Original Flavor (anime influenced)
Rated: R

RULES OF ENGAGEMENT (Part IV:  Trust No One)

	IV.
	TRUST NO ONE

	I woke up some time later, which was admittedly something of a surprise 
to me.  The last coherent memory I had was of Elyena pointing a gun at my 
head and pulling the trigger--after that, things started to get really 
strange.  I had some moderately bizarre hallucinations while under the 
influence of the residual neuro-shock and I've heard that being hit with 
a neuro-disruptor does strange things to psi-talents anyway.  It's the 
combination of an exceptionally advanced brain/central nervous system and 
a weapon designed specifically to reduce those two things to a mass of 
schizoid electrical impulses.  There were a mess of what I can only 
assume were flashbacks--I distinctly remember seeing Hunter and Jordan, 
my First Officer Khasamar, and various others that I've known over the 
years, but also some faces that I didn't really recognize.  A tall, lean, 
muscular man, with extremely long jet-black hair and eyes so intensely 
blue that they seemed to glow from within.  He had the sharply chiselled 
features, pointed ears, and slit-pupilled eyes of a Vamphyri, combined 
with the pale skin of one of the northern clans but was dressed like a 
southerner, loose-fitting clothes in plain, functional black, suited for 
life in the black-sand deserts of D'kai Province on Darkworld.  All his 
hardware--mostly non-projectile, bladed weapons--were set for a left-hand 
draw; he was missing his right arm from the elbow down, the stump covered 
in what looked like a hardened leather cuff.  I can't tell you how, but I 
knew his name--Kieron Starbourne--how he lost his arm--in a fight with 
his brother, it was so badly mangled it had to be amputated--and who he 
was--sorcerer, assassin, mercenary, bard.
	After that, things went directly downhill and I started hallucinating in 
earnest.  Everything is still so jumbled together in my mind that I 
couldn't tell you precisely what was going on if I wanted to...There are 
recurring images of a woman dressed entirely in black, her face covered 
with a silver mask completely devoid of expression, black hair cascading 
down her back to brush against the floor--she was trying to speak to me 
but I never actually heard her voice, it was almost as though she were 
too far away....Another woman, dressed in armor deliberately constructed 
to resemble a skeletonized human body, her own face covered with a 
death's-head faceplate, both her eyes and hair a gleaming red that made 
me think, Oh, please, not another one!  Her voice was a breathless 
metallic whisper, as though it was coming from severely damaged lungs, 
cold, heartless, but at the same time underlaid with such hunger that it 
froze my blood just to hear it....A planet constructed entirely out of 
metal, propelled through the reaches of intergalactic space under its own 
power....A pale face, covered in a webwork of black patterns more 
birthmark than tattoo, and framed in dark hair; feverishly intense 
white-gold eyes staring up at me and a hoarse, exhausted, pain-racked 
voice whispering, "Deathshadow must be stopped, Kieron Starbourne, or to 
feed her terrible hunger she will consume all that exists. 
Everything...even life itself..."
	I even saw Hunter, felt his arms around me and his hands holding me, my 
face resting comfortably against his chest, enjoying the feel of him 
while I had it.  It took me a moment to realize where we were, to notice 
the pristine white emptiness surrounding us, and then I knew that this 
was the astral plane, the psionic realm of pure thought that all 
psi-talents contribute some of their energy to creating and maintaining.  
Hunt's psionic construct is done in shades of gold and silver and orange 
and red--the colors of fire, of pure, vibrant power, pulsing with 
potentialities.  Mine is shades of blue, ranging from the blue-black of a 
diffusion nebula in deep space to the fierce silver-blue of newborn 
stars, shimmering with primal energy held carefully in check.  Between us 
we lit up the astral plane like, as the poem says, twin stars of fire and 
ice, united in our glory through an extremely strange twist of fate.  But 
there was something wrong here and we both knew it, my astral construct 
fractured and incomplete, mirroring the state of my mind and body; I kept 
fading farther and farther no matter what I tried, eventually vanishing 
altogether.
