Книга: Raven Sharpe



Raven Sharpe




Raven Sharpe Raven Sharpe Chronicles, Book 1


James David Victor




Copyright © 2018 Fairfield Publishing

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. Except for review quotes, this book may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, without the written consent of the author.

This story is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual people, places, or events is purely coincidental.



Contents


I. One That Got Away

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

II. An Ever Changing Hunt

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Epilogue

Thank You


I

One That Got Away


1

A thick tree branch came out of nowhere, and Raven had to duck fast to avoid her nose getting broken. She ducked so fast she nearly pitched onto her face anyway, so she just threw her weight forward and rolled, coming back up on her feet and sprinting ahead again.

You should have shot him in the head instead of the wing. Then we wouldn't have to run like this, Kyra said from the rock ledge several feet above Raven's head and ahead of her. The cougar's paws gripped hard to the rocks, not slipping once although she made several smaller stones slip in her stead and rain down in front of the human running below.

Raven would have made a disgruntled noise if she wasn't focusing so hard on running and not getting broken by one of the many, many trees of this planet.

You bloody well know this contract needs us to return with a live body, not a dead one. I haul a corpse back and we don't get paid, Raven replied. She was glad the conversation by neural implant didn't relay her breathlessness like speaking out loud would have.

If we have a corpse, we can be assured of eating, the big cat replied, sounding like she'd be smiling if her feline face was capable of the expression. There was a screech from up ahead to show her appreciation for her own idea.

Raven scowled. You forget that some of us don't eat anything and everything meat-related. I don't like eating my credit balance, either. Although she tended to not be sentimental, Raven just couldn't get behind the idea of eating something that could hold a conversation with her.

There was another scream. Then you'd better pick up your pace, human!

I'm on two legs and you're on four. What's your excuse?

At least they kept it lively.

The surface of Iraklis—the fourth moon of the planet Omiros—was some of the thickest forest Raven Sharpe had ever seen in the four years she'd been flying through space as an interplanetary bounty hunter. At any other time, she would have enjoyed this scenery. She loved trees and being outside; these trees looked good for climbing and there were mountains and rock ledges to explore.

Unfortunately, she and Kyra were there on business.

Silvanus! Raven called the AI back in her ship. Can you get any sort of read on how far ahead he is?

She didn't normally have to spend this much time on foot chasing her targets down, but this one's choice of planet had been a good one. She couldn't fly her ship through this, and she couldn't pierce the canopy from above. Everything was too thickly vegetated for her to use her gun, since she didn't want to set the entire forest on fire. Perhaps he had been counting on flying up and away from her, but before he'd taken off into the trees, she had managed to shoot his wing and at least keep him grounded.

I'm sorry, Raven, the ship's artificial intelligence replied with the sound of true apology in her slightly mechanical-sounding voice. The foliage is too thick, and there is something growing in the forest that obscures my sensors. I can pick up on traces of your life signs but only in a very general sense. Everything else I can only glean from yours and Kyra's implants. If it helps any, I can tell that despite the exertion, you're both in optimal health and conditioning.

Raven tried to not roll her eyes, since if she did, she might well end up smacking face-first into a tree. She knew she was doing fine with the running since she wasn't dead yet. That was her meter for pretty much everything.

Thanks, Silvanus, she replied, trying to not be too sarcastic to her AI. If she pissed off what had turned out to be a slightly sensitive computer algorithm, then she was down fifty percent of her friends in life.

We're getting close, Kyra announced. I can smell the fear on him and the scent is growing. He knows we're almost upon him.

Finally, Raven hissed, taking a deep breath and putting on an extra burst of speed from her genetically enhanced body. She wasn't as fast as Kyra, but she was still faster than the average human. The only thing her target had over her, and why he maintained such a lead for so long, was the fact that he knew the terrain better than she did.

A few more minutes and she could see him up ahead. Green blood was leaking down the back of his light blue clothing where he was missing a large portion of a gray-feathered wing. His legs certainly weren't affected, however, as they moved with impressive strength. He broke through the tree line and into a clearing.

He was losing speed, though. Raven could now see the hitch in his gait as it rapidly grew lopsided.

Kyra screamed and Raven chanced a sidelong glance, realizing that the ledge had run out and she was going to have to come to the ground now. Looking forward again, Raven saw her hunt look back to the sound of the scream as well.

In that moment, he slowed down just a little too much. A tawny-furred mass burst out of the trees in an athletic flying leap, landing on his back. He squawked in pain, and they both went tumbling to the ground. He battered at the big cat with his one working wing and rolled back, dislodging Kyra before she could get a decent grip.

He was pulling himself to his feet but couldn't get upright before he saw Raven standing in front of him with her gun trained on his head.

Anger and fear warred in his piercing blue eyes as he stared up at her. He seemed to be considering if he could jump ahead of her gun and take her down, but Kyra was already back on her feet and padding her way to Raven's side. Maybe he would've done it anyway, but the sight of her licking smears of green blood from her incisors seemed to weaken what will he had left to make another run for it.

"The security force of Talonos II has a bounty on your head," Raven announced with a smirk. "They didn't like you getting away from them like that. Now, stand up and put your hands behind your back. Don't make me shoot off your other wing."

He hesitated for a moment, but then the last of the fight left him and his whole bird-like body sagged as he got to his feet and put his hands behind his back. Kyra stared at him while Raven moved around to fasten on the restraints. This included one around his chest to bind his wings to his back so he couldn't use them in any way.

"All right, back to the ship," she said. Silvanus, we are returning with our captive.

Congratulations, Raven. Another successful hunt.

We always bring our target home, Kyra boasted.

Raven just appreciated that the cat remembered to say "we" instead of "I."

I do feel I must warn you, Raven, Silvanus said a moment later, sounding reluctant. There is someone waiting for you at the ship.


2

Raven had been tense since the moment Silvanus warned her there was a 'guest' waiting for her, despite the fact that the AI had assured her they were no threat—at least not in the bodily harm kind of way.

Once she finally came in sight of her small craft, she instantly understood Silvanus's reluctance.

Standing there, looking very uncomfortable in so outdoorsy a setting was Havanaan, a member of the Fierean race. The Fierean people lived pretty much their entire lives indoors unless they went to work somewhere off-planet. They never lost their intrinsic distrust of nature, however. She recognized him because he worked for the Halliwell Hunters Company, which she used to work for.

"I don't want to see you," she said, knowing how rude she was, but not caring. At least Silvanus hadn't let him into the ship. "You guys paid me off over a year ago, so I don’t want anything to do with you."

"Yes, we know, Miss Sharpe," he said, raising his pale orange hands in a human gesture of placation he must have learned since she'd left. "We are here to discuss hiring you for a job. Just like any other client, but one who has intense knowledge of your skill in the field."

She arched a brow at him. "Flattery will get you nowhere," she declared, leading her captive around to the back of the ship where the external entrance to the cells were.

Havanaan followed her.

"Please, Miss Sharpe," he said. "Just hear me out. We are willing to pay well, and even if you disliked the terms, you must admit you did get good things from Halliwell. Do Silvanus and Kyra and your stellar career not at least warrant me five minutes to discuss the matter with you like you would with anyone else?"

"You might have given me the things to get started," Raven said over her shoulder, "but my success is my doing, not yours."

"Point taken," he said. "However, the rest of it stands. You wouldn't have your ship, your AI, or your cat without us, and you'd be willing to hear someone else out who needed to hire you for a job."

Kyra growled to make her presence known. Her enhanced intelligence allowed her to understand what everyone was saying, but it was only the implants that she and Raven shared and had linked to Silvanus that allowed them to speak to one another.

I could eat him, if you like, the cat offered Raven. I bet his people taste fire-charred and spicy. I don't usually like the taste of cooked food, but I would make an exception.

Raven laughed out loud. Her prisoner looked at her like she was crazy, but the Fierean's gaze was more wary as he wondered what the voices in her head told her.

She didn't say anything as she waved her wrist in front of the locking panel. The implant in her wrist activated the lock, and the door slid open. She marched her avian capture up the ramp and into the first open cell, waving her wrist again to lock the physical gate as well as activate the energy field.

Havanaan had been smart enough to not follow her inside. Perhaps he was worried she'd lock him in a cell. Her unpredictability was well known throughout the company, but it actually contributed to making her better at her job.

She walked back out, half hoping he would be gone and have taken the specter of her indentured servitude to Halliwell with him, but unfortunately, he was still there.

"If I drop-kick you off this moon, y'all are just going to keep coming back after me, aren't you?" she asked dryly, folding her arms over her chest as she stared at him.

"Pretty much."

Sighing, she waved for him to follow her. "Come on in, then," she said, leading him back around to the side-door and up into the living compartment. "Have a seat, but don't make yourself comfortable. You won't be here long."

She walked over to her food synthesizer and made herself a cup of coffee. Then, she turned on the monitor to keep an eye on the cell her captive was in before she moved to sit down on the small two-person sofa with Kyra at her feet. Havanaan was sitting in a console chair on the opposite side of the room.

"Spit it out," she said bluntly.

He took a deep breath and pulled a data-pad from his pocket. He tapped on it and then looked up at her again.

"We want you to hunt Blake Sharpe."

Both of her brows went up. "Get out."

He held up his empty hand. "Please, let me explain."

"I did and now I want you to leave," she snapped. "You honestly have the guts to show up here, uninvited and unannounced, and ask me to hunt my ex-husband? Isn't there some sort of galactic law against work cruelty?"

"As you've pointed out, Miss Sharpe, you are no longer our employee," Havanaan said with a faint smile.

She narrowed her eyes at him. "You're on my ship, and I'm the only one allowed to be a smart-ass here."

And me.

"And Kyra."

And I.

"And Silvanus...anyway, not you, Havanaan."

"You're the best hunter our company has seen in the field in over twenty years, Miss Sharpe, and no one would know how best to find Blake Sharpe than his own ex-wife, especially since you hunted together. We would pay you very handsomely for your time and effort."

"I don't need your money," she snapped.

He sighed with frustration. "How about if we said we would owe you a favor? A big one?"

Raven tilted her head and eyed him. "How big?"

"How big do you want?"

"How about ..." She pursed her lips. The idea of having Halliwell in her debt for a change was very, very appealing. "The ship needs a total overhaul and Silvanus needs the latest upgrades. You're going to do both, free of charge."

Havanaan pressed his lips together. "Fine."

Raven's eyes widened now.

What in the galaxy did Blake do to make them want him so bad?


3

She sunk back into the small sofa with her legs up against the wall. Havanaan was off her ship and the doors were sealed, but the tension hadn't left her body.

"Silvanus," she said aloud, closing her eyes with a heavy sigh, "set a course for Talonos II, please. Let's get birdbrain out of the dungeon so I can turn my attention to this new job … and get it over with."

"Course set, Raven," the AI replied. "Preparing the ship for takeoff and atmospheric ascent. It will be just over two days at our best sustainable speed to reach Talonos II." There was a long pause. "There is a sandwich and a cup of water in the synthesizer. I recommend you take them out so I can make Kyra's meal."

Raven opened one eye and stared at the ceiling as if that was where the AI was. "You're a tricky one," she said. The ploy to make sure she took the food and water was transparent, but that didn't make it any less effective. If she didn't, Kyra would get into the matter and then it would get really unpleasant.

She forced herself off the couch, although her brain felt heavy. She knew it was a silly notion that her brain was so full of thoughts it was physically heavy, but that was how it felt right then.

Raven returned to the couch with the sandwich and water. Once it was in her hand, it was hard to turn it away and after all that running, she knew she needed the food. She might have had her stamina, strength, and speed somewhat enhanced, but that didn't mean she was superhuman.

Blake Sharpe. Was he ever going to stop turning her life upside-down?

Her mind rolled back through the years to when she'd been in her early twenties and met a handsome, charming, and very charismatic man named Blake. She had been working in the backroom of retail shop on Carrington Colony, and he had just moved there to go to the university.

Those days had seemed so much easier. They had been impetuous, but it felt like it worked for them.

Until Blake got a Big Idea.

"All right, Silvanus," Raven said with another heavy sigh, putting her dishes back to be recycled as Kyra happily gnawed on a big piece of raw meat over in the corner. "I've had my water and eaten my sandwich. Are you happy now?"

"Of course, Raven," the AI replied airily. "Your health and happiness is my top priority."

Raven laughed softly and shook her head. "You're like having a wife." Which of course brought her thoughts right back around.

The ship began to shake as it started cutting through the atmosphere, and she took her seat again just to make it easier on herself. She closed her eyes and breathed deep until they finally reached space, and the ship set off on its way to Talonos II so she could get rid of her prisoner and then collect her fee, meager as it was. Raven had learned long ago that space travel was expensive, so she was disciplined in her finances. That meant making every job count and, unlike some hunters, she was never idle.

"Let's get this hunt started," she said wearily once they were smoothly, swiftly traveling through space. "What do we know about Blake Sharpe since he and I split? The last time we spoke was about three years ago."

There was a faint whirring noise coupled with the gnawing from Kyra, and then Sylvanus began. "Blake Sharpe. Presently thirty-eight years of age. After the two of you separated, he continued to work as a hunter. Unlike you, however, he was not financially successful. To date, he still owes a sizeable portion of his program debt to Halliwell."

Halliwell Hunters Company was not in the business of handling hunts but hunters. They created them. When someone was accepted into their program, after extensive testing for suitability, they were enhanced, given an enhanced animal companion, a ship with AI, and neural implants. They were then indebted to the company and paid them back with hunting jobs, both through Halliwell and outside.

A good hunter paid off in a few years. A bad hunter might never pay it off. You were allowed to depart the program with debt remaining, but you had to give back your companion and your ship.

That was where Blake had gone wrong. He had quit, but he'd taken everything with him.

The Halliwell Company did not take kindly to that.

"Known relationships?" Raven reluctantly asked. "Did he ever remarry?"

"No."

"Are his folks still alive?"

"Yes."

Raven rubbed her eyes. That was a possible angle, although it made her feel kind of guilty to even think about it. She had always liked his parents. "When was his last actual hunt?"

A pause. "Seven months and two weeks ago, he dropped off a prisoner at Wakazza III." Another pause. "Three weeks later, he accepted a contract from the Disciplinary District of Fahara Prime. However, he never brought that bounty in and never gave a progress report. There was a contact between Halliwell and Blake six months and one week ago, but then nothing. They have been attempting contact since, but only filed the contract one week ago. They attempted to contact you on that date, but it went to your message files and you did not read it."

That kind of amused her even though she knew it shouldn't.

"All right, so he went missing six months ago. I presume no planetary police or rescue force has found any bodies that matched him, or they wouldn't have come for me," she thought out loud.

"That is correct, Raven. I know it's an unpleasant thought for you, but we must explore it. My research of relevant data tracks does not show anything regarding him or any unidentified persons that may be him in the past six months."

It was unpleasant to think about. Yes, he was her ex-husband and she wouldn't lie, there was a lot of bitterness in her, but much of her still cared about him. Those kinds of feelings didn't just go away that easily.

She put her arm over her eyes. "Do we have a last known location?"

"Yes. Security force surveillance footage, time-stamped two weeks after the last communication to Halliwell."

"We'll need to prepare a course from Talonos," she said. "What do you think the odds are he's just hanging out around there?"

That's a pretty stupid question, Raven, Kyra chimed in, finally done with her food.

"Thanks, Kyra."

You know me. I live to help.


4

Two days later, Raven wasn't feeling any better about her next assignment or about Blake Sharpe. She still cared for him on some level, but he had left her. He had broken his contract and committed theft. It was wrong, and he should pay for it...but time and thought didn't do anything to make her feel any better about it. In fact, she felt worse.

Once they arrived at Talonos II, she got rid of her prisoner and got her delivery receipt signed. That was then transmitted to the security forces, who would dispense her payment and complete the job. Despite the impulse, she had not made it take as long as humanly possible to delay her next task.

The ship was on its way to Deanar, which was the last known and recorded location of her ex. In the meantime, she had a call to make that she was going to feel really bad about.

"Raven! Darling! It's been too long," Molly, Blake's mother, all but squealed as they saw each other on the screens. They had spoken more than once since the divorce, so this wasn't entirely unusual. Raven just felt the guilt since she knew it was more than a friendly chat this time.

Molly had never agreed with her son's decision. She still loved him, of course, but she still loved Raven, too. Raven's parents had died when she was pretty young, and Molly and Dale had somewhat "adopted" their daughter-in-law.

"Hi, Ma," Raven said with a half-smile. "I know it's been a while. Sorry about that. I just get so busy, you know?"

"I know, dear. I know," Molly said warmly. Then she looked over her shoulder and called out, "Dale, Raven is calling! She says hi!"

There was a muffled male voice from the background.

"He says hi," the older woman laughed and then her face became a little more serious as she went on. "I don't suppose you've heard from Blake recently, have you? I know you two don't really talk anymore, but ..." She trailed off.

"No, I'm sorry. I haven't." Raven's frowning sigh was genuine. "I was actually calling to see if you had heard from him. I had, well, a bit of business to sort out with him and I haven't been able to reach him either." At least it wasn't a lie. She didn't think she could bring herself to lie outright to Molly Sharpe.

