“My official name is Skylight Jones.” It felt strange to hear herself say that. Had she ever said that to anyone outside of the Guild? She wasn’t sure. Not since she had become an adult, anyway. She couldn’t call herself a spy. That was too much. She was going to hedge just a little. “I’m an investigator for the Assassins Guild.”
He let out a small laugh. Then he shook his head, and laughed again. His gaze didn’t meet hers. His laugh grew, until it sounded almost panicked.
“God damn,” he said after he managed to collect himself. “What are the odds?”
His reaction was strange.
“The odds?” she asked.
Instead of answering directly, he said, “I didn’t lie to you about my name. I’m Jack Hunter. And, until recently, I was an investigator for the Rovers.”
Chapter 14
At first, Skye thought he was joking with her. Unlike the Guild, which had rules and regulations, the Rovers didn’t. They weren’t a real organization, not one with bylaws and meetings. They didn’t even have a real headquarters.
She had investigated a number of Rovers, especially lately, and they didn’t even seem to have a code of ethics like some groups that skirted the edge of the law did.
Jack didn’t belong to the Rovers, not in the way that she had initially thought. It did explain, at least, why he didn’t have a weapon, why one man would say
“You can look me up on your little tablet,” Jack said, “although it’s risky, considering. A tablet that can overcome one of my jammers is powerful indeed, although why you would overcome a jammer to use a public system is beyond me.”
She set the tablet on a nearby table. She would talk to him first.
“The tablet has its own database,” she said. “I wasn’t on any system at all.”
He nodded, still looking a bit shocked. She glanced at the tablet, wondering if she should look him up.
Then she realized she no longer trusted him. Not after he claimed he did the same job for the Rovers that she claimed to do for the Guild.
She had misread him. She thought he was a straightforward guy, one who wouldn’t lie to her. But he had. And if he worked for the Rovers, he’d been lying to her all along.
Of course, he had laughed when she told him. Was that a laugh of surprise, a laugh of recognition, or the laugh of a man who had just uncovered something he could use?
“I didn’t think Rovers had investigators,” she said.
“Rovers are subject to laws of the sector like anyone else.” He sounded tired. “They’re licensed assassins, just not through the Guild. And if they kill someone and get arrested for doing so, they have to show that they have a client who authorized the work and that the work was authorized for a reason that would get the target convicted in at least six cultures on five worlds.”
The Guild rarely parsed the rules like that. Instead, the Guild explained to its potential assassins that they had to go after targets who were bad people—mass murderers, serial killers, child rapists—people who had somehow slipped through the existing legal system. People who couldn’t be stopped by any other means.
When someone looked at the various rules as coldly as the Rovers seemed to, there was a lot more leeway. A person who stole high-end items could get convicted on most worlds, but by Assassins Guild rules didn’t justify an assassination. The Rovers got their difficult reputation partly because they were willing to assassinate someone who committed what the Guild called lesser offenses, someone who had managed to escape (or would escape) conventional justice.
The Guild always denounced the Rovers for their loose interpretation of the rules of paid assassination.
Only, technically, the Rovers rarely violated those rules.
Until lately. She had gotten a lot of hints of actual murder for hire. Murder, not assassination. The Guild defined murder as a death that came out of emotion, not logic, one that was based on betrayal or a personal crime against one human being, not crimes against humanity.
Skye had never entirely understood those distinctions before, and had ridiculed the Guild privately for them. Yet she was standing here, judging a man she was attracted to because he worked for an organization that bent (maybe broke) rules that she had mocked.
“Still,” she said, “I didn’t think the Rovers cared whether or not they violated treaties or interstellar laws. I thought they took money and did the job.”
His cheeks flushed. The color was darker than it had been in the throes of passion, almost as if it matched his mood.
“Still,” he said using the same tone that she had just used, “they would need an investigator to help them find the target.”
She had offended him. She wasn’t exactly sure how, but she had. Apparently, he was sensitive to the accusation that he lacked a moral code.
She didn’t dare tell him that she believed most of the Guild members lacked one too, which was why they used the Guild’s codes to substitute for their own moral compass.
She had actually said that to Director Ammons once. The director had glared at Skye, but hadn’t corrected her, which made Skye believe even more that she was onto something.
“It doesn’t matter whether you believe me or not,” he said. “I have to get out of here. I trust that you won’t say anything to your Guild counterparts about me?”
She wasn’t sure why that mattered. If he left this room, he would probably die.
“And I thank you for the warning,” he said. He reached for the door.
“Wait,” she said. “I want to help you get off Krell safely.”
“Why would you want to do that?” he asked tiredly. “You don’t believe me, and even if you did, you think I’m ethically challenged. You Guild people are exceptionally judgmental for people who kill other people for a living.”
She supposed she deserved that. Still, she couldn’t help being defensive.
“I’ve never killed anyone,’ she said.
He raised his head. “Then how can you be part of the Assassins Guild? Are you a student?”
He seemed to know a lot about Guild customs.
“I’m unusual,” she said. “I didn’t test well on the assassin’s part of the study. I’m very good at investigation.”
“So am I. And yet here I am, rather surprised that I’m a target.” He sighed. “Right now, I don’t need investigators. I’m better off with an assassin. But barring that, I need a smuggler. I need a good way off Krell, and I don’t think there is one.”
The word “smuggler” made her smile. “You underestimate me, my friend,” she said.
“I’m sure I do,” he said tiredly, “but that really doesn’t matter at the moment.”
“It does matter,” she said. “Do you know how I got my name?”
“I didn’t even know what your name was until five minutes ago,” he said.
“Well, let me tell you a story,” she said. “And then we’ll figure out a way to get you off Krell for good.”
Chapter 15
Jack wasn’t in the mood for a story. He certainly wasn’t in the mood for a story as strange as the one Skye told him.
Her parents had been smugglers or pirates or, she said, “Just plain thieves with fancy credentials.” Her entire childhood had been a continual series of escapes from bad situations, usually caused by her parents. They
