A/N: This little scene was originally a part of Chapter 10 of 'Man of Principle.' I liked it, but I felt it interrupted the story flow, so I cut it out. I don't really have another story to put it in, but I wanted to share this little bit about Derrial Book's enigmatic friend. She'll be more prominent in 'Man of Conscience,' the Book backstory that I've been promising forever.
Sister Risa stood at the window of the high-rise a mile north of Eavesdown Docks, fingering her prayer beads as she gazed out at the shabby little port. On this tiny world, the horizon was so close that Soupcan Alley's streets lay hidden under its faint curve. But the noses of the tailsitters stood tall and clearly visible, even in the fading light.
Beside her in the small unlit room, which was lined with shelves holding office and cleaning supplies, a two-meter-long rifle stood waist-high in its tripod mount, the end of its barrel a meter from the open window. The meter-square clear panel which had originally filled the opening now stood against the wall, removed both to prevent refraction errors and to keep it from exploding in a shower of molten glass when she fired - ordinary glass was nearly transparent to the invisible beam, but these panels had been treated for low emissivity and tint adjustment. The shoulder stock and trigger mechanism hung over a small table she had liberated from a nearby office, along with a small stool. The scope on the weapon, sighted on the bridge window of the Peregrine, was larger than a whiskey bottle.
The rig whirred faintly from its internal fan, keeping the coils, which were on standby, from overheating. A finger-thick cable ran from a plug on the mount to an open service panel on the wall behind her. At this point, leaving it connected was unnecessary. Though the connection still served to keep the fan and scope from draining the power cell, the rifle was fully charged. It was good for only a single shot before recharging, and recharging it the first time had taken most of an hour, but Risa was unconcerned. One shot would be enough.
Her thumb and forefinger slid down the string of beads as she counted her verses. She had told Brother Derrial that she was joking when she had said she would need to do a penance for her pride, but she was doing one nevertheless. Risa had known Derrial Book, as a boy and a man, since puberty had begun to test her virtue with woman's desires. It had been many years since a truly prurient thought involving him had risen to her mind, but he stood high in her estimation and her affections; a compliment from him, whether on her looks or her cleverness or her skill at silent killing, never failed to tickle her vanity.
The Templar 'nun' looked out through the deepening gloom to the blunt shovel-blade shape of Peregrine's nose, and the windows of its bridge. She knew its captain Bo Bien well too, though they had never met. She knew him from the lengthy file in the Abbey's 'reading room,' and from gossip in Eavesdown's market, and from the bloody lips of men she had questioned, the last not four days since. He led a gang of 'mercenaries' - bandits and thieves really, who sometimes took pay for what they usually did for loot. His criminal career had started early and shown great promise, and he had lived up to that promise, his transgressions and cruelties growing ever more heinous. It was unlikely such a man would ever reform. As she had told her old friend, letting him live another twenty years would never bring him to salvation, and letting him live another week would only widen the wake of suffering he left behind when called to meet his Maker.
She realized that she had stopped reciting. A quick check of the beads between her fingers showed that she had one passage remaining in her self-imposed penance.
"I am but a humble instrument," she murmured. Like the gun beside her, she did not choose her targets; Our Lord revealed them to her and led them into her crosshairs. "Only show me Your plan for me, and give me the strength and the tools to fulfill it, that I may serve Your will."
A tiny green light winked on at the back of the scope, followed by a soft beep in her ear bud: motion in its field of view. She quickly took the stool and leaned over the table to settle into a sniper's rest as she looked through the scope. In its digitally-enhanced image, a man not Bien was fiddling with something at the comm console. She waited, keeping her finger out of the trigger guard. She felt relaxed, at peace, as if she were alone in the chapel with God. "To protect the innocent..."
Bien's silhouette appeared in the door. He took a step forward, reaching down for something; she shifted the big weapon a hair, anticipating, and his right hand rose into the center of the sight picture, holding a palm mike a hand's width from his face. Her finger rested, light as a butterfly, upon the trigger. "…to seek the right ..."
Bien, like most men who pleasured in taking what they wanted from the weak, was a rapist. Risa stared at that hand, certain that it had travelled over the bruised and trembling flesh of many an unwilling woman.
Never again. As delicately as touching a taper to a candle, she applied the final gram of pressure. "…and to deliver your justice. Amen."
A flash in the distant dark confirmed that she had struck her target. Risa was removing the weapon's scope before the thunderclap of the explosion reached her. Half a minute later, the weapon and its peripheral equipment were stowed in a pair of large cases. She briefly considered restoring the window and furniture to their rightful places, but decided against. Derrial's flock aboard Serenity would immediately fall under suspicion as agents of the attack; evidence to the contrary should not be made too hard to find.
She descended ten flights of stairs before entering an elevator. The car was empty. Halfway down, the elevator stopped and a man got on with her. He eyed her with appreciation, and her bags with curiosity. "Working late." The way he pronounced 'late' made her think he was a Core Worlder, possibly from Ariadne.
Adopting a native accent, she said with a little smile, "Oh, somebody just forgot to load some equipment we'll be needing offsite tomorrow. Once it's in the truck, I'm for home."
"Can I give you a hand?" He said, sounding hopeful. "They look heavy."
Risa reflected that the man, obviously hoping to insert himself into her plans for the evening, was probably young enough to be her child, though of course he didn't know that. Her smile widened. "They're on wheels. Really easy to move around. Thank you anyway."
He nodded, understanding that she had declined more than an offer of help. "You're going to lose your necklace."
"Necklace?"
"The one in your pocket." He glanced down at her hip.
A loop of Risa's prayer beads was hanging out of her hip pocket; she tucked the string in, pushing it down deep. "Thank you." She didn't want to get off on the same floor with this man, but he hadn't touched the selection panel when he had gotten on, so was bypassing the ground-floor transit station. "You're going to the garage?"
"Yes, I have a car." His hope rekindled. "Would you like a ride home?"
"I'm sure my husband would be grateful," she said. "He doesn't like me coming home late from work, and the transit route is pretty roundabout."
"Oh. I… I'm sorry, I just remembered an errand I have to run."
"Oh, that's all right. Thank you anyway."
When the door opened at their stop, she let him go out ahead, then turned in the opposite direction, though her path to her transport was the same way that he had gone. Bad enough she had been spotted in the building; she had no intention of letting a witness identify her vehicle. She waited, crouched among the rows of company cars, until a vehicle passed by on its way to the exit. Then she retraced her steps and brought her luggage to the nondescript little delivery van she had arrived in.
Once in the driver's seat, she gathered her hair, twisted into a tight cable, and bent it into a loop high on the back of her head, securing it with a small leather string. Topknot restored, she eased the vehicle toward the exit, and the Abbey.