Molly sighed in that way that only mothers seemed able to do as she slowly shook her head, looking away for a moment. "We haven't heard from him in some months now. With his job, your jobs, we often go a couple months at a time, but never this long. It's been nearly four, and when he did call, it was audio only and he didn't have much to say."

Definitely evidence he was on the run.

"We tried to call Halliwell," Molly went on, "but they didn't have much to say either except that they were unaware of his present location. Does that happen often? The company not knowing where one of their hunters is?"

"It's not typical, but it's not unusual either," Raven replied. "Every hunter has a different style and some report in more than others. I'll admit I was really bad about reporting in so they almost never knew where I was until I dropped someone off."

That made Molly laugh, which made Raven smile. "Somehow, dear, I'm not surprised to hear that. I suppose Blake isn't too different."

Raven thought back and tried to recall. "He was a little better about it than I was, but even he had his moments." She rubbed the back of her neck. Raven wanted to tell his mother about what was happening but didn’t want to worry her until she was able to find him. Then she'd call again and apologize a lot.

"Well, if you do find him, please tell him to call us," Molly said with a sad smile. "We would really like to know if he's okay."

"I will, Ma, I promise," Raven said, and she meant it. Now she wanted to find Blake more for his mother than for her job.

Molly sniffed and wiped the corner of one eye, then forced a smile. "And you, dear, how are you doing?"

Raven blinked and then laughed softly. "I...I'm all right. You know, keeping busy as usual and getting harassed by Kyra."

'Only when you deserve it,' Kyra chimed in without opening her eyes.

The human stifled the outward reaction while Molly was smiling. "It was always quite the experience to have the two of you visit. Not many people have a wolf and a cougar as houseguests."

They chatted for a while longer, catching up on each other's lives although Raven wanted to keep information about her own fairly limited—given the information she was hiding about Blake—so she kept it mostly about Molly and Dale. She got to learn about their new vegetable garden and Dale's quest to keep the deer out of it. She also had to remind Molly of her favorite color so she could get a new scarf.

Raven spent most of her time in a climate-controlled spaceship, but she would get a scarf whether she liked it or not. She wasn't going to say no.

When the call ended, she let her head smack into the console. "I am the worst person ever."

"You are being too hard on yourself, Raven," Silvanus said soothingly. "There is a cup of tea in the synthesizer. I recommend drinking it. Anyways, it is Blake who has upset her and made her worry. The truth is you don't really know any more than she does. You know the reason he has vanished, but not where he is or how he is."

"Yeah, I suppose that's true," Raven said, pushing herself up and going to get the tea before her AI found a new way to blackmail her into it.

Kyra stretched her long feline body. His actions were not your fault when you were married, and they are not your fault now, the cat said pragmatically. You are tasked with finding him, which is the best thing you can do for his mother, rather than tell her what you don't really know now.

Raven knew they were right, but it still bothered her to keep things from the woman who had been like a mother to her these past few years.

"I should have demanded a bigger favor from Havanaan," she declared to no one in particular.




5

On Deanar, Raven used her credentials to gain access to the security office and surveillance footage that had captured her ex. She was only allowed to watch it in the presence of one of their forceman—as they were called there—so she didn't do anything to it, but that was fine. She just ignored the man while she watched a recording of Blake walking down a busy street. She saw Axel, his wolf companion, walking beside him.

"Where does that road lead?" she asked.

"To the ship docks," he said, pressing a button. Another image came up. "The final recording is him entering the docks and boarding his ship. It was docked under a false registry, so we only have this to go on."

The time-lock on the video matched the timeline Silvanus had found. She considered the registry issue and guessed that Nyx, the AI on Blake's ship, had learned some tricks she wasn't supposed to know.

"Where was he before this?"

"He was staying in the...lower-class area of the city," the forceman said with more than a hint of disdain.

Raven eyed him, but bit her tongue.

Want me to bite him? I could bite him, Kyra said a little too eagerly. I haven't bitten anyone in a while. I think I'm due.

Tempting, Raven admitted, but no.

Kyra growled, visibly alarming the forceman, but the big cat didn't push the issue. Or bite him, which had been a real concern for Raven.

"I can narrow it down to which building, but surveillance footage is limited in that area." He was still talking. "The system is simply not as extensive, and the people living there tend to like to find them and sabotage the systems. Like it's...some sort of game or something."

Or like they just don't like being observed by you guys all the time, Raven thought, mostly to herself but also to Kyra and Silvanus.

"Please tell me what the building is and I'll let you get back to your job," she said flatly.

"Suit yourself," he replied, looking it up on the computer. "Gilda Terrace Three."

Raven just grunted quietly and left, Kyra on her heels.

Silvanus, you heard that too. See what you can find out by taking a look at that building, Raven said once she was outside.

Yes, Raven. Initializing sensors now.

"Come on, kitty," Raven said out loud. The cougar's head lifted with an offended look, but she didn't say anything this time. Raven grinned, and they started walking. She accessed an archived map of the colony from the database in her neural implant and followed it out of the industrial section she'd been in, where it verged into affluence, and then into the poor and destitute areas. She appreciated this area more anyway, since she recognized it as more like where she'd grown up. The buildings were different, as were the people, but it still somehow felt the same.

She checked the building names as they passed each one until they reached Gilda Terrace, passing buildings one and two before landing on three.

Raven stopped and looked up the building face.

It doesn't look particularly exciting, Kyra commented, sounding bored. She sat down and rubbed the edge of her paw over her nose. I suppose it makes sense if he was trying to lie low. If I had just stolen from Halliwell, I would be looking to do so.

As would I, Raven agreed.

The building was tall, over ten stories high, with a decaying gray face. It wasn't made of one of the more up to date building materials, which explained why there were spots of obvious decay. There were even a pair of balcony railings that had become unhinged and were hanging loose. That was actually impressive to see on a colony, given the technology it took to reach these places.

Maybe they ran out of money after the journey.

I can locate only one unoccupied apartment in the entire building. I don't just mean there's evidence people live there, but there are people inside. Only about fifty percent of the apartments are habitable by current safety standards. Another twenty by desperate standards. All but one of those within that percentage range have people inside them right now. The other thirty percent are impossible to enter, Silvanus reported very thoroughly.

I love you, Silvanus, but I don't think I needed to know all of that. Just guide me to where the one room is.

Of course, Raven.

The room they entered looked like it had indeed been empty for months, although that made one wonder how. If every other room had been filled up, why hadn't someone taken over this one? Of course, maybe they had and they just weren't there now...and they didn't know how to clean anything. One couldn't rule anything out.

The more she looked, however, the dust itself made it clear no one had been here unless they hadn't touched anything. That seemed particularly unlikely.

I smell wolf scent still lingering, Kyra said, smelling around the room. I think it's safe to say they stayed here for a while. The big cat sneezed and shook her head, pawing at her nose. A while ago.

Yeah, I had picked up on that myself, Raven said.

She searched her way through the single-room apartment looking for any clues about what Blake was thinking and where he was going. Unless he'd changed in the past couple of years, Blake wasn't always the most observant or the best at cleaning up after himself. He could never have had a job in espionage. Frankly, she was surprised he had managed to avoid Halliwell on his own for this long. Maybe Nyx and Axel were helping him sort out the details he would have missed in the past.

There was trash from a few products that still had physical packaging, but nothing very telling. He had also left some clothing behind. After taking a look, she determined that up until his time in this apartment, he hadn't changed size at all. She couldn't imagine he was likely to have changed too much in the past few months, especially on the run.

"All right, Blake," she sighed, putting her hands on her hips. "So you managed to hang out here a while and then get off-world and vanish. Where did you go?"


6

Raven and Kyra left the third building of Gilda Terrace and headed back the way they had come. She could feel people watching them and glanced around casually to make sure there weren’t any threats. She knew people were paranoid by nature, and it seemed many other humanoid races shared the trait. It was a facet of survival, so she didn't begrudge anyone their paranoia.

After all, here was this tall woman walking along their street with a giant cat. Some of them may not even recognize what sort of animal it was, so they would only know that Kyra looked fearsome. She was a stranger. They had no reason to not be suspicious of her, and that paranoia knew no boundary of age, gender, class, or anything else.

She would be eyed just the same by those in the affluent area and the industrial area as here in the poorer area. The only difference was the look of what they hid behind while watching her.

"Caren! Wait!"

There was a sudden, desperate shout from an alley between buildings two and one, and Raven's hands were instantly up in a defensive posture as she turned to face it. What she saw made her lower her hands as a small girl ran toward them with a panicked mother running behind her. The mother looked human, but she could see signs of another race in the daughter, and that was interesting. Cross-species breeding was uncommon, since most races couldn't cross-breed naturally and it was prohibitively expensive to get the medical assistance to make it work.

I'd bet money she's coming for you, Kyra. Be nice. We will not flee this planet because you tried to eat a kid, Raven said, only half-joking.

Kyra lowered her rear end to the cracked pavement and looked up at Raven. Really, what do you take me for? I’d eat you sooner than I’d eat a cub.

Raven looked at the mother who raced unsuccessfully to grab the little girl. The hunter held up her hand. "It’s all right, ma’am. Kyra is perfectly safe."

Let's not be insulting now, Raven.

I’m not going to get into details with this lady. You know a mother protecting her child is twice as dangerous as you, right?

The cat seemed to consider this and then lowered her head in an almost human-like nod before she lowered her upper half and laid down. The little girl stumbled up to them and then tripped, falling over Kyra's back. The cat grunted slightly, but kept her place.

The mother choked on a scream until she realized nothing had happened. Her little girl, Caren, was pushing herself off the cat and then sitting beside her, petting her ear.

"I'm...I'm so sorry," the mother said, reaching for the girl who resisted.

"It's okay, really. She can pet Kyra. I promise she won’t harm your daughter," Raven said in her most placating voice. It wasn't a voice she used very often and she was sure it was a little rusty, but she tried. Sometimes it was worth it to make nice with people, lest she get a reputation that might get her into trouble later.

This wasn't something she always managed to remember, but she had nothing against children. Once upon a time, she used to think about having one of her own.

Although the mother still looked naturally dubious, she stopped overtly panicking and just watched them with the keen eyes of a hawk.

After another minute or so, the mother couldn't handle it anymore and she finally convinced her daughter to move away. She turned, looking like she was getting ready to spring into a sprint, but paused and looked back. "Thank you," she said, looking uncomfortable before she made a break for it.

Kyra pulled herself to her feet and shook herself.

Good job, Kyra, Raven teased with a smirk down at the cat.

Kyra made a short growling noise.

Alone again, Raven had no more excuses for a distraction and she had to start thinking about work. She sighed. Damn that Blake.

Silvanus. Blake's accounts should still be under Halliwell, so contact them and see if they will give you access to some of the information. I'd like to know what his credit balance was at the time he left this planet and if there's been any recorded income since then, Raven said as they walked back toward the ship.

The AI responded she would see what she could do.

This sucks, Raven said to Kyra. It wasn't like I didn't have plenty of reasons to be pissed off about his leaving me, but now I have even more reasons to be pissed off.

Well, you know what they say about men and all. At least he's giving you plenty to keep you busy, Kyra said. Although I suppose letting go of the bitterness about the divorce would probably be a useful idea. It was a while ago.

This from the cat who held a grudge against the inanimate synthesizer for months because it cooked your food? Raven retorted.

If Kyra could have actually shrugged, she would have. I'm a cat. I have an excuse.

Raven didn't agree at all, but she decided to not press that particular point. It's hard to not be bitter about losing your husband to his own ego. She sighed heavily. He couldn't handle that I was better at the job than he was, and now he's going to have a really pointed reminder when I'm the one who catches him.

I imagine that's his problem more than yours now, Kyra said.

Raven knew Kyra was right, but it was hard to remember that.

Once they reached the ship, they boarded and let the AI seal it behind them. Raven made a cup of coffee and then settled down at the small table on the opposite side of the cabin from the little sofa. There was a screen set in the center that she fired up and opened up a few maps of the area around Deanar.

"Anything yet, Silvanus?" she asked.

"Yes," the AI said through the speakers. "I am transmitting the information to your console now." There was a pause before it showed up in front of her. "In anticipation of your request, I also gathered the most recent maintenance records about his ship and determined how far he could have gotten based on the amount of money he had. I am highlighting the range on your console."

Raven grinned. "You are a wonder, Silvanus." She looked down at the map again and saw the circular range and the planets, colonies, and space stations within it. She automatically ruled out the starbases because they were all under the control of the Earth Union Military. He would never be dumb enough to go there.

She ruled out one planet that wasn't particularly friendly to humans. That left three moon-based colonies and one planet.

"He's going to think about where to hide," she thought out loud. "In case he couldn't find any way to keep going, he'd have to be prepared to lie low." That ruled out one of the colonies because she knew it was too high-tech a security state for someone on the run, as well as another which orbited a planet that served for military training.

Down to one colony and one planet.

Time to roll the dice and see if her number hit.


7

The credit balance on Blake's accounts had been...just shy of pitiful, so he couldn't have gotten very far. It took just twenty hours for Raven to reach the planet she had chosen as her best "I used to be married to this guy" educated guess.

Before they tried to land, Silvanus connected with the planetary flight control.

"How can we help you, Hunter Sharpe?" a very polite voice asked.

"I am presently transmitting a ship registry to you," she said, knowing that Silvanus would pick up on her cue and send it. "I would like to know if this ship docked here approximately six months ago."

"Give us a moment," the polite voice said.

They should play some sort of music while you're waiting, Kyra commented from where she was curled up on the couch, taking up all of it.

I didn't know you were into music, Raven replied.

A mental shrug. It seems to please humans.

After a while, Very Polite Voice came back. "Yes, as a matter of fact, a ship with that registry did land in our capital city about six months ago."

Raven sat up straighter. She had actually guessed right on the first try? Maybe she'd known Blake better than she thought or she was just lucky. "Is the ship still on your planet?"

"No, ma'am," the voice replied. "The ship departed again roughly three weeks later."

The hunter tried not to growl. "I don't suppose a flight plan was filed."

She could almost hear the head that belonged to the voice shake. "I'm afraid not, Hunter Sharpe. We don't require them for departing ships."

Raven stifled a sigh. "Thank you for your help. I would like clearance to land in your capital."

From there, it was the usual song and dance between flight control and Silvanus. Raven was capable of piloting her ship on manual if the situation called for it, but she usually let the AI control it. The intelligent computer could respond to things faster than Raven could ever hope to.

The ship descended through the atmosphere and headed for one of the docking stations at the edge of the large city. Once confirmed, Silvanus unsealed the ship and they emerged onto the bustling dock. There was quite the mix of species, and she could see the wisdom in heading to a place like this. Even with high security, such crowds would still make it easy to get lost.

However, he had only been here for three weeks. So where had he gone? And how? She had been accurate about how far he could go on the money he had. If he'd had more than that and could have gone farther, why hadn't he? She had a suspicion he'd found a way to earn some money that didn't go into his Halliwell account, but she would have to do some work to find out if that was the case, and if so, how much he'd gotten.

She and Kyra made their way through the crowds toward the commercial district, since that would be the most likely place to find any sort of work—that or the industrial district.

Blake wasn't any good at being a hunter, so we know he didn't make any money that way. What else could he have done...

She thought it through. Raven didn't expect Silvanus or Kyra to be able to help her. They had all been together when the marriage was still intact, but they didn't know Blake the way she did.

She thought back through the years to when they had met and their early marriage. Blake had been a mechanic who repaired planetary vehicles. He could fix a hover-car, although he wasn't qualified as a spaceship engineer. He probably could have fixed a spaceship as well, but he didn't have the certification. If he was going to start looking for work anywhere, it would be something like that.

Accessing a map, she learned there were three such businesses here in the capital city and she would try those first. If they didn't pan out, she'd have to figure out something else.

The first one was a total bust. The second one found an owner who recognized the image she showed her of Blake, but she didn’t have any work at the time and he'd moved on. Her theory about where he'd look for work was accurate, but that only mattered if the third business had work to give out and thus was a good place to get a little extra money.

It took them about ten minutes to walk to the next place. She could have gotten a hover-trolley or found a cab, but she liked walking. Kyra also tended to dislike public transportation.

When they walked into the front office, Raven looked around but didn't see anyone. A few moments later, though, a young man came from a door toward the back. He smiled politely as he wiped his mouth with a napkin and then set it on the counter.

"Can I help you?" he asked affably.

She smiled slightly and showed him the image of Blake. "Have you seen this man?"

The young man frowned and tilted his head. "Why do you ask?"

Next, she flashed her credentials. They spoke for her better than she could. He now looked less polite and more uncomfortable. "Okay...well, yeah. Some months back, he was looking for work."

"Did you have any for him?" she asked, somewhat flatly but not rudely. Okay, a little rudely.

"Boss did, yeah," he replied nervously. "For a couple weeks at least, to help finish this big project."

