“Getting hot out,” she said brightly when Orri gave her a questioning stare.
When they were just a few blocks away from the medcenter, Bazine stopped at a corner and pretended to read a menu.
“Fancy some nerf steaks and fine Corellian wine, lover?” she asked.
Orri looked at her like she’d lost her mind. “What? Now?”
Giving him a grin, she whisked the syringe out of her pocket, bit off the cap, stabbed herself in the meat of her thigh, and tossed the needle down the nearest storm drain. Within seconds she groaned and collapsed. Orri barely managed to catch her and help her fall inelegantly to the ground. Her muscles went tense, her head thrown back and the cords of her neck standing out.
“Help!” Orri shouted, looking frantically around the busy corner. “Help us! I don’t know…I don’t know what’s wrong!”
They were soon surrounded by concerned octogenarian passersby. An ambulance wailed in the distance, barreling toward them with red lights flashing. Bazine was shaking now, teeth clenched in what looked like a seizure as Orri knelt at her side, acting perfectly helpless and properly scared. A human in a gleaming white uniform leapt out, a white-and-silver GH-8 medical droid hovering by her side.
“What’s wrong?” the woman asked as the droid scanned Bazine’s body.
Orri shook his head. “I don’t know. We were going to get lunch, and she just…collapsed. What is it?”
“Unidentified substance,” the droid said in a calm voice. “Immediate chelation and fluid replacement is recommended.”
The human nodded and pulled a gurney out of the hovering ambulance. “You can ride in back,” she said to Orri, who stood and continued to be useless. Together, the woman and the droid lifted Bazine’s stiff body onto the gurney and slid it into the waiting vehicle. Orri climbed in to sit on the bench beside her, one hand on the gurney but definitely not close to touching Bazine, as if he was terrified of her even when she appeared to be dying. The ride was oddly calm and strangely fast. Moments later they slipped down a ramp and into the cool underbelly of the medcenter.
The back door opened, and they were engulfed in a flurry of noise, sound, and metal. The gurney zoomed down the hall as a trio of medical droids floated beside it, anchored to the rails and performing various tests. Orri jogged alongside, watching as Bazine’s body shook and shivered.
“Was this person exposed to any toxic chemicals or unusual foodstuffs?” a droid asked.
“No,” Orri said, slightly out of breath as they caromed down twisting hallways. “She just fell over.”
“No identichip,” said one droid.
“This is highly unusual,” another droid remarked in almost the same voice.
“Sorry for the inconvenience,” Orri shot back.
Bazine’s body seized, and her hand smacked hard against Orri’s wrist. They were passing by the main reception area and its computer banks, which he should’ve known, because he was supposed to be watching for it instead of watching her. She had purposefully neglected to tell him that she would remain conscious and of sound mind while the chemicals made her body spasm, but the tap got his attention. He looked up, looked back at Bazine, and nodded.
“I think I’m going to vomit,” he said, one hand over his mouth. “I’ll come find you!”
As he hurried back down the hall, a droid called out a room number, but Orri was already gone. The shot wasn’t wearing off as quickly as Bazine would’ve liked, and she was frustrated to feel so out of control. The best she could do was to use what little physical focus she had to kick or smack every instrument one of the droids extended toward her as they took a lift up to the patient area. The gurney pulled smoothly into a private room, all white with bright, warm lights, and the door whooshed shut behind them.
When one of the droids murmured “Restraints are necessary,” Bazine felt the last of the chemical effect drain away. Her body was back under her command.
“Not today,” she said, sitting up suddenly.
Before the droids could react, she’d risen to standing, snatched a scalpel off a droid’s med tray, cartwheeled one-handed off the gurney, pressed the door button, and slipped outside, leaving the droids with no ident information whatsoever. They were programmed to heal, not to hunt or even doubt. She pulled on the baffleweave shirt and walked down the hall like a normal, unhurried medcenter visitor.
