The Perfect Weapon (Short Story)

  “What is this?”

  The old man stood in front of one of the shiny white suits and saluted. “Ah. Here he is. Jor Tribulus. My old captain in the service. Good man. Quieter than most.”

  “You already said that.”

  “Did I?”

  She shoved Nightdrifter aside and grabbed the nearest stormtrooper’s arm to make sure the suit was empty. It rattled. Fury boiled in her veins. Everything about this job had gone wrong. She wouldn’t accept a mission from a self-destructing droid ever again. With one violent yank, the whole suit clattered and fell from the metal IV pole that had been holding it up.

  “No!” Nightdrifter cried, crawling to catch it. “Show some respect!”

  “Empty armor. Useless. Where’s Tribulus, really?”

  With a shaking hand, the old man pointed to the hexagonal cell directly before her. There were three rows: one on the floor, one at chest height, and one along the ceiling. Looking closely at the middle one, she saw TK-1472: JOR TRIBULUS carefully incised in the wax, and horror snicked up her spine, quickly followed by hope.

  “He’s in there?”

  Nightdrifter nodded.

  “His body?”

  Another nod.

  “With his belongings?”

  Nightdrifter’s eyes slid sideways. “Some of them. Most.”

  Before he could stand and stop her, she sliced her blade in a smooth circle and levered the sheet of finger-thick wax out of the hole she’d created. It fell and broke in two with a heavy thump. The scent of death and rot came with it, and she immediately pulled on her goggles and stuck her head into the darkness.

  The cell was as long as two men, and what was left of TK-1472 was laid out with his arms crossed over his chest at the very back. A promising mound of belongings sat at his feet.

  “It’s bad luck to disturb the dead,” Nightdrifter said, but she ignored him.

  Crawling farther back, she saw a steel case peeking out from beneath the rotting hand. As she pulled curled fingers of bone away to inspect it, the old man outside started talking.

  “They tried to fight the dacs at first, but when you kill one, it does something to the hive. Murderous things can communicate rage, tell one another who to aim for. Once they’re focused, nothing else can get their attention. The doctors and workers left—they could, couldn’t they? No mechno-chairs, no prosthetics, no jackets, no locked rooms. They left us here. Even the women. We moved down into the basement and kept the doors locked, but there’s no food down there, no water. Can’t live if you can’t get outside the building, can you? So we took turns fetching supplies, never knowing if we’d make it back a hero, get stung to death and walled up in a cell with a grub, or get caught outside by the New Republic, damn them. If this is freedom, freedom isn’t worth much.”

  She looked up as he leaned into the cell, his face frantic.

  “They knew we were dangerous, see? Knew we’d seen things. That’s why they sent us all the way out here, to the edge of nothing. Far away. Locked up. Not for our good. For theirs.”

  “I don’t blame them.”

  As she traced fingers over the silver metal, her black lips finally gave a real, true, wide smile. This was it. The case. After all that had gone wrong, she had the loot. She touched the device behind her ear and cleared her throat to speak.

  “This is Bazine Netal. I—”

  There was a loud thump. The old man cried out, and someone newer and bigger blocked the light. She deactivated the comm, smile gone and blaster ready, and looked up. Directly into the face of the last person she’d thought to see.

  Chapter 9

  “Hello, Chaakrabbit,” Kloda said.

  She gently placed the case on the floor of the cell and pasted on a fake smile. Behind it, her body was betraying her. Tears pricked at her eyes as her heart yammered and her nerves buzzed with adrenaline. All she wanted to do was run, because there was no good, safe, well-meaning reason for Kloda to be on Vashka. She hadn’t even told him it was her destination. She couldn’t move. She couldn’t get out of the cell. Not with him outside, blocking it.

  “Nice to see you, old man.”

  He didn’t move, but his grin grew wider. “Let me help you with that case, kid.”

  And that’s when Bazine knew for certain.

  “Why do they call you Narglatch?” she asked, voice flat.

  He didn’t skip a beat. “Because I’m a solitary hunter. Now give me the case.” His favorite blaster appeared, and he winked his one good eye. “Please.” When she didn’t reach for it, he added, “Don’t count on our history, kid. I could just as easily shoot you and take it anyway.”

