Chapter 27
Twenty Seven
Kira
Kira moved through the Red Rabbit’s lobby, her forehead creasing as she tried to understand the level of destruction she was seeing.
All the pirates had to do was grab Jin and get out.
Yet, this place looked like a grenade had hit it.
There were deep grooves in the floor and walls and a hole in its ceiling that exposed some of the duct work.
The artwork that had once decorated the walls, now lay ripped and torn on the ground where it could be trampled by careless feet.
In fact, the pirates seemed to have made a point of doing exactly that. Boot prints were easily visible on several of the canvases.
Planters had been overturned. The flowers and trees inside ripped out and tossed carelessly aside. Dirt had been tracked through the halls, leaving an easy trail to follow.
The hotel’s front desk, unique among Titan’s hotels because they employed real people rather than automated reservation systems, had been shoved halfway across the room and now lay on its side.
The old fashioned swinging door that had once led to the employee break room was half askew and in danger of falling down if you looked at it wrong.
In front of it, there was a puddle of blood. Singe marks on the wall next to it.
But no body.
Kira hoped that meant the front desk attendant had escaped.
“Why did they do this?” Kira muttered to herself.
If Kira or Jin had been their target, why not come in quietly? Be in and out before anyone noticed.
There’d be less chance of fallout that way.
While violence on Titan was an accepted and normal part of life, it was balanced by the station’s very real need for the influx of cash from visitors. As such, hotels and their guests were usually left alone.
On the occasion when things did happen, they were usually done with a certain amount of discretion in mind.
This wasn’t discreet. It was excessive. Wanton.
It felt personal.
Strange, since as far as Kira knew the Red Rabbit’s owner wasn’t the type to make enemies. They were reclusive, careful to keep a low profile, which Kira had always appreciated.
While business was steady—especially among a certain type of clientele—it wasn’t the sort to draw rivals.
Its only real claim to fame was its access to the secret tunnel system hidden behind its walls.
“Let’s keep moving,” Graydon instructed.
Kira nodded, casting one last glance over the lobby before following him toward Jin’s rooms.
They moved through silent halls. Those inhabitants who’d survived had long since abandoned the area.
Solal and Amila ghosted through the corridors, their en-blades out and easily visible as they guarded Kira and Graydon’s front. Talon sauntered behind them. He’d forgone the en-blade with its longer length for something that was a lot smaller. About the length of his forearm.
It was a good choice. Better for the close quarter combat they were likely to see in narrow corridors like these.
Kira approved.
It didn’t take long to reach the section Kira had reserved for their rooms.
While Solal and Amila did a sweep to make sure there were no nasty surprises waiting for them, Kira hurried toward Jin’s room, pausing when she passed the one that she’d assigned to Maksym and Arly.
“What the—” she whispered.
It looked untouched.
Every room they’d passed before this had shown signs of disturbance. Crumpled sheets lying on the ground. Ripped or sometimes torn. Overturned furniture. Breached doors.
Maksym and Arly’s room, on the other hand, was immaculate. The door was untouched. The furniture was in the same state it had been when Kira knocked on their door hours earlier. The sheets were a little rumpled but that could have easily been from someone sleeping on top of them.
There was no sign of a fight having taken place. Not a mark on the walls or a whiff that ki had been used.
Nothing.
Kira found that strange. Arly may not have been an oshota in name, but she met the standard in every other way. Someone like that wouldn’t have lowered their guard enough to be taken unawares.
Did she let herself be taken? Like Jin? Or was she a traitor working with Belladonna?”
A loud boom made her jump. She forgot her concerns as she realized it had come from Jin’s room.
Talon reached it first, waving her back.
He took one look inside and started laughing. Kira nudged him out of her way. He let her, easily moving aside so she could get a look.
A strangled sound left her when she did.
A visibly unhappy Dylan sat chest deep in a crater. The edges curled away from him like the petals of a flower, looking like something had forced them to explode outward.
The smuggler’s cache that had once been hidden in the floor was no more.
Talon clapped Kira on the shoulder. “Looks like you worried for nothing. The Butcher of Parsy rescued himself.”
Kira considered the crater, wondering how much power was needed to do something like that without also killing yourself.
Those things weren’t built from your average run of the mill materials.
All kinds of things went in there. From the newest designer drug.
To the latest stolen military tech. The kinds of things that a lot of nefarious people would die to get their hands on.
They were built to be sturdy. Nigh indestructible.