	That was when I woke up, bolting upright so fast a wave of vertigo 
crashed over me and threatened to take me back down, Hunter's howl of 
anguish and denial still ringing between my ears.  My head was still 
throbbing with the after-effects of the neuro-disruptor hit, every inch 
of my body hurt like I had just spent a whole year pounded flat and 
baking on the D'kaiyan desert, and I wanted to cry out myself, but my 
raw, cracked throat wasn't up to it.
	'HUNTER!!'  My scream was purely telepathic, trying to bridge the three 
hundred light-years that separated me from my lover by sheer force of 
will--I don't think it even cleared the room I was in, but it was worth a 
try.  If I had just had real telepathic contact with Hunter and hadn't 
been hallucinating, then the grief and rage and anguish I felt from him 
could only mean one thing--he thought I was dead.  Someone had severed 
the psionic link that had bound our two minds together, shattered the 
connection that let each of us know, even when we weren't together, that 
the other was still there, no matter how far apart we were.  Even as I 
sat there, analyzing the whole mess, I realized that the comforting 
mental resonance I always associated with Hunter was no longer with me 
inside my mind and there was only cold, dark emptiness where his being 
had been linked with mine.
	I wanted to scream.  I wanted to cry.  I wanted the telepath that had 
done this right there in front of me and then I wanted a gun.  I settled 
for pulling my knees up to my chin and resting my forehead on them, the 
events of the last few days running around in my skull like a film-loop 
set on endless replay.  I had left the Network--I was beginning to look 
at that as a serious mistake on my part.  I had come to Luxura.  I bought 
a Corellian with the intention of freeing her and the old "good 
intentions" rule had come into play.  I had been attacked by an anonymous 
band of thugs with burning ambitions to carve their names into my hide 
before they killed me.  Elyena had sold me out.  I was still alive.
	Something didn't quite fit there, but before I could figure out what it 
was, the door to my room swung open and I found myself entertaining 
company.  "Lad!  You're awake!"
	She was extremely tiny, a small woman with slender, delicate bones and a 
birdlike quality to her movements as she crossed the room, carrying a 
tray of what I presumed was food.  I frankly admit that I've become used 
to tall women--I don't think this one could have reached my chin without 
the help of a step-ladder, and, even then, only the crest of her curly, 
copper-colored hair would have touched.  Her eyes were pale blue-green, 
set in a face of well-crafted handsomeness; she wasn't beautiful, but she 
had the attribute known as "character."  She was wearing a full-skirted, 
long-sleeved dress in dark red-and-gold checks that practically screamed 
matronly and expression that let me know that she was most definitely in 
charge here.  She set the tray down on the bedside stand and took off the 
cover; my stomach rolled over and growled a dyspeptic reminder that I 
hadn't eaten anything in who knows how long and wasn't it time to change 
that?
	"Ah, lad, you had us so worried there for a time," she set the tray down 
on my lap once I had gotten into a more comfortable sitting position, 
propping me up with pillows and cooing over me like a mother in serious 
need of another child to raise.  "You were hallucinating so severely we 
were worried you would go into psychotic reaction--it's dangerous to use 
a neuro-disruptor on a telepath an' I told Commander Demerath that, but 
did she listen to me?  There, lad, eat up, you've been unconscious for 
five days an' no doubt your body's not too fond of you right now."
	Well, that answered one question.  I had never heard her accent before 
but I found myself liking it--a gentle elongation of the vowels and a 
slight slur on the consonants that was easy on the ears and comforting in 
any case.  The food she served me had never seen the inside of a matter 
replicator or, for that matter, a cloning vat.  "This is...very good.  
Organic?"
	"Of course," she settled down in the chair next to the bed; I realized 
that there was a basket sitting beside it, full of hardcopy magazines, 
bits of cloth, spools of thread, and other accouterments I couldn't 
identify--I had the distinct feeling we'd spent a lot of time together 
without my knowing it.  "you think I'd serve a guest in my home that 
horrible synthetic rubbish that passes for food these days?  Not while 
these old hands can still chop vegetables and cut meat, lad."
	A smile tried to crawl onto my face and I let it.  "Excuse me, Mrs--"
	"MacLeod.  Gillian MacLeod."  She took the tray and slid it into the 
matter recycler, turning to face me as she did so.  "Call me Gill."