Raven smiled, but she knew it wasn't a pleasant expression. She didn't mean for it to be, so when the young man paled a little further, it was pretty much the reaction she'd been going for. Kyra paced soundlessly behind her while she leaned forward on the counter. "You want me to get the hell out of here, don't you?" she said in a low voice.

He didn't say anything, but the look in his eye made it obvious.

"I'm not the law, so don't worry. I'm not arresting you for anything. I'm just trying to find this guy," she said, leaning even closer to him across the counter between them. She wanted him as uncomfortable as she could make him, and she knew she could do a pretty good job at it. "I'll leave if you just answer two more questions."

He nodded shakily.

"Did your boss pay him off the records?" she asked. “Remember I'm not the law. And if he did, how much?"

The man eyed her for a while before he dropped his head in something like defeat and answered her questions. Now that she had what she needed, so she leaned back and gave him his space before she turned on a heel and left.

"Thanks for your help," she said over her shoulder.

Once back at the ship, it was time to repeat it all: take the money, the knowledge of the area, lay a map over the possible places he could have gone, and narrow it down to the next likely place he could disappeared to...


8

This time, it was easier. His money and resources allowed for the same specific arc of possibility, but the likely places within that arc were quite limited. In fact, there was only one truly likely choice. So, Raven set course for the moon-based colony and off they went.

What would she find when they got there? Would she find Blake, or would he have managed to find another job? How many times would she have to hop planets to catch up to him? He had struggled as a hunter, but maybe he had a future as a career criminal.

You seem sad, Kyra commented.

Raven turned her head to look at the big cat who wasn't even looking at her. She looked like she was asleep, stretched out on the floor. Her eyes were closed and her ears were relaxed. How could she know anything? There wasn't supposed to be an ability in the implants to read emotions, after all. That just came—like with any other pairing—from knowing one another.

After a moment, Raven stopped questioning it. Cats were just cats.

I am, she said. I shouldn't be. I know. I should hate him, and I do, but it makes me sad to know he's gotten himself to a place where I'm the one chasing him down. I mean, he's the one who got us both into this hunting gig. Now I'm paid off and doing well, and he's run away. It's just sad to me.

You humans seem to spend too much time worrying about why you feel the way you feel, Kyra said languidly. Cats don't have this problem. If we are hungry, we do not question why we are hungry. We eat. If we are tired, we sleep. If we are angry or feel threatened, we question only so far as to know where it's coming from and then we do something about it.

Raven laughed. The wisdom of life according to a cat. If only everyone had this opportunity.

I would have to agree with Kyra, Silvanus chimed in. When there is something wrong with me, I find the source of it. I either fix it or find a way around it.

Emotions aren’t quite that easy, Silvanus, Raven pointed out. Using this moment as an example, I'm sad about Blake. I know the source, I'm not questioning that, but that doesn't mean I know how to fix it or get around it.

Catch Blake and bring him in, then move on, Kyra said plainly.

Raven figured that was pretty much the only thing to be done. It didn’t do anything about how she felt about things, though, but she reminded herself that how she felt didn't matter. She had a job to do, and she had never missed a target. She was not going to start now.

Deciding to take a page out of Kyra's book, she pulled her bunk down from the wall and crawled into her bed for a nap until they arrived.

Raven Sharpe

It was dusk on the colony of Aurora when she was granted clearance and landed in the spaceport. They did not have confirmation of the ship with the registry she had arriving here, but something told Raven it didn't matter. Either Blake or Nyx would figure out they couldn't go on too long with the one registry number. If they had figured out how to change it once, they could change it again.

The streets of the capital city outside the port were mostly empty, although windows in buildings all along the way glowed brightly. Everyone was inside for whatever their business was. She made their way along like anyone else...except she was walking with a giant cat. She was sure there were surveillance eyes on them, but she wasn't sure anyone else noticed.

Silvanus and her sensors were at work, but the building and population congestion obscured some of her efforts.

Raven intended to go to the city center and find the office of the police force, but neither of them got that far. Kyra suddenly stopped and growled, the sound of her sniffing was audible as she moved her head slowly from side to side. Raven pulled her gun from her hip and began to survey the area as well.

Just a short space ahead, she saw a person in an alley partially sticking out from the edge of a building, looking at her.

It took her only a moment to realize it was Blake.

She didn't hesitate to point her gun at him. "Make this easy on both of us, Blake," she called across the empty street. "You know why I'm here."

"Yeah, I know why," he said. "I'm not going with you, though."

"Why do you have to do this the hard way?" She really hadn't expected anything else, but she still felt let down.

There was a long pause, and she could almost hear a heavy sigh. "There's no other way, Raven."

She saw him shift like he was about to make a run for it, and she fired a shot. The energy bolt hit the building just above him, sending chunks of stone onto his head. He ducked, covering himself with his arms, but then took off down the alley. She cursed, and she and Kyra took off after him.

The space was crossed quickly, but he had the same enhancements she did.

Why can't one of them, just one time, actually surrender instead of making me chase them down? Raven complained as they sprinted down one alley, seeing Blake just as he turned another corner at the end. She followed and saw him go through a door. He slammed it behind him, but she threw herself at it. The inexpensive metal composite gave way like cheap wood, and she plowed through it.

Blake was nowhere to be seen, but she heard footsteps on a staircase and followed the sound. She reached the top in time to see him vanish through another door which she followed through. It ended up with them on the roof of the building.

He turned to look back at her, then jumped off. Racing to the edge, she looked over and saw him in the alley below. She followed him over the edge. Back to the ground! she called to Kyra.

Raven grunted softly when her feet hit the pavement, but she took off running right away and kept him in sight.

Within a moment, they reached a dead end. There were alleys to either side just behind her, but he was next to the wall. Now he turned and looked at her, but he didn't look like a man who was about to surrender.

That was when she heard the growling behind her.


9

She turned just in time to see his wolf, Axel, hunkered down with his hackles raised, stalking toward her. Since she didn't have Blake's implant, she had no idea what the animal might have been saying but she could guess his intent. She pulled her gun back up and trained it on him, ready to fire a shot to incapacitate him. She would avoid killing him as long as she could.

Before she could pull the trigger, he leaped.

A large tawny body flew out of one of the side alleys at the same moment, colliding directly into Axel's side. Cougar and wolf fell in a tumble of claws and snarling and fur, rolling away to the corner as she turned back to Blake.

He was much closer than he had been, swinging for her head in a hasty haymaker. She swung her arm up and blocked him, stepping into his guard and throwing an elbow at his head. He threw himself back just in time to avoid her strike and make her follow through too far. He shifted enough and got behind her, wrapping her up to pin her arms to her sides.

The pressure on her arm made her drop her gun, and she growled a few choice expletives at him. She couldn't tell what he was trying to do to her, but she wasn't about to wait and find out. Pressing her feet to the ground, she pushed back at first--nearly his height, it wasn't very hard to do--and then lifted her legs briefly before throwing herself forward. Hauling him off-balance, his grip loosened and he fell to the ground over her head.

Straightening fast, she brought her hands up in a classic defensive posture. He got to his feet pretty quickly as well, spinning to face her.

"Want to try this again?" she asked, arching one brow. "You can still turn yourself in and save us both this trouble. I really don't want to fight you, Blake."

"I don't want to fight you either, Raven.”

There came a distressed yelp from the wall and Blake turned to look, since it was clearly a canine sound and not a feline one. In this moment of distraction, she moved in again. She got a punch straight to his gut that made him cough and bend forward, staggering back. She didn't let up, but he recovered quicker than she expected.

He caught her second hit and they stood there, locked hand to hand for a moment with their nearly equal enhanced strength competing for dominance.

The element of surprise was his when he suddenly released the tension in his arm, letting her come forward into him without any sort of defensive posture. He knew her stubbornness and focus and had used it against her. She found his fist on the way in, earning herself the same hit she'd just given to him. Now she wheezed out a breath of her own, but he was reaching back for her hair and yanking her head back.

"I don't want to do this, Raven," he said, sounding distraught.

She didn't want to do this either, but he had committed a crime and she had been hired to bring him in. She had a job to do, so she couldn't let her personal feelings get in the way. So she didn't say anything and just found her center again, focusing not on the pain in her head but the positions of their bodies.

She lifted one foot and jammed her heel down onto his foot. In pain, he let her hair go and she staggered back. They both came up quickly, but now he was limping as he moved toward her.

Now, they just traded punches. Each hit. Each tried to block. Some landed. Some worked. They both were bloodied and bruised in short order.

Raven was certain she'd broke one of his ribs with a kick, but unfortunately, an elbow to her temple ended the fight and the world went black...

Raven Sharpe

She wasn't sure how much time had passed, but she didn't think it had been long. Groaning, she pushed herself up and looked around. Everything was a little blurry around the edges, but she hoped that would pass soon.

Kyra, she called weakly.

I'm fine, the cat replied. Be about your business. I'll be along shortly.

She made it her policy to never second-guess Kyra, so she staggered to her feet. She knew she had to go after him, but her brain still felt shaken. She was no good in another fight until that passed, so she went to the next priority on her list: the ships.

Silvanus, she called.

Yes, Raven? Your vital signs are concerning.

I'm fine, she replied with a weak smile. Blake is here. I need to find his ship.

There was a long silence. The AI couldn't search by registry, because they didn't know what the new fake code would be. Was there anything else the ship could try?

The population density makes it difficult, but I will scan all the ships in the port and see if there are any clues as to which one might be his, Silvanus replied.

Is there anywhere else on the colony a ship could land? Raven asked.

After a moment, the AI replied, Very few and they are remote. Even less are near the capital city, but I will check those closest to see if there is any hint that he set down in one of those places.



Thank you, Silvanus.

Raven leaned back against the wall with a heavy sigh. She couldn't tell how long it took, but the AI finally told her she was pretty sure she'd figured out the ship. She directed Raven there, who looked the ship over and nodded. She recognized it. Blake and she had hunted "together," but they didn't share a ship. This was the one she knew of as his.

She reached into one of the pockets on her jacket and pulled out a micro-tracker. She planted it on the underside of the hull. It sat there, silent and dark, for a long moment before a single blue light flashed and it went dark again.

I'm in, Silvanus said with a small amount of pride.

Raven sat down hard on the ground and blew out a breath. The last of the disorientation was passing now, and she would be able to work on finding Blake shortly. At least she knew he couldn't escape on his ship.

It was hers now. Or, more specifically, it was Silvanus's.


10

I could use a little help here.

Raven looked up from where she had been sitting and saw her cougar backing up toward her and Blake's ship. It took a moment for her to realize why that was. Kyra was dragging a wolf by the back of the neck. She was slightly larger than her canine counterpart, but it still wasn't the easiest of things since their weights were close.

Pushing herself to her feet, she helped Kyra pull the wolf to Blake's ship.

Silvanus, open up the ship.

A moment later, the door opened and they brought the wolf on board. It was clearly still alive, but soundly unconscious. Both animals looked the worse for wear, but Kyra had clearly been the winner.

Silvanus, Raven said once they had Axel settled into a position near the sofa. The small ship was nearly identical to Raven's since they were mass-produced for Halliwell. Make sure Nyx takes care of Axel. He's probably going to be ravenous when he wakes and likely not in a very good mood.

No, I would imagine not, Silvanus replied. Nyx will take care of him. She is not giving me any trouble.

I'm glad to hear that, Raven replied wearily. Lock and seal the ship after we leave. She nodded to Kyra, who walked with a hitch in her front shoulder. They got off the ship and heard the door close, as well as the slight hiss of it shutting.

The big cougar dropped to the ground once they were outside, breathing heavily.

Raven, she began, even her mental voice sounding tired, we have the ship and we have the wolf which are both still the property of Halliwell. Why don't we just take them back and leave Blake to himself?

Raven had to admit it was a practical suggestion, and it was tempting. "I'm afraid they want Blake, too. He was the one who committed the crime, after all. He did steal these two things. They aren't happy about him and want him back to face criminal charges for what he did."

That's a shame, the cat said laconically. I wouldn't have minded moving on now. That obnoxious dog got in too many bites. Never did like him.

That made Raven laugh softly. It was true. Cats and dogs and all that. Even when their hunters had been together, they hadn't gotten along. Of course, back then, Blake had been able to tell her what Axel was saying and she could tell him what Kyra said. They could enjoy both sides of the bickering. However, the bickering didn't usually involve them taking chunks out of each other's hides.

Raven knelt beside Kyra and stroked the fur between her shoulder blades. Try to see what you can get out of Nyx, Silvanus, Raven said. Does she have any information about what Blake has been up to here?

Give me a few minutes.

Raven Sharpe

Soon, she was back in the city. Her enhancements helped her to heal, and she was feeling better already. Kyra had taken more damage, so she'd returned to their own ship to recover. Since Axel and Nyx were both taken care of, it was down to Blake and Raven. He'd gotten away once, but not because of his abilities alone.

He had been looking for work in town and was finding some, which had necessitated a place closer to the city than the space dock. He had chosen to rent a tiny room in the city, presumably to save as much money as possible. The ship provided for his meals, though he still had to make the walk back and forth. All of this had been told to Silvanus by Nyx, partly by choice and partly because the one AI was able to read into some of the other's files.

Raven made her way to his small room. She would start there and then work her way out, finally stopping at the police offices, if need be, to check on their surveillance footage.

It was fully dark now, but there were lights on either side of the street and her enhanced vision helped her see either way. She didn't want to alarm any passersby, so she didn't carry her gun but she let her hand stay near her hip. Her eyes took in every doorway and every dark alley, in case he was lingering around again.

She turned the corner onto a street with more people out and about. While trying to act inconspicuous, she looked at everyone to make sure that none of them were Blake. A few eyed her right back. She met each gaze for a moment to prove she was not intimidated, but then moved away to show that she wasn’t interested either.

Raven eventually arrived at the right address without any major conflicts.

She found the door unlocked, and it slid open as she approached. She walked down the long corridor, passing by un-numbered doors, counting as she went, until she reached the one she was looking for.

That door was unlocked. She didn’t know if that was a good sign or a bad one.

Raven cautiously drew her gun, holding it steady and low as she pushed the door open and stepped inside.

The only light in the room was what came through the open window directly across from the door, the artificial light from the city street spilling in and lighting up a long, wide line across the floor. She held herself in the doorway for a long moment, exposing as little of herself as possible while she let her eyes adjust to the new dimness.

Once they had, she surveyed the room. There wasn't much to it, as one would expect from something this low-rent, but she could identify a few pieces of furniture and a ...

... slowly moving body form.

Raven instantly trained her gun on the slice of shadow sliding along the wall trying to look like it couldn't be seen. "Blake," she said, since chances were good that it wasn't some type of burglar. Although one never really could know. "I know you're there. It's dark but it's not that dark. I caught up with you again. Frankly, coming back here was stupid." She couldn't help herself on that one.

"You've probably got Nyx, don't you?" he said, proving he wasn't a random burglar. "I can't get her to talk to me."

Raven didn't answer.

"Axel too ..." He hesitated. "He's not talking either, though I would know if he was dead. I am guessing Kyra won. They always wondered which one would come out on top. Do you remember?" He laughed mirthlessly.

"I'm not here to reminisce," she replied flatly. "Let's just get going."

"If I run, you'll continue chasing me, won't you?" It was framed as a question, but sounded more like a statement of defeat.

“Yep, and this time, I will shoot,” she bluffed.

Raven couldn’t see his expression, but the pause told her volumes. “I surrender,” was all she could hear him say.


11

Raven felt herself deflate slightly with sad relief. She still wasn’t sure if she could have pulled the trigger.

"All right, you know the drill," she said. She didn't want to have to wrestle him into submitting to the cuffs and hoped he would do what he knew he was supposed to do. She spoke a little louder, "Computer, lights on."

A pair of panels in the ceilings lit up, although more dimly than she would have expected. Even so, she could now see him better. Since they weren't fighting, she was able to take in his rather disheveled appearance. He wasn't too skinny at least, but he didn't look like he had been sleeping very well, and when he did sleep, he was sleeping in his clothes. He also wasn't shaving as regularly as she was used to from when they were married.

"Give me five minutes first?" he asked, holding his hands up but not making a move to put them into position for her to restrain him.

"Oh come on, man," she said with aggravation. "Can't we just get this over with?"

"I suck at being a hunter, you know that," he said, ignoring her comment. She knew she could have forced the issue, and with anyone else, she would have. "I thought I would be good at it, or it would be good for us together. It seemed like a good plan for our future, you know?"

Raven sighed, but didn't lower her gun. "I remember."

He nodded and looked...more tired and sad than she ever remembered seeing him.

"I tried. I really did. You took to it like you were born for it, but everything about it was such a struggle for me." He let out a heavy sigh. "I turned into a jerk to you, and we both know that pretty clearly. I resented you for how easy it seemed to come for you. I thought...I dunno. I thought maybe you were holding me back, so I left and tried it alone."

The old hurt reared up, but she stuffed it down.

"You found out it didn't have a damn thing to do with me." Okay, maybe she didn't stuff it down that far. "You just weren't that good at it."

Blake's brows knit, but he knew he couldn't argue. "No, I wasn't."

"So why not just quit? They wouldn't have stopped you if you'd left on your own."

