The Blood of their Enemies

[TravelerOfTheWays]

Glad to have a lungful of fresh air, Nova finally felt confident enough to turn around and observe the scene in the tunnels. The war bots had adhered closely enough to the trajectory she had planned that she allowed herself another breath as she squinted into the darkness and watched Avenos fire and come hurrying up the tunnel.

"Those bots," she said, still staring into the tunnel and straining to hear the reactions of Merove's squad to the bots, "they are not exactly what I had expected. They have been stripped of their higher functions, now little more than crude arms attached to homing devices."

Avenos had taken the lead, which suited Nova fine. Her job was to keep the two of them out of fatal trouble for the present, but if he had ideas for productive uses of their time and talents, she would willingly help him if it meant goodwill for her cause.

"They have been stripped as if someone sought the metal and technologically sophisticated parts, but..." she paused to kick a dusty copper tube lying on the ground, "the situation here is not so desperate, not yet."

As they walked, she noticed that they seemed to be moving out of the war-torn center to a seemingly abandoned industrial area. She had participated in training exercises in fields remarkably similar to this place, and in response, adrenaline flooded her body as she remembered those highly dangerous trainings. Flickering shadows on the ground made her nervous, as did the smell of burnt metal hanging in the air.

"They aren't salvagers tearing the bots apart," she continued. "What do you know about the Eten Kai criminal organization?"

She felt foolish, but an instinct she had learned long ago to trust told her to hold her gun at the ready. "And what is this place?" she demanded.

[JesterJoker]

Lepi sensed Nova's discomfort and focused on the locale around them. He, and his enhanced senses, hadn't obtained anything especially unpleasant about it, other than the obvious industrial machines and grimy surfaces. Lepi, not for the first time, thought that Nova, perhaps from her nature, or her education, had senses even greater than his. Who was this woman? And she had wanted to get ahold of him. Woo.

"From what I've heard, the situation in this city could very well be that desperate," he said. "Not the planet, probably, but the city's primarily used as a commuter locale. No one bothers with it." He smiled, a little bleakly. "Except for us, and your disloyal friends. This woman, this Merove, sounds like the type of person who would want little to do with the Eten Kai. So, what," Lepi said, and thrust a hand at the industrial locale, "is this frigate construction a coincidence, then?"

He glanced at his hand and paused at his words.

Lepi said, "Hold on a second, if you would," and roamed around his pockets for a cigarette and a lighter. He brought it to his mouth and sighed happily. He always appreciated the taste after a life or death encounter with hostile personalities. That was half of the point of these things, after all. He peered at Nova, his face slightly shadowed. "I'm a little disturbed I didn't ask you yet, though I don't think we really had the time for such questions. Do you smoke?"

The smile suggested that the question was an honest one, but the pointer finger of the hand on the cigarette poked forward and left. They had a small group approaching from the distance. They wore respirators and breathing apparatus, probably in answer to the black soot condensed on the ceiling of the underground chamber. "I think they are Eten Kai, and you can be as ruthless to them as you want. They like things like that."

[TravelerOfTheWays]

She was on the verge of replying that she did not smoke - the allure of voluntarily subjecting oneself to a chemical addiction and bodily degradation was lost on her - when she caught sight of the approaching figures at the same time Avenos did. She suspected he was right, that they were Eten Kai.

She clenched her jaw and glanced back at him, a little surprised at his comment about being ruthless. She knew vaguely that she had that reputation among her peers, and she had never understood why her intense dedication to efficiency should be
deemed ruthless. She was not a sadist, after all.

Her instinctive reaction was to fight or flee, but Avenos's mention of Merove set her mind working in a different direction. These people, Eten Kai or not, had set out on this journey some time ago; it was very unlikely that Merove had alerted anybody besides perhaps her immediate superior to her foolish blunder against Nova and Avenos. She could assume, therefore, that if these people recognized her, they would be uncertain of her loyalties. If they recognized Avenos, they would be uncertain on principle, she thought with something that was almost a smile.

"Avenos," she murmured, "this will illustrate the situation for you much clearer than the recitation I had planned could."

He kept smoking and gave her a look of mild interest, like he was settling in to watch a filmcast. "If they are Eten Kai, you should know that they've tried to kill me..." he glanced down at his biological hand and shrugged. "A few times."

Nova had the strange urge to laugh. "I suspect that if they are anybody, Avenos, they have tried to kill you a few times."