	"Gill," I began, "just where am I?"
	"You're in my home, and the home of my son," She replied imperturbably; 
I had the feeling that if a horde of Network shock troopers suddenly came 
crashing through the windows she'd march them downstairs, make them wipe 
their feet, and serve them tea before entering any other negotiations.  
"I understand that the...means...used to bring you here lacked even a 
marginal attempt at civility, but believe me, you are a guest and not a 
prisoner.  Come--you need a bath and a change of clothes.  By then, my 
son may actually be ready to speak with you."
	The rooms I was occupying were a fair match for the ones in my hotel, 
the exception being that the bedroom and bath weren't divided by a wall 
but a ShimmerField hologram of one.  Everything else--oversized bed, 
exotic furnishings, tasteful decorative touches, floor-to-ceiling 
windows, and sunken tub--were virtually identical.  I pushed the hot 
water up as high as it would go, Gillian going to the cabinets and 
pulling out the things I'd need, including soap, shampoo, and several 
towels.  I noted that the soap and shampoo were the kind that could strip 
out any artificial pigmentation known to science; I decided that this was 
a hint from my heretofore unseen host.  "Gillian, you might want to leave 
the room for a second."
	"Lad, you haven't anything I've not seen already."  She replied 
serenely, though she didn't turn around.
	I dropped the sheet I'd wrapped myself in and dug my fingers into my 
face; the syntheskin ripped and shredded from the biomolecular epoxy 
holding it in place, peeling off in pale bronze chunks.  After I was 
finished with my face I stripped the rest of my synthetic skin off, 
including my fake fingerprints, popped out the coverpiece for my scaneye 
and the contact I wore in my organic, and shoved the whole mess into the 
matter recycler.  My cybernetic implants are fully hermetically sealed 
systems, the delicate stuff covered in several layers of omnium polymer 
armor able to bounce anything short of a point-blank, armor-piercing 
impact, and quite capable of surviving immersion in an extremely hot tub. 
 It took seven scrubbings and a refill in the tub to get all the bronze 
coloring out of my skin and another seven to get the black out of my 
hair, but when we were finished I was once again silver-blonde, 
blue-eyed, pale-skinned, and partly covered in dark gray chrome.  Gillian 
allowed me to towel myself off while she scrounged up a bathrobe from 
somewhere; I was grateful for that, because I didn't want her to see how 
much effort it was taking simply to stand up.  I probably would have died 
before admitting it, but I was still as weak as a newborn kitten--my 
cybernetic systems were self-repairing and self-regenerating but they 
were still responding sluggishly, and my organic parts hurt in places 
where I hadn't thought there were nerve endings.
	Gillian caught my mood and didn't attempt to make conversation; another 
mark in her favor.  I was guessing that her son hadn't inherited even 
half his mother's sensitivity, or else that entire episode with Dansyr 
wouldn't have occurred and my connection with Hunter would still be 
intact.  I was also guessing that mother's darling little boy had 
expended a considerable amount of principal trying to snag me, and 
therefore had something specific that he'd like me to do.  At that 
moment--physically and psychically battered, emotionally wrecked, and cut 
off from any outside source of assistance--I was feeling just belligerent 
enough to turn him down flat.  In case you hadn't noticed, I loathe being 
manipulated and that's what had been happening to me practically since I 
stepped on the planet--manipulated by someone I had trusted completely to 
serve yet another's ends.  Granted, Elyena had given me the opportunity 
to step into it of my own free will--after all, she'd told me about the 
open corporate commission twice--and had only set me up after I had 
turned it down.  She knew that I'd refuse to take another corporate 
contract with the bad taste from the Network in my mouth, she knew that 
I'd have to do something if I heard about a Corellian being sold, she 
even knew that I'd come directly to her if I got away from the teams sent 
to acquire me at the hotel.  She knows me very well.
