Giordana Reynolds is dead.
I was surprisingly mobile for a corpse.
Currently, I was on board the Shiva’s Blade, an IA Dreadnaught Class vessel that didn’t officially exist; it was considered the flagship of the Silent Vanguard.
It was docked on the lowest ring of Hades Station.
In fact, aside from my ship, the Belladonna, it was the only ship docked on the lowest ring of the station. I had a feeling no one accessed this level without significant IA dark clearance.
The kind of clearance that didn’t exist…ever.
I looked out the nearest viewport into the vast emptiness of space as I considered my options.
It wasn’t looking good.
How the hell did I get myself into this?
The answer was, I didn’t.
Someone in the Upper Echelons of IA leadership had developed a severe allergy to my remaining among the living. They were using my mods to Cal—mostly that I had removed her limiter, a severe enough violation to make some very paranoid people very angry—as an excuse to hunt me down.
That and the recent modifications to Bella, the sentintelligent processor on my ship, the Belladonna, had nudged me to the top of someone’s hit list.
Someone powerful.
Before I investigated that mine, I was a First Echelon Magus and Hunter for the Interplanetary Authority. I belonged to the elite squad known as the Hounds. The fact that one of the IA Hounds was being hunted defined my sense of irony.
Stein gave me a knowing look as he approached his operator typing away at one of the hi-tech consoles where my history…everything I had done and achieved in the IA as a Magus and Hound…was being erased.
I looked at the operator who hadn’t taken her eyes off the screen. I watched as my life was reduced to lines of code that she altered or removed entirely.
Stein placed a hand on her shoulder, prompting the operator to glance my way. She nodded and exited the room, leaving me and the Commander in the silence of the Secure Ops Center.
“You’re upset,” Stein said, sitting in one of the large chairs. He motioned for me to occupy the other chair. “Sit. Get it off your chest and don’t hold back. You won’t get another chance to discuss this openly after today.”
Commander Stein was the living example of a grizzled marine. He had to be pushing at least sixty but looked like he still put in time in the training module.
Everything about him screamed marine, down to the haircut and the way he wore his non-official uniform, pressed and squared away.
He would never be able to go undercover. How he managed to get command of Hades Station and Shiva’s Blade was a mystery to me. He was either very connected or an exceptional commander.
Probably both.
The thought tumbled through my mind again.
I was dead.
I stared at Stein for a few seconds more.
“Yes, I’m upset,” I said, staring at the screen of code that signified what remained of my life. “Do you know how hard I had to bleed to get to First Echelon? The Hounds command fought me all the way through the application process.”
“Fitzgerald is a tough bastard,” he answered in his gruff voice. “How did you make it past her?”
“I proved I had what it took,” I said. “With some minor collateral damage.”
“Wait,” he said. “You were involved in the training incident on Omega Six?”
“I’m the reason the training program was revised,” I said. “Commander Fitzgerald didn’t appreciate my creative solution to the hostile boarding scenario she had devised.”
“It was my understanding that your solution fragged a Dreadnaught,” he said. “You weren’t supposed to be able to do that according to the mission protocols.”
“I managed it with no casualties on our side,” I said. “Fitz overlooked that small nugget of information.”
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Stiletto Dreams
Orlando A. Sanchez
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