Assassin's Way by KS Augustin

Author:KS Augustin [Augustin, KS]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Space opera, Noir, Assassin, Gritty SF, Female Protagonist, Fusion, Stellar Empires, Humanoid Aliens, Politics
Publisher: Challis Tower
Published: 2016-03-15T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Ten

Nols Lazeet’s explanation about altering surgeries explained a lot.

It explained why the first-year candidates were subtly kept away from the more advanced students on campus. It explained why some people walked with slight limps or occasionally touched themselves—an arm, leg or chest—when they thought nobody was looking, as if unsure of their own bodies. It explained why some older faces she knew sometimes disappeared, never to reappear. The fact was, they did reappear…she just didn’t recognise them.

After the director left, she walked down to Lake Propulsion to think and that’s where Nidan found her a few hours later, throwing small flat pebbles into the water.

“We missed you in comparative exo-anthropology,” she said, setting herself down next to her friend. “We just finished the Nedron Union and started on the Jesse.”

Alshandiel hesitated only long enough to starburst— so what? —before skipping another stone across the lake’s still waters.

“Ah,” Nidan said wisely, “the quiet, I-want-to-do-some-thinking treatment. Would you prefer it if I left you alone?” She made movements to get up.

“No!” Alshandiel grimaced and lowered her voice. “I mean, sit down Nidan. I think I need help. It’s difficult trying to figure things out on my own.”

“What things?”

Alshandiel hesitated. “I had a visitor this afternoon.”

“Anybody we know?”

“From the outside. A visitor from the real world.”

Nidan frowned. “But that’s not allowed.”

“It is, if your visitor is a DOM director.”

“Really? Why, Shandi,” she grinned, “I didn’t realise you flew in such exclusive circles.”

Alshandiel shook her head. “He just made me the offer of my life.”

“Which was?”

“Leave the Corps. Join an offworld entity. Change my name if I like. The words ‘trade liaison’ and ‘extrasolar consultancy’ featured prominently.” She sighed. “That’s the problem. I don’t know what to do.”

Nidan looked shocked. “Really? Well I know what I would do in your position.”

“And what’s that?”

“Take it! Shandi, think about it. You’ve just been offered a chance to work offworld without having to sell yourself to DOM. The opportunity to take and leave opportunities as they arise without somebody standing over you, telling you what to do. Imagine visiting a planet because you want to, and not because some negotiation hangs in the balance and you have to.”

Alshandiel sat back and looked at her friend, a stunned expression on her face. “Is that really how you see DOM? A slave-driver?”

To her, DOM was a saviour, a refuge, and she assumed that everybody else at the campus felt the same way. Even Nidan had admitted on that first day that she had been running away from something. To hear her friend admit that, given the right opportunity, she would leave DOM astounded her.

“A slave-driver? Of course they are.” Now it was Nidan’s turn to look surprised. “Haven’t you been listening to me this past year? I see DOM as a means to an end, but it’s not a particularly comfortable means and it’s not a particularly serene end.”

“Then why are you here?”

She laughed. “Oh Shandi, you can’t believe that everything in the universe is cut so neatly into two.

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