	Clothes were waiting for me in the closet, and once again I was 
surprised.  Rather than the disgustingly upper-middle-class wardrobe I'd 
been wearing in my guise as Alexander McKieran, they were something along 
the lines of what I was used to:  functional working blacks, 
omnium/adamantite mesh cloth cut to my specific measurements, black 
leather and loose white cotton, things that appealed to my sense of 
comfort as well as my sense of the aesthetic.  Even a trenchcoat, for 
which I have a deep and abiding love.  Someone had had the good sense to 
search my rooms--all of my weapons were there as well:  seven different 
types of sidearms and the ammunition to go along with them, microgrenades 
of all types and levels of destructive capability, even my 
up-close-and-personal weapons.
	The fact that everything was there--including my own plasma darter--gave 
me momentary pause.  The heavier stuff I was carrying could do a serious 
amount of damage; that meant my host was either too stupid to realize how 
pissed off I was or supremely confident in the security around this 
joint.  In any case, it meant I couldn't blow a window and simply stroll 
out, as I'd done earlier at the hotel.  Something was definitely up, I 
could smell it.
	The comm-panel set next to the door buzzed and Gillian went to answer 
it; after a few moments of low-voiced conversation, the door swung open 
and a new party sauntered in as Gillian exited.  Unlike his mother, he 
was on the tall side--within an inch or two of my own six-foot-three--and 
powerfully built; tournament muscles, worked in a gym or a simulator, but 
muscle nonetheless, barely contained by his tastefully tailored suit.  
His copper hair was curled close to his head and his washed-out 
blue-green eyes glinted with a kind of hey-fella-good-to-see-you 
cheerfulness; his face was open in the extreme, not even attempting to 
conceal anything, traditional corporate severity undercut by the 
scattering freckles across the bridge of his nose and cheeks.  As he got 
closer he held out his hand.  "Manslaughter, I presume?"
	I ignored the hand.  "The only one still in operational condition.  And 
you are--?"
	He completely ignored the bristling hostility with which I regarded him, 
taking the unused hand and reaching into his jacket pocket, producing a 
real, honest-to-providence business card.  "Nathan MacLeod--CEO and owner 
of NekroTech."
	Through a massive act of willpower I managed to keep my reaction off my 
face.  Of all the Network's major competitors in the fields of economic 
throat-cutting and gratuitous corporate mayhem, NekroTech was possibly 
the most ferocious, as well as the most persistent.  Sure, StarCor was 
bigger and TransSpace was nastier, but when it came to a no-holds-barred 
corporate throw-down, NekroTech was the only one to go a full fifteen 
rounds with the Network and emerge largely solvent.  All the others had 
crawled off, signaling defeat and licking the dent in their capital 
finance gains; NekroTech had actually managed to beat the Network at 
their own game and seize more or less complete economic control of Free 
Space and the worlds inside it.  They accomplished this by judicious use 
of space piracy and the slave trade, as well as running places like 
Luxura--pleasure-planets where the phenomenally well-off could go to 
spend their excess credit, thereby financing the NekroTech's wide field 
of operations. 
	Still, I'd be damned if I let this guy see how much he'd actually 
managed to impress me.  "Well, this explains a few things."
	"Oh?"  Nathan MacLeod crossed the room and took a seat near the windows; 
with a bit of reluctance I joined him, looking out over the 
well-manicured expanse of lawn and garden my rooms fronted on.  The 
quality of the light--pale rose-gold and diffuse--told me that we were 
still on Luxura, though in a part of it that I'd never seen before.  
"Please, enlighten me."
	"You own Luxura--technically you can do anything you want with it, as 
long as you reimburse your employees for any inconvenience your actions 
might cause."  I was being generous, he really didn't have to do anything 
of the sort, but NekroTech has the reputation of being honestly loved by 
its subordinate businesses--but then, so does the Network.  "Granted, 
you'll have to do considerably more for the owners of my hotel, but I 
suppose the cost of rebuilding the place is chump change for an 
individual of your...position."
	"Actually I won't even have to do that--I personally own the hotel as 
well."  He made a selection from the rack of rather strong liquers 
sitting along side his chair and poured two glasses.  "I presume you have 
some idea why I went through all this trouble to bring you here?"
	"Roughly.  I strongly suspect that you want someone, somewhere to become 
dead sometime in the near future and that you want me to perform the 
actual killing."