  Her throat went tight as she reached for the metal box.

  “Just kick it over. Your weapons, too, including the throwing knives. I know you have at least five hidden on you somewhere. If I see your fingers twitch, you’ll lose an arm. It’s not set on stun.”

  She gave a bitter laugh. “It never is.”

  With his blaster aimed for her face, she tossed out seven throwing knives and kicked her blaster, her blade, and the case away with her boot.

  Kloda swept her weapons to the ground, pulled the case out into the light, and inspected it, just as she had. Her mission, her case, the one she’d pulled from the skeleton hand of a corpse. She’d almost forgotten the body of Tribulus, trapped, like her, in the apidactyl cell. Even as her heart broke to know her savior, mentor, and friend had betrayed her, still her mind was cataloging the contents of the chamber, remembering the shine of a knife in the pile of goods and a carefully wrapped length of rope on the body’s hip. Most of the dead man’s belongings, Nightdrifter had said. There had to be plenty of things here she could use as a weapon if she only had an opening.

  “Good job,” Kloda said, and her head jerked up. “I appreciate you doing all the work for me. And taking Orri off my hands, too. Bastard asks too many questions, doesn’t he?”

  He was busy with something outside the cell, moving around and bending over.

  “Sorry about your friend out here,” he said. “All that armor, and it only took one punch to the skull to put him down. Guess I’ve still got a good right hook, huh? Old, but still has a kick.”

  “Can I come out now?” she asked, trying to put worry and vulnerability into her voice. It had worked on him, a little, when she’d been a youngling.

  He bent to smirk at her. “Nice try, kid. But I know all your moves. I’m the one who taught them to you. So you just sit tight, and let’s make sure you won’t follow me.”

  She knew he wanted her to ask what he meant, and so she remained stubbornly silent. The old man whistled his favorite tune as he used Nightdrifter’s lighter to fire up one of his fat cigarras and puff thoughtfully. With a grunt, he lifted one slab of wax back into place, holding it over the hole with one hand while he melted the edges with the lighter. The warm, cloying smell of wax merged with the rot of death to tighten the ball of dread in Bazine’s stomach.

  “Look, kid, don’t blame yourself. You have no idea what’s in this case, do you? This was all part of a long game, playing for the biggest score of all. I needed a patsy, and they’re pretty easy to find in a Chaako City orphanage. You had a decent life, right? I taught you plenty. Let you run wild, right up until this job finally came around and I needed you. Didn’t even know you had a tracker on you, did you? If you were on Chaaktil, I could always find you. And I can always find the Sparrowhawk.”

  He bent to pick up the next slab, and Bazine bared her teeth. He wanted her to hurt—she could feel it in every word like a knife in the back. She’d known he was a bit of a sadist, but he’d never shown that side to her before. She wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of tears, of whimpers, of begging.

  He thought he knew everything about her?

  She’d teach him something new.

  For now, she slit her eyes with rage as he sealed the last slab of wax over the tomb and melted the jagged crack where it had broken. The light filtered through, golden orange, not
quite dark enough to merit her goggles.

  “You were the perfect weapon,” he said, voice slightly muffled. “Beautiful. Angry. Cold. Damaged. As long as I killed everyone you tried to get close to, you kept pushing yourself harder. Kept you on your toes. That little kid you befriended at the market. That featherweight you let in your bed. They slowed you down.” He thumped the wax with a fist, and it didn’t budge. “So you can understand why I don’t want to kill you myself. This way at least I can pretend that you’re still scrapping.” She heard his bones pop as he bent to pick up her blade and blaster. “You’ll never see me again, but we were never the sort for sappy goodbyes. I hear suffocating’s not too bad a way to go.”

  And then his metal stump was clanking down the hall, taking TK-1472’s case with him.

