Chapter 1

The Life of the Assassin

It was raining that night. That was the way the Assassin preferred to hunt. The dark clouds above her blocked out the stars of the night sky and allowed her to move across the rooftops, virtually invisible to the eyes of the street. She currently sat on the ledge of a tall building like a gargoyle watching the activity below; each raindrop reverberated in the Assassin's ears as it struck the black hood of her raincoat. Sitting in a state of complete silence and stillness, she watched from her rooftop vantage point as the constant flow of traffic diminished into a slow trickle and the night progressed in the streets below.

Her eyes constantly scanned up and down the street, always pausing at the front of the restaurant a block away and, as she had done countless times before, the Assassin waited with her sniper rifle held tightly against her body. Without moving anything except her eyes, she checked the watch on her wrist.

11:58, the hunt was almost complete. The slightest feeling of excitement passed through her body and she allowed a small smile to grace her otherwise stoic face. This was what she lived for. In a bounty hunter's life, catching the bounty was always one of the more exciting parts, but what she was doing now had a much different feel to it. These were no longer just bounties; there was something more primal to the hunt now.

A lone vehicle turned on to the street that the Assassin was watching and immediately killed their headlights in the darkness to avoid detection, but it was too late to fool the Assassin. She subtly checked her watch once more.

12:00

It's time, she thought, and she proceeded with the ritual that had been done dozens of times before. Bringing the scope of the rifle up to her eye, she blinked through the green glow of the infrared and watched the driver, of what she was able to confirm as a limousine, move the car closer to the front of the restaurant she had been watching. She slipped a single bullet out of her belt and inserted it into the rifle chamber; all that she would need.

As she had suspected, the limo stopped in front of the restaurant and two men in dark suites exited the back doors on either side of the car. Looking around cautiously in the rain, they had no chance of seeing the lone Assassin and her rifle on the tall building a block away.

Three, she thought, there are always three, two bodyguards and the mark. The bodyguards always exited the car first to scan the immediate area around the limousine, and the Assassin would always chuckle to herself. Though the strategy had failed countless times before, the ritualistic security of the Red Dragon remnants never changed.

And it happened the same way it had all those other times. Each guard gave his "all clear" sign and the mark timidly stepped out of the car. She adjusted her sight and brought the man's head into the center of her scope. Her deceptively delicate finger rested lightly on the trigger and she steadied her breathing.

The thrill of the chase was culminating now. She had felt this many times as a bounty hunter, but it was different now. The chase was no longer about the thrill or the bounty or the money. There was something much simpler that Faye Valentine strived for now: revenge.

She squeezed the trigger and blinked as she let the sound of the explosion ring in her ears. The guards could only watch in horror as the man fell limply onto the wet pavement. They took cover behind the limo and frantically searched the skyline for the unseen gunman, but it was far too late. Faye was gone.

The journey back to her single room apartment had been uneventful and her raincoat made it easy to conceal her four foot long rifle. The hits got easier every time; she had begun to learn the back alleys of Mars City a little better and the best ways to lose a tracker, if there ever was one, and each time the bodyguards heard of one more assassination their morale dropped lower and lower. She rarely had to worry about being chased by the guards; her shear presence had stopped the pursuers cold. And each time it became a little bit easier to find that perfect hiding spot and to create the plan of attack.

The hardest part was pulling the trigger. Each bullet that left her gun carried with it the pain that she had felt over the past few months and each Red Dragon that hit the ground brought to her a new feeling of remorse. She survived by not thinking about it too often.

She climbed the stairs of the apartment building and briskly walked down to the end of the hall where her apartment waited. Faye had taken to a utilitarian lifestyle since the death of Spike, she was reminded of it every time that she walked across the threshold of her apartment. As the five locks on the door clicked shut, Faye replaced the key into the tight pocket of her white pants, pulled out one of her pistols and scanned the room for anything that may have been moved out of place during her absence.

The advantage of have few possessions and a one room apartment was that there were few places for an intruder to hide and few objects of which to keep track. The room began in a small, barren entryway leading into the main room. Before proceeding into the larger area, she peeked through the bathroom door on her right, flicked on the light switch and took a quick scan of her simple, yet clean bathroom with a small stand-up shower.

She glared at the shower and sighed. It was after nights like tonight that she wished she were back on the Bebop and soaking in the warm water of the bathtub, even if the tub was dirty. She quickly shook the thought away, this was no time to reminisce; she needed to complete her patrol of the apartment. She closed the bathroom door and moved on into the main room.