"Oh, come on," he snapped. "Could you do it? Could you have spent all of this time with Kyra and Silvanus being like other parts of yourself and then just give them up because some corporation said to?"

Raven sighed and dropped her gun-arm. "Damn it, Blake." Her shoulders slumped as she stalked closer to him. "Put your damn hands down. You look like an idiot." She sat on a desk that she now saw up against the wall. He watched her for a moment, then put his arms down and took a seat beside her. "What do you expect me to do here?"

He shrugged. "You could let me go."

She looked at him drolly. "So you ruined our marriage and tried to ruin my life, and now you want to ruin my reputation, too? Is this some elaborate scheme to get revenge on me for being better at this than you are?" She wasn't sure if that was a low-blow or not, but she didn't exactly care either.

Blake winced. "I deserved that," he admitted. "But it's really not. I don't want your reputation ruined, I really don't. You worked hard. You earned it. You deserve it. I can see that, admit that, now. I just...I can't keep working and failing as a hunter, but I can't let go of Nyx and Axel, either. I don't know how to live without them now."

She holstered her gun and ran both hands through her hair, gripping it at the roots and hissing in aggravation. For a moment, she wondered if she was going to hear from either of her own counterparts, but they were suspiciously quiet. She wasn't sure if she was grateful or annoyed for their lack of loud insight.

"For what it's worth," he began again after she didn't respond, "I'm sorry."

She gave him a sidelong look. "For what?" she asked, then smirked. "Or more to the point, for which part?"

He shook his head with a mirthless laugh. "All of it, really. Well, I'm not sorry I took off with Nyx and Axel. I'm sorry you got mixed into it, though. I'm sorry I screwed up our marriage. That I hurt you."

Raven sighed. She did appreciate the words, but it didn't change anything.

"You could come back," she suggested. "I mean, you could make up a story about going out of reach and then just work long enough to pay off the last of the debt. Then you'll have them both, free and clear and no hunters chasing you down," she suggested.

"It's already been all these years, and I'm not even half paid off," he said. "I'm not sure I can handle too much more failure." Putting his hands on the desk, he leaned back against them and stared at the shadows above. "They don't warn you about this, you know? They say you can join up, work a few jobs, and pay off the fee. You'll live this exciting life and have these things to help you, but they don't warn you how much you'll get attached or how integral to your life they will become."

Raven shrugged. "How can they, really? Maybe not everyone gets as attached."

He looked at her with his brows up. "Do you really believe that?"

"No," she said without hesitation, "but I also don't rule anything out. I've met a few of our fellow hunters. There are some weird people."

"Does that include us?"

She snorted. "Of course it does. Look at us right now. You're a criminal. I'm a hunter who is supposed to be bringing you in. We're freaking exes, and we’re sitting here in a dusty old room on some backwater moon colony talking about our jobs."

Blake started laughing, and she started laughing a moment after him. For a moment, she remembered the days when their marriage worked.

"You really should find a way to call your mother," Raven said, changing the subject, somewhat. It was something that had been on her mind, though.

"I know," he said. "I've been pretty inconsiderate about that."

He sighed. She sighed. They fell silent again, and her thoughts spun around and around for a while more.

"I have a job to do," she said quietly, looking off into nothing.

Nothing had changed, really. He had still stolen the ship and the wolf, and she had still been hired to bring him in. Had she given herself a few minutes to think it through, she could have figured out the "why" of it, but again, it wouldn't truly have changed anything. She did feel different now that he was in front of her, though. Now she was thinking about it and putting herself in his position. If she had been, would she have done the same? If she was told she had to give up Kyra and Silvanus, could she?

"If you tell me you're going to bring me in, I'll go with you, Raven," he said quietly, interrupting her internal monologue. "I don't want to cause you any more trouble."

Well, that made things easier, right?


12

So that's it? Kyra asked.

Raven stood at the bottom of the ramp to her ship, watching as another ship took off from the docking port several slips down from hers. She knew for a fact that the ship was bearing a fugitive, a wolf still likely to be unconscious, and an AI newly freed of "mind" control. It climbed smoothly into the sky, although she wasn't sure how far he would make it on what he had made so far. She hadn't done the figures.

Yeah, Kyra. That's it. Raven still couldn't figure out if she was proud of herself, disappointed in herself, or both. It was probably both. I just couldn't do it.

Because you still love him? Silvanus, always working to better understand the complexities of human emotions, asked.

Raven waited until the ship was out of sight during its ascent through the atmosphere and then she turned and walked up the ramp into her own ship. Once Kyra was inside with her, she sealed them in and started the takeoff sequence. Then, she finally answered. I would be lying if I said I didn't think it was part of it, but it was more than that. It was really what he said about having to give you guys up.

Humans are so feeble, Kyra said, although frankly, Raven didn't think she sounded too insulting with it. She seemed to appreciate her human's feelings on the matter.

Whenever I think I have you figured out, Raven, you always find ways to surprise me, the AI said. She sounded genuinely confused.

Raven smiled wryly as Silvanus simultaneously took the ship into the air and began their ascent in the opposite direction from where Blake had gone. I find ways to surprise myself, Silvanus. Don't worry. I don't always understand myself, either. Chances are good that you'll figure me out before I do.

Kyra came up beside her and stretched and yawned in that cat kind of way. So what are you going to tell Halliwell?

"Hell if I know ..." Raven sighed.

Raven Sharpe

"What do you mean you...can't?" Havanaan asked slowly.

"Well, I suppose can't is a pretty final word," Raven said, starting to spin out the story she had built in her mind before making this call. "He's managed to cover his tracks very well. I will keep looking, but I can't forestall other cases for this one anymore."

He frowned deeply. "You have maintained a very impressive record. During your tenure as an employee of Halliwell …" She had to stop herself from rolling her eyes at the idea she had been an "employee" of theirs. "… you never lost a bounty. You always found your target and brought them in."

She shrugged as casually as she could fake. "I don't like it any more than you do, Mister Havanaan, but it's the first time I ever tried to hunt someone with the same training as I have. He knows how we work. You should know how hard it was to track him. You tried yourselves."

Of course, they should have been able to figure out how to do what she had done, but she wasn't going to point that out.

"Yes...well..." He huffed and looked at the data-pad on his desk in front of him. "Don't expect to be paid until you deliver him."

"Of course not, Mister Havanaan," she replied. "I don't expect that, and you certainly don't owe me any favors. If I make any progress, you'll be the first person I tell."

He didn't look reassured by this promise.

Raven Sharpe

Over the next few days, two things happened.

The first was the delivery of an encrypted, text-only message sent to Mr. and Mrs. Sharpe. It was beyond Raven to properly encrypt video calls or even audio ones. Silvanus was skilled, but they didn't trust that Halliwell wasn't going to be observing. Text was the only way to be safe, and so that's what arrived.

It wasn't a long message, but she assured them Blake was safe and healthy and that he would call as soon as he was able to. She then promised she would also call soon and come to visit when she could.

She hadn't divorced them, she decided.

The second thing that happened was an anonymous payment made to Halliwell, paying off the remaining balance of Blake Sharpe's debt. No one at the company thought too much about it, assuming he'd found some other means—probably illegal—of paying it off. Some suggested they should keep after him—he was still a thief—but they decided it wasn't worth the expense.

They cancelled Raven Sharpe's contract.

Raven Sharpe

A few days later, Raven was on her way to another planet on another hunt.

We're not going to let this one go, are we? Kyra asked pointedly as she gnawed on a hunk of raw meat that Silvanus had synthesized for her. She held it between her paws while Raven did everything she could to not look at it or listen too closely.

No, the human replied, maybe a little petulantly. She knew Kyra wasn't really upset with her or pushing her out of aggravation, but because she was a cat. Raven had to wonder what it would have been like if she'd been given something like a wolf or a hawk or a bear. That last one was rare, but it happened. Halliwell said the employment psych tests dictated what type of animal adjusted and connected to a hunter. I've already explained, multiple times, why I let Blake go. Since I only have one ex-husband, I think we're in the clear.

She thinks... Kyra repeated sarcastically.

Shut up, you furry instigator. Why do you have to push my buttons all the time? Raven asked as she rolled onto her side on her bunk, trying to drown out the sound of Kyra's eating. It didn't matter if it had been years, she couldn't get used to it. Of course, this was nothing compared to the time she had seen Kyra hunt a real animal and eat that.

How am I supposed to answer that if I'm shutting up? Kyra returned pointedly.

Since when do you ever actually listen to me anyway? Raven retorted.

There was a long silence then, and Raven decided that she had 'won' that round, although the victory was hollow. She knew it didn't really matter. It didn't change anything. Kyra would always be Kyra, but Raven was really okay with that. She didn't know what her life would be like without Kyra, and she never wanted to find out.

I can hear you thinking. Don't try so hard, you'll hurt something, Kyra chimed in without invitation.

"Silvanus?" Raven asked, folding her arms over her ears. "How long until we reach our destination? I need to hunt someone."


13

Blake sat in a quiet corner of a bar on Relus II. He was staring into his drink and trying to figure out his ex-wife. Of course, he hadn't been able to understand her when they were married, so he wasn't really sure why he thought he would understand her now...but still. He had been surprised when his plea worked.

They had worked together for years before going their separate ways, and he knew just how focused she was. She always brought in her target. Always. He had never seen her fail. He'd seen himself fail plenty, but never her. She simply wasn't prone to sentiment (that had been an issue during their marriage).

She'd listened to him and let him go, though.

He just didn't understand it.

"Mister Blake Sharpe?"

It was a pointed voice that, upon looking to his left, Blake saw belonged to an equally pointed man. He wore the suit of a businessman, but with the air of someone who didn't belong to any "above board" business out there. Blake eyed the man suspiciously.

"Yes?" he asked cautiously.

Another, larger man came up behind the first. "We need you to come with us. We have something to discuss."

Blake looked at them both and shook his head. "I don't think so."

"I'm afraid we must insist," the pointed man said as the larger man stepped forward.


II


An Ever Changing Hunt


14

“Ohhhh...what in the name of the universe did I do...”

Raven Sharpe rolled over on the unfamiliar bed and immediately regretted it. That one simple movement made the throbbing in her head increase by a thousand and move through her whole body, like her very heartbeat was punishing her for doing something really, really stupid.

The equally unfamiliar room had only dim safety lighting on, but that was too much as she pried open her dry eyes one by one.

“Where am I?” she groaned, closing her eyes again and putting her arm over them.

She waited for the inevitable snide commentary from the Artificial Intelligence back in the ship and her highly-intelligent, bonded animal companion, both of whom she was always connected to by a neural implant and communication device. They were pretty much always listening in on the things that she did, whether she wanted them to or not, and so was used to their running judgmental commentary about the foolishness of humans.

Silvanus, her AI, was better about it, but Kyra—a mountain lion of strong opinions—never hesitated with a pointed quip...when she decided it was worth her time, of course.

Cats were just like that.

Either way, their silence surprised her. She knew she was hungover to levels she rarely reached so it was a prime opportunity for Silvanus to be confused by humanity while Kyra could tell her what a fool she was to impair her senses so willfully.

After a few moments, the surprise turned to concern. Was something wrong? Was there a reason they weren’t replying?

Raven pulled her arm away and sat up with a surge of adrenaline that lasted approximately three seconds. That was just long enough to get her upright and fast, only to abandon her to the aftereffects of her evening, which were promptly spilled out over the edge of the bed as she threw those aftereffects right back up.

I was wondering when that would happen.

Ah. There was Kyra.

Her relief soothed her instant embarrassment from having indulged herself as much as she obviously had.

It does not matter how many years we have been together, I will never comprehend the human need to consume mind-altering substances to the point of illness, Silvanus added, though with less of a harsh tone than the cat had used.

You know, Raven said with an inward and outward groan as she laid back down very slowly, I don’t think most humans understand it either. I think if we understood it, we would be a hell of a lot less likely to do it.

Fair enough, Silvanus replied.

Raven knew the AI struggled to comprehend the inconsistencies inherent to the human psyche, but she tried. Raven tried to help...through continuous demonstration, of course.

Wanna know what idiocy you were up to last night? Kyra, on the other hand, did not try. She just commented.

I don’t think I do, Raven groaned again, without expectation that her wish would be respected.

She pushed herself back up to a sitting position, very slowly this time, and swung her feet over the edge of the bed. She was cautious to avoid the mess on the floor as she pushed herself upright. Swaying a little, she moved to the wall console and pressed a button to initiate the floor cleaning system. A small, dome-shaped robot swept out of a panel in the wall and immediately zeroed in on the mess by the bed.

Raven let it do its thing as she moved to the bathroom and turned the shower on, stepping into the pulsing energy waves that somehow managed to clean debris and oil from her hair and skin. Every time she stepped into one of these things, even the one on her ship, she longed for real water. That usually only happened when she was on a planet or moon colony.

For starters, Kyra rolled into it, having given her just a couple of minutes to get into the shower, you had to pick the seediest level of the station to go—what is that human expression, bar-hopping? —in. Your constant bitching about sticky things on the floor did nothing to assure us of your wisdom in choosing.

If I went to the top level stuff, they wouldn’t have had real alcohol, she argued as she ran her hands through her hair, letting the gently pulsing waves turn it from a ragged mess to one with a little life. As soon as the words were out of her mouth, however, she was convinced of the mistake.

Kyra proved the point. Precisely. You would have had the synthetic stuff and it would not have had this effect on you, no matter how much you drank, so you wouldn’t be feeling like something splattered on the front of the ship right now.

Running her hands over the rest of her, Raven scoffed. Well, where’s the fun in that? she sneered, then grunted as even the facial expression managed to make her head twinge again.

Would you explain to me where the fun is in the way you’re feeling now? According to Silvanus, your bodily report is not fantastic.

I’m fine, guys, Raven replied, turning off the shower and stepping back out into the bathroom where she moved to the sink to clean her teeth. Her mouth tasted like something had crawled in there and died. Give me a little time, some coffee, and breakfast, and I’ll be as good as new. She paused. I don’t want any comment from you, Kyra, about my condition, new or otherwise.

The big cat just growled a little.

Silvanus, please make sure that the room is paid for. I’m heading back to the ship now.

Certainly, Raven.

With that seen to, Raven got dressed and looked around to see if she had brought any belongings to this room aside from her clothes. She hadn’t. That made it easy to just leave and walk back to the docking ring.

On the way, with much of her focus on walking straight, Kyra made sure to elaborate on every ridiculous thing they had overheard during her descent into bottle after bottle. This apparently got even so far as she gave up the ghost on using a glass and just drank from the bottle.

Raven headed for the docking ring and her ship, wondering what had made her feel the need to drink that much and make herself that sick. She didn’t do it very often, thankfully, and there was usually a reason. However, she didn’t always like to look into those little dark places, so she was rarely sure of those reasons until a long time after the fact.

She got back to the ship and found a plate of food and cup of coffee already in the processor bay. She thanked Silvanus and took them both, going to the tiny little couch in her ship and sitting so she could consume it.

Kyra stretched and yawned, flashing those large, sharp teeth that lined her feline mouth. She padded over and thunked into Raven’s knee with her head, her only show of affection for the hunter she was bonded to. Raven reached down with her free hand and rested it on Kyra’s head.

She didn’t pet her, lest Kyra be insulted by being treated like a cat, but like most animals, the contact itself helped.

Once she was done eating, she put the dishes back into the processor to be recycled and was feeling twenty times better. She settled back onto the couch to get some less-sick rest.

“Silvanus,” she said aloud now that she was in range of the AI’s speakers. “Would you put a call in to Blake?”

“Certainly,” the AI replied. A few moments later, though, she came back, “He still isn’t answering.”

Raven frowned. It had been a little while since her ex had answered her call; just long enough to kind of worry but not long enough to really worry.

“Call incoming,” Silvanus said.

For a moment, Raven thought it was Blake. It wasn’t.

It was a job.


15

Raven Sharpe made a living as an interstellar bounty hunter, and she was a good one. She was hired to find people, and she always found them. She brought them in, got paid, and moved on to her next gig. She never had to wait long.

She only had one case, ever, where she had not found her target and brought them in, and that was something she was still conflicted about. For many reasons.

On the surface, her debauchery of the previous night had been a celebration after turning in the target from a big hunt. Now, her ship was racing off to the Howard Prison Colony. It was a privately-owned colony that had its own security force for maintaining prisoners, but nothing dedicated to pursuit of any who escaped.

It seemed like a terrible oversight to her, but it was really just hubris. They assumed that no one ever would escape, so why bother?

That was about all she knew about this job until she met with the chief warden and learned more. They had asked her to come talk about a big job, and she’d taken off. Now she was laying on her couch with her eyes closed, getting ready with her mind but allowing her body to rest.

“Silvanus, I need all the publicly accessible records and schematics for the colony,” she said out loud.

“I’m already working on it,” the AI replied, and Raven smiled. “If you choose to accept the contract, you should ask for any records they have that are not accessible to the public or with just a hunter’s clearance.”

“I will indeed,” she replied, “if I take the job. I don’t imagine I won’t, but you never know what crazy job might land in front of me.”

