HIT ME WITH YOUR BEST SHOT

By

Cassiel Knight

© copyright July 2007, Cassiel Knight

Cover art by Eliza Black, © copyright June 2007

New Concepts Publishing

Lake Park, GA 31636

www.newconceptspublishing.com

This is a work of fiction. All characters, events, and places are of the author’s imagination and not to be confused with fact. Any resemblance to living persons or events is merely coincidence.

Chapter One

Earth Year 2285

Jupiter’s sun, Section 10 had gotten something right, Constable Sidra Elvenstri thought! Considering their score was zero for three on accurate intel, accuracy on this particular mission was all the more impressive. From behind a battered wooden crate that smelled like moldy bread, Sidra eyed the reason behind her current scouting assignment.

A rusty metal cage packed with children, boys and girls, of various ages on their way to new owners. Not parents.

Owners.

As in slavery, which despite having been outlawed for centuries, continued to be far too lucrative to stop. Her stomach knotted. She was all too familiar with the children’s plight.

Shaking off the unwanted thought, Sidra shifted her weight to her toes, wincing at the cramped feeling in her calves. For the last hour, she’d seen only three drones. No echoing voices, footsteps or other noise hinted of more, but silence didn’t mean the building was empty. Slavers had been known to leave quiescent drones behind, ready to activate at a moment’s notice.

Lucky for her, the warehouse wasn’t full of crates or boxes. This meant there weren’t many places a drone could hide. Unlucky for her, there weren’t many places she could hide. Which was why she was reluctant to leave the dubious safety of the battered crate.

Patience wasn’t a strength she possessed in any sort of quantity. Neither was stupidity, and it would be phenomenally stupid to venture out without knowing if there were other drones.

She glanced at the cage. Her stomach knotted again. No matter how often she saw children like this, she couldn’t seem to power off the emotions. Sidra took a deep breath and focused.

Soft shuffling and murmurs whispering through the still warehouse told Sidra that the children were alive. Obviously frightened, but at least physically unharmed. Mentally, well, that was something else entirely. Their miniature shadows flickered as they shifted within their confines.

Her mission parameters were clear.

She was not to rescue them. She was only to reconnoiter and report her findings to Def. Sidra wrinkled her nose at the thought of the Commander. Second only to Control, Triad’s senior executive, Def Logan had illusions he possessed more power than he actually did. Especially where she was concerned. For some reason, he’d decided he didn’t like her. A dislike bordering on hatred.

Must be because of her charming personality.

Or maybe it was the fact she’d been Control’s first choice for Commander. And when she’d turned it down, Def had been chosen. She was sure it didn’t help that everyone she worked with knew Control hadn’t chosen Def except by default. A hard thing for a man to take when he believed women had only one purpose.

She sighed. Back to her mission. All she had to do was call in the confirmation of her discovery and get out of the way. The point team would then sweep the area, rescue the children and effectively halt Slaver operations out of this warehouse.

Oh, and they’d recover the black market silk in the plasti-crates near the children’s cage, the black market trade she’d hadn’t been briefed existed at this location. Sidra was sure the silk, not the children, was the mission. It wouldn’t be the first time Triad had sent her on a cover mission while a point team handled the real mission.

Not because she couldn’t handle a black market recovery operation. She knew she was one of the best Constables Triad had. However, during her first and, coincidentally the last time she’d been sent on such a mission, the black market silk had, somehow, been, well, misplaced.

At the bottom of the Grand Canyon River.

In her defense that hadn’t been her original intention. Until she’d discovered the silk had ended up right where it would have ended up in the first place—on the bodies of the rich and powerful. However, instead of the credits lining the Slavers’ pockets, it lined Triads’. It had been a simple matter then to just dump the silk and claim the Slavers hadn’t wanted anyone else to have the rare material.

While no one actually spoke against her, she knew Triad leaders had their doubts. If they could have proven she had anything to do with the silk’s disappearance, her career as a Constable, and her life, would join the silk.

Because her instincts and experiences screamed that black market items rested in the other crates, she knew rescuing these children was an afterthought of the powers that ran Triad.

A timely, convenient afterthought meant to distract Sidra.

Triad point teams weren’t in tune with their human sides. In fact, she often wondered whether the rigid men were human. But she supposed working for an organization that walked the line bordering protection of humanity from destroying humanity, those that did the dirty work couldn’t be concerned with a little thing like morals.

Whenever she questioned her own decision to stay with the organization all she had to do was see the children and then she remembered. Despite Triad’s less than savory pursuits, they had a lot of contacts and resources she would never have been able to gain on her own. And, even if freeing children was not their main goal, they still did. Well, at least she did. She’d never have gotten so far without Triad. So, for now, she’d stay with them.