	"More or less."  He took a sip from his glass and gestured toward mine; 
I ignored the invitation to either drink or sit.  "The actual details are 
somewhat more complex.  No doubt you have quite a number of questions 
about this whole undertaking."
	"That," I informed him, "is an extremely apt choice of words.  You 
realize, of course, that I'm going to have to mess you up for this?"
	"Specify which part of this," He dragged a finger around the rim of his 
glass, the high-pitched chime of the fine crystal setting my teeth on 
edge; it seemed like he was going out of his way to get on my nerves, 
which is never a very good sign.  "The part where I had my security chief 
on Luxura--your old friend Elyena Demerath--extend a rather polite offer 
to work for me...which you rejected twice, I might add?  The part where I 
had her plant the information about Dansyr's auction and let your 
new-found urge to do the right thing take its course?  The part where I 
had Dansyr seduce you and then attempt to render you 
threat-neutral--which didn't quite go as planned and resulted in major 
property damage and minor loss of life for my security forces?  The part 
where you realized Elyena had betrayed you and delivered you into my 
hands?  Or was it the part when you realized your telepathic connection 
to Hunter Cormier was gone and you no longer had any choice in the 
matter?"
	During the course of this narration, my hands had been slowly releasing 
from the clench that they'd been in, hanging loose and ready to move at 
my sides.  "You're right," I informed him, feeling the calm that 
generally comes over me just before I do something borderline suicidal 
and definitely homicidal, "I'm not going to mess you up--I'm going to 
kill you."
	I went for the guns I was wearing in my favorite pair of 
shoulder-holsters; he casually reached down and fingered the 
forearm-mounted comp-interface that's standard CEO gear on most worlds.  
Before either weapon could clear its holster, my skull was filled with a 
pain that was a close cousin of the neuro-disrupter, a white hot agony so 
intense it completely overwhelmed my augmented sensorium, bathing every 
nerve in my body in pure, concentrated acid.  When I finally made it back 
to my senses I was lying more or less at his feet, my body and brain 
heaping malediction on me for this latest offense.
	"Incidentally," He informed me as I somehow managed to get to my feet, 
my legs still wobbly from the twice-in-far-too-short-a-time jolt to my 
various kinds of nervous systems and my head still swimming with the 
shock of having my pain centers directly stimulated.  "I thought you 
might react this way so, while you were safely unconscious, I had my 
SciTech division implant a control unit similar to those used 
for...negative reinforcement...on some of my more uncooperative 
employees.  Bear in mind, that wasn't even a high setting."
	I ignored him for the moment, tasting blood in the back of my throat 
from the pinprick brain hemorrhages that tell me when I'm seriously 
overdoing it with the macho shtick and should be lying blissfully 
senseless somewhere.  My skull was throbbing so hard that it felt like it 
might blow apart at the seams and the pain was filling my stomach with 
the kind of nausea I usually get only after drinking things that haven't 
been tested on live subjects before.  My pride was telling me to stay on 
my feet as long as possible--ignoring the fact that he'd just rendered me 
senseless in less than a heartbeat--while common sense was advising that 
I sit down before I fall down; common sense won, and I eased myself into 
the comfortably cushioned, impossible to get out of in a hurry chair 
opposite MacLeod's own.  "So, I'm a guest here, huh?"
	"A guest with a reputation that precedes you by about two hundred 
light-years."  I was beginning to wonder how many pockets he had inside 
that jacket, because he produced a package of endorphin analogues from 
within it and pushed them across the table separating us; I swallowed one 
with a sip from my glass and settled back, waiting for it to work.  
"Without resorting to cheap flattery, I can say that you are possibly the 
most lethal and resourceful assassin currently active in Known Space, and 
your other talents in the covert operations field are hardly less 
impressive.  Can you blame me for wanting an edge when it comes to 
protecting myself?"
	The look I gave him was five hundred percent malice.  "No, I don't 
suppose I can.  Why don't you try telling me what this is all about?"
	"As I said earlier, this is a contract with multiple objectives 
involved, one of which is the assassination of a certain party--though 
this is not the most important aspect of the operation."  He poured 
himself some more of the pale, straw-colored liquer, regarding me with 
those irritatingly direct, open, forthright eyes over the rim of his 
glass.  "I don't suppose you've ever thought about having children?"
