Meet Mara
The deep, private darkness of FTL travel held the Nasdenika gently. Mara checked their course. She would be dropping into sub-luminal speeds shortly, and soon would arrive at Balei’s station, which orbited an otherwise satellite-devoid young planet. She didn’t like how close they were to Narei, but she reminded herself that this was a simple bounty—she would be out of this corner of the galaxy, well-paid and onto the next job, in no time.
Mara yawned, stretching her body and flexing all her digits—a vestigial motion that would have extended sheathed claws back when the early nareians had ruled the tropical regions of their homeworld. She reached for the belt that held her knives at her waist—her own, modern interpretation of her ancestral retractable claws—and checked its various pockets and attachments. This routine, now so embedded in her tissue that it felt like a natural extension of the stretch, pulled the last of the sluggishness of space travel from her mind.
Mara touched the top of the control panel and floated back to her seat, directing herself with the deliberate motions of someone who had grown accustomed to moving in zero-G. She strapped herself into the captain’s chair and glanced over at the empty seat beside it, intended for an executive officer.
Of course, Tai had never been her XO. He hadn’t been the captain either—they used to bicker over whichever chair was nearest. Each had held the other’s life carefully, each responsible in equal measure for the other. But if she was being honest, she had always been the more serious of the two; she had also been the one less willing to hand over her safety. Tai had managed to coax out the carefree child that she had crumpled and stuffed into a dark, musty corner. To open her up, to know her entire complex history even with its danger.
But she had still always trusted herself just a little more than she trusted him.
The galaxy had a brutal sense of humor. In the end, she had been the one who had endangered them. The oppressive breath of her former life was hot on the back of her neck. It was still pursuing her—of this, she was certain.
Mara flicked a glance at the video screen. Her bounty, Velkar, was still strapped into his chair in the small cell, safely contained. He was barrel-chested for a szacante, but still rather slim compared to most of the other races Mara was in contact with most frequently. He glared at the camera, his VA giving a similar glare through her shimmery holographic projection. Mara had jammed Velkar’s personal communication channel, naturally, but there was no way to stop the VA from showing herself. Or talking, aloud or privately to Velkar. But that was all she could do, and for now the two were just glowering. Mara flashed a wicked grin she knew they could not see.
She may not be comfortable with her proximity to Narei, but this job paid well, and every expensive job she pulled brought her a step farther ahead. Widened the gap her pursuers had to cross. Money and power were nothing to them, but they didn’t understand the dark underside of the galaxy that Mara now called home. She was earning currency they couldn’t spend, and every assignment she took mapped out a new network, expanded her reach into the dark parts of space that most of civilized nareian culture believed to be empty.
“I’ll pay you whatever he’s paying you,” Velkar shouted from the back.
“So you noticed we’re getting close.”
“I’ll double what he’s paying,” the szacante responded.
“Balei would just hire someone else,” she said. “And as much as I would love double pay for less work, I have a reputation to uphold. That’s something you should have considered for yourself before you skipped on a job half done.”
Velkar muttered what Mara was sure were obscenities, but she couldn’t be bothered to listen. His VA flickered away, clearly realizing that the double glower wasn’t any more effective than the single one.
Balei’s space station was as opulent as one would expect for someone who hired a bounty hunter over a botched job and a stolen down payment. Mara watched its gleaming metal frame grow in the screens as they approached. The structure was far larger than any one individual could possibly need. Of course, it was perhaps a reasonable size for the headquarters of a crime syndicate.
The bounty on Velkar would be pocket change to someone of Balei’s standing, but Mara knew it wasn’t about the money. It was never really about the money.
They docked, and Velkar squirmed against the firm grip she held on him as she dragged him down the corridor from the shuttle port. The escort Balei had sent to accompany them walked briskly alongside, indifferent to Velkar’s struggle, but his weapon was displayed clearly and she knew he would be trained to use it.
