well-known. “Now you question: am I working for someone else, or am I just trying to figure it all out and sell it to the highest bidder?”
I shook my head. “I have no interest in your motives, Cain.” This wasn’t true at all, but I was busy stalling and trying to find a way not to die. Power continued to ripple in what I assumed was an energy cannon inside his arm. If it was a singular pulse or beam, I believed I could dodge it without too much difficulty. If the weapon had sustain, Cain would likely be able track my movements and reduce all but my important bits to dust.
Still working on the program, I said, “I’d suggest against trying anything. I have many friends aboard this station.” A semi-empty threat. No doubt he could murder me, dig out my brain tissue, implant my data stores in his mind, and stop at the bazaar for lunch in the time it would take for them to discern that the ashen remains were mine and attempt to arrest him.
Cain threw back his head and laughed. “Oh, Sid, be real.”
“I don’t have anything useful on Ivan yet anyway. Killing me now would be a waste.” Still stalling, the program I was writing was almost complete, and his intrusion attempts became more urgent.
“For you, perhaps.” My assailant shrugged, casually raising his arm. “I’m sure Ivan’s not the only thing rattling around in that skull of yours.”
Finished, I smiled. “Indeed.”
Cutting loose my firewall, portions of his consciousness slammed into my own, driven right into the program I created. Noting the trap, he panicked and withdrew, intrusion of my own trailing behind and cutting into his own defenses.
A bright shaft of amber light exploded from the end of his hand, lancing over my head as I ducked. A deep scorch sliced into the nose of a nearby ship, and the stench of cooking metal filled the air.
I knew my tranquilizers would do little good here. I also wasn’t certain of how effective my sonic emitter would be. Even so, I’d have to get very close, which was too risky by itself. The reality was that I had to hope my program was enough to give me half a moment to escape.
The only equivalent device I had to his impressive array of hardware was the processing and intrusion pieces intrinsic to our brains. His indelicate pings suggested he didn’t know much about finesse in that department, so I took my only chance.
His beam was charged again, but his hands clapped to the sides of his head. My program succeeded, opening a port in his own firewall and transmitting a connection to the nearest open wireless terminal. His consciousness was cast into a random pool of information.
Cain’s head dropped to his chin, appearing as though he’d merely fallen asleep as he fell to the deck with a heavy clang. I cursed as small, deliberate pings suggested he only established a connection to a restaurant’s transaction terminal in the bazaar.
I took off at a run, moving past the downed body. I considered my options for one tiny moment. An eternity of calculation, anger, and regret blazed through my thoughts before I fled, palming the hatchway to Minerva.
There was no chance. I believed I could exact some severe injury, tearing off his organic lower jaw being about the most heinous. However, there was no further incapacitation or life-ending method capable of succeeding before he recovered and blasted me apart at point blank range.
I could have bashed his shining skull against the decks for a month without breaking through. I could have tried to peel away the metallic plates which protected his functioning organs, but that too would take time and analysis. Hitting arteries, nerve clusters, even the most basic methods of dirty fighting were protected against.
No wonder Cain had killed so many Archivists. He was well-armed and defended. Nothing I had in my own arsenal could compete, so I had to run.
I strapped myself into the cockpit and rushed through pre-flight checks as I was cleared by the station to depart.
Even as Minerva slid out of the stall, I became gripped by the wild urge to fire her main guns. My desire to vaporize as much of Cain and the surrounding deck as I could, perhaps preserving his head and brain tissue, was startling to me, but desperate caution overrode. I liked Dei Lucrii XVII. Security might overlook an Archivist fight and perhaps even the gruesome victory it could bring, but opening fire with ship weaponry inside of a docking bay might sour my image in their eyes.
“Damn,” I whispered as my vessel soared away from Dei Lucrii XVII, barely ninety minutes after my arrival. Being followed, hunted even, and I now was not the only one dredging for Ivan information.
At least I knew where to travel next.
*Addendum: Met Archivist Cain, barely escaped. Need defensive hardware upgrade ASAP, as he is tracking me and will not likely cease.
Chapter 5: How to Dismantle a Massive Criminal Organization
Voux Hanatar had influences upon seventeen major worlds near the core and dozens outside of it. His syndicate spread across thousands of light years and dealt in the black market, slave trade, addictive substances, and anything else of high profit and questionable legality.
The man was famous. He had a dozen homes and many hidden bases of operation, the organization holding no massive presence in any one place. It was compartmentalized. Any number of his underlings could fall without compromising his own position. The few times any circumstantial evidence warranted an arrest, Voux Hanatar complied without resistance. The witnesses, prosecutors, judges, bailiffs, or anyone associated with the case invariably disappeared, and the charges had always been dropped.
In a galaxy full of corruption, it was not difficult to make someone disappear, even someone well-guarded and protected. With the exception of the more righteous brand of civil servants and the hundreds of grieving widows left behind by his business dealings, few had truly wanted Voux Hanatar out of the picture anyway. Indeed, the rumor was that his biggest clients were corporation-based.
He was smart, and he was nigh untouchable.
Until one day when Hanatar was discovered unconscious in a pool of a victim’s blood, the murder weapon still clutched in his fingers as the dead man lay slumped on the sofa. This was in his own home, and suddenly no one wanted anything further to do with him.
Minerva slid into a port upon Gretia, the world of Voux Hanatar’s primary residence. It was a simple, average planet with no direct corporate ownership or strong original nationality. Indeed nothing really of note, aside from considerable amounts of food production, but they did that quite well at least.
Voux Hanatar’s estate, containing a very large, luxurious home and many acres of land, was located outside of the small city of Viera.
Before his arrest, he had been under constant observation by the Galactic Security Agency, the main policing force for the dwindling Galactic Central Government. Even with their monitoring, the first officer at Hanatar’s home on the night of the incident was one local Sheriff Declan Donnely, who received an anonymous tip. In spite of a fierce jurisdictional battle with the quite embarrassed GSA, who hadn’t the slightest clue that murder occurred during their surveillance, Declan Donnely was recorded by history as the man who took down Hanatar. Even the first round of the trial was held in a court on Gretia.