He considered this for a moment and then nodded.

She raised her voice back to a normal conversational level. "But that's not important right now. If they're smart, they'll forgive and forget." She was uncomfortable with this sort of subterfuge because she had always felt like she was a terrible liar, but she supposed that she could not have been selected for this job if she were incapable of convincing deceit.

The figures perked up a little at the sound of her voice, and she raised an eyebrow at Avenos. It was the closest she came to grinning triumphantly. The little party hurried toward them, clinking under all their heavy gear.

She nodded her head toward the approaching party. "Got it? Just stay calm." She would have sworn that Avenos was inwardly laughing at her, but a moment later, his face stilled to its usual introspective expression.

The figure in the lead disconnected the breathing tube and opened the front of his helmet. Eerily pale violet eyes, spiderwebbed with heavy red veins, stared at her. "Illunova Infernati?" he asked, in the wheezing tones of the lowlanders of this planet.

She nodded again and tried to look wary. "I am. Who am I speaking with?"

He jerked his head at his followers, who produced in an instant a bristling array of heavy weaponry. "Second Sul of the Eten Kai. You had better have a good reason for separating from your colleagues, Infernati, or you'll die in this ugly hellhole."

[JesterJoker]

The Eten Kai who had tried to kill him, and who had inadvertently contributed to the necessity for his machine hand, had been a much less direct confrontation, with snipers on the rooftops and a running gun chase in the streets. His dealings had involved the Fifth Sul, not the Second, and that presented a completely new game.

Avenos had to acknowledge that the confrontation with Merove had strained his nerves. The situation had flown out of control. Now, he had a chance to bring in some counterintelligence of his own. Apparently Illunova wanted to act as though she were still with her people. Perhaps he had newly joined them as a freelancer.

He came to that conclusion, and then the Eten Kai brought their weaponry from the hellfire devil only knew where. Even their pressure suits couldn't possibly hold all of those gadgets. He noticed Illunova pause, working slowly on the edge of truths and lies, and Avenos stepped forward, his hand quivering on the cigarette.

Of what he was about to do, only the fear wasn't fake.

"You might know who I am," Avenos said.

The Second Sul gazed at him with chilling eyes. Maybe he was just as good as his superiors. Maybe better. "Lepi Avenos, professional killer. You are a legend, for some of us." Whispers murmured behind the Second Sul, some awed, some angry.

Or perhaps straightforward. Avenos smiled and breathed the fumes of the cigarette. "You're mistaking something there. I don't usually execute people. I have a personal responsibility to remove destructive members of the gene pool, and sometimes, there is no other choice. I do not forget that there are other choices."

"Then why are you with Illunova Infernati?" asked the Second Sul. "I have seen her before, alone and with others. In the culture of Pirrac, 'Nati' means 'long and tortuous struggle'. She fought on their world for many years."

Avenos blinked at Illunova, surprised. "Is this true?"

"It isn't," Illunova said, watching the Second Sul. "Not exactly. Only one dictionary describes the complete definition, and the origin is too long to explain here, in this place."

"This is fascinating, but that hardly explains why you two are working together. You would have little to do with each other, according to the things I have heard," said the Second Sul.

"I dislike following orders," Avenos said. "But I have joined her organization." He breathed smoke at the Second Sul, realising precisely how annoying that would be. "We're undercover, and we have been ordered to find the Spirits of the Galactic Conflict. You have heard of these?"

Illunova, the Second Sul, and the eleven soldiers of the Eten Kai all stared at him. Successful goal. Score. Now no one knew what he was about. The tobacco tasted delicious.

Avenos's next comment tasted even better. He would give the woman a little practice. "Tell them about it, Illunova."

[TravelerOfTheWays]

Nova did not bother to hide her irritation at Avenos; for their audience, it would convey that this Spirits of the Galactic Conflict nonsense was some sort of secret mission they were not to discuss. So far, he had proven himself competent at keeping himself alive, and she appreciated that in a professional colleague, but he was certainly tangling things up for her. She strongly disliked engaging in deceit, but she had to admit that there was no honest way out of any run-in with the Eten Kai. Still, Spirits of the Galactic Conflict? It sounded like a mystical creature of a novelcast.

If the Eten Kai assumed conflict between them, so much the better. She had little direct experience with these people but assumed Avenos had much more useful information to share with her should they have a quiet moment of discussion soon. She would have to rely on the intelligence she had received with her briefing. With something like a start, she realized it would be the same intelligence Merove had received. Had it been manipulated? A question for later.