When they reached Balei’s office, the tall doors swung open. Balei’s chair appeared empty behind the heavy metal desk, but Mara approached with a swift determination. She came to a stop a few meters from the desk, jerking the arm of the szacante to bring him up to her side. She looked directly at the chair and spoke:
“I haven’t got all day for your magic tricks. Here’s your offender. My job is done.”
Balei seemed to materialize from the air itself as his skin shifted back to its natural deep purple. He rose from his desk, all four long and slender arms fanning out to frame his bare, narrow torso like wings. He wore no clothing, which would be surprising in the lair of a tycoon of any other race, and even downright scandalous in others. But Balei was krolin, and the krolin didn’t care for physical adornments. Their superb camouflaging ability was their crown and scepter.
Every race believed itself to be uniquely gifted, but by the gods of Narei, if the krolin didn’t see themselves as the true and destined rulers of the entire fucking galaxy, Mara would eat her own knife.
Balei smiled, an expression that oozed across his face. Mara didn’t return it. Instead she tightened her grip on Velkar.
“Twenty percent of what he owed,” she reminded Balei. “That was the agreement. In dark credits.”
There had been a time when she was a reputable bounty hunter on the payroll of governments across the galaxy. But she had fled the system after the Olean job had robbed her of her partner and what small aura of safety she had wrapped around herself, and now the only jobs available to her were outside of law enforcement. Fortunately, those were also the jobs most willing to pay in the thriving but very illegal dark credit system.
Balei scoffed, and she thought for a moment that he sounded like his feelings had been wounded. She moved her free hand to her hip, cocking her elbow out and fixing Balei with a firm stare. He didn’t hire her to entertain his emotional needs, and she sure as hell wasn’t going to let that become an implicit part of the deal.
Balei met her stare and waved to a member of his staff behind her. One of the two Krolin guards approached, grabbing Velkar with two arms. He extended one of his remaining arms toward Mara, opening his hand to reveal a small drive. She connected it to her palm drive and ran a scan, the tech checking the credits’ encryption and ensuring they weren’t traceable.
“You have a magic trick of your own,” Balei remarked. “Your own camouflage.”
She raised a thick eyebrow at him. He nodded to her arms. Her sleeves were rolled up to above her elbows, tattoos obscuring the natural pattern of her skin. The nareians had lost the dense fur coating of their ancestors long ago, but they retained patterning on their skin. Mara had covered nearly every inch of her skin with patterns of her own. Her arms were sleeved in connected vines, twining across her shoulders in a pattern with no start or end. Hidden on her back, beneath her shirt, was a stylized flame: a nareian counter-culture symbol and her first tattoo, acquired mainly to spite her mother. Even her face, clear of most natural markings, carried two tattoos on each cheek.
“I like how they look,” Mara said.
“It only covers who you used to be. It doesn’t help you hide.”
“I do just fine,” she said. Her scan finished, and Balei watched her.
“Acceptable?” he asked, his tone mocking.
“Exactly as agreed. You know how to reach me if you need my services again.”
“Unfortunately,” Balei said, “I don’t think you will be available next time.”
Fuck. Mara already had a knife ready in her hand when the second guard raised two guns. Every hair on her body stood on end in the electric thrill of fear and adrenaline.
“I’m not sure what you’ll get from killing me,” Mara said. “Twenty percent of a down payment?”
“It’s not your fee that is valuable,” Balei said. “You call yourself Zamya, but since our last meeting, I’ve learned your true name. And that you are as much in demand as a bounty as you are as a hunter.”
Mara did not miss the look of surprise on Velkar’s face. She should have been surprised as well, considering the vastness of the galaxy. The odds that her family would find her through a petty krolin smuggling tyrant were about the same as her ship colliding with one of theirs in deep space. Yet she wasn’t surprised—she was always expecting this moment, although she couldn’t have anticipated when or where it would occur.
