The value of a Name: Part 6
21 Sep 2016Cartlidge1000
“So how do we find him now?” Ten asked as we climbed up the access ladder to the Paladin’s rear access hatch.“Well, we can assume the Custodian has been alerted about us, so from this point on we need to expect counterattacks. The only thing we can do now is keep moving and try to gather information in rumor hot spots.” It wasn’t a very efficient process, but it was the best we could do for now.
“Very well,” Ten said as she sat in the copilot seat.
We started jumping from system to system, checking each for any rumors and occasionally skipping systems in case we were being followed. Somehow we started in Federation space, transitioned to Kumo space, followed by Imperial space, then back to Federation space. Most either hadn’t heard of him, or refused to share any information about him. At this point I figured that it was very well possible that “he” was actually a woman for all we knew.
“Still no news reports,” Ten announced, her face almost buried in the datapad I had handed to her. We were walking back to the ship after another unsuccessful attempt at finding information. The security had no records of him, no one of the bar had heard of him, even the local gang insisted that they didn’t associate with the Kumo crew.
“I honestly can’t figure out how someone so notorious can hide so easily like this.” It was downright strange. If he was gathering slaves in bulk, there should’ve been at least some reports on it.
“What do you think we should do?” Ten asked.
“I’ve got one more idea. If anyone has done any work with him, it’ll be other commanders. We’ll try and ask some other pilots.” We reached a fork in the hallway with one turn quickly ending with an elevator. It wasn’t ours, so we turned right and kept walking. As we did so, Ten kept her gaze on the elevator door, as if confused. She seemed unsure about something.
“What is it?” I asked.
“There’s… someone sitting in there.” She handed me the datapad and stopped walking.
“Well it’s an elevator so-” My own eye finally caught it. The infrared silhouette of an individual inside the elevator. Like she had said the individual was not standing like one normally did, but hunched over on one knee. The scene forced me to stop as well. “Wait a minute…”
Without warning, the elevator doors opened, revealing the individual to be a man holding a rifle. Instinctively I took hold of Ten, pulling us both behind a nearby crate as the man opened fire. Metallic pings echoed through the hallways as bullets pierced and dented the other side. We were lucky the crate had been full. Twisting around I started firing back at the man, who in turn hid behind the elevator wall. After a brief pause in the fight he tried rolling a grenade towards us. It only made it halfway before I fired at it, stopping its momentum just before it detonated.
The room fell silent for a moment. I finished reloading before peeking around the corner of the crate again. The only thing I saw was our attacker jumping right over us, landing just behind me. I quickly turned to react but the assassin was too fast, knocking my pistol way with his right foot before recoiling to bring his heel down on my chest. Before he could draw his sidearm, however, Ten jumped up to tackle the man.
“Fucking bitch!” the man shouted as Ten took him to the floor.
“Twitch and I will rip your throat out!” Ten hissed, kneeling over the assassin. She held her left hand over him, threatening him with the large blade that protruded from between her index and middle fingers. “And believe me, I’ll know if you so much as think about reaching for your gun!”
After disarming and restraining the man, Ten returned to her usual expressionless self, quietly observing the damage done to her left glove.
“It’s pretty safe to assume who sent you and why correct?” I asked the assassin. He didn’t answer, instead choosing to sit in bitter silence. The man was hardly a man at all. My guess was that he was in his late teens, perhaps his early twenties at most. He was even scrawnier that I was, but he clearly was able to move when he wanted to. His eyes were dark brown and his hair jet black. It had an almost glossy appearance which, along with the thin layer of ash on his face, gave me the impression that he didn’t often have the opportunity to shower.
“So let’s just make this simple. Tell me everything you know about the Custodian,” I asked calmly. Once again his reply was silence.
“That’s fine. I’m sure the station’s prison is lovely this time of year.”
“Dude, I don’t have the slightest fucking clue who you’re talking about,” he finally said.
“Your employer. The one who hired you to kill us,” I explained as if it wasn’t obvious.
“Fuckin… all I got was an anonymous mission contract. Five hundred K, no questions asked. If you don’t believe me you can check my ship’s computer.”
“Five hundred thousand?” That was all I was worth? I almost felt more angry that the man took the contract for so little than the fact that he took it at all.
“Yeah, it seemed a little low, but I figured if I could catch you out of your ship I would have the upper hand. No way in hell my trashy-ass Eagle was gonna cut it. Almost had ya too.” In spite of his situation, he let out a crooked smile.
“Figures. Well I guess we’ll have to wait until security gets here.” The statement wiped away the man’s grin.
“Jacob? I have an alternate idea,” Ten chimed in.
“Oh? Go ahead.”
“What if we hire him?” she asked. The assassin looked up at the suggestion. He had just tried to kill us, and she seriously wanted me to use my credits to pay off the man? To say I didn’t like the idea was an understatement.
“No.”
“Think about it. Chances he is the only one hunting us are roughly six percent. It would drastically improve our chances if we had someone familiar with the trade on our side. Besides you have the spare credits,” she argued.
Reluctantly I sighed. It was a fair argument, though I hated the idea of working with an assassin, especially a poor novice at that. Still… “How much?” I asked.
“A million.”
“A million?!” I nearly shouted.
“Done!” the man said without hesitation.
“What? No, we’re not… Fuck!” I ran my hands through my hair and walked away for a moment. What the heck just happened? How did they expect me to trust a man who had been trying to kill us a minute or two prior? If he was swayed by money that easily I doubted that he’d stay on our side for long.
“Ok, I’ll tell you what. If you use the credits to fix up my ship, I’ll count it as being paid in full. I’ll work with you two until you catch whoever the fuck you guys were trying to find.”
“And how do I know you won’t just bail the moment you get your ship fitted?” I hissed. The assassin thought for a moment, as if he genuinely hadn’t considered it.
“Well… honestly you don’t seem like the type of bounty hunter I’d want to piss off, so…”
“Interesting thought, considering you just tried to kill us,” I retorted.
“Yeah, but I doubt my Eagle can outrun your Fer-de-Lance, and I know it can’t outgun it.”
I brought my hand to my face while I thought. I couldn’t believe I was actually considering it. This guy was clearly more hassle than he was worth, but one more gun didn’t hurt either.
“Fine. What’s your name?”
The assassin smiled. “Name’s Nick!”
“Alright, Nick, let’s go see your ship.”
[Part 6]