She let her eyes narrow as she regarded Avenos. "Spirits of the Galactic Conflict is strictly need to know." 'Need to know' was the military phrase that vexed her worse of all, so it seemed appropriate in this context.

The Sul's posse, arranged behind him in a rough half-arc, charged their weapons as the Sul looked on with a very small, very cold smirk. "If you wish to live," he growled, "I need to know."

She glared a moment longer, enough to convey her very real annoyance but not so long that the Eten Kai doubted her professionalism. "Fortunately for both of us, I can reveal that we know very little of the Spirits. Though some have spoken of their existence for centuries, my organization has taken an interest in these rumors only recently." An idea struck her, then. She wondered if Avenos would catch on. "We know that this conflict is not what it appears. We have clear and convincing evidence," she enunciated these words carefully, "that somebody is manipulating events to sow chaos on this world."

She watched the Sul and his assorted criminals, but she knew so little of this people that she found it difficult to ascertain their expressions. All she could gather, but it was sufficient for her purposes, was that they were not surprised to hear this. Of course they were not. Organized crime was the perfect cover for their operations.

"The engineers of this crisis have eluded us until now," she continued. "But we believe we have finally traced them here, to this city. I can say no further, for you have found us early in our investigations. We have little more than that name - Spirits of the Galactic Conflict. We fear that they mean to wreak chaos on more and more worlds until..."

She shrugged and looked at Avenos. She had no flare for the dramatic, and this half-fabricated tale of hers needed a dramatic finish.

"Until fire burns across the stars," he growled. He flicked a live ember from his cigarette for emphasis.

The Sul stared at them for a moment longer, then nodded. As he turned to his criminals, a brief flicker of some emotion Nova could not read passed over his face. Relief? Amusement? Indulgence? Pity? She could not say.

"The Spirits," he murmured. "You have heard this word, men?"

They glanced at one another and made noises that sounded like assent. Nova would have wagered money that this was the first any of them had heard of Avenos's bizarre concoction.

"Very well," he said. "We will not kill you, not yet." He pointed his wicked-looking weapon at Avenos. "I make no promises for this one, but we have no quarrel with Infernati, if you do not interfere. Come. We have many spies in this city, sources you cannot know." He paused. "First, though, a question."

Nova raised an eyebrow.

"Avenos. What have you offered to bring him here? As he said, he... does not take orders."

She cast her companion a long, flat glance. "You ask why he is here? I cannot answer. He remains a mystery to us all." A smile behind a cloud of smoke answered her look.

"Shall we?" he asked with what she was coming to recognize as a hint of dark amusement in his voice.

The Second Sul ordered his men to surround them, and the parade they made tramped out of the factory and back toward the heart of the city. They were on their way to see Eten Kai spies. Nova marveled at the opportunity and hoped it would not kill them.

[JesterJoker]

Initially, Lepi felt vaguely disappointed that Nova hadn't added a wide amount of complications to his falsified story. But while he talked to the Eten Kai soldier on his flank, a particularly brutal looking type, feeding more lies into the hierarchy, Nova's wary wisdom cleared up for him.

She was unfamiliar with people, true, but the woman had also fed a little bit of truth into the mix, which, admittedly, he hadn't even done. Neither of them knew the heights to where this conspiracy would lead. Nova and Merove had been set at odds, but could this reach from planet to planet? He couldn't start believing his own lies, though. He had the odd feeling he was about to learn a new, important clue.

Lepi's tales of shadowy horrors waiting in the cracks of the old ruins made the old soldier shudder, and he stepped out of his position. The leader frowned, but Lepi waved with his human hand and smiled. The position was subtle, but he now walked in the flank, in case he would need a fast escape. Nova stepped toward him, and Lepi motioned her toward him. Her intimidating features darkened into a frown, and he felt, for a moment, terrified.

Lepi glanced down at the ground, getting his thoughts straight, and glimpsed a reflection of his entire body in a particularly long puddle. Lepi's face and hands stuck out of a long dark brown coat, with compartments so wide and so deep that even harsh, lenghty questioning could not discover all of its mysteries.

In his pockets were his brown leather gloves and a tougher workman's variety, but he hadn't had a need to use them yet. He preferred to have his hands completely free. In the darkness of the abandoned hangar, his boots were almost indistinguishable. Black, and able to journey over almost any surface, Lepi had chosen them carefully. His loyalty to its manufacturer was one of the few he had, and he had a long-standing deal with the leader of the company, sealed through a harrowing rescue for each man at two very different times.