That didn’t mean she’d let the point team members, sociopaths everyone of them, have responsibility for safeguarding innocents. In their psychotic zeal, they’d not worry if any children were harmed. After all, the children’s parents had sold them into slavery. They weren’t wanted anyway and would only be a burden on the City-State. So, did it really matter what happened to the children?

Sidra’s lips twisted. It freaking did matter to her.

She wasn’t sure who bothered her more--the public relations department with their sunshine-laden lies about how Triad protected mankind, or the Triad leaders with their lack of basic humanity.

The organization’s willingness to look the other way while innocents were harmed in the guise of protecting Earth kept Triad’s operations undercover. It wouldn’t do for the public to find out hostages, even children, were expendable.

Sidra noted the position of the drones and then she keyed the hologram switch on her wristband. No way was she leaving the children at the mercy of the point team, the so-called ‘good guys’.

About to press the activation pad, she hesitated. This type of behavior, ignoring her orders to act as a scout only, earned her a lot of desk time. Def wanted her in solitary and had threatened her with that if she stepped out of line again. This was just the excuse he needed. She had no doubt he would follow through with his threat.

At times his hatred seemed to run neck and neck with his desire for her. A double-edged sword if you will. Yet, she knew the hatred wasn’t just for her refusal to follow orders. Okay, most of it was. The other part, well, that was for the whole Control-likes-you-better-than-me issue.

Sidra rechecked the position of the drones. She could easily handle the three, but why work up a sweat when she didn’t have to? After spinning the dial on the holo emitter fastened to her waist belt, she punched in a code on her wristband, hoping this latest invention worked as she was told it would.

Usually there was time to test Triad’s gadgets. Not for this mission. She’d barely had the chance to shower after the last mission before leaving on this one. So, here she was, stuck with a new piece of equipment that might or might not work.

The hologram, a fairly recent tech toy from the Triad brain guys, projected a holo image across the gray interior of the storage bay.

The drones froze for a moment and then grabbed their weapons. The holo figure fired a few realistically fake shots then turned and ran. Two of the drones followed while the third stayed near the cage. She couldn’t blame them. Even she had a hard time believing the other figure was only an image. Not the real thing.

Sidra shook her head. Hmm, surprising. Something the Triad scientists developed actually worked as intended.

At least their record was higher than Intel.

She crept forward, her ninja-like slippers gliding silently over the concrete. The specially designed footwear provided stealth, protection, and surface stability.

The drone guarding the cage craned his neck and peered into the semi-darkness where his partners had disappeared. She grinned. She really liked going up against androids. Human shaped if not exactly human, the drones were constructed of metal, plastic and some sort of neural networking frame. Only possessing rudimentary skills, what they lacked in mental ability certainly was a non-issue when in hand-to-hand combat with the scrappy fighters. She loved being able to test her skills against the drones. The android’s focus was so intense on what his teammates were doing her presence went undetected.

Slipping into the shadows surrounding the cage and its whimpering occupants, Sidra moved closer. She hated the damn Slavers with every atom of her body. These children belonged with someone who loved them, not stuck in a dirty holding facility waiting to become someone’s laborer or worse--someone’s sex toy.

She knew what that felt like. The waiting. The wondering. Because she knew, she freed any children she found. Didn’t matter what her orders were. Didn’t matter if she ended up in solitary. When there were children, she’d let them go.

She glanced at the children and her gaze locked on a young girl, her hair stringy with dirt and sweat. Not much more than ten, the girl’s brown eyes held betrayal and loss. A mirror image of Sidra before Norah found and saved her. The despair tore at Sidra’s heart.

The girl shrank back, fear tightening her thin lips. Brown eyes stared at Sidra’s face. Sidra frowned. What was wrong? The girl lifted a scrawny arm, her fingers brushing against her own cheek.

She suddenly understood the girl’s fear. Shred it, she wore a mask. Of course the children would be frightened. Sidra unsnapped the collar and pulled the edge of the mask up and over her head. She tossed the covering onto a nearby box and then faced the children again.

“Better?” she whispered.

A slight nod. Fear drained from the brown gaze, hope taking its place. Sidra smiled. “I think it’s time to get you out of here,” she continued, her tone low.

She reached out a hand to pull open the cage door. With barely a flicker of movement, the girl looked upward. Sidra jerked her head in the same direction.

A thick rod honed in on her face. She swore and bent backward. The metal bar missed by inches before slamming into the steel cage with a loud clank. A couple of the children screamed.

Damn! Focus, girl!

Calling herself all kinds of stupid for being taken off guard, Sidra stepped back. In a swift, smooth movement, she side kicked with her right leg. The drone’s arm blocked the blow.

Dancing on the tip of her toes, Sidra spun and lashed out with her left arm. She quickly ended with an elbow to the drone’s head. The shock of the blow shot electric tingles up her arm. The strike did more damage to the drone. His knees buckled and he crumpled to the ground.