“And what exactly did they offer you?” she asked. She wasn’t listening for his answer, she just wanted him to talk. The longer he talked, the more time she had to think. To find a way out of this fucking mess.
The guards would have strict instruction not to kill her. She knew the price of her retrieval would be far surpassed by the punishment for her death. No, she was a bounty he needed alive. But although she was certain they wouldn’t kill her, she was less certain about her ability to overpower three krolin with four arms apiece when they tried to stop her from going through that door. And then there was Velkar—right now, he was a wild card.
Balei knew what she was up to, though. The jackass was smarter than he looked. He gave a low chuckle and replied:
“You know your worth. Now I do as well.”
“Then you’re also aware that by having your bodyguards even point those weapons at me, you risk losing everything. Or should I assume those guns are nonlethal?”
She saw Velkar’s face twitch at that—just the slightest shock of recognition. She wondered what his VA was whispering to him in his ear right now. Interesting, she thought. Sometimes, you have to play the wild card.
Mara raised her arms slowly in a gesture of surrender, the knife still clutched in one. She began to lean forward, lowering the knife toward the ground.
“I know when I’m beat,” she said, and glanced over at Velkar. He was watching her closely. Good.
With a twist of her torso, she sent the knife spinning from her hand straight into the neck of the krolin with the guns. Her other hand grasped the pistol in her utility belt and pulled it free, sliding it across the room toward Velkar, who twisted out of the grip of the shocked krolin that had been holding him. Mara pulled another knife from her belt and flung it toward the grand desk. It seemed to pause in midair, and then Balei reappeared. The knife was sunk between his eyes.
Velkar grabbed Mara’s gun and whirled, shooting the one remaining krolin guard. Three wild shots, but one of them found its target. Sudden silence rang in Mara’s ears. It wouldn’t be long before more guards arrived.
“Call it even?” she asked.
Velkar’s VA flickered back into view, and Mara stepped back. They weren’t physical objects, but she still didn’t like standing so near to them.
“If you give me a ride back to Aisen,” Velkar replied. “You left my ship there.”
“I’ll do you one better,” Mara said. “I’ll get you Balei’s shuttle and you drive it wherever the fuck you want.”
Velkar smiled, a smug and satisfied expression. “Deal.”
Mara yawned, stretching her body and flexing all her digits—a vestigial motion that would have extended sheathed claws back when the early nareians had ruled the tropical regions of their homeworld. She reached for the belt that held her knives at her waist—her own, modern interpretation of her ancestral retractable claws—and checked its various pockets and attachments. This routine, now so embedded in her tissue that it felt like a natural extension of the stretch, pulled the last of the sluggishness of space travel from her mind.
Mara touched the top of the control panel and floated back to her seat, directing herself with the deliberate motions of someone who had grown accustomed to moving in zero-G. She strapped herself into the captain’s chair and glanced over at the empty seat beside it, intended for an executive officer.
Of course, Tai had never been her XO. He hadn’t been the captain either—they used to bicker over whichever chair was nearest. Each had held the other’s life carefully, each responsible in equal measure for the other. But if she was being honest, she had always been the more serious of the two; she had also been the one less willing to hand over her safety. Tai had managed to coax out the carefree child that she had crumpled and stuffed into a dark, musty corner. To open her up, to know her entire complex history even with its danger.
But she had still always trusted herself just a little more than she trusted him.
The galaxy had a brutal sense of humor. In the end, she had been the one who had endangered them. The oppressive breath of her former life was hot on the back of her neck. It was still pursuing her—of this, she was certain.
Mara flicked a glance at the video screen. Her bounty, Velkar, was still strapped into his chair in the small cell, safely contained. He was barrel-chested for a szacante, but still rather slim compared to most of the other races Mara was in contact with most frequently. He glared at the camera, his VA giving a similar glare through her shimmery holographic projection. Mara had jammed Velkar’s personal communication channel, naturally, but there was no way to stop the VA from showing herself. Or talking, aloud or privately to Velkar. But that was all she could do, and for now the two were just glowering. Mara flashed a wicked grin she knew they could not see.
