“I will not do any of that.”
Unaccustomed to this level of disrespect, Hanatar was taken aback, and he wasn’t sure what to say. “Okay,” he finally said, “then how about you do it, or I’ll kill you right now.”
He raised the pistol, which disappeared from his grasp before his brain registered Ivan’s whip-like movement to reach out and snatch it.
“Punishment,” Ivan said, firing the stolen weapon at the terrified captive. The razor cloud shredded through the man’s chest, lacerating his flesh and major organs as well as the fabric and frame of the couch. Blood spattered the nearby surroundings as the man died without making a sound.
Both Hanatar and Damien stared in shock at the sudden, unexpected violence. They jabbered incoherencies as Ivan calmly turned back towards them, wiping flecks of blood off of his clothing with a handkerchief.
“What… the…” Hanatar breathed, stammering. “Why did you…? The evidence! My couch!”
Ivan smirked, the first sign of emotion Hanatar had viewed from the man. “Yes, I can see how someone of your moral standing would be more concerned about furniture than the life of one of his employees.”
The crime lord’s eyes widened, a trickle of fear seeping into him as he realized that Ivan might have been guilty of more than simple disobedience or foolishness. “Kill him!” he shouted to his loyal man.
Not certain of what he should do, Damien sputtered and started to raise his weapon.
“No,” Ivan said, picking up an ashtray from the end table. With a casual motion, he flung it through the air.
The projectile cracked into Damien’s skull, knocking him unconscious and flinging him backwards. The weapon the lieutenant carried slipped out of his hands and tumbled away.
Hanatar made as if to dive to retrieve it, but Ivan repeated, “No,” as he seized the back of his former employer’s robe. With an effortless motion, Ivan dragged him over and flung him onto the couch, next to the dead man.
Screaming, Hanatar skittered away from the corpse. He tried to rise, but Ivan pushed him back down and aimed the pistol at him. “Jesus, shit, Jesus…” he swore, wiping the blood from his hands on his bathrobe. “Wh- what-what do want? Why are you doing this?” He shrank away from the weapon.
Ivan didn’t fire. “I don’t like you, Mister Hanatar, or what you stand for.”
“But… I mean, why the…”
“Be quiet,” Ivan said, and his former employer shut his mouth. “I don’t like you,” he repeated, “because you engage in some very terrible dealings. It should be more than obvious that human trafficking is an unacceptable practice.” Ivan raised his chin. “I am going to leave your employment now, but I promise there will be justice for your actions.”
“Y-you want more money? I can get you more money, you just have to—” Hanatar tried to rise, but Ivan shoved him back onto the couch.
Ivan’s face developed a slight scowl with a quiet intensity both menacing and terrifying. “I want nothing more to do with you, other than to see you pay for the things you’ve done.”
Hanatar swallowed hard, eyes wide with fear. “Oh jeez, please don’t kill me. I’ll do anything, I swear; just please don’t—”
“Your retribution will come soon enough,” Ivan said, “and I promise I am not yet finished with you.”
A gloved fist descended.
“When I woke up,” Hanatar said, rubbing his face absentmindedly, “I was in a hospital, cuffed to the bed with a mouthful of busted teeth. They added murder and some kind of witness tampering or something charge. Damien apparently had slipped out somehow and didn’t get caught: maybe Ivan dragged him along. I had a concussion, so I didn’t really register much of it.” The crime lord turned prisoner sighed. “You probably know the rest: that circus of a trial…”
I nodded, not registering much sympathy for the man but curious anyway. “They found you, unconscious, next to a dead man you didn’t kill. Ivan’s vessel had to have been seen leaving. Why did they charge
“Because they wanted to.” Hanatar gave a bitter smile. “And because my finances were fluctuating so wildly: unrest in the organization and my darling wife swiping every penny, you see. I had trouble keeping my staff of defense attorneys around. Oh, and I’m pretty sure Ivan was driving the fear of God into ’em. It wasn’t enough him puttin’ me in dentures for life, he seemed determined to make sure I got shoved into the deepest, darkest hole.”
Frowning, I said, “Still, the evidence must have screamed it was a set-up.”
Hanatar shrugged. “Prosecutors did a lot of dancing, that’s for sure. In the end, they convinced the jury I was betrayed by one of my own after popping Dreger. That, and I had about fifty other charges to deal with and few to no advocates. They had surveillance of Ivan’s ship, but it came and went: no one saw the man, docking records led nowhere… In the end, the mystery ship was disregarded.”
He shook his head, continuing. “The whole trial was a mess of posturing, legal horseshit, and a gross misconduct of the justice system. Everyone and their grandmother, including a large portion of my own organization towards the end, wanted to see me drawn and quartered. So they danced around the inconsistencies and watched me hang.”
I folded my hands on the table. “Speaking of the organization…”
“Bunch of morons.” Hanatar rolled his eyes. “A few of the smarter or more loyal ones tried to help me, but the rest were tearing things apart trying to get to the top. Dozens more of my high-ranking fellows were killed or arrested.” He snapped his fingers. “Just like that, everything I had worked for was crumbling away.”
“What about your,” I considered my method of phrasing, “attempts at early release?”
The prisoner laughed openly. “Early release? Hah! That’s a good one.” He threw his arms wide open. “This place is a fortress. Three of my ships got vaped in the minefield. A couple of explosives and an extended-charge atmo-suit almost got me to the space port and beyond before I was snatched up. Seven different attempts, and only one of them had a decent shot. One.”
“The assault.”
“Yep,” he nodded. “The last of my finances, the last piece of anything I had in the galaxy. My Apollo-class cruiser shredded their defenses and tore half of the moon to pieces. At that point, I didn’t care; I wanted out of this shit-hole.” He rubbed his cheek. “I heard Damien was the one who brought it, the dumb bastard. The prisoners got a riot going after the ground started shaking from bombardment, and the screws had backed off to an outer sector. I mean, they still had us locked in, no problem. Where could we get to?”
I motioned for him to go on.
“Anyway,” Hanatar continued. “I had popped into the warden’s office and was looking at the scopes, laughing my ass off as the cruiser blasted apart the minefield and the orbital guns. It was dropping a few shots on the space port to keep ’em running, but then the thing started to fall. My last remaining hope of ever leaving blew up and smashed into this godforsaken moon.” He hesitated, resting his face on a hand.
Frowning, I asked, “Is that all?”
A faraway look developed in the prisoner’s eyes. There was something there, appearing as more than wistful regret at a lost opportunity. A frustration developed which I recognized as something he had to have thought of often. I leaned forward. “What is it?”
He scowled. “I’m positive I saw something else. The scopes were fritzing with a lot of sensor damage. Most of them were on the guns, so there weren’t many angles left to look from either.” He shrugged. “I don’t know if anyone else happened to see it. It wasn’t mentioned in the news; they said the cruiser sustained too much damage and couldn’t keep its orbit. I’ve thought about it every day for the last fourteen years, every day they kept me in solitary and stripped away my privileges and rights because of what I brought down on them.” He paused, laughing bitterly. I saw the tiniest bit of moisture form in his eyes.
I waited for him to speak.
“That son of a bitch wasn’t joking when he said he wasn’t done with me.” Hanatar nodded. “By himself, he blew apart my last hope.”
Eyes narrowing, I said, “You saw…”
“A ship. Ivan’s ship. OLGA, or whatever he called it.” Hanatar turned away.
Quite vindictive if true, and surprising at that. I doubted it astonished me half as much as the bitter, aging
