Jeane was world-renowned for her ability to kill people. Top secret government agencies, mostly-secret government agencies, no-secret agencies, and the president herself had all come to Jeane for her unique aptitude for death. Some of the street preacher types called her Apocalypse, and she just smiled and enjoyed the publicity. Other people just called her an assassin, but that wouldn’t be the word for Jeane. She was a peoples-killer.

She’d killed, by way of genetic-search bomb, all the sentient beings of the planet Slat-5-3. Using a nuclear powered core-searching explosive device she had obliterated the world known as Oris-9-2. On Snell-4-13 she’d used a new weapon that made it impossible for anyone who had breathed its gas to be able to get any oxygen. That had been a particularly nasty way to die, for most it had taken up to ten minutes to painfully suffocate. But that was also the planet where she got most of her recognition. The part of the planet that she had killed had been trying to keep the other side of the world from signing a peace treaty with President Grant. Grant gave her the ship, the men, the weapon and then later a Tri- Congressional Medal of Honor. Jeane was good at killing.

The letter had come earlier that morning. The buzz and pop of her weak-signaled hologram machine woke her up, and then she listened to the message. Genetic scan complete, target found. Begin transmission. The Bureau of Interworld Direction hereby summons the citizen known as Jeane “Apocalypse” World-killer. Be at the B.I.D. by oh-nine-hundred for your orders. Look for cats and smog. End transmission. Transmission deleted.

By the sound of the letter she knew that this operation wasn’t being led by BID. But that it was being headed by one of the low-key cells inside of the organization. The orders probably still did come from the top of the BID, but her operation wasn’t going to be on the public minutes anywhere, ever. Good, she liked being able to sneak around without being noticed. If her business was being posted on minutes she’d be constantly stopped by crazy people calling her a terrorist, or worse, a hero.

By six she was dressed in a non-descript pant suit, had a short-haired, sun bleached blonde wig on, and was powering-up her skit cruiser for departure. Fifteen minutes later she was cruising at a lazy thousand feet about ground at 100 miles an hour. The waves of different grasses and trees below her zipped by and gave here a sense of calm. After a two week vacation Jeane was on the job again.

She docked her skit on the bottom row of the docking bay, and as far away from the doors to the elevation pods as she could get. This way she’d look like just another visitor to the BID, just another non-important person. She was sure her new employers would appreciate the effort. Before joining the queue for the elevation pods she made sure she had her laser knife so that she could cut her restraints if he new employers decided they wanted to keep her tied up longer than she wanted to be.

The BID offices were on the 369th floor of the World building. Like always the elevation pod shooting up into the sky made her head feel light and made her stomach wish it could be empty. She was on the right floor in 4.3 seconds watching the pod zoom back down the ground floor, giving her a distinct sense of vertigo.

The BID floor didn’t make her feel any better. All of the holographic cubical walls, with all of their occupants rushing up and down aisles trying to get to their skits or cyberneticly up-linked to their computers writing documents or whatever they were doing, and her favorites who were drinking virtual-reality caffeine. Ahhh, the life of government office workers.

Jeane was not a person who could be bound up in small places, like cubicles or elevation pods. She drove a behemoth of a skit cruiser compared to most people who don’t have children. Her house had completely open floor plans. Yes, Jeane needed space. She loved the feel of being in spaceships, because you can go anywhere and still have space on all sides of you, literally. That was part of the reason she liked doing her job, she got to go out there, unlike most that were stuck below atmosphere. Atmo-bound she was not.

Out of the corner of her eye she recognized someone she knew, and knew he’d recognize her, even in her costume. She and Ray Derson, AKA Raider, had worked together on several missions. She jumped down the nearest hallway and pressed herself neatly against a wall. If need be she could turn on her hologram bracelet and appear to be one with the wall, but the batteries were expensive and she’d rather not use it unless she had too. He passed without ever seeing her and she breathed a sigh of thanks at the opposite wall and noticed a door there. Katz and Hays, it read. Quirking an eyebrow, she turned the knob and walked into the office.

“Welcome to our soiree,” said the man sitting at the desk with the nameplate that read Hays.

“Oh good, she understood our message.” The man sitting in front of the nameplate reading Katz said.

“What message?”

“The message, cats and smog, we had bets as to whether you’d understand it.”

“What’s not to get about cats and smog? Cats and haze, Katz and Hays. I was actually expecting a holographic cat to lead me into some smoky corridor where I’d be ambushed, blindfolded and escorted to my next destination. This,” she said, waving dramatically around the pristine office, “is not what I expected. You haven’t been doing this long have you.”

“Not particularly long,” Hays said. “How did you know?”

“Well top-secret government cells usually don’t have views, skit docks on their windows... or have offices for that matter, and their members don’t say words like soiree.”

Agents Katz and Hays both gave Jeane considering looks as if they were committing to memory every criticism she gave them. “So what’s the mission, boys?”

“Did you hear about the recent suspected terrorist attack?” Katz, no Hays... if it weren’t for the nameplates she couldn’t tell them apart. They had matching pressed suits. Where were the black trench coats she was used to?

“The one 2,000 miles from here?” After Katz nodded his head, she continued. “Who hasn’t? That explosion shook holo-photos off my walls. You want me to find the terrorist? I’m not much of an on-planet killer.”

“It wasn’t a terrorist, well not in the usual sense of the word. It was actually a ship that came from out of this system, with a small payload of nuclear material. We have located its origins and are now convinced that the explosion was a hostile attack.”

