The Perfect Weapon by Delilah S. Dawson

Author:Delilah S. Dawson [Dawson, Delilah S.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Random House Worlds
Published: 2015-11-24T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 6

The sad thing was that Orri Tenro didn’t even present a challenge. There was no elaborate setup required, no ampoule slipped into a fancy drink, no poison-impregnated clothing in a box with tissue. Her approach served as his final test, and he failed brilliantly. Bazine merely walked up behind him, put a warm hand on his shoulder, and stabbed the syringe into his buttock.

“Hey!” was all he managed before falling, facedown, on the ground.

If he’d been a spy, if he’d had any real training other than Kloda using him as a punching bag, he wouldn’t have let her get a needle into his flesh, much less given her time to depress the plunger.

“Sorry, partner,” she said, arranging him flat on his back. “But this next part is a one-woman job.”

She checked his vital signs before leaving the ship and locking him safely within. Just as she’d promised him would happen to anyone who dared to kiss her black-painted lips, Orri would sleep for half a day at least and wake up feeling dizzy and nauseated, as if he had the worst hangover of his life. It was her favorite poison for good reason—it generally left the victim incapable of chasing her.

Her first order of business was suiting up for an unpredictable mission. She wanted clean, and this job was turning out to be anything but. Without knowing what she was up against, she did her best to pack all her favorite weapons and gadgets, now with the addition of her sensor-jamming new shirt. Whatever was going on at Facility 48, there would be no record of a woman known as Bazine Netal infiltrating the building, just a wavering blur where she’d been. So Orri was good for two things, then. Maybe she’d let him live after all.

Her next stop was to steal a two-seater landspeeder from a vast parking garage—all too easy when the owner had left the gate ticket on the passenger seat. The attendant waved to the beautiful woman with her bouncy blond hair, and then, when she was out of sight, Bazine tossed off her wig and sped toward the edge of town and the coordinates she’d long ago memorized after destroying Orri’s flimsiplast notes.

The poor fool didn’t even understand how dangerous it was to leave records behind.

The farther Bazine’s speeder got from the city, the quieter and more beautiful the planet became. Idyllic, even. Long swaths of ornamental, graveled road linked sprawling retirement facilities and medcenters surrounded by lushly manicured grounds. There were no crops or farms; Vashka was reserved for sentient beings and largely absent of industry and agriculture in an effort to keep the climate and ecosystem pristine. The planet’s original megafauna had been cleared out to ensure the safety of its new inhabitants, although the giant ferns, sunburst flowers, and swaying palms had been allowed to flourish—albeit in neat rows. A big waste of meat and leather, in Bazine’s opinion, but the lack of traffic and witnesses made her job easier, so she wouldn’t complain.

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