While Orri had paid little attention to the medcenter’s layout, Bazine had studied it well. She was supposed to find the nearest exit and return to the Sparrowhawk taking a circuitous route. But she didn’t do that. Instead, she palmed the scalpel and retraced the gurney’s path, heading for the same bank of computers that Orri was supposed to find. On the one hand, she didn’t trust him to get out of the building alive and unidentified. On the other, if he was Narglatch, he might take the files on TK-1472 and beat her to the target using information she couldn’t get on her own.
She made a mental note: Learn how to slice on my own.
On the lift back down to the main level, two doctors and a med droid stepped in with her, and she gave a shy smile and looked away, playing with her blond wig. One doctor smiled back, which made the other doctor frown. While the lift cheerfully binged, she amused herself by calculating the quickest way to kill them both and take out the droid before the door slid open. Not that she would do that—it was simply the way her mind worked, thanks to Kloda’s teaching.
She was the first one out on her floor, and the drone of the servers and cheerful voices of the protocol droid receptionists told her she was near her goal. Creeping around the corner, she watched administrators and nurses typing at the registration terminal as if it were a giant animal in need of constant feeding and cleaning. The humanoid men and women in their loose white jumpsuits and caps paid no attention to the seemingly bored blond girl in the loudly patterned shirt walking around the high-ceilinged hall with all the other patients and visitors. She saw no sign of Orri in the area, and that’s when she began to suspect the worst. He should’ve been there, poking around, doing his magic.
But he wasn’t.
“Where are you?” she whispered into her wrist comlink.
No response.
“Answer me!”
Still nothing.
“I don’t care where you are or what you’re doing, make a noise! Heavy breathing. I don’t care.”
When he didn’t respond, she nearly punched a hole in the closest wall.
There was a possibility that he was lost in the labyrinthine depths or heights of the fifty-story building or behind a comm-blocking area, especially considering how he’d almost jogged right past the massive terminal the first time. And there was also a possibility that he’d already done his work and fled, leaving her high and dry, or that he was waiting for her at the Sparrowhawk with the intel. He might be in flexcuffs, being shipped off for questioning after someone noticed his poor excuse for sneaking. But the one place he wasn’t was here, where he was supposed to be, and the fact that he wasn’t responding on his comlink couldn’t be a coincidence. And that meant Bazine had a decision to make.
Swearing under her breath, she pulled a dastardly computer spike disruptor out of her pocket and leaned against the solid, sea-green-painted counter. With precise timing to ensure that no one would see her, she stabbed the metal instrument deep into the wall of the nearest computer terminal, then immediately withdrew it.
As the first administrator muttered a curse, she disappeared.
The spike’s jolt would spread, and the whole system would be down for at least an hour, possibly longer. Tech droids would soon be swarming the area, probing every chip. No one else would access records today. If she couldn’t get what she needed, no one would.
Bazine was back on the street and headed for the spaceport and the Sparrowhawk before the alarms began to ring.
Chapter 5
At least the ramp was still up, meaning the Sparrowhawk was safe. She’d taken a long route here, constantly barking into her comli
nk, alternately threatening and cajoling Orri and receiving only silence in return. That’s what she got for trusting someone, even someone recommended by Kloda, the only person she actually trusted.
Vashka City was painfully pristine and orderly, which meant she’d have to dig farther than usual to find someone as dirty as she was. She’d have to wait until after dark to head back toward the sketchy part of town, find the local low-life hangout, and troll the place for a new slicer. And this one would get her what she needed because she’d threaten him instead of warmly instructing him. Losing a day off her schedule put her in a foul mood.
Bazine pressed the button on her comlink to activate the ramp, and the tiny hairs on the back of her neck rose, alerting her to danger. Whipping the stolen scalpel from her pocket, she spun…and nearly sliced Orri’s neck open. He stumbled back, hands up, a tiny prick of blood at his throat.
“Why’d you do that?” he asked, voice trembling.
