting,” he said, “but I have no desire to hear how the mass murderer Hab Cyrus was good for the galaxy or to have a chat about intergalactic politics.  I just want to know why you are here and how I get rid of you.”

Nazia took a slow, deep, deliberate breath.  She glanced over her shoulder to her colleagues, the older man meeting her gaze.  When she turned back, any attempt at charm had fallen away.  Messiah had seen every face this woman had to show and this one was her most severe.  Those easy, exotic features often disarmed, and others might have been distracted by her attractive, elegant face.  It was too easy to be drawn by that long, sculptured nose, the unusually large, makeup accentuated eyes or the small but stunning ruby implanted into the centre of her forehead.  At her best, Nazia was a vibrant, exhilarating, tantalising woman, full of mystique, full of excitement.  But he knew her too well, and he knew how dangerous she was.  Messiah had fallen for her charms too many times to fall again.

“I’m here to trade,” she said, coldly.

“Trade?” he repeated.

“That is what you do, isn’t it?” she snarled.

Yes, for the whole of his adult life, that was exactly what he had done.  Legitimately to begin with, but then lucrative counterfeits had crept in, then drugs, and finally he had graduated to weapons. It was his chosen crime; the vice he was good at.  He had the networks, the ability to clinch a deal, and once he had even held an unquestionable integrity amongst the underworlds.  It was those undoubted attributes that had made him an asset to Hab Cyrus in the first place and led to his introduction to Nazia.

“I do not trade anymore,” it was a feeble lie, “I have nothing to trade.”

Her smirk carried no warmth, only a bitter hostility.

“Those statements hold very different meanings, Mess, darling,” she challenged.  “Have you ceased trading, or have you nothing with which to trade?”

He went to speak, to further the lie, but a finger to her lips silenced him.

“I don’t believe you either way,” she sighed, “so do not insult my intelligence…”

“No,” he denied, shaking his head.  How could she be so certain?

“…You are the ‘Master of Transactions’, the best trader I’ve ever known, and you know nothing else.  Do not try to deny it, you are still in the game, so let’s talk about making that trade...”

Inside, he was sinking fast.  His desperate hope that this visit was just chance was evaporating.  She had come with a purpose and it was impossible to see how that could be good.  Something was afoot, something sinister, he could feel it.  This was all a game, this talk of a trade, what was he missing?  Again, the man with the white hair caught his attention, and every time he did, Messiah felt another step closer to defeat.  Turn after turn, another pawn was slipping off the board.  The feeling in the air, the look in Nazia’s eyes, the unnerving familiarity of the silent stranger… Messiah felt sick.

“Well?” she challenged, standing, moving in close, his memories intimidating.

“Well, Mess, what do you have to trade?  What do you sell to the Kamdo?  I am guessing it breaks embargos; there is no fun in selling medicine or farm machinery!  You are probably breaking galactic laws too, let alone the embargoes.  Narcotics?  You throw scorn on users but would happily make money from their addictions.  Weapons, maybe?  Is that it?  Is Messiah Ainge gun-running to the Kamdo?”

Now there was barely an inch between his knees and her thighs.  She swamped him with her over-whelming presence, imposing her body, intimidating with her words.  Her power, every kilowatt of her sexual energy, sapped him of the will to resist.

“How do you know?” he gasped, unable to lift his gaze from her naval.  The times he had laid there, every one of her breaths rushing through him as the vigour of their lovemaking simmered.

“Caught on camera, my darling,” she said, “caught on camera.”

He was confused, what did she mean?  What camera?  Where?  Then the horror hit home; those grainy stills from Petang.

“You stole so much,” she tormented.  “You syphoned tens of millions, maybe pushing up towards a hundred million, Hab claimed, but he was prone to exaggeration.  But how much did you take from Cyrus?  How much from Montefort?  From Red?  And what about Xi Cha, how much did you take from her?”

Unseen, Messiah’s focus entirely on his former lover, the white-haired man had edged closer.  Now, stood at the counter behind Nazia, the stranger’s face suddenly came into view. Except he was not a stranger, was he? That face, now seen up close, was so familiar.

“I can answer that last one,” the man said, “to the exact shilling if necessary.”

“Who are you…?” Messiah managed to mouth.

“How much?” Nazia taunted.  “How much did Xi Cha lose?”

“We will not bother with the change,” white hair said, “we will just call it a round thirteen million…”

Then Messiah saw it.  In that moment, he saw it.  Perhaps it was in the way the man formed his words, the shape of the mouth, the movement of that lower jaw, whatever, but he suddenly saw it. It was a slap of recognition, a hard slap.  These were familiar features, presented in an unfamiliar form.

“Xi…” Messiah gasped.

“Yeah,” smirked Nazia, “confusing, isn’t it? She tells me off for calling him a she.  Damn, I’ve just gone and done it again!”

They were both laughing now, laughing at their host’s stunned expression.

“Two years,” Xi Cha chuckled, “two years and you still can’t get it right!”

“Xi…” Messiah gasped again, barely able to draw breath.  For so long he had battled the fear that one of the gangs would track him down.  Eventually, the safety blanket of time had covered those fears, containing the anxieties, allowing him to live day to day without a constant sense of dread.  Now, that blanket was ripped away, and the panic erupted from beneath.  He was discovered.  Nazia had betrayed him, in much the same way he had betrayed her, and she had brought one of the gang-master’s to his hideout.  The man with the white hair may have taken on a different sex, but it was unmistakably Xi Cha.

“It’s time for you to pay me back,” the criminal overlord grinned.

“Don’t worry,” Nazia smirked, “it’s an easy trade.”

She was even closer now, her thighs resting on Messiah’s knees, her scent overpowering, alluring, hypnotic.  Her hand was in his lap, her fingers wrapping around the gun.  Gently, she eased it from his grasp.

“His thirteen million,” she whispered, “for Kayla McGann.”

Chapter Five

The corner of the room, afraid and alone.  Trapped, with no way to escape.  They were coming for her, of that, she was sure.  She knew what to do when they did come.  It would not be easy, and it would be the last resort.

Across the bedroom, the screen continued to play the scenes from below.  She watched on, already beyond the point at which the images could distress her any further.  This was frightened Kayla.  This was cornered Kayla.  This was the Kayla capable of anything.

As she sat, knees tucked up to her chin, she rocked.  Twice, she had butted the wall.  The first time, frustrated, it had been half-hearted.  Annoyance had pushed her to that point, but not to the point of full committal.  The second time, however, the intention had been to hurt herself and she had been successful.  More smacks had threatened to follow, but the pain had knocked some sense into her, albeit short-lived.  The longer she was forced to wait like this, the longer she felt imprisoned, the more the need to self-destruct grew.

She would not return to before.

She would not return to captivity.

She would not return to the showers.

Head throbbing, slowly rocking, Kayla McGann sat in the corner.  She knew what she had to do when the time came.  It would not be easy, but she knew.

+     +     +

“It’s not quite colata,” he said, offering the spoon, “but hopefully it hits the spot.”

The spoon was hot, the soup even hotter, but she sipped at it, immediately recognising the sweet taste.

“Pumpkin,” she smiled.

“Well, the essence of, yeah.  No pumpkins round these parts but there were plenty of flavourings in that last shipment.”

He was referring to the stolen cargo lifted during a recent raid on a Union storage facility.  Two had died in an unexpected gunfire exchange but no one spoke of that.  Things were starting to escalate.  The authorities, it seemed, were less prepared to sit back and accept the continuous attacks.  All the targets were meant to be low security facilities – get in, destroy communications, disrupt logistics, damage morale – but just recently even the most low-key of bases had stepped up the guard.

“It’s good,” she said, “very good.”

“Some fresh garlic in there,” Jed commented, “there’s not much left but hopefully more cloves will be ready in a week or so.”

His mobile garden, stashed in the rear of the ship, was the butt of many jokes.  The gang were all too happy to share in the produce, though, and the many herbs, bulbs and roots added variety to Luca’s culinary treats.  Besides, jibes were never going to touch this self-assured man.  He had a close friendship with Gomez and that gave him an elevated status in the group, but even without that he would have carried the same confidence.  He was in his early thirties at the time, slightly older than Malcolm, older than nearly the entire group, and he held a calm authority.  Others wielded power through violence and menace, including their leader, but not Jed, he was different.  His power rested inside his head, in a rounded intelligence that had provided the gang wise council on innumerable occasions.  The wilder, more ambitious, more dangerous missions were often tempered by his timely, sensible interventions.  Whilst the survival of the group undoubtedly owed something to Luca, so too did the reputation it had earned.  Targets, tactics, and media announcements were all his department, and his ability to infiltrate the network and Union communication channels were second to none.

And he was a damn good chef too.

Kayla took another sip.

“Not for sharing, this pot,” he said, “it’s just ours.”

The fifteen-year-old looked at him with wide eyes.  There was an innocence in there still, but it was tainted.  She was damaged, even then, and he knew that.  The soup in the pot was enough for four or five, easy, and he could have made more.  This sharing was not about the soup.

“Sure,” she shrugged.

“And for after,” he held up a small clear container.  Inside, a golden syrup slowly slid from one side to the other.

“Aw, you know how to treat a girl,” she beamed, “my favourite.”

“Usual ration…”

“Yeah, yeah, I know.  Nature’s greatest treasure, not enough to go round, etcetera, etcetera.”

“Hey, don’t knock the bees…”

“… always in the advance settlement pods, those heroes…” she mocked, taking on deeper tones.

He almost laughed.  Almost.  There was the first inclinations of a smile under those short-cropped whiskers, but he checked himself and contained the merriment.  She knew it was there though.

“Don’t knock the bees,” she quoted, rolling her eyes.

“You love their honey.”

“I loved colata soup.  Bees are just like colata anyway.”

The frown was so severe it made her laugh.

“Er, no,” he corrected, “bees are nothing like colata.”

“Oh…”

“Not only do they look very different,” he said, “they do a totally different job.  Bees are mostly tiny, typically less than an inch, and yes, they fly, and yes, some species swarm, but they pollinate crops, they don’t destroy them.”

“Oh, I see.  I thought they were much larger.”

“Some planets have genetically modified giant species, some up to a foot in length, so yeah a bit more colata, but those are rare.  Even at that size though, they are still totally different creatures.  One is a beast, the other a thing of beauty.”

Another sip of soup, thoughtful green eyes looking at him over the spoon.  Jed was smitten by this girl, lost in those incredibly haunting orbs.  Many years later, she would stand in a cargo bay peering from beneath bedraggled hair, and those eyes would work their magic on another man too.  Men were so easily enchanted and moved to protect her, even though this was someone who would insist she needed no such protection.

“Show me,” she said.

He looked at her quizzically.

“Show me,” Kayla repeated, tapping his identifier.

“You know it’s dangerous to go on to the network,” he said, “operational necessity only.”

A frown.  She was denied such a device, most of the group were, although a time would come when Malcolm granted her that trust.

“Surely,” she smiled, “me appreciating the value of bees is a necessity?  Otherwise, how am I expected to understand how they differ from colata?  I will only have your word, and the taste of honey… so show me.”

He shook his head: “Someday, you will be the death of me.”

With a tap on the wrist, he powered up the network.

+     +     +

Another time, another part of the galaxy, a man sat in a cell.  There were two others with him, neither of whose company was welcome.  With high doses of Midazolepine running through his blood, the extremities of his mood swings were contained, and he was able to tolerate their presence.  Not that he had a choice.  Only minutes before, screaming and thrashing, they had restrained him to a hard bed.  Now, drugged and calm, the straps had been removed, and he was allowed the comfort of a chair.

The others talked, one of them in particular, and he tried his best to listen.  As the drug settled, it would get easier, but for now the world around was a hazy muddle.  It was days since the last beating; the doctor had insisted the torture stop.

“Are you with me, Mister Luca?” said the croaky, damaged voice of the old woman.

Somewhere, somehow, he must have managed to nod.

“Good,” she continued, “good.  Is Mister Macey with us?  Are you in there, Pike?”

Nothing.  No response.  Even better.

Except Pike was, and the doctor knew that.  She had done her best, worked tirelessly for three days on the restoration, but ultimately the initial rushed job had left broken connections.  He was nearly the whole Jed, but there were still links to Pike lurking, hiding in the dark recesses of the brain.  It was likely he would need Midazolepine for the rest of his life to suppress those shadow memories.

Still, Luca was testament to her work.  Ninety-eight percent success was better than nothing, although she could not hide her frustration at getting so close to perfection.  Damn that fool, Victor, for rushing her and damn those idiots in the Union for starving her research.

Damn them all.

Except for Mister Luca, the wonderful renegade who she was now back alongside.  And whilst ever she could continue to play this game, he offered her the opportunity for far more than just her research.  He offered her a chance at freedom.

The mild burns from the desert were almost healed and now the croak of her voice was the only obvious sign of her ordeal.  In a few hours, this part of Meridian Rise would fall back into a ninety-hour night and the temperatures outside this equatorial base would dip to sensible levels.  Victor would then order recovery of the downed pacer and its lost crew, and the accidental crash would be exposed for the charade it was.  Time was running out.

She needed to get the Midazolepine dosage right, so Luca remained stable.  Without the right equipment, this was trial and error, having to guess exactly how much of the chemical compound was needed to suppress those unaligned neurons in his brain.  Schmidt was getting close though, she nearly had him exactly where she needed him. It was a race against time, but it was one she thought she just might win.

+     +     +

“I want to pay them back too,” she hissed, “there is a lot I owe them.”

“Too young,” came the curt reply from across the room.

Kayla went to protest, but that reassuring hand was there, resting on her own.  A little squeeze prompted her silence.

“Far too young,” Malcolm Gomez underlined.  “You would jeopardise everything.”

There were over fifty in the gang now and it was still growing.  Every system they passed through they seemed to add recruits and in the eighteen months since she had joined, they had established a fierce reputation.  Headlines carried their name - ‘Freedom’ - and the rumour mills, from the criminal underworld, all the way to the higher echelons of governments, speculated as to whom they were.  Propaganda flooded the network, some self-generated by the group, but much of it springing from a growing fan base across the galaxy.  They were becoming a symbol of everything anti-Union, and any dissident group with a gripe against the authority of the Council rallied to Freedom’s anarchical cries.  They were creating noise, and plenty of it.

But in this latest raid, two of the party had died.  The sadness at their loss had quickly turned to anger, and that desire to see the Union bleed now raged even more ferociously.  Just like her comrades, Kayla harboured intense hatred and she desperately wanted to join the fight.  For too long she had skulked in the shadows letting others do the dirty work.  The more faces who did not return, the more determined she grew that it was her time to take up the struggle.

“We need to stay low for a while anyway,” said Luca, his grip on Kayla’s hand discretely slipping away.

“Rubbish!” scoffed another, a recent recruit.  Kayla never got round to learning his name, this man would die a few weeks later.

“We have them on the run,” agreed Malcolm, frowning at Jed, “why would we let up?”

“There was a full company waiting for us this time,” said Luca.  “Somehow, they are a few steps ahead.  Maybe we have become too predictable, our threat too great for them to ignore.  They are flooding the systems with troops, deploying them to potential targets.  We need to disappear.  We need to go quiet for a while and let them forget us.”

Beside him, Kayla was frowning too, only hers was the sulky face of a disgruntled teenager.  Frustrated that Jed had silenced her, he was now at odds with her own desire to take the battle to the Union.  Where had his sudden caution come from?  Had he grown weary?  Had he lost faith in the cause?  Her rebuff from Malcolm still stinging, this child dared not voice her disappointment in her friend.  She did not need to; her expression said it all.

With energy use at a minimum to avoid detection by passing ships, the makeshift base was poorly lit.  Peering through that gloomy interior, Kayla watched Malcolm intently.  In dismissing her words, he had not bothered to look in her direction.  In all her time with this group, she could not recall more than the odd glance coming her way.  Now, though, he suddenly and unexpectedly met her gaze.  This was no casual peek, he fixed on her deliberately, and it was a moment that years later would still sit vividly in her memories.  The frustration at being dismissed did not fade, but it intensified, morphing into something stronger.  Men looked at her all the time, she was used to it, and those looks were often heavy and dominating.  But not Malcolm, not until that moment.  He had dark, mean, cold eyes, but by god, they were powerful.

Ready to explode, she briefly averted, dropping her gaze to the dusty floor.  With intrigue sparking through her body, it did not take her long to be drawn back, finding his eyes still on her.  There was no starry-eyed meeting of hearts - Kayla could never be that sentimental - but there was something incredible in that exchange, something stoked and magnified by the frustration within the young woman. Malcolm eventually turned away, but not before casting her a smirk and a nod.  The top man had finally paid her attention and she was left brimming with teenage excitement.