“Indeed,” the AI said simply. “Humans are…remarkably strange.”

Raven pulled her arm away from her face and eyed Silvanus, which really meant she eyed whatever terminal happened to be in front of her. “That sounds like something applying to more than me,” she commented.

There was a long pause. “You grow more perceptive,” Silvanus finally commented. “I was just thinking about the propensity of humans towards humor, and how subjective that very concept really is.”

“I certainly can’t disagree with that,” the human replied, “but what prompted it?”

“My name,” the AI said.

It actually wasn’t the first time they had talked about this. In fact, when they had been paired up and began working together, one of the first things Raven had asked was why the ship’s AI was named after an ancient god of forests…when the consciousness that was Silvanus would never leave the ship.

The answer had been simple. “I believe they were trying to be funny. Or ironic. Humans have a terrible grasp of irony.”

“And giving you a female persona but a male name?”

“The same.”

It wasn’t hard for Raven to see why the AI’s neural network would have made that leap, and she knew neither of them needed to comment on it further.

“How long until we reach the colony?” she asked instead.

“Thirty-four minutes at current speed,” Silvanus replied.

I’m hungry. This was Kyra’s first contribution to the conversation since leaving the station.

As if trained, Raven didn’t even speak. She just got up and walked to the food processor, where Silvanus—as if programmed—had created something Kyra would want to eat. Raven pulled it down and gave it to the big cat, before she returned to her place on the couch to rest for another half-hour.

Raven Sharpe

The BHS Silvanus—since the ship was the AI and the AI was the ship—landed on the colony’s landing pad, and Raven emerged just moments later.

There were two people standing just at the edge of the pad, and she presumed they were waiting for her. One was dressed in a uniform, though clearly not military, and the other in more obvious ‘civilian’ wear. The man in the uniform stepped forward and introduced himself as the chief warden.

“Warden Mahhar,” Raven greeted him with a curt nod before turning to the woman.

“Luna Howard.” The name of course caught Raven’s attention immediately. “I’m the daughter of the founder, and the present president of the penal division of the larger company. On a matter as crucial as this, it was imperative that I be here.”

Raven gave her the same nod. “Of course, Miss Howard.”

Keep things on lock while I’m in there, ladies, Raven said to her ship and her cat unnecessarily.

A fact Kyra was swift to point out. As if we would do anything else.

Trying not to smirk, so she didn’t let on to the fact she was having a private conversation, she followed Mahhar and Luna Howard away from the landing pad and into the large building that lined one side of landing pad. As soon as she stepped through the door, she immediately missed the taste of real outside that she had experienced between disembarking and now, but she knew there was nothing for it.

Neither of them said anything as they walked, so she didn’t push it. Not yet, at least, since she was sure they didn’t want to discuss sensitive business in the hall.

She was led into what appeared to be one of several offices. Small. One window. Comfortably appointed, but decorated in remarkably bland colors. It was all gray accented with other sorts of gray.

They brought her to a sofa with an armchair beside it, which she took note of. They weren’t taking “power positions” by sitting behind a desk with her on the other side. This was open, and on equal footing.

“So,” Raven began, swinging her gaze between them, “why don’t you tell me about this job you asked me here to talk about.” Small talk was always a waste of time.

“Of course,” Mahhar said. “Even if presumptuous, I feel safe in saying this is likely to be one of the hardest hunts you’ve been hired for.”

She arched her brow. “Why is that, Warden?”

Howard pursed her lips. “Because…she’s a shapeshifter, with an untold number of forms.”


16

Well. There was a handful of words she hadn’t expected to hear.

Raven had hunted down many things in her career so far, even though it had only been a few years. There were things with two legs, four, eight, three, things with wings and scales and tails, things that flew or burrowed underground…but they’d all had one thing in common:

They were only one thing.

True shapeshifting species had remained rare, even with all the time exploring the universe and finding new races—and new races finding them. At least, finding species that they knew to be shapeshifters. The thing with them would be that it was hard to tell unless they showed you, or tripped up.

Raven couldn’t even think of the name of such a species, at least not off the top of her head.

“Are you kidding me?” was the first thing she asked.

“I’m afraid not,” Luna replied somberly. “We don’t know her true name, or whatever name she was granted at birth.”

“Assuming she was even born like other species,” Mahhar interjected.

Luna gave him a dry look before she continued. “We do know that she belongs to the species Theria. Not much is known about them except for their shapeshifting ability. The name she was going by when she was arrested was Giselle Morton.”

Raven’s brow arched. “Giselle?”

“Yes.”

“Okay then.”

“Do you recall the assassination of Ambassador Wallens’ child?” Luna went on.

Raven thought for a few moments, then remembered and nodded. “That was over a year ago,” she commented.

The other woman nodded. “Through little more than good fortune and one very stupid mistake, Giselle Morton was arrested and charged for the crime as an assassin-for-hire who was hired to kill the ambassador’s daughter. She was offered a deal if she would reveal the name of the one who hired her, but she declined and was awaiting trial here. “

“When did she escape?” Raven asked, weighing the details of the work.

“Three days ago,” Mahhar replied. “We attempted to pursue her ourselves, but our ability to do so is limited and we cannot waste any more time trying.”

Howard inclined her head. “This is a dangerous woman, Hunter Sharpe.” She brought a data-tablet from the desk behind her and handed it over. “We’ve asked you because time is of the essence and we don’t need any inter-jurisdictional conflicts. Your role allows to you cross between and work in different areas with less…procedural hassle.”

Every planet, colony, station, and starship had its own security force, or shared it with a specific other entity. They were technically allowed to cross jurisdictions in pursuit of a criminal, but every security force had its own issues and could put up its own roadblocks if it chose to.

A professional hunter like herself tended to be less of a threat as a one-woman enterprise, and her permits got her further than a whole security force having to deal with a whole other force.

“Fair enough,” Raven said with a nod. “Well, then, let’s figure this out.” In truth, she was still reeling from the news about the target’s species, and amazed at being chosen for the hunt. She had a good record, but this was something beyond the usual. Their faith in her skills was flattering.

“Does this mean you’re accepting the contract?” Howard said.

“Looks like it. Though my bills need paying, so what’s the offer?” She knew that time was of the essence, but she did need to know that she would be fairly compensated. She and her cat had to eat, after all.

Miss Howard lifted a document tablet off the table and handed it to her. Raven took it and reviewed it. The money impressed her, but private corporations from corporate families could afford more than government owned facilities. She read over the provisions to the contract, but there were next to none.

“Agreed,” Raven said, pressing her thumb to the small biometric square at the bottom before passing it back.

Luna pressed her thumb and passed it to the warden, who did the same. Then she put it on the desk and turned back to her.

“I’m going to need everything you have,” Raven said simply. “I already have my AI working on the public records, since she’s heard everything you said, but I’ll need access to whatever you have that isn’t publicly available.”

“Of course,” Howard said, nodding at the warden. “We’ll transmit it directly to your ship’s AI.”

That was efficient. Normally, they would hand it to her and she had to report it over to Silvanus. There was always something to be said for working with the people that had all the shiny new stuff.

“I presume that a prison must have audio-visual records over everything that goes on in this place,” she said. When she paused, Mahhar nodded. “How much of her escape were you able to catch?”

“Almost all of it,” he admitted, although he didn’t look too happy about doing so. “The ‘how’ is not in dispute. We know exactly how she did it. We just weren’t able to stop her.”

Raven looked around the room, visualizing the ultra-maximum, inter-species, high-dollar prison beyond her. “And just how did she manage to do that?”

Mahhar got to his feet and gestured to the door. “Let me show you.”


17

The first step was to sit in the surveillance room to watch the recordings that had been taken of the woman presently calling herself ‘Giselle,’ but who could look like anything by now.

“We knew that she was a special case,” Mahhar said. “We agreed to take her because this is the most advanced prison in the sector. We did our best to research and discuss it with the apprehension team, and made our accommodations based on what they had put together.”

Raven’s brows knit as she thought it through. It was difficult enough to escape this sort of well-funded, ultra-max prison for any prisoner, but for one who was as watched as this one had to have been? Her first thought was that someone here at the Howard Prison Colony had been paid off. It wasn’t out of the realm of possibility, but it also didn’t affect her job. She wasn’t going to be working with them.

There was another option, however, that if true, would affect her job: Giselle was just that good.

That was even more dangerous, and it had been pretty freaking dangerous to begin with.

“We had a monitor implanted in her skin that we were assured by our medical personnel that even she would not be able to get rid of, no matter what she turned into,” he was saying when she turned her attention back to him. “She is bio-locked, so she can’t change into things like liquid or gas.”

That was good to know.

“However, with bio forms, she is unlimited so far as we can tell.”

Raven liked that less.

“The monitor would let us know where she was no matter what form she was in, and the prison is set up that no matter how small a creature it is, it can’t get out without going through security. Not even a mouse,” Mahhar went on as the monitor in front of them came alive. “This is where the escape begins.”

Raven watched the screen closely as a woman in a blue prison jumpsuit paced in front of an invisible wall. She moved like a large, agitated cat as her eyes kept moving back and forth, watching something beyond that wall.

“What is she watching?” Raven asked, since they couldn’t see that.

“One of the guards,” he answered without having to check. He had folded his arms over his chest and leaned back in his seat. Just before she turned away, she saw an inner set of eyelids blink.

Ah, not human after all. Not that it mattered, really.

She focused on the video again.

“Did you have a recording angle on the guard?” Raven asked.

“Yep,” Mahhar said, tapping some commands on the interface and bringing up the second security feed on the screen next to the first.

Her eyes flickered fast between the two, syncing them up. She watched Giselle stare, and the guard watch. The guard turned away and Giselle shifted. She shifted into something small that Raven could just barely pick out, before scurrying to the side. When the guard turned back, he saw that she wasn’t there anymore, when it had been barely the blink of an eye.

The guard rushed to the door and looked through the forcefield, swinging his head back and forth and calling for her. Nothing.

Then he did something amazingly stupid, and opened the field.

As soon as he stepped aside, she shifted right in front of him. A fight ensued. The guard was trained well in hand to hand combat, but she was better. Without shifting again, she put him on the ground, had his weapon, and was making a break for it.

Mahhar pressed commands to watch her run through the prison, disabling guards either with vicious strikes or the stolen weapon.

“She made it out onto the landing pad and stole our one short-range transport vehicle,” he went on to explain. His expression and tone were morose, embarrassed. “She used its very limited weapons at very short-range to punch holes in the hulls of the two vehicles parked here so we couldn’t pursue her. We had to bring out an older vehicle from storage to attempt to do so, which lost us time and slowed us down.”

“Please transmit all this footage to my AI,” she said, then leaned back in her seat in thought. Something was bothering her and after a moment, she realized what. “Why didn’t the guard check the monitoring device when he couldn’t see her anymore?”

“He was new,” Mahhar explained. “He doesn’t work here anymore.”

She grunted softly.

“Tell me about the monitoring device,” she said. “Can I use it to track her?”

“I’m afraid not,” Mahhar said regretfully. “It will only work here.”

She made an annoyed noise. “Of course.” She thought for a few moments. “Okay. I need to talk to the other guards who had contact with her.”

Raven Sharpe

“She was freaky.”

Raven stared at the guard as she waited for him to elaborate on what that meant, but he just stared back. She thought he looked kind of dumb, but she didn’t want to make too deep a judgment after twenty-three seconds.

“Could you elaborate on that?” she drawled slightly.

“Elaborate?”

Okay, she’d make a judgment after forty-one seconds. That had been a very important eighteen seconds.

“What do you mean by freaky?” she asked, slowly.

“Oh. Right. She did all that shapeshifting stuff a lot, you know? She could be most anything. One day, there’d be a lizard in her cell. Another, she’d be some tiny redhead in the morning, and that night, was a freaking Amazon.”

Raven nodded. That pretty much summed up the average idea of a shapeshifter.

Before she asked him anything else, a second guard joined them. He nodded politely to her and she turned her focus there. “What can you tell me about the prisoner who escaped?”

“She was a tricky one,” he said. “We had the monitor on her so we know where she was, or what or who was her. She shifted a lot in the first few days she was here and I think it was to test our responses.”

Raven tilted her head. “To what end?”

He considered. “Possibly to find out which of us would be the most unnerved by her abilities, you know, who the weak links were. I mean, I’m looking at this in retrospect of course. It didn’t occur to me then. She was a shapeshifter and shapeshifted. It just made sense. We had no way to stop her unless we wanted to keep her sedated all the time, and we’re not legally or morally allowed to do that. Besides, she never really did anything. She changed shape, but she didn’t abuse or assault anyone. Not guards or other prisoners.”

“So what makes you think that it was more than that?” Raven probed. This one had been paying more attention, clearly, so this was where she was going to focus herself.

“A feeling, I guess, when I look back,” he said uncomfortably. “She didn’t really interact with anyone either, but she stared a lot. She watched. She would shift into an animal, for example, and then would stand there...and watch.”

The other guard chimed in. “See? Freaky.”

Raven drawled, “Indeed.”

She considered this information. Had the woman been testing them? Had she been looking for who would be the most unnerved by her and thereby easier to overcome when she made her escape attempt?

“What can you tell me about her shapeshifting ability in action?” Raven asked next. “I saw it on the security video, and it didn’t seem to take much time or trouble for her.”

“No, ma’am,” Guard Two said with a shake of his head. “It was instantaneous, and practically seamless. Might see some kind of shimmering if she was changing to something big, but she knew what she was doing. She could leap into the air as one thing and land as another without issue, even, say, go from four legs to two without losing her balance.”

The “this is dangerous” meter kept getting closer to overload.

Raven kept herself focused on the job at hand. Silvanus and Kyra had remained quiet during this process, like they usually did when she was conducting interviews and gathering information. She kept them up to date on everything she learned, and they let their minds go to work on it too.

“What personal items of hers do you have?” she asked next. “I’m particularly interested in things like clothing.”

Both guards frowned curiously. “Why?” the first one asked.

She smiled, although there wasn’t a lot of warmth to it. “I need her scent.”


18

Raven had a lot on her mind when she returned to the ship.

You have a mind like a storm, Kyra commented as Raven walked up the short ramp into her ship. Or more like multiple storms, really. Like a blizzard and an earthquake in one.

“Creative imagery,” the human said as she dropped herself onto the couch, listening to the hiss of the ramp as it closed itself and sealed. “You heard everything I did. This won’t be like anything we’ve done before.”

So? Kyra asked laconically, lifting her head to peer across the small cabin at Raven.

Raven peered back.

Kyra said nothing.

“So...? What does that mean?”

Although her feline body didn’t actually move much, Raven got the impression of a shrug. Just what I said. So? What does it matter that it’s not like anything before? Every hunt is different. You learn. You try. Maybe you fail. If so, you adapt. You hunt. You catch. You survive. It’s that simple.

The human woman stared at her for a while longer, and then she started laughing.

“You have a point, Kyra.”

Of course I do.

That made Raven laugh again, but at least she had her center back. “Alright, talk to me, Silvanus. You got all the information I did, and more. Have you been analyzing it?”

“I have, yes,” Silvanus finally chimed in using the ship’s speakers. “And I have found something interesting.”

“What’s that?” Raven pushed herself to her feet and went to the food processor, getting a cup of coffee.

“I was able to analyze the security feed with a number of different filters. The sophisticated equipment that the prison colony has can pick up a great deal of information, whether or not they know to look for it or know how to read it.” The AI paused and Raven grunted. That was “keep going” in Raven Talk. “One of the filters picked up a particulate emission from the shapeshifter at the time she changed, a substance known as One-Four-Five. It’s fairly rare. It’s basically a radiation but isn’t poisonous to life forms around it. It’s minute, but is enough that my sensors could scan an area and read if she were to change her shape.”

With the cup halfway to her mouth, Raven paused and pursed her lips. Now that was a lead. “What other things emit that sort of substance? That is, what’s the rate of a false positive?”

She wasn’t sure how an AI could smile without an avatar, but she would have sworn that hers did. “Next to nothing, Raven,” Silvanus replied. “As I said, this is rare. In fact, rare may be too common a description.”

“Do you have to scan while she is changing or can you see where she’s been?” was Raven’s next question.

“The particulates should remain in readable levels in an area where she’s changed for approximately six minutes. I cannot be sure if any remain on her person at a level my scans can pick up.”

“Silvanus, you’re beautiful,” Raven said, finally taking that sip of her coffee before sitting down at the console and pulling up various information—images of the area of space around her as well as technical specs for the vessel that had been stolen.

“Short-range transports are not known for their speed,” Silvanus commented as if reading Raven’s mind.

Raven snorted. “Not in the least. Engineers aren’t going to add expensive speed modifications to a ship only meant to go on little hops. Any ship bought by a prison for such a task likely won’t care if their passengers are happy with the transit time or not.” She pursed her lips thoughtfully. “She was smart to do what she could to disable the other ships, but she won’t be able to do much with the one she has. She’d be wise to switch vehicles as soon as possible, but the likelihood of getting one while in space is next to nil. So, let’s operate under the idea that she plans to get to a colony with a spaceport or a big station so she can steal a better ship.”