“Are you sure it wasn’t an accident?”

“Quite. The ship was unmanned, and frankly it looked as though it was only designed for one trip.”

Jeane looked between the agents trying to glean some information from them, but they were too squeaky clean for her tell much. “One trip there and back, or a one-way trip?”

“What does it matter Apocalypse?”

“I suppose it doesn’t really matter,” she answered.

“Besides, who makes a spaceship that’s only good for one or two trips through atmo?”
“But there haven’t been any other attacks from that planet?”

“They were probably expecting their primitive nuclear material to do the job. Either that, or they wasted all their resources on the one attack.” Katz picked up a flexi and handed it to Jeane.

Jeane looked at the flexi, and gently tapping the scroll button on the paper thin computer, flipped through the wreckage at the crash site. One close-up picture showed what appeared to be the side of the ship that had been blown off and sent flying. On it in chunky looking writing was gibberish. “Did you get a translator on the message? Was it a war declaration?”

“We assumed the same thing, but no it appears to be a manufacturer. The closest translation we can get is...” Katz consulted his own flexi, “L. Logan Enterprises.”

“Is that my target?”

“No, we want you to take out the whole planet,” Hays handed her another flexi and a ski-disk, which she could only assume was the star charts for her ship.

Katz continued on for Hays, like a well trained partner... or lap dog. “We were impressed with your work on Oris-9-2. We’d like the same thing to be done on...” he consulted another flexi page, “Saet-4-3.”

“Sepis, sir.”

“What?” Katz and Hays asked in unison.

“Oris-9-2, the people there, the Chaerges, called their planet Sepis,” Jeane explained without looking up from the flashing pages on her flexi.

Katz hmm-ed, and nodded, while Hays continued to flex his jawbone. “We heard that about you. You like to talk to one of the things before you kill everyone just so you can keep a tiny history of the places you destroy.”

“It seems like the least I could do. The enumerable people I’ve killed live on in my tattered notebook.”

“How sweet. The assassin who loves those she kills.”

“I’m not an assassin, I’m a government funded professional genocide-ist.”

“Beautiful,” Hays said, “we’ve hired a lunatic.”

“I cannot do the same thing to Saet-4-3 that I did on Oris-9-2. As a general rule I never, never use the same means of destruction.”

Hays nodded his understatement. “Same ends then, different means. The whole planet must be destroyed.”

Katz picked up, “Saet-4-3 has a primitive species that the target species descended from, we want the planet destroyed so we can make sure that the planet doesn’t come back more malicious.”

“Understood. I’ve a few more questions. Ship? Crew? Payment?”

“You’ll be paid as much as usual. You’ll have a crew of 2,000 and I want you to meet us at the shipyard before I tell you about the ship.”

Jeane whistled. Before this mission he largest crew had been 500, and the ship had felt immense to her. For a ship to accommodate 2,000 it would have to be... “You’re giving me a goddamned war ship!”

“It’s impossible to keep secrets around this one. Yes, it’s a war ship. The biggest we can spare, and bigger than we think you’ll need. As for the command of the ship, it is yours, below you will be Captain Star, and a man who I think you’ve worked with before, the engineer, Ray...”

“Not Raider!”

“...Derson.”

“Damnit!”

“Ray Derson is the best money can buy, Apocalypse...”

“Too bad you can’t pay him to keep his mouth shut,” Jeane mumbled while Hays spoke in his all-important voice.

“He’s a genius when it comes to the Creator technology, and you’ll not be able to find another engineer on this short of notice. You’ll to be out of atmo by dark.”

“Whatever boss,” she picked up her things and walked out the door.

“You two meet us at the shipyard in three hours.”

She had a second to think, two, before she nearly ran into Raider. He was standing across from the door, leaning on the wall with his arms crossed across his perfectly sculpted chest, and one foot propped lazily on the wall taunting her with the molded expense of thigh muscle. For an engineer, he was built. And for a complete ass, he was undeniably cute. Speaking of... yumm. She thought, if only he could keep his mouth shut...

“Shawny!”

“Its Jeane, Raider. Jeane, no nicknames.”

“All right, Apocalypse.”

“That’s Miss Apocalypse to you.”

“I’m so glad to be working with you again.”

“You’re working for me, Raider, not with me.”

“Don’t blow a solenoid, Apocalypse.”

Jeane took a few glorious seconds to glare at Raider’s behind. “Where did you park your skit?”

“Guest parking.”

“Ground floor?”

“This floor.”

“Good, you can give me a ride down to mine, I hate elevation pods.”

Raider’s skit cruiser was just as garish as one would except of a hotshot engineer. It was a tiny two-seater, with all the newest streamlines, and more button and switches than she could think of uses for. Jeanne expected that it was next year’s model. The gleaming silver of the vehicle began to give her a headache. And she believed that it moved faster than necessary, and by the ground floor was wishing she’d just taken the elevation pod.

“You still driving that phaser colored piece of junk?”

“No. I’ve changed my cruiser six times since you last saw me.”

“Why is that, and what’s with the stupid costume?”

“I like to change things around so nobody knows me.”

“Jeane, I hate to break this to you, but everybody talks about you. You’re a planetary celebrity. Every small child knows the name, Jeane Apocalypse.”

“Yeah, they know my name, Raider. But only people who have worked with me know my face. I like to keep it that way.”