Someone else noticed that brief exchange too and later, Jed would take Kayla to one side.  He had not intended to cause an argument, but when he raised the subject, the defensive tirades hurled at him were ferocious.  Do not silence her, she screamed at him, do not tell her what to do, or what not to do.  Most of the base heard every word.  Do not try to control what is not his to control, she yelled.  Do not tell her how to think.   And what, she pushed, shifting the subject, had gotten into him?  What was this crazy idea to back off the attacks when they had the Union on the run?  Why the sudden loss of nerve?

Not even his usually infallible soothing manner could find a way to turn down her volume.  In the end, he had no choice but to walk away.  As he left her, seething, he offered one final piece of advice:

“You are still so young,” he said, quietly, calmly.  “The things you have seen, the horrors you have lived through, I cannot pretend there will be much child left in there, but remember you are only fifteen and have so much more to learn.  And I saw that earlier, I saw the way he looked at you and I saw into his mind.  Worse, I can see into yours too.  Be careful with Malcolm.  He is not the god you idolise him to be.  Be careful, or he will burn you alive.”

Those words were a dangerous gamble.  If she played them back at full volume, he would be damned.  As she angrily opened her mouth to protest, he thought his gamble had failed, but something stopped that next onslaught.  She fell silent and her friend walked away.

Two weeks later, Kayla and Malcolm were lovers.

Six weeks later, heavily armed, Kayla joined in her first raid, on Yana-Yana station.  Twenty-one Union troopers and officials would die that day.

Chapter Six

The planet Oregon sat in the remarkable quintuple star system of Sigma Coronae Borealis.  In a galaxy where the unique was increasingly becoming mundane, Oregon still managed to stand out and its distinctive composition had earned it Intergalactic Protected Reserve status.  It was seldom visited, usually only for authorised and carefully considered research projects.  Any prohibited activity on or around the planet carried significant fines, any damage to the delicate environment, imprisonment.  So quite why the gang had chosen such a location, and quite how Messiah had ended up careering across the sea in an out of control and stolen pacer, was beyond him.  He suspected the first bit was something to do with a narcotics deal, and the second bit, well, that would be down to Nazia Jwaran.

The Sea of Oregon covered the entire surface of this unusual world.  It was also the least watery sea Messiah had ever seen.  Different planets had different ideas on what water should be, much of it the consistency of glue and lethal to drink.  This sea though, had little liquid content and was in fact a smooth surface crust.  Viewed from space, the blue glow, and white, wave like bands that criss-crossed the surface gave the impression of huge oceans.  Any visitor, as rare as they were, descending through the light cloud cover would soon observe these oceans never moved, and the impression of water quickly gave way to a wondrous eggshell like surface.  From five thousand feet, the amazing realisation that the planet’s surface was almost perfectly smooth would hit home.  On touchdown, for the very few who had ever stood on this sea, there would be nothing but utter astonishment.  These glorious blue plains really did take the breath away.

Although in Messiah’s case, his loss of breath was a result of the punch delivered to his ribs only seconds before.  His assailant came at him again, but somehow, he managed to dodge and slap down on the autopilot.  It was just in time.  A second later and the out-of-control vessel would have crashed through that smooth but ridiculously thin surface and into the destructive gases below.

As the autopilot took the helm, the sudden shift in direction threw everything and everyone not bolted down across the flight deck.  Fortune favoured Messiah.  He crashed into the roof of the ship, a heavy impact, but safe.  His opponent was not so lucky, bouncing away, his head striking a protruding console.  Although still conscious, the impact clearly dazed, and provided Messiah the opportunity to kick out.  The soul of his boot struck the man square in the mouth, the lips and gum exploding, dislodging an incisor.  As the vessel righted itself, and gravity grabbed hold, and the tooth, and both men, fell back to the deck.  Messiah lay there, breath gone, knowing he had to be the first up.  Any hesitation would be costly.  Gasping, he desperately tried to pull oxygen into his lungs, but as much as he told his body to move, it refused.

The pacer continued to jerk violently, careering over the plains, the autopilot struggling to calm the confused navigation system.  This escapade had turned into one hell of a debacle.  Messiah only hoped his partner had a better plan right now than he did.

Towards the rear of the pacer, Nazia Jwaran had finally managed to free herself.  Moving quickly, bouncing off the seats and fuselage, she got to the two men. Seemingly all set to launch herself on Messiah’s attacker, she suddenly checked and stood back.  Confused, Messiah screamed above the roar of the engines, urging her to take him down.  Then, through his tears, he saw there was no need, the man was already out cold.

“Secure him… lock…” Messiah gasped, pointing vigorously with one hand whilst his other clambered at his throat, trying to loosen the protective gear and ease his breathing.

She was already one-step ahead. With her biceps bulging, she hauled the unconscious man on to his front.  Seconds later and the compression gel lock from her belt was fastened around his wrists, clamping them tight.

“Quite a kick you gave him,” she said, “I didn’t know you had it in you.”

“It was a lucky shot,” he panted.

“Yeah, I’d figured.”

He did not share her natural disposition to violence, and they both knew it.

Bent double, Messiah pulled himself into the co-pilot’s chair.  Outside, the blue horizon rocked from side to side.  Panic rising, the console intimidated, but now in a stable seat he managed to take stock.  What next?  What next?

From the rear of the cabin, there were three dull thuds.  “Leave him alone!” he called, instinctively knowing exactly what was going on back there.  The shout left him breathless again.  Gasping, he thumped at one of the armrests in frustration.

“We don’t want him waking up,” Nazia said, nursing her sore fist.

“Unnecessary!” Messiah croaked.

There was no time for this nonsense and no time for this conversation.  Events were moving ridiculously fast.  So too was the pacer, the thin, volatile crust only feet below.  The autopilot was still struggling.  He quickly lowered the velocity, hoping the pilot would hold on to the altitude.  As he dropped the pacer below fifty metres per second, the flight computer seemed to wake up to the predicament, the calculations now within its damaged capabilities.  Moments later the horizon, where the brilliant blue met with the grey sky, was level.  If there had been enough air in his body, he would have breathed a sigh of relief.  Instead, he just flopped back into the seat.

“We need to go back,” Nazia said, dropping into the pilot’s chair.  “That shit is far too valuable to walk away from, Union or no Union.”

“We need to go back for them,” Messiah panted, “fuck the cargo.”

She leant over him, her long legs hooked gymnastically under the console to provide the counter balance.  Her face only inches from his, she blew, then slid back, laughing.

“Some breath for you,” she chuckled, clearly pleased with her little joke.

He did not laugh with her.  Someone had to concentrate.  He was carefully turning the pacer, trying to steer them back to the pick-up point, now many miles away.

“You’re right,” Nazia sighed, reluctantly, “we go back for them too.  No heroes though.  Oh sorry, I forgot I was talking to you.”

Another laugh, again, not reciprocated.  The woman drove him mad when she was like this.  It was less the mocking, although that took its toll, and more her lack of focus.

“But there is fifty kilos of brick back there, we cannot afford to let it go.  How long until we get back to them?”

Messiah checked:  “Three minutes.”

The deal was almost complete when the two pacers had turned up.  Merchandise inspected, bank credentials cleared, encryption secure, all ready to hit the big green ‘go’ button.  Then, suddenly, the two Union craft came into view, heading straight towards the small caravan.  Their own gang of four, and the four from the Maperbank’s gang, did not initially know how to respond.  Someone shouted, “Hide the goods!  Act like tourists!”  A ludicrous suggestion, given the location, but it prompted action.  The cooled containers were quickly back inside the fake fuel tanks on one of the Maperbank hoppers.  Tunics were pulled loose to conceal any bulging side arms, even a hat was produced, to protect against the very modest Oregon suns.

For a while, the charade seemed to be working.  The pacers pulled up and ramps descended, gently kissing the planet’s delicate surface.  Moments later, two Union troopers emerged from one of the ships.  Pacers generally carried between two to four, which meant a maximum compliment of eight.

“Hey!” one of the troopers called.  “Restricted area!  You must be insane being down here, do you not realise how dangerous this place is?”

There was a nervous pause amongst the caravan.  Di Marious, the lead negotiator with the Maperbanks, now took the lead for the group.

“Restricted?” he shouted back, feigning surprise.  “Restricted from what?  We’ve been careful!” Although only forty metres away, sound died quickly in this thin atmosphere.  The small breathing masks did not help, muffling the words.

“Look,” he added, gesturing to their collection of vehicles, “our ships are all hovering, we have kept the weight off the surface.”

“Not the point!” the trooper shouted back.  “This is a restricted planet, what the hell are you doing here?”

“One of the wonders of the galaxy!” Di Marious was good at this; he was good at many things.  He gingerly took a few steps towards the advancing officials, the ground creaking beneath.

Nazia slowly moved towards Messiah.  They were the only ones in the group not packing a firearm.  He rarely carried and her outfit provided nowhere to conceal.  As she shuffled, she took the attention of both troopers, their eyes drawn to her slender body.  It was not clear if this was an intentional distraction or not, or quite why one of the Maperbank gang chose that moment to draw his gun.  Whatever the reason, suddenly all hell broke loose.

The two troopers went down quickly, laser fire easily cutting through their light-duty uniforms.  As the larger of the troopers hit the blue ground, he did so heavily, a crack appearing in the surface.

The ramp of the second pacer quickly descended as gunfire erupted from the hatch of the first.  Seeing that, Nazia dashed past Messiah, presumably heading for cover.  Instinctively, trusting her better judgement in dangerous situations, he went with her.  The ground moaned under their boots.  Not far away, the body of the fallen Union soldiers served as a reminder just how volatile the Sea of Oregon was.  From the crack, a white vapour seeped.  Where it touched their uniforms, the fabric, despite heat resistance in the fibres, ignited.

Union soldiers from both pacers were now fully engaged, laser fire criss-crossing the caravan of small crafts.  These were precision weapons, no one foolish enough to discharge anything heavier on this planet.

As the deadly discharges reigned down, Messiah’s inability to keep up with his faster lover briefly left him stranded in no man’s land.  A split second decision had to be made.  Turn away from the fire and try to get back to the caravan, or seek cover under one of the pacers?  Both havens were equidistant.  Going towards the Union crafts seemed counter-intuitive, but the troopers had not managed to descend the ramp, pinned back, discharging their weapons from the shadows.  He judged they could not see him, and running towards the side of their ship would narrow the angles, minimising their opportunities to pick him off.  Running back to the caravan, on the other hand, would leave him exposed.  He shook off the inertia, sprinting toward the pacer.

Seconds later, he was glued to the side of the Union vessel, trying to take stock.  It looked like a stalemate.  After a couple of minutes of gun salvos, both sides seemed to realise it was futile and the shots fell away.  With one group safe inside the pacers, and the others hidden behind the drug smuggler’s ships, neither was able to gain an advantage.  The two corpses sat smouldering ominously in the middle.  In several places, laser fire had scorched the earth, releasing wisps of deadly gases from below.  The fissures did not stay open for long, the pressure in the crust quickly closing them, returning the surface to its pristine blue glaze.

Messiah lifted his small oxygen mask to wipe away sweat.  As he replaced it, he was surprised by a tap on the arm.  He jumped, and almost called out, likely to have been a fatal mistake this close to the pacer’s ramp.  It was Nazia, of course.  Faced with a similar dilemma to him, she had made the same choice.  Now, both were hopelessly pinned down.

“Let’s hope they don’t leave without us,” she whispered.

“Di Marious would never do that,” Messiah re-assured.

“Don’t count on it,” she said, “when the chips are down, we all look after our own skins first.”

She peered around him, looking along the length of the ship.  The ramp was only six feet away.

“What now?” she asked.  In the silence, even her hushed tones seemed foolishly loud.  He shrugged his reply.

“Over to me then,” she sighed, and then she was past him, her body rolling over his as she moved along the pacer hull.  There was no chance to stop her, out of reach before he even realised what was happening.

At the edge of the ramp, she paused, pushing as flat against the ship as possible.  If the cold surface bit at her skin, she did not show it.  Listening carefully, she weighed up the height and angle of the slope, clenching and unclenching her fists, preparing for what was to come.

The shuffling sounds from inside told her all she felt she needed to know.  A huge gamble but calculated and boosted by her insatiable confidence.  Suddenly and with that audacious arrogance brimming, she hoisted herself on to the ramp, dropping straight into a crouching position.  A split second later, those long powerful legs gracefully propelled her forward at an incredible speed.  A planetary sprint champion, she often boasted, a questionable claim, perhaps, but the power in her legs gave it a smack of plausibility.  Inside the pacer, a commotion ensued.  A raised male voice, a loud grunt, clatters and bangs.

Another split second decision fell on Messiah’s shoulders.  Across the plain, he saw movement behind the caravan, presumably triggered by the sounds from aboard this pacer.  A head popped up and discharged fire in the pacer’s general direction, followed closely by two more shots that bounced off the hull not far from where Messiah stood.  In this ridiculously exposed position, he had to act quick, there really was not much choice.

His heart in his mouth, he shuffled across to the ramp and followed his lover into the pacer’s interior.

+     +     +

“Three minutes?” she checked.  “We can’t have been gone that long?”

“Seems so,” he replied, “he must have knocked out the flight stabilisers when he clattered into the controls, triggering the computer into overdrive, that’s what fired the ship into the heavens!  We were lucky.”

That explained how she had ended up in a heap at the rear of the cabin, her legs caught up in a harness.  It was also how Messiah had first met with the Union trooper, a violent embrace in mid-air, from which Messiah had somehow emerged the victor.

“Could all be over by now,” she said, frustrated, “they could have gone.”  It sounded like an accusation, like he was in some way to blame.

“We’ve got to go back and see,” he said.

“For the merchandise.”

“For the others.”

Nazia frowned.

“Where are the weapon controls?”  Her long fingers tapped at the console, seeing what she could turn up.

“Stop that!” he snapped.  “Enough!  Leave the flying to me.  You don’t need the weapons.”

“We always need weapons,” she said, “and this baby has two cannons at the front.  Can we get the others on comms?  Try to raise them?  If no answer, we go in guns blazing.”

“And blow a hole in the crust?  Are you crazy?” Messiah frowned.  “A cannon will cause a massive rupture and we’ll get caught in the explosion, burned up, blown apart.”

He studied the panels, unable to find what he was looking for.  When he eventually did, he held back, turning to his partner.

“If we activate the comms channel, we likely alert others, the second pacer for sure, but probably also patrol vessels up above.  We could be crawling with the Union in no time…”

“If the patrol was not alone, the others will have already been notified and be on their way,” she pointed out.  “Soon as the first trooper was shot, the mayday balloon would have gone up.  Comms or no comms, we are almost certainly already being tracked.”

This time when she leaned across, he did not try to stop her.  She brought up the relevant display and sure enough this pacer’s tracker beacon was flashing.  There was little human presence in this system, let alone the Union, but the beacon was guaranteed to bring them running.  They were in this up to their necks.  The entire caravan would be targeted, long range sensors alert to any movements.  With Union forces undoubtedly closing in, how the hell were they going to get out of this?

“Can we turn it off?” he asked.

“Disappear from the grid?” pondered Nazia.  “I don’t know.  Probably not without security codes.”

She analysed the display, pulling up the overrides menu.  With a regretful frown, she shook her head.

“Why did the Maperbank idiot open fire?” Messiah cursed.  “He didn’t need to do that!”

“Pointless what-ifs.  They would have wanted credentials at some point, and they would have checked the registration of our ships.  Things were bound to escalate.  The Maperbanks just grabbed the ‘initiative’.”

“Some initiative!”

“Stop it!” she hollered, her anger reverberating around the small cabin.  “We need solutions!  You are a fixer, Mess, you fix problems!  Fix this one!”

Unsteady hands went to his brow, nervously toying with his shaven hairline.  He saw no positive outcomes to this; arrest or worse was inevitable.  With two dead Union soldiers, they would not be treated leniently.  Risky situations were an occupational hazard and he accepted those with grace, but this was beyond risky, this was hopeless.  They could not even run.  As long as they showed on the grid, the Union would have no trouble tracking them.  Pacer’s were fast and could interstellar jump, but the tracking would just jump with them.

Two and a bit minutes until they were back at the caravan; he felt he needed longer to work this one out, but time was not on their side.

Hands rolled down over his eyes, meeting with the strap of the oxygen mask.  The mask itself hung around his neck, dislodged in the scuffle.  It was not needed in here, where the ships air purification system did the job.  Oregon did have a breathable atmosphere, but oxygen levels were low.  It would have been a habitable world if not for the bizarre crust and the dangerous gases that lurked beneath.  Incredibly thin considering the pressures it held at bay, pressures that were only too ready to erupt and engulf anything that cracked the surface. Did he have an idea formulating?  It was a long shot.

