"Life is like that." She moved carefully around the table.
Both of them exploded into motion at the same instant, and again he admired her strategy. He could not fight this battle as stealthily as she could, and if he was seen getting into a fight, everyone else in the bar would turn on him and he would be beaten to death as surely as the Drazi was being. Most people would not pay any attention to his death, just another alien in the wrong part of town.
Still, life was made up of risks.
His denn'bok appeared instantly in his hands and extended upwards, smashing through the table, aiming for her heart. She was too good for that to be a surprise killing blow, and she stepped backwards and aside. Still, it did enough to keep her from completing her strike.
Leaping upwards, he vaulted over the ruined table just as the cries of anger erupted from the corner. The assassin pointed at him and shouted loudly. "An alien! He killed one of us!"
There was a rumble of anger and a mass of Narns charging in his direction. Taking care to sidestep the woman's attack — nowhere near as clumsy as she made it appear to the others — he sprinted for the door, long dark cloak trailing behind him. One of the Narns tried pushing a chair into his path, but he simply jumped over it.
The air was hot and dusty on his skin, but he had known worse, and he continued to run. He would lose most of them easily, he knew that, but the assassin was another matter.
It was fortunate that he had spent many months studying this district of G'Khamazad. It was always wise to know the land in which you might be called upon to fight. He knew all the paths to take to his intended meeting — the quickest, the most roundabout, the highest, the lowest, the most easily concealed.
He took a combination of them all, occasionally doubling back on himself, or moving at a tangent. He had lost the crowd, he knew that, but maybe not the assassin. Still, if he could make his rendezvous quickly and then move on, the information might get away safely and he could lead the assassin on a wild gok chase.
He was rounding a corner, still running at full pelt, when a Narn child walked directly into his path. She looked up at him, eyes wide with horror, frozen to the spot.
Acting on split-second reflexes he threw himself aside, landing awkwardly, bruising his shoulder and side. He quickly patted his pouch and was relieved to find the data crystal intact.
The girl had fallen over. Evidently he had merely clipped her. "Are you all right?" she asked nervously. Obviously she had seldom seen the likes of him before.
"I am fine, little one," he said, rising quickly and looking around for the assassin.
"I'm not little," she said, with a trace of indignation. "It's my naming ceremony soon."
"I am glad to hear it." There! A flicker of movement. He went from a standstill to sprint in one instant. The girl made to say something, but whatever it was, he did not hear. He was too busy running.
That had cost him far too long. He did not have much time, and the pain in his knee and shoulder was slowing him down. There was no other way. He had to make it to the rendezvous point as swiftly as possible and pass over the information.
Just when the abandoned house was in view, she swept down from the shadows, a long knife in her hand. She thrust it at him and he jumped back, drawing and extending his denn'bok. The longer reach would give him an advantage, but not enough.
Hopping backwards on to one foot, she hurled the dagger directly at his head. He only just parried it with his pike, and in that instant she moved forward, another knife in her hand. Frantically he kept her at bay, but at the cost of his balance. Stumbling backwards, he was forced into desperate defensive action.
Suddenly she spun to one side, her body instinctively dodging the PPG blast that came from nowhere. There was a smell of scorching flesh from the side of her arm and she fell, dropping the knife. A quick rush forward, and the end of his denn'bok connected with the underside of her jaw. There was a crack as her neck broke.
A final blow caved in the side of her head, and then he turned to his saviour.
It was a Narn — tall, a warrior, carrying a PPG in one hand and a sword in the other. A ragged leather eye-patch covered half of his face.
"Have you got it?" Ta'Lon asked.
Lennier handed over the data crystal, and then disappeared without a word.
Senator Dexter Smith did not know his apartment had been broken into until the door had closed behind him and locked.
There was no single sign. There was certainly nothing obvious. His home had not been ransacked. Everything seemed exactly as he had left it, from the jacket thrown casually over the chair the night before to the pack of cards by the side of the breakfast table — even the half-finished coffee (sadly artificial) from this morning.
But there was something else. A sensation. Others might have called it a function of his latent telepathic abilities, but he thought it was something more primaeval than that.
A sense of violation. The unrest that signals something strange and alien invading one's home, one's place of sanctuary. The outside world was not meant to come here.
Whoever this person was, he or she was good. His security system was by no means infallible, but it was among the best available. The Government budget did stretch to protecting its Senators, even in such an unfashionable area as the Pit.
And this person had breezed through it as if it wasn't even there.
He walked forward slowly, surprised by his reaction. He had learned to trust his instincts a long time ago, and they told him not to call Security.
There was a slight creak from the room to his left, and he frowned. His bedroom. Why would anyone be in there?
Inching towards the door, he moved as quietly and stealthily as he could. The door was slightly ajar. He tried to remember if he had closed it before leaving that morning, but the memory would not come. He thought he had.
He slowly reached out his hand and slid it open, keeping as far back as he could.
"About time," said a husky female voice.
Dexter stepped into the doorway.
Talia was lying on his bed, her shoes kicked off on to the floor, a half full bottle of whisky by her side. A half-full bottle of his whisky.
She threw it to him, and he caught it easily.
"Reunion drink?"
It was a feeling every soldier knew very well. The strange combination of boredom and fear that comes with the knowledge that a battle is near, but not imminent. The battle is an abstract concept, something that will not happen today or maybe even tomorrow, but soon nonetheless. It is hard to imagine the enemy, hard even to remember the reason for the fight, but the prospect of the battle fills every moment. There is nothing necessary left to do, and not enough time for pleasant, unnecessary things.
A strange feeling, and one that a soldier as experienced as Jorah Marrago knew well.
He was in a bad mood, and he knew it. His mercenaries knew it as well, and they were all taking care to stay away from him. Even Dasouri knew better than to trouble him at a time like this. He had been less than pleased with their close combat practice. He had even snapped at Senna following one of her sarcastic asides.
A new attack was in the offing. He could tell. Even his fellow 'captains' in the Brotherhood Without Banners could tell. The fruits of the raid on Gorash were long since consumed, and the Brotherhood had grown since then with Marrago's own addition, to say nothing of certain lesser mercenary companies. There had to be new, fresh ground somewhere.
But where? They had been arguing non-stop for over a week. Worlds and stations and bases had all been suggested and discarded and suggested again. Marrago wondered just how they had managed to attack Gorash at all. They would have trouble just agreeing on a seating order, let alone a battle plan.