Lepi chose his clothes to blend in with his surroundings. His two distinctive traits, his face and his robotic hand, accomplished all the work for him. His robotic hand, with five barrels attached on its top, one for each finger's muscles, cabled to the flesh of his wrist, and the raw, wretched sores and contorted ripples had been known to disturb more than one common civilian. Readouts and sensors shone with bright red lights, too, but everyone who hadn't seen such cyborg changes before just stared at the flesh around and behind his hand. He found it deeply amusing.

That brought him around to his face, which he had never liked much. His hair was brown and had a beach style of lightness. He seemed to be going tinily grey on the top, but that had been happening for several decades. He usually had his eyes one-fourth shut but could open them to their blinding hazel gaze on command. Usually, the look freaked people out. His nose was little, with a notable bridge, but didn't quite fit, having been broken in every other fight. Lepi's mouth was small, until he talked, at which point it would grow. He had a cigarette in it, usually from different origins.

He drew out a cigarette from his coat and smiled at the Second Sul. "Can we please hurry up? I don't like traveling with a big group of people."

The Second Sul peered at him. "Of course you don't. We're getting there."

"Sorry for being a trouble, but I do think this place is particularly dangerous." They had left the hangar maybe twenty minutes ago, and the street seemed really worn and haggard. Lepi looked at the windows and the roofs for lights, or snipers, or any sort of unpleasant hints. There were plenty of them, plenty of all of them.

Lepi glanced at Nova, and she had seen the same.

"Where is your spy?" Lepi asked.

"Four blocks away," the Second Sul answered.

"Is he in sight? Do you always take this route?"

"I can see the building from here. Yes."

"You take the same bloody route every time?" Lepi said. "What are you, fools?" He brought a long puf of the cigarette and the burning woke up his thoughts. "Then keep walking, like everything is normal. When I give the alert, everyone is to rush toward cover. A storefront, a lightpole, a neon screen, anything."

"What are you talking about?" asked the Second Sul, mockingly.

"We are, right now, under surveillance." Lepi's eyes bugged out with the intensity. "They have us where they want us. I'm laying our lives on the fact that our enemies... those who want what we want... have captured your spy and know everything that he knows. We have to think that. For now, we are their pawns."

Lepi touched Nova's shoulder. "Your expertise is in this. You are the alert signal for me, and the others. Make this big."

[TravelerOfTheWays]

The Sul's men were starting to watch their quiet conversation, and though Nova wished she could say much, much more of the plan she had been turning over in her head for the past several minutes, she nodded. "I will. Keep your eyes open." She said it just loudly enough to be overheard - nothing suspicious going on here - and gave him a long look, flicking her eyes to the shadowy rooftops and then to the Eten Kai gathered around them.

Lepi could take care of himself, she knew. She was not worried about his demise; if one of the flitting figures hidden in the dusk about them decided to open fire, she would bet money on his survival before any of the others', not including her own. That voluminous coat alone made him into a very difficult target, and the glints of light that reflected off the Eten Kai's weapons pinpointed them exactly. In fact, she was counting on that.

There, in a curtained window. A sudden movement, a rustle. On her other side, a responding movement. They were preparing themselves to open fire, and if Nova were truly concerned with preserving the lives of every single Eten Kai traveling with her, she would have ordered them at the moment to scatter. But she had come to the realization that no matter how well she and Lepi ingratiated themselves to the Second Sul now, eventually he would receive the information from Merove's team, and the two of them would probably have to fight their way out. Better if there were fewer to fight, she had decided.

Lepi saw it too, and he stiffened. She coughed quietly and, as casually as she could, took a few steps toward the side of the street, into the shadows. A moment before the Eten Kai noticed what she was doing, she cried out and began firing in the buildings are them. Her first shots killed the lurkers a second or two after their first shots killed the most exposed of the Eten Kai. She felt a cold elation at her impeccable timing. Lepi had taken refuge behind a flickering neon sign that somehow still blinked even after it had crashed to the sidewalk, and from there, precise shots fired in a staccato rhythm toward the lurkers.

The Second Sul had reacted with surprising speed, and now he was ducking beside Nova behind a pile of rotting waste. "You saved my life," he growled, "when you could have let me die."

