Chapter One

[66036] Isabell

Otso Station

Isabell’s mind buzzed with a static crackle as her synapses fired—hot and fast like snaps of lightning in the raging storms of Jupiter. Cloaked in a demonic visage, in an alleyway at the edge of Arcas station, high above the surface of Calisto, in the Jovian system, she hid behind something deeper than a shadow. Her obsidian black armor was sharp, angular, violent, and hid her face beneath a monochromatic Oni mask.
Everywhere she looked, she saw green and purple flags, emblazoned with the rising stars motif—the war flag of the Homeworlds. For the hedonistic crowds drawn to this district, the symbol implied the faintest edge of social and political menace. They came here for a perception of peril only, just a little edge of excitement, and that amused Isabell.

Her modified cold gray eyes saw their truth. This was not a place of danger, not really. It was a thoroughly gentrified section of a station in the heart of the Solar system, plastered over with empty signifiers of danger.

The flags around the district were nothing save a mere marketing ploy, designed to draw people to a sad little district tucked between the more stable habitats and the station’s superstructure. These crowds were being exploited by the most cynical of Homeworlds refugees displaced during the war, and the crowds deserved it.

Isabell was different. She was here for a righteous mission. And she prepared herself accordingly.

VIPs have arrived.

Isabell subvocalized with a growl across her quantum encrypted communications system as her eyes tracked two Martian scientists entering the district. For these lanky Martians draped in traditional shawls, the danger in the district was very real.

Sitrep.

We’re in position, Ninya Blanca.

The hisses of her operators sounded like whispers just behind her ear.

OPFOR shuttle is in our scopes. Ready to follow your lead.

She heard the tension in their voices. She heard their unanswered questions in the pauses between words. Contracted to protect two scientists—critical research assets for the United Planets Navy—her most elite operators of Grayson Services Group puzzled why they had allowed an abduction attempt to get this far?

Grayson’s intelligence officers had discovered an Acheron plot weeks ago. An obvious honeypot trap sprung through an invitation for the scientists to spend a night out in this district. An invitation sent by a known Acheron operative whose team was well prepared to grab the two Martians.

Yet Sato had ordered his cell, Isabell’s unit, to allow the plot to unfold, at least partially. Wouldn’t we lose face? Wouldn’t we lose our contracts? These were the questions that had gone unspoken in the minds of her operators.

“Conditions for Grayson maintaining control of the Martian’s project are unfavorable,” Sato said. “And there’s no reason to expect that to change—unless we force the issue. We must act to align the project with our interests. We cannot afford to sit idly by and merely hope for the right conditions to develop.”

There was no reason to doubt his judgement. He remained embedded in the United Planets Navy. He would know how to manipulate them the best. And he was Isabell’s mentor, besides.

She tracked the Martian scientists as they entered the large open space at the center of the district. Her targets headed to a bar ten or so meters away from the alley where she lurked, across an open common space with a gnarled oak tree in the center. A green-haired woman waved the two lanky Martian scientists over to a table at the bar’s open patio. With bows exchanged in the Martian fashion, the scientists approached the table.

Danger close, Isabell announced to her team.

Drinks ordered. Words exchanged. The trio’s socialization dragged on, and the crowds thinned as the hours passed. Around 01:04, station time, the female Martian scientist, Dr. Silva, said her goodbyes and left the Acheron Operative with the hapless Dr. Jakande.

Escorting Silva, Isabell’s operators announced.

Understood.

Her adversaries’ digital chatter increased over surveilled channels. Crowds in the public spaces had thinned to the point of non-existence. Tension in Isabell’s body increased.

Her fingers in her left hand splayed out. Sharp blades in the gloves of her armor extended as her fingers spread wide like the claws of a cat. She pulled out her coilgun machine pistol’s grip, and with a thought, the weapon unfolded and attached its exoskeletal brace to her right forearm.

Beneath the jet-black portholes on her armored demonic faceplate, she watched the green-haired adversary lace Dr. Jakande’s drink. Within a minute, he was swaying and violently stumbling up from the table. The green-haired adversary lured him to the water closet in a side alley next to the bar, where Acheron planned to spring the trap. The hostile operator’s accomplice, built like a tank, was ready for the last acts of the abduction just outside the main water closet. In a flash, the green-haired operator was behind the Martian scientist, gun pressed to his ribs.

Go!

She growled the order as she burst through the metamaterial metaflage that had hidden her in her alley. Like a lenticular lens, the metaflage shifted the frequencies of her light and heat in a chaotic dance, hiding her from both human and autonomous snoops. Against her exoskeletal enhanced strength, the metamaterial broke apart like ink display paper.

In three heartbeats she was across the wide-open space, past the gnarled oak tree, and in the alley with Jakande and his would-be abductors. The operator rippling with muscles and mass noticed her and shouted. It was too late.

Snap snap snap. Isabell’s hypersonic rounds crackled through the alley like a laser beam. Brilliant red tracers, bright enough to cause remnant phosphors in unprotected eyes, shot out from Isabell’s weapon attached to her right arm. The large Acheron operator’s upper torso was a mist of blood and bone exploding outward. The green-haired operator turned and took aim with her sidearm.

Pop pop. Valiant effort, but the projectiles exploded against the metal plating where Isabell had been milliseconds earlier. Isabell had already launched herself high into the air. Clawed arm reached back.

Whoosh. She swiped forward with her left hand as she landed on her knees. Pressure emanated from her fingertips in midair. Then something warm and wet spilled across the haptic skin in the palm of her glove.

Shuttle secured Ninya Blanca.

Understood.

Isabell stood and flicked some of the blood off her claw blades, retracting them back into her gloves. With a thought, her demonic faceplate split in half, retracting the top-half as her demon’s smile remained in place over her chin. She stared down at the stunned and drugged Martian scientist, tried to smile warmly with her eyes as their artificial steel-gray glow got brighter. A whirlwind of air pressed against her body. There was a roar of wind rushing out of a habitat breach. Warning klaxons and yellow emergency lighting filled the district.

“Don’t worry, Dr. Jakande!” Isabell screamed over the cyclone of depressurization. “I am with Grayson Services Group. I am here to protect you.”

For now. She thought with a cruel and hungry smile beneath her mask.