“You know the trooper you just put out cold?” he asked.

“Yeah,” excited anticipation written in the word.

“Well you’ve about two minutes to wake him up, want to give it a go?”

+     +     +

You think you know someone.  You spend a large chunk of life with them, years, decades, learning their quirks, their strengths, even, perhaps, their dark sides.  Yet, there is always the capacity to surprise.  It does not matter how entwined you are, how connected your souls, there remains that ability to shock.

That day, Nazia would reveal just how black her heart could be.  It would not be the last time.

The plan, he thought, was decent considering the limited options open to them.  It had some small chance of success and they had no choice but to take the gamble.  Gliding in low behind the caravan, hoping the drug dealer’s vessels concealed their approach from the other Union ship.  Messiah had lowered the ramp of the speeding pacer so it was only inches from the volatile crust.  A risky manoeuvre riddled with disastrous possibilities.  Messiah was a good pilot and the pacer notoriously easy to fly, but one minor misjudgement and the ramp could clip the ground and tear open a destructive fissure.  This was all down to his skill and nerve, the autopilot, which would have refused to carry out such a movement, disabled.

Their unexpected departure a few minutes before had not broken the standoff.  The remaining pacer crew were keeping the smugglers pinned down.  Two bodies, partially burnt, lay by the now self-sealed gaseous leak.  The others from their own gang and the Maperbanks remained huddled behind the hulls of their vessels, unable to board for fear of a sniper’s bolt.  It would take something audacious to break this deadlock, something hurling towards them at breakneck speeds.

As ambitious as Messiah’s plan, however, Nazia had taken it, twisted it, and made it even more outrageous.  His idea had been for the pacer to pull behind the caravan and come to a suitable safe hover.  That, she argued, would put them in harm’s way.  Her alternative?  They slowed but kept moving, ready to accelerate quickly should they need to.  There was merit in not stopping, of course there was, especially when other Union forces could be nearby.  What drew far less merit though was the crazy idea she would somehow get the others on board whilst Messiah performed the fly-bys.  She had taken up a position dangling from the back of the craft, a harness clipped to her waistband and an oxygen mask in place.  Of all the insane ideas she would ever have, this one was up there with the best.

“The merchandise first!”  she screamed at Messiah as they slowed for the first pass.  The sound of the air brakes and whoosh of the ground beneath nearly drowned her out.

“They know!” he hollered back.  “I’ve told them!”

What he had not told her was that the Maperbanks had insisted two of their own brought the canisters aboard but it came as no surprise when they peeled away from the caravan carrying the drugs; she would have not let the merchandise out of her sight either.  The ship’s velocity was now at only a few knots, their run was well timed and at an angle to intercept the pacer.  Heavily booted, their feet slammed into the blue ground, kicking up worrying clouds of dust.  Each of them carried a canister, tucked under one arm.  Heavy under normal circumstances let alone when running, the loads undoubtedly impeded them.

“Slower!” Nazia shouted.  “You need to go slower!”

Messiah cranked it down another notch, dropping to just five knots.  Any lower and he worried he would destabilise the flight.  It was like slowing on a bike, eventually it would become impossible to balance and this close to the ground, there was no room for error.

From the ramp, Nazia watched the staggering jaunt of the two men.  Their angle was converging with the pacer, but it was taking them away from the cover of the caravan.  Sure enough, with about thirty yards until they reached the pacer, Union laser fire erupted.  Now much further away, they did not make for easy targets, the first bolts missing by some distance.

“Weave!” she bellowed, unsure if they would hear.  “Weave!”

The one closest seemed to pick up on her suggestion, his lurching becoming more emphasised, his footfalls bolder.  Grimacing, the burden of the canister taking its toll, his legs were heavy and the dust kicks larger, but he kept on going.

“Good man,” Nazia mumbled too low for him to hear, “come on, you can do this.”

The laser fire was intensifying and getting closer.  A bolt glanced off the side of the pacer, prompting Nazia to momentarily cower.

“Be ready on the accelerator!” she screamed at Messiah.

Then she was reaching out to the running man, beckoning him on, encouraging those final few steps.  He looked like he was going to run out of steam at any moment, the cylinder dangerously close to slipping.

“Pass it to me!” she screamed at him.  “Pass it to me!”

The exhausted man, his feet pounding, desperate to keep level with the ramp.  He plucked the canister from beneath his arm, almost lost his footing, regained his balance and held it out as best he could.  The harness securing her to the ramp took the strain as she stretched and grabbed it.  Wrenching if from his grip, the weight almost caused her to drop it, before she mustered the strength to hurl it backwards, into the pacer’s interior.  Robust and airtight, the canister bounced over the rear seats, coming to rest against the slumped figure of the bound Union guard.  His consciousness back, he let out an unheard groan at the impact.

Nazia returned her attention to the Maperbank, who was moving more freely with his arms unhindered.  He was a powerful build and would take some hauling aboard but she did not hesitate in holding out her hand.

Then, suddenly, everything changed.  Then, in that moment, Messiah saw the real Nazia.  He would never know if she changed her mind in that second, on an impulse, or if it had always been her intention.  Had she gone along with his plan until that point, and then, a moment of madness, and it all unwound?   Had something sprang into Nazia’s mind?  Had she glimpsed a way to change this to her own personal gain?  Sod the others, sod the Maperbanks, sod the deal.  Whatever triggered in her, it was decisive and cold.  There had been glimpses of the demon before, but this was the time, this was the place, this was the deed that really brought it home to Messiah.  She was one callous monster.

The Maperbank had taken her hand and she was pulling with all her might.  An act, she would soon reveal, designed to create that false sense of security.  He had managed to find the strapping with his other arm and started to hoist himself up, those tired legs now off the ground.  One knee had managed to get on to the ramp, but the other hung loose.  He was nearly there though, nearly safe.

Over his shoulder, his colleague was closing, ten yards to go.  The struggle on his face was immense, his stagger that of someone at the very edge of endurance.  Laser fire still came, scorching the ground in places, but mostly just disappearing into the distance.  One charge, though, would find this second runner.  Nazia would later swear she had seen the trace of the charge heading straight for him, although that was impossible.  It would be part of her story, part of her explanation, part of justifying the unjustifiable.

The bolt clipped his heel, only just, but enough to blow a hole in his boot.  That sent him tumbling.  His foot unable to hold his weight, he fell forward, face striking the ramp.  Desperately his arms grabbed at anything, dropping the canister.  It bounced once on the edge of the ramp and then away, striking the blue crust surface, a crack immediately appearing.  A deadly fog of white vapours erupted from the crack, engulfing the narcotics.  In the distance, the on-looking criminal fraternity threw their arms up in the air in dismay.

Nazia was angry at the loss of merchandise.  She had seen the tumble coming, saw the second runner grab the bottom of the ramp, and watched a million dollars bounce away.  There was no way he was going to hold on to the ramp for long, his grip woeful, but she fully intended to help him on his way.

The first man’s grip was tightening and she felt increasing pressure on her arm and his urgency to get aboard grew.  The face looking up at hers was full of determination, full of hope, but then he must have seen something change in her expression. A frozen moment, a sudden panic sweeping over him, his eyes wide and pleading.  Brutally, she shook her hand free, leaving him to the forces of motion that engulfed the pacer.  She watched dispassionately as his face wrapped itself in terror.  He flew backwards, his grip on the straps never strong enough to hold.  There was long enough for his fear to form into a scream, before he collided with the second Maperbank, dislodging him too.  They both tumbled off the ramp, legs and arms going everywhere, heavy bodies striking the blue crust hard.

The surface crumbled beneath, that scream fading as both were sucked into the planet’s hostile interior.  White gas erupted, spewing forth huge clouds dotted with blue shards like a deadly firework display.  The explosion was quick and only yards from the pacer, the rear of the hull bathed in this deadly white smoke.  It expanded rapidly towards the ramp, despite the forward momentum of the craft.

“Hit the power!” Nazia yelled, fearing the cloud was going to reach her.  For a moment it looked like it might do just that, and then the acceleration kicked in and she flopped on to the deck.  She huffed a single note of relief.

“Did you let him go?” Messiah asked, accusingly.  “Did you just fucking let him go!?  Did you kill them!?”

“Get us out of here!” she shouted back.  “This planet is fucked up and we haven’t got much time!  Got to go Mess, got to get us away!”

“What?  No!”

“Go!” she insisted.  “Save our own skins!”

“No!”  Messiah protested.  “You fucking killed them!  This is not what we agreed.  We have to turn back, pick up the others.”

“Go!” she ordered, anger creeping into her voice.  “Go!”

With the gas cloud now disappearing into the distance, she scrambled to her feet, reaching forward to slap at the ramp control.  Hydraulics fired immediately, quickly lifting the ramp back into place.  The satisfying sound of the pressure seal filled the cabin.  Ripping off the oxygen mask, she turned furiously:

“Are you ignoring me?”

With his back to her, he could not see the tendons bulging in her neck.  If he had seen that rage, he might have seen what was to come.

Seething at the hatch, she glared at the single canister.  Four would have been better, but one was still lucrative if shared with fewer.  Thirty kilograms of pure Brick.  Cut and mixed, it would turn a million.  Shared between just the two of them with no cash exchanged with the Maperbanks, it was a tidy profit.  First, though, there were loose ends that would need tidying.  Then they could get clean away.  But with her partner incapable of following instructions, she would have to take control.

Messiah had turned the pacer in a wide arc.  In the distance sat the caravan.  The fissures on the smooth blue surface had already closed, the huge cloud of gas dissipating quickly.

“What the hell Naz!?” he called, straining to look over his shoulder.  “What did you do to those guys?  Why have you shut the hatch?”

She ignored his questions, slipping into the co-pilot seat.

“Tidying up,” she said, “we’ve got to get out of here.”

There was a calm to her words, but he saw something beyond it.  A storm was brewing and so was his apprehension as to where these winds might blow.

“What have you done?” he continued to ask in disbelief.  “What the hell have you done?”

“Some say that’s exactly what lays beneath this crust,” she replied coolly, “hell.”  Long fingers were at the controls, pulling up displays, blasé to his accusatory glare.

“What?” he scoffed.  “Idiots, maybe!”

“Yeah, well you might want to ask the Maperbank’s what they make of it down there, it looked pretty hellish to me.”

She was sticking to his flight path, making no attempt to divert away from the caravan.  In a few seconds they would be upon them.  Static in his ear and then a voice burst through, it was Di Marious:

“Hey, Ainge,” came the panicked voice. “What happened there?  Men down?  Looked like they fell?”

Messiah was about to reply, although unsure exactly what his answer would be, when new activity to his left suddenly registered.  The words froze in his throat.  The storm had arrived, he could see it clearly now, he could see her intentions.  Panels were lighting up as she activated new systems.  These instruments were familiar, it was a similar layout on all Union vessels.  In a billion bedrooms across the galaxy, children and adults alike played these controls as they played out fantasies.  Only this was no virtual reality game, and the targets in those cross hairs were not computer generated.

Too late, he watched his lover activate the pacer’s two laser cannons.  Energy bolts screamed from beneath the cockpit, straight towards the caravan.  The background static of Di Marious’ transmission fell silent as the first ship was struck by both charges.  The explosion sent the figures nearby scrambling for cover, but it was pointless, as the planet began to shake.

The target ship was thrown violently to the side by the explosive forces.  Hover mode disengaged, two tonnes of alloys and plastics crashed into the surface of this volatile world, tearing open a huge gash.

“Now pull up!”  Nazia screamed.  “Pull up man, or we bite it too!”

He did not act, transfixed in astonishment and horror.  Hot, toxic gases rushed from the hole, swirling outwards, enveloping the other vehicles.  Running, their colleagues were desperate to escape.  The remaining Maperbanks too, scrambling away, the deadly cloud at their heels.  It moved too fast, they never stood a chance, the billowing white blast swallowing their agonised, contorted figures.  The other pacer’s ramp was ascending but too late.  As the first embers of the engines glowed, that pacer was lost, consumed by the planet’s deadly spew.

Nazia snatched control of the helm.  They soared upwards, the whole dreadful scene falling away below the horizon of the cockpit.

“Crazy!”  Messiah screamed, “Crazy bitch!”

He was back at the console, pulling at the overrides, trying to wrestle back control.  The systems were having none of it, programming protocols denying simultaneous access.  She had taken control whilst he was reeling from her murderous actions and now she would not relinquish the driving seat.  He hammered the desk in frustration, realising it was pointless, that he could not change what she had done.

“Why?  Why?!”

“Your plan was too risky. We were sitting ducks we went near and we were wasting time.  We’ve got a million sat back there, a clear million.  Union forces will visit the site and find nothing, a few traces maybe, a few blemishes on the surface to tell them something happened, but nothing else though.  No witnesses.  No leads.  No drugs.  No survivors.”

“But… Di Marious… the others…”

She glared at him, “You think they would have gone back for you?  Get real, Mess.  You think they’d have cared about your skin?  The only thing that matters is what is in that canister.  Don’t worry, you can share, you’ll thank me later.”

“Thank-you?”  Incredulous.  “Thank-you?”

Ahead, the sky was darkening as the edge of the atmosphere approached.  Soon she would hit the jump.  It was pointless turning back, he knew they were all dead.  Angry, though, he wanted to make her.  Appalled, he wanted to show her what she had done, wanted to hold her to account.

Leaning across the console, he reached into her space, trying to grab at her wrists.  It was a foolish attempt to wrestle control.  He should have known better, he really should.  How many times did she need to teach him?

The smash to the side of his face was brutal.  She did not know how to show restraint when it came to violence.  Hard bone, the bottom of her hand, full force into his cheek.  He recoiled, she followed, throwing her entire body over the seats to get to him. The pacer continued to soar upwards, despite their scuffle.  The flight path was locked, the angle of the ascent steady.

She so easily overpowered him, as always.  Not by brute strength, but by her ferocity. Within seconds, Nazia had her lover pinned to the pilot’s seat.  Reaching behind, she took a concealed blade from the waistband of her shorts.  Messiah knew the blade was there, she always carried but this was the first time she had drawn it on him.  Another moment in which he saw just how volatile she could be.  It was not the last time she would draw the weapon on Messiah, it would even make an appearance during one particularly passionate sexual encounter.  Many years in the future, he would be wise enough to insist the blade was removed before allowing her into his asteroid base.  They say an abused partner never learns but on that, at least, he eventually did.

On the pacer, knife to his throat, blind fury in her eyes, her face inches from his.

“The trooper,” she snarled, “his ass needs dragging over here.  He will give us the codes to turn off the mayday and take us off the grid.  Then we get the hell out of this sector.  Home and dry, darling Mess, home and dry.  Go get him.”

He did as she told him.  He always did as she told him.

Of course, the trooper would never see his family again.

Chapter Seven

Ten years.

Looking back, time passes quickly.

Living it, living the aftermath of Nazia Jwaran, dragged.  Each day threw forth memories to torment or to pinch at his guilt.  She left him half the man he could be, but in doing so, made him twice the man he ever was.  Right now, though, he was reduced to a worried wreck, intimidated by the mention of Kayla.

Nazia had the gun too, how had he allowed that to happen?  Oh, he knew.  The same way he always allowed this to happen with Nazia, she always got the upper hand.  She glowered down at him, the laser pistol at her hip, the new version of Xi Cha smirking behind.

Since first being notified of their approach to the base, he had known this was about Kayla. Co-incidences happen, but not ones like this.  Showing up within days of events at Petang, Kayla had to be the reason.  If Nazia had known his whereabouts all these years, but had left him alone, there had to be a big motive to show up now.  Ten million sounded plenty big enough.

“Want to deal?”  Nazia taunted.  “I’d suggest you do.  We don’t need to deal, not really, we could just find her and take her anyway, but Xi is generous, and willing to write your debt to him off his books.”

“She’s not here,” said Messiah.

This was his ex-lover of many years and she knew him more intimately than anyone else ever had.  He could not fool her, she would see straight through his words.  Even without that insight into his soul, Nazia was not the trusting type.  She would start from a place that he was lying.

She circled his stool like a tall demon, staring as she did so.  It was not a test, she was not looking for him to crack, for those cracks were already clearly visible.  This was intimidation.  She knew what she did to him, knew how she scared him.  Messiah felt suitably threatened.

“So, you admit you know her then?”  Nazia asked.  “You admit you know the fugitive?”

“Hey, which one?  There are plenty here to pick from!”  Tomack, still floating, chipping in to the party.  Xi cast a disapproving glare, frustrated by his pointless contribution.

Messiah, struggling to respond, simply shrugged.  It was a feeble attempt at indifference, one that stank of fear.  She was close enough to smell it; it was an aroma she knew well.