She may not be comfortable with her proximity to Narei, but this job paid well, and every expensive job she pulled brought her a step farther ahead. Widened the gap her pursuers had to cross. Money and power were nothing to them, but they didn’t understand the dark underside of the galaxy that Mara now called home. She was earning currency they couldn’t spend, and every assignment she took mapped out a new network, expanded her reach into the dark parts of space that most of civilized nareian culture believed to be empty.
“I’ll pay you whatever he’s paying you,” Velkar shouted from the back.
“So you noticed we’re getting close.”
“I’ll double what he’s paying,” the szacante responded.
“Balei would just hire someone else,” she said. “And as much as I would love double pay for less work, I have a reputation to uphold. That’s something you should have considered for yourself before you skipped on a job half done.”
Velkar muttered what Mara was sure were obscenities, but she couldn’t be bothered to listen. His VA flickered away, clearly realizing that the double glower wasn’t any more effective than the single one.
Balei’s space station was as opulent as one would expect for someone who hired a bounty hunter over a botched job and a stolen down payment. Mara watched its gleaming metal frame grow in the screens as they approached. The structure was far larger than any one individual could possibly need. Of course, it was perhaps a reasonable size for the headquarters of a crime syndicate.
The bounty on Velkar would be pocket change to someone of Balei’s standing, but Mara knew it wasn’t about the money. It was never really about the money.
They docked, and Velkar squirmed against the firm grip she held on him as she dragged him down the corridor from the shuttle port. The escort Balei had sent to accompany them walked briskly alongside, indifferent to Velkar’s struggle, but his weapon was displayed clearly and she knew he would be trained to use it.
When they reached Balei’s office, the tall doors swung open. Balei’s chair appeared empty behind the heavy metal desk, but Mara approached with a swift determination. She came to a stop a few meters from the desk, jerking the arm of the szacante to bring him up to her side. She looked directly at the chair and spoke:
“I haven’t got all day for your magic tricks. Here’s your offender. My job is done.”
Balei seemed to materialize from the air itself as his skin shifted back to its natural deep purple. He rose from his desk, all four long and slender arms fanning out to frame his bare, narrow torso like wings. He wore no clothing, which would be surprising in the lair of a tycoon of any other race, and even downright scandalous in others. But Balei was krolin, and the krolin didn’t care for physical adornments. Their superb camouflaging ability was their crown and scepter.
Every race believed itself to be uniquely gifted, but by the gods of Narei, if the krolin didn’t see themselves as the true and destined rulers of the entire fucking galaxy, Mara would eat her own knife.
Balei smiled, an expression that oozed across his face. Mara didn’t return it. Instead she tightened her grip on Velkar.
“Twenty percent of what he owed,” she reminded Balei. “That was the agreement. In dark credits.”
There had been a time when she was a reputable bounty hunter on the payroll of governments across the galaxy. But she had fled the system after the Olean job had robbed her of her partner and what small aura of safety she had wrapped around herself, and now the only jobs available to her were outside of law enforcement. Fortunately, those were also the jobs most willing to pay in the thriving but very illegal dark credit system.
Balei scoffed, and she thought for a moment that he sounded like his feelings had been wounded. She moved her free hand to her hip, cocking her elbow out and fixing Balei with a firm stare. He didn’t hire her to entertain his emotional needs, and she sure as hell wasn’t going to let that become an implicit part of the deal.
Balei met her stare and waved to a member of his staff behind her. One of the two Krolin guards approached, grabbing Velkar with two arms. He extended one of his remaining arms toward Mara, opening his hand to reveal a small drive. She connected it to her palm drive and ran a scan, the tech checking the credits’ encryption and ensuring they weren’t traceable.
“You have a magic trick of your own,” Balei remarked. “Your own camouflage.”
