Lana's Comet (Outer Settlement Agency) by Lyn Brittan Page B

scenario to one of the training simulators. This was one for the ages. He backed away, eyeing the control panels and calculating. This ship could take a hit and probably deliver a good wallop in the process. If could mean killing Yoshisumi, but the little brat deserved it.
    “Nothing? Well, I am at a loss,” said the captain. I now have to tell my dear auntie that her son is dead.”
    “He isn’t. He’s on a dying OSA ship not too far from here. You should be able to find it. You don’t want to get mixed up in killing agents, so go and get your cousin. Forget you ever saw us.”
    “Not dead? That’s a pity. No help to you, either. If I can’t have the ship, neither can he. Michi, girl? You want to be a proper pirate? Here’s your chance. Smoke that ship.”
    At the sound of her roommate’s name, Lana gasped and held her hand out to the screen, as if touching the image would burn an imprint of the girl’s face in her mind. “My Michi? Can’t be. What is she doing?”
    “At the moment?” He checked the boards. “Turning their guns on us and...well...that’s something.”
    “What? What is it?”
    “She’s just pulled out a weapon.”
    “You said that already.”
    “Of the handheld variety...right. And the screams you just heard? That’s her taking out four men.”
    “You’re full of it.”
    “I’m full of jealously. The girl’s an ass kicking machine.” He tapped the comms again and Michi’s wide-eyed innocent face jerked up. “Yes, sorry to interrupt your somewhat, that is to say, totally unexpected rampage, Yoshisumi, but—”
    “That’s not my name. What’s wrong with your eyes, Lana?”
    Lana shook her head next to him. “Blind. Let’s stick to the big picture issues. Michi, why are you in a pirate’s cousin’s ship? What the hell is going on?”
    “I thought you were some sort of genius. Think, Lana.”
    “It’s not a coincidence that you were my roommate, is it?”
    “Meash has more tentacles than you can begin to imagine,” the girl said.
    “They can’t possibly pay you enough to do this.”
    Michi grinned and started to pin up her fallen hair. “They try. They really, really try and it’s not bad money. So there I was, all set up to kill you, when I figured out why they’d hired me for the job. I hate when that happens. I go to war with myself, kill ya, not kill ya...it took weeks to decide, but it got me to thinking. If they do this, this whole infect the ‘verse thing, the demand for my services takes a nosedive. Who needs an assassin in a viral apocalypse?”
    “I ask myself that all the time. To confirm, you’re not going to kill me or Cyprus?”
    “Not if you do your job.”
    “But how did you now I’d be here? At this place, this moment?”
    Not-Michi snorted. “Girl, everybody’s got a biochip in you. Meash. OSA. Me. You don’t think Meash ever lets people go, do you? Oh and the datacell you’re using in my old omnitablet, that helped. I didn’t leave it behind by accident. It’s cute that you tried to secure it. Look, you’re good at doctoring, stick to that. Leave the spying and murder to me. And as for you, Officer Dhoma—”
    “Yeah?”
    “If I ever see you on the street, I’m going to break that pretty face of yours into teeny, tiny bits. Now I’m off. I can’t have any part in saving humanity. I’d never find work again. Oh, incoming.”
    The screen vidlink went blank, but the radar blazed with new activity. Oh, c’mon. What now?
    “I have no idea what you’re seeing, Cyprus, but why does it sound like every ship in the universe is locking their guns on us?”
    No picture this time, just audio from a voice he never thought he’d hear again.
    “On orders of the Outer Settlement Agency and under the orders of my own damned self, you will state your purpose, state your claim and state where the hell I can find Agent Cyprus Dhoma.”
    Cyprus turned on the vidlink, waved to his brother and fell back into the piloting seat. Relief flooded