“Where is she, darling?  You helped her escape from the prison in that cute Noche of ours.  The Union might not be able to ID you or the ship, but I recognised you both straight away.”

He had spent hour after hour trawling the media in the last few days and he had viewed every report and every bit of footage a dozen times.  The grainy images from the loading bays at Petang were the most frequently viewed - two shadowy figures and the flickering recording of a ship departing the base.  At first, those images had worried him, but when reports made it clear that the images could not be further enhanced due to poor Kamdo technology, he had relaxed a little.  Even to his own eye, knowing what he was looking at, the figures and Spirit were barely recognisable.  Surely, he had concluded, no one else would be able to unravel those pixels.

He cursed forgetting Nazia.  If there was one other person in the whole galaxy, it was her.  In isolation, he doubted she would have figured it from the ones taken on the floor of the loading bay, but combined with the Noche in flight he could see how easily she made the connection.  The same modifications that were confusing Union investigators would have given her the clues.  She had worked with him on the initial fit outs, although many changes had followed in the intervening years.  That bulking out of the rear end, though, the addition of several tonnes of stabilisers, she knew every bolt and rivet as well as he did, her hands labouring alongside his own.

“She’s not here,” he repeated, “I never brought her here.”

Nazia, still circling, paused.  At his side, her chest pointing at his hunched shoulders.  She took a deliberately deep breath, exhaling slowly, blowing lightly across his ear and the back of his neck.

“I don’t believe you,” she said.  “You were caught on camera, darling.  Unmistakably you, with the ‘Freedom’ woman.”

“I’m not denying I was there,” he explained, “but I never brought her here.  Left her on the first planet I came to…”

“Which one?”  Xi asked quickly.

Too quickly.  Messiah was not ready with his answer, his pause obvious.  When he did get there, the words stumbled out.

“McKenzie B,” he said, then correct, “McKenzie C.”

The criminal opposite smirked and tapped his wrist.  Up popped a star map and reference tool.

“McKenzie planets,” he said.  The small image of a system appeared.  Seeing them in reverse, Messiah could still read the words as Xi scrolled through them, flicking from one celestial body to the next.

“Let’s hope it wasn’t B,” Xi said sarcastically, “a gaseous giant, some serious mass there, you would have struggled to take the Noche close to that one.  C, yeah, C is plausible.  Second class planet.  Un-adopted by the Union, nice.  First settled sixty years ago.  Small, hot, trace of atmosphere.  Three known settlements, population just a few hundred.”

“Plausible,” repeated Nazia, leaning in close, breathing in his ear.  In a different situation, it might have been seductive, but not here.  This woman would play her tricks regardless.  “Plausible, but far from believable.  You are going to have to try harder than that.”

“It was at her request, she said she had friends there.”

Xi rolled his eyes:  “In a small backwater like that?  There are reasons it is of no interest to the Union.  It is probably just a bunch of weird families who like living on the edge.”

“Riddled with incest and insanity,” Nazia smirked, “father is their mother’s uncle’s son.”

Tomack was at Xi’s shoulder.  A sideways glance from the leader showed his annoyance at the other man’s drugged state, an annoyance compounded by an imbecilic chuckle at Nazia’s words.

“Is this the calibre you hang around with now?” Messiah poked.  “Spaced out losers?  Is this what passes for your gang?  Is this the best you can find to replace me?”

Nazia tensed beside him and stepped back.  Riling her was never a good idea, but his own anger was starting to overcome any cautious reserve.  He was angry at this home invasion, angry that he had not managed to avoid it, angry that he had lost the upper hand, angry that his charge was now threatened.  They had come for Kayla and he had failed her.  This anger was needed; it was the only way he was going to turn this dire situation around.

As a partner and lover, Nazia bullied and battered him.  She got into his head, manipulated, controlled, abused, taking him to places where his self-esteem was so destroyed that he could not find the will to fight back.  At the Sea of Oregon, he had realised just how vile she could be, but it had not been the peak of her despicable behaviour.  From that time on, she had become worse and worse, her violence towards him more frequent and intense.  Another pivotal event, a couple of years after Oregon, had been the trigger point.  It saw her cruel and callous actions lead to an unforgivable tragedy, and the horror had finally released him from her grip.

Her cruelty should never have been a surprise.  Throughout their relationship, there were numerous obvious victims of their criminal activities, but mostly they were faceless.  He had suffered her abuse in silence and, until the end, turned a blind eye on her impact on others. Now, bringing her threats to this base, it was Kayla’s safety at stake. Once again, he had to find that same courage that had finally allowed him to break away.  He had to stand up to Nazia.

“You really lowered your standards with this creep,” he continued.  “Is this the best you could do?  Have all the decent catches on the ‘psycho-date’ apps blacklisted you?  Or have you just worked your slutty way through them all?”

Now he sensed her rage.  It was intense.  There was a wild animal beside him, flaring nostrils, baring her teeth.  He expected pain at any moment.  Her fist, her head, her bite, or the butt of the pistol.  Always a chance she could just put the gun to his ribs and blow a hole through his guts.

Nothing.

He could hear the fury; hear it in the snarl of her breath.

Nothing.

“I’m not rising,” she hissed.  “I know that’s what you want, a return to the old times, me bettering you, smashing you about.  It’s not going to happen.  I’m not giving you that perverted pleasure.”

That was not true!  His attempts to rile her, now only serving to fuel his own rage.  That was not how it had been!  He had drawn no pleasure from the violence, no gratification from the pain.

“Not how it was,” he mumbled.

“I can’t hear you, lover-boy,” she sneered.

“Back to why we are here,” Xi injected impatiently.  “If McGann is not living with the in-laws on McKenzie C, and we know she is not, then where is she?”

“We tried to scan,” a calmer Nazia said.

“No way through,” called Fatboy, his mouth full of food.  “I tried to hack but couldn’t.  Damn good signal blockers you’ve got in place.”

“Quite the hideout,” said Nazia, “quite the bolt hole.  Almost seems you do not want anyone to find you!  How long were you plotting all this?  How long were you planning to run?  Running out on the gang, running out on me?  It must have taken years to get all the covers in place, all those dead ends.  What about all the poor saps you hung out to dry?  Do you know how many died because of you?  Good men and women you left exposed, making it look like they had helped you, leaving them to face the music.  Do you know what Dagger did to Bex Haanglefeld?  Do you?  Can you imagine the screams as her flesh was peeled from her body?”

Messiah winced and dropped his head.  Over the years, he deliberately avoided looking back, fearful that in lifting those stones he would allow the pursuing insects to scurry out.  But it was not just that fear of being found that had stopped him snooping on old acquaintances, it was also to avoid seeing the destruction left in his wake.  Now, here was someone who could reveal that horrific truth.

On running, he knew there was always going to be victims.  Some, including Nazia, probably deserved it.  Others, perhaps less so, but none of those in the gangs were from honourable stock.  Pushers, pimps, thieves, thugs, murderers - bad people, the lot of them.  It was easier to place them all in one pot, easier that way for him to run away and leave them to their fate, leaving them to get their just desserts for their lives of crime.

Easier.

But not Bex, please, not Bex.  Nazia had known how much that would hurt him.  The terrible demise she spoke of filled him with immeasurable remorse and he felt sick.  Why her?  Why Bex when this crazy bitch had escaped punishment?  How had Nazia, his closest partner, avoided being dragged into the mess, avoided being labelled his accomplice, yet Bex had suffered so badly?  Because getting away with it was what Nazia did best.  Getting away with it was Nazia’s specialist move.

“Is the truth hard to face, darling?” she grinned cruelly.

Yes, it was as hard as hell, but he faced it.  He faced it, he growled at it and he spat in its face.  He pushed the dreadful imagined images of Bex’s murder out of his mind and focused instead on Nazia.  How dare she act like he was to blame for what happened?  How dare the woman who betrayed and double-crossed for a lifetime now question his integrity?  Here he rested his focus, allowing an indignant rage to build, pushing aside the images of his former friend’s barbaric death.  His old lover would not get the upper hand.

“It’s you who should face the truth,” he said, calmly.  “McGann is not here, you need to try elsewhere.”

“So you will be okay if we take a look around then?” asked Xi.

Nazia chuckled.  The sound was mischievous, mischievous and nasty.

Messiah prevented a deep intake of breath, replacing it with a nonchalant shrug instead.  Inside, though, he was screaming.  Kayla was hopefully awake and had read his instructions.  Her bedroom was sealed to prevent her leaving, a necessary precaution against her unpredictability.  Hopefully she was doing the sensible thing and had followed his advice; he needed her to keep her head.

“Nothing to hide,” the gunrunner said confidently.  His stomach was churning, scared that Kayla’s confusion and fear would cost them both dearly.

With the unwelcome visitors now wanting to search the base, he would struggle to deny them.  Xi and Nazia were hardly the sorts to accept a refusal, especially now they were the ones with the gun.  He had no choice other than to put his faith in the concealment, and her willingness to remain hidden.

The former gang boss moved closer, absently stroking his hair.  How long ago had Xi changed sex, Messiah wondered.  Judging by the way he preened, the new white locks were a treasured part of the transformation.

“Ten million,” Xi mused, “it is a lot, my old friend.”

They had never been friends.

“Sure is,” chewed Fatboy.

“Divided by six, well that would give us…” the leader hesitated, doing the maths, “about one point seven each.”

Tomack let his draw drop, emitting an irritating whoop.  Xi turned angrily.  The drugged up fool was close behind the shoulder of his leader, but now he staggered back.  It looked like he was going to fall and if not for the cabinet he bumped into, he may well have.  The hefty whack rattled the bottles of spirits stored inside. Forgetting Xi’s scorn, he emitted another stupid whoop and started to explore the cabinet’s contents.

Messiah had bigger concerns than his cupboards.  He could not think of anything other than protecting Kayla.  Short of the basic measures already taken, how else could he guarantee her safety?  Unarmed and outnumbered, there was little prospect he could do anything if they found her.  He knew his own physical limitations and he knew the ferocity of his former lover, and there were four of them in the base, with another two on their ship.  The only hope for Kayla was her keeping hidden.

Tomack was busily examining the collection of beverages Messiah had acquired across the years.  Some were quite valuable, but nowhere near as precious as what he had stored upstairs.

“So where do we start?” Nazia asked.  “Where would you hide her?  I take it from the stairs over there, you sleep above? Two storey living accommodation?  How quaint.  How very ‘olde Earth’.”

In all their time as partners, they had never slept in a permanent abode.  Always on the move, always on a job, always on the run, settling had never been on the cards.  Bunks, hostels, ramshackle coups and the odd hotel when things were going well, but never anywhere like this.

“Yeah upstairs,” Fatboy contributed, “they always hide them upstairs.”

Quite who ‘they’ were was irrelevant, the words nothing more than a teasing jibe.  They were toying with Messiah and he was powerless to stop it.  The upper floor was an obvious place to start, of course it was, it did not need Fatboy’s insightful contribution.  Nazia was already halfway to the stairs.

“Don’t go alone,” Xi called.

Without pausing, Nazia looked back over her shoulders.  “Who exactly is coming with me?  The slow one who can barely walk, or the one who can barely stand straight?  Or you, and leave those fools with him?”

Xi Cha frowned.  He could trust neither of the others to keep watch of Messiah, she knew that, he knew that, Messiah knew that.  How had it come to this?  How had he sank so low this shower was all he had to hang with?  At its peak, his gang had numbered dozens and were feared across many sectors, and he ends up with these clowns?  He could not go on with this shambles much longer.  The best purpose either could serve Nazia was a lookout, and he doubted either would be particularly good at that.

“Fatboy,” he sighed, “go with her, your eyes work even if the rest of you doesn’t.”

Arsan accepted the insult as readily as he always did.  With weak arms, he pushed off the sofa, sloping his way to the others.  Tomack was swigging a light brown liquid as the large man passed.  The bottle was thrust towards him, a sweet aroma wafting, enticing.  Fatboy grabbed for the bottle but even from twenty yards the glower of Nazia was enough to make him change his mind and pass on the offer.

“Come on,” she growled.

He hurried as best he could.

“You’re a fucking mess,” she said when he finally joined her at the bottom of the stairs.  All he could do in return was smile feebly, his shoulders heaving from heavy panting.

“Stay behind me,” she said, “and stay quiet!  And cut the heavy breathing!  I don’t want to hear a squeak from you.”

“Sure thing,” he grinned.

“And do not look at my backside!” she scolded, before starting her ascent.

His eyes looking at only one thing, he climbed up after her.

+     +     +

“Long before I had any of my own,” Xi Cha eventually broke the silence, “I admired your balls.”

Messiah fixed on Tomack and his steady progress through a galaxy of beverages.  Annoyingly, despite the presence of beakers, the idiot was drinking directly from the bottles.  Messiah’s anger at his collection being ransacked would have undoubtedly boiled over, if not for his concern for what might be going on upstairs.

“It takes a special kind of bravery,” Xi continued, “to break away like you did.  All that cold-blooded plotting, all those lies, all that barefaced front, all that pretence… such devious courage.  I have to confess I smiled when I heard you had run out on the gangs, and I smiled a little more when it became obvious Nazia knew nothing of your plans.  Well done, that man, well done.”

“I took no pleasure in it,” Messiah said.

“That, I believe,” Xi nodded.  “How could you?  All those you stole from, the gangs, the families?  All those who trusted you?  You did not just shit on a few, you shit on so many, so, so many.  I bet you have never stopped looking over your shoulder?   I bet you sleep with one eye open?”

“Any more clichés?” scoffed Messiah, his gaze nervously shifting between the drinks cabinet and the stairs.

In the moments leading up to their arrival, as short as the notice was, he had played out the scenarios that might unfold once they entered the base.  This exact scenario was one of those.  A search, a nosey around that he would have no choice but to allow – he knew just how clever and manipulative Nazia was and how determined to get her way she would be.  In preparation for this eventuality, he had left all the rooms unlocked, from the outside at least.  Any not easily accessible would prompt attention and draw their focus.  He just hoped that Kayla had heeded his advice and secreted herself where suggested.  When Nazia arrived at that bedroom and depressed the button, it would open just as readily as the rest.  He prayed Kayla was not on the other side of that door, waiting for the fight.  Would she try to jump them before they got to her, desperate to avoid being trapped by these bounty hunters?  He hoped not.

“I am being honest,” Xi snapped.  “I’m sincere in my admiration!  Your actions were not only brave, they were ingenious and dramatic.  You deserve a round of applause for that too… poof, as if by magic, disappeared!  Who would have thought you would last this long though?  Ten years?  If it had not been for bad luck, you would still be home and dry, hidden away in this backwater, in this fantastic place.”

The grey haired man flopped his head back and threw out his arms, spinning three sixty degrees, exulting the base.

“She always knew I was here,” said Messiah, still staring at the stairs, praying his ex and Fatboy would soon reappear frustrated they had found no one.  “I guess my days of hiding are over now.”

“Huh?” Xi huffed.  “I don’t see why.  I have no desire to unearth you, it serves me no purpose.”

The words floated for a moment before Messiah latched on to them.  His brow creased as he considered what had just been said.  Braking his grip on the stairs, he turned to the former gang leader with a confused frown.

“What?”

“Why would I expose you?  Sure, you stole from me, and sure, I want it back.  Be under no illusion, the debt is not going away.  But why expose you to others, what would I gain?  Others would not stand here talking to you, others would rip you limb from limb, caring little about what they get back and more about extracting revenge.  If you die, the debt dies with you.  If you live, I can hold that debt over you, with knowledge of this place, knowledge of your location, as the guarantee I get back every dollar you stole… with interest, obviously.”

Messiah was working his way through all that.  On one hand, there was relief - he was hearing continued anonymity - on the other hand, though, there was trepidation as to the kind of trap this was laying in his path.  Was this an offer, or a threat?  What was the real price?  Was this trapping him back into the life from which he had fled?  Was the ten million on Kayla’s head part of this ‘deal’?

“My accounts are empty,” Messiah said, “I have stock, but I also have creditors who lay claim…”

Xi held up a hand to silence him.  Messiah compliantly stopped talking.

“You trade in weapons, correct?  It was always an expertise of yours, it is obvious that is your business with the Kamdo.”

“Fire-arms,” he amended, “mostly small ones.”

“Weapons, my friend, are weapons, especially in this part of the galaxy, especially on the brink of war.”

“I’m not sure where you are taking this.  What interest is that of yours?  I cannot repay what I took, all I have is here, in this base.”

He thought again of Kayla, he hoped he was not including her in that last statement.

As Tomack staggered across from the sofas, a favoured bottle in his hand, Xi came in closer.  His height betrayed his former gender, but there was plenty of bulk on the short frame and his confidence was intimidating.