Dylan made breaching one look easy.
“Where is he?” Dylan demanded.
“Who? Jin?” Kira asked as Dylan extracted himself from the former cache.
“Yes, Jin. Who else would I mean?”
Kira shrugged off his impatience. “Just checking.”
It had been a stupid question, but that was kind of the point.
Kira didn’t say anything as Dylan’s attention snapped to the doorway.
“Forget your previous orders,” Dylan told Graydon. “Your only mission now is to help me recover the child.”
“Again, with the child business,” Kira grumbled.
“Yes, child,” Dylan snapped. “Because that is what he is.”
“You sure about that? Because that child dropped you like a dirty sack of laundry.”
Kira prowled across the room, bumping Dylan aside with her hip so she could crouch at the crater’s edge.
“Hello, friend,” Kira crooned at the silver scorpion curled up in the corner. “I hear you have something for me.”
The scorpion twitched at the sound of her voice, uncurling its four pairs of legs one set at a time before facing Kira. For an insect, it was oddly cute with its oversized claws and the gems Jin had used as its eyes.
Even its menacing looking stinger looked oddly adorable. Done up in a gradient of blue and pink.
“Hello, Kira. You are right. I do have something for you,” the scorpion said in an emotionless voice.
Dylan leaned over Kira’s shoulder. “Is that what he used to knock me out?”
Kira held still as the scorpion climbed onto the hand she offered. “Probably.”
The oshota scrutinized the venomous arachnid. “I did not expect it to be so small.”
“The most dangerous things often come in the tiniest of packages.”
Size was no impediment for deadliness. For instance, the glaston wasp found on a little known planet in the Haldeel empire was no bigger than a human fingernail and yet held enough venom in its stinger to drop five full grown Haldeel.
“You’re lucky Jin likes you.” Kira nodded at the scorpion. “I’m pretty sure he modeled this thing’s stinger off of a Haldeel firelance.”
The firelance held enough power to penetrate the hull of one of their Chariots. Let alone synth armor.
“I’m not sure ‘like’ is what I’d call it.”
“I am,” Kira said.
After incapacitating him, Jin could have left Dylan defenseless and vulnerable. Instead, he’d hidden him in the safest place he could access on short notice.
“Maksym, Finn and the human have arrived,” Solal announced from the hallway.
Raider appeared a moment later, his attention still directed over his shoulder at the Tuann standing in the hallway. “Graydon, when are your people going to learn my name?”
“When they feel you warrant the effort.”
“You getting this, Kira? They don’t think I’m memorable enough.”
Kira gave her friend a look. “Don’t make this a thing.”
From the predatory way Raider was considering Solal, she thought it might already be too late for that.
Irritated, she glanced at Graydon.
He shrugged as if to say “what can you do?”.
Raider walked to her and leaned over her shoulder. “What’s this? Did Jin leave us a gift?”
Kira slapped his hand away before he could poke the scorpion. Just in time, as the scorpion’s tail crackled ominously.
Raider lowered his arm. “A gift with bite.”
The scorpion brandished its stinger at him one last time before facing Kira. “Would you like to see what my master left you?”
“Master?” Raider laughed. “That’s priceless. I didn’t realize Jin’s interests bent in that direction.”
“I have permission to neutralize annoyances,” the scorpion declared crisply.
“Sure—that might be fun.”
No. No, it wouldn’t be fun. It would be disastrous.
Dylan was already eyeing the scorpion like he was considering atomizing it. She didn’t need Raider following in his footsteps.
Shielding Jin’s spawn from them, Kira sent Raider a glare. “Stop playing around, would you?”
“Sure, sure,” Raider drawled, holding up his hands as Finn dragged Martha into the room.
A series of strong curse words heralded the human’s entrance. Everything from deprecations against Finn’s ability to sire children to attacks on his physical prowess.
Talon’s eyebrows rose at the colorful language. “My, my, your friend has quite a mouth on her. I don’t think even the patrons of my bar have such a way with words.”
Martha leaned over and spat on the ground at Kira’s feet. “She’s not my friend.”
“Same old Martha.” Kira didn’t react outwardly to the provocation despite the glob of spit that landed on her boot. Simply disgusting. “You never were one to let sense guide your actions.”
You’d think being surrounded by this bunch she’d wise up. But, no, she had to poke the dragon.
Kira could have liked her for that. If only she wasn’t such an unpleasant individual in all other ways.