	This caught me almost totally by surprise, not only because it was an 
apparent non sequitur, but also because children had been occupying a 
fairly large chunk of my idle thinking time recently.  Prior to meeting 
Hunter, the mere idea of children--also known as rugrats, kids, toddlers, 
wee ones, babies, and, eventually, teenagers--and all the things 
associated with them--infancy, colic, diapers, the Terrible Twos, 
childhood diseases, report cards, the Big Talk, and all the years from 
thirteen to nineteen--had given me a severe case of the hives.  As in, I 
got them whenever I even thought about parenthood.  I had been mercifully 
spared the worst of the traumas generally associated with childhood by 
the expedient of never having one, but the stories I'd heard about the 
aggravation that can only be experienced through actually growing up made 
me very glad that I hadn't really gone through it.  I couldn't imagine 
inflicting that sort of torment on an innocent child that had no idea 
what he was in for.  Only recently had my mind begun to change and I 
found myself picturing a small family resulting from a rather strange 
genetic cross and about nine months of ex vitro gestation.  I don't deny 
that Hunter would make an infinitely superior parent when compared to me, 
but I figure that willingness to learn on the job and enthusiasm must 
count for something.  "Well, actually, I have."
	"You should.  Children are one of the things that make this life 
bearable."  He sat his empty glass down.  "I had--have--an adopted 
son...if he were my own flesh and blood he couldn't have been more dear 
to me."  Something about his tone set off the bells and whistles in the 
back of my head and a faint current of unease passed up my spine.  "His 
name is Javan Seyt-Ashkelon..."
	"'Seyt-Ashkelon'?"
	"'Seyt-Ashkelon'," he confirmed. "Javan is, like your former First 
Officer, Khasamar Seyt-Enkidu, a Morahk--the sole survivor of a starship 
wreck that killed his mother and the rest of his family.  My security and 
biohazard teams found him only a few hours after the crash of his 
family's vessel, safe inside a stasis pod--at the time, he was only six 
months old, or so my medical crews told me.  That was ten years ago."  A 
hologram field formed over the table, displaying an image of a child in 
the neighborhood of ten, long, lanky, with the kind of build doomed to be 
called delicate later on in life, his fine-boned face, framed in longish 
blue-black hair, already hinting at the unearthly allure that would one 
day be his.  "My mother and I raised him from infancy--I never married, 
never had any children of my own...he was the only son that I ever 
wanted.  Two weeks before his tenth birthday, my private home on Iczer 
Prime was attacked--my security forces on site eventually managed to 
repel the invaders, but not before they succeeded in abducting my son.  
These were taken off the bodies that were left behind when the assault 
force withdrew."
	He tossed a handful of small, triangular, deep scarlet objects down on 
the table; they chimed like the fine crystal of his glass had done when 
they hit, belying their metallic appearance.  I reached down and picked 
one up, the feeling known as horrified recognition twisting my stomach 
into a granny knot as I realized what it was--a perfect isosceles 
triangle comprised entirely of dark, blood-colored metallic crystal, a 
side-elongated M cut cleanly out of the base.
	The Majestix.  Sometimes I think the universe is out to get me.
	"Are you trying to tell me," I asked as calmly as possible, despite the 
parts of my brain that were screaming at the tops of their lungs,  "that 
your adopted Morahk son was snatched by an order of pseudo-religious 
zealots dedicated to saving us all whether we like it or not?"
	"Yes."
	"I thought so."
	On the surface, the organization known as the Majestix is not unlike the 
Network.  The Network is enormous, insatiable, ruthless, oriented 
exclusively toward obtaining and maintaining power through any means, be 
it military, economic, or some synthesis of the two.  The Majestix are 
equally enormous, equally insatiable, equally ruthless, and oriented 
exclusively toward obtaining and maintaining power through any means--and 
that's where all the similarities end.  The Network deals strictly in all 
things secular--sex, drugs, mindless entertainment, gratuitous violence, 
money, power, and the privileges that go along with the same.  The 
Majestix cover their own rapacity in the cloak of religious piety--they 
serve a group called the Mecha Gods, who allegedly want to bring order, 
peace, justice, unity, and immortality, to a corrupt, chaotic, unjust 
universe, doomed to die.  Sounds good, right?  The Majestix methods of 
accomplishing this include military conquest, genocide on a planetary 
scale, enslavement of "lesser" races, and sword-point religious 
conversion for those they deem "worthy" of the "honor" of serving the 
Mecha Gods.  They accomplish this via cyberorganic genetic viruses that 
transform whomever they're exposed to into a living machine--a true 
cyborg, rebuilt from the genes up, and almost always brainwashed into the 
service of the Majestix.