“I’m relegated to travelling with these idiots, and others like them,” Xi told Messiah, “and I’ve had enough of it.  Your actions a decade ago changed everything and shattered trust, gangs fell, my gang amongst them. But no more.  No more druggies and your psychopath girlfriend.  You owe me, and I intend to reclaim.  I do not just want my money back, I want so much more, I want it all back and if you value your life, you will help me get it.”

“Why would I…”

“Messiah,” Xi sighed, “we both know who you have here, and it is obvious you do not want to give her up.  If you want McGann to keep her freedom, I really don’t think you have a choice.”

+     +     +

Bruises heal, eventually.  On his dark skin, they sat there for a few days, darker, blacker.  Then the congealed blood beneath would start to dissipate, turning through brown into a sickly yellow, before fading completely.  Rarely did his torso get clear of one set of unsightly blemishes before fresh ones were added.  Her fists were fierce, but she was not adverse to weapons too, anything she could lay her hands on.  Last night it had been a pan handle, the pan head snapped off across his shoulders seconds before.

With the lights low so as not to wake, Messiah examined his chest and sides.  Amongst old wounds, several new red lesions were evident.  A particularly nasty one sat across his pectoral, and another similar low on his right ribs.  That one hurt like hell with every inhale.  He hoped she had not fractured the bone.  He sighed deeply, resting his head against the mirror, lost, defeated.

It was three thirty in the morning and chilly.  The base was heated sparingly, energy reserves precious.  Despite thick socks, the chill of the floor permeated through and the cold air tweaked at his bare chest.  It was an invigorating freshness that perhaps he needed, the crispness bringing focus to his fiery thoughts.

Enough was enough.  The time had come.

Aching as he stretched, he pulled his shirt back over his shoulders and fastened it.  He never took his eyes off those deep, dark orbs reflected back at him in the mirror.  For so many years, that man had lived a miserable existence but a few months ago he had made a decision to break that cycle.  The trigger was not just the beatings.  A venture that had started as a way to make a fast dollar had quickly spiralled, those he hung with escalating the violence, the outcome something he could not handle.  The woman he loved, with whom he had slept for years, a person he should have been able to have trust and faith in, had again shown herself to be a vicious monster.  He could not deny what had happened on that job.  It was all far too much.  He was in too deep and felt like he was drowning.

Pulling his gaze from the mirror, he returned to the bunkroom.  She was sleeping heavily and had not moved a muscle.  A thick blanket still covered her body.  With the high volume of alcohol in her blood, plus the sedative slipped into her last beaker, she would not wake for several hours.  If one of the others heard him, it was likely he would go unchallenged.  They had no reason to question this trusted pal.  Even when the Noche engines fired, they would not react until it was too late, and there was no other ship in this asteroid belt capable of tracking Spirit.

Snatching up his jacket and overcoat – it would be freezing in the launch pads – he paused by the bunk.  Although dark, he could see her face peeking out from beneath the warm cover.  She was such an incredible looking woman, not classically beautiful, if there was such a thing across this diverse human species, but certainly pleasing on the eye.  Unique, exotic features, with a majestic nose, reminiscent of an ancient Egyptian goddess.  He loved that face.  He loved all of her.

Was he going to miss her?

Subconsciously, his hand drifted to his sore ribs.  He would likely pine for her on occasions, but he certainly would not miss this kind of treatment.  Seldom a man of violence, he found the ease with which she slipped from lover to abuser disturbing.  That callous disregard for others too, the readiness to ruin lives, the willingness to kill; it was all too much for him.  Here, in this place, he was surrounded by another dozen who shared that same wickedness.  And beyond lay their broad network of maniac associates, who spread similar vile behaviours across neighbouring systems.

It was too much.

It was time to go.

With a deep sigh that made him wince, he tugged his outer garments tight.  One final look as he slipped from the room. His lover did not stir.  She slept like an angel.

Chapter Eight

Oozing with all the confidence of someone carrying a gun and harbouring a willingness to use it, she stormed along the corridor.  She showed no caution and there was no attempt to be quiet, her boots clicking loudly on the deck.  In her wake, her bulky friend took two steps to every one of hers, shuffling to keep up.

With one room already checked, she reached the second.  There was not the slightest pause before slamming the panel with the side of her fist.  The door opened compliantly, sliding away to expose the chamber beyond.  It took a moment for the lights to flash on and illuminate the exercise equipment.

“Bit better than what we are used to,” she frowned, Fatboy now at her shoulder.

“Yeah,” he panted, having never used any such equipment, “he has done well for himself.”

“Hardly,” she scoffed, “stolen money.”

“Isn’t ours too?” Arsan challenged.  He got a frown for his efforts.

Nazia entered the gymnasium, tucking the gun into her waistband.  The butt was cold against her bare midriff but she did not flinch.  Free hands explored the equipment, stroking the handles of a bike, toying with the controls on a treadmill.  The latter briefly sprang to life, detecting her presence, a floating pitch of artificial grass undulating beneath her feet.  She took a couple of small steps and was tempted, but she had more important things to do.  The grass disappeared as she stepped off.  Next to the treadmill was a bench press.  Here she paused, checking the resistance settings.

“How much do you reckon our friend downstairs can lift?” she asked.  “He’s always been in good shape?”

Fatboy held out his arms and shrugged, “As if I’d know!”

“A hundred kilograms, surely.”

“Your point?”

“Why is this set to a modest fifty?  I can lift forty more than that.”  She lifted her knee slowly, judging the effort required and the way the foot returned to the deck.  “The base’s gravity field is standard too, so the resistance pressure will be accurate.  We have someone else inside this base, my friend, someone who lifts lighter weights.”

“Ah,” was all Arsan could think to say given he had never doubted Kayla was here anyway.  Still, he supposed it was good to find some evidence.

As Nazia continued to explore this room, he did not move from near to the door.  His attention switching from watching her bend and stretch as she looked at the equipment, to glancing along the corridor beyond the open door.  Whilst comforted by the presence of this sensational killing machine, he was acutely aware they were on the hunt for another criminal.  One of a different type, sure, but as a renowned terrorist, responsible for many thousands of deaths, McGann was clearly dangerous.

“A woman,” Nazia concluded, “likely a woman.”

“Shouldn’t we be, y’know,” Fatboy timidly offered, “more careful?”

She took the gun back out of her waistband and checked it was primed.  “Better?” she asked.

Not really, he thought, but nodded regardless.

“Come on,” she huffed, “when have I ever let you down?” She swept past him, resuming the search.

+     +     +

The third room was a bedroom, seemingly untouched.  The fourth, another bedroom, only this one untidy.  Discarded clothing, male, an unmade bed, the odd food and drink receptacle.  It held a distinct aroma too, a musky, stale smell overlaid with the tangy sweetness of a male deodorant.  She readily identified this nostalgic smell with Messiah.

On to the next, the fifth, with two others still to explore.  For some reason, she paused before this door, the bold confidence seemingly checked.  The places for McGann to be hiding were running out.

It was possible that the fugitive was not hiding on this floor at all.  The loading bay and storage rooms spotted two decks down might harbour suitable hiding places too, and the middle deck had not been fully explored either.  Nazia was not naïve and knew Messiah would have all sorts of hidden chambers, and secret wall and floor cavities.  He was, after all, a smuggler.  She fully expected to find all these rooms empty, fully expected there would be the need to go back downstairs and extract the plans to the base from her ex-lover.  Yet here, outside this door, she paused, a sixth sense kicking in.  McGann felt close.

“Be ready,” she whispered, “you better have my arse covered.”

There was no usual flippant response from Fatboy, he could tell her demeanour had changed.  She was tense, gun at the ready.  Leaning forward, she gently touched the control.

The door behaved as expected, sliding into its frame.  Except there was something different, however subtle, in the way it opened.  The less observant Arsan did not notice, but Nazia did, narrowing her eyes, pricking up her ears.  In that smallest of gaps between her fingers touching the release and the mechanism starting to operate, there was a tiny, barely audible click.  The other doors had opened without that.  Why did this one make a noise?  What was it?  It sounded like a lock disengaging.  Why had this door been locked, but only from the inside?  Was it to prevent someone from leaving?  Yes, she thought maybe it was.

There was no confident march into this bedroom.  She paused and made another check that the gun was primed.  Behind her, having prematurely set off expecting Nazia to do the same, Fatboy’s feet scuffed on the deck as he stopped.  He was about to express his surprise but catching the concentration on her face, he swallowed back the words.

The sound of the scuff made no difference; with the door open, anyone beyond would already know they were coming.  Nazia took a deep breath and peered into the chamber, the pistol leading the way.  Slowly, she edged far enough to see the whole room.  There was no one inside.  There was a few hiding places though, so she remained cautious as she entered.  Checking the far side of the bed first, then a quick glance into the bathroom.  Again, all clear.  She returned to the door with a frown.  Fatboy was nervously looking along the corridor.

“This one has been slept in,” Nazia said, pointing at the ruffled bed sheets.  Something seemed to catch her eye and she wandered to the bed, stroked the pillar, her fingers coming away trailing a long black hair.

“I can smell a woman too,” she said, “smell the body of a woman.”

Arsan nodded even though he could not pick up any such scents.

Nazia dropped her face to the cover sheet and inhaled deeply, then moved it aside, and sniffed again.

“Whoever it was is not sleeping in the bed, they laid on top.  Might mean nothing, but most would sleep inside, what makes someone sleep outside?”

“I don’t know,” Fatboy shrugged.

“Someone not used to the comfort, perhaps, someone conditioned to a harsh Kamdo prison regime…”

“It’s her room?”

“Yeah,” she smirked, “this is her room and she’s been her recently.  But where is she now, my friend?  Where is Kayla McGann?”

+     +     +

Three hours before they were due to depart, the Noche still not back, they finally decided to wake her.  Until then, it was not that they were being considerate in letting her sleep, it was that no one had considered anything might be wrong.  The Noche’s absence was not routine, but it was incomprehensible that it would not return.  No one thought that Messiah, their trusted, loyal, valued friend, might run out on them.  Certainly, no one thought he would ever run out on Nazia.  But with only three hours until the rendezvous, he was cutting things tight and nerves were starting to fray.

It took a few attempts to wake her.  They put it down to the copious amounts of alcohol, but as soon as she tried to lift her weary head, she knew it was something different.  The previous evening swam in and out of her consciousness as the others threw unfathomable questions her way.  They had been drinking heavily, she remembered that much.  She recalled breaking something too, although not exactly what.  Then the heavy blanket of sleep, surprisingly undisturbed given the chilly and uncomfortable bunk.

Now came the headache from hell.  Pain like this usually only hit when coming down, reserved for those rare occasions when deprived of the almost constant flow of narcotic highs.  With a cocktail of drugs still in her system, though, she should not have felt this way.  Hangovers this severe she never suffered.  What had she taken for it to hit her like this?

One of the gang was handling her now, shaking her, trying to get a response to their questions.  She hated anyone’s uninvited invasion of her space, and laying hands usually got punished.  This person she knew well and his chubby fingers were often pawing, and she was in no state to push him away.

“Noche,” she gasped, “noche?  Leave me, leave me!”

“Oh, we’d love to,” Arsan’s words found a way through, “but we’ve got ourselves a bit of a situation.”

Focus was hard to find as she battled to surface.  It was like clawing her way from under a pile of clothing.  There was light overhead and desperately she fought her way towards it.  In her mind, her arms were outstretched, pulling herself through, but in reality that just flapped at her side, two dysfunctional lumps of useless flesh.  She was in absolute bits.

“What is wrong with me?” she slurred.

“Good question!” someone called, hostile.

“Where’s Mess?” she asked.  “Where is Mess?  Is he okay?”

Back to the night before, to the argument she knew she had caused, to the red mist descending, to the snatched object smashed across his shoulders.  His strong shoulders.  He was always strong, her Messiah.  He always had the broad shoulders, her Messiah.

“They are hoping you can tell them that,” offered Arsan, the large man’s words apologetic, the way you deliver bad news to a close relative.

“What?” confused and groggy, with more than a snippet of anxiety starting to creep in.  Something was seriously wrong.

“He’s taken the Noche,” someone shouted.  She was unable to recognise the voice in the confusion.  “He took it a few hours ago.”

“What?” she asked again, finally getting one of the useless, shaking arms up to comfort her pained head.  “Where?”

“You tell us!” another voice she was also unable to identify.

“I saw him go,” yet another declared, “but assumed he was just off to warm the engines…”

“Fucking idiot!” the first declared.

“We’ve lost contact,” Fatboy soothed, “he’s gone from all the tracking systems.  Tell us you know where he is.  Tell us he is coming back.”

“Three hours until we have to leave,” that first voice boomed, starting to take on an authoritative familiarity.  “If he isn’t back by then…”

“He’ll be back!” Nazia snapped, still without any real grasp of the situation.  It was a response born from confusion and frustration, just wanting them all to go away and let her sleep away the headache, but in the days that followed those words would come to haunt her.  Her response, twisted, would be used by others to suggest she knew where her lover was and that did not play out well when it came to the recriminations.

“When?” the leader of the group demanded, recognition now emerging in Nazia’s clouded mind.  “When did he leave?  Where has he gone?  I did not give any permission…”

Nazia was on the defensive, cornered, with no idea why she was facing such aggression from Homsik.  Those wobbly arms tried to push her up and would have failed but for Fatboy seeing her plight and helping.  Now upright, her head was bombarded in a barrage of pain.  There were a dozen shadowy figures crowded around her bunk.  The agony tried to force her eyes closed again, but she knew she could not allow that.  Something was going down here and she needed to face it.

“He’s gone?” she asked back, disbelieving.  “Mess?  Mess has gone?  Where?”

“Like you don’t know!” one of the shadows challenged.

“He took the Noche a few hours ago,” Fatboy advised reluctantly, “please tell us he’s coming back.”

A heavy blink fought the headache long enough for her to find her friend’s face.  He looked confused and riddled with fear.  Seeing him seemed to help bring his words into focus and she saw that he was trying to help.  In her weakened state, his fear raised panic and her stomach flipped nervously.  The oppressive glares of those gathered suddenly weighed very heavy.

“Gone?” she groaned.  “No.  No.  NO!  He cannot be gone!  Where?”

Through the crowd she saw Messiah’s bunk.  The blanket was undisturbed.  Her eyes darted to the crates at the side, the ones containing personal belongings.  Gone, but then she knew that, he had taken them to the ship the previous day ahead of today’s departure.  Preparing for a quick getaway, he had told her.  She had not realised he meant in the dead of the night and without her.  His jacket and outer suit were gone too, the hook on the side of the bunk empty.

It was a pan.  It was back with her now, a pan.  Snatched up, the first thing she could lay her hands on, and swung with such ferocity.  Always the same, those moments of blind anger, always the same.  His cowering saved him a serious blow to the head but the heavy object snapped on collision with his shoulders, the body of the pan clattering to the mezzanine decking.  Left holding the handle, she wielded that against her lover too, striking him hard, striking him as if she meant to kill.  Such rage, such blind anger.

Messiah took it, he always did.  He never tried to fight back and often that angered her more.  Where was his pride?  Why did he just stand and take it?  Perhaps this time he had not.  Perhaps this time, in his own way, he had retaliated.  Her face flipped in a second.  Gone was the pained, exhausted expression, replaced in that instance with fire and hate.

“The little snake,” she snarled angrily.  “Gone?  Did you say the snake has gone?  He better fucking not have!”

Edging away, his backside taking the blanket with him, Fatboy nodded.  He had seen an angry Nazia often enough to know not to be close when she exploded.  Lowering his gaze, he offered her a silly, apologetic smile.

Homsik was no such wallflower, in charge of this group because of his own indomitable nature.  He was a giant of a man, with a temper to match.  Nazia could be all fired up if she wanted, but he had no intention of allowing her simmering to distract from the problem at hand.  In three hours from now this base was meant to be clear, this band of hired hoods and thugs transported to a new location.  As it stood, they were a ship light, and with its large hold, the Noche was important to them.  Even more pressing was the concern Messiah might have done something really stupid and turned them in, with Union forces already despatched to this location.  Surely not, after all these years, surely not.

“Where has he gone, Nazia?” Homsik asked, his stance aggressive, fists by his side.

Part of her wanted to launch herself from the bed and confront him, but in her current delicate condition, she knew he would knock her straight back down again.  Having just woken, her head throbbing, she was hugely disadvantaged and exposed.  There was so much to come to terms with so quickly, so many confusing emotions.  At their heart, though, was the burn of humiliation.  Wherever Messiah had gone, whatever his motives, the fact was he had chosen to cut and run out on her…

Or, perhaps…

“There will be an explanation,” she considered, “there has to be an explanation.”