“That’s a logical train of thought.”

“I thought so,” Raven agreed. She pulled up the map, starting at the prison. “She started here and we know the exact time she left atmosphere. Assuming the transport has been moving at top speed—which it should have been, since maintenance was kept up on it—we know roughly how far she could make it.”

She tapped on the console and brought up information from the prison colony, namely, the maintenance records. She knew how much fuel the transport was carrying at the time of theft and what the ship’s best speed was. She knew how far the ship could go, so she highlighted a range on the map between the prison and the furthest the ship could get to.

“So,” Raven said, thinking out loud, “we look at a full circle around the colony. We know the direction she left in but she may have turned once she was past the prison’s sensor net.” There weren’t a lot of colonies or starbases within the green highlighting, naturally, because few places wanted a prison nearby.

She’s a shape-changer, Kyra said, even though she looked like she was sleeping on the floor in front of the couch.

Raven blinked. “Didn’t we already know that?”

“I believe our feline friend is making the point that she will be able to get off her ship and blend in on any other ship because she is able to take on any face,” Silvanus translated for the human.

“Right...” Raven said. She hated it when they teamed up against her. “She’s not going to want to go to anywhere too shiny.”

There was a long moment of silence. “Shiny?”

“Yes, shiny,” she said. “Anywhere that is too high-tech. They’ll have better security, including biometric readers that she can’t imitate. She can’t use her own or be found out. So, she’ll want somewhere low-tech, somewhere shady, where they won’t ask too many questions or look too closely at anything. So, please review public records on all of the ports that could accommodate a ship her size and matches the security measures, or lack thereof, that we need.”

“Yes, Raven,” Silvanus replied. “Processing.”


19

“There are three possible locations.”

Raven blinked and looked up, feeling like she’d forgotten that Silvanus was doing that search. She had been engrossed in studying the footage of Giselle’s escape, trying to analyze anything else that might help. There was some footage of her incapacitating other guards and Raven studied that particularly closely.

“Okay,” she acknowledged. “What three?”

“Station Ganix, Thais Colony, and Riad Colony. All three have a, shall we say, less than exemplary reputation and comparatively low-tech security measures. Public record about their docking and departure shows very lenient procedure, if it exists at all.”

Kyra rose and stretched, yawning with large teeth glinting in the light. It’s amazing some of you humans survive at all, she commented.

Raven made a face. “Many don’t.”

Kyra didn’t reply.

“Silvanus, show me the information on those three locations,” Raven said, then watched as each one popped up on her console screen. She began to review them, comparing and contrasting. She also looked at them on a map, with the prison colony at the center.

As she looked, she narrowed her brow. “Both colonies look like a stretch, given the craft she’s gotten. She would have had to turn off course once she was past the sensor net, though Riad would be closer.”

The AI couldn’t nod, but Raven still imagined that she did. “That was my conclusion as well, and if you look at the security requirements to each, the station has the least. It also has a higher rate of people coming and going. It’s daily traffic outpaces both colonies. If I were to pick the most likely location, I would suppose Station Ganix.”

“As would I,” Raven agreed. “Can you open a line of communication with Ganix flight operations?”

“Just a moment.”

Raven stared at her dark console, considering installation of a program to show her something more amusing while she waited. Then it chirped.

“Audio only, but Jenrin is on the line.”

“Hello, Jenrin,” Raven said in her best “friendly” voice. “Have you had any short-range transports, Yalin-class, dock with your station lately?”

There was a long silence. So long that she worried the connection was lost.

“Why you want to know?”

She eyed the dark console and halting translation. “I have my reasons. I just want to know if you’ve seen one in the past two days.”

“A couple.”

The communication closed with a chirp.

“Charming,” Raven drawled. “Well, it’s not concrete, but there’s a chance. Let’s roll the dice, Tree Lady.”

“Tree Lady?”

Raven smirked. “Yes. Silvanus. Tree Lady.”

There was a long moment before the AI replied. “I’m not entirely sure the suitability of this name, but I suppose if you desire to use it, then I will not argue.”

Set course for Ganix, Tree Lady.

“Thank you, Cat Woman.”

There was a low rumble in the cat’s throat. Okay, perhaps we don’t need nicknames.

Raven Sharpe

Raven’s ship considerably outpaced the short-range transport that her target had hijacked, so what had probably taken Giselle about two days was only going to take Raven about four and a half hours.

That, of course, gave her four and a half hours to wait.

She spent some of it reading what information they had on the woman they were calling “Giselle,” but there wasn’t a lot. They believed that she was a galaxy-wide assassin-for-hire. A perfect occupation for someone that could assume any shape to avoid detection and to facilitate her escapes..

If she was guilty of all the murders they thought she was, that definitely put her in the “Legend and Myth” category.

Only one stroke of bad luck for her, and good luck for the police, was being able to trip her up after the assassination of Ambassador Wallens’ daughter. She’d been held in Howard Prison awaiting trial.

Given how well that had gone, it was easy to see how she could have been slippery enough to kill all those people without getting caught.

That was all there was, so Raven didn’t have much to read. They had no idea what her real name was, where or when she had been born. She wasn’t human, they knew that much, and they had her DNA. Somehow, she almost never left DNA evidence, though, so it only went so far. They had started to analyze it, given how rare shapeshifters were, but it wasn’t a lot.

Raven sat back. Four hours to go.

After a failed attempt to get Kyra to play a word game, Raven started scanning through her backlog of communications and low-priority requests. “Paperwork” was one of her least favorite things to do.

Two hours later, she was still wading through her paperwork when Silvanus announced a call.

“Who?” Raven asked with a frown.

“They are calling on an encrypted, private channel,” Silvanus announced.

Raven was tempted to not answer, but then thought that maybe it was Blake returning her call and being overly cautious. “Accept call.”

It wasn’t Blake’s face that showed up on her screen, however. It was a man she had never seen before. Human or human-like, he was older with a lot of grey mixed into his sophisticated short hair.

“Raven Sharpe?”

She tilted her head suspiciously. “Yes. Who are you?”

The man arched his brow, like he was surprised she didn’t know him. “I’m Ambassador Connor Wallens.”

Raven bit her lip to stop her eyes from widening, and prevent a string of invectives from escaping her mouth. How did he get my contact information? It had to be someone at Howard Prison or Halliwell Hunters Company that had given up her contact info.

“What can I do for you, Ambassador?” she asked flatly.

“What are you doing to catch the monster that killed my child?” Neither of them were dancing around any bushes, which suited her just fine.

She gritted her back teeth together. “Everything I’m capable of, Ambassador, and if you know my reputation, that’s considerable.”

He waited.

She waited.

“That’s all you’re going to tell me?” he finally said.

“Yes, sir.” Raven tried to keep some respect, because his position was considerable, but she really didn’t care. “I don’t give play by play reports to anyone. I’m on the case, and it has my full attention. I will catch her and I will bring her back, and you may see to your justice. That’s all that needs to be said.”

He looked a little taken aback, and then shut off the channel.


20

Two hours later, Raven was still seething.

She didn’t know where anyone got the nerve to put their big nose into her business. She knew she should be sympathetic to the fact that this man had lost a child, but it didn’t give him the right to demand things from her. She didn’t kill his daughter, and he had no power over her.

Maybe that wasn’t true, but she would live her life like it was. He just needed to stay out of it and let her do her job.

Also, whoever had given him her contact information was literally going to get murdered.

I wonder who they’d send to bring me in…

At least now she had something else to focus on for a while, because they were on approach to Station Ganix. There was a pre-recorded message going out to all ships coming in.

“Please be aware that for the past two solar-measured days, we have been experiencing a problem with our docking release systems. If you require hard-lock to the station, be advised that you may be delayed in departure. We are nearly to a solution, however. Dock at your own risk.”

Raven was suddenly in a much better mood.

“Silvanus, does that mean what I think it means?”

Long moment. “I don’t know, Raven. I cannot read your thoughts.”

Raven tried to not roll her eyes. “Does that mean that Giselle may have docked and then gotten stuck here?”

“Ah, yes. It seems highly probably that it means precisely that. The vessel she was flying would have required hard-lock, so if she came here, she would have been attached to the station and unable to release. Any ship she may have joined would have been unable to release.”

“I really hope she’s here,” Raven declared. “Please initiate docking procedures with the station.”

Do we want to get stuck here? Kyra asked.

“If we are stuck, we have more time to catch her, won’t we?” Raven said. “Quit your complaining, cat.”

Kyra, shockingly, didn’t say anything after that.

Raven sat back and waited, knowing that her AI would be able to manage everything that was required for the docking procedure. Silvanus used to announce everything she was doing as she did it, but Raven had requested she stop that since she didn’t do anything with it and it was really kind of annoying.

She felt the ship thud and shudder, then there was a hissing noise at her ship’s hatch and she knew that they had achieved hard-lock.

“Out of curiosity,” Raven said, “what were the security procedures.”

“I asked them where to park. They told me. Then a pre-recorded warning notification data packet was sent to me to alert me that they had recorded the class of ship I was in and the time I arrived, and that anything that happened to me or anyone on my vessel was, to summarize, my own problem.”

Raven laughed. “Fantastic,” she said. “Let’s get on board. First stop, our friend Jenrin.”

Raven Sharpe

Raven didn’t plan to advertise her job while she was here. For a station like this, someone who professionally hunted down criminals was not going to win any favors, and she didn’t carry any sort of authority. Not that she expected they would obey it if she did, so she had to play other cards here.

Silvanus was able to get the location of the flight ops office, and Raven made a straight line to it. Once there, she was again amazed at just how “casual” everything was on this station. It wasn’t the first place she’d seen like this, but it never ceased to amaze her that things like the flight operations office wouldn’t be locked down.

She didn’t encounter anyone or any locked doors. The door to the office itself wasn’t even locked. It wasn’t even a door, just an open doorway that she could step up to and look through.

Inside was a solitary humanoid. She couldn’t identify what he was right away, but she knew that he was...pink. Not human who has been in the sun too much pink, but bright pink verging toward magenta. She hadn’t actually seen any race that color before and wondered what kind of world would produce a pink person.

“Jenrin?” she asked when she found her voice.

The humanoid whirled around with obvious surprise. The antenna on...his, maybe...forehead wobbled up and down in what looked like agitation to her.

“Who you?” he demanded. His vertical eyelids blinked repeatedly.

“It doesn’t matter,” she said with her best smile. She knew herself to not be unattractive, especially when she tried. “I just docked at the station, but I heard the message about the ships maybe being unable to leave?”

The wiggling and blinking slowed. “That. Yes. Such trouble, but fixed now, and I send message to ships that they can leave.”

Raven felt that that was a problem for her, since it meant Giselle could slip away in what was likely a mass exodus of impatient ship captains and personnel.

“Is there anything I can do to get you to delay that?” she asked, trying to smile again in a way that was appealing. She wasn’t sure, though, if this person’s race even reacted to such things.

“Why I do that?”

She thought fast. “Money?”


21

Who was it that said it’s all about leverage? Raven said, smirking and shaking her head as she walked out of the office. It had taken a lot less money to convince Jenrin to delay the release announcement than she thought it would. He stopped asking questions too.

She knew there was a chance he’d take the money and run. She had agreed to half up front and half when she finished her business. He still might just take the money and run, but at least it would be less.

Now we just have to find her, Raven went on. I can’t keep all these ships on the hook forever. Jenrin will only be able to delay for so long. She paused. Also, when this is done, I want to know what race is pink.

What? Kyra asked with confusion.

Later. Silvanus. Scan?

I am working on it now, Raven, the AI chimed in. My scanning radius is limited, so I must move part by part. So far, no sign of the One-Four-Five Particulate.

Raven hadn’t returned to the ship because she wanted to be as quick to the jump as possible. She was sitting in a bar on the station’s promenade level, which wasn’t much to write home about. Kyra was heading to meet her, commenting about all the strange looks she was getting…and ignoring.

She had ordered a drink, just to blend in of course, but was only nursing it because she didn’t want to be inhibited if Silvanus gave her a location.

Kyra arrived and sat down beside Raven, who didn’t order anything for the cat. They waited. Every now and then—every couple of minutes—Raven or Kyra would ask the AI if there was any information. The AI dryly reported which segment of the station she had scanned and what segment she was moving on to. It shortly became clear that she was giving more and more detailed, technical answers, and Raven guessed it was to make them stop asking.

It didn’t.

Then, finally... Raven, I have a trace of the One-Four-Five Particulate. Judging from the dispersion pattern, I can guess that it’s recent. She is likely still in that immediate area. I have the positive reading on deck thirteen, section forty-two, in the block of rooms three to six.

Where am I now? Raven asked.

You are on deck eight, section fourteen, room eleven, Silvanus replied immediately.

Exits and entrances? Kyra asked, already standing up and staring at Raven impatiently.

The human paid for her drink even as she was getting to her feet.

Reviewing station schematics now. I do not believe they are entirely up to date, but perhaps close enough, the AI said, managing to sound doubtful. It would appear that rooms three through six are a singular entity, four rooms in one block to be used for a storefront. I am unclear if it is currently active as such.

I’m guessing not, Raven said. It doesn’t seem like a place she would take refuge in if it was.

It would be more clever of her to use it as a hiding place if it was active, Kyra pointed out. Don’t forget what she is. Not just a shapeshifter, but more than likely an assassin of remarkable caliber. She’s smart.

Raven grunted thoughtfully as they walked, quickly, through the station. She wanted to get there fast, but didn’t want to attract any unwarranted attention. She was annoyed with herself for not thinking that one through before she spoke and letting Kyra get one up on her like that.

They reached the nearest lift and quickly descended to deck thirteen. From there, it was more of a hike to get to the section they needed, but this area was less populated than the primary level of the promenade that she had just been on. There were fewer shops that seemed more specialized, and none too...above aboard, as it were.

To say that this was the seedy section of an already seedy space station was really saying something.

Soon, although not fast enough, they reached the section and then made their way to the four-room block that the particulate had been found in. There were a few people coming and going through the corridor, as well as some bodies milling around in the apparently active shop. Which was even more annoying since it meant that Kyra was right.

Doing her best to look casual and inconspicuous, she stepped inside the shop and looked around like she was shopping for something other than an escaped prisoner. The trouble of it was that she realized she was in a shop catering to pretty much every species...except human. She didn’t recognize any of the items, but did not enjoy imagining what each one of them might be.

Raven and Kyra “browsed” through the store’s merchandise while trying to look as normal as a woman and a giant cat could. One would think on a multi-species station, that wouldn’t be too hard, but it was. It was Kyra that made them stand out, yet it was also Kyra that made people stop looking.

Suddenly, something just felt...different around Raven.

She stopped and turned slowly, turning her head to look back over her shoulder, working on some instinct that she didn’t entirely understand but had always trusted.

As she did, she met the eyes of someone behind her. The face was unfamiliar, but there was something in the eyes. Something...knowing, and cold. Raven felt a strange shiver race down her spine, feeling like she could sense the power that the shape changing creature possessed. She knew, instantly and without a doubt, that this woman was the one she was after.

And the woman knew that Raven was after her.

In a flurry of motion, the woman suddenly shoved a tall metal rack towards her. It flew forward and crashed into Raven, although not as much as it could have since she had thrown herself back to avoid it as much as possible. She still fell to the ground as pouches of something blue and gel-like crashed onto her, some of them breaking open. She waited for the potentially corrosive acid effect of the strange substance, but it never came.

Kyra had avoided it completely and was already leaping over the downed rack, and Raven, in hot pursuit of the shapeshifter.


22

Being discrete and inconspicuous went right out the window as they rushed through station corridors, ducking in and around people. Some were nice enough to get out of the way, others stood in shock, and others still just stood and cursed at them both coming and going. Many of the latter two categories got caught in the freight train that was Raven and Kyra.

I can still smell her, Kyra said, her mental voice tight with her concentration.

Giselle’s ability to shift was fast, so Raven did not doubt that she could change as she took corners or dodged into shops. She knew her only chance to keep on her tail was Kyra’s nose.

How strange, to hang your entire professional reputation off a cat’s big, flat nose.

Raven took the next corner so fast that she all but flew into the wall, grunting with frustration as Kyra raced off without her. She held her gun in one hand—one of the benefits of being on a station as skuzzy as this one was that few people cared that much unless you actually shot them—and used the other to propel herself off the wall. She knew she wasn’t likely to catch up to Kyra now, so she just tried to keep her in sight.

They turned another corner and Raven cursed whoever designed this station, but at least this put them on a straightaway. Giselle was still running ahead of them, and the dead sprint was pretty much, well, a dead giveaway.

Without as many turns to slow her down, the muscular feline body used ground-eating strides. Her paws barely hit the ground as she raced after the fleeing form, her predatory instinct 100% engaged. The space between the two began to close and Raven silently cheered them on.

The further they went, the clearer the corridor became. Raven realized she had a chance here and so she stopped, bringing up her gun and aiming as fast as possible before her quarry was out of range. Stay down! A kinetic round shot out of her weapon and crossed the distance between them. It slammed into the shifter, and she shrieked as she spun.