	The Network and the Majestix tangled with each other exactly once--that 
was all it took to convince my former employers that the Majestix are 
considerably more than they can handle.  I should know--I was there for 
most of that entire disaster, and barely made it out alive.  A terrible 
thought began forming in the back of my mind.
	"Let me see if I can't figure this out," I began, "Your son's been 
kidnaped and you, of course, want him back--and you want  the people that 
did the deed to become extinct as a sign of your displeasure.  You also 
know that no one in their right mind's going to accept a commission to 
hit a Majestix target, no matter what you're willing to pay.  You're just 
about to give up on the whole thing when--lo and behold!--I skip out on 
the Network and come almost directly to your Luxuran security chief, 
looking for her help in getting a job and pulling a fade.  Bells and 
whistles sound.  You have her sneak in a job offer from your corporation, 
the only offer that looks even marginally appetizing--and I say no.  
Twice.  You're getting desperate, you have to do something--so you have 
Elyena set me up with the sex goddess from hell, fake my murder through 
the attack on the hotel, and have me brought here, with my options pared 
down to one...helping you."
	"I was wondering if you'd figure out my reasoning in the strike on the 
hotel." He leaned back in his chair and gave me a perfectly level, 
appraising look. "A body identified as `Alexander MacKieran' was found in 
the ruins of the building.  That unfortunate individual was, upon closer 
medical examination, found to be the rather infamous Network hitman known 
as Manslaughter.  You are, for all intents and purposes, dead.  I had 
your psionic link to Hunter Cormier severed so that there would be no way 
to prove otherwise.  It's the ultimate freedom to act."
	"And in exchange for this "ultimate freedom" you want me to do what?" I 
asked, picking up my glass and contemplating the feasibility of getting 
completely trashed.  "Infiltrate whatever hellhole in which the Majestix 
are holding your son?  Extricate him from said hellhole and bring him 
home?  Kill whoever was responsible?"
	"All of the above, though killing those responsible is a strictly 
secondary consideration.  I want my son returned to me--extracting my 
pound of flesh from those that took him can wait."  His expression 
abruptly went cold and hard, and I had to remind myself that, yes, this 
was the same man that had walked in here.  "I need you, 
Manslaughter--outside of Darkworld's Internal Affairs TacticalOperations 
Division, you are the only man that has ever faced the Majestix and 
survived, much less won."
	"I feel a migraine coming on." I stood up and began pacing the length of 
the room, staring down at the elaborately sculpted gardens five floors 
below.  "Give me details."
	"My intelligence network recently managed to pinpoint my son's 
location--we traced the spacial/temporal flux left behind by the Majestix 
vessel as it fled Iczer Prime back to the point of origin.  We haven't 
been able to achieve visual contact as of yet, but concentrated scanning 
sweeps and in-depth analysis indicate a planet-sized object with a 
massive gravimetric field as compared to actual mass--"
	An image flashed across the inside of my scaneye, of a huge, metal 
planet, glowing a pale, silver-gray in the starlight, and propelling 
itself through space under its own power.  "A Dyson sphere--or something 
roughly similar."
	"My SciTechs would agree with you."
	I paced some more, thinking in motion as I do best.  While the Majestix 
usually don't engage in such mundane things as the abduction of a 
corporate magnate's only child and heir, I wouldn't exactly put anything 
past them; for all I knew, Javan Seyt-Ashkelon was more than he seemed 
and they wanted him for some devious, twisted purpose.  I couldn't get 
the picture of that child out of my mind, or the horrific images of what 
the Majestix might very well do to him that my imagination was whipping 
up.  I have friends that have suffered at the end of a Majestix leash, 
and the idea of letting something similar to what they went through 
happen to a helpless child was turning my stomach and twisting my heart.  