No, she thought, I could not have let you die. You've not been useful yet. "I hope this earns us some of your trust," she replied.

Then all conversation was as a barrage of brightly-hued energy weapons and conventional bullets alike rained down on them like a monsoon. Nova recognized desperation when she saw it; these people had lost their most important targets in the first wave and now could barely see into the street at all amid all firing. The Eten Kai still alived conducted themselves respectably, but even with their decent camouflage skills, several of them suffered fatal injuries. The Second Sul grunted beside her every time one of his men fell, but still he shot at the enemy with accuracy and care, not grief-fueld rage. She admired that, but she did not like what it boded for the future clash that she had calculated must happen.

Finally, the weaponsfire died. When one of the Eten Kai stood, one last barrage shredded him, but she and Lepi fired at the same time and eliminated the shooter. The smells of exploded power, burnt concrete, and melting plastic filled the street. Lepi rose from his hiding place like a sentient shadow, and he ambled over to Nova and Second Sul. He gave her a tight-lipped look and lit another cigarette. So he wasn't thrilled with her plan. She couldn't blame him; she did not envy the position she had put him in. Well, they had both survived and their enemies had put a significant dent in one another's forces.

After the Sul checked on his men and said a brief word over the bodies of the fallen, they resumed their trek, this time with Lepi leading them through a warren of alleys and empty lots. Finally, the Sul ordered him to stop in front of a building painted pure black, from which a dull bass thumping emitted at regular intervals. Nova tilted her head and studied the place; from the single window, a deep red light leaked into the night. Was that noise supposed to be music?

"This is the place," the Sul growled. "I will lead the way."

[JesterJoker]

Lepi reluctantly nodded to the Sul's assumption of temporary authority, and, to keep himself off guard and unbalanced, took a stance at the far rear, taking a long drag on his cigarette, reflecting on just what had happened and listening to the bass. Nova, again, had proved to be a truly dangerous ally. He liked to retain people in the game as long as possible and add to the confusion.

Nova stood beside the Sul, her tall and intimidating presence blending in with the black building. She looked like a machine. Ironic, he thought, studying the cables around his wrist and beneath the glove. While the body his mind resided in had become partly robotic, Nova acted like an efficient killing machine more than anyone he had known.

If they were to work together, they would have to find a deeper substance to their business. She might have put a real wrench in the gears running their relationship with the Second Sul, but he had no idea how long they would be working with him, or indeed, what would have ultimately come of his men. Lepi felt a shudder creeping through his system, and breathed the smoke.

He worked to hone his instincts, every day, but she seemed to live by them. This action would have a future price, and he would have to watch for it. If he didn't, he had come to understand through long and arduous experience, the price would come upon him unawares and twist its knife out of proportion. Ignorance on such a scale had lost allies, campaigns, and entire worlds.

Lepi lifted his cigarette to his lips once more, and watched the conversation between the Sul and the bouncer of the club. A few choice words exchanged, a quick movement from Nova, and the Sul waved Lepi forward again. Nova had powerful strengths. She had saved all of them in the ambush. But at such a high price.

"The man I seek is on the third floor," the Sul said.

"I'm in no hurry," Lepi said. "I know someone here."

"You do?" asked the Sul." Who would that be?"

Lepi smiled wickedly. "I gave you privacy. Now you give me a moment."

"That was only - "

"You led us here," Lepi said, smoothing over his argument. "This will take but a second. Guard him, Nova, if you would. Don't let him out of your sight." He curled his robotic hand into a fist. "I will stay in visual range through this whole thing. But if you act too hastily, I will retaliate."

Nova didn't say anything. She scowled, and that more frightening than her words ever were.

"I wouldn't expect that you would," Lepi said. "Okay, then."

Lepi stomped over toward the source of the music, dancing with the crowd as much as he could in his coat. The music swept over him, and he found himself standing at the foot of the stage and the boots of the black-vinyl-clad woman shaking the foundations of the building with the bass.

She looked down on him, a position she loved because she had had it so little, and the music faltered for a moment. She bent down on one knee, the bass pounding in his ears, and smiled. One rubber clad hand brushed the side of his face, and then spun around in a loud whack. The crowd slowly parted around him. This would be short, but it was going to be anyway.

"Avenos," the woman said. "What the fuck are you doing here?"

"I need a favor, Scally," Lepi said.

"Make it quick. I'm busy," Scally said.

"Status black," Lepi said.

"Where do you want to meet?" Scally said. "I'm free in six."