She did not, however, fall. With curses so loud and creative they practically spewed visible color, she gripped her bleeding shoulder and kept rushing forward.

A trail, Kyra said, almost lustfully.

Giselle now clearly slowed down, and it forced her hand. Her head whipped side to side as she ran, and Raven knew she was searching for an exit.

She took an abrupt, graceless turn. Kyra was behind her just moments later, and Raven just a few seconds behind that, and all three were inside…a store, apparently, although it didn’t look like it was open. It couldn’t have been very active, though, since it hadn’t been locked up.

The large room was dark, and there was no movement except for a big cat stalking through the aisles.

You didn’t lose her, did you? Raven asked for a few minutes.

Of course I didn’t lose her! Kyra snapped quickly, perhaps too quickly.

Raven looked at the floor around the doorway and realized that, despite the injury and clear blood flow, there was no more trail on the floor. How had the shifter done that? It didn’t seem like something she should be able to do, but Raven knew there were many things about the shapeshifter and her abilities that Raven didn’t know.

A low growl was rattling deep in Kyra’s throat, and Raven saw that she was walking over areas she had walked before.

How did you lose her? Raven asked, stopping and folding her arms.

I didn’t— Kyra began, then stopped. I don’t know. Her scent just stops shortly after entering the store. If there was a road, I’d say she got in a car. If a river, she went for a swim. I don’t know what she might have done in an abandoned store in a rundown space station.

She had to have gone somewhere, Raven knew. Giselle could not turn into mist or anything like that, but still… she had to have went somewhere. Unfortunately, Raven had no idea where or how.


23

Raven and Kyra spent the next fifteen minutes stalking around the dark, empty store and it hadn’t taken long for Raven to join her cat with the growling. Kyra, for her part, came up with some choice curses that no non-human should have been able to string together. It was clearly evidence that she had been spending too much time with Raven.

Eventually, they had to concede defeat and realize they needed to change their plan of attack. So, they returned to the ship.

“Silvanus, I need you to start scanning the station again,” Raven said, her voice hovering between anger at losing her prey and apology at making Silvanus do something she had already done. She knew the AI didn’t have emotions the way that the human did, but she had…something, and Raven tried to be understanding of it.

“I’ve already begun,” the AI replied through the ship’s speakers. I’ve used the abandoned retail location as my starting point and have worked out. She did change form while inside the store. I cannot tell you to what, of course, but that was part of how she managed to escape you both.”

“Part of?” Raven repeated curiously. “Do you know something we don’t?”

“Of course not,” Silvanus replied easily, “but I presume that someone as multi-faceted as our target would have had to apply any equally multi-faceted escape route to get away from hunters as skilled as you and Kyra.”

Raven wasn’t sure if it was wholly sincere or an attempt at placating her via her ego, but she accepted it with a grunt and dropped into the seat at the console.

While Silvanus ran her scans, Raven decided to further study the station and the various aspects of it. If there was anything she could do to get a better idea of how this wench had gotten away from her, then she was going to do it.

If she were a shape-changing being, what would she have done to get away from…herself? It sounded like a terrible riddle.

While she was puzzling it over, she saw her console light up. She watched as the indicator screen said she had a call coming in, and it showed it was the same as the last person who had called her…who had been the ambassador…who Raven hadn’t liked and had probably offended.

Yeah, she had no desire to talk to that man again. She ignored it.

Are you sure you want to do that? Silvanus asked. Putting one as politically powerful as this on your bad side may not be a good idea.

I appreciate your insight, Silvanus, Raven said with a sigh, but I honestly just…don’t care right now. I have this job to do and I’ll make a fan of this guy when I’ve apprehended the woman who killed his kid. That’s what he wants to talk about so better to wait until I have actual news.

You’re the boss, Raven, the AI said and then went quiet again.

It wasn’t that Raven didn’t know Silvanus was right, but she just didn’t have the patience to deal with the man. He was grieving, she knew that, but that didn’t give him the right to drive her crazy while she was trying to work. He wanted Giselle caught so she could go to trial for what she’d done. Raven wanted Giselle caught so she could get paid and continue to eat and fuel her ship.

It suited them both, then, for him to just let her do her job.

Kyra paced the interior of the ship while Raven worked. It was distracting, but the human didn’t dare tell her to stop. She just did her best to ignore it while she tried to figure out how to catch the shapeshifting fugitive.

“Let’s take a better look at the air system,” she thought out loud. The only thing she could think of was a bird. Giselle couldn’t have been picked up by a car or jumped in a river, obviously, so the only other option was to get into the air. Kyra wouldn’t have been able to smell that.

Raven wouldn’t have thought it possible for her to fly with a shoulder injury, but neither bird nor shapeshifter anatomy were fields of expertise for her.

The available schematics for the ductwork system was patchy at best, but she was able to get a general idea of how it flowed around the shop where they’d lost her. It gave her a rough idea of a few of the places that Giselle could have gone to next. She shared that information with the AI, who used it to better refine her scanning areas.

When I get my teeth on her, I’m going to tear her throat out, Kyra was murmuring as she kept up the pacing.

No, you’re not, Raven said wearily. We need to at least try to bring her in alive.

Why? the big cat posed, stopping to turn and face Raven. What is the point in keeping her alive?

This was not the first time they’d had a discussion like this. The mountain lion had a different moral view when it came to life and death, even with enhanced intellect. Most of the time, Raven didn’t agree with her. The tough times came when she did agree, but had to argue the point anyway.

Like now.

We are not granted the right to be executioner, Kyra, Raven said. Accidents happen, sure, but we cannot purposely go looking to kill someone. She’s been charged with a crime and needs to stand trial.

Kyra growled. She is suspected of being a professional killer and has likely killed dozens. Not out of crimes of passion or even personal level greed, but as a job. She escaped from a high-security prison without breaking a sweat. What is the point of keeping her alive then?

Raven had the feeling that the cat wasn’t really arguing in favor of hunting to kill, because she knew that she would lose that argument, but just wanted to keep making the point. They had gone round and round on this topic before, and she knew they’d go round and round again.

We just do, Kyra, Raven finally said. We just do.

Raven Sharpe

This is it, Raven said, feeling slightly out of breath as the pair slid to a stop in front of what appeared to be general housing quarters. What Silvanus could see and what the station records said told Raven that there was no one living here officially, so she didn’t feel bad about breaking the door down.

The room was along the ductwork path away from the shop, and Silvanus had picked up the energy signature here. Raven knew it was a longshot, but it was all they had.

She held out the gun as she reached out with her other hand to press the door open button. Kyra hunkered down, ready to pounce the instant she had the space. The door beeped and began to open, not requiring any sort of security system. Raven had to wonder if any place on this station had a lock.

As ready as they could be for anything, they walked in and found…

…nothing.

Someone had clearly been living there, and recently, but no one was there now. It was just one room and a bathroom, so it was easy enough to make sure no one was hiding. There wasn’t even a closet.

Once she was sure there was no one there—nothing biological anyway—she put away her gun and took a thorough look.

There wasn’t any furniture to speak off, but there was an organized pile of blankets over toward the corner that was clearly being used as a bed. Some belongings were scattered around. Everything screamed that someone was living here who didn’t have the legal right to live there, but Raven couldn’t care less about that. Was that someone Giselle or not? That was what she cared about.

Are we in the proper location, Silvanus? Raven asked.

Yes, that’s where I found the trace of the energy signature.

Raven sighed. Well, she’s not here now. Go back to the information on the ductwork and corridor layout and trace possible routes, scan along those.

There was a pause. Yes, Raven, Silvanus said. I am calculating now—” Another pause, and something stirred in Raven’s gut. I will let you know if I find something… What is th—

The line suddenly went dead.


24

Everything “looked” normal when they got to the port where the ship was docked, but Raven and Kyra both knew better than to trust appearances.

The two of them had raced headlong through the corridors with almost more speed, and definitely more panic, than when they had been chasing Giselle. The whole way, they both kept calling to the AI, but she never answered. Raven tried but couldn’t remember a time when something like this had happened.

There had been the dampening field on Norel II that interfered with the implants, but as soon as she’d come out of it, Silvanus had been right there. Something felt different about this.

It felt...wrong.

Fear had gripped her as she raced back to her ship, more fear than one would expect over basically a computer, but Silvanus was more than that, and Raven knew she had to acknowledge that. It wasn’t like losing a piece of equipment, even a vital one, it was like losing a friend. Practically family.

The airlock seemed to take forever to cycle through, opening one, shutting behind them, and the next opening. Raven walked in with her gun drawn, ready for anything.

Or so she thought.

It couldn’t have shocked her more if she had seen a body on the ground, surrounded by blood.

Two consoles had been forced open, panels and wires hanging out. Raven’s mind instantly connected with everything about her ship. She knew the damage done in practically a heartbeat, and it sent her flying to the narrow access corridor to the second level of the ship—the engineering level.

Whether Kyra followed or stayed on the living level, she didn’t know. For the moment, she didn’t care.

Once again, she was crashing into walls when she took the corner too hard, but she had to get to the ship’s center.

When she did, she found the shielded silver cylinder that housed all that was Silvanus, and breathed a sigh of relief when she found it intact. It was protected on multiple levels so the likelihood of being broken into was very small, but she had never expected anyone to breach her ship’s defenses in any way.

She wouldn’t take the chance.

Raven pressed her hands against the cool metal and pressed her forehead to it in relief. “So, I can’t talk to you, but at least you’re still here,” she said quietly.

Is she okay? Kyra asked.

It was then that Raven looked around and realized the cat had stayed up top. Her throat felt tight. Was she actually about to cry?

Yeah, she replied. The core is okay.

Then get back up here and fix the rest of her, would you?

Raven Sharpe

It had to be her, right? Kyra growled, pacing the living space while Raven was on her back under the first console, elbow-deep in decimated wiring.

“I’d imagine so,” she said tightly, instinctively turning away from a sparking wire, even though she was wearing protective glasses. She wasn’t an engineer by any stretch, but she knew how to fix her own ship. It had been a requirement of the bounty hunter contract that she learn before she was even allowed out on a solo hunt.

What’s taking you so long?

Raven realized that the sound of paws padding across the deck plates had stopped, and the big cat was staring at her. She peered through the jungle of wires back into the angry kitty face.

“Kyra,” Raven said. “If I didn’t know better, I’d say that you were worried about Silvanus.”

I am not, she replied defensively, starting her pacing back up. It’s just...very inconvenient to not have her functional.

Raven made a noncommittal noise and got right back to it.

She could barely figure out what it was that had been done. Some things looked torn out by brute force, while others had been cut. What had that evil creature done to her poor AI? It was with all thankfulness that her core hadn’t been touched, but much of how she interfaced with the rest of the ship and interacted with Raven and Kyra had been destroyed. Raven wasn’t even sure that she could fix it without the benefit of a repair station.

When the computer made a little chirping noise, Raven nearly jumped out of her skin. Then she realized that it wasn’t the computer, it was her implant.

She froze. Silvanus?!

After a moment, a very different voice replied. I would say that I’m sorry to disappoint you, but that would be a complete lie.

Just like her body had frozen, now her blood joined it.

You, she hissed.

The other voice laughed. It was almost musical, drawn out and well-enunciated, but there was no mirth or warmth there. Yes. Me. I’m guessing that you’ve discovered my handiwork by now.

Raven almost bit her tongue off to keep from saying anything more. She didn’t think that engaging with a creature such as this would benefit her. If this woman was really as smart and adaptable as her alleged reputation suggested, then she would use almost anything Raven said against her.

There was a long pause, then an almost purring reply. Ah, so you won’t talk to me. I suppose that’s wise. I’m sure you have many questions, though, that you’re just burning with fervor to ask me. Another pause. Another mirthless, mocking laugh. I’m not some comic book villain, so don’t expect any monologues giving it all away. Suffice it to say that I’m probably ten times smarter than you’ll ever be, and you’re playing in my field. You know what I am capable of now. You've seen your ship. You are weak, and it will be your downfall. I didn’t take kindly to you chasing me. Back off.

Another little chirping noise, and Raven knew the channel was closed.

Are you sure I can’t kill her? Kyra asked, having heard the whole thing.

It was suddenly a lot harder to say no.


25

Time began to lose meaning.

Instead of seconds or minutes or maybe even hours, it was measured by wires and panels and circuits and burnt fingertips.

Kyra had never been a paragon of patience in the first place, and the passage of time for her was measured in curses learned from a variety of species—human and alien alike—along with growls, cougar shrieks, and the tapping of cat claws on the floor. It didn’t take long for it to grind against Raven’s senses, and it just made a hard job even harder.

That’s it. I can’t take this anymore, Kyra suddenly declared. I’m going to go look for her.

“What?!” Raven squawked. This time, she did hit her head on the underside of the console as she jerked up to try to look at the cat. “You can’t do that!”

My feet still work. I’m fairly sure that I can.

Raven scowled and pushed herself out. She sat up and glared at the cat. “You know what I mean,” she snapped. “She already broke into the ship and tried to rip Silvanus’s guts out, then called to make sure we knew it was her! She’s an assassin and apparently fears nothing. You want to go out there alone?”

Kyra looked at her with that ‘you’re a moron’ look she had. I would go out with you, but you need to fix Silvanus. I have no thumbs, as you frequently remind me, and thus I am no good to anyone here, but I have feet, and eyes, and a nose. I can hunt. When I find her, I will let you know.

Grinding her teeth together, Raven knew that there was some element of being right to what Kyra said, but she was also wrong. “It’s a bad idea, Kyra.”

Since when have we only followed good ideas? the cat replied, turning to go.

Raven considered tackling her and forcing the issue from there, but she also knew that the cat would probably win and then go do whatever she wanted to anyway.

The human sighed. Be careful.

Aren’t I always? Kyra asked, but she was already out of sight.

Raven Sharpe

“OUCH!” Raven exclaimed, yanking her hand away from another sparking wire end. She sucked on her fingertip until the burn eased and then tried again. After a moment, the ship’s speakers made a crackling noise.

“Raven?”

Silvanus’s voice.

“You’re back!” Raven nearly shouted, hitting her head again when she tried to sit up too fast.

“Somewhat,” the AI replied. “I am…still…not fully…intact…”

Her voice came out like there was something interfering with the speakers and her computers were lagging, but it was a start. Raven puzzled over this, wondering if somehow there had been damage to the core…but no, that was unlikely. It was likely just the connections from the core to the outside that still needed repairs.

Raven got back to work, although now with even more caution than before, because the last thing she wanted to do was lose what progress she had made!

“Can you tell me what happened?” she asked while she worked.

“I am…not sure…how she breached…” Silvanus began. Raven winced, thinking that this was going to be a painful conversation. Just for her, of course, because the AI didn’t feel pain. “She broke…into the ship…before I…could stop her…”

Over the next several minutes, Silvanus—very slowly—explained that her sensors had picked up on the approach of the shifter and even the energy signature when she changed forms. The AI locked down the ship to the second level of security, but had still somehow had the code breached and Giselle entered.

From there, it was ripping out wires. Silvanus could not engage any other possible defenses fast enough before Giselle had destroyed enough of her connections to render her impotent. It was no small amount of concern for either of them that the shapeshifter knew enough about where to breach her systems to do it that fast.

The inner systems had little defense, since it was assumed that outer defenses would be impossible to breach.

“I am more and more convinced that her reputation as an elite assassin is well-earned,” Raven muttered. “I should shove her under here and use her as a conduit for some of this extra electricity.”

“I don’t…think…that’s…legal…”

Raven sighed. “Maybe not legal, but I think it would be justified.” She paused, then added, “Don’t reply to that.”

There were several moments of silence while Silvanus did not respond, before she shifted the topic. “Where…is Kyra?”

At this, the human made a very annoyed, slightly rude-sounding noise in the back of her throat. “She got impatient waiting on me to fix you, something about a lack of thumbs, and went out to try to track Giselle.”

“That was…inadvisable…”

“It was,” Raven agreed, “but she wasn’t listening to me.”

Now that they were on the topic, she decided it was time to bother the cat again. It was a small favor from the universe that Giselle’s damage hadn’t undone the system that kept their whole neural link in place. That just would have been too much to bear.

How’s it going, Kyra? she asked.

I’m working on it, the cat snapped back.

Ah, so it’s going well then.

There was no reply. This time, though, Raven didn’t worry. That was just the way Kyra was.

After a few minutes… Wait. I have her scent!

Raven startled, but kept herself from trying to sit up too fast and once again smacking herself into the underside of the console. Where are you?! I’ll be there in five minutes. Wait for me! Do not chase her on your own!

She’s close. Kyra either hadn’t heard her, or was ignoring her.

Kyra! Raven pushed herself out from the console, pushing away wires and trying to not pull any out in the process. Kyra!

This silence scared the hell out of her.

A cat shrieked. The line died.

KYRA!


26

You’re not very good at following directions, are you?

The silky voice penetrated the rising panic in Raven’s head. If she’d had any doubts about what just happened to Kyra, hearing this call erased any of them.

This kitty cat is yours, yes?