With the Network, if you're designed to be absolutely subservient and 
totally will-less, you've at least never tasted freedom and never known 
how horrible it is to live in chains--with the Majestix, they take a kind 
of sadistic pleasure in breaking the strongest wills and minds, in 
shattering the spirit and enslaving the body, in teaching you just how 
terrible it is.
	Manslaughter, you are an idiot.  I decided, turning to face MacLeod.  
"Okay, let's say I'm willing to do this.  What kind of deal am I 
getting?"
	He gave me a business-like nod and punched something into his 
comp-board.  "My company will provide anything you actually need to 
execute the mission--money, personnel, transportation--all you have to do 
is specify your requirements.  Additionally, you will have final 
executive control over every phase of planning and performance--my 
security will no doubt offer their expertise, but you will make all the 
operational decisions.  The control unit implanted in you brain will 
naturally be removed.  As far as monetary compensation for your 
efforts--" He smiled faintly, "let's just say I'll refill the credit 
account you emptied purchasing Dansyr and go it at least five better.  I 
have only one other request to make."
	My greed and avarice glands, which had been groaning in disgust at my 
new-found inclination toward doing what was right rather than what was 
practical, found that extremely satisfactory.  "Well, I suppose I can 
swing a special request for five hundred billion in untraceable 
credit...."
	"I have three of my premier security agents that I would like to have 
accompany you on this mission."  He flipped open the control panel inset 
on his chair arm and punched in a command; the door to my rooms swung 
open and a trio that I was, in some cases, intimately familiar with 
strolled in.  Somehow I suspected that I'd see them all again before this 
was all over, and I was neither surprised, disturbed, nor 
disappointed--at this juncture, it wouldn't make much sense to be, now 
would it?  Sometimes you just have to surrender to the inevitable.
	Believe it or not, I had never seen Elyena look better, even when she 
was naked, clad in a beyond skin tight black uniform that flattered her 
incredible figure to no end and almost made me forget how I had gotten 
involved with all this in the first place.  For an instant I had to 
resist an uncontrollable urge to throttle her right then and there--but 
then she offered me the most quavering, uncertain smile I've ever seen 
her give and the part of me that can't hold a grudge against a beautiful 
woman just melted.  She gave me another one of her tastefully perfumed, 
face-smooshing hugs and whispered in my ear, "Forgive me?"
	"No," I whispered back, "but we can have fun thinking of ways you can 
make it up to me."
	"Just don't mention the idea of a threesome to Dansyr--that one holds a 
grudge like a Vamphyri."  She stepped aside, revealing the tiny, petite, 
redheaded sex killer and her huge, heavily muscled Dy'killian companion.
	"How're the bruises coming?" I couldn't resist asking her.
	"Better than yours will, I assure you." She replied in the same coolly 
amused tone, green eyes narrowed to emerald-glowing slits and her mouth 
set in a faint, not-quite-pleasant smile.
	"Ahem," MacLeod drew everyone's eyes to him, my own notwithstanding, 
despite the extremely strong impression that I should watch Dansyr every 
minute for the rest of both our natural lives.  "I believe that you're 
already acquainted with Commander Demerath and Dansyr.  Turalev Beigh is, 
as you've no doubt noticed, a native of Dy'kill, an experienced soldier 
recently retired from their Queen Mother's special forces.  Thankfully, 
his ability to comprehend Galactispeke is considerably more developed 
than his ability to actually speak it--though I don't doubt your internal 
translator is programmed to handle the peculiarities of the Dy'killian 
language."
	"Well, I have to say," I turned to regard my three newest teammates, "of 
all the people I've ever worked with, you're certainly the most...."
	"Unusual?" Suggested Elyena.
	"Acrobatic?" Suggested Dansyr.
	"Ttt'sa!kra't?" Suggested Turalev, which, for those of you that don't 
speak Dy'killian, means, "Twisted?"
	"That last one," I agreed dryly, "Well, since you're all a part of this 
happy little mission, I suppose you should help me plan how to go about 
it...."