Lepi thought quickly. "The shop behind the bookstore on 5th."

"I'll be there," Scally said. "Alone."

"Good. See you then."

Lepi stomped back to Nova and the Second Sul. Neither had opened themselves to the dance, and Lepi felt a little irritation. He had always had an appreciation for Mundo De Dios's music. Scally would show up. She was as reliable in a crisis situation as she was as a bass player. The building shook with bass rage.

"All right, let's go," Lepi said. "Lead the way."

[TravelerOfTheWays]

Nova had no idea what words had been exchanged, but the import was clear enough to her eyes. There was familiarity between them, some interesting emotion, and an understanding. Whatever had passed between them was more important than the slap she had delivered, a guess that was borne out when Nova saw the cool, calculating gaze the woman sent after Avenos as he threaded his way back through the crowd toward them.

Nova decidedly did not like this place. The strange lights and that deafening roar she assumed to be music dimmed her senses too much for her comfort. The shadows and the ever-shifting mass of sentient life could hide easily hide a weapon or ten, and crowds like this could turn dangerously stupid at the slightest whiff of danger. Avenos, though... he moved through the mass like he had some experience in places like this. Nova even thought she saw him time his steps with the music, consciously or not.

The Sul had growled under his breath for the entirety of Avenos's short conversation with the woman, and Nova hoped Avenos understood how fortunate they were to have turned the Sul's attitude in favor of them. If not for Nova supposedly saving his life, she suspected he might well have stalked off toward his goal while Avenos was still walking toward his friend. And then she would have had a very unpleasant dilemma on her hands.

As it was, the Sul waved his hand in what she took to be a gesture of impatience at Levi and strode toward the stairs, still muttering. The bare handful of Eten Kai still alive followed him in a hurry. After a couple seconds of silent conversation, Nova hurried to catch up with the Sul while Avenos fell behind once again, keeping just close enough to the group that the Eten Kai would not suspect him of absconding.

The door from the staircase opened to a heavy black curtain. At the sound of the opening door and their pounding footsteps, a cambot bobbed forth from the curtain to whir and chitter mechanically at them. Nova ducked her head immediately, pretending to examine her weapon. She had no idea how far powerful Merove's faction was, how far they had infiltrated the city, but she was not about to expose her face to a machine that could spread it around the world in a matter of seconds.

The Sul gestured ritually at it, then barked a sharp word. The cambot bobbed again and disappeared back behind the curtain. He motioned for them to follow. Behind the curtain, blue lights illuminated a woman on a small elevated stage who was crooning a quiet song in a language Nova did not recognize. On the floor, scattered leather couches held small groups of people gathered around low tables stacked with glasses.

The couch to which the Sul led them was populated by a single person whose gender Nova could not make out even from a few feet away. The Eten Kai sat cross-legged on the floor as Nova and Avenos remained on their feet at either side of their small band.

The person, who Nova took to be the Sul's spy, took a long drink from his glass, then set it back down. It left on the table a wet ring that glimmered blue.

"Sul-Ta," the spy drawled, "your party is both larger and smaller than I had expected. Tell me, is there a reason you've kept the traitor alive?"

The spy's shadowed eyes gave no indication whether 'the traitor' spoken of was Nova, Avenos, or one of the Sul's men. The Sul straightened up to sit even more stiffly, if that were possible, and smacked his hand on the table. "Traitor?!" he barked. "What are you speaking of, shade-walker?"

Nova made a mental note to add 'shade-walker' to her vocabulary of terms used on this world. She also loosened her stance and ran a quick inventory of the weapons on her person.

[JesterJoker]

The spy lifted a single slender finger and pointed it at Nova's chest. Lepi noticed that his eyes lingered there a little longer than was proper. He found that a surprise. He would have thought a person as genderbending as this one wouldn't have interests in a woman of Nova's type. Nova noticed. Her lips thinned. She had already been feeling edgy, he knew, and this added to the seething anxiety in the air.

Lepi said, "What do you mean by that?"

"She broke ranks with her allies," the spy said. "You knew about her associates, as much as I did." The spy stared at the Second Sul. "But we have had further reports come in. As you might imagine, Nova, being with such a one as this," and he motioned to Lepi, "tends to draw attention. She worked with the Merove, you remember. She is here, on this world."