What have you done to her? Raven asked tightly, her eyes losing focus as she stared at the pale grey bulkhead at the vague “somewhere” of her enemy.

Nothing, the voice said, yet. You both need to learn to listen better. I said this would be your downfall and it still may well be. We are all going to sit tight until the station lifts its departure ban. When they do, I’m gone. Then, and only then, you can find your cat where I left her. You’ll regret it worse than you do now if I see you at all.

The line went dead.

Raven waited for a moment, almost paralyzed with an instant of shock, before she outright screamed.

“Your…vital signs are…erratic…and worsening…” Silvanus stuttered with concern.

“I know!” Raven snapped hoarsely.

“You must…calm yourself, before you…damage yourself…”

Raven screamed again as she resumed her pacing.

Her AI had been damaged. Her companion had been kidnapped. Her heart pounded. With each thud, more of her breath was stolen. Sweat broke out from every pore. Where did the air go?

Her friends were gone.

Suddenly, she sat down hard and stared at the floor.

“Raven…speak to me… I need…to hear you… Sensors…are limited…”

“I’m here,” Raven gasped.

It suddenly occurred to her that this feeling was what made Blake run. The idea of losing his friends. This was what he had felt.

“Kyra…needs our help…which we can’t offer…if…you’re panicking…”

Raven heard the words, and she knew that the AI was right. While sitting there, unable to move and barely able to think, she did nothing to help Silvanus or Kyra…but the sudden gaping maw of “what if” was opened before her.

It was hard to not stare into the abyss when it was already staring at you.

At the bottom of the abyss was the feeling of failure. Silvanus was damaged and Kyra held hostage, and Raven hadn’t been able to do a thing to stop it. She was barely able to do anything about it now…

“Raven!”

The elevated volume and clear pitch of Silvanus’s voice was like a slap to the face, and Raven’s head snapped up. Her eyes wide. Heart skipping a beat.

“Pull…yourself together…”

Raven looked at the open panel beneath the console, staring at the wires like she was staring at Silvanus’s face. She concentrated on her breathing first, and made it slow down. She had no control over her heart, but she knew it would slow some when she got her breathing under control.

“We’ve got the find Kyra,” she said.

“Yes,” Silvanus agreed.

“Which means I need you,” Raven said with a soft sigh.

She dove back under the console, and got back to work.

Raven Sharpe

“Raven…we are getting…an external call…”

Raven blinked, seeing wires in front of her vision even when she wasn’t looking at them. “Maybe someone found Kyra?” she said. She knew that it was a stretch, but that felt like all she had to go on right then. “Who is it?”

“Cannot…tell…”

Of course not. Raven sighed. “Put them through on audio.” She couldn’t cross her fingers, but she did so emotionally. She hoped that maybe someone had found a giant cat, asleep but unharmed, and wanted to return her…

“Hunter Sharpe!”

Now that was not the voice she wanted, or needed, to hear at that moment.

The ambassador.

“I really don’t have time right now—”

“I am not accustomed to being cut off or ignored, Hunter,” the commanding voice declared, interrupting her.

Raven ground her teeth together.

“Now. I demand to know what you’re—”

“You can shove your demands up your ass, Ambassador,” Raven snapped. “I have more important things to do. Silvanus! Close the channel!”

As soon as she said it, she knew that it had been a stupid thing to do, but she also couldn’t seem to make herself care too much.

She had an AI to fix, and a cat to rescue.


27

“I really cannot recommend…this course of action…” Silvanus said. She wasn’t lagging as much, but there was still too much damage and not enough time.

“I know!” Raven exclaimed. “But I can’t think of anything else to do. The station is going to allow departures very soon and then Giselle is gone and I have no idea where my cat is or what state she’s in. Your sensors need more power, and I don’t have time to get there by straight repairs. Drastic measures are necessary.”

If the AI had true vocal chords, she would have sighed, Raven was sure. “But using your own neural implant…as an amplifier and conduit could…result in your own brain being damaged if there’s any type of problem with the systems…and they are delicate as it is right now.”

Raven pressed the heels of her hands into her temples. “I know,” she groaned. “I knew all this before, and I knew it after you told me the first time, but we have no choice. We can’t wait any longer. Who even knows if she’ll keep her word? She may kill Kyra, or may have already! I have to find her!”

There was a long silence. “Is there anything…that will convince you to…not do this?”

“No.”

“Understood.”

Raven Sharpe

The pain in Raven’s head steadily increased as Silvanus’s systems used her implant’s signal to try to scan areas of the station looking for their friend. They’d had a very, very general idea of where Kyra had been headed and so that’s where they began. The AI worked as quickly as she could, trying to locate the signature of Kyra’s implant. That would still transmit even if she was unconscious.

…even if she was dead.

“Anything?” Raven asked, half in a groan, as she pinched the bridge of her nose.

“Nothing yet,” Silvanus said. “Are…you sure you can continue?”

“Yes.”

Every second was a heartbeat, and every beat was a throb of pain stabbing Raven between the eyes.

“Raven…”

The world began to blur around the edges.

“Raven?”

Everything began to spin, slowly at first and then faster, and she felt herself begin to slip…

“Raven!”

Everything snapped back into focus with sudden, painful clarity. She fell forward off her seat and threw up on the floor.

“Raven! Disconnect your implant. Now. I’ve found Kyra.”


28

The news was a bucket of cold water and had Raven on her feet in an instant, but the world still swam at the edges as she ran through the station. She’d lost count of how many times she’d sprinted through these corridors, but she intended to make this the last time.

Silvanus had been able to home in on Kyra’s implant signature, and knew that she wasn’t moving. Her vital signs confirmed she was alive and likely unconscious, since if that cat had been awake and captive, she would’ve been damn near on fire, but she was alive, and that was the first most important part. Kyra was alive, and Silvanus was back to something resembling functionality.

The trail to the signature led her back to the apartments section of the station, into an area that looked even more rundown and forsaken than the last. Given how the rest of the place looked, that was saying something.

When she got closer to the right door, she forced herself to slow down and approach more slowly. It took every ounce of self-control she had, and that was sorely lacking at this point, but she knew she had to be quieter as she got nearer. She swallowed her stomach back down—not that there was much left in it now—and stalked towards the door as quietly as possible, with her gun out.

There was a code panel next to the door that had obviously been tampered with. If ‘pretty much destroyed’ counted as ‘tampered with.’

She stopped in front of the door, forcing herself to pause and listen. She didn’t hear anything inside, which could have been both a good sign or a bad one. She didn’t want to use the implant to talk to Silvanus, in case the equipment Giselle must have stolen from the ship to talk to her through it was now allowing her to eavesdrop.

“One, two, three,” she said out loud to herself, though barely louder than a breath.

With that, she drove herself toward the door. It opened and she rushed into the room, bringing up the gun and swinging it in a side-to-side sweep as she tried to get a full view of the room. She knew this was anything but subtle and far from ideal, but one worked with what they had.

In that fast sweep, she was able to see Kyra in one corner and she thought there was something light-colored around her legs—ropes? Then not far was a woman, leaning back against the wall.

The woman sat up straight when Raven burst through the door. She stared with fury in her eyes and then smiled, although it was the most malignant expression Raven had ever seen.

“Maybe you’re not quite as stupid as I thought,” she said. “In one way, at least.”

“You’re going to let my cat go and you’re going to come with me. I have an order for your apprehension.” Although inside, she was fighting a strong urge to just pull the trigger and bury a round in Giselle’s head. Kyra’s arguments resounded in her head, but louder than that was the wounded feeling, the need to hurt this shapeshifter in the same way that she’d been hurt.

“Somehow, I don’t see that happening,” Giselle said, holding up her hands as she slowly stood up. “When they got me, the one and only time, they’d had a full team of well-trained military. They had studied and knew what they were up against. I doubt you’ve had more than a day to learn, and you’d never heard of me before.” She grinned, flashing straight, white, slightly sharp-looking teeth. “And you’re only one. You have no little helpers, which are the only things that make you hunters any good in the first place. I’ve evaded more than one of you.”

“You know what I think?” Raven said. “You talk too much.” She lowered her gun and pulled the trigger, aiming for a shot to disable her long enough to grab her.

Giselle moved too fast and it was a glancing blow to her side. Hissing, she whirled back on Raven and her body shimmered. It was almost disorienting at first, like motion sickness, and Raven wasn’t exactly far off nausea in the first place. She tried to fire another shot, but swayed slightly and the shot went wide. By the time she felt more stable and went to line up another, the shifter had finished changing her shape.

Suddenly, there was a seven-foot-tall muscle-bound humanoid creature. It towered over Raven and grinned that same malicious grin.

“Oh, shit,” Raven murmured, raising her weapon and firing again.

This time, the shot hit straight to the shoulder—almost to the neck—but it obviously didn’t get very far in the very dense muscle.

The only chance she had was a head shot, but she didn’t think she was going to get another chance to fire.

What little space there had been in the first place vanished in an instant as those big legs ate the ground up and the beast was almost on top of her. The big arms swung wide and in, trying to capture her in a constricting embrace to squeeze the life from her, but she ducked under one arm and side-stepped. She lifted her elbow as high as she could and still have strength and tried to slam it into the big beast’s arm.

She scored the hit, but the height difference meant it didn’t do much damage, and she knew she couldn’t wait around. Her momentum carried her forward and behind the shifter, where she turned and fired a shot, but it was quickly done and lodged in the thing’s side, rather than somewhere more disabling. The beast roared all the same, arms flailing back with pain.

The length of those arms was hard to estimate and one of them smacked into her. It sent her staggering back several steps and gave the shifter time to turn around. It put its ugly head down and charged her. It still didn’t get its arms around her, but it pushed her back into the wall.

Again, the world swam.

As the beast straightened up, she doubled over with a heave. She felt the air shift as it lifted its arms, and she knew her spine was about to be broken. There was no way to meet it or get back up in time, so she dropped to the ground. The club-hands missed her, but she had to roll away fast to not get stepped on as the over-balanced beast was forced a couple steps forward.

She still had her gun and shot the thing in the foot. It roared again, but didn’t fall.

Did this thing have steel in every muscle?!

It recovered faster than she did, but barely. It didn’t manage a coordinated attack with any strength, but smacked her open-handed across the face. Anything else and it would have been more tolerable, but this left Raven seeing stars.

She staggered to the side again, ducking and weaving to avoid the hits that were coming at her. There was no chance to mount an offensive attack when she was so busy on defense, and the small quarters being taken up so much by its mass hindered her just as much as it did the shifter.

Raven didn’t know how long she could keep this up, but she knew she had to keep trying. She had a way, if she could just get a moment…

Suddenly, the beast roared in pain again and flailed back. Raven had no idea why until she saw a cougar head rising over its shoulder. One big paw with gnawed-through ropes clung to the thing’s shoulder while her big, sharp teeth drove into its neck. They couldn’t make it in far, but it was enough for Raven to see streams of blood flowing over its chest.

That was the moment she needed, and she was able to pull the hypo from her pocket that Silvanus had managed to make just before she left. She tried to figure out how best to make sure it worked, though.

The beast thrashed as it tried to dislodge Kyra, and more blood flowed as it helped her rip a chunk out of its body.

Of course, she could just shoot it. It was distracted, she could get that head shot…

We just don’t…

All but hissing at her own morality, she surged forward. She held the hypo in her hand and jumped at the beast, grappling it around the other side of its neck and holding herself to the flailing beast. She’d be thrown off in a moment, so she moved fast and drove the needle into its eye. She pressed the button, and the hypo shot the power tranquilizer into the shapeshifter’s system.

It thrashed for a few moments more until suddenly slowing as the medicine went straight to its brain.

“Jump!” Raven shouted at Kyra, and they both flung themselves off, just before the beast hit the floor.

The body shuddered, shimmered, and turned back into a pale, dark-haired almost-human woman. Raven stared at the body for a moment before rolling to her side and dry-heaving again.


Epilogue

The doctors at the prison infirmary tried to convince Raven to stay in one of their beds, but she had refused.

Raven and Kyra had dragged the shapeshifter back to their ship with a shocking lack of anyone asking them what they were doing. Raven determined that if she ever did choose to commit a murder, then that was the place to do it. They got her back to the ship and tied up in as many ways as possible, with more tranquilizers ready.

With the press of a button, the flight officer had the rest of his money and departures were approved. The BHS Silvanus limped away, returning to the prison colony after a much slower journey than before.

After taking the prisoner, they made sure that Raven and Kyra were seen by their doctors. Neither was in great shape, but they weren’t at death’s door either. They got patched up and went back to their ship, not wanting to be separated any longer than absolutely necessary. The prison also offered an engineer to help repair Silvanus.

Most importantly, they paid her immediately.

Laying on her bed in the ship, Raven stared at the ceiling and listened to Kyra’s even breathing from the floor beside her. Silvanus had just brought them away from the colony and were heading back to a far more above-board station. Everything felt…right again, even if she still felt very wrong.

I hate to bring it up, Silvanus began, knowing that Raven was still awake, but I doubt this will be the end from the ambassador. His personality profile suggests he will not take kindly to your actions. Despite apprehending the shifter, I doubt you have made an ally.

I was picking up on that, Raven said wearily. Not much I can do about it now.

Pause. You could try apologizing.

Pause. No way. He was a jerk.

Kyra made a rumbling sound that Raven recognized as cat-amusement.

Raven wasn’t sure if the ambassador would be making any trouble for her in the future, but she’d just have to deal with it then. She’d done her job, but more importantly, she’d gotten her family back, and they were all okay.

Raven, we have an outside call coming in, Silvanus announced.

Sitting up fast, Raven frowned. That can’t be the ambassador already!

Silvanus took a moment before replying. No, it’s not coming from any official channel. In fact, it’s being routed through several back-channel satellites and relays.

Who the hell could that be?

Well, let’s hear it, Raven said, turning to look at the screen over the console.

The screen blurred for a moment before a fuzzy image of Blake came on the screen. He looked like he had a black eye and his lip was bleeding.

“Raven, please. You have to help me.”


THANK YOU

Thank you so much for reading Raven Sharpe, the first story in the Raven Sharpe Chronicles. I am so excited you took the chance to read it and I really hope you liked it. If you could leave a review for me, that would be awesome because it helps me tell others about my books.

At the end of the book, I have included a preview of Recruit, the first book in the Jack Forge, Fleet Marine series which is an action packed space Marines saga. This first story tells how Jack was plucked from the University and sent to basic training, essentially against his will. After you read the preview, you can download the book on Amazon

Get Recruit here: amazon.com/dp/B07695FRGG

If you want to be the first to hear about new releases and special offers, be sure to sign up our Science Fiction Newsletter. We have several fun things planned that will only be available to newsletter subscribers and we can’t wait to share those with you too. To start with, you will get a free short story from the Niakrim War series. It tells the story of Cyrus Jones, one of the main characters in the series, and how he came to be part cyborg. All the information is on the next page.


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Raven Sharpe

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And don’t forget to check out the free preview on the next page.


Preview: Recruit

Jack Forge sat in the lecture theater watching the hands on his small silver pocket watch tick across its shimmering pearl face. The latest grades would be revealed in a few moments. The room was silent as the students counted down the seconds.

Attendance at his brother’s funeral had been authorized, so he had been free to leave his studies and attend. Jack knew missing time would count against his grade, but he was on top of his studies and his grades were excellent. He could afford to drop a few points and still maintain his two-plus student rating.

The recruiting sergeant stood at the front of the theater next to Professor Bowen. One of these men wanted the students to maintain their two-plus, the other did not. His classmates watched the seconds tick down on the large display. Jack watched on his small family heirloom. It was all he had left of his family.

The second hand reached the top of its final round. Jack heard the ripples of distress and gasps of horror as the students whose grades had dropped realized they were now the property of the military.

Jack looked up to the display. He picked out his name. He saw it there pulsing on the screen in red, a pattern that could only mean one thing. He scanned across to his grade. Two. Only two. The plus was missing for the first time in his three semesters. Three other names pulsed. Jack knew them all. He’d studied with them, socialized with them, laughed with them. He would most likely never see them again.

The sergeant barked out transfer orders to the first name on the list. Jack watched as the second hand ticked along. He was only seventeen seconds into his new life when his name was called out by the recruiting sergeant.

“Jack Forge. Fleet Marine training.”

Jack looked up from his watch. He looked at Professor Bowen. The old man was slumped in a chair, his eyes averted as his class was further reduced in number.

The doors to the lecture theater opened and military police entered. Jack had seen this before. Students had complained and argued, fought and resisted their removal from university to the ranks of the military or some war production facility. The arguments were familiar to Jack. He heard the most common of them now from across the lecture theatre.

The students being drafted into service promised to pull their grades back up. They argued that it was only a small drop. They argued that they were too smart to be sent to the military. The arguments and complaints descended into shouts and screams as the former students were dragged away. Friends shouted their good-byes. Lovers kissed and cried. As a guard came toward Jack, he tucked away his watch and stood. With a nod to his escort, he walked down the steps at the side of the lecture theater toward the open door.

Raven Sharpe

Read the rest of the story here:

amazon.com/dp/B07695FRGG

Raven Sharpe


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