  Chapter 10

  When she could no longer hear Kloda, she flipped on her goggles and went for the knife, her fingers scrabbling around the pile of decaying fabric and goods. She also took the rope and the dead man’s belt. The knife was a rough thing, probably made by sharpening a spoon, but it would serve to slice open the wax—if her foot couldn’t do it first. She crawled to the newly melted wax wall and put a hand against it, testing where it might be weakest, right at the seam.

  That’s when she heard the pew-pew-pew of blasterfire and an answering, furious buzz that built to a maddening crescendo.

  So Kloda had woken the stupefied apidactyls, further hindering her chase.

  Of course he was smart like that. But even if the old pirate hadn’t taught her all his tricks, he’d taught her enough. When you couldn’t go through the front door, you found a window. When there wasn’t a window, you made one. She’d already slipped on leather gloves and stabbed the knife into the cell’s ceiling when the first dacs flew into the room. Judging by the satisfied sound of their buzzing and the coppery smell and wet splats, they were getting their revenge on what was left of Aric Nightdrifter. Kloda’s right cross was as lethal as it had ever been.

  Shadows flickered against the wax wall, razor-sharp legs probing it as if sensing something deeply wrong. She didn’t know how intelligent the insects might be, and she didn’t want to stick around long enough to find out. As soon as her knife had broken through the brittle wax overhead, she began peeling large chunks of it away with her hands.

  She’d begun her bolt-hole in the center of the cell, halfway between the insects outside and the corpse within, hoping all the burial cells were set up like this one. That meant that when she crawled upward into the cell nearest the ceiling, she wouldn’t be directly under another rotting body. She could smell it, though, and that was enough. This cell was darker, and she recalibrated her goggles to rummage through the pile of goods, finding a coil of insulated wire, a pair of wire clippers, and another sorry excuse for a knife. Such a shame that the stormtrooper armor was outside with the monsters instead of inside with the men who had worn it. She could’ve put that armor to good use right now.

  The buzzing outside grew louder and more frantic, and she could only assume that the creatures were amassing to pull their own hive apart to find the fresh meat of the interloper inside. She hacked at the thick wax on the ceiling, but it was heavier and harder to break through. Her gloves wore through and her knuckles burned and bled. When she did get a good chunk out, she found standard white ceiling tile behind it, which was promising. The insects might have built their home to last, but ceiling tiles were meant to be replaced often enough to keep the bigger galactic corporations in business. She took glee in stabbing the white board until it fell apart in brittle pieces.

  Soon Bazine had a proper hole in the ceiling, just wide enough for her and hopefully the wrong shape and size for any hungry dacs who tried to follow. She stood, gathered up her tools, and pulled herself carefully into the thick, hot air of the building’s attic. She hated dust and muck, but never had dust and muck smelled so good. There wasn’t enough room to stand up, but her goggles revealed a latticework of metal girders holding the ceiling tiles in place. Exhaust vents all around the edges of the building let in slashes of sunlight, and that’s what she aimed for.

  Kloda’s training came in handy as she sprinted lightly along the narrow metal rail, knowing that any step onto a tile might send her crashing down into the apidactyl nest below. Rage pushed her forward, and she kept her weight on her toes until she reached the nearest duct and slid her goggles down around her neck. She spread her weight over two different girders and used the knife to unscrew the vent’s bolts. As it came loose, she gently let it fall sideways, still dangling by one screw.

  The scene outside was beautiful—but terrifying. Smooth green walls surrounded the valley, megaflora bursting from random oases amid the grass. The sky was headed to purple, the golden yellow of the wax spires and walls reflecting red rays of the setting sun. She was under an overhang directly below the roof of the building, three stories up. Which normally would present no problem for her sentiments or her talents. But this time, hundreds of angry insects roughly her own size whirled in tornadoes of slashing rage, buzzing in and out of the doors, hunting and probing, compelled to punish whatever had dared to attack the hive.

  She scoped out the deadfall where she’d left her speeder and couldn’t contain a growl. Kloda knelt beside the engine, no doubt disabling it. Beside him crouched a fully grown narglatch bearing a saddle and panniers, its finned tail slashing the air and its claws digging into the grass.

  Now the code name made sense.