“He’s left us high and dry,” another injected.

“No!” she hollered.  “No!  He would not do that!  He would not leave me!”

“Where has he gone then?” Homsik asked again.  “Where?”

“I don’t know!” she screamed at him, her rage filling the room.  Several of the less brave took a step back.  “I don’t fucking know!”

“You expect us to believe that?”

“Maybe he’s stranded somewhere, a problem with the jump drive,” she offered.

“The tracker was disengaged before he left the system,” someone clarified. “He turned it off, blocked us from seeing where he went.”

“Then there’s the trace of a jump shortly after,” another added.  “We picked it up on long range detectors.”

She was shaking her head in disbelief, her thoughts full of that pan crashing across his shoulders, the pan’s body flying off, clattering to the mezzanine deck.  Any guilt, however, could not find its way through the growing anger and frustration that she seemed somehow implicated in his stupid actions.

“The snake!  The lousy snake!”

“Come on,” Homsik scoffed, “are you seriously trying to tell us you know nothing about this?  You know everything he does, everything he thinks, you even know when he is due to take a shit!  Where has he gone?”

“I’m as much in the dark as you all are,” she insisted, “perhaps ever more so.  Maybe he is on his way back?  Maybe he’s just had something to do, someone to see…”

“And who would that be?”

“I don’t know!  I keep telling you, I do not know!”

“But you know everything he does…” ventured Fatboy.  She cast him a ‘not you too’ glare; he took the hint and did not say another word.

“Fatboy’s right,” agreed Homsik, “he does not breathe without your say so!  He does not think without your permission.  We all know how you control him.  No way he would do this without you knowing, without you being behind it.  So where is he and what is he doing?  Who is he talking to?”

Her big brown eyes looked up at the leader, frustrated, angry, and imploring him to listen.  They had a problem here, they all knew it, and so did she now.  The headache was finally pushed away, the blur of first waking starting to fade, and she could see what was happening and the gravity of the situation. They had to listen to her.  Somehow, she had to get through to them and make them see that she did not know where he was.  As long as they were focused on her being able to offer the answers, they were not seeking them elsewhere.

“Look,” she said, “whether you believe me or not, there are other things we need to be worrying about!  In three hours we are meant to be at the rendezvous, a secret location, one that Mess knows.  Right here, right now, we are in another secret location, another secret he knows too.  I’m hoping this is all some stupid misunderstanding, that something has delayed him returning and he’ll soon turn up.  That is what I am hoping.  But we have to work out what we do on the basis he does not!  We have to expect the worse!  We have to assume we’ve been shit on from a great height!”

Of course, Homsik was already on it.  He had not yet raised the alarm beyond this small group, hoping Nazia would have an explanation.  Now it was apparent one was not forthcoming, it was time to escalate.

“You better hope he has not done anything stupid,” he warned the woman on the bunk.  “You had better hope he comes back with a damn good explanation, or you’ll be the one answering questions.”

“Huh, I am not his keeper,” she scoffed, trying to rebuff his veiled threats.

Enraged, Homsik leaned in, his finger jabbing at her chest.

“Oh Nazia,” he poked, “that is exactly what you are!”

The aggressive finger prompted an aggressive response.  Lips curled, her cheeks rose as she bared her teeth.

“Wherever Mess has gone, wherever he might try to hide,” she snarled like an angry dog, “I will find him.  And if he has fucked with us, if he has fucked with me, when I get my hands on him, I’ll rip his fucking head off his fucking shoulders!  Now get that finger out of my fucking tits!”

+     +     +

Another place.  Another time.  Another headache.

Hiding, she heard them coming.  The clank of heels on the corridor outside cut across the steady drone of the habitation systems.  The owner of the heels was the woman she had seen earlier on the security cameras, that much was obvious.  Only one of the strangers seemed confident enough to strut and stomp in that manner and only one wore heeled boots that would make such a conspicuous racket.

Kayla McGann had spent many lengthy periods in tight, confined spaces during her time with Malcolm’s gang.  She had been the other side of the equation too, the hunter, the one seeking those who did not want to be found.  In all those times, not once had she come across a stalker with such arrogant, heavy-booted, confidence.  It was an arrogance that needed knocking out of the woman, but Kayla was no fool, and she had seen Nazia take the gun from Messiah.

Whilst a seasoned campaigner, a lot had happened to Kayla since last hidden like this.  Casting her mind back, she could see the point at which this would have felt fine, and she would have been in control of the situation and her fears.  She was not able to pinpoint exactly when that was, her memories still a jumbled mess.  It required a leap too, to get to that place.  It was a leap across a cavernous open wound, the seeping sore of Petang Base.  She was different now.  No longer did she have that sense of security found with Freedom.  No longer did she have the strong arms and protection found with Malcolm.  No longer did she have the comforting friendship found with Jed.  Now she only had the pain in her groin and the vivid nightmares of incarceration and abuse.  This was a vulnerable, frightened version of who she once was.

Freedom crumbled around her.

Malcolm died on her.

Jed betrayed her.

Now she was locked in a room by this new man, someone who had stumbled into her life when she was desperate and when she needed someone to trust.  It had been emerging too, that trust, emerging from the catacombs of her misery like an embarrassed old acquaintance, asking to be friends again.  They had all let her down, but maybe this Messiah, with his disarming smile, maybe he would not.  But he had.  He had locked her up again and after four years of imprisonment, not one ounce of her could tolerate the idea of losing her liberty.  With the incarceration still so raw, the Kayla who could wait calmly and patiently in hideouts could not be found.  Instead, she regressed back to her childhood, back to the colata and her dead parent’s home.

The dream from earlier had cleared, the one where Jed cradled her dying mother.  He was not there that day, she survived on her own, and, really, she had ever since.  Perhaps butting the door had knocked some sense into her and cleared her memories, although her head still hurt like hell.  Perhaps now, from this new vantage point with the sound of boot heels coming closer, she could see all those disappointing bastards for what they were.

There was only one person Kayla could ever trust, and it was herself.  Crammed uncomfortably into this tight space, her head aching, her groin stinging, she knew she would face this alone.  Just as she had the bugs and critters under the floorboards.  Just as she had the users and abusers during her life on the streets.  Just as she had the assault on Haram Galt and the trial that followed.  Just as she had the mines, the cells, and the brutal degradation on that shower room floor.

More clanking heels.  Very close.  The faint click of a lock disengaging, the whirl of a door opening.  Through the narrowest cracks, she saw moving shadows.  She could hear them shuffling around the room, searching for her, wanting to capture the infamous Kayla McGann.  If she was lucky, they would kill her.  Worse, they would take her back to the prison, back with the Kamdo, back with the rapists.  They would take her to the showers, starved, weak, unable to fight back.  They would hurt her in unspeakable ways.  That cycle would resume, the medical room, the square-faced nurse, keen to extract revenge with her one remaining arm.

Stop this.

Concentrate.

She had to stay calm.  She had to breathe slowly and quietly, she could not give away her position.

They were talking and she heard every word.  They had found tell-tale signs of her presence, of course they had, Kayla had seen that flaw in Messiah’s plan straight away.  The chamber was full of Kayla, her scent, her strands of hair, her imprint on the pillow, even clothes, if they opened the wardrobe recessed into the wall.  The woman did, going through each garment, then checking the back of that space for any signs of a cowering fugitive.  After what seemed an age, those boots eventually stomped from the room, likely frustrated, but no doubt satisfied that the prize they sought was close by.

She was far closer than Nazia or Fatboy imagined.  Far closer.  At one point, they had stood right in front of the secret panel she hid behind, their backs to it, talking, wondering, not for a minute thinking she was less than a foot from them.  Not cowering in the back of the wardrobe, but cowering behind the wall opposite.

Kayla, though, did not intend to cower for much longer.  She would not simply wait here for the inevitable, for them to come back and search again.  After fighting her way off that asteroid and managing to get herself light years from that hell-hole, she had no intention of ever being subjugated again.

This was not the farmstead, where the colata sang in the bulderberry trees.  This was not Haram Galt, where Union Special Forces danced amongst the bodies of her fallen colleagues.  This was not Petang base, where Kamdo scum strummed their instruments in her battered vagina.  And this damn wall cavity was not going to contain her any longer.

This was her future.

She was not going to lose it.

Chapter Nine

Tomack slouched on the sofa, his favourite tipple on the table before him.  It was a strong scotch, for too harsh for Messiah’s own taste and acquired only for the bottle that housed it.  There was nothing particularly ornate about the bottle, a traditional glass vessel, cylindrical, tall, a slightly bulbous neck.  A label, black with gold writing, adjourned one side, the content described in a Cyrillic script, possibly Russian.  Messiah had never fired up the translator to find out.

Tomack did not care what it said on the label either, only the fire the drink brought to the back of his throat.  Still high, now edging towards drunk, it was a wonder Xi, the deal now done, had bothered to leave him here.  Someone needed to advise Nazia of his decision, Xi explained, but it seemed more likely the leader had just wanted to get away from this idiot and return to the ship alone.

On the sofa, waiting for his reluctant girlfriend to return, Tomack seemed oblivious to the challenge of the task facing him.  Blasé, unfocused, intoxicated, was he really going to be able to calm the savage beast?  At least someone was here to convey their leader’s wishes, but Messiah doubted she would take it well.

Messiah had no idea what or who was going to come back down that twisted staircase, either.  Would it be just Nazia and Fatboy returning flummoxed, angry at the lack of Kayla?  Or would they return with the fugitive at gunpoint, threatening to claim the bounty?  Worse, perhaps they might just return with a smirk spread across Nazia’s face, the barrel of the laser pistol still glowing.

An empty fear sat in the pit of his stomach.  After so long living this new life, hidden away from the past, keeping only his own company, the last few days were something of a shit-storm.  It did not look like getting better anytime soon.  The unexpected meeting with the bedraggled Kayla had catapulted him into a blizzard of unwelcome stresses.  He did not want to think about others and he definitely did not want to have to worry about anyone but himself.  Responsibility, no thanks.  No one should rely on Messiah Ainge.  Yet here he was, scared to death that the witch from his past was hurting his new found companion.  This was not in the plan.  This kind of shit was what he had fled from a decade before.

It had been a charmed life, those ten years.  Luck had kissed him, held his hand, and guided him.  It was an unfathomably large galaxy, even this relatively small, explored corner of it was huge, but he had still done well to avoid detection with so many powerful people on his tail.  Now, maybe the luck had finally run out.  Maybe he deserved that.  How many blind eyes had he turned in the past?  How many atrocities had he ignored or worse, being complicit in helping plan?  Perhaps those wrongs were finally coming home.  No one deserved to escape so many wrongdoings, and now they were back, trapping him, forcing him to deal with the devil.  Kayla too, was hardly an angel.  Whatever her involvement in Three Zero, she still carried that terrorist legacy.  Many had died or suffered, and many still undoubtedly lived with the consequences of Kayla McGann.  The chickens were returning to their roost.

Re-balancing?  The galaxy exerting that crazy power?  For every action, there is a reaction.  For every positive, there is a negative.  For every sin, there is a punishment.

The chink of glass drew him back to Tomack.  Another scotch was swilling from the bottle.  For every soul, there was a poison.

“They’re back,” the drugged up freak announced, before pouring the brown liquid down his throat.

Messiah’s gaze had only left that staircase for a second, but when he looked back the boots and long, muscular legs were halfway down.  Soon, the full glory of his ex-lover was visible, and then the less impressive chunky thighs of her companion entered the frame.  There was no third pair, and the pistol tucked in Nazia’s waistband was a tell-tale sign it had not recently been fired.  Kayla had followed his instructions and the hiding place had held.  Messiah breathed a sigh of relief.

Whilst the barrel of the gun was cool, Nazia’s face was on fire.  She was furious and, he realised with a deepening fear, that anger would ratchet up several notches when she heard of the deal with Xi.

“Where is she?” Nazia snarled, storming over to the sofas.  A face he knew well, seen many times before.  It was this face shown one night years before he finally found the courage to leave, but that had been the last in a long line of such incidents.  Despite the distance travelled since, she had not mellowed and he feared what was coming his way.

“Where is the bitch?”

“I told you,” he replied, “McKenzie C.”

“Like hell she is!  I’ve seen the room she’s sleeping in, hairs, bed still warm.  Don’t lie to me!  I could even smell the terrorist bitch!  Now, where is she?”

The hypocrisy of a woman with so much blood on her hands calling out the other as a terrorist was not lost on Messiah.  Only one of them carried a ten million price tag though, but he was not convinced the money was Nazia’s main motivation.  Her determination to get her hands on Kayla had little to do with collecting a bounty; it had everything to do with spiteful hate.  It was fuelled by a desire to strike at her former lover.  It was basic jealously.

Over another woman getting close to him?  He had made no suggestion there was anything in his relationship with Kayla, but he could see that probably did not matter in the mind of Nazia.  There was more for her to be jealous of too.  There was this whole shebang, everything Messiah had here and his freedom to choose to do exactly as he pleased.  Here, he was not under her control.  Here, she could not dictate, she was not able to pull his puppet strings.  A decade of seething, a decade of hate, that would boil her blood.  She was not here for the money, she was here to take away what he had, to take away his freedom, to take away his base, to take away Kayla.  This was about power.

Fatboy had barely made it to halfway down the steps by the time she reached the sofas.  From afar, he mumbled some half-hearted attempt to calm her aggression, but it went unheard.  The rage had started building on leaving McGann’s chamber, and escalated rapidly on finding the remaining rooms empty too.  She had stormed back along the corridor to the stairs, Arsan scurrying behind, unable to keep up.

Fatboy was not without his own sadistic streak and his obsession with Nazia meant she could do little wrong in his eyes.  Her body moved with such sensual grace and when she fought, seeing her in action turned him on.  But they played by new rules now; Xi’s rules.  The gang were building from scratch, jumping small vessels, breaking into low security vaults, earning low yield returns.  They were staying out of the way of the types of crime that led to big trouble and rarely got into scraps now.  Nazia had modified her behaviour accordingly, but the person Fatboy followed along that corridor was not who Xi wanted her to be.  This was the irrational, angry, viscous woman of old and Fatboy worried how their new leader would react to this Nazia re-emerging.  So as she approached Messiah, fists clenched by her side, he realised he had to try get her to calm down.  Xi had been good for them and he was not willing to throw it away.

“Slow down!” Fatboy called, now managing to find his voice.  “Just wait!  Naz, wait!”

Her stride did falter, but she was already upon Messiah.  He shrank back into the sofa, expecting her to launch, ready for the blows.  They did not come.  The toes of her boots touched his own as she came to a stop, towering over him, nostrils flaring, ample bosom heaving, taut, bare midriff sucking in and out with every angry breath.

“Where is she?” she demanded again.

“McKenzie C,” he repeated.

She growled and shook her head, a fist lifted to shoulder height.  She was checking herself, he could tell, holding back despite strong urges to smash down.  Would she be as controlled when she found out about the decisions taken in her absence?  Unlikely.

Arsan was doing his best to catch up.  “Wait!” he called again.

“There’s no need to wait,” she scoffed, scornfully, “we know the bitch is here and I want her brought out now!  We are taking her away with us, lover-boy!”

A few feet away Tomack poured another.  He rolled his tongue across his teeth, seemed to consider something, and then simply said, “Nah.”

She cast a sideways glance, but ignored him.  There was only one person in her sights, the cowering man in the white shirt.  It was like the good old days.  Back with Mess, back with her lover.  They had been good together.  He was not a tall man, but what there was of him was delectable and strong.  A toned physique she was pleased to see still well maintained.  Hiding behind this shroud of indignant rage at his betrayal, her real upset rested in the loss of this man.  No one could light those fires in this emotional, passionate woman like Messiah.  She missed that and hated him for it.  As much as she longed to turn back the clock and return to what they once had, she still hated him.  It took incredible resolve to hold back.  Every sinew wanted to just rip him apart, it was only the rules of Xi that prevented her from doing so.

Xi… where was he?

She looked around, he was nowhere to be seen.

And what had Tomack uttered only a moment before?  A random contradiction when she suggested they were taking Kayla?  Suddenly, something did not feel right.  This game had shifted and she was blindsided by this latest play.

“Xi?” she asked, her question directed at the man with the scotch.  “Where is he?”

Tomack started to smirk.  The beaker was at his lips again and somehow the smirk survived the strong taste.  The drink gulped away, the drinking vessel still at his face, he annoyingly began to chuckle.

“What’s so funny?” she scowled.

“It doesn’t even matter,” Tomack sniggered, “he said, she doesn’t matter.”

“What?  What are you going on about?”