Bazine repocketed the scalpel and stared at him, cold as ice. “I might ask you the same thing.”
“Following the plan. I got the info, covered my tracks, and came back to the ship. Got lost, though. And somebody jacked my comlink.” He held up his wrist, showing a bruise. “At least it’s easy to find the spaceport, right?”
With a sigh, Bazine walked up the ramp with Orri at her heels. She wanted to believe him…but she never believed anyone. What kind of idiot had a simple comlink stolen in a city as safe as Vashka’s capital? If he was truly that foolish, what could possibly make Kloda believe he might be worth anything as a spy or merc? Orri’s instincts were terrible. The only other option was that his instincts were fantastic and he was an amazing actor. She had to find out.
As Bazine entered the cargo area, she spun suddenly, aiming a high kick for Orri’s head. His arm flew up to block it, quick but unpolished, and he grunted as he took the full force of the strike, bone on bone. She next tried a basic punch combination, jab-cross-hook-cross, and he barely managed to keep up, ducking and blocking inelegantly without taking any real damage.
“What are you doing?” he grunted.
“Testing your reflexes,” she answered, nowhere near out of breath.
After a few more punches, she pulled him into a clinch and tried a simple joint lock, which made him yelp and flail.
“Ow! Ow! Stop! You’re going to break my wrist!” he shouted, legs scrambling for purchase.
She released him. “You’re not very good at this.”
Orri stood, rubbing his arm and throwing her a look of great reproach. “The kicks and punches were part of my training, but Kloda never taught me anything about whatever you just did to my arm.”
Bazine smirked. “He doesn’t teach the Echani arts at his school.”
“Why’d you attack me, though? I did what you asked. Just like you said.”
She smiled, closed the ramp behind them, and headed for her room. “Just trying to keep you on your toes. I’m surprised you let someone steal your comlink.”
Orri followed for a moment, then stopped as she walked through her door and took off her blond wig.
“They had blasters. I had no weapons. I was lost and went down the wrong alley. Not that surprising. But I got the info. TK-1472 was last recorded as a resident at Vashka Valley Retirement Facility Forty-Eight, which has since been shut down. Here are the coordinates.” He held out a torn piece of flimsiplast covered in neat, blocky letters, and she took it. “It’s not that far from here, but there’s no shuttle. We’ll have to rent something, I guess.”
“Why was it shut down?”
He shrugged. “That wasn’t what you asked me to find out.”
“And why do you think we should go to a closed facility?”
“Well, the thing about this guy’s records is that they’re marked confidential, and when I sliced past that, most of the usual information had a code that translated to ‘held on site.’ So whether or not he’s still at Facility Forty-Eight, his records are. I’m guessing that, for whatever reason, they wanted your guy away from the main facility. Maybe he’s dangerous, or maybe they’re hiding something. Even if the place burned down, chances are the server room is intact underground.”
Annoyed, Bazine smacked a palm against the button to shut her door in his face and happily peeled off her disguise, trading it for the clothes she found most comfortable. All black, all fitted, and all riddled with mesh, armor plates, and weapons. The baffleweave shirt fit over her black tank and gear without too much adjustment. As she slipped on her skullcap and boots, she contemplated what she’d learned about Orri Tenro: mainly, that Kloda had been exactly right. The guy had great slicing skills, very poor instincts, and no talent for manipulation or espionage. You couldn’t fake bad reflexes. There was only one thing she could do with him before the next step of her mission.
Poor Orri.
Chapter 6
The sad thing was that Orri Tenro didn’t even present a challenge. There was no elaborate setup required, no ampoule slipped into a fancy drink, no poison-impregnated clothing in a box with tissue. Her approach served as his final test, and he failed brilliantly. Bazine merely walked up behind him, put a warm hand on his shoulder, and stabbed the syringe into his buttock.
“Hey!” was all he managed before falling, facedown, on the ground.