  Getting off the building would be no problem, thanks to the rope she’d found on Tribulus’s body. It was being spotted by the insects that worried her. She didn’t have time to piece together her own armor, as Nightdrifter had, but she did have one disguise up her sleeve. Or, to be more precise, in her pocket. Soon Bazine was rubbing her rishi eel ink on the pale skin of her arms and chest not covered by her black undershirt. She smudged the last of the tube’s ink around her face. If she couldn’t look like a dac, she’d look like a shadow.

  Everything she’d taken from the cells above was hidden on her person, along with a few weapons Kloda didn’t know about. The coil of wire and nippers were hooked to Tribulus’s belt, and she unwound the rope and tied the end firmly to the nearest ceiling girder. It wouldn’t get her all the way to the ground, but it would get her close.

  Bazine’s hands were now covered in the rishi eel ink, which not only kept her from ever leaving finger- or handprints behind but also would provide some cushion for the rope’s friction—and mask her scent. Reaching down through the hole she’d made in the ceiling, she chipped off some wax pieces and rubbed them between her hands, hoping the wax would provide additional relief to the rope burn.

  As she stood at the open grate, tying a knot in the loop of rope around her waist, an inquisitive buzzing in the hole she’d just vacated told her the time had come to jump. She backed out of the narrow hole feetfirst and rappelled down the side of Facility 48, her boots sinking into the warm wax with every jump. Her palms burned hot, but not nearly as hot as the rage in her chest as she glanced over her shoulder and saw Kloda slip the metal case into one of his panniers. She let herself fall faster until she ran out of rope, just before she hit the first story. Releasing the knot, she gave herself a meter of distance before letting go and landing on a smooth slope of wax. It was thankfully the easiest landing of her career, and she slid down the slick incline until she was able to roll to standing where the remaining grass met the edge of the hive. Whether it was their white-hot focus on finding the intruder or her all-black costume, the apidactyls hadn’t spotted her. Yet.

  And neither had Kloda.

  He was talking on a comm now, one very similar to hers, laughing. She knew how to take him down, but it was going to be tricky. She had to be close, but not too close. And he had to be far away from her speeder and the hive. She had to time her actions perfectly.

  Bazine darted behind the trash pile, running all the way around it to the far edge. She waited as Kloda mounted his narglatch
and checked his gear. She checked her gear, too, lifting her boot to release and palm her last thermal detonator. As he took off at a lope, she sprinted behind him, depressed the trigger, and lobbed the metal sphere directly ahead of his path.

  With a resounding boom, the ground disappeared in a ten-meter-wide depression. The great cat yowled and fell, taking Kloda with it. By the time she’d run to the edge of the crater, Bazine’s mentor and once-friend was climbing over the edge, bruised and scratched up but mostly unharmed.

  Which was exactly how Bazine wanted it. Revenge wasn’t as sweet when your enemy was already dead.

  He pulled himself to level ground just as she reached striking distance, but he couldn’t get to his blaster in time. She aimed her first kick at his face, then landed a pointed toe in his side. He’d once chided her for her taste in footwear—who spied in twelve-centimeter heels? Let him laugh now, with his broken ribs. Everything she did, she did for a reason. You can’t hide bombs in flat shoes.

  The narglatch made a leap at the edge of the crevasse, swiping at her with heavy claws before falling back down again. She danced back just as Kloda snatched for her ankle, taking her down to one knee. He was a dirty fighter, the kind of man who packed poison under his ragged fingernails and had once beaten a man to death with his metal leg. But knowing his ways had taught her to prepare for such a fight, and she knew his nails couldn’t get through her thick leggings. She kicked at him, dislodging his hand, but he had enough strength to make another grab for her leg and pull her back.

  “Oh, no you don’t,” he growled.

  He wanted a close fight? Fine. She’d give him one. A betrayal as personal as his deserved a death just as intimate, after all.

  Bazine changed tactics. Instead of trying to get her distance and regroup, she pounced on him, straddled his chest, and snaked an arm behind his thick neck.

  “Gonna kiss me, Chaakrabbit?” he asked with a chuckle, and the shift of his arm told her he was going for a knife.