Lepi smiled, though he wanted to hold in his emotions. The spy had given him an advantage. He had lied, but surely he knew it. This man was smart, and any dealings would have be delicate. No one trailed Lepi Avenos without his consent, unless they did. He would have sworn no one had been on his tail since his introduction to Nova.

He opened his hands wide, drawing in the small gathering around the table with his hands, holding his cigarette in his left hand. "Do you really think we will believe that? The Second Sul questioned us on sight, in the shipyard hangar beneath the tunnels from Third and Fearsome. We told him our purpose. We are undercover, searching for the Spirits of the Galactic Conflict."

The spy snorted and took another sip from his glass. His hands looked long and smooth, like his entire body. He was a slimy man, and Lepi could come to like him. Lepi saw curious workings beneath the table, but he couldn't quite place them. That unnerved him. "That sounds like a horrible holo. Surely you can think up better things."

Lepi turned to the Second Sul. He nodded, and his men with him.

The spy lifted his eyebrows. "You have heard of this?"

"They will bring our doom," said the Second Sul, with a booming tone that Lepi thought had to have been altered.

The spy didn't think so. He became speechless for a moment, and Lepi realised the situation had come rapidly out of his control. He brought the cigarette to his lips and smiled. That was exactly how he liked it.

"Where have you heard of these?" asked the spy. "What are they?"

Lepi opened his arms wide again and circled the table. He wanted to be up and active for this. The music from the main room pounded against his boots, barely, and he appreciated the intensity. "As far as I am aware, only four Spirits still exist. There were twelve of them, hundreds of years ago, but most were destroyed in an apocalyptic war that nearly annihilated humanity. Surely," Lepi said, "you have heard of that."

"I have," the spy said quietly.

"Warriors and generals from this war are still out there. They are in hiding. Illunova Infernati and I have come undercover in the hopes that we might find out who and where they are," Lepi said.

"And when you find them?" the spy said.

"We will end them," Lepi said, "swiftly and violently."

"Well, I wish you the best," the spy said. "But."

Lepi drew the cigarette to his lips. The spy touched a second, concentric ring on the table, around that made by his wine goblet, and suddenly, Lepi knew exactly what the mechanisms were. He spun toward Nova, but then, it had already happened.

[TravelerOfTheWays]

That settled it. Strong emotions ruffled Nova's serenity on very rare occasion, but this was proving to be one of them. She hated this place, the pounding ground level and this shadowy level. She hated the noise and the lights, but most of all she hated the person who had just tried to wipe her. She hated the Second Sul for bringing them here, and she considered hating Avenos for his friend here but decided to reserve judgment on that for now.

Or maybe the passing energy of the wipe had stirred an instinctively hostile, deeply primitive part of her brain that her higher mind processed as hatred. That would make sense, as a logical defensive measure against the attempted destruction of her consciousness. No one had attempted a wipe on her before, and Nova could not say whether it would have the desired effect. She had been engineered to resist a great many physiological attacks, but only few had ever been tested. She thought that in this instance, she would prefer to remain ignorant.

She might not have realized what was happening in time to save herself if not for Avenos's sudden distress. The spy had remained cool throughout the whole maneuver, doubtless part of the reason he had remained alive in such a deadly business, and the infuriating dancing shadows had hidden the first signs of movement under the table from Nova's eyes. But Avenos had seen them, and the widening of his eyes, the catch of his breath, and the slight jerk of his muscles as he tensed, even before he actually moved, telegraphed the danger just in time.

While he was spinning to push her out of the path of wipe, she allowed herself to fall backward and kick underneath the table as hard as she could. The mechanisms clanged a harsh jangle that stopped the soft burble of conversation in the room for a split second. When the other patrons realized what was happened, they turned hastily back to their conversations a little too loudly.

Unfortunately, perhaps, the Second Sul had instinctively leaned in toward Nova, and he caught the fizzing wake of the wipe. His mouth curled in a snarl and then went slack. There was no telling how much he had lost - anything from motor functions to memory to his senses - but there was no time to assess the damage just now. The other Eten Kai clamored and reached for their guns as Avenos leapt for the spy and Nova ripped the small table from the ground to hold as an ungainly shield. The shattering of glass on the floor sounded like static under the music.

The spy wriggled in Avenos's grip, but the mechanical hand was clamped firmly, though not yet fatally, around his throat. She doubted that the Eten Kai cared enough to spare her and Avenos for the sake of the spy, so they'd have to drag him out while avoiding the Eten Kai's fire. The table squealed against the floor as the gangsters scrambled for their guns. They cursed as glass shards wormed their way under their flesh, and the Second Sul's wild flailing prevented them from aiming their fire with anything like accuracy.