If he’d been a spy, if he’d had any real training other than Kloda using him as a punching bag, he wouldn’t have let her get a needle into his flesh, much less given her time to depress the plunger.
“Sorry, partner,” she said, arranging him flat on his back. “But this next part is a one-woman job.”
She checked his vital signs before leaving the ship and locking him safely within. Just as she’d promised him would happen to anyone who dared to kiss her black-painted lips, Orri would sleep for half a day at least and wake up feeling dizzy and nauseated, as if he had the worst hangover of his life. It was her favorite poison for good reason—it generally left the victim incapable of chasing her.
Her first order of business was suiting up for an unpredictable mission. She wanted clean, and this job was turning out to be anything but. Without knowing what she was up against, she did her best to pack all her favorite weapons and gadgets, now with the addition of her sensor-jamming new shirt. Whatever was going on at Facility 48, there would be no record of a woman known as Bazine Netal infiltrating the building, just a wavering blur where she’d been. So Orri was good for two things, then. Maybe she’d let him live after all.
Her next stop was to steal a two-seater landspeeder from a vast parking garage—all too easy when the owner had left the gate ticket on the passenger seat. The attendant waved to the beautiful woman with her bouncy blond hair, and then, when she was out of sight, Bazine tossed off her wig and sped toward the edge of town and the coordinates she’d long ago memorized after destroying Orri’s flimsiplast notes.
The poor fool didn’t even understand how dangerous it was to leave records behind.
The farther Bazine’s speeder got from the city, the quieter and more beautiful the planet became. Idyllic, even. Long swaths of ornamental, graveled road linked sprawling retirement facilities and medcenters surrounded by lushly manicured grounds. There were no crops or farms; Vashka was reserved for sentient beings and largely absent of industry and agriculture in an effort to keep the climate and ecosystem pristine. The planet’s original megafauna had been cleared out to ensure the safety of its new inhabitants, although the giant ferns, sunburst flowers, and swaying palms had been allowed to flourish—albeit in neat rows. A big waste of meat and leather, in Bazine’s opinion, but the lack of traffic and witnesses made her job easier, so she wouldn’t complain.
The coordinates were farther out than she’d anticipated, and Bazine hadn’t passed a building in hours by the time she neared what had once been Vashka Valley Retirement Facility 48. While she’d been expecting just another New Republic building, all soft lines and gleaming windows, what she saw were jagged peaks and a strange, cast
lelike form rising over the next hill. She stopped the speeder at the crest and looked down into the valley. It wasn’t often she was surprised and perplexed, but Facility 48 looked altogether wrong, shining a strange, warm gold in the afternoon’s sunlight. When she tracked movement to one side, she realized why.
The building had been colonized.
It wasn’t a government center anymore.
It was a hive.
—
Up close, she recognized the giant insects busily buzzing around their stolen home. Vashkan apidactyls, one of the original megafauna inhabitants of the warm planet. When she’d scanned the Sparrowhawk’s datapad for intel on Vashka, apidactyls, or dacs, had been listed on the “Safety Concerns” page for visiting tourists. No matter what the New Republic did, no matter which poisons they spread or how many hives they burned, they couldn’t completely eradicate the primitive, insectoid beasts. The apidactyls weren’t exactly friendly: They were the size of a small humanoid, coated in armorlike chitin, and blessed with two sets of wings and venomous stingers. No wonder the retirement facility had closed.
Bazine left her speeder concealed under a fallen palm tree, plucked one of its giant fronds to use as camouflage, and crept toward the towering hive. The front doors were open…and being used by insects bustling in and out in two endless lines. Most of the building had been coated with heavy golden wax that glowed, almost translucent, in the sun. Hexagonal cells cloaked the corners and roof, piling upward to partially melted points. What once had been windows were firmly sealed. Getting in would not be easy, but she wasn’t going to leave without finding out what had happened to Jor Tribulus…and that steel case. Orri had said the data servers would be well protected, and she had to hope he was right. Her quarry’s trail was cold.