Arsan had reached the others now.  He had noticed the obvious lack of leader from the bottom of the stairs and if she had not been so enraged, she would have noticed it too.  Initially Fatboy just thought Xi was probably relieving his bladder, but he would have had to be desperate to leave Tomack in charge.  Surely, he could have held it until they returned.  So where was he?

“He’s gone back to your ship,” Messiah said.  “Decided to get ready for departure.”

“What?” snapped the bemused Nazia.

“I’m taking this,” Tomack slurred, stroking the glass bottle.  Then, to their unwilling host: “Can I take this?”

“Sure,” Messiah shrugged.  It was nonchalant, but inside he was far from calm and the scotch the least of his concerns.  His ex-lover’s notoriously short fuse was getting shorter by the second.

“Fuck the drink!” she spat at her current partner.  “Why the fuck has Xi gone back to the ship?  Departure?  We aren’t finished here!”

Tomack finally looked at Nazia.  Four days into his current high, even with her powerful glare tearing into him, finding his senses was difficult.

“He’s cut a deal,” he said, speaking slowly, trying to keep his words in order.  “Deal done, so time to go.  He left me to tell you, didn’t want to tell you himself.”

“A deal?”

“With Ainge here, he did a deal with old boy Messiah.”

“What?” there was volume in her voice but the anger had slipped.  Moments before, this had been her show, and she had been readying for the final act.  Now, she just seemed confused.

Somewhere in this complex was the fugitive.  Nazia had every intention of finding McGann and depriving Messiah of his new plaything.  The bounty would be welcome, but removing that woman from this place, with Mess begging them to stop, would be even better.  No way was she leaving that pretty face inside this complex, no way.

Holding down the aggression, she turned back to Messiah, her need to understand forcing her to be calm.  She was bubbling beneath.  Muzzled, like a rabid dog.

“What is he talking about?” she asked.  “What deal?”

“I’m to work for him,” Messiah said, regretfully.

“Whoa!” exclaimed Fatboy.  “I did not see that coming!”

“He’s a wise man,” Messiah said, “always was.  He wants access to my new networks, new markets, and he knows I have the means to broker, trading out of sight of the old families in this backwater… and I need him to keep this place secret.”

“Whoa,” Fatboy said again.

“No, no, no,” interrupted Nazia, a palm held up to the man on the sofa.  “No, no, no, not happening!  We came here for the bounty, we came for Kayla McGann, we agreed.”

“The boss changed his mind,” Tomack belched.

“We leave with McGann!” she shouted.

“Boss says that’s all too risky.”

“No!” she leaned into Messiah, a few inches from his face.  “No!”

He resisted pulling away and hoped his eyes did not betray the fear.

“Where is she hiding?” she hissed.  “Where is she?”

“It doesn’t matter now,” Messiah said.  His calm was a façade, expecting an explosion at any moment.  “Your boss thinks she is just too risky a proposition. Xi is not stupid.  Do you really think the Union will hand over ten million to known criminals?  It is far more likely they will brand you as her collaborators and hand you the same fate.  You will not get the bounty, you will end up in prison, or worse.  So Xi will not go near her and instead, I am now forever in his debt, and it’s a hefty one.”

“I want her,” spat Nazia, seemingly not listening to the explanation, intent only on one thing.

“You cannot have her,” Messiah replied, “Xi won’t allow her on his ship.  If you plan to get back on board, you have to accept the deal we’ve struck and forget all about Kayla.”

“I still want her.  I’ll kill her!”

“If you do that, the deal is off, and you can explain to Xi why I’m no longer willing to be his mule.”

Even closer, their faces virtually touching.  The rage in her eyes was boiling, his fear struggling to stay hidden.  Xi had known that if Nazia was going to explode she would do it here, to Messiah.  He was tucked away in the safety of his ship, well away from harm’s reach.

“I’m not scared of that loser,” she scoffed.  “I’ll just take Spirit.  About time the Noche was reunited with a proper pilot!”

“Is Xi’s ship armed?” Messiah taunted.  Every word was a potential bomb.  Every syllable that past his lips was just another tick towards the nuclear explosion.

“Oh yeah!” chuckled Tomack.

Nazia flared her nostrils.  Despite it always being in her own plans to one day arm the Noche, it was unlikely Messiah had trodden that path.  In order to protect his deal, Xi would not let her leave with Kayla and he had the means to blow the Noche apart.  She was trapped by the arrangement they had come to in her absence.  Rage bubbled.  How could Xi do that?  With Messiah’s record of treachery, it was incredible any kind of deal had been offered.  The only value that Messiah could put on the table was his worth as a trader, why did Xi value that so highly?  He needed a way back, of course.  He needed a way to reclaim his past glories.  A completely fresh market, away from the old families and gangs, and a runner compelled to agree to his terms or face the consequences of being revealed to others… it was neat. She was disappointed this potential twist had evaded her own devious mind.  If she had been less wrapped up in taking back her power over Messiah, she would have seen it too.

She was cornered.  Still visibly furious, but with a resigned look of defeat, she stepped back.  Her former lover’s brow was soaked in sweat and there were dark patches on his shirt.  She took some small consolation in her ability to still intimidate him, but it did little to soothe her.

“You will be at his call forever,” she said, “you will have to do whatever he demands.  Blackmail, threats, they will all come.  Do what he tells you, or else, for the rest of your days.”

“I’ve been in worse relationships,” said Messiah.

Nazia ignored his dig and asked, “She is here though, isn’t she?”

He offered no reply.

“What do we do now?” shrugged Fatboy.

“It’s time for you to go,” said Messiah.  “Time for you to crawl back under your rocks.”

Initially, no one moved.  Then, suddenly, Tomack stood, the pace of his movement causing him to unbalance.  He steadied, snatched up the scotch, took a swig, and then promptly dropped the bottle.  It struck the edge of the table and smashed to the floor, the contents and shards of glass flying everywhere.

“Ah, no,” he moaned, “I wanted that.”

The pungent brown liquid fell just short of Nazia’s boots.  All that pent up rage turned on Tomack, her eyes a lethal weapon, the glare enough to turn a man to stone.  In that moment, Messiah wondered if she beat up on him too, and concluded she most likely did.

“Just leave it!” she hissed.  “You’ve had enough anyway!”

“But it was amazing…”

“It smells vile.  You smell vile!  Now get your arse to the ship!  You too Fats, just go!”

“What about you?”  Fatboy asked.  “You coming?”

“She is,” Messiah insisted.

Nazia nodded and smirked at his faux bravery.  “Don’t let Xi leave without me,” she said, “I’ll be along shortly.  There are just a few things Mess and I need to clear up, I’m sure Xi will understand.”

“It’s okay,” Messiah said, “I’ve got cleaning bots, they’ll sort it out.”

She just looked at him, no words, no rage, seemingly no emotion.  Just a cold shell, her expression blank, her body motionless.  As the others began to leave, crossing the chamber and descending to the airlocks below, Messiah wondered what hell was about to come his way.

+     +     +

Three minutes it took.  Three minutes of her strolling a few steps, stopping, turning, strolling some more.  Never did she leave his vicinity, never did she unfold her arms from under her chest.  She seemed to be gathering thoughts, perhaps preparing what to say, lining up those choice words she planned to hurl at him.  A decade of hurt.  A decade of anger.  A decade of questions burning away.  A decade of wanting him back with one hand, and wanting to kill him with the other.

“You chose that life,” she finally said, a couple of feet away, her gaze fixed on the deck where the scotch sat in brown puddles.  The liquid vibrated gently to the tune of the base.

“You chose to be one of us, to be a criminal,” she explained.  “With your intelligence, your engineering skills, the way you must have applied yourself when a student to get the grades you did at university… you had choices, and you chose that life.  So many paths open to you, yet you chose that life.”

He was nodding, “I know.”

“And in making that choice – eyes wide open – you knew the worlds you would be entering, you knew the scum you would be dealing with, low-life scum like me!”

Something unusual sat in her voice.  After a decade since last hearing her, those familiar vocal traits had soon returned.  This tone, however, he struggled to recall.  It was a new one, and he recognised it as sadness.  Her voice was full of sorrow.

“There are rules, Mess, that you agree to when you turn your back on normal society.  When you took the decision that the opportunities offered by your family were not what you wanted, when you stepped away from the norm and crossed that line, you signed up to the same rules that every other low-life does.  It is not some stupid deal, like the one you just agreed with that idiot, this is a code that every crook and mercenary lives by.  And one day you decided, out of nowhere, to get up and give that rule book a damn good kick in.”

Her emotion was raw.  Unbelievably, she was close to tears.  In all their years together, he had never seen this.  For a crazy moment, he wondered what might have been, if she had been willing to share such vulnerabilities in the past, but then he quickly threw that thought aside.

“It was not just one day,” he corrected.

“Oh, that much was obvious when I saw what you had done!  Impressive!  How the hell you put all the plans in place without anyone knowing, without me knowing, I’ll never figure.  I had no idea!  Why?  Why?!”

He huffed: “You know why!  I’d had enough!”

“But you chose that life…”

“I know,” he said, “I can’t dispute that, but there are different levels of criminal…”

“Fuck off!” she half shouted, half laughed.  “Just fuck off with that rubbish!  Crime, criminals, we are like the parts of a huge ship.  Sure, some of us are more obviously dangerous bits, some of us can blow holes in other ships, but we all fit together, we all work together, we all play our part in the business.  So you did not like the violence?  You did not like the killing?  Or was it the drugs or people smuggling?  Or was it just me?  Was that it, just me?”

“You deliberately…”

“Yeah, so fucking what!”

“The children…”

“Wrong place, wrong time, unlucky,” she snarled, tears glistening in her eyes.  “You sell weapons to the Kamdo.  This war, those weapons will be used.  How many will die because of them?  How many children?  You are just another part of the crime ship!”

“Mostly side arms…”

“Do they not kill?  You are a fucking hypocrite!  You ran out on the families and gangs, you ran out on me, to do what?  To shovel exactly the same shit in a different field!”

Narrowing her eyes squeezed the tiniest droplets of water on to her lashes.  The sad emotions seemed spent now and she blinked the tears away.  That old friend anger was fighting its way back to the surface.

“You are a fucking hypocrite!” she repeated.

“You need to go,” he said sternly.

“Don’t tell me what to do.”

“You have no choice but to leave.”

“Do not tell me what to do!”

He held his tongue, the tension palpable, the risk of escalation growing by the second.  Please, just go, he wanted to scream.  Plead with her, beg with her, get her away as soon as possible.  Leave his haven.  Leave this space.  Leave Kayla McGann.

Nazia showed no signs of going anywhere.  The faint but unmistakable hiss of the airlocks found its way from the lower deck; Tomack and Fatboy had left the building.  Alone now, alone with his ex, alone with this angry psycho.

So many times just like this, knowing where it was heading, knowing that this road only led to one place.  His own anger was growing as he prepared for the onslaught.  He knew he was not capable of retaliation but he would defend himself as best he could.  So many times.  When she erupted, a vicious volcano of red rage, he would cower as always, letting her reign in the blows.  Taking it like a man?  No, taking it like the coward he really was.

And then she came at him, launching not like a feline, with claws outstretched, but instead with hefty fists like a wild ape.  They pounded down, the right across his forehead, the left his shoulder. Before he had time to react, she came again, another fist on his head, the other catching his cheek.  The rings on her clenched fists sliced into his face and he felt the cold sensation of blood almost instantly, sneaking beneath the numbing kiss of the blow.

Belated, he lifted his arms and the next wave struck them instead.  His bones cried out in pain and he heard her wince, her knuckles connecting awkwardly.  She stepped back, panting, curses under her breath, her hands clenching and unclenching rapidly.

Still the capacity to surprise.  Even after all those years and all the dreadful deeds, she could still pull a shock out of the bag.  And when she went for the gun, plucking it from her waistband, he heard his own gasp.  There seemed no hesitation in her action, no fighting with her conscience.  There was no fear of the consequences either, no consideration that killing her former lover would likely sign her own death warrant.  In her jealous, angry, bitter mind there was nothing else she could do.  He had betrayed her.  Moreover, he had hurt her, in ways no one else ever had, in ways so grave that her own self-preservation no longer mattered.  His actions from a decade before had cast her adrift from the families, taking away her power and influence, throwing her into the arms of pathetic mobsters.  He took himself away too, this man she had loved, this man who had lay with her, who belonged inside her.  Relegating her to the feeble-minded Tomack, a man who spent most of his days in a drunk or drugged up state.  And to rub salt in her wounds, she now saw that the man who had run out on her had everything.  He had a fantastic base hidden away in the darkness, fitted in luxury, paid for by his betrayal.  He was in great shape, no signs of gravity loss fatigue or aging.  But worst of all, the one thing that really burnt, the pain that made her reach into her waistband, the iconic face that made her bring the weapon to bear… Messiah had Kayla McGann.

Nazia Jwaran would not be replaced, not by anyone.

She squeezed the trigger.

Chapter Ten

Emerging from the hiding place shortly after the sound of boots had faded, Kayla carefully made her way to the top of the stairs.  Here, surrounded by shadows, she lowered to her belly and took up a position where she could see on to the deck below.  Unobserved, she watched events unfold.

Her head was a confused mess, the confinement of the wall cavity bringing back horrors from the past to mingle with the pains of the present.  She had felt imprisoned, forced there by a man who she had only just started to trust, forced by a series of instructions and a door locked from the outside.  Undoubtedly, his intention had been to protect, and she could see with enough clarity to understand that.  But to protect her from who?  From his own criminal fraternity, that was who, from his criminal friends.  Laying there, listening, Messiah’s past was revealed.  Betrayals, lies and, from the way the two interacted, former lovers.  Revelations about the future too; new deals for the gunrunner, new ways to profit from the murder and oppression of others.

They were all the same.  Eventually, everyone let Kayla down.  Some took years, others, like Messiah, took only a few days.

Two of the visitors left, leaving just Messiah and the high-booted woman.  She cut a phenomenal figure – tall, muscular, domineering.  Her intimidation of Messiah was obvious.  Despite her own anger at that man, Kayla did not like this apparent emasculation one little bit.  There was something wrong in it, something dark, something inherently wicked.

Before Gomez happened along, this little girl had watched events on the streets much as she was now.  Often hidden in the shadows, observing the under-belly of humanity, tucked away to preserve her safety.  She witnessed many dreadful, depraved acts, but never did she interfere, her own welfare paramount.  Malcolm had changed that.  He and others like him, Jed included, had shown the young woman that turning a blind eye was not the way.  There were many wrongs in the galaxy, so many, and each and every one deserved to be righted.

With the cold of the decking on her thighs and permeating through her vest, she fidgeted nervously.  Every instinct was screaming at her to do something, telling her bad things were about to happen.  She was urged to act, but knew she was in no condition to do so.  Some strength had returned – diet and determined exercise helping her recovery – but she was far from fit.  With her head a mess and her body ravaged she doubted she would be able to effectively intervene.  She was that little girl again, in need of protection, best staying to the shadows.  Besides, Messiah had hidden her for a reason.  The others were here for the bounty, they had come to take Kayla back.  If she acted, was she handing them herself on a plate?  Conversely, if she did not act, was she allowing Messiah to be over-powered, and what was her own fate then?

Still in the scanty clothes in which she had woken, she now regretted not pausing to at least add footwear to her attire.  On the positive, soft feet would be stealthy.  Aware of the massive personal risk, aware of the gun tucked in the woman’s waistband, aware of the aches and pains that riddled her body, she carefully peeled herself off the cold floor.  The risk of doing nothing was at least as high as intervening, and besides, she was no longer that little girl, Malcolm had seen to that.  This was Kayla McGann, and Kayla McGann did not skulk in the shadows.

+     +     +

She came out of nowhere, a flash of white, a sudden eruption of noise, and she was on Nazia.  The gun fired, the back of the sofa exploded, and the two women clattered to the floor in a melee of arms and legs.

Messiah jumped to the side, the heat from the weapon’s discharge searing his arm.  For the second time in a matter of days, an angry woman had nearly killed him, and now the two responsible were wrestling a few feet away.  Emerging from the ruckus, the gun, knocked from Nazia’s grasp, skidded to a halt against the base of a unit.  It sat there, calling to him.  Did he go for it, or did he join Kayla in attempting to suppress his former lover?  For a moment, he did neither, just sitting there, stunned, unable to move.