Nova braced herself against the spy's seat, which appeared to be nailed to the floor, and shoved the small table into the writhing mass of Eten Kai. The mechanisms sproinged and jutted out at wild angles as the gangsters shouted. The move utterly lacked finesse, but Nova found from time to time that finesse was overrated.

She backed through the sparse crowd to Avenos and the spy, thrashing uselessly in the other man's grip. She snorted at the scene in front of them. "So much for goodwill."

[JesterJoker]

AVENOS

Moments like these had defined Avenos's life from the beginning, in the busiest, nastiest, most chaotic part of the Cerastra system. He had got out of there fast, but the experiences had molded him into the man he was now. That was why he pushed Nova out of the way, hard, with his shoulder, and surged forward around the table to grab the spy's throat. If the spy had anything in common with himself, that would be the weakest point of his body.

Avenos found that he trusted Nova at least as much on her own as working directly with him, and she did about as much damage to the room as he had expected. While guns and voices roared behind him, Avenos clenched his metal hand tighter, put his head a few inches before the spy and stared him in his cold blue eyes. The spy, the shade-walker, for lack of better designation, kept the same demeanor.

"Why did you do that?" Avenos said. "They're illegal everywhere."

"Wouldn't you?" the spy asked.

Avenos raised his other hand and pounded the spy once in the nose. Blood dripped and stained his white suit. The spy's lips drew into a tight line. "I've never attacked someone with a full wipe before. You wouldn't dare do that without extraordinary backing, without the sanction of someone high."

A turquoise laser blast drew by his head with a whizz of electrons, and the spy's expression changed into alert for the fraction of a second. Avenos smiled, his eyes still locked on his opponent. Nova kicked over the table and knocked them back into the wall. The shade-walker didn't squirm, strangely confident. Avenos backed out of the room, through the entrance, and followed Nova.

He made a mental note of the split second before he left the room. It could be useful sometime in the future. He saw a dozen gangsters, with three color-coded tattoos among their scattered necks, one of which, a crimson and yellow mixture, he recognized from the high-end Golan Springer casino, where he had played blackjack upon a time. A five-pointed star with a jagged claw on top of it looked familiar, but he couldn't place the source. That annoyed him, and it would prey on his mind.

The Eten Kai had dominated the room, with one of them standing above the Second Sul, who sat with his hands in his lap, propped against a wall. So, he had been touched with the wipe. He, like the others, would be hard to injure, and harder to kill, and would likely come out on top. There would be hell to pay for this, and he would have to consider their choice to ally with him.

One Eten Kai member leveled his gun at him and fired, but Avenos kicked the door shut, blocked the beam and ran after Nova. He remembered that she had ordered everyone on the ground, and according to the sight before him, the people had complied. Nova's movements, on the retreat from that concert and safe house, looked like nothing he had ever seen. She looked feminine, feline, and insidious, like a creature made from the black currents between the stars, or a writing from a giant quill in the sky.

A shudder danced up his back, and the spy stared at her in abject terror. Avenos thrust the shade-walker in front of him and whispered to Nova, who led the way in a close proximity, "It's getting too hot in this city. Find us a way out. A vehicle, a hangar, anything you can get. It shouldn't be too hard." He shook the shade-walker's throat and his captive gulped. "We have a lead, too."

"I thought you liked the heat," the shade-walker said.

"I like chaos," Avenos said. "This is different." He turned the shade-walker around. This command could become a lot of fun, and the lack of sensation in his hand irritated him. "Nova and I work together. Be careful how heavily you criticize it."
The shade-walker squinted. "What did I say?"

"Nothing, yet," Avenos said. "Mouth off all you want. You might expose something. But be careful. You've already made her mad. She's this close to shooting you right now."
"I didn't do it!" the shade-walker said.

Avenos lifted his eyebrows. "Oh?"

"I'm the ambassador," the shade-walker said. "The middleman. They... they're able to control me, when they deem it proper."

"Who are you working for?" Avenos said.

The shade-walker smiled.

Avenos squeezed his hand and the shade-walker gagged on the pressure. Nova kept them close to the sides of the street, beneath taller buildings and fewer lights. She hadn't said much, and the possibilities churned in his mind. "Any leads on an escape, Nova? I need special methods for this."