Between two barred and curtained windows on the far wall from the door sat a simple cot with a single blanket that would have looked more appropriate in a military barracks rather than in the apartment of a woman known for her love of life's finer comforts. The stiff bed paralleled a small view-screen set on a rickety table that looked as if a single heavy book would buckle its spindly metal legs. To the side of the cot, situated in the corner of the room was the punching bag and it was, by Faye's reckoning, the most frequently used object in the room.

Her eyes scanned the desk on the far wall as she walked in which served as her homemade gun maintenance shop. She preferred to keep a low profile in the city and she felt that bringing a sniper rifle to a gunsmith every week for cleaning and repairs was not the best way to do it. Along with assorted spare parts and rifling tools, the desk was a miniature assembly line for bullets and small explosives with boxes of used shell casings and gun powder littered the table and the area around it.

The wall above her desk was the only place where she allowed herself to feel remorse for the work she had done over the past months. It was covered in a large corkboard which Faye had collaged with the faces of all the people connected to the Red Dragons; that she knew of. Many of the faces were mug-shots that she had hacked out of the Inter Solar System Police database, others were surveillance shots that she had received from those that made gathering information their forte, and others were simple drawings that Faye had created based on rumors and personal descriptions. More than half of the portraits had been X'ed out by a red marker to indicate that the owner to the face had been eliminated. The board was crude, but it kept her on track of where she was going and it didn't let her forget those that she had killed.

The room turned another corner into a narrow kitchen featuring a virtually unused stove, sink and refrigerator save for the scattered boxes of take-out food in its shelves. The cupboards held a few dusty plates and a healthy supply of canned goods and dry rations. Faye found that she was too busy or tired to cook most nights and, since she wasn't very good at it, decided to give it up all together. The oven had also been broken for weeks now, making cold leftovers and unheated canned produce a regular occurrence.

She gave a small sigh of relief and replaced her pistol into its holster after searching the apartment to her satisfaction. She felt safe in her apartment, but being careful was something that came with the job of hunting down the leaders of an organized crime syndicate. Depositing her dripping raincoat onto the hooks next to the door, Faye made her way over to the wall of pictures and stared up at the same face that she had viewed through the scope of her sniper rifle earlier that night.

"Takeya Yamaguchi" was the caption on the bottom of the mug-shot. Faye knew very little about him; only that during the height of the Red Dragons he had been involved in the leaching of money from local businesses in the city to finance the organized crime syndicate, and had been arrested twice for extortion but never convicted. She uncapped the pen in her hand and drew two crossing red lines through the man's face.

Her eyes moistened as she thought about what her life had become, a wall covered in the faces of dead men. She would always remind herself, this is the life that you chose after Spike died, they can't be allowed to hurt others like they hurt us. But then a realization struck her, "us" she thought, I haven't seen or heard from Ed in over three months, Jet hardly supports what I'm doing, and Spike… I sad cough escaped her lips and she scowled at the ground, now you can't start crying every time you think of him, pull it together. She quickly wiped the short trail of tears from her cheek and checked her watch:

2:23 AM.

Her exhaustion suddenly hit her; it was too late to think about those things. She groggily made her way over to her stiff cot and laid down, pulling the thin blanket over her. She watched the fan make a few rotations before her eyes blurred and she let her strained emotions and body rest.

"…the accident left thirteen wounded and one woman dead. – In other news: a body was found in the streets of Mars City this morning. ISSP has yet to release the victim's name but one witness told CBC News that he recognized the man as a well known businessman in the city.

'Yeah I seen him down here all the time. He's always eatin' at Takeda's restaurant next to my shop. I can't believe someone killed him…'

"ISSP did give us these details: he died at approximately 12:30 last night and police say this is not the only case like this that they are investigating. According to ISSP, this latest homicide may be linked to many others that have occurred in Mars City in recent months. Are we in the midst of a serial killer? We'll hear from the experts…"

Faye sat up and wiped the sleep from her eyes. The morning light shining through the slits of the window blinds bathed the otherwise darkened room in parallel lines of weak light. She glanced at the watch still remaining on her wrist from the night before: 8:04 AM. Her eyes raised to the view-screen, now blaring a commercial for a new energy drink, the message in the bottom corner flashed: "-ALARM 8:00 AM – ALARM 8:00 AM – ALARM 8:00 AM…" She slid her still booted feet off of her cot and onto the floor, stretching her arms into the air trying to ward off the grogginess that plagued her.

After a cold breakfast of at-least-three-day-old takeout and a quick shower to cleanse her of the night before, she slipped on her red coat and headed out the door.

Late again, she thought, I'm not looking forward to more long winded speeches.