The air still reverberated with her roar, that almighty beast-like bellow that had accompanied Kayla’s leap at the other woman.  Whether it was deliberate, designed to intimidate, or whether it was a cry of pure effort as she hurled herself forward, it certainly gave her the upper hand.  Nazia, disorientated and knocked breathless by the surprise attack, initially just lay there gasping.  She seemed powerless as Kayla swamped her, wrapping her with her body.  It did not take long for Nazia to recover though, realising what was happening and recognising the attacker.  The fugitive was strong and quick, but no match for the bulk of the larger woman, who managed to drag herself clear.  Nazia shuffled away, seemingly retreating, but when her opponent tried to regain the upper hand, Nazia pulled a leg up to her chest and then snapped it back, firing a kick at Kayla.  The heavy boot and heel narrowly missed the face, avoiding undoubtedly significant damage, instead striking the shoulder.  The force took Kayla’s arms from beneath her and she sprawled on to the deck.

Nazia was up.  She took a moment to look for the gun but it eluded her.  Then she searched out Messiah instead, assessing if he had a role in this fracas.  He met her eyes with steely resolve, determined not to flinch or give away any visual clues as to the whereabouts of the weapon.  It was the briefest of exchanges with the woman who had come within a split second of killing him before she snatched her attentions back to the threat offered by Kayla.  She was moving, trying to get up.  Nazia was on her before she could scramble to her feet.

Messiah watched in horror as his fierce former lover grabbed a clump of Kayla’s hair, deftly twisting it around her long fingers.  Grip assured, she quickly dropped to her knees, pulling down hard, smashing her adversary’s head into the hard floor.  The sound was horrendous.  Messiah winced, almost feeling the pain himself.  His chest was already gripped with fear, his heart pumping hard with adrenalin, but now he felt an ache quite like any other.  It was the ache of desperation.

“Naz!” he shouted.  “Stop!”

She did not, dragging her opponents head back off the deck, only to violently smash it down again a moment later.

“Enough, please!” he implored.

“Never enough!” she screamed, pulling on the hair again.  “Never enough, you bastard!  You don’t get to walk away from me!  You don’t get to set up this cosy life without me!  I’m taking it back.  I’m taking it all back.  Starting with this terrorist bitch!”

“Don’t call me that!” moaned Kayla.  The words slurred, the bangs taking their toll.

Another, slamming her head for a third time, Nazia’s angry cries covering the awful thud.  Messiah had to act now or she would kill Kayla.  He scurried along the still smouldering sofa, sliding off the end, his eyes fixed on the gun.  Nazia moved with him, clocking his intention.  At first, she dragged the light Kayla, but needing to move quicker, she let go of the limp hindrance.  Outstretched arms grabbed at Messiah, fingers falling inches short of his shirt.  He was away, closing on the gun.  She needed to find more in her legs, needed to close the distance fast.

The weapon in his fingers, Messiah turned, but straight into Nazia’s fist.  She struck him high on the nose, the crack reverberating around his skull.  Bending, her hand went for the gun, but in his shock, it slipped from his loose grasp.  Stooping, she followed it down, stretching to catch.  It bounced, and she would have had it, but his boot came from nowhere and sent it hurtling away, way beyond either of their reaches.

Undeterred, she set off after it.  He managed to grab her but that only resulted in another blow, this time to the side of the head.  She hit with such venom, the excruciating agony matched by her own cries of pain as her fist absorbed the shock.

“I’m not letting you do this!” he snorted, blood oozing from his nostrils, a crimson fountain dripping on to the white shirt.

“You have no choice,” she snarled, throwing her head towards his, connecting hard on his temple, sending him reeling.  Both arms now free, she followed up, pulling him towards her, a knee into his groin.  He went down with a pitiful moan.

The gun.  With both adversaries floored, Nazia turned to retrieve it, now confident she could bring this to an end.  First, she would let him watch her finish McGann and then she would turn it on Messiah and pay him back.

Someone, though, was not put down that easily.  Stood between Nazia and the weapon was the relatively diminutive figure of the fugitive.  Her face was bloody, her vest top torn at one shoulder, her knees, fresh from being dragged, red and raw.  Ruffled hair partially obscured her features, and Messiah, glancing across through tear-filled eyes, was reminded of their first encounter back at Petang base.  But this Kayla was not acting scared and looking desperate.  This Kayla stood fierce and ready for the fight.

Nazia let out an exasperated sigh, “You’ve got to be kidding me?”

“I’m not going back,” Kayla hissed.

“No, you’re not.  I’ve no intention of taking you back.  I’m going to end your miserable life here.”

Behind Nazia, Messiah was still writhing, cradling his groin.  He looked on at the two women, unable to move, unable to do anything to prevent the inevitable clash.  They stood facing each other, only feet apart, poised to attack.

“So be it,” Kayla said, those haunting green eyes glaring out from beneath the bedraggled fringe.  She was bleeding quite badly from somewhere on her head, blood running down her cheeks and neck.  “But don’t think that’s going to be easy.”

Nazia was surprised that after three such heavy blows, this woman had managed to get up at all, let alone confront her with such determination.  A snippet of admiration found its way into her thoughts but she quickly pushed such nonsense aside.  This was an impressive adversary indeed but she had taken down bigger.

“No more time for talking,” the taller woman said, “time for you to die, terrorist bitch!”

That word.  A word spat down at Kayla whilst tied to the prison medical bed.  A word thrown into the cocktail of abuse she suffered, mixed in with the torture and pain.  It took her back to dark places, perhaps her darkest.  It was a red rag, and the bull charged.

She hit Nazia under her breasts, her full weight behind the attack, her shoulder digging into the ribs.  Those boots, which had clanked along with such confidence, were now lifted clean off the deck and Nazia was sent hurtling back.  The cabinet Tomack had previously spent so long rummaging through took the brunt, knocking the wind from her, the contents inside clattering wildly.  As she bounced off the cabinet, she saw the mess Tomack had made and just managed to adjust her position enough to avoid a large shard of glass ripping into her open palm.  Instead, it snagged her elbow and she yelped in pain.

Kayla was on her in an instant, falling on top, ignoring the glass and the strong pungent smell of scotch.  An arm around Nazia’s neck, clamping the throat whilst powerful thighs wrapped around the torso, pinning the larger woman in a vice like grip.  Kayla’s face betrayed the discomfort in her groin, but she ignored it, she had to ignore it, this was a fight she could not lose.  She squeezed as tight as she could, compressing the throat and body of her opponent, denying her breath.

With only one arm available, the other trapped inside the leg clamp, Nazia was unable to find enough purchase to get free.  Instead, her face now covered in the brown sticky stuff, she was dragged towards the sofa.  Here, Kayla could prop against the heavy furniture, strengthening the grip further, an uncomfortable gagging noise emerging from the struggling captive.

Nazia did manage to loosen the hold briefly, long enough to draw air, but then the grip was back.  This time it was not as tight though, Kayla was weakening and Nazia sensed this.  She sensed the winces and whimpers in the fugitive too, sensed her pain, hope that meant she would soon get a chance.  But now there was something else.  Light reflected off a shiny object close to her face and there was a sudden sharp pain in her cheek.

“No!” shouted Messiah.  “Kayla, no!”

With horror, Nazia remembered the cut to her elbow and the shards of glass that lay all around.  For someone desperate enough, these were weapons, dozens of them, within easy grasp.  One sat pressed against her face, already cutting, and any struggle was sure to sink it deeper.  Nazia Jwaran froze, the heavy, painful panting of her desperate opponent in her ears.

+     +     +

Everything stopped.

The only sounds were their deep breaths, all of them exhausted, all of them in pain.  That large splinter of glass, a square corner from the base of the bottle, was now against Nazia’s throat.  Blood from her cheek trickled down, a steady flow, mixing with that coming from a new wound, a shallow inch long gash in her neck.  Tensions rested heavy, yet this seemed like a respite, a moment in which to gather themselves.

For Messiah, it was a chance to get on top of the burn between his legs and the churn in the pit of his stomach.  Nazia’s knee had rendered him immobile but the urgency of the situation demanded he pushed his own aches away.  This was dire and he had to do something before it was too late.  The two women were ten feet away, the gun lay beyond them.  If he could skirt and get to it, maybe he could give Kayla an alternative to what he feared was currently in her mind.

“Kayla,” he said, breaking the tense silence, “you don’t need to do this.”

She blinked before looking at him, clearing her thoughts.  The bangs to her head had been horrible and it was obvious she was groggy.  Struggling to stay conscious, heavy eyes drooped, closing at times.  If she started to slip away, what then?  Nazia would sense it and she would not hesitate in taking that chance to turn the tables.  If she misjudged and failed, Kayla would undoubtedly react by ramming the broken bottle into her jugular.   But if Nazia did manage to get the upper hand, she would undoubtedly finish off the unconscious Kayla. It was clear that he could not just lean here and do nothing.  He had to keep Kayla’s attention and help her to stay awake until he was able to get the gun.

“It would be a waste,” he said, “a pointless waste.  There will be no satisfaction in it!  You are better than this.  You do not need to do this!”

He tried to stand straight but still heavily winded, the action made him wince.  Somehow, the pain had to be ignored, he had to find a way through it.  Despite the events of the last hour, despite the invasion of his home and the nastiness brought with it, and despite how close she had come to shooting him, he did not want Nazia dead.  In particular, he considered, he did not want her dead at the hands of Kayla.  It was time for the fugitive’s life to take a better path, for her to break from the dreadful past, and another murder would solve nothing.

“Don’t do it Kayla,” he spluttered.  There was blood in his mouth; he coughed it away.  “Please don’t do this.”

Her eyes swam again, then found him.  That same powerful, enchanting stare that he had first encountered was back.  It was not clear for how long, but for now the risk of her falling unconscious seemed to be diminished.  Perversely, there was renewed energy in those brilliant green orbs.  They were full of resolve, full of purpose, full of power.  They were the eyes of a woman taking back control.  She adjusted her seat, pushing back against the sofa, finding enough purchase to shuffle up.  The weight in her lap shuffled too, it had no choice.

“Someone once told me,” Kayla said, “that only fools trust.  She told me my man was not who I thought he was, that Malcolm Gomez was a cheat and a liar.”

This was the first time Messiah had heard her speak her former lover’s name, and she did so with emotion.  The briefest glaze clouded her green eyes but was quickly blinked away.

“She had me pinned to the ground at the time.  I’m still not sure if she was protecting me from the violence of the fight, or if she feared I might hurt her, but she was angry, so angry.  She felt betrayed, felt cheated, felt the need to tell me I was being a fool.  ‘Do not trust!  Do not trust!’ she screamed at me.”

“Were you being a fool?” Messiah asked, desperate to keep the dialogue going, knowing it was the only way to stop this.

“Yeah,” she chuckled, “I reckon so.”  There was no mirth in the chuckle, no smile on her lips.  Instead, there was murder written all over her face.

“They killed her, y’know,” added in a matter-of-fact manner.  “Shot her in the head to get her off me.  I didn’t see the shot coming, but I saw the mess it left.  Quite a formidable lady, quiet an enemy, and it was betrayal that cost her too.  ‘Only fools trust’, her last words.”

“I have not let you down, Kayla,” said Messiah.  “From the moment we met, I have not let you down, please see that.”

She considered his words and was that a slight nod of the head?  Maybe, or maybe it was just the fight to stay awake.  For a moment her eyes closed but almost immediately an involuntary jerk brought her back.  Unsure if any guard had been dropped, she re-affirmed her grip, tensing her bicep around the other woman’s shoulder.  Thighs, bruised and glowing red, tightened too, squeezing her captive’s torso, extracted a moan of discomfort.

“Still here,” Kayla slurred, “still here.”

Messiah looked at Nazia.  She looked back, wide-eyed and worried.  For the second time today, he was seeing an expression from this woman he had never seen before.  This was terror, a fear for her life, the fragment of bottle still resting on her skin, several cuts now evident.

“Let her go,” he pleaded, desperately, “please Kayla, let her go.”

“No,” Kayla said, “that just can’t happen.  She came here to take me back and I am never going back.”

“I’ve done a deal…” he explained.

“Huh, yeah, heard it, and then she tried to kill you.  Kill you, take me, and claim the bounty.  She has it all planned out.  I’m not going back.  Never.”

“I’ll leave,” Nazia said quietly, her voice shaking, her words riddled with fear.  “I’ll just go, you will never hear from me again.”

“Shut up!” snarled Kayla, the glass jabbing, opening a new wound, slightly deeper than the others.  A fresh flow of blood emerged.  The fugitive was growing angrier as the pain in her head intensified.  She was tired, oh so tired.

“Only me,” Kayla slurred, “always has been, just me.  When I trust others, they let me down, one way or another, they all do.  There is no point in trusting anyone else.  The last four years, I survived alone.  I survived the trial, I survived the prison, the hard labour, the abuse.  Just me.  Alone.  I survived all that, alone.”

“You can trust me,” said Messiah.

“You have got to be joking!” chipped Nazia.  “I trusted you, look where that got me!  Stop with your self-righteous bullshit!”

“I told you to shut up!”  Kayla jerked her captive, the spiteful growl spraying the hateful words on to Nazia’s cheek.

“Why?”  Nazia argued, the shake in her voice diminishing, anger returning.  “There’s no point just lying here listening to your shit, or his!  If you are going to kill me, get on with it, get it over and done.  Do it well though.  Make sure you cut deep and fast because if you slip up…”

“Who the fuck are you?” screeched Kayla.

“Your worst nightmare…”

“Oh, I doubt that very much, I have some pretty fucked up dreams!  You are nothing, just a pointless want to be…”

“Stop it!”  Messiah tried to interject.  He was slowly edging towards the gun but knew he was not going to get there.  Tensions were rising at a pace, fear fuelling their naked aggression.  Their fuses were burning fast, and it was just a matter of who exploded first.

“Kill me!” Nazia repeated. “Do it!  Now!  I’m bored with all this.  Bored with you tickling my neck.  Come on, show me you have the guts to do it!  You know I had the beating of you, no match, you need the dirty weapon to level up the field.  So go on, do it, show you have the guts…”

“Who the fuck are you?” Kayla screeched again.  “I want to know who the fuck you are!”

“Nazia Jwaran,” she said, “thief, mercenary, assassin… remember my name.  Oh, and the one over there?  That’s the love of my life, my Mess, mine.  Wild we were, ain’t that right lover boy?  Wild.  You been there with this skinny bitch yet?  You had her like you used to have me?  Has he fucked you yet, bitch?”

Messiah saw the moment as clear as anything.  Those eyes again, those green eyes, a blink that lasted a little longer than usual, and when they opened, it was as if they had been switched.  Still the same eyes, but a different glare, a different power. If there had been an internal conflict holding that broken bottle at bay, that conflict was gone.  Now there was just pure anger, a rage so strong it consumed, everything else had left her.

“Don’t call me that,” Kayla said, “no one calls me that.”

“I’ll call you what the fuck I like!” hissed Nazia, trying to free her trapped arm, a desperate last attempt to pull away.  “Let me go, you bitch!”

There was visible relief on the bloody and battered face of the fugitive.  Whatever the resolution, it seemed to put her at ease, seemed to put to bed all the confusion, seemed to focus the mind.

“You should not have called me that,” she said calmly, “especially now I know your name, Nazia Jwaran.  You are a no one.  You should show more respect for your betters, show more respect for who I am!”

She squeezed even tighter, her arm and legs crushing the air out of the other woman.  It was an unbelievable strength, leaving Nazia gasping and unable to speak.  Only an agonised moan could emerge, making Messiah cover his mouth, tears spilling on to his cheeks.  He shook his head in disbelief.

“And you know exactly who I am,” Kayla said, “don’t you?  It is why you are here, after all.  Thief, mercenary, assassin – you missed bounty hunter off your résumé.  You came all this way to find me, but all you can do is throw insults instead of using my name.  You call me what the Kamdo did, you insult me with their words, and you expect me to accept that?  Say my name, Nazia Jwaran, I want to hear you say my name!”

Tighter still, the pain unbearable, breath impossible to find.  Messiah made a final attempt to get to the gun, unsure how he would use it if he managed, certain he could not now stop the inevitable.  He was far too slow and it was far too late.  He saw in the face of his former lover that she also knew it was the end of the line.

“If you will not say it, you will hear it!”

The hand holding the glass tightening its grip.  Kayla was oblivious to the cuts sliced into her palm and fingers, oblivious to the blood oozing from her own wounds.

“They took away my life.  They took away my childhood, my home, my family, took everything I had!  Then they did it again, stole my best friend, stole my freedom, stole my dignity!  The only thing I kept was who I am, the only thing that survived is who I am!  Then you come here, to hurt me, to take me back, or maybe you just came to kill me, but I do not die easily, I do not get beaten easily, and I never, ever give up!  So you will hear it.  You will hear my name, and it will be the last name you hear.  You will take it to your grave!”

The broken bottle poised, her hand, bleeding profusely, ready to deliver that fatal blow.

“My name,” she hissed, “is Kayla McGann.”

Next:  War rages in…

Episode 5:  Kragenfeld Mass