She raised a thick eyebrow at him. He nodded to her arms. Her sleeves were rolled up to above her elbows, tattoos obscuring the natural pattern of her skin. The nareians had lost the dense fur coating of their ancestors long ago, but they retained patterning on their skin. Mara had covered nearly every inch of her skin with patterns of her own. Her arms were sleeved in connected vines, twining across her shoulders in a pattern with no start or end. Hidden on her back, beneath her shirt, was a stylized flame: a nareian counter-culture symbol and her first tattoo, acquired mainly to spite her mother. Even her face, clear of most natural markings, carried two tattoos on each cheek.
“I like how they look,” Mara said.
“It only covers who you used to be. It doesn’t help you hide.”
“I do just fine,” she said. Her scan finished, and Balei watched her.
“Acceptable?” he asked, his tone mocking.
“Exactly as agreed. You know how to reach me if you need my services again.”
“Unfortunately,” Balei said, “I don’t think you will be available next time.”
Fuck. Mara already had a knife ready in her hand when the second guard raised two guns. Every hair on her body stood on end in the electric thrill of fear and adrenaline.
“I’m not sure what you’ll get from killing me,” Mara said. “Twenty percent of a down payment?”
“It’s not your fee that is valuable,” Balei said. “You call yourself Zamya, but since our last meeting, I’ve learned your true name. And that you are as much in demand as a bounty as you are as a hunter.”
Mara did not miss the look of surprise on Velkar’s face. She should have been surprised as well, considering the vastness of the galaxy. The odds that her family would find her through a petty krolin smuggling tyrant were about the same as her ship colliding with one of theirs in deep space. Yet she wasn’t surprised—she was always expecting this moment, although she couldn’t have anticipated when or where it would occur.
“And what exactly did they offer you?” she asked. She wasn’t listening for his answer, she just wanted him to talk. The longer he talked, the more time she had to think. To find a way out of this fucking mess.
The guards would have strict instruction not to kill her. She knew the price of her retrieval would be far surpassed by the punishment for her death. No, she was a bounty he needed alive. But although she was certain they wouldn’t kill her, she was less certain about her ability to overpower three krolin with four arms apiece when they tried to stop her from going through that door. And then there was Velkar—right now, he was a wild card.
Balei knew what she was up to, though. The jackass was smarter than he looked. He gave a low chuckle and replied:
“You know your worth. Now I do as well.”
“Then you’re also aware that by having your bodyguards even point those weapons at me, you risk losing everything. Or should I assume those guns are nonlethal?”
She saw Velkar’s face twitch at that—just the slightest shock of recognition. She wondered what his VA was whispering to him in his ear right now. Interesting, she thought. Sometimes, you have to play the wild card.
Mara raised her arms slowly in a gesture of surrender, the knife still clutched in one. She began to lean forward, lowering the knife toward the ground.
“I know when I’m beat,” she said, and glanced over at Velkar. He was watching her closely. Good.
With a twist of her torso, she sent the knife spinning from her hand straight into the neck of the krolin with the guns. Her other hand grasped the pistol in her utility belt and pulled it free, sliding it across the room toward Velkar, who twisted out of the grip of the shocked krolin that had been holding him. Mara pulled another knife from her belt and flung it toward the grand desk. It seemed to pause in midair, and then Balei reappeared. The knife was sunk between his eyes.
Velkar grabbed Mara’s gun and whirled, shooting the one remaining krolin guard. Three wild shots, but one of them found its target. Sudden silence rang in Mara’s ears. It wouldn’t be long before more guards arrived.
“Call it even?” she asked.
Velkar’s VA flickered back into view, and Mara stepped back. They weren’t physical objects, but she still didn’t like standing so near to them.
“If you give me a ride back to Aisen,” Velkar replied. “You left my ship there.”
“I’ll do you one better,” Mara said. “I’ll get you Balei’s shuttle and you drive it wherever the fuck you want.”
Velkar smiled, a smug and satisfied expression. “Deal.”
