TITLE: A Past to Outdo

NOTES: This chapter's quote is from a song called 'Presumed Lost', by Splashdown.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN Sauska

"My shadow's here to meet with me again."

Twilight Fire, Verse 3:87:12

CY 293

The metal walkways crashed loudly as Harper's feet pounded over them. During the tour he noticed what were probably the escape pods, so that was where he was headed.

"Harper!" Deven's voice echoed through the ship. "There's no point in running, you can't go anywhere!"

Harper didn't stop. He had heard enough threats in his time to know when one was empty. Deven sounded like she was still a way behind him, he might have made it, but a stabbing pain suddenly tore up his leg. Harper grabbed onto the rail next to him to steady himself.

"You gotta be kidding me!" he cried despairingly. Why did cramps always pick the most inconvenient times to incapacitate him?

Just when things couldn't get any worse - Owen, the 6"5 engineer, came round the corner, looking creepily pleased with himself. "I hoped I'd be the one to find you," he said, showing his horribly yellow teeth as he laughed. He was holding a hammer. Not a good sign.

More footsteps from behind. Deven appeared behind Harper, and he was trapped. "Those withdrawal cramps are a bitch aren't they?"

Trance had been rapidly scanning through the data Inar compiled on Deven. Despite the obvious flaw of being evil, she was quite an astonishing woman. Only 29 years old, her talents were endless for her field, ranging from straight-forward assassinations to elaborate schemes like the one she used on them. Her methods were intricate and gruelling. She wasn't just a run of the mill snatch-and-run mercenary; her work took time. She worked by posing as whoever she needed to, to gain her target's trust, then played it out until an opportunity arises to get them away from any kind of protection - even letting the deception continue while she made the getaway. That amount of effort and ingenuity deserved a certain respect.

In some ways, reading about Deven gave Trance a small element of hope. She had dozens of opportunities to kill Harper, and passed them up. It was safe to assume that it wasn't her intention. Whoever wanted Harper, wanted him alive.

Beka was now only minutes behind the ship that had been opening slip portals, and she was just about to catch up. She let her impulses guide the Maru through the electric blue corridor, and arrived smoothly on the other side. The ship was there, but it wasn't the one she was after. Somewhere along the line the trails must have been mixed up.

"Shit!" Beka exclaimed, taking her anger out on a panel near her foot. It crackled and hissed in pain after the sharp kick. "Okay, Valentine, think," she ordered herself. "If I was a lowlife piece of crap with a genius to trade, where would I be?"

Beka looked at the long rage scanners and smiled. She knew exactly where.

Sauska. A city renowned for its criminal underground. If you wanted anything shifted, guaranteed there was someone on Sauska who would be happy to take it off your hands, no matter what it was.

Harper felt the ship jolt roughly as it stopped. "You know, if you let me out of here, I could fix that," he offered. Owen who was standing guard outside his cell.

"Shut up," he growled.

"That's a no, then?"

Deven's came round the corner, speaking over the com. "Alright guys, show time. We're landing in five, so get ready to spend a sixteen hour night celebrating payday."

Owen flashed his yellow teeth again.

"Time to go. Get up," Deven ordered Harper, and removed her gun from its holster.

Harper just returned her cold stare. No matter how many times someone shoved a gun in his face, it never got any less annoying.

"I said get up," Deven repeated.

"Tell me one thing. How did you do it?" he asked, remaining seated. "I don't mean getting onto Andromeda, or getting round Rommie's sensors, I mean how did you act like Ellis would have?"

"Because I'm the best," Deven replied. If her head got any bigger she wouldn't be able to fit through the doors. "Now get up. I won't tell you again."

Harper reluctantly did so, and left the cell. It looked like Owen and Makar were coming along too, which would definitely make it harder to escape when the opportunity arose. Even though he knew there wasn't much time to ditch Miss Mercenary and her band of merry men, Harper had an unhealthy desire to find out who was paying them, who would go to such great lengths just for him.

"Try anything stupid and I'll put an extra hole in your body," Deven sneered. "My instructions are to bring you alive. It wasn't specified in what condition."

"We've established who this woman is. So how do we find out where she's going?" Trance asked eagerly. That was, after all, the most urgent matter. She was anxious to get Harper back, so she could begin making it up to him. Beka probably had the same idea. If only she had said something before she left. They all had the same goal, so why split up? Weren't they strongest together?

"Deven stayed in a hotel on the west section," Inar told Dylan and the others. "I've been running a recovery program on her communication logs, most of which were destroyed, but it has uncovered one message from another hotel on Eos."

"Which hotel, where?" Rommie asked. A planet name narrowed down the search, but specifics were better.

"In the capital, Sauska. The hotel is called The Icarus," Inar replied.

That was all Dylan needed to hear. "Andromeda, plot a course." He quickly exited, with Tyr and Trance in tow.

Rommie followed. "It's already done."

The stars of the night sky were drowning in the light of Sauska. The streets were filled with people of questionable dress sense and piercings in every conceivable place. Neon glow illuminated shady activities and there were no visible authorities around. Harper used to haunt these places with Beka and Trance back in the day, whether they were trying to get rid of shady gear, or looking to acquire some.

Deven was walking in front, with Harper following, and Makar and Owen behind, ensuring he didn't try and go anywhere.

"They'll figure it out, you know. They'll come for me," Harper said, trying to convince himself as much as his captors. But shouldn't Andromeda have found him by now? It was a possibility that they still believed he was on his way to some care facility that probably didn't exist.

"Let them come," Deven scoffed.

A few angered shouts rose above the rest of the noise. They were coming from a gang of people not far away from where they were, and soon whatever heated argument they were having turned into a full on gun war. Deven continued walking her paths, but was momentarily distracted when a man with a gunshot wound almost ran her down.

This was the opportunity Harper was waiting for. He ran as fast as his legs could manage, shoving everyone out of his way and hoping to the Divine that he didn't get another muscle cramp. But it was like criminal Mardi Gras, and Harper soon lost track of which direction he was headed in. He turned around, trying to see a landmark to regain his bearings, but instead saw a large, unamused pilot, and the but of a gun coming towards his head. Then nothing.

The darkness subsided and Harper woke. It was a sad thing that he was so used to waking up from unconsciousness. There was no noise now, and the air was cooler, which meant he probably wasn't outside anymore. There were voices.

"We're now officially even, alright? Next time, it's full price." It was Deven.

"Next time, I'll do my own dirty work. This case was an exception." And another woman...but he knew that voice too... "Was it difficult?"

The light in the room sent needles into Harper's eyes when he tried to open them. His vision wasn't perfect; a drop of blood had travelled from his head wound into his eye.

"Nah, Ellis was a pushover. Getting onto Andromeda was pretty straight-forward. As for playing the caring doctor, I just pretended I was that counsellor we had on Calliope.; Who'd have thought two years of her shit would actually come in handy for something."

The second woman laughed.

Harper finally got used to the light and looked over to see who the voice belonged to, only to see Deven talking to a ghost.

Lane Farrow.

End of chapter thirteen

Next chapter: Grander Schemes