"… I don't know how things were at those other casinos you worked at, but we here at Lucky Cowboy's expect you to be on time everyday Ms. Valentine!" the floor manager of the casino rambled on for the third time this month. Taro Matsuda was a tall, bulky man with an intimidating black goatee. Though he always wore a custom tailored business suit to work, one couldn't help but picture him more appropriately dressed in a wrestler's leotard, ready to throw a dwarfed competitor over his head. His unique stature and trademark goatee allowed the casino floor manager to double as the head of security for the small casino on the edge of the gambling district. Presently, he was performing his floor manager duties and lecturing a bored Faye about her tardiness.

"When I told you last time to be at your table by 8:00 A.M., it didn't mean do it for a few days and you get the next morning off!" the giant man yelled down at Faye, who was a full foot short than her supervisor.

Faye Valentine kept her eyes fixed on the hulking figure towering over her. This was neither the first nor the last time that she had heard this lecture and she had gotten used to the man's rants weeks ago; she was far from intimidated. The fact was that Lucky Cowboy's Bar & Casino made a handsome profit by stealing money from its customers. This was nothing new in the gaming district of Mars City, the tables in most of the casinos were fixed or weighted in some way to insure that no one won more than the casino was willing to give.

What separated Lucky Cowboy's from every other crooked table was Faye's unmatched card-sharking expertise. Not only did she fleece more money off of her customers than any other dealer at the casino, the players never suspected a thing. In fact, most of the men came back to her table the next night, continuing to flirt with the woman and ogle her curvaceous figure. No, Faye wasn't worried.

Still glaring at the cold stare of Faye, Mr. Matsuda gave a low sigh that seemed to alleviate his anger and relax his aggressive posture. "Faye…" his voice settling into a softer tone. Then the moment came that justified her confidence and allowed the woman to sit there with a smug expression on her face. "You know as well as I do that we can't afford to let you go, but you can't keep coming in late like this. Hell, we even tried docking your hours to show you we were serious until some of the customers requested you back," he chuckled to himself, "your just too talented for your own good."

"It's the fans that make the star, Taro," using her most light and playful voice and making sure to use his first name to let him and those listening know that the scolding hadn't phased her. "I'll see what I can do in the future, but I can't make any promises." Faye turned and walked away, giving an uncaring backhand wave to an incredulous looking 220 lbs man.

It was going to be a long day.

The casino served two purposes in Faye's life: to give her enough money to scrape by and to gather information about the lingering Red Dragons from the seedy businessmen that graced her table. There were hundreds of rumors floating around the city regarding the mysterious crime syndicate and it took Faye half the day to sort through the ones that made their way into the Lucky Cowboy and pick out the tips that could possibly lead her to her goal. The bartender, a woman named Nadia, had been the most successful at getting good leads and Faye had paid her handsomely for them, almost half of her paycheck each week. The fee was also to ensure that the bartender didn't start telling her customers that there was a woman working there that was interested in any information about the Red Dragons. Nadia assured her that it would never happen.

"Just had a man at my bar tell me he's scheduled to escort someone tomorrow night. I figured he was a bodyguard so I gave him the usual," Faye knew that the usual meant free drinks until you couldn't feel you lips talking, "and before he knew it, he told me he was going to be down by the Eastside Docks at around 11 pm tomorrow if I wanted to stop by for a quickie before he started work." Nadia finished, giving Faye a shared smirk. They weren't close friends, hardly talking outside of the casino, but both knew that they shared a very effective common weapon, their curves. "Sounded like he may be a newbie, he seemed kind of nervous about this job tomorrow," Nadia added, "his hands were shakin' a bit."

Faye was a little disappointed to hear that. The new bodyguards were always put with the small lieutenants, which meant that tomorrow night would just be another small blow to the Red Dragons.

"Thanks," Faye spoke softly so that only Nadia could hear, then raising her voice as she stood up from the table where the two women had been sitting, "yeah, I know I'm not special Nadia, I'll try to be here on time." She turned to walk away from the table, giving Nadia a very small grin. "God, it's like I've got two bosses breathing down my neck all the time."

Another sniper job, another night spent on a rooftop. Faye sighed to herself as she started her climb up the stairs to the top of the building adjacent to the Eastside Docks, a picked lock and a hacked security system behind her. The hunt was becoming tedious these days. Her goal was to make the Red Dragons suffer for what they had done, but each one she assassinated seemed to be replaced within days, and the rumors and leads that she got hardly ever pertained to anything higher than low lieutenants. She knew there was the beginnings of a new high council controlling the Dragons, she just had no idea how to find them, and finding them was going to be the hardest part.

She was confident in her abilities once she found them. Her assassination skills had been honed during the past few months to the point where she was now practically invisible. None of her targets ever saw their death approaching and none of the guards saw her as she left. She had it down to a science.

But each stair that passed underfoot reminded her of the monotony that this science had brought. Is it worth it? she thought, does the high council even notice the thorn I put in their side? Her thoughts focused as they fell on Spike. It doesn't matter how I feel, this is what has to be done. I can't stop, not until the Red Dragons are gone and my job is done.

Faye's eyes looked up the stairs with new purpose cemented in them. She adjusted the strap of her rifle to secure it to her back and began a brisk jog up the rest of the stairs, red jacket sweeping out behind her as she ran up the last set towards the rooftop door.

Cool air blushed her cheeks as she quietly made her way out of the stairwell towards the lip of the building. The night was clear but no moonlight graces the surface of Mars so Faye still felt secure at her dark perch. The only sounds she could hear where the engines of distant airships and the water slopping against the side of the docks. She took a quick scan of the dock where Nadia said that the bodyguard would be but couldn't see anyone. Taking her eyes off of the dock, she checked her watch.

10:41

She slipped the rifle off of her shoulder and propped it up on the short wall surrounding the roof. Crouching down, she gazed over the edge of the wall and waited.

A few minutes later, Faye heard a car driving in from the opposite side of the docks. A little early, she thought. She squinted through the darkness but couldn't make out any details about the car. Figuring that it was most likely the standard issue limousine that all the lieutenants were transported in, she readied her rifle and peered through the infrared scope at the distant car. Through the enhancement of the scope, the assassin could see that the car was a simple black sedan and only two men got out of the car, both burly looking and with the telltale bulge of a sidearm on the sides of their coats leaving no doubt that they were simple bodyguards. But where is the mark?

Another car pulled up next to the first soon after. That's odd, she thought, the bodyguards and the mark never come in two separate cars. But she was fooled once again; the doors to the recently arrived car opened and two more guards stepped out, straightening their jackets. Moments later, a third and fourth identical car pulled into the docks and two more guards exited from each sedan.

Eight guards? She felt anxiety begin to nip at her from the edges of her mind. Her heart began to beat louder and the sounds of the airships seemed to press in on her ears. This wasn't some low level lieutenant; it couldn't be, not with eight guards! Her anxiety mixed with excitement. Maybe this was it, a member of the high council! Whoever it was, the Red Dragons didn't want to loose them. The excitement completely overtook her anxiety; this was exactly what she was looking for, a real blow to the Red Dragons and she stumbled upon it unwittingly. So where is he? She scanned the entrances to the docks, looking for the limousine that would be carrying the V.I.P, the sounds of the world around her humming in her ears.

Suddenly, she could pick out the sound of a single airship amongst the background noise. The buzz of the engines grew into a deafening roar and she turned to see a small transport ship pass directly above her. The landing lights on the ship illuminated her as it passed by and she pressed herself down against the wall to shield herself from the eyes of the upward gazing bodyguards.

After she heard the landing supports touch down, she brought her rifle up and rested her support arm on the top of the wall; she didn't want to miss her shot. The scene she saw through the glow of her night-vision scope pushed the anxiety back into her mind. There were now only six guards making two lines of three on either side of a ramp that had been extended from the transport. She could almost see their hands shaking at their sides while they tried to stand as tall as possible; each one looking nervously up the ramp.

A single cloaked figure moved down the ramp with such grace, Faye wondered if the person was hovering. The cowl of the cloak obscured the face of the V.I.P. but she could tell that whoever this person was, the bodyguards were visibly frightened. Faye slipped a bullet from her belt and began to place it in the chamber of her sniper rifle; whoever it was, they would be dead soon enough.

The cloaked figure stopped in the middle of the six guards and Faye heard a voice carry up from the group of Red Dragons that made her pause, a woman's voice. It was beautiful, almost sounding melodic, yet something told Faye that she should dread hearing it. "You are no longer needed," spoke the darkened face of the mysterious figure. The guards looked at each other, wondering if they were being released from this duty that they obviously felt was torture.

Yet in a flash, her intentions were clear. The cloaked woman flung her arms out of the long sleeves of the cloaks and, in the same instant, daggers appeared from the chests of two of the guards. Before the remaining four even realized what had happened to their companions, a leg swept low with enough force to trip two of the guards and the figure spun to face the remaining two. In a blur that Faye could barely follow, a new knife appeared in the hand of the dexterous woman that swiftly made its way crossed the necks of the two obviously bewildered guards. As those two hit the ground, the figure grabbed the two thrown daggers out of her victims' chests and walked calmly over to the two unconscious guards to finish the job. None of the guards had even made it to their guns.

Faye stared at the scene with wide eyes, paralyzed by what she saw. This was no high councilman, she shouldn't be here. She lowered her rifle and backed away from the edge of the roof, turning to make her way back to the stairs only to get a quick glance of the seventh guard and the hilt of the pistol that hit her on the side of